Monday, September 25, 2006

Fallen Angels


The most famous of all the fallen angels is Satan, meaning “adversary” in Hebrew. A common miss understanding is that Lucifer and Satan is the same angel, Lucifer is the Angel of Light and Beauty who stole the Morning Star.

There are several interpretations on the actual reason for their fall. The most popular account is the pride, envy and vanity of Satan and his refusal to bow to God’s creation, the human being. When God told Satan that his creation, man, would now be permitted into heaven, Satan disagreed and it has been his mission to show God that the human being is not worthy, hence, temptation to all material excesses, including the seven deadly sins.

Satan disobeyed God, and conspired with Lucifer to recruit an army of angels to battle against his Creator. The Arch Angel Michael was called upon to banish these rebellious angels from heaven. Some experts in Angelology claim that a third of all angels fell from grace, cursed to walk the earth until Judgement Day.

It is interesting to note that the discussion of angels was suppressed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages as knowledge of the Fallen One’s would evoke too much evil in the world.

It was Pope Honorius the III, known in certain scholarly circles as the Sorcerer Pope, penned a Grimoire, a book of spells and summoning, that also included the names of every fallen angel. He wrote this Grimoire and required his priests to study it carefully in order to arm them against demons and fallen angels.

It is also fascinating that Satan, in the Book of Job of the Old Testament, is in God’s favour, where they bet that Job, once everything he loves and owns is taken from him including great physical suffering; he would turn away from Him and curse His name. Satan lost the bet.

The reason for these particular “musings” is re-looking at the 19th century artist, Gustave Dore’s incredible illustrations of scenes from Dante’s Inferno, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. There is an excellent drawing of Satan and Beelzubub discussing their insurrection against the Creator.

I spent most of the day contemplating these matters, for reasons unknown to me.

Emotional State: philosophical.

1 comment:

Kitten said...

How I love your philosophical wonderings! Angels, what wonderful Beings they are, especially the Guardian Angels, I speak to mine mine every day>
"Angel Guardian, my Guardian dear,
Thru whose God's Love I am committed here,
Ever this day, be at my side, to light and guard,
To rule and guide,
Amen.