What are the best books on Angels and other Heavenly beings? Preferrably from a Catholic perspective.
What are the best books on Angels and other Heavenly beings? Preferrably from a Catholic perspective.
What are the best books on Angels and other Heavenly beings? Preferrably from a Catholic perspective.
>Preferrably from a Catholic perspective.
Catholics do not believe that angels exist; at least not the mythological being that is in the pic you posted, of a human with wings.
For Catholics, when the Bible speaks of angels, it is not really a being in itself but an earthly and generally visible representation of God's own presence, for example, people that God used to communicate with humanity, etc.
In Western art they were given wings for identification and for aesthetic purposes.
Then what was Gabriel?
I mean maybe not a human with wings, but an angel at least yeah?
I should clarify I question why the being would have a name, rather than being “God’s messenger” or something that doesn’t separate it’s identity from God himself
I think I already answered you; In the Bible there is mention of beings other than humans who are called angels and are even given names, but they are not described as winged beings as we know them today thanks to Western art. They could be persons or anything like that.
In the Old Testament are the names of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. It is interesting to see the echo of this story in the two Gospel accounts of infancy. In Matthew, it is the angel of the Lord who appears to Joseph in a dream on several occasions and conveys God's message to him. Matthew uses the language of the Old Testament for divine revelation, even though we might suspect that Matthew, by then, thinks of a real angel rather than simply using an angel of the Lord to describe the presence of God. On the other hand, Luke tells us about an angel named Gabriel as a divine messenger and there is no doubt that Luke is thinking of a specific angel. Since Gabriel is the revealing angel in the book of Daniel who explains the great vision of the end times, his presence in Luke's infancy narrative is a sign that what Daniel had prophesied is now coming true: the end of time is already coming with the conception and birth of Jesus.
I guess my confusion is why they say that those significant names aren’t identifying individual entities- who says this, and why? Being raised catholic, no preacher or educator ever made this case. Being raised catholic we always heard prayers invoking “God and his angels” and all that. So I understand you’re saying all of the named instances of Angels are God taking that form, I’m just not getting why. Like, we could say God is in all things, sure, but if you and I are individual entities that are able to to be identified independently from God, why not an angel? Why bother identifying them at all rather than just saying “Yahweh came upon Mary and said ….” like the Old Testament does all the time?
>>For Catholics, when the Bible speaks of angels, it is not really a being in itself but an earthly and generally visible representation of God's own presence
Explain St. Michael.
See
Angels/Heavenly creatures are distinct created beings capable of acting of their own will. How else would Satan have fallen? I honestly don't know where you're getting this stuff.
And you will never be a woman.
>Angels/Heavenly creatures are distinct created beings capable of acting of their own will. How else would Satan have fallen? I honestly don't know where you're getting this stuff.
The Satan of the book of Job is more a prefect of heavenly discipline than a prince of evil.
Sometimes it seems like the divide between where God ends and angels begin is kind of hazy in Abrahamic systems, in stuff like israeli mysticism and Pseudo-Dionysus is almost comes across like angels are emanations, extensions, or microcosms of God
A Dictionary of Angels by Gustav Davidson
This is not true
>This is not true
Refute him then
Other anon beat me to it; the CCC is very clear that angels are distinct beings with their own will. Even without knowledge of the catechism it should be blatantly clear to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Catholicism that this is the case.
is either severely misinformed or deliberately making up nonsense.
It's honestly not really as clear as it'd seem, a lot of Christian theologians seem to blur the line when it comes to how connected angels are to God, they tend to play pretty fast-and-loose with how actually independent angels are as opposed to finite extensions of some divine attribute (which would seem logically to make them emanations of God, but the entire doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is only really functionally distinguishable from emanationism in terms of scholastic hairsplitting to begin with so even determining where God begins and creation ends is frankly tricky when you actually analyze it critically)
That's not even getting into the fact that "angel" is a translation of the Hebrew "malakh" and doesn't refer to a distinct class of being to begin with; it literally just means "messenger" and can refer to any entity whatsoever that carries a message from God, from mere humans all the way to what many have interpreted as theophanies of the eternal Word of God, the Logos itself, as the "Angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament
Obviously this isn't from a Catholic perspective, but it's also worth mentioning that the other two major Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Islam) have even more ambiguous conceptions of angels and sometimes appear to classify them as what are more or less tools or very fancy celestial robots that God uses to carry out various specific functions, without any independent wills or personality of their own
So it's actually a pretty dense and multifaceted subject that isn't particularly clear cut
If you read the CCC, then you'd see that it's explained with a quote by Augustine that "angel" is the job title (office) and what they are (nature) are spirits with their own intellect and will.
Angels as beings do exist. Paragraph 328 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p5.htm
That anon didn't say that angels didn't exists. At least read him.
Maybe -you- should read him?
>For Catholics, when the Bible speaks of angels, it is not really a being in itself but an earthly and generally visible representation of God's own presence, for example, people that God used to communicate with humanity, etc.
>>it is not really a being in itself
Meanwhile the CCC
> 328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angels" is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.
> 330 As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.
It is explicitly clear that they are real, distinct beings. Not what the anon is trying to argue, that it just refers to 'an earthly and generally visible representation of God's own presence, for example, people that God used to communicate with humanity'.
> 334 In the meantime, the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels.201
>335 In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).
>336 From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession.202 "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life."203 Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.
The Catholic position on whether or not angels are real and individual beings is very clear cut (see above). I'm saying that as someone irreligious with no dog in this fight. You have to outright ignore the CCC and use ridiculous mental gymnastics to explain teachings on things like St Michael or guardian angels.
>claims to be Catholic
>doesn’t know the Catechisms teaching RE angels
I’ll pray that God saves your soul anon
Incorrect, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 1, Article 1, Paragraph 5.
Frances Yates works like Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age.
I'm not looking for any Rosicrucian/Freemason/Occult stuff, just a comprehensive book on Angels.
Yo, I'm gonna cut it to you straight.
Angels are a mystical soul. They constantly perceive God. "Their eyes are always set on the Father."
Human beings become just as Angels in Heaven. "There is no marriage in heaven... etc"
They are a mystical soul that immediately after being born merges into Christ. "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world."
That's all Yo. Thank you and Good Night. I'm gonna go now.
Vonier's The Angels. You might also try Vonier's excellent The Human Soul to sort of put things into perspective.
And there are a couple of others. If I think of them, I'll post.
Thanks, anon. I was looking for something like this.
Vonier's "The Human Soul" also touches on Angels and is worth reading in it's own right.
https://archive.org/details/TheSoulAndItsRelations/page/n17/mode/2up
God isn’t real and neither are angels. I bet you didn’t know that Santa didn’t actually leave those gifts under the xmas tree either. Time to grow up, little buddy.
(you)wnbaw
You could read the Divine Comedy.
this is very cool
Angels are distinct spiritual intelligences, creatures created by God. They do double duty as the manifestation of God's love, but God's love pre-exists them, doesn't depend on them, and is wholly separate from them.
I got a great rec for you on the topic of archangels
It’s like the Christian version of Yuga cycles
Dionysius the Areopagite - The Celestial Hierarchy
https://ccel.org/ccel/d/dionysius/celestial/cache/celestial.pdf
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, QQ. 50-64
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm
(eg. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1050.htm to https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1064.htm)
These are the Catholic essentials on angels. Be sure to share any insights or favourite passages if you read them!