Post by UKarchaeology on Aug 6, 2015 16:57:37 GMT
'Tis the season for winged humanoids to alight everywhere from store windows to Christmas tree tops to lingerie runways. But it wasn't always so.
Angels, at least the Christian variety, haven't always been flying people in diaphanous gowns. And their various forms—from disembodied minds to feathered guardians—reflect twists and turns of thousands of years of religious thought, according to an upcoming book.
"There is lots of interesting theology about angels, and in some ways we've kind of lost the knack for that," said John Cavadini, chair of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
"We tend to think of angels as things that we'd find in a Hallmark card," Cavadini added. "But many people, especially in antiquity, were very interested in them"—in what they might look like, how they might organize themselves, how they behave.
In the Bible angels served as envoys of God—angelos being Greek for "messenger." Other than that, the scriptures leave a lot of room for interpretation.
"There isn't a lot of detail, and that's the fascinating thing," said Ellen Muehlberger, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan.
"The Same Substance as God"
In the early days of Christianity, some believers considered Jesus Christ himself to be one of many angels, said Muehlberger, who's working on a book on the shifting theology of angels in ancient times.
"We only know about this because of later, fourth-century authors who penned negative descriptions of this belief" to refute it, she said.
Jesus officially lost his angelhood when the Roman Emperor Constantine I convened the Council of Nicea in 325. There, bishops were charged with turning the still varied and sometimes conflicting conceptions of God, Christ, and Christianity into a single, unified theology.
"The Council of Nicea defined Christ as totally divine, as of the same substance as God," Muehlberger said.
"Christians who worked to interpret the council's decrees over the next several decades took this to mean that Christ was not an angel. Angels were something else entirely."
A Beautiful Mind
In the early centuries of the church, perceptions of angels may have been as varied as the descriptions of Christ himself—or Judas, for that matter.
A fourth-century Christian monk and ascetic known as Evagrius, for example, developed a theory that explained the human essence in three parts.
"One part is governed by appetites and makes us hungry or sleepy or want to have sex," Muehlberger explained. "That's sort of the lowest part.
"A second is an emotional part that allows us to get angry or makes us prideful.
"Then there is a rational part," she said. "And that is the part, according to Evagrius, that is most like God and the angels too."
Evagrius "thought that something like anger was like a demon that came and attacked you. And if you couldn't fight off those attacks yourself, a totally rational angel, standing beside you, could help you."
Others followed this line, proclaiming that angels were disembodied minds, or intellects, according to Muehlberger.
Angels for Everyone
Around the same time, debate swirled over just who angels served on Earth.
At early Christian monasteries, for instance, many ascetics assumed that really good students would get some kind of divine guide or coach to help them.
"These monks said, Hey, not everybody gets a guardian angel—it's a mark of moral success," said Muehlberger, citing monastic letters from the period explaining the need for monastery inhabitants to cultivate their own angels.
In the towns, though, a more democratic view of angels prevailed.
Bishops and other officials began to assure their congregants that everyone has a guardian angel.
In Egypt, some bishops went on to suggest that some desert-dwelling monks—who had renounced pleasures of flesh and family—might themselves be angels on Earth.
The Egyptian monks rejected this out of hand, saying, in Muehlbergers' words, "We act like animals, not angels."
Eventually this populist view won out: I'm no angel and neither are you, but they watch over all of us.
(source/pics: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111223-christmas-angels-evolution-science-history-christianity/ )
Angels, at least the Christian variety, haven't always been flying people in diaphanous gowns. And their various forms—from disembodied minds to feathered guardians—reflect twists and turns of thousands of years of religious thought, according to an upcoming book.
"There is lots of interesting theology about angels, and in some ways we've kind of lost the knack for that," said John Cavadini, chair of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
"We tend to think of angels as things that we'd find in a Hallmark card," Cavadini added. "But many people, especially in antiquity, were very interested in them"—in what they might look like, how they might organize themselves, how they behave.
In the Bible angels served as envoys of God—angelos being Greek for "messenger." Other than that, the scriptures leave a lot of room for interpretation.
"There isn't a lot of detail, and that's the fascinating thing," said Ellen Muehlberger, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan.
"The Same Substance as God"
In the early days of Christianity, some believers considered Jesus Christ himself to be one of many angels, said Muehlberger, who's working on a book on the shifting theology of angels in ancient times.
"We only know about this because of later, fourth-century authors who penned negative descriptions of this belief" to refute it, she said.
Jesus officially lost his angelhood when the Roman Emperor Constantine I convened the Council of Nicea in 325. There, bishops were charged with turning the still varied and sometimes conflicting conceptions of God, Christ, and Christianity into a single, unified theology.
"The Council of Nicea defined Christ as totally divine, as of the same substance as God," Muehlberger said.
"Christians who worked to interpret the council's decrees over the next several decades took this to mean that Christ was not an angel. Angels were something else entirely."
A Beautiful Mind
In the early centuries of the church, perceptions of angels may have been as varied as the descriptions of Christ himself—or Judas, for that matter.
A fourth-century Christian monk and ascetic known as Evagrius, for example, developed a theory that explained the human essence in three parts.
"One part is governed by appetites and makes us hungry or sleepy or want to have sex," Muehlberger explained. "That's sort of the lowest part.
"A second is an emotional part that allows us to get angry or makes us prideful.
"Then there is a rational part," she said. "And that is the part, according to Evagrius, that is most like God and the angels too."
Evagrius "thought that something like anger was like a demon that came and attacked you. And if you couldn't fight off those attacks yourself, a totally rational angel, standing beside you, could help you."
Others followed this line, proclaiming that angels were disembodied minds, or intellects, according to Muehlberger.
Angels for Everyone
Around the same time, debate swirled over just who angels served on Earth.
At early Christian monasteries, for instance, many ascetics assumed that really good students would get some kind of divine guide or coach to help them.
"These monks said, Hey, not everybody gets a guardian angel—it's a mark of moral success," said Muehlberger, citing monastic letters from the period explaining the need for monastery inhabitants to cultivate their own angels.
In the towns, though, a more democratic view of angels prevailed.
Bishops and other officials began to assure their congregants that everyone has a guardian angel.
In Egypt, some bishops went on to suggest that some desert-dwelling monks—who had renounced pleasures of flesh and family—might themselves be angels on Earth.
The Egyptian monks rejected this out of hand, saying, in Muehlbergers' words, "We act like animals, not angels."
Eventually this populist view won out: I'm no angel and neither are you, but they watch over all of us.
(source/pics: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111223-christmas-angels-evolution-science-history-christianity/ )