Articles Written and Compiled

by John P. Chase

Webmaster All Saints' Church

©John Chase All Saints Church Episcopal Church San Francisco

This article is available in a Word Format upon request.

here are many bold statements from scripture about the role of angels and Archangels in our Christian faith, but none more so than St. Paul’s in his first letter to the Thessalonians describing their role at the time of our death. Almost equally dramatic are the Angels coming to the aid of the Prophet Daniel in the Lions den. "My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him." (Dan 6:22). These scriptures represent what we will call the "Technicolor God." This is the booming voice from the mountaintop from Saint Augustine’s jeweled "City of God." For Christians, Jews and Muslims, the stories of the acts of angels and Archangels are part of the attempt by the writers of scripture to bring the manifestation of God’s power into the reality of our lives.

Because we have not had too many booming voices from God in several thousand years, we Anglicans, in our quest to adhere to one of pillars of our faith- reason- often assume that Angels are mere metaphors. Angels do not fit our 21^st century reality. We become dismissive of these Technicolor God stories of angels. Does this dismissal diminish our faith in the power and mystery of God? If we believe that God created the beginning, that infinitely dense, infinitely powerful singularity, then God certainly should be able to create powerful spirits such as Angels.

Episcopal Theologian James Kiefer, in his description of the Feast of Saint Michael, reflects this view in his brief article on Archangels when he says, "The Holy Scriptures often speak of created intelligences other than humans who worship God in heaven and act as His messengers and agents on earth. We are not told much about them, and it is not clear how much of what we are told is figurative."

This Technicolor mysticism has a fervent voice in the Christian Evangelical movement and is what attracts so many of our Christian brothers and sisters. Perhaps, the booming voice from the mountaintop, in the cacophony modern times, has turned into what Elijah heard after the wind, the earthquake, and fire, "But the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice." (I Kings 19: 11-12)

Our troubled world has awakened a great interest in angels. Doing a search on Google, which is about 50% of the Internet, and you come with a 12,400,000 websites devoted to Angels. When you use the All the Web search engine, you come up with 17,500,000 websites. Amazon.com currently has more than 86,000 books for sale about Angels. Angels became all the rage in commerce beginning in 90’s. You could not go into a department store without finding something embroidered, stuffed etc. inspired by angels.

Angel Toy by OP

(Click on Picture to go website)

Unfortunately, all this hyped interests has produced reams of modern material of questionable worth. There is the old tale that medieval Christian religious scholars used to spend hours in the monasteries deciding how many Angels can fit on the head of pin. The worth of that ancient exercise parallels some of today’s questionable new age angelic gobbledygook rolling around in bookstores and the Internet. There are links in a table at the end to a few of these angelic websites.

This article’s purpose is to give you a "brief history in time"¹ of angels and to state the case with scriptural examples that they were with God at the beginning and have been with God always. We will profile the four principal Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.

Who are Angels? The word is Greek and means "messenger." The Meridian Library Encyclopedia of Religion describes angels, "In Christianity and Islam, and Judaism angels are described as superhuman beings who are the special servants and messengers of God. During Christ’s day, the Pharisees and the Sadduces fought over the existence of angels. The former believing they existed and the later denying their existence." Each of the faiths depicts angels differently. Islam and Judaism depict angels flying on horses or in chariots. Christians show them usually standing or sitting holding whatever iconic symbol for which the Angel is known.

In the case of St. Michael the Archangel, for whom the feast day is named,² his icon is a sword as the defender of heaven and a scale as the weigher of souls. All three faiths depict angels as beautiful perfect winged people portraying both masculine and feminine aspects. The Archangel is God’s very special Angel and usually has extraordinary powers.

Where does the concept of angels come from? The earliest written tradition comes to us in the form carvings from Persia in about 1500b.c.e.³ from Zoroastrianism founded by the mythic Zoroaster.⁴ (Zarathustra) Drawn from series of ancient psalms, called Gathas, it is monotheistic religion worshiping Ahura Mazda, God of Wisdom. Six "incremental entities" assist Ahura. These are Ahura’s angels. Zoroastrianism influenced many other religions including the Hinduism where Ahura has a strong resemblance to the god Varuna, the Hindu "guardian of the cosmic order." Many believe that the Magi, who visited the manager at Christ’s birth, were adherents of Zoroastrianism.

Zoraster-Greek Wall Painting

Because the Persian Empire had contact with the Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew peoples, these beliefs found their way into their religions. Zoroastrianism indirectly influenced Christianity and Islam. About 18,000 people in small communities in Iran still practice this religion to the chagrin of its Islamic theocratic government.

Angelic references has been found in ancient Egypt in several tomb paintings beginning in late XVIII dynasty (about 1500b.c.e). The Archangel Michael has been portrayed as and with the goddess Maat, (left, Maat Tomb Painting) Goddess of Truth, and Osiris, the god king of the underworld This may be where Michael’s tradition as the "weigher of souls" comes from because that was also Osiris’ role. This comes from a period when the Hebrews had migrated to Egypt. Moses was probably born in Egypt around 1295b.c.e at the beginning of the XIX Dynasty. The Hebrews had been in Egypt for about 200 years.

Seven principal Archangels stand at the throne of God. Each has been given an elevated position in Christianity. They are Michael, Gabriel, Phanuel,⁵ Uriel, Raphael, Israel and Uzziel.⁶ There is distinct hierarchy, despite some of the "new age" folks who seem to put angels and Archangels into a hierarchal mishmash. Using St. Paul in Colossians and Daniel’s "angels of the seven churches," which St. Thomas Aquinas summed up in "Summa Theologica," (from an order suggested by St. Denis) there are nine levels of Angels in three hierarchical groups. Their proximity to the Supreme Being serves as the basis of this division. See the table below.

If you look at this hierarchy metaphorically, this division of angelic labor is trying to show the relevance angels have in our entire existence both here and beyond. Therefore, readers who are uncomfortable with the mysticism and those who are not can take comfort in both literal and symbolic belief in Angels.

We will only deal with the four principal Archangels mentioned in canonical or apocryphal scripture. Three from canonical scriptures are Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. Christian and Jewish apocrypha, The Book of Enoch, The Book of Tobias, The Revelations of Peter, and The Gospel of Barnabas, mention the fourth principal Archangel Uriel. However, since the beginning of Jewish and Christian times, the number of Archangels has varied. The total number of Archangels, when you add these and other sources, can rise to 15.

The recent resurgence in the study of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, has contributed to the current interest in angels. At the end of this article, there will be a link to a Kabbalahlistic spiritual exercise called "The Archangel Meditation" drawn from Rabbi David A. Cooper’s book on Kabbalah, "God is a Verb."

Archangels have similar roles in Islam. The Koran mentions four Archangels. There is Gabriel, who they believe revealed to Koran to Muhammad and announced the birth of Jesus to Mary. Gabriel, along with Michael, chief of the angels, Raphael, (Azrael) the Angel of Death and Israfel, the angel of music- who plays the flute at sunset and will sound at our death the trumpet of judgment- guard the throne of Allah. Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, believe the Archangels were not created at the same time.

To read about each of the Principals Archangels Click on the  The Name Button.  The Footnote numbers take you to a reference page. The table of angel links is at the bottom of the Guardian Angel page.

Click on Shield to Return to All Saint's Cover Page.