Angels in Our Midst (1)

Coming to a part of a certain novena that offers prayers to the “nine choirs of angels” compelled me to embark on an academic search on the nature of angels.  Besides, there was this number nine that refers to choirs, two beautiful words that become even more magical because they happen to describe angels.

I must admit that my concept of angels never went beyond the rudimentary.  I remember my mother telling me as a pre-schooler not to step on my pillow because my guardian angel sits there when I sleep, or that my guardian angel cries when I throw tantrums.  And the first prayer I learned to utter was “Angel of God, my guardian jear…” knowing only much later that the word after guardian is “dear.”

Nowadays, I am seldom visited by the thought of angels.  I am reminded of them only when I see those little girls decked out as angels on May afternoons in church or those figurines of singing angels that adorn shelves and are hung on Christmas trees.  Then there is that ubiquitous beer, that never-changing picture in the label of a local gin, and a slew of towns and barangays named after an archangel.

And while angels’ names are masculine, they being alluded to in the Bible as male despite their being genderless ethereal immortals, there’s no stopping parents from naming their daughters Michaela, Michelle, Gabriela, Raphaella, Miguela, Angela, even Uriela.  I still have to meet someone in the flesh named Angelico (the only Angelico I know is an Early Renaissance painter who must have been a monk because he was called a Fra), but there are many Angelicas out there.  Such names remind me sometimes of angels too; so does a reflexive whisper of thanks to an unseen being I give credit to when I’m inexplicably pulled out of a mishap. Yet I do not live with the thought of angels every minute of the day.  Then comes this novena prayer.

The Concept of Angels

The foundation of angelology, the study of angels, is said to have been laid in 500 A.D. by a Christian mystic, Dionysius the Areopagite (a member of the Areopagus, the supreme tribunal of Athens whose judgments were deemed decisive).  He taught that “between God and the world is an ordered world of angelic spirits.”  (A History of the Christian World, Owen Chadwick, St. Martin’s Press, 1995).

It is in Dionysius’s book The Celestial Hierarchy that the nine order of angels are ranked in nearness to God and described in detail.  The top three are the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones.  Next are the dominions, virtues, and powers.  The last three are the principalities, archangels, and angels.

Thus did I understand “nine choirs” as another term for the order of angels which total nine, the choir here taken to mean an assemblage, not the musical choir nor the singing angels.  In fact, in unabridged dictionaries the word choir includes the specific meaning “the order or division of angels.”

St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, which was written in the 13th century, included a full treatment of angels based on the Dionysian model.  His approach was purely philosophical and theological while that of Dionysius was visionary.

In the Scriptures

While the Bible does not reveal much about how angels look, it does tell of substantial appearances and involvement of angels in the lives of men.

The Garden of Eden is watched by a cherubim after Adam and Eve are driven out.  Angels announce the birth of Isaac to Abraham.  It is an angel who stops him from sacrificing Isaac.

Jacob wrestles with an angel until he receives a blessing, then dreams of a ladder from earth up to heaven, “…with angels of God ascending and descending upon it.” (Gen. 28:12).  And there is Tobias who meets an angel at their door.
Further, in the New Testament, there is Gabriel, the angel of the Annunciation.  Angels announce to the shepherds in the field the birth of the Christ child.  An angel warns Joseph in a dream about Herod’s plan, and it is an angel who commands him to take flight to Egypt.

It is also an angel who rolls back the stone of the door of Christ’s sepulcher.  Angels visit Peter and Paul in prison, while the Book of Revelation speaks of many angels.

Yet it is not only the Judeo-Christian scriptural tradition that suggests the existence of these ethereal intermediaries between heaven and earth.  The angel Jibreel (Gabriel), described as having 140 pairs of wings, is said to have delivered the Koran from Allah to Mohammed.

Along with Christian and Islamic theologies are Jewish and Persian beliefs in the existence of these supernatural beings who are the messengers of God and guardians of nations and individuals as well.

The universality of this belief is made clearer by the etymology of the word “angel.”  Based on the Latin angelus, its Greek version of angelos is a translation of the Hebrew word for messenger, mal’akh, in turn said to be Iranian in origin, similar to the source of the Greek word angaros which refers to the imperial Persian courier.  Meanwhile, angaros is said to be related to the Sanskrit word angiras, one of a group of luminous divine beings.

(2004)