ANGELS

I seem to have gotten a little off-point with these last few posts, so to return to the main subject....

The Seattle Times, June 2008, mentions the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey, which states: 68% (7 out of 10) of Americans believe that Angels are active in the world. So what exactly ARE angels?

ANGELS WERE COMMANDED TO BOW BEFORE MAN

According to folk wisdom and apocrapha, there were two falls from Grace; one due entirely to the fact that some of the angels would not bow to man as they were commanded to do. Bowing offers the neck; in ancient times, this was a symbol of complete power of the bowee over the bower. Even though some of the angels rebelled against this, some didn’t. They should be ours to command. Yet they won’t return my calls.

-When the angels were “cast down from the heavens,” was that “cast down to Earth?” Because they’re often said to “Descend from the Heavens…” Are they still here now? They’re immortal, right?

ANGELS ARE NOT BEINGS OF ‘SPIRIT’

The Mormons view angels as the messengers of God. They believe that angels are former human beings or the spirits of human beings yet to be born. Islam also believes they are messengers of God. They have no free will, and can only do that which God orders them to do. Angels can take on different forms. Prophet Muhammad, the last Prophet of Islam, speaking of the magnitude of Angel Gabriel has said that his wings spanned from the Eastern to the Western horizon. At the same time, it is well known in Islamic tradition that angels used to take on human form.

In Zoroastrianism there are different angel-like figures. For example, each person has a guardian angel. They patronize human beings and other creatures, and also manifest God’s energy. The Amesha Spentas have often been regarded as angels, although they don't convey messages, but are rather emanations of Ahura Mazda (God).

Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, referred to angels as people who through the love of God have consumed all human limitations and have been endowed with spiritual attributes.

`Abdu'l-Bahá defined angels as "those holy souls who have severed attachment to the earthly world, who are free from the fetters of self and passion and who have attached their hearts to the divine realm and the merciful kingdom."

It is asserted by Theosophists that all of the above mentioned beings possess etheric bodies that are composed of etheric matter, a type of matter finer and more pure that is composed of smaller particles than ordinary physical plane matter.

Early Christians took over Jewish ideas of angels, shifting between the angel as a messenger of God and a manifestation of God himself. Later came identification of individual angelic messengers. Then, in the space of little more than two centuries (from the third to the fifth) the image of angels took on definite characteristics both in theology and in art In traditional Christianity angels are regarded as asexual and not belonging to either gender.

The earliest known representation of angels with wings is on what is called the Prince's Sarcophagus, discovered at Sarigüzel, near Istanbul, in the 1930s, and attributed to the time of Theodosius I (379-395 CE). Four- and six-winged angels, often with only their face and wings showing, drawn from the higher grades of angels, especially cherubim and seraphim, are derived from Persian art, not from the Bible.

Angels were able to have sex with mortal women, so they’re not androgynous. They fell in love with the ‘daughters of Man,’ married them, and shared ‘secrets’ with them (makeup and jewelry, healing and metallurgy). This doesn’t indicate that they are non-physical! When invited to eat and drink, they do so. When threatened by a mob, they have no magical means of escape. When appearing to mortals, they usually just walk up like anyone else. When their business is concluded, they walk away; they don’t disappear into a mist or anything. There is no mention of wings, haloes, beautiful music, beautiful smells, or unnatural light in association with angels.

While traveling through the desert, Jacob wrestles an angel all night, apparently thinking he is wrestling a man. That’s a pretty intimate form of contact; had there been anything insubstantial about this angel, surely Jacob would have noticed it.

The Pew Poll didn't specify which kind of angels people believe in, but I have a feeling it's not the physical kind.