Patristic Angelology, the Fathers of the Church, and the Doctrine of the Angels

The Etymology of “Angel” in the Latin Tradition

The English word angel, together with the corresponding words in the other Western languages, goes back to the Latin angelus, which from the end of the second century, in the Vetus Latina and in Tertullian (d. 220), is used as a transliteration of the Greek word ἄγγελος (ángelos). At the beginning, these two terms expressed above all a function: messenger of God. Patristic angelology starts from this linguistic and semantic basis in order to develop a progressively more elaborate doctrine on the nature, the hierarchy, and the mission of the spiritual beings, in confrontation with the philosophical and gnostic currents of the period.

The Apostolic Fathers and the First Challenges

The angelology of the Apostolic Fathers is still incipient and functional. The Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch mention the angels above all in a liturgical and eschatological context, without seeking to elaborate a systematic doctrine. The real theological challenge arises with Gnosticism and Manichaeism: both currents propose a cosmic mediation of spiritual entities (aeons, archons) between the supreme God and matter, corrupting the Christian doctrine of creation and of redemption. The Apologist Fathers, Justin Martyr (d. 165), Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, respond by affirming the goodness of creation and the subordination of the angels to the one creator God.

Origen and the Systematization of Angelology

Origen of Alexandria (d. 254) represents the first great effort at a systematization of Christian angelology. In the De Principiis he proposes a hierarchy of spiritual beings created free and equal, whose present differentiation results from their merit or from their original fall. This thesis, the preexistence of souls and the fall of the intelligences, would be condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553), but his contribution to systematic angelology is undeniable: Origen raises for the first time the fundamental questions about the freedom, the nature, and the hierarchy of the angelic beings.

Augustine: Angels between Ontology and Mission

The most lucid synthesis of Western patristic angelology is that of Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). In the Enarratio on Psalm 135, Augustine sets out with precision the distinction between the being of the angel (esse) and his mission (officium): “Angel is the name of his office, not of his nature. If you ask about his being, he is spirit. If you ask about what he does, he is an angel.” This distinction, which marks the ontological dignity of the spiritual being in his mediating function, becomes the point of departure of all medieval and scholastic angelology. Augustine also holds that the angels are temporal creatures, created by God at the beginning of time, and that their happiness consists in the contemplation of God, which they never lose.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Celestial Hierarchies

The Dionysian corpus, attributed to the fifth or sixth century, represents the other great pillar of patristic angelology. In the Celestial Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius organizes the angels into three triads: Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones (the first hierarchy), Dominions, Virtues, and Powers (the second), Principalities, Archangels, and Angels (the third). This scheme, which combines biblical sources with the Neoplatonic philosophy of Proclus, would profoundly influence Thomas Aquinas and the whole of Scholasticism, constituting the celestial architecture of Christian angelology down to the modern age.

Consult the full text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the angels at Vatican.va, CCC: The Angels.

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