Angels III: Angels of the Nations

This time Daniélou gives us a bit from Pseudo-Dionysius:

"Thus the angels were charged with leading the nations toward the one true God. But, as a matter of fact, the study of religions does not show that they succeeded especially well. Though containing bits of the truth, all the religions before Christ, except Judaism, are profoundly corrupt. Why? Pseudo-Dionysius answers:

'If anyone asks, `How does it happen that the Jewish people was elevated to the splendor of a theocracy?` we must answer that the angels fulfilled their office of guardians with perfect honesty, and that it is not their fault if the other nations went astray into the cult of false gods. For it was these nations themselves, of their own impulse, which abandoned the right way of spiritual ascent toward the divine. Their foolish worship of things which they thought possessed a certain divinity clearly shows their egoism and their presumption.'

Pseudo-Dionysius takes up here the same doctrine that St. Paul expresses in the Epistle to the Romans 1:23. 'God has made Himself known to the nations by means of the visible realities of the world,' but men 'have changed the glory of the incorruptible God for an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.'"

Daniélou, p 20-21
(I pulled the quote from Denys into its own sub-block)

* *
* * *
* *

Such is the beautiful and non-rationalistic ecumenism of the Fathers. But a question arises: perhaps Plato and the Bagavad Gita were just written by perceptive geniuses. Why involve angels at all? After all, the needs of the heart (which is to say: the self, the human person) are common to people everywhere. I'm familiar with these needs in my own heart and know that they are a reliable criteria: if what I find does not satisfy, then these needs will not let me be. At the same time, I realize that having this criteria is not enough. I also need to keep it always before me, and yet I recognize that I lack the capacity to do so. As Ovid quipped, Video meliora, proboque; deteriora sequor - I see the right way and approve it but then I follow the worse. No doubt Plato and the author of the Bagavad Gita were geniuses, men of great awareness and reflection. However, I have noticed that intelligence does not make it easier to keep the needs of the heart foremost. If the intelligence that I have does not help me be more faithful then I doubt that great intelligence will either. I know my own moral incoherence, and I know that the smartest are not always the most moral.

Something else is needed, and the Church calls this something grace. It occurs to me that the notion I have of grace is amorphous, vague: a cloud, a force, something interior or psychological. But Scripture and Tradition insist upon angels: intelligent agents that are unfailingly faithful to the will of the Father. I look again at the visible world: the wild variety of plants and birds and life: the diversity of human forms and temperaments. Why should not the invisible world be every bit as articulated and diverse as this? God brought order to the chaos, and so why shouldn't the supernatural world be every bit as ordered as the natural world?

A Boy Scout in the woods recognizes the great diversity and order of life — he knows the names of things. If I feel that grace is amorphous and vague, then likely it's from the same cause: I never bothered to learn the names and seasons and order and in short, I lack familiarity with grace. So, here is the prayer to St. Michael, the head of the heavenly hosts and the defender of Israel:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O prince of the heavenly hosts
thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
+Amen.

Angels II: Mediators of the Law

There's much to say about the angels as the bearer of the Mosaic law, that law which is dearer to me now that I have seen the face of the law. But I'll let Daniélou cite a splendid passage from Origen:

"This view of St. Paul's [Gal. 4:16, Col 2:8, Heb 2:5-8] is developed by Origen in his commentary on the Canticle of Canticles. The friends of the Bridegroom are the angels who instruct the Church — that is to say, the people of God — during the time of their espousals, the Old Testament. But the Church longs for the kiss of the Bridegroom, His coming in person. 'When I was preparing myself for my marriage with the Son of the King and the first-born of every creature, the holy angels followed me and ministered to me, bringing me the Law as a wedding present. Indeed it has been said that the Law was promulgated through the angels by means of a mediator (Gal. 3:19). But, since the world was already nearing its end and still His presence was not granted me and I saw only His servants rising and descending about me, I poured out my prayer to you, the Father of my Bridegroom, begging you to have pity on my love and send Him to me so that He need no longer speak with me through His servants the angels but might come Himself' [Comm. in Cant., 1.]".

Daniélou, p 10-11

The critical thing for me here is the link between the mission of the angels to bring the Law to Moses and the Jewish people, and Jesus giving the Law in Matthew 25 (see the Sunday of Christ the King).

* *
* ** *
* *

[A] commentator reacted to the first post in this series with the statement that "The anthropomorphism is natural and quite logical given the source" (the Fathers of the Church). Anthropomorphism, or the search for a human face, is a common theme in the history of man. As Fr. Meinrad, a Benedictine Monk, reminded me Sunday: the Psalms cry out again and again, show us your face, O LORD! The ancient Greeks imagined gods with human faces and human pettiness. And today, people listen toward interstellar space seeking a voice to answer the awareness that we have. And yes, people turn toward the animal world, to higher primates and mammals or even insects seeking an awareness, a desire, that is distinctly human. The human person desires to look upon the world with awareness and to feel the look of the real gazing back upon him and her with sentience. This profoundly human desire should not be brushed aside like a gnat, but should be recognized as a sign, something which points us beyond itself. And where does this sign point? Only those who take it seriously will discover.

The book of Genesis proclaims that which our heart know, that It is not good for man to be alone. So what happened? A man named Abraham and his wife Sarah at a particular time and place met three angels, emissaries of the Infinite Mystery, and the Mystery through these angels spoke promises to this couple and made of them a nation, a people. And now, a people in the desert, a people with a voice and a name, declares to us that we are not alone in the cosmos. It is not surprising to me that the Fathers of the Church would hold to the anthropomorphic form of angels. As serious and profound readers of the Sacred Scriptures, these fathers can only generate the Church today insofar as they have let themselves be generated by history, by those actions of God to reveal Himself to a particular people at a particular time. God has shown His face through the angels. He has spoken through the prophets. He calls us by name and has given us a kingdom. That is the message that has been given to us, and that may or may not have happened. If it happened, it changes everything.

Angels I: Prehistory in the Cosmos

[Note: I started this series elsewhere but have decided to finish it here. This will be the first of three posts which I'm pasting verbatim]

Several summers ago I was at Loome Theological Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota, and bought several books including Robert Hugh Benson's eminently practical book, The Friendship of Christ (a book, I think that could only have been written by a Catholic who had been raised Protestant). I also snapped up a little study by Jean Daniélou entitled, The Angels and their Mission: According to the Fathers of the Church (a steal at $5!).

This post is the first in a series which offers tidbits from Daniélou's patristic study. I'd like to share my journey through this book with you, gentle reader, but also entice you to add this jewel to your collection.

Daniélou begins properly with the onset of salvation history in "the election of the people of Israel" (4). But before this, he can't resist talking about what he won't be addressing in the study: the place of angels in the cosmos. He quotes Thomas Aquinas: "All corporeal things are governed by the angels. And this is not only the teaching of the holy doctors, but of all the philosophers." And then here is his remarkable and concise digression:

"This, then, is a doctrine which is solidly established in tradition and in reason. With all due deference to the rationalism of certain of our contemporaries [1953], the intelligent and forceful government to which the order of the universe bears witness might very easily have heavenly spirits as its ministers. This bond between the angels and the visible universe, furthermore, could very well give us the key to certain mysteries. But there is nothing to be gained in beginning this study with a thought so bold that it would startle even the best disposed readers and perhaps keep them from taking seriously the more important things that will be mentioned later."

This passage is vindicated a bit by recent quirks in the history of science. Consider for example, this line from Isaac Newton to a Protestant minister: "To your second query I answer that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were impressed by an intelligent agent." Now, Newton's belief in intelligent agents was not directly Christian, but came from his secret studies in alchemy and hermetic wisdom. Although Newton's "intelligent agents" were contradicted by Albert Einstein, Einstein himself held to a curious Jewish-agnostic-deism which affirmed the reasonable order of the universe. And not directly related to intelligent agents is the case of Georges Lemaître, who discovered the Big Bang. I'm no scientist or philosopher, but I offer these examples as a suggestion, which you may find provocative — or not.

At any rate, the prehistory of angels is significant in reminding us that their mission precedes human subjectivity. Angels are not to be reduced to the subjective interior illuminations or shifting moods of holy people or the insane, but instead are the messengers of the reasonableness of the cosmos — which is created by the one God whose law is goodness, truth, beauty, love and stability.

The Fathers of the Church knew what every peasant knows about how the world works (to paraphrase Augustine). They were also bright, intelligent, reflective observers of life. Even though their ideas often disturb our comfortable preconceptions, over time dialogue with them will bear fruit and help us to deepen our understanding of the Christian signs, sacraments, mysteries.