Tobias Nicklas

Angels : the concept of celestial beings : origins, development and reception

In our present-day society Angels are being talked about more frequently again. But where are the roots of these discourses to be found? How have they developed? The present volume concentrates on a study of important sources for the ideas about angels in oriental antiquity, the Old Testament and early Jewish and Christian thinking. In this, the deuterocanonical writings of the Old Testament provide a special focus. In addition, the study examines significant further developments in Judaism, Christianity or Islam, in iconography and the history of piety.

The Day of Atonement

The “Day of Atonement” in Leviticus 16 had a formative influence on Judaism and Christianity. The essays in this volume form a representative cross section of the history of reception of Leviticus 16 and the tradition of the Yom ha-Kippurim.

Rivals in Heaven: Angels in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Given the frequency with which the author of Hebrews mentions an gels in the first two chapters of the epistle, he seems to have remarkably little to say about them. Remarkably little, that is, of a positive nature; for the author’s stance with regard to angels seems to be decidedly negative. Angels, we are told, are not divine sons of God; they do not share in God’s creative activity, nor are they immutable and co eternal with Him. Unlike the Son, they are not given a throne at God’s right hand. Rather, they are servants of the Son and of those who “will in herit salvation” (1:4 14). They are mediators of an inferior revelation (2:1 4); the world to come is not subjected to them, but to the “son of man” (2:5 9), and Christ does not take them into his care (2:16). Once this has been said, angels apparently cease to be of much in terest to our author. Of the thirteen times that angels are mentioned in Heb, eleven occur in the first two chapters,1 while in the remaining eleven chapters, there are only two more: In Heb 12:22, “myriads of angels” are briefly mentioned as part of a heavenly assembly, and in 13:2, hospitality is recommended on the ground that angels may pose as travellers in need of rest – a time honoured motif,2 but hardly con nected to the concerns of the epistle as a whole, and clearly without any connection to the eleven occurrences of “angels” in Heb 1 2. So why does our author mention angels?

Angels in Early Christian Narratives on the Resurrection of Jesus Canonical and Apocryphal Texts

The empty tomb stories in early Christian Gospels try to express in narrative what texts like 1Cor 15:3 5 say in the form of the creed: The crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been risen from the dead. The subject is an event which indeed had an unpreceded historical effect, though its incomprehensible origin remains in the free act of God. If the resurrec tion of Jesus points to God’s intervention in this world, then this will open various possibilities to have angels play an important role as agents within these stories or as commenting on this event. In this con tribution I would like to describe how the various resurrection accounts portray and develop angel (like) figures and their functions in these contexts. I shall start with the probably most ancient „empty tomb story“, the original ending of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:1 8). Both other Synoptics, Matthew and Luke, offer clearly more elaborated Easter accounts, which are at least partly based on Mark; moreover, Luke–Acts presents two short narratives on Jesus’ Ascension. How do the roles of angels develop in these narratives in comparison to the Gospel of Mark and what are the backgrounds of these developments? But the evolution does not stop with the Synoptics: Not only the Gospel of John probably presupposes the Synoptics (at least Mark and Luke), but extra canonical texts are interesting in this respect, too: While the secondary ending of Mark (Mark 16:9 20; probably 2nd century CE) is not important with regard to our topic, we do see interesting develop ments in apocryphal texts of that time, e.g. in the Gospel of Peter.

Early Christian Manuscripts

The authors of the nine essays in this collection deal with individual or certain sets of manuscripts in order to demonstrate that approach and method are both crucial and pivotal aspects for a sound investigations. Thus, the essays serve as a variety of approaches destined by their topics, but all of them concerned about acknowledged methods.

Angels or Demons? Divine Messengers in Ancient Egypt

The question of angels in Ancient Near Eastern literature is quite as problematic as an inquiry into demons. Both terms are grounded in a specific Christian theology and based on a monotheistic concept of God.1 The ‘good angel’ and the ‘bad demon’ are part of a dualistic and ethical religious worldview which is characteristic for Judaism, Islam and Christianity.2 For comparative religion and the wider religious history, the two terms are merely misleading. Nevertheless, they have been used as categories for decades and via Christian adoption have become part of European history of science.3When looking for the spe cific meaning and relevance of supranatural or intermediate beings, scholars have become used to referring to angels or demons, often in ignorance of the specific problems of such an approach. However, the dualism of angels and demons includes a polarisation which makes sense within the context of the prevalence and professionalisation of a monotheistic religion.4 But because of the inherent notion that it is pos sible to assign the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ to respective sides, it should not be used in the study of religions.5 In the following inquiry into concepts of divine messengers in An cient Egypt it is necessary (i) to start with some systematic considerations before (ii) analysing the material itself. In conclusion (iii) there is a short summary containing the main points highlighted in this article.

Angels in the Magical Papyri. The Classic Example of Michael, the Archangel

In order to write adequately about angels in the magical papyri,1 au thors must exactly be aware of what they are actually writing about. Some questions, which demonstrate the difficulties such a study might bring with it, must be answered prior to the writing process itself: how can ‘angels’ be defined? Who is regarded as an ‘angelic being’ in the sense of such a definition and who is not? What period of time and what geographical region does such a study cover? Which texts form the relevant corpus for such a study? At a first glance, all these questions might raise hardly any trouble. But this is only partly true. The first question already offers severe problems, as for the Greco Roman world of antiquity and late antiquity and the notions and beliefs found in some of the magical papyri it is not always self evident who is an angel there and who is not. As all kinds of religious ideas from a Greco Roman, an Egyptian, a Jewish, and a Christian background – to mention only the most prominent socio cultural settings – interact with each other in a certain period of time, it is hardly possible to define today without much doubt whether an obviously ‘spiritual’ and ‘celestial being’ is actually (a) an angel, (b) a deity, or (c) a demon (in the modern sense of the word). ‘Beings’ bear ing Egyptian names in the papyri are in particular problematic here, as the polytheistic belief(s) of the Egyptians merged with other religious notions. Then when Jewish and Christian ideas and contents had been mixed into that melting pot of conceptions and when Egypt had be come for its most part a ‘Christian’ country, some of the former Egyp tian deities might have been treated and regarded as ‘angels’ by some people, because for them they fulfilled the same duties and tasks angels

YHWH’s Agents of Doom The Punishing Function of Angels in Post Exilic Writings of the Old Testament

In narrative writings of the OT (Exod 12, 2Kgs19, Gen 19, 2Sam 24) a single punishing agent (only in Gen 19 there are two of them operating more in detail) occurs who kills a great number of people. At least in Exod 12 and Gen 19 the texts also say that God himself effects destruc tion. This ambiguity seems to mirror the genesis of these stories. Within Ezekiel’s second vision (Ezek 8 11) the prophet takes a glimpse behind the celestial scenes: He witnesses how God reacts to the cultic aberrations in the Jerusalem Temple. God calls a group of seven men, celestial personifications of the Babylonian destroyers mentioned in Jer 22:7. God orders six of them to kill the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the seventh is originally commissioned to set the city on fire. A later afterthought also made him mark the innocent within the city with a protective sign. “The satan” in Job 1 2 and in Zech 3:1 2 pleads that Job viz. Joshua are in fact doomed to judgement because they are potential viz. actual sinners. Throughout these texts the readers get the impression that God does not execute destruction / doom himself.

Angels in Early Christian Grave Inscriptions

Angels are only rarely mentioned in early Christian grave inscriptions. When these express ideas on death and beyond they prefer across the board expressions referring to the community with God or Christ and to eternal life. In the East of the Roman Empire invocations to God enjoy great popularity. A theme to be found regularly both in the East and West is the community of the saints, although martyrs and specific saints are seldom asked for help and intercession.1 Considered from this point of view it is not amazing that angels are scarcely found found in grave inscriptions. Inscriptions referring to angels may be divided into three groups regarding their contents: angels and death, angels in the afterlife, and angels and Parousia.2 In addition, one grave inscription mentions the dedication of a church to the holy angels.

« Zwei petrinische Apokryphen im Akhmim-Codex oder eines? Kritische Anmerkungen und Gedanken »

The article discusses how newly discovered fragments of otherwise unknown apocryphal texts can be attributed to texts which are mentioned in Early Chritian literature. The example of the Gospel of Peter on the one hand shows that many of these attributions have to remain hypothetical. On the other hand the criteria for the attribution of fragments have not always been handled in a consequent manner. This can be shown by the example of the second fragment in the so-called Akhmim-Codex (Akhm. 2), which usually is seen as a witness to the Revelation of Peter. Several arguments speak in favour of an attribution of this text to the Gospel of Peter. Therefore Akhm. 2 should at least be studied as a text related to the Gospel of Peter.