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Do Angels Exist?

We still must ask: What really is the genre of that mysterious passage in Genesis 6? We need to look at the larger picture. The sacred writer wanted to show the steady decline of the human race until it became so wicked as to call for the deluge. As in the case of the creation account, where he used a story that may have been already in circulation, he found this strange tale. He did not "assert" that it was historical - but it did serve well his purpose of painting the steady decline of the human race before the flood.

In the great vision given to Isaiah the prophet in which he was appointed a prophet, Isaiah saw God seated on a high throne, with the train of His garment filling the temple. He saw Seraphim too, each had six wings. They used two wings to veil their faces, two to cover their feet, two to hover in the air.

There is more than one problem here. First, God is a Spirit, and Spirits do not need robes, certainly not one that would fill the temple. Further, Isaiah thought he saw God. But in Exodus 33:18-23 Moses asked to see God, but God refused, saying it was not possible. He said He would hide Moses in a cleft in the rock, and shield him with His hand, so that when God passed, He might see Him only from behind.

The answer to this first problem is that Scripture often uses anthropomorphisms, speaks of God as though He had mere human traits. Thus in Genesis 18.20-21 God told Abraham that the outcry against Sodom was so great that He meant to go down and see if it was true. Now God does not need to go down, nor did He fail to know the truth about Sodom. But this was a human way of speaking. Similarly, Genesis 11.5 says that God came down to see the tower of Babel. And before that, in Genesis 6.6, before the deluge, God regretted He had made the human race. Of course, God does not regret: He cannot change at all. So all these things are ways of trying to convey spiritual realities to us, realities not completely within our grasp. Hence the vision Isaiah saws was clearly a case of anthromorphism.

So, what should we think of the Seraphim Isaiah saw, with six wings each. Of course angels do not have wings -- though it was only later on in the patristic age that this became clear, as we indicated above. What are Seraphim? They are mentioned only in this one passage. although the singular of a word that seems similar is found in Numbers 21.8, which speaks of saraph serpents, which were poisonous, and bit the people so that they died, until God gave a remedy through Moses, a bronze serpent on a pole -- clearly a prefiguration of Christ on the cross. The word "sarap" itself see, to mean, fiery, burning ones.

Therefore does this passage in Isaiah contain real angels? Since the whole is anthropomorphic, we do not know. The purpose of the passage is clear without our knowing. The seraphim did nothing but say: Holy, holy holy. that word, a favorite title for God in Isaiah, refers to the fact that God's Holiness loves all that is morally right -- in contrast to the gods of Mesopotomia, Greece and Rome, who were thought to be amoral, i.e., acting as if there were no such a thing as morality at all. we gather what the meaning of Holiness is from Isaiah 5.15-16: "Man is bowed down, and men are brought low, but the Lord of Hosts will be exalted in right judgment, and God, the Holy One, will show himself holy by moral rightness". In Ezekiel 28.22: "Thus says the Lord God. Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, I will be glorified in your midst and they shall know that I am the Lord when I inflict punishments on her, and "I shall show myself holy in her", that is, by righting the moral order, which was put out of line by sin. Hence the Hebrew word "naqam", so often used in Isaiah and other Scriptures (and often mistranslated as vengeance), means the action by the supreme authority to put things right when they are out of line. So Isaiah often calls for "naqam" which does not mean vengeance -- an act of hatred, which is morally wrong - but he is calling for God's Holiness to put things right.

Such then was the purposes of the anthropomorphic vision Isaiah saw.

The word "satan" comes first in Numbers 22.22. which speaks of an angel of the Lord who was sent to oppose Balaam, who was on his way to curse Israel. The word for oppose was "satan". Now we can easily suppose it was an angel who was sent to block Balaam. But it is quite interesting to notice the word satan. At that time it had not yet taken on the meaning of an evil spirit. It begins to approach that meaning in Job 1.6. The Book of Job, except for a prose introduction and prose conclusion, is largely high-flown poetry, and must be read with that in mind-for that is a major genre in which fanciful expressions are rather usual.

In that early occurrence of the word, "satan" seems to be a servant of God, who goes over the earth to check on things for God, and then reports. He was an opponent of Job as the story unfolds. (In Zech 4.10 we see beings with the function of checking for God; similarly, in Persia, the king had "the eyes and ears"of the king, to check and report to him). It is only later that satan comes to mean an evil spirit. In Zech 3.1-2 the "satan" stands near Joshua the High Priest to accuse him. And in 1 Chronicles 21.1 the word "satan" seems to have become a proper name, and so seems to be an evil spirit. In Wisdom 2.24, a later book, perhaps first century B.C., we read of "diabolos", the Greek equivalent to "satan", the accuser. The notion will be developed much more fully in the NT, as we shall see later on.

Some commentators today wish to say that the later development in Hebrew thought on angels and evil spirits was influenced or even brought about by contacts with the thought of the Near East.

It is especially, though not exclusively, after the return from the Exile that we find developments, more in the Intertestamental literature than in Scripture itself. Here are some of them: angels are in control of natural phenomena, of the four seasons, and of death -- as we said above, it is quite reasonable to think that God instead of doing things directly Himself, would make use of the agency of created spirits, angels.

They are also considered, not strangely, as intercessors, to bring our prayers to God. In this connection the belief grows that they are guardians of men, both individually and collectively.

They also form a hierarchy, headed by Seven Archangels. Even their names begin to be used, e.g., Raphael in the book of Tobit.

It is especially in the development of the concept that there are evil spirits that some have proposed influence from Iran. We make two comments:

First, there is a vast difference between Scripture and Iranian concepts. In Iran there are powers independent of God, who are hostile, such as Ahriman versus Ahura-mazda. Scripture never thinks of evil spirits as competitors with God. They are subject to Him, and can do things only with His permission.

Secondly, it is not impossible that the development of the thought of the Jews was aided by contacts with the Near East. There is a parallel situation: It seems that for many centuries the Jews thought of man as a unitary being, i.e., composed of only one part, a body, which was given the breath of life. This has led some commentators to think they did not know of survival after death. But that thought is clearly erroneous, for we know the Jews also held tenaciously to a belief in necromancy, divination by the dead, which of course implies the survival of the dead. Three times in the OT we find laws forbidding necromancy, so strongly rooted it was: Lev 19.31; 20.6; Dt 8.11. But around the time of the great persecution by Antiochus IV of Syria, around 170 B.C. they did come to see that we have two components, body and soul. God providentially brought this about by two things: 1) contact with Greek thought, which did know of two parts, even though the Greek concept was not the same as our concept of body and soul; 2) The terrible deaths of the Maccabean martyrs, e.g., in 2 Mac chapter 7. Before that, since they seem not to have known of reward and punishment in the next life- even though they did know of a next life -- they tended to think, as in Psalm 72, that somehow God would make things right before death. But the hideous deaths of those martyrs forced an agonizing reappraisal.

So then just as these processes, under the guidance of Divine Providence, were a means of the revelation of future retribution and a clearer notion of survival, so also the contacts with Iranian thought could have stimulated the Jews to develop their ideas on angels and evil spirits.

The book of Tobit involves a long intervention by an archangel Raphael. Tobit has been taken into exile from his home in the tribal area of Naphthali in the time of Shalmaneser of Assyria. He is most diligent in acts of charity, even though doing so puts his very life in danger, One day after burying the dead against the order of the king, he sat down by a wall. Dung from birds fell into his eyes, making him blind. Doctors tried to help him, in vain. His wife went to work for pay weaving cloth. One day her employer gave her a bonus, a goat. But when Tobit heard the animal bleating he ordered her to give it back, in case it might have been stolen. She ridiculed him, and in sorrow he prayed for death. Meanwhile a daughter of Raguel who was a kinsman, was having severe trial. a demon Asmodeus, murdered seven husbands of hers on their wedding night. She too prayed to die. But God heard her prayers, and those of Tobit, and sent the Archangel Raphael. For Tobit recalled he had deposited a large sum of money with Gabael at Rages in Media. Tobit sent his son Tobiah to get the money back. While he was wondering who would guide him there and protect him, Raphael the archangel in human appearance came. He said he was Azariah, son of Hananiah the elder, a kinsman. So Tobiah went to collect the money. On the way, a huge fish leaped out of the water and tried to eat his foot. But the angel told him how to take it, and to save its gall, liver and heart for medicinal purposes. When they were close to Ecbatana, Raphael told Tobiah he should marry Sarah. Tobiah had heard of the seven husbands murdered by Asmodeus, but Raphael told him to put the liver and heart of the great fish on embers, and the demon would be chased away. The demon fled into Upper Egypt, and there Raphael bound him hand and foot and returned to Tobiah's place. Soon after that, the money was recovered, and Tobiah and his new wife returned to Tobiah's father. He smeared the gall of the fish on his father's eyes, and he regained his sight. Then they wanted to pay the Archangel, still not knowing who or what he was. But he revealed himself as Raphael, one of the seven who stand before God. Then Raphael ascended to God, and Tobit and his family praised God at length.

What is the genre of this charming book? It is a special case. First, we notice that there are problems with the supposed historical setting. Scholars are divided on how to understand it, most scholars, Catholic and Protestant, think that means the genre was snot straight history, but a pattern called edifying narrative.

In that genre, we find edifying stories, which were never meant to be straight history. For example, there are some early medieval lives of Irish Saints. They are so filled with miracles that if anything were done without a miracle it would be remarkable. For example, St. Brendan had a floating monastery. One day he came to an island with strange looking birds. One came over and said: When the angels fell, some gave full consent and became devils. Others gave partial consent, and became birds. Some are birds. That is theological nonsense. Also, Brendan one day saw a man out in the ocean hanging on a crag of a rock sticking up. He came over, and found it was Judas. In the Gospel Jesus said that if someone gives a cup of cold water in His name "he cannot lose his reward". Judas gave it, and so could not lose his reward. So he gets every weekend out of hell, hanging on that crag. Again more nonsense.

Would any Irishman even with several shots of whiskey take these things as literal history? Hardly. But they got a lift out of them. The relation of these stories to real lives of saints is much like the relation of science fiction to real science.