Divine Fury (13 page)

M
ALACHI
IN
H
EBREW
,
angeloi
in Greek, “angels” were the benevolent counterparts to the demons in the stark division of the Christian universe, and in the end even more powerful. Of course, Christians were hardly the first to detect the presence of such beings. The notion had deep roots in many traditions, including the Greek, which, in addition to the concept of
daimones
, possessed its own understanding of the
angeloi
as divine messengers or emissaries. But it was above all the long and rich heritage of Jewish reflection that helped open Christian eyes. Angels fill the pages of the Hebrew Bible, where from the Book of Genesis forward the “angel of the Lord” and the “angels of the Lord” make frequent appearances, calling out or revealing themselves to the favored. In his famous dream in Genesis 28:12, Jacob sees a ladder to heaven “with the angels of God ascending and descending on it,” and later wrestles with a strange being in the night, said in the Book of Hosea to have been an angel. The God of Israel sends an angel to “prepare the way” for the flight of his children from Egypt, and he frequently employs angels as agents of destruction—such as the “band of destroying angels” he unleashes “in hot anger” against Pharaoh in Psalm 78. There are cherubim with flaming swords, winged seraphs, and countless evil angels, too, minions of Satan. And in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scripture
produced in the third century
BCE
, we hear of angels who attend the throne of the Lord.
¹³

Such precedents gave Christians ample material on which to draw, and their own scriptures, not surprisingly, abound in angelic references. The most famous example is Gabriel, who appears before Mary with the good news of Jesus’s impending birth. And though he is one of only three named angels in the Bible, along with the archangels Michael and Raphael, the angels are evidently great in number. Jesus explains to the apostles that, were he so moved, he could call upon his father to send “more than twelve legions of angels” to vanquish his enemies (Matt. 26:53). Stalin would later scoff at the paltry number of the pope’s divisions, but the Lord of hosts himself has ample resources at his disposal, angels “numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand,” according to Revelations 5:11. Well into the Renaissance, Christians and Jews alike constructed elaborate hierarchies that ranked the various angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim in order of importance while speculating freely on their origin and function. Ministering to the faithful and punishing the wicked, conveying messages and otherwise carrying out God’s commands, angels played a variety of different roles. But they were most present to Christians as guardians of souls and protectors of the Lord’s anointed. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Paul asks in his Letter to the Hebrews (Heb. 1:14). Similarly, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter escapes from prison and knocks on the door of a friend, the household is incredulous, believing him dead. “It must be his angel,” they exclaim (Acts 12:15). Peter’s angel, we are meant to infer, is his perfect likeness, his spiritual double, his guardian
genius
.
¹⁴

Early Christians, it is true, seldom used that word in this connection, given its pagan connotations, though over time
genius
would reemerge as a direct synonym for “angel.” But the broader point is that early Christian commentators frequently remarked on the presence of guardian companions in ways that belied a debt not only to the Jewish, but also to the classical inheritance, and particularly to the extensive cult of
genius
in the Roman world. The second-century
Shepherd of Hermas
, for example, a popular and influential work read out in churches and regarded as divinely inspired by many of the early fathers, describes “How to Recognize the Two Spirits Attendant on Each Man, and How to Distinguish the Suggestions of the One from those of the Other.” “There are two angels with a man,” the text affirms, “one of righteousness, and the other of iniquity.” In the first half of the third century, the Alexandrian theologian and early church commentator Origen observes typically that “two
angels attend each human being. One is an angel of justice, the other an angel of iniquity. If good thoughts are present in our hearts and justice springs up in our souls, the angel of the Lord is undoubtedly speaking to us. But, if evil thoughts turn over in our hearts, the devil’s angel is speaking to us.” Descriptions of this kind highlight the point that angelology was early psychology, a way of understanding competing urges and making sense of the conflicting forces of the mind. But they also draw attention to the transmutation of the belief in a good
genius
paired with an evil twin. Right through the Middle Ages, in fact, commentators would warn of the presence of a personal evil demon, an angel of iniquity, present from birth, who could infiltrate our innermost thoughts and lead us into sin. This was all the more reason to seek the protection of divine guardians. The saints served that function, of course, but the guardian angels did, too, and were ever ready to come to our aid. “The dignity of a soul is so great,” Saint Jerome assured the early Christians, “that each has a guardian angel from birth.” Elsewhere, Jerome describes the guardian angel as a
comes
, employing Horace’s familiar description of the
genius
. It is a revealing conflation, and was repeated in other ways. Instead of swearing an oath by one’s
genius
, for example, or the
genius
of another, early Christians took to bearing witness by angels, substituting the form
per angelum tuum
for the old Roman
per genium tuum
. Similarly, they addressed their sisters and brothers formally as “Your angel.” Funeral inscriptions reveal that early Christian tombstones often used the form “The Angel of [the departed]” in a way that directly copied the pagan practice of marking graves by reference to the
genius
of the departed.
¹⁵

The earliest Christian depictions of angels even looked like
genii
. For, despite the fact that biblical passages describe angels in flight, their trademark wings were only introduced later in visual representations, beginning in the fourth century. The very first Christian images of angels show them as young men, generally clean-shaven (though sometimes with a beard), and clad in white tunics, in striking resemblance to the Roman
genii
. Finally, just as the Roman
genii
served as guardians not only of people, but also of places, the dominion of the angels was interpreted on scriptural authority to extend to cities, nations, and “all things that pertain to us”—even, some said, animals, plants, and the winds.
¹⁶

Although a number of the more overtly pagan aspects of the angel cult drew suspicion on grounds of idolatry, and were gradually abandoned, the cult of individual guardian angels flourished well into the early modern period, with Pope Paul V establishing an official feast day in their honor as late as 1608. Together with the patron saint, the guardian angel functioned as a higher self, serving, like the
genii
and
daimones
, to mediate between heaven and earth. All human beings had a guardian angel—conferred in utero at conception, Tertullian believed—just as all were granted a patron saint at baptism, our spiritual birth. But it was the saints themselves who enjoyed the most powerful protectors and the most intimate relations with these higher beings. It was chiefly the saints who could see them, or who opened the eyes of others to their presence. The relics of Gervasius and Protasius were said to have revealed “the numberless hosts of angels” to Ambrose and his flock, for example. As the fourth-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus pointed out, although “the theologians maintain that [guardian angels] are associated with all men at their birth, as directors of their conduct,” these angels “have been seen by very few, whom their manifold merits have raised to eminence.” Marcellinus was a pagan, but his broader point—that the spiritually eminent maintained particularly close relations with their angelic companions—was widely shared. As Gregory Thaumaturgus, one of Origen’s pupils, could write, almost boastfully, “for a long time, the angelic presence has nourished me, and led me by the hand.” Intimacy was not only a sign of divine presence, but of special favor, and before Origen, Gregory sensed a particularly exalted presence, “the angel of the great counsel,” an angel of Christ himself. Just as pagans such as Socrates or Augustus were thought to be served by a superior
genius
, men of great faith possessed angels of a higher order.
¹⁷

Not only were such eminent individuals in fellowship with their angelic companions, but they resembled them, serving as spectacular reminders of Christ’s promise in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that at the time of the resurrection, the saved shall be “like the angels in heaven” and know no death. Man, Saint Paul affirms, “is a little lower than the angels.” But his guardian could raise him. To become “angelic” was the glorious end of the righteous, and for the saints, that end was assured. With reason do the saints and angels stand together in church portals and on the facades of cathedrals. With reason do the faithful pray to “all the angels and the saints.”
¹⁸

Over time it became commonplace to call a saint “angelic,” and some were singled out for special designation. The learned saint Thomas Aquinas—said to have possessed a mind so quick that he could dictate to several scribes at once—earned the title the “Angelic Doctor” in the Middle Ages. Saint Bonaventure became the “Seraphic Doctor,” and in Bonaventure’s considered opinion, Saint Francis of Assisi was not just angelic, but an angel himself, the sixth angel of the apocalypse, to be exact, who had apparently descended to earth to tend to the faithful in bodily form. As the medieval church’s leading authority on angelic
phenomena, Bonaventure was in a position to know. But this particular piece of information was revealed to him directly by a heavenly voice, dispatched, he explained, by an angel.
¹⁹

Indeed, to an even greater degree than the pagan tutelary spirit, the Christian angel was understood to be a bearer of privileged truths, an emissary of epiphany and revelation. Clement of Alexandria maintained in the second century that angels had been active on earth at God’s command long before the coming of Christ, dispatching “the secret and occult philosophy of the Egyptians,” the “astrology of the Chaldeans,” Hindu knowledge “pertaining to the science of the most High God,” and philosophy to the Greeks.
²⁰
Now, with the coming of Christ, they were more active than ever before, imparting God’s infinite wisdom directly to the chosen. To feel the breath of an angel in one’s ear was to be filled with heavenly insight—“inspired,” as we still say, catching a breath from afar. Just as God had blown life into Adam, he could fill our souls with knowledge in a whisper. In revelation, inspiration, and epiphany, the angels had the power to disclose the deepest secrets of the universe.

Here was the basis for a uniquely Christian
furor divinus
. And yet how could one be sure that it was an angel of the good who whispered in the ear and not an angel of iniquity—that one was possessed by God and not simply possessed? The demons delighted, did they not, in disguising themselves in angelic garb, all the better to deceive? This was the learned opinion of Tertullian, who judged that wings were the “common property” of angels and demons alike, allowing the demonic imposters to be “everywhere in a single moment,” and so to seduce with the appearance of foreknowledge and omniscience. Had not Satan himself been an angel once—the greatest of God’s troupe—and all the demons, too? Even after their fall, Satan and his servants retained their vast knowledge of the universe, along with craftiness and cunning, all the better to tempt and to lead astray. It is revealing in this connection that early Christian apologists followed Plato in tracing the etymology of the word “demon” (
daimon
) to the Greek
daêmôn
, “knowing,” a derivation that Augustine saw fit to repeat in the
City of God
. Isidore of Seville pointed out the connection in his sixth-century encyclopedia the
Etymologiae
, which was widely read into the Middle Ages. And though not all Christians were concerned with the derivation of words, the association between the demons and knowledge was reinforced by popular accounts of
magi
(magicians) and
malefici
(sorcerors) who allegedly put the demons’ knowledge to work. The pagan world had teemed with such figures—wizards, astrologers, soothsayers, and diviners who
were famed for their great knowledge and spellbinding powers. Hermes Trismegistus, the most famous of the lot, was popularly identified with Thot, the Egyptian god of learning. He could bring stone statues to life and raise the souls of the dead. Others, such as Asclepius, were highly regarded even by their detractors for their intellectual prowess (in Asclepius’s case, in medicine and healing), and their feats of magic, though regularly condemned by Christians, were credited as real. The Acts of the Apostles tells of another such figure, Simon Magus, who tries to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter. He is, of course, rebuked, but his powers were considerable nonetheless. “All the people of Samaria, both high and low,” the Acts insist, “gave him their attention. . . . They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic” (Acts 8:9–13).
²¹