Herein we continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, part , part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, considering 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 City of God, Book XIII-XV.
Book XIII
Chapter 1 For God had not made man like the Angels, in such a condition that, even though they had sinned, they could none the more die. He had so made them, that if they discharged the obligations of obedience, an Angelic immortality and a blessed eternity might ensue, without the intervention of death; but if they disobeyed, death should be visited on them with just sentence— which, too, has been spoken to in the preceding book.
Chapter 18 If the Angels transport whatever terrestrial creatures they please from any place they please, and convey them whither they please, is it to be believed that they cannot do so without toil and the feeling of burden?
Chapter 22 For so also was it with the Angels who presented themselves to the eye and touch of men, not because they could do no otherwise, but because they were able and desirous to suit themselves to men by a kind of manhood ministry. For neither are we to suppose, when men receive them as guests, that the Angels eat only in appearance, though to any who did not know them to be Angels they might seem to eat from the same necessity as ourselves. So these words spoken in the Book of Tobit, “You saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision;” that is, you thought I took food as you do for the sake of refreshing my body. But if in the case of the Angels another opinion seems more capable of defence, certainly our faith leaves no room to doubt regarding our Lord Himself.
Chapter 24 So, too, the rebellious Angels, though by sinning they did in a sense die, because they forsook God, the Fountain of life, which while they drank they were able to live wisely and well, yet they could not so die as to utterly cease living and feeling, for they are immortals by creation…But those men who have been embraced by God’s grace, and have become the fellow citizens of the holy Angels who have continued in bliss, shall never more either sin or die, being endued with spiritual bodies; yet, being clothed with immortality, such as the Angels enjoy, of which they cannot be divested even by sinning, the nature of their flesh shall continue the same, but all carnal corruption and unwieldiness shall be removed.
Book XIV
Chapter 4 When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil. Because not even an Angel might live according to an Angel, but only according to God, if he was to abide in the truth, and speak God’s truth and not his own lie.
Chapter 8 But ordinary phraseology would not have allowed the saying, “Be unwilling to make any manner of lie,” had there not been also an evil will, whose wickedness separates if from that which the Angels celebrated, “Peace on Earth, of good will to men.”
Book XV
Chapter 1 At present, as we have said enough about their origin, whether among the Angels, whose numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the time when our two first parents began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease.
Chapter 22 For in the same Scripture in which the sons of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also called Angels of God; whence many suppose that they were not men but Angels.
Chapter 23 In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether Angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who makes His Angels spirits,” that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His Angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “Angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God’s ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that Angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched…I could by no means believe that God’s holy Angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, “For if God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly men have been called Angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger (Angel) before Your face, who shall prepare Your way.” And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an Angel. But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those who are called Angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature…Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called Angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain…
they as God’s Angels would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God is the Father. But that those Angels were not Angels in the sense of not being men, as some suppose, Scripture itself decides, which unambiguously declares that they were men. For when it had first been stated that “the Angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose,” it was immediately added, “And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh.” For by the Spirit of God they had been made Angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards lower things, they are called men, a name of nature, not of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and by their desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls them both Angels of God and sons of God, though all the copies do not show this, some having only the name sons of God. And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters, has translated neither Angels of God nor sons of God, but sons of gods. But both are correct.
Chapter 26 with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God in that immortal condition in which they equal the Angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in their sojourn in this world—inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family.
In the next segment, we will consider more on Angels in Augustine of Hippo.
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