THE ANGELS.

The angels according to the Church. — Refutation.

— The angels according to Spiritism.

The angels according to the Church.

— All religions have had angels under various names, that is, beings superior to humanity, intermediaries between God and men.

Denying all spiritual existence outside organic life, materialism naturally classified the angels among fictions and allegories.

Belief in angels is an essential part of the dogmas of the Church, which defines them thus: n

— We firmly believe, says a general and ecumenical council, n that there is only one true God, eternal and infinite, who at the beginning of time drew jointly out of nothing the two creatures — the spiritual and the corporeal, the angelic and the worldly — having afterward formed, as a link between the two, human nature, composed of body and Spirit.

“Such is, according to faith, the divine plan in the work of creation, a plan majestic and complete as befitted eternal wisdom. Thus conceived, it offers to our thoughts being in all its degrees and conditions. In the highest sphere appear purely spiritual existence and life; in the last order, both purely material; and, intermediately, a marvelous union of the two substances, a life at once common to the intelligent Spirit and to the organized body.

“Our soul is of a simple and indivisible nature, but limited in its faculties. The idea we have of perfection makes us understand that there may be other beings as simple as it, and superior by their qualities and privileges. The soul is great and noble, yet it is associated with matter, served by frail organs and limited in power and action. Why should there not be others still poorer, freed from that bondage, from those fetters, and endowed with greater and incomparable force and activity? Before God had placed man on Earth to know Him, serve Him, and love Him, would He not already have called forth other creatures, in order to compose His celestial court and to adore Him at the height of glory? God, in short, receives from the hands of man the tributes of honor and homage of this universe: is it then to be wondered at that He should receive from the hands of the angels the incense and the prayers of man? If, then, the angels did not exist, the great work of the Creator would not display the finish and the perfection peculiar to it; this world, which attests His omnipotence, would no longer be the masterpiece of wisdom; in that case our reason, weak though it be, could conceive a God more complete and consummate.

“On every page of the sacred books, of the Old as of the New Testament, mention is made of these sublime intelligences, sometimes in pious invocations, sometimes in historical references. Their intervention appears manifestly in the life of the patriarchs and the prophets. God makes use of such a ministry, now to transmit His will, now to announce future events, and the angels are also almost always organs of His justice and mercy. Their presence stands out from the circumstances that accompany the birth, the life, and the passion of the Savior; their remembrance is inseparable from that of great men, as from the most grandiose facts of religious antiquity. Belief in angels exists in the very bosom of polytheism and in the fables of mythology, because that belief is as universal and ancient as the world. The worship that the pagans rendered to the good and evil genii was nothing more than a false application of the truth, a degenerate remnant of the primitive dogma.

“The words of the holy Council of Lateran contain a fundamental distinction between the angels and men: they teach us that the former are pure Spirits, while the latter are composed of a body and a soul, that is, that the angelic nature subsists by itself not only without mixture but dissociated from matter, however vaporous and subtle it may be supposed to be, whereas our soul, equally spiritual, associates itself with the body so as to form with it a single person, such being essentially its destiny.

“As long as so intimate a bond of soul and body endures, the two substances have a common life and exert a reciprocal influence on each other; hence the soul cannot completely free itself from the imperfections of such a condition: ideas come to it through the senses in the comparison of external objects and always under more or less apparent images. This is why the soul cannot contemplate itself, nor conceive God and the angels without attributing to them a visible and palpable form. The same occurs with regard to the angels, who, in order to manifest themselves to the saints and prophets, must clothe themselves in tangible and palpable forms. These forms, however, were nothing more than aerial bodies that they caused to move and identified themselves with, or symbolic attributes in accordance with the mission in their charge.

“Their being and movements are neither localized nor circumscribed to a limited and fixed point of Space. Entirely detached from the body, they occupy no space in the void; but just as our soul exists whole in the body and in each of its parts, so too the angels are, and almost simultaneously, at all points and parts of the world. Swifter than thought, they can act everywhere in a given moment, operating by themselves with no other obstacles than those of the will of the Creator and those of human freedom.

“While we are condemned to see external things slowly and limitedly; while supernatural truths appear to us as enigmas in a mirror, in the phrase of St. Paul, they, the angels, see without effort what it concerns them to know, and are always in immediate relation with the object of their thoughts. Their knowledge results not from induction and reasoning, but from that clear and profound intuition which embraces at a single glance the genus and the species derived from it, the principles and the consequences that proceed from them.

“The distance of epochs, the difference of places, as well as the multiplicity of objects, can produce no confusion in their minds.

“Infinite, the divine essence is incomprehensible; it has mysteries and depths that cannot be penetrated; but though the particular designs of Providence are forbidden to them, it unveils them when, in certain circumstances, they are charged with announcing them to men.

“The communications of God with the angels, and of these among themselves, are not made as among us by means of articulated sounds and sensible signs. The pure intelligences have need neither of eyes to see nor of ears to hear; nor do they possess a vocal organ to manifest their thoughts. This usual instrument of our relations is unnecessary to them, for they communicate their sentiments in a manner peculiar to them alone, that is, wholly spiritual. It suffices them to will in order to understand one another.

“God alone knows the number of the angels. This number is, no doubt, not infinite, nor could it be; but, according to the sacred authors and the holy doctors, it is exceedingly considerable, truly prodigious. If we can proportion the number of inhabitants of a city to its size and extent, and since the Earth is but an atom compared to the firmament and to the immense regions of Space, we are forced to conclude that the number of inhabitants of the air and of heaven is far superior to that of men.

“And if the majesty of kings is displayed by the brilliance and number of vassals, officers, and subjects, what could be more fitting to give us an idea of the majesty of the King of kings than that innumerable multitude of angels who people the heavens and the Earth, the sea and the abysses, to the dignity of those who remain continually prostrate or standing before His throne?

“The fathers of the Church and the theologians generally teach that the angels are divided into three great hierarchies or principalities, and each hierarchy into three companies or choirs.

“Those of the first and highest hierarchy are designated in accordance with the functions they exercise in Heaven: — The Seraphim are so designated because they are, as it were, ablaze before God with the ardors of charity; others, the Cherubim, because they luminously reflect the divine wisdom; and finally Thrones, those who proclaim the greatness of the Creator, whose splendor they cause to shine forth.

“The angels of the second hierarchy receive names consonant with the operations attributed to them in the general government of the Universe, and they are: — the Dominations, which determine for the angels of inferior classes their missions and duties; the Virtues, which promote the prodigies demanded by the great interests of the Church and of the human race; and the Powers, which protect by their force and vigilance the laws that govern the physical and moral world.

“Those of the third hierarchy have as their mission the direction of societies and of persons, and they are: — the Principalities, charged with kingdoms, provinces, and dioceses; the Archangels, who transmit messages of high importance; and the Guardian Angels, who accompany creatures in order to watch over their safety and sanctification.”

Refutation.

— The general principle resulting from this doctrine is that the angels are purely spiritual beings, anterior and superior to Humanity, privileged creatures devoted to supreme and eternal felicity from their formation, endowed, by their very nature, with all virtues and knowledge, having moreover done nothing to acquire them.

They are, so to speak, in the first rank of Creation, contrasting with the last, where life is purely material; and, between the two, in the middle, exists Humanity, that is, souls, beings inferior to the angels and bound to material bodies.

From such a system there arise several capital difficulties: In the first place, what is this purely material life? Is it that of brute matter? But brute matter is inanimate and has no life by itself. Does it perhaps refer to animals and plants?

In this supposition it would be a fourth order in Creation, for it cannot be denied that in the intelligent animal there is something more than in a plant, and in the latter than in a simple stone.

As for the human soul, which establishes the transition, it is directly united to a body, brute matter, moreover; for without the soul the body has as much life as any clod of earth.

Evidently, this division is obscure and is not in keeping with observation; it resembles the theory of the four elements, annulled by the progress of Science.

Let us admit, however, these three terms: — the spiritual creature, the human, and the corporeal, for such is, they say, the divine plan, majestic and complete as befits Eternal Wisdom.

Let us note above all that there is no necessary connection between these three terms, and that they are three distinct creations, formed successively, whereas in Nature everything is linked together, showing us an admirable law of unity, whose elements, being nothing but transformations of one another, nevertheless have their bonds of union.

But this theory, incomplete though it be, is, up to a certain point, true as to the existence of the three terms: what it lacks are the points of contact of these terms, as is easy to demonstrate.

— The Church says that these three culminating points of Creation are necessary to the harmony of the whole. The moment a single one of them is lacking, the incomplete work is no longer in keeping with Eternal Wisdom.

Meanwhile, one of the fundamental dogmas says that the Earth, the animals, the plants, the sun and the stars, and even light, were created out of nothing six thousand years ago.

Before that epoch there was, therefore, no human creature, nor corporeal one — which amounts to saying that throughout eternity the divine work lay imperfect.

It is a capital article of faith that the creation of the Universe took place six thousand years ago, so much so that not long ago Science was still anathematized for destroying the biblical chronology, by proving the greater antiquity of the Earth and of its inhabitants.

In spite of this, the Council of Lateran, an ecumenical council that lays down the law in matters of orthodoxy, says: “We firmly believe in one God, sole and true, eternal and infinite, who at the beginning of time drew jointly out of nothing the two creatures — the spiritual and the corporeal.”

By the beginning of time we can only infer the eternity that has elapsed, since time is infinite like Space, without beginning or end.

This expression, beginning of time, is rather a figure that implies the idea of an unlimited anteriority.

The Council of Lateran believes, then, firmly, that the spiritual creatures as well as the corporeal were simultaneously formed and drawn jointly out of nothing, at an indeterminate epoch, in the past.

To what, then, is reduced the biblical text that dates Creation at six thousand of our years? And, even granting that this be the beginning of the visible Universe, that is surely not the beginning of time. In which to believe: — in the council or in the Bible?

— The council formulates, besides this, a strange proposition: “Our soul, it says, equally spiritual, is associated with the body in such a way as to form with it but a single person, and such is, essentially, its destiny.”

Now, if the essential destiny of the soul is to be united to the body, this union constitutes the normal state, the design, the end, since it is its destiny.

Meanwhile, the soul is immortal and the body is not; the union of the former with the latter takes place only once, according to the Church, and even were it to last a century, it would be nothing in relation to eternity.

And being only a few hours for many, what use would so ephemeral a union be to the soul? But let this union be prolonged as long as a terrestrial existence can be prolonged, and even so, can it be affirmed that its destiny is to be essentially integrated?

No, this union is in reality nothing more than an incident, a point in the life of the soul, never its essential state.

If the essential destiny of the soul is to be bound to the human body; if by its nature and according to the providential end of Creation this union is necessary to the manifestations of its faculties, we are forced to conclude that, without a body, the human soul is an incomplete being; 7 now, in order for the soul to fulfill its designs, on leaving one body it must needs take another — which leads us to the forced plurality of existences, or, in other words, to reincarnation, to perpetuity.

It is truly to be wondered at that a council, held to be one of the lights of the Church, should have to such a degree identified the spiritual and material beings, so that they do not subsist by themselves, since the essential condition of their creation is to be united.

— The hierarchical table of the angels shows us that several orders have, among their attributions, the government of the physical world and of Humanity, for which end they were created.

But, according to Genesis, the physical world and Humanity have existed only for six thousand years; and what, then, did these angels do, prior to that era, throughout eternity, when the object of their occupations did not exist?

And would they have been created from all eternity? So it must be, since they serve for the glorification of the Almighty. But, creating them at some determined epoch, God would have remained until then, that is, during an eternity, without adorers.

— The council further says: “While this so intimate union of the soul with the body lasts.” There is, consequently, a moment in which the union dissolves? This proposition contradicts the one that maintains the essentiality of that union.

And the council says further: Ideas come to them through the senses, in the comparison of exterior objects. Here is a philosophical doctrine in part true, but not in an absolute sense.

To receive ideas through the senses is, according to the eminent theologian, a condition inherent in human nature: but he forgets innate ideas, faculties at times so transcendent, the intuition of things that the child brings from the cradle, due to no teaching whatever.

Through which senses do young shepherds, natural calculators, the admiration of the learned, acquire the ideas necessary for the almost instantaneous resolution of the most complicated problems? As much may be said of precocious musicians, painters, and philologists.

“The knowledge of the angels does not result from induction and reasoning”; they have it because they are angels, with no need to learn it, for such were they created by God: as for the soul, it must learn.

But if the soul receives ideas only by means of the bodily organs, what ideas can the soul of a child have who died at the end of a few days, if we admit with the Church that this soul is not reborn?

— Here a vital question arises, namely that of knowing whether the soul can acquire knowledge after the death of the body.

If, once freed from the body, it cannot acquire new knowledge, the soul of the child, of the savage, of the imbecile, of the idiot, or of the ignorant will remain such as it was at the moment of death, condemned to nullity forevermore.

But if, on the contrary, it acquires new knowledge after the present life, then it can progress.

Without further progress for the soul, one arrives at absurd conclusions, as much as, by admitting it, one concludes with the denial of all the dogmas founded upon stagnation, irrevocable fate, eternal penalties, etc.

The soul progressing, what is the limit of progress? There is no reason why it should not attain through it the degree of the angels, or pure Spirits.

Now, with such a possibility the creation of special and privileged beings would not be justified, exempt from all labor, enjoying unconditionally eternal felicity, while other less favored beings obtain that felicity only in exchange for long, cruel sufferings and harsh trials.

Without doubt God could have so determined, but, admitting in Him the infinitude of perfection without which He would not be God, we are forced to admit that He would create nothing uselessly, belying His sovereign justice and goodness.

— And if the majesty of kings displays its brilliance by the number of vassals, officers, and subjects, what could be more fitting to give us an idea of the majesty of the King of kings than that innumerable multitude of angels who people heaven and earth, the sea and the abysses, to the dignity of those who remain continually prostrate or standing before His throne.”

And is it not to debase the Divinity to compare it with the pomp of the sovereigns of the Earth? This idea, instilled in the minds of the ignorant masses, falsifies the opinion of His true greatness; 3 always God reduced to the petty proportions of Humanity! To attribute to Him, as a necessity, millions of adorers, perennially genuflecting, is to lend Him the vanity and weakness proper to the proud despots of the Orient!

And what is it that magnifies truly great sovereigns? Is it the number and splendor of the courtiers? No; it is goodness, it is justice, it is the merited title of fathers of their people.

You will ask whether there is anything more fitting to give us the idea of the greatness and majesty of God than the multitude of angels who compose His court… But, certainly there is, and that better thing is for God to present Himself to His creatures as sovereignly good, just, and merciful, rather than wrathful, envious, vindictive, exterminating, and partial, creating for His own glory those privileged beings, heaped with all gifts and born for eternal felicity, while on others He imposes painful conditions in the acquisition of blessings, punishing momentary errors with eternal torments…

— Concerning the union of the soul with the body, Spiritism professes a doctrine infinitely more spiritualist, not to say less materialist, having moreover in its favor conformity with observation and with the destiny of the soul.

It teaches us that the soul is independent of the body, the latter being nothing but a temporary envelope: spirituality is its essence, and its normal life is the spiritual life.

The body is merely an instrument of the soul for the exercise of its faculties in its relations with the material world; separated from that body, it enjoys those faculties more freely and loftily.

— The union of the soul with the body, in being necessary to its first progresses, operates only in the period that we may classify as that of its infancy and adolescence; once, however, a certain degree of perfection and dematerialization is attained, that union is dispensable, progress takes place in its life as a Spirit.

Moreover, however numerous the corporeal existences may be, they are limited to the existence of the body, and their total sum comprises, in all cases, only an imperceptible part of the spiritual life, which is unlimited.

The angels according to Spiritism.

— That there exist beings endowed with all the qualities attributed to the angels, there remains no doubt.

The spirit revelation on this point confirms the belief of all peoples, making known to us at the same time the origin and nature of such beings.

Souls or Spirits are created simple and ignorant, that is, without knowledge nor consciousness of good and evil, but apt to acquire what they lack.

Work is the means of acquisition, and the end — which is perfection — is the same for all.

They attain it more or less promptly by virtue of free will and in direct proportion to their efforts; 6 all have the same degrees to surmount, the same work to complete;

God does not favor some better than others, for He is just, and, since all are His children, He has no predilections.

He says to them: “Behold the law that must constitute your norm of conduct; it alone can lead you to the end; all that is conformable to it is good; all that is contrary to it is evil. You have entire liberty to observe or to infringe that law, and thus you will be the arbiters of your own fate.”

Consequently, God did not create evil; all His laws are for good; 10 and it was man who created that evil, divorcing himself from those laws; if he observed them scrupulously, he would never stray from the good path.

— Meanwhile, the soul, like a child, is inexperienced in the first phases of existence, and hence its being fallible.

God does not give it that experience, but gives it the means of acquiring it; 3 thus, a false step on the path of evil is a setback for the soul, which, suffering the consequences of it, learns at its own cost what it is important to avoid.

In this way, little by little, it develops, perfects itself, and advances in the spiritual hierarchy until the state of pure Spirit or angel.

The angels are, then, the souls of men arrived at the degree of perfection that the creature admits of, enjoying in its plenitude the promised felicity.

Before, however, attaining the supreme degree, they enjoy a felicity relative to their advancement, a felicity that consists, not in idleness, but in the functions that it pleases God to confide to them, and in the discharge of which they feel happy, having in it still a means of progress. (See Part One, chapter III: Heaven.)

— Humanity is not limited to the Earth; it inhabits innumerable worlds that circulate in Space; it has already inhabited those that have disappeared, and it will inhabit those that may be formed.

Having created it from all eternity, God never ceases to create it.

Long before the Earth existed, and however remote we may suppose it to be, there were other worlds, in which incarnate Spirits traversed the same phases that those of more recent formation now traverse, attaining their end even before we had left the hands of the Creator.

From all eternity there have been, then, pure Spirits or angels; but, as their human existence took place in an infinite past, behold, we suppose them as though they had always been angels of all times.

— Thus is realized the great law of unity of Creation; God was never inactive and always had pure Spirits, experienced and enlightened, for the transmission of His orders and the direction of the Universe, from the government of worlds down to the most minute details.

Nor did God have any need to create privileged beings, exempt from obligations; all, the old and the new, acquired their positions in the struggle and by their own merit; all, in short, are children of their works. And, in this way, the sovereign justice of the Creator is completed with equality.

[1] We have extracted this summary from the pastoral of Monsignor Gousset, cardinal-archbishop of Reims, for the Lent of 1864. By it we can, then, regard the angels, as well as the demons, the summary of which we draw from the same source and cite in the following chapter, as the last expression of the dogma of the Church in this respect.

[2] Council of Lateran.