Whatever happened to angels who spend their days locked in cosmic battles against the powers of darkness, angels who slay entire armies, angels who occasionally fall from grace to become demons and devils? What about the angels who inspired such wide-eyed terror that their first words invariably were, “Fear not”?
Those angels of old can be found, until June at least, in a University of Cincinnati class entitled “The Evolution of Angels.” Instructor John Brolley and 27 students are engaged in a study of the creatures throughout the millennia, from the messenger gods who appeared in the ancient Near East around 4,000 years ago to the Christian, Muslim and neo-pagan angels popular today.
And if, in the course of their study, they dismantle some of the saccharine-laced myths that have sprung up around angels, well that's just fine with them.
“Popular culture has kind of watered down the imagery of angels by making them cute little cherubs who sit on your dresser,” says Renee Richardson, a UC records manager and third-year student in the evening college. “To find out the evolution (of angels) is so important because if you don't know where they came from, you can't really put together the pieces about why they do what they do.”
Mr. Brolley's interest in angels came from his work as a graduate student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. One day, while translating an Old Babylonian text from about the year 700, he came across an incantation against a demon which described the creature's nose being tied to his rear end.
“I thought, I've got to see more of these. The more I read, the more intrigued I got, and soon I was reading about demons across the millennia,” the instructor says.
“I appreciate what television has to do to stay alive, but I've just gotten really fed up with the Hallmark card approach. Angels and demons are an incredibly complex and ancient subject, and they're often the same subject. We've imposed what we need onto these things and added things that the people who first wrote about them never intended.”
The evolution of angels begins in ancient Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria, with the messenger gods who functioned within a polytheistic framework. The word angel derives from aggelos, which is Greek for messenger.
With multiple gods, each one tended to be assigned to a specific function, and there wasn't much concern with whether the beings were good or evil. But as the notion of one God took hold, a distinction developed between good and evil, and angels assumed a prominent role in the distinction.
Zoroastrianism, a faith that developed in Persia and is still alive today, held that there were specific ranks of angels and demons assigned to square off against each other. The battles were part of a larger cosmic struggle between good and evil.
With the advent of Judaism, angels become intermediaries between heaven and earth: wrestling with Jaob; saving Daniel from the lion's den; commanding Hagar to return to Abraham. They are a constant presence in Christian Scriptures, from the announcement of Mary's pregnancy to the opening of the tomb at Jesus' resurrection to the freeing of the apostles from prison. In Islam, angels are credited with delivering the Koran to the prophet Muhammad.
In times of persecution and oppression angels have assumed a prominent role, intervening between humans and a sometimes-frightening God. Their existence was unquestioned throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Enlightenment brought doubt as to their existence, which has all but disappeared in the contemporary angel craze.
And how about the angels of today, who exist only to help humans out of their predicaments and have seemingly cleansed their ranks of demons?
“The ideas of angels change over time, more or less based on the society. Like in early Christian literature, you have warrior angels and protectors, and now, because we're a softer society, we have guardians and friends,” says second-year student Nick Nienaber, 20.
“In the 20th century, we have a less mystical view of lots of things, and for some reason it's just easier for us to believe in the spirits of good than it is in the spirits of evil. We'd rather be comforted than frightened.”
• Among the most significant work attributed to them, angels prevented Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, told Mary that she was pregnant, and delivered the Koran to the prophet Muhammad.
• Angels began to be depicted with wings around the 4th century . A century later, the theologian Dionysius classified angels into nine categories, from seraphim and cherubim at the top to archangels and angels at the bottom.
• Islam teaches that everyone has two angels, one who records sins and the other who records goodness, and the two accounts are compared at death.
Angels, In Another Light
Walk into any card shop or bookstore these days and you are sure to encounter angels: plump, cuddly creatures with blond hair and blue eyes, the kind of angels whose business it is to pluck human beings from the paths of oncoming trucks and killer tornados. ANGEL LORE
• In the 14th century Jewish students of mysticism determined that there were exactly 301,655,722 angels. St. Albert put the number at 399,920,004, but others thought the figure was much higher.
[Source: The Cincinnati Enquirer/ OH / by Julie Irwin - May 13 1999]
