- Jean Danielou, S.J. The Angels and their Mission According to the Fathers of the Church
- Mother Alexandra The Holy Angels.
- CCEL Church Fathers
Our first week, we looked at some of the scriptural evidence for guardian angels. The next week we followed up by looking at what (early) Tradition says about them (note that they were often doing so while explaining Scripture). This week, I would like to tidy up a little bit from those two weeks, talk more about how we reference and refer to guardian angels in our worship and prayer, then finish with a general discussion about how all this information matches the way guardian angels are understood in the world.
Clean-up: Do the “Nations” have Good and/or Bad Angels?
We discussed Daniel 10:10-14 in the context of Deuteronomy 4:19, Deuteronomy 32:8,9,12,15-18 (“When the Most High divided the nations, When He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations by the number of God’s angels. For the Lord’s portion became the people of Jacob; The allotment of His inheritance is Israel… So the Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them…. Then he forsook God who made him and stood back from God his Savior. They provoked Me to wrath against foreign gods; with their abominations they embittered Me. They sacrificed to demons, and not to God, to gods they did not know; new ones, recent gods arriced, which their fathers did not know.” OSB) Psalm 81 and Psalm 95:5, then asked the question; “why can’t good angels be the ‘gods of (good) nations’”?
- So from these data points (the scripture above, especially in their Septuagint versions) we can draw a trajectory that has God (and, in later times, His Holy Angel, the Archangel Michael, and eventually the Monogenesis Himself; and there we have finally come full circle!) as the elohim-guardian of His Chosen People, with the other nations being given over to fallen angels. We can also reinterpret these data points so that the “elohim” are leaders of men, etc. This is the way most Bible translations tend to go, and it is the way St. Augustine and others went, but there are other ways to connect the dots that retain the reality of the elohim, allowing them to have a positive influence on the fallen nations as well as His Chosen People, Israel.
- As Danielou points out, many of the fathers (largely led by Origen) assume that all the nations have good angels. Dionysius, Clement, and perhaps Justin believed that these angels were trying to bring their charges towards the Truth (e.g. they are thought to have been the muses of the Greek philosophers and the prophets of the pagan religions). E.g. Clement writes; “God gave philosophy to the Greeks by means of the lower angels. In fact, in accordance with a divine and ancient order, the nations have been distributed among the angels.” (quoted in Danielou, p. 18). Origen even went so far as to write; “The universal providence of the One Most High God has, for the salvation of those nations, entrusted them to angels who are to lead them toward God.” This includes the “secret and occult philosophy of the Egyptians and the astrology of the Chaldeans” and “the Hindu claims pertaining to the science of the Most High God.” (ibid)
- So why haven’t they come to the Truth? According to St. Dionesius, it is because the nations themselves chose to listen to the demons rather than their guardians: “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.” This is affirmed in 1 Corinthians 12:2, where St. Paul describes how the demons led the pagan nations to worship idols instead of the True God (and thus providing justification for many translations of Psalm 95:4 that refer to the gods of nations being “idols”).
- So it seems than nations, like people, may have elohim of both types seeking to influence them!
- Despite their charity towards pagan religions and philosophies, all of the fathers affirmed that Christ was the only Way to Salvation. Even the best angels can do no more for us than point us towards Him. He is the monogenetic elohim that is the God and Guardian of the new nation – Christians.
Guardian Angels in Worship and Prayer
- You have prayed the Canon to the Guardian Angel. You have asked for his protection every morning and for his forgiveness every evening. When else do we refer to him in prayer and worship?
- As we discussed last week, our guardians join us in worship. This joining of human and divine in praise of God is a common theme of our worship, especially in the Divine Liturgy. Here are some examples;
- In many of our Litanies, we pray that the Lord grant us; “An angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies, let us ask of the Lord.”
- From the Prayer of the Entrance; “Sovereign Master, Lord our God, You have established in heaven the orders and hosts of angels and archangels to minister to Your Glory. Grant that with this our entrance there may also be an entrance of holy angels serving with us and glorifying Your Goodness. For to You are due all glory, honor and worship: to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.”
- At at the Great Entrance we pray and sing; “Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim and who sing the Thrice-Holy Hymn to the Life-creating Trinity, now set aside all earthly cares. That we may receive the King of all Who comes invisibly escorted by angelic hosts. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
- At the Anaphora we pray and sing; “We also thank You for this liturgy which you are pleased to accept from our hands, even though You are surrounded by thousands of Archangels, by tens of thousands of Angels, and by the Cherubim and the Seraphim – six-winged, many eyed – soaring on their wings: Singing the triumphant hymn, proclaiming, crying out and saying. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord of Sabaoth, Heaven and earth are filled with Your glory. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! With these blessed Powers, we too, Loving Master, cry out and say: Holy are You, and Most Holy – You and Your Only-begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. Holy are You, and Most Holy, and magnificent is Your Glory.”
- There are other examples from other services, e.g.
- In the Prayer of the Hours, we pray; “…Compass us about with Your holy Angels, so that guarded and guided by their legions we may attain unto unity of faith and the knowledge of Your unapproachable glory, for You are blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.”
- In Matins, we have the “Council of Angels”, the Hymns of Light (Psalms 148, 149, and 150; this begins; “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light!) and the Great Doxology (which starts; “Glory to God in the Highest!).
- All of the special hymns of Monday are dedicated to the place and praise of the angels.
So how does all this match with worldly, spiritual and heterodox conception of guardian angels?
