Herein we consider info on Angels in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon. The point is not to elucidate these references but to provide relevant partial quotations and citations. See my section on Angels here, Cherubim and Seraphim here, Satan here and Demons here.
Angels in Augustine of Hippo’s The Confessions.
Book I
Chapter 17 For there is more than one way in which men sacrifice to the fallen Angels.
Book III
Chapter 10 Which fig notwithstanding, plucked not by his own but another’s wickedness, had some “saint” eaten and mingled with his entrails, he should breathe out of it Angels; yea, in his prayers he shall assuredly groan and sigh forth particles of God, which particles of the most high and true God should have remained bound in that fig unless they had been set free by the teeth and belly of some “elect saint”!
Book IV
Chapter 1 There, seeking to be purged from these our corruptions by carrying food to those who were called “elect” and “holy,” out of which, in the laboratory of their stomachs, they should make for us Angels and gods, by whom we might be delivered.
Book VI
Chapter 1 For she loved that man as an Angel of God, because she knew that it was by him that I had been brought, for the present, to that perplexing state of agitation I was now in, through which she was fully persuaded that I should pass from sickness unto health, after an excess, as it were, of a sharper fit, which doctors term the “crisis.”
Book VII
Chapter 3 “…If the devil were the author, whence is that devil? And if he also, by his own perverse will, of a good Angel became a devil, whence also was the evil will in him whereby he became a devil, seeing that the Angel was made altogether good by that most Good Creator?”
Chapter 5 And I set in order before the view of my spirit the whole creation, and whatever we can discern in it, such as Earth, sea, air, stars, trees, living creatures; yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all the Angels, too, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof.
Chapter 13 For should I see nothing but these, I should indeed desire better; but yet, if only for these, ought I to praise You; for that You are to be praised is shown from the “Earth, dragons, and all deeps; fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy winds fulfilling Your word; mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl; kings of the Earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the Earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children,” praise Your name. But when, “from the heavens,” these praise You, praise You, our God, “in the heights,” all Your “Angels,” all Your “hosts,” “sun and moon,” all you stars and light, “the heavens of heavens,” and the “waters that be above the heavens,” praise Your name.
Book VIII
Chapter 2 But after that, from reading and inquiry, he had derived strength, and feared lest he should be denied by Christ before the holy Angels if he now was afraid to confess Him before men, and appeared to himself guilty of a great fault in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of Your word.
Chapter 3 And with much joyfulness do we hear, whenever we hear, how the lost sheep is brought home again on the Shepherd’s shoulders, while the Angels rejoice, and the drachma is restored to Your treasury…For You rejoice both in us and in Your Angels, holy through holy charity…Is this the fashion of them, and is this all You have allotted to them, whereas from the highest heaven to the lowest Earth, from the beginning of the world to its end, from the Angel to the worm, from the first movement unto the last.
Book IX
Chapter 10 If, having uttered this, they now should be silenced, having only quickened our ears to Him who created them, and He alone speak not by them, but by Himself, that we may hear His word, not by fleshly tongue, nor Angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a similitude.
Book X
Chapter 42 Whom could I find to reconcile me to You? Was I to solicit the Angels? By what prayer?…For they, being exalted, sought You by the pride of learning, thrusting themselves forward rather than beating their breasts, and so by correspondence of heart drew unto themselves the princes of the air, the conspirators and companions in pride, by whom, through the power of magic, they were deceived, seeking a mediator by whom they might be cleansed; but none was there. For the devil it was, transforming himself into an Angel of light.
Book XII
Chapter 27 Have pity, O Lord God, lest they who pass by trample on the unfledged bird; and send Your Angel, who may restore it to its nest that it may live until it can fly.
Book XIII
Chapter 8 The Angels fell, the soul of man fell and they have thus indicated the abyss in that dark deep, ready for the whole spiritual creation, unless You had said from the beginning, “Let there be light,” and there had been light, and every obedient intelligence of Your celestial City had cleaved to You, and rested in Your Spirit, which unchangeably is “borne over” everything changeable.
In the next segment, we will consider more on Angels in Augustine of Hippo.
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