A Word about Angels

Not to satisfy empty curiosity or inquisitiveness, but solely for the purpose of our salvation, the word about Angels is offered here. The Angels are in constant, tireless concern for our fate: the Angels of Light make every effort so that during our earthly journey we prepare and earn eternal bliss for ourselves; and the angels of darkness are using every effort to drag us with them into the abyss of hell. A fierce and continuous war is taking place on earth: on the one hand, the Holy Angels and pious Orthodox Christians are fighting, and on the other, the angels of darkness and the people who submit to them. The subject of the battle is the eternal fate of people in the afterlife and true Christianity on earth, the only means by which eternal bliss in heaven is delivered to man. The most essential necessity, the need for salvation, forces every Christian to become acquainted in good time with all accuracy and thoroughness with both the Angels of Light and the Angels of Darkness, in order to attract the holy love and help of the former, and to evade the harmful influence of the latter as much as possible. The word “Angel” is Greek and means messenger. The Angels received this name from their service to the salvation of the human race, for which they are used by the All-Good God and which they perform with holy zeal and love. The Apostle Paul said: “Are not all souls of service sent into service for those who want to inherit salvation?” (Heb. 1:14). So “the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee, whose name is Nazareth” (Luke 1:26) to the Blessed Virgin Mary to announce to Her that She was chosen to be the Mother of the Word of God, who accepts humanity for the redemption of humanity. So, the Angel of the Lord at night opened the doors of the prison in which the twelve apostles were imprisoned by envious Jews, and, bringing them out, said: “Go and speak to the people in the church all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20), that is, the teachings of Christ, which is life. Another time, an Angel brought the Apostle Peter out of prison, who had been thrown there by the wicked King Herod, who had already killed the Apostle James Zebedee and wanted to amuse the murderous Jewish people with a second execution that was pleasant for him. The Apostle, miraculously delivered from prison, convinced that he saw not a vision, but the deed itself, said: “Now truly we know that God has sent His angel, and has taken me out of the hand of Herod and from all the hope of the people of the Jews” (Acts 12:11). However, the ministry of the Angels does not consist in promoting the salvation of the human race alone: ​​but from this ministry they received their name among people, and this name was given to them by the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures. The time of the creation of Angels is not defined definitively in the Holy Scriptures; but, according to the teaching generally accepted by the Holy Church, the creation of Angels preceded the creation of the material world and man 1 . Angels are created out of nothing. Suddenly seeing ourselves created in wonderful grace and bliss; what gratitude, reverence and love they felt for the Creator, who together gave them existence and spiritual pleasure! Their continuous occupation became contemplation and praise of the Creator. The Lord Himself said about them: “When the stars were created, you My angels praised Me with a great voice” (Job 38:7). These words of Holy Scripture most clearly prove that the Angels were created before the world we see and, being present at its creation, glorified the wisdom and power of the Creator. They were created, like the visible world, by the Word of God: “By this,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether they were thrones, whether they were dominions, whether they were principalities, whether they were powers: by Him all things were created” (Col. 1:16) 2. Here the Apostle, by the name of thrones, dominions, principalities and authorities, means the various ranks of Angels. The Holy Church recognizes three such ranks; Each rank, or hierarchy, consists of three ranks. The first hierarchy consists of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; the second - Dominance, Strength and Authority; the third – Principalities, Archangels and Angels. The doctrine of this division of Angels was set forth by Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of the Holy Apostle Paul, who, as we have seen, names some ranks in his writings. Those closest to the Throne of God are the six-winged Seraphim, as the prophet Saint Isaiah saw in his vision. “I saw,” he says, “the Lord sitting on the throne, high and exalted, and the house of His glory was filled. And the Seraphim standing around Him, six shouted to one, and six shouted to another: and two covered their faces, two covered their feet, and two flew. And I cried out to each other and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Hosts: fill the whole earth with His glory” (Isa. 6:1-3). According to the Seraphim, the God-wise, many-eyed Cherubim stand before the Throne of God, then the Thrones and, in order, the other angelic ranks. The Angels stand before the Throne of God with great reverent fear, which is poured into them by the incomprehensible greatness of the Divine, not with the fear that repentant sinners feel and which is taken away by love, but with the fear that endures throughout the ages and constitutes one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit - the fear with which God is terrible for all those around Him. From the unceasing contemplation of the immeasurable greatness of God, they are in an unceasing blissful frenzy and rapture and express it with unceasing praise. They burn with love for God and in self-forgetfulness, in which they exist in God, and no longer in themselves, they find inexhaustible and endless pleasure. In accordance with their ranks, they are endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The spirit of advice and strength. The Spirit of the Fear of God. This variety of spiritual gifts and different degrees of perfection do not at all produce competition or envy in the Holy Angels: no! They have one will, as Saint Arsenius the Great said, and they are all filled with gracious consolation in God and do not feel any lack. According to this grace-filled unity of will, the Holy Angels of the lower ranks with love and jealousy show obedience to the Angels of the highest ranks, knowing that this obedience is obedience to the will of God. “We clearly see,” says Saint Demetrius of Rostov, “in the book of the prophet Zechariah, that while the Angel was talking with the Prophet, another Angel came out to meet this Angel, commanding him to go to the Prophet and announce what was to happen to Jerusalem. We also read in Daniel’s prophecy that the Angel commands the Angel to interpret the vision to the Prophet” 3 . “What was the cause of our fall and death,” say Saints Callistus and Ignatius, “while at first we were not created as such? And what, on the contrary, became the cause of our renewal and immortality? – We find the cause of the first, i.e. corruption, self-belief, selfishness and disobedience of the first Adam, from which followed the rejection and transgression of the Divine commandment; the reason for the second, that is, incorruption, is one-will and obedience to God the Father of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, the second Adam, from whom is the observance of the Father’s commandments. “I,” says the Savior, “said not of Himself: but the Father hath sent Me, He gave Me commandment, whatever I should speak, and whatever I should speak. Just as in the forefather and those who followed him, the root and mother of all sadness was exaltation: so in the New Adam, the God-Man Jesus Christ, and in those who wish to live according to Him, the beginning, source and foundation of all good things is humility. We see that this is the standing and rank that is observed by the sacred rank of all God-like Angels, which is higher than us” 4. In general, all Angels are sometimes called the Heavenly Forces and the Heavenly Host. The Leader of the Heavenly Host is the Archangel Michael, who belongs to the seven spirits who stand before God. These seven Angels are: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Salafiel, Uriel, Jehudiel and Barachiel: These seven spirits are sometimes called Angels, sometimes Archangels; Saint Demetrius of Rostov classifies them as the rank of Seraphim 5. Angels were created in the image and likeness of God, just as man was subsequently created 6 . The image of God, as in man, lies in the mind, from which it is born and in which thought is contained, and from which comes the spirit, which promotes thought and animates it. This image, like the Prototype, is invisible, just as it is invisible in people. He controls the whole being in the Angel as well as in man. Angels are creatures limited by time and space, therefore, having their own external appearance. Only nothing and an infinite being can be formless: an infinite being is formless because, having no limit in any direction, it cannot have any outline; and nothing is formless, as having no being and no properties. On the contrary, all limited beings, the greatest and the smallest, no matter how subtle, have their limits. These limits, or ends of a being, constitute its outline, and where there is an outline, there is certainly a view, even if we do not see it with our crude eyes. We do not see the limit of gases and most of the vapors, but these limits certainly exist, because gases and vapors cannot occupy infinite space, they occupy a certain space, corresponding to their elasticity, that is, the ability to expand and contract. God alone is formless, as an infinite being. In relation to us, Angels are called disembodied and spirits. But we, humans, in our state of fall, cannot in any way be taken as a basis for forming correct concepts about the visible and invisible world. We are not what we were created to be; and again renewed by repentance, we become different from what we are in an ordinary passionate state. We are an unstable and incorrect measure. But it is precisely by this measure that Angels are called incorporeal, immaterial, spirits. “An Angel is called incorporeal and immaterial,” says Saint John of Damascus, “in comparison with us. For everything in comparison with God, the only incomparable one, turns out to be crude and material. The Divinity alone, in the precise sense, is immaterial and incorporeal” 7. Angels, as St. Macarius the Great of Egypt teaches, are subtle bodies and have the appearance of an outer man, 8 that is, all his members. This is how all the saints who were privileged to see Angels and talk with them describe them. To Saint Andrew, the holy fool for Christ's sake, during his ascension to heaven, the angel who led him gave his hand twice 9 . The Monk Theodora saw two Angels who came to her at the hour of her death, in the form of two beautiful young men, she saw them with golden hair 10. The Holy Scripture depicts the Angels who appeared everywhere in human form. In the form of husbands, they appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre (Gen. 1:18); in the same way they appeared to Lot in Sodom (Gen. 19, 1, 10, 16–17). When the Sodomites surrounded Lot's house and wanted to knock down the doors, they "stretched out the hands of men," says Scripture, "drawing Lot into the church and closing the doors of the church." Then, when Lot and his family were slowing down the exit from Sodom, “taking Angeli by the hand, and by the hand of his wife, and by the hands of his two daughters... I brought him out.” When Moses was returning from the land of Midian to Egypt to free the Israelites from working for Pharaoh, an Angel of the Lord met him on the way to the camp and wanted to kill him. Zipporah, the wife of Moses, realizing that the reason for this was the uncircumcision of her son, immediately performed the ritual and, falling “at the feet” of the Angel, said: “One hundred is the blood of my son’s circumcision. And the Angel departed from him” (Ex. 4:24–26). An Angel appeared with a sword in his hand to prevent the false prophet Balaam from going to a conference with Balak, the enemy of the Israelites. Balaam rode on a donkey; he was accompanied by two slaves. The donkey saw an angel standing in the way, and a naked sword in his hand - and the donkey turned away from the road into the field. Balaam began to beat the donkey with his rod and send it onto the road. The angel changed his place and stood between two vineyards, the fences of which came very close. Seeing the Angel of God, the donkey pressed himself against the fence, pressed Balaam’s leg against it, and Balaam again began to beat him. The angel again changed his place and stood in such a place from which it was impossible to turn either to the right or to the left. The donkey, seeing the Angel in front of him, fell near Valaam. The angry false prophet brutally beat the donkey and, by the wave of God, the donkey was caught in his cruelty. God opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw an Angel with a drawn sword in his hand and fell on his face before him (Num. 22:22–35). Joshua, the leader of the people of Israel, who led them into the promised land, being near Jericho, suddenly saw a man standing in front of him, and his naked sword was in his hand. Jesus approached him and asked: “Are you ours or one of our fellows? He said to him: I am the Archangel of the might of the Lord, now I have come” (Joshua 5:13–14). The Angel who appeared to Gideon was in the form of a man with a rod in his hand, and only after the Angel performed a miracle, after which the Angel became invisible, did Gideon know that the Angel who had appeared to him was (Judges 6). An Angel appeared in human form to the wife of Manoah, the mother of the strong Sampson. So she told her husband about the phenomenon that had happened to her: “The man of God came to me, and his image, like the image of an Angel of God, was extremely terrible. And I asked him, where are you from? And don’t tell me your name.” The angel appeared a second time to the wife; she invited her husband. The husband came and asked the Angel: “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” Manoah wanted to offer him a meal because he did not know, says Scripture, “like the Angel of the Lord.” The spouses recognized him during the sacrifice, when the flame of the sacrifice rose from the altar even to heaven and an Angel ascended from them in this flame (Judges 13). The Holy Prophet Daniel calls the Angel Gabriel who appeared to him “man” (Dan. 9:21). In another vision, the Prophet says: “And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, one man was clothed in a linen robe, and his loins were girded with bright gold. His body is like Tarshish, his face is like the vision of lightning, his eyes are like lights of fire, and his muscles and legs are like the appearance of shining bronze, and the voice of his words is like the voice of the people” (Dan. 10:5-6). According to the explanation of the holy fathers, this man was the same Angel Gabriel 11. On the day of the Resurrection of Christ, early in the morning the myrrh-bearing wives came to the tomb and entered the tomb, which consisted of a cave carved into a stone mountain, they saw there two men “in shining robes,” according to the narration of the holy Evangelist Luke (Luke 24:4); The Holy Evangelist John calls these men Angels (John 20:12). During the Ascension of Christ, those who appeared To the apostles, two men in white robes were, in the opinion of St. John Chrysostom and the entire Church, holy Angels (Acts 1:10). To the saints of God of the New Testament, Angels always appeared in human form. And why should the holy Heavenly Powers not have an outward image of a human, when God the Word Himself deigned, having become man, to accept this image and, having ascended it to heaven, placed it on it. the highest Throne of the Divinity at the right hand of the Father for the worship of all the holy Angels? From the above passages of Holy Scripture, the reason why the Angels are hidden from human sight lies not so much in the inability of human eyes to see the incorporeal, but in our fall. Scripture directly says that God opened the eyes of the false prophet Balaam, and he saw an Angel; By the wave of God, Balaam’s donkey also saw him. The enemies of the Israelites once surrounded the city in which the great prophet Elisha lived. His servant left the house early and, seeing that the army with cavalry and chariots surrounded the city, fell into fear and, returning to the Prophet, said to him: “O lord, what shall we do? And Elisha said: Do not be afraid, for there are more who are with us than with them. And Elisha prayed and said: Lord, open now the eyes of the child, that he may see. And the Lord opened his eyes, and saw: and behold, a mountain full of horses, and a chariot of fire round about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15–17). At the word of Saint Andrew, the eyes of the money lover were opened, and he saw the Angel of Darkness. In a word, a careful study of the Holy Scriptures, the Scriptures of the Fathers and the Acts clearly proves to us that the state of the fall made us unable to see the Angels, that the world of spirits was opened to those of the Holy Fathers who achieved the highest perfection and who could no longer be deceived by the Angels of darkness. Such were Anthony the Great, Macarius of Egypt and Alexandria, Niphon, Bishop of Caesarea and other greatest fathers, who primarily achieved extreme purity through a long and thorough monastic life. A certain elder came to the cell of John Kolov and found him sleeping, and an Angel was blowing over him. The elder saw this and left. John, when he arose from sleep, asked his disciple: Did anyone come here while I was sleeping? He answered, such and such an old man came. And Abba John realized that the elder had reached his measure and saw the Angel 12. So, the achievement of a high measure of purity and holiness was recognized by the great saint of God as the reason for the vision of the Angel. Saint Macarius the Great teaches that few Christians achieve the vision of souls and Angels, 13 which, however, does not prevent these Christians from being saints: why some of the saints once in their lives or very rarely were vouchsafed visions of Angels, while others throughout their lives were not vouchsafed to see them, although their minds were partially or completely open to the understanding of the Scriptures. By the special Providence of God, people of very ordinary life, and even vicious ones, like the false prophet Balaam, saw Angels. It is very likely that before the fall Adam and Eve were in communication with the Angels of Light and talked with them; this communication with Angels was returned to humanity by the Redeemer, and all Christians, especially those living a pious life, are in communication with them with good thoughts and feelings, and, completely purified, they see them. After death and the general resurrection, all Christians, who have been granted blessed eternity, enter into close communication with them and see them: because people with their souls and glorified immortal bodies will be similar and equal to the Angels according to the testimony of the Gospel. For people to see Angels, a change in people is necessary: ​​this change, or transformation, is by no means necessary for Angels. In the next century, after the resurrection of the dead, people “are like the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), “for they are like angels, and they are sons of the resurrection of God” (Luke 20:36). From these words of the Savior and other testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, it is clear that the seat of the Angels is heaven, and especially the third heaven, where the highest of them stand before the Throne of God, surrounded, moreover, by a countless heavenly army (Isa. 6, Rev. 4 and 5 ch.). But not all Angels retained their primitive dignity in which they were created by God: many of them fell, and we know them under the terrible name of Satan, devils, demons, demons, angels of darkness and fallen angels. Before the fall of man, the fall of the fallen angels took place: our forefathers were still in paradise, and the fallen angels, cast out from heaven, were already wandering in heaven as exiles and dark demons. Their crime in heaven was rebellion against God. The instigator of this indignation was one of the most beautiful Cherubim, especially abounding in the gifts of God. While mourning his fall through the action of the Holy Spirit, the prophet Isaiah also shows the reason for his fall. “How did the morning star fall from heaven and rise in the morning? Broken upon the earth, send your tongue to everyone. You said in your mind: I will ascend to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on the highest mountain, on the high mountains even to the north: I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Now you will descend into hell and into the foundations of the earth" (Isaiah 14:12–14) According to the text cited by the Monk Cassian, the words of the prophet can be explained as follows: - How did you fall from the sky, Light-bringer (Lucifer), early riser? You have fallen to the earth, you who have wounded the nations and said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mountain of the covenant on the wings of Aquilon (the north wind), I will ascend above the breadth of the clouds and I will be like the Most High. 14 The lament commanded by God to the prophet Ezekiel over the prince of Tyre, who in our Bible is likened to Cherubim, and in the text cited by the Monk Cassian is directly called Cherubim, is attributed by Saints Andrew of Crete and Cassian 15 to the main fallen angel. But the very meaning of the text forces us to attribute the inspired cry of the Prophet to it. “The word of the Lord came to me,” says the Prophet, “saying: Son of man, weep against the prince of Thirsk, and say to him: This says Adonai the Lord: you are the seal of likeness, filled with wisdom and the crown of kindness. You were in the sweetness of God's paradise, you were adorned with every precious stone... and you filled your treasures and your barns with gold, from the waste of the day you were created. You, who joined you with the Cherub in the mountain of the holy saints of God, were in the midst of the fiery stones. Thou art blameless in thy days; thou didst create it out of a wicked day, until unrighteousness arose in thee. From the multitude of your purchases you filled your treasures with iniquity, and you sinned, and you were wounded by the mountain of God: and the Cherubs overshadowed you from the midst of the fiery Kamyks. 16 Thy heart is exalted in thy kindness, thy cunning is destroyed with thy kindness: for the multitude of thy sins I cast thee down to the earth, and gave thee before the kings for reproof. For the sake of your sins and iniquities, you have profaned your holy purchases” (Ezek. 28:11-18). These words of the Prophet cannot in any way be attributed to the earthly prince of Tire: Tire was founded by idolaters and was constantly in wickedness, therefore, its prince could never be a seal of likeness, a crown of righteousness, could not in any way be placed in paradise and placed in the Cherubim. That the Lord commands the Prophet to lament for a fallen angel is not at all strange: the All-Good Lord reveals to us in the commandment of this lament His great mercy and compassion for His lost creation. And a person, when, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, feels in his soul the abundance of supernatural grace-filled mercy, he cannot help but sympathize with all creation that has undergone the fall and languishes in it, not excluding the very bitter enemies of the human race, the demons. Seduced and carried away by conceit and pride, the Cherub deceived and carried away with him a great multitude of angels, among whom many were from the highest ranks. The Apostle mentions between the spirits of evil the fallen authorities and the beginning. Archangel Michael confronted the indignant Satan, who arbitrarily became the parent and leader of evil. “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels made war with the serpent. And the serpent and his angels. And they were not able, and no place was found for them in heaven” (Apoc. 12:7,8). “And his trunk tore away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw me into the ground” (Apoc. 12:4). The number of followers of the rebel was so significant that Scripture, which here likens angels to the stars of heaven, recognizes that a third of these heavenly bodies were carried away by the trunk of the serpent, that is, by consent and obedience to him. Then, at the behest of God, Satan and his followers fell from heaven, and the holy Angels, who remained faithful to God, were confirmed by the grace of God in good and became completely inflexible to evil, which they had not previously had. Since that time, the war between the Angels of light and the angels of darkness has not subsided, because these latter, in their fierce stubbornness, have not ceased to quarrel and arm themselves against God. The fall of the devil from heaven was instantaneous and rapid: “I saw,” says the Eternal Word, “Satan falling like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18); but this speed of fall did not reveal to him his powerlessness and the omnipotence of God - so deeply he darkened and fell in himself. Deprived of the grace of God, he did not preserve his own nature intact, it was terrible damaged - he was so damaged that Scripture ranked him among the beasts, and from the names of beasts he added the name of the most evil and crafty beast - the serpent. This name is given to him both in the Old and New Testaments (Gen. 3ff; Apoc. 12:9). helpers in the kingdom of darkness and evil. The variety of natural abilities found in the Angels of Light remained in the fallen angels; but since all their abilities are directed towards evil, then greater abilities are the conditions for greater evil. Therefore, we see from the lives of the holy fathers that among the demons, in addition to the supreme ruler, there are princes, there are subordinate demons, there are more and less powerful ones, there are more or less evil ones. The various names of the fallen angel have the following meanings: “Satan” is a Hebrew word, meaning enemy, adversary; the Greek word “Devil” has the same meaning; “demon” is a Greek word that means mind, spirit, genius, but is used solely to mean a fallen angel. All these words are equivalent to the Russian word “demon”. The angels of darkness cast down from Heaven placed themselves in the heavenly realm, which in the Holy Scriptures and in the Holy Fathers is also called air: therefore, the inhabitants of this space are called spirits, powers, and princes of the air. The chief of the fallen angels was not content with his first fall: he added a second to it, after which his condition changed even more, and he became an angel, completely rejected, completely alien to all good and all hope of returning to good. While he, carrying within himself a terrible emptiness of despondency and darkness, formed by the retreat of God’s grace, wandered with hordes of his demons in the celestial desert, the pristine couple of people enjoyed bliss in paradise. The ineffable mercy of God allowed the fallen angel to enter paradise, probably so that, having seen the bliss of the newly created creatures, he would come to his senses, and, seeing how convenient it was for the Creator to replace with a new elegant verbal creature that creature that had become arbitrarily obscene, he would come to the consciousness of his sin and repentance. Then the fallen angel was not yet completely hopeless. The opposite happened when the devil visited heaven. He became infected with terrible envy of the newly created people, and used his access to paradise to extract our forefathers from paradise and add them as a future tribe to the numerous host of his demons. The devil succeeded in his intention and persuaded people to reject obedience to God and submit to his murderer. This new name was assigned to him by the Holy Scriptures: because man, having disobeyed God, immediately lost Divine grace and died in soul. In this situation he could not remain a resident of paradise; cast out of him to the earth, cursed for the sake of his sin, he submitted to the devil and began to give birth to people who had already been killed in their souls, already subordinated to the devil in advance: Terrible is the punishment to which men were subjected in Adam! But even more terrible is the punishment to which the murderer, the fallen angel, was subjected. The hope of salvation is left to a person, as if he were deceived and deceived, as if he recognized his sin immediately after committing it; This hope was taken away from the devil as a deliberate and bitter villain (Gen. 3:1-15). The first part of God’s definition of the devil reduces him to a level lower than all dumb animals, and takes away from him every sublime thought that leads a verbal creature to the consciousness of his destiny. All the forces of his being were henceforth directed towards one evil, one temporary criminal success: the thought of his fall is alien to him, he is proud of his condition, he rejoices in his atrocities, insatiably adds new ones to the previous ones, does not stop at any crime, thirsts for human destruction, succeeds in enmity against God and in blasphemy, is vain and proud of them. The entire host of demons shares his condition with him and, having rejected the true King of God, recognizes him as their complete ruler. The second half of the saying no less strikes the proud dark spirit: the one who dreamed of being equal to God hears that the seed of the overthrown man, already despised by the devil of man, will guard his head and erase it, that his victory over man, contrary to how he dreamed, has not yet been accomplished, but enmity is established between him and the seed of the woman, enmity and warfare. In the prediction of this battle, all conditions of victory are tilted in favor of man; but the devil is also given a way to gain victory - guarding the heel of man. The earthly serpent, under whose image the devil deceived people, before our material eyes resembles the curse pronounced by God on the ancient serpent: the New Testament called the devil an ancient serpent, in contrast to the earthly serpents, which are so often replaced by death from the surface of the earth. The ancient serpent still remains indispensable; to replace his own and eternal death, he awaits the Second Coming of Christ. Since the fall of man, the history of his spiritual activity has been connected with the history of the spiritual activity of the Angels of Light and the fallen angels: the cause of their struggle and incessant warfare has become man, who is left, so to speak, between the hope of salvation for the holy Angels and the hope of destruction for the fallen angels. The Holy Angels, by the command of God, guarded humanity destined for redemption, and especially those people who had true knowledge of God. Archangel Michael was entrusted with the chosen people of God, the Israelites, and he was called the prince of this people (Dan. 10:21). He, in this duty, fought alongside the Archangel Gabriel against the Prince of the Persians, who was apparently one of the highest fallen angels and was restoring the idolatrous Persian people against the people of God. The battle that began in heaven continued. The same can be seen from the book of the Righteous Tobit. Archangel Raphael was sent by God to deliver the pious Tobit family from the poverty and disasters into which it had fallen, and to establish its well-being. He appeared to these pious Israelites, captives in Nineveh, in the form of a youth, calling himself Azariah; then he accompanied Tobit’s son Tobias to the capital city of Media, Equatana, where their relative Raguel was located. The angel helped Tobias get back the money loaned by his father to the Israeli Gabael, and arranged the marriage of Tobias with the virtuous Sarah, the only daughter of the rich and pious Raguel. Sarah and her parents were also in great distress. Seven times they gave their daughter in marriage; but the demon, clinging to the girl, killed her husband on the first night, and she was already a widow seven times. This situation was a great disaster, because celibacy and infertility were considered dishonor in the Old Testament, when the promise of God that the seed of the woman would erase the head of the serpent had not yet been fulfilled, and when virginity, subsequently sanctified by the God-Man and the Mother of God, had not yet become for both sexes a state far exceeding the marital state. Raphael provided Tobias with a means to drive away the demon, who fled to upper Egypt: an angel bound the demon. The conversation in which Raphael revealed himself to the benefited father and son, who wanted to reward the virtuous young man Azariah, is instructive. We place it here as an explanatory aid and assistance of the holy Angels to pious people. “Bless God and confess to Him,” said the God-wise Raphael, “and give Him greatness, and confess to Him before all the living about what He has done to you. It is good to bless God and exalt His name, piously speaking the words of God’s deeds: and do not be lazy to confess to Him. It is good that keeps the king’s secret, but it is glorious to reveal the works of God. Do good, and evil will not come to you. Prayer with fasting and almsgiving and righteousness is good. A little with righteousness is better than a lot with untruth. It is better to give alms than to hoard gold. For alms delivers from death, and melting cleanses all sin. Those who do alms and righteousness will be filled with life. Those who sin, attack the essence of your belly. I will not hide any word from you; rekh bo: keep the secret of the king well, but reveal the works of God gloriously: And now, when you and your daughter-in-law Sarah prayed, I offered the memory of your prayer before the Holy One: and when you buried the dead, like those present to you. And when you were not lazy to rise up and leave your dinner, and having gone away, having covered the dead, you did not hide from doing me good, but was with you. And now God has sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy Angels, who offer the prayers of the saints and enter before the glory of the Holy One.” And Tobit and Tobiah were confused and afraid; they fell on their faces in fear. Raphael told them: “Do not be afraid, for there will be peace for you. Bless God forever; for he came not by his own grace, but by the will of our God: for this sake bless Him forever. All the days I appeared to you, and I didn’t die, I didn’t eat, but you saw the vision. And now confess to God, I will first ascend to him who sent me, and write everything that has happened in a book.” They stood up and no longer saw him in front of them (Tov. 12:6-21). The Holy Apostle Jude testifies that the Archangel Michael argued with the devil about the body of the prophet Moses, and at the same time did not dare to pronounce condemnation and reproaches on him, but said to him: “The Lord rebuke you” (Jude 1:9). From these words of Archangel Michael and the above mentioned Archangel Raphael, it is clear that the weapon of the Angels of Light in their fight against the angels of darkness is the same thing that people use to fight against their invisible enemies: it is God. “The weapons of our army,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “are not carnal, but mighty through God to destroy the stronghold” (2 Cor. 10:4). The righteous of the Old Testament at all times believed in the assistance of the holy Angels. The father of believers, the holy patriarch Abraham, sending his servant to Mesopotamia to find a worthy wife for his son Isaac, said: “The Lord God of the heavens and the God of the earth, who brought me from my father’s house, and from the land in which he was born, who swore to me and who swore to me, saying: I will give you this land and to your seed, he will send his angel before you” (Gen. 24, 7). Righteous Abraham's equally righteous grandson, Patriarch Jacob, prophetically blessing Joseph's two sons, said: “The angel who delivers me from all evils, bless these children” (Gen. 48:16). An angel of God stood between the Israelites and the Egyptian army and shielded them from him (Ex. 14:19). “Behold,” the Lord proclaims to the people of Israel, “I will send My Angel before you, that He may protect you on the way” (Exodus 23:20). “The Angel of the Lord,” sang the holy prophet David, “will encamp around those who fear him, and will deliver them” (Ps. 33:8). The Prophet also sang of the war of the Angels of Light with the angels of darkness, who they try to corrupt and destroy a person, instilling in him the most nasty and sinful thoughts and advice, so terribly painful for the soul. “Let them be ashamed,” he said, “and let those who seek my soul be ashamed; crawling, and the Angel of the Lord chased them away” (Ps. 34:4-7). Just as the holy Angels, after the fall of the first man, sympathized with him and his tribe and tried to help humanity suffering in its fall, so, on the contrary, the demons tried to strengthen this fall, to harm by all possible means every pious person in particular and all of humanity in general. They had the right to do so; the man submitted to them voluntarily. “The enemy who deceived Adam, and thus assumed dominance over him,” says Saint Macarius the Great, “deprived him of all power, and declared him the prince of this age. At first, man was appointed by God as the prince of the age and the lord of everything visible” 17. Hence the devil is also called the ruler of the world, i.e. the ruler of that world which is hostile to God and which we are commanded not to love. “The King of Darkness, the ruler of the world, having captured a man who voluntarily surrendered to him and stood in the ranks of God’s opponents, clothed and surrounded, according to the teachings of Saint Macarius the Great, the whole soul with the bonds of darkness or his power, just as a person is clothed from head to toe with some kind of clothing.” He clothed it all in sin, desecrated it all, subjugated it all to himself. And the mind, and thoughts, and the heart with its sensations, and the flesh with its feelings, captivated everything and captured it under its power. The devil, having plunged man into terrible disaster - then a newly created creature, could not do anything to the Creator, Who, as Self-Perfection, is not subject to the slightest influence from the terrible revolutions taking place in creation. The devil remained, as he was, a creature in the full power of the Creator, Who, due to His unknown destinies, did not destroy him and his host, but left them in their fall and has long-suffered for them to this day. The devil has become an instrument of the Creator, against Whom he imagines arming himself and fighting, and in his blindness he promotes evil with good intentions. And for people it has become an instrument of testing, by which they are tested and by which the lovers of God are separated from the lovers of sin. The commandment given by God in paradise and prohibiting eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has not been canceled. It stands unshakably, like the commandment of God. A person is constantly tested by it until now. The devil is constantly present (to him) and advises him to taste the forbidden fruit, he is forcibly drawn to this tasting, as if he has received the right to do so - the right from our initial obedience to the devil. He never ceases to turn us around with thoughts of sin and the world, unduly inflaming passions in us. This fiery weapon moves in the hand of the fallen Cherub, and the tree of life - good, unalloyed by evil, becomes inaccessible to us, according to the righteous judgment of God. According to the same righteous judgment of God, the souls of men, separated from their bodies, no matter how righteous they were, descended into hell. Not one of them could penetrate through the realm of demons - the airspace, the heavenly realm - into paradise. Demons kidnapped them as their property and brought them down to the dungeons of the underworld. When, after being expelled from paradise, our forefathers entered the earth, cursed for their crime, a world hostile to God was born, formed and gradually developed, that is, service to the devil appeared. Righteous people began to live on earth as in a country of exile, where they were placed for a time to regain a blessed eternity through repentance; sin lovers began to live in it as in a land of pleasure, not paying any attention to eternity, and then losing any correct concept about it. This false thought of sin lovers is the starting point of serving the devil. And the devil, knowing that the entire condition of his power lies in the acceptance of this thought, tried to support it with all his might. He supports all human abuses with his pride. Taught by the devil and carried away by their own sinfulness, people in everything moved from what was necessary and natural to what was unnecessary and supernatural. Instead of the necessary reinforcement of oneself with food, gluttony and drunkenness appeared, feasts with precious and sumptuous foods and drinks appeared - and now the world is famous for them. Instead of the necessary and legal copulation of the sexes for the continuation of the human race, insatiable lust and fornication appeared, and the world is famous for them. Instead of the necessary clothes and houses, luxurious huge chambers and precious utensils appeared to cover nakedness and protect from the influence of the elements - and the world is proud of them. Conquerors passed through many countries with a murderous sword, shed streams of blood, and this disaster of humanity glorifies the stupid world, blinded by pride. In a word, the world triumphs and celebrates the cruel death of humanity and its submission to the devil. People who distinguished themselves in the prosperity of the world called themselves geniuses and called on their geniuses for help, that is, they entered into communication with demons, and with their help, with their inspiration, they accomplished their woeful success. Finally, the enjoyment of passions seemed to people the supreme bliss; they deified sin and its leader, the devil. Idolatry appeared, in which every sin was represented by an idol, and every sin was worshiped by lost humanity. The prince of the century not only invisibly, with his thoughts, captivated people, but also entered into open communication with them, making prophecies from idols and opening face-to-face communication with desperate villains, such as Jannes and Omri and other wise men and sorcerers. The delusion was supported by false miracles and demonic prophecies. The victory of the Angel of Darkness seemed complete. Our forefathers, expelled from paradise, preserved the true knowledge of God and passed it on to their descendants. They stayed on earth as in a country of exile, treasured in it a single repentance. But then all people gradually began to be carried away by the world, and the number of true worshipers of God decreased extremely, and the religion of the chosen people itself lost its strength, being limited to the fulfillment of external rituals and old age traditions with the abandonment of the commandments of God. With such a false view of the true religion, the Jews, the people chosen by God, came under the domain of the devil and became his children, as the Lord told them: “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). It is obvious: they have become assimilated to the devil, accepting false thoughts from him and loving the world. “You are of your father the devil,” the Lord told them, “and you want to do the lusts of your father. He is a murderer from time immemorial, and does not stand in the truth, there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own: for lies is the father of lies” (John 8:44). Those of the Old Testament worshipers of the true God who wanted to remain faithful to God rejected the thoughts brought by the devil and did not love the world, but spent their earthly life content with what was necessary. Both are described by the inspired David. “Lord,” he sang, “my heart is not exalted, but my eyes are lifted lower: lower do we walk in the great, lower in the wondrous than me” (Ps. 130:1). “Before we even humble ourselves, I have sinned” (Ps. 119:67); “humble yourself and save me” (Ps. 115:5), “I have humbled myself to the point” (Ps. 119:107). “It is good for me, for you have humbled me, so that I may learn through your justification” (Ps. 119:71). “God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19). I have found sorrow and sickness, and I have called on the name of the Lord" (Ps. 114:3). "I will attack me with evil: when he dies, his name will perish" (Ps. 40:6). “All evil things have gone around me, and in the name of the Lord I have resisted them; they cheated me, and in the name of the Lord they resisted them; she passed over me like bees on a honeycomb, and burned like fire among thorns; and in the name of the Lord I resisted them. I turned away from the mouth, and the Lord accepted me. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He will be my salvation” (Ps. 117:10-14). “Depart from me, all you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my cry. The Lord heard my prayer. The Lord accepts my prayer” (Ps. 6:9–10). “Turn my soul to your peace, for the Lord has dealt with you in goodness: for my soul has been taken away from death, my eyes from tears, and my nose from crawling. I will be well-pleasing before the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 114:6-8). It is obvious that Saint David did not allow himself luxury, bodily pleasures and proud exaltation; but, having understood the purpose of earthly life, he pursued it in the fight against sinful, demonic thoughts and undertakings. He armed himself against them, in faith in the coming Redeemer, with humility, weeping, fasting, sackcloth, fervent and prolonged prayers, that is, with such weapons that are completely opposite to the weapons of the devil, who rejects the remembrance of God; He tries to turn the earth, the land of our exile, the land of weeping and repentance, into a land of triumph, festivities, pleasures, grandeur and pomp, so that the defeated man, rejoicing as a winner, would support and aggravate his victory and captivity. By the time of the coming of Christ, the triumph of the angel of darkness over fallen humanity seemed accomplished and dominion strengthened. In his proud blindness, the fallen spirit saw only his present success, paying little attention to the future awaiting him. This is the property of desperate and bitter villains: enjoying the atrocities they commit, they do not think about the punishments that threaten them. All the peoples of the world were immersed in deep ignorance of God; they worshiped the fallen angel through idolatry and a life in accordance with him, and sacrificed themselves entirely to him. One people, small in number and weak in power, to whom was entrusted the preservation of the true knowledge of God and worship of God, observed only a certain form of piety, rejecting its power, not only that, replacing it with secret service to sinful passions, the world and the devil. The image of piety was only a cover for evil and communication with a fallen angel, so mature and complete that it decided on Deicide and committed it. In this most calamitous time of humanity, a time of decisive predominance of demons, that Seed of the woman suddenly appears on earth, which, according to God’s decree, pronounced after the fall of the first people in paradise, was supposed to erase the head of the ancient serpent. When performing the great sacrament - the incarnation of God the Word - the holy Angels are reverent and ardent servants of the sacrament. Archangel Gabriel initially announced to Saint Zechariah that the Forerunner of the Lord John would be born from him; six months after the conception of John, the same Archangel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary the greatest joy for Angels and men - the conception of the God-Man by the Blessed Virgin. An angel appeared in a dream to righteous Joseph, the Betrothed of the Mother of God, announced to him His conception from the Holy Spirit and commanded him to call the Son who was to be born the name Jesus (Matthew 1:20–21). When this longed-for all-holy birth took place in Bethlehem, an Angel announced it to the shepherds, who, not far from this city, spent the night in vigil over their flock. “I bring you great joy,” said the Angel to the pious and humble shepherds, “which will be for all people: for today the Savior, who is Christ the Lord, is born to you in the city of David. And behold, a sign for you: you will find a midwife lying in a manger.” As soon as the Angel uttered these words, a multitude of the heavenly army suddenly appeared, singing the praises of God. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”: these words consisted of the Angel’s song (Luke 2:8–14). An angel commanded Joseph to flee with the newborn God-Infant and the Mother of God to Egypt from the murderous plans of Herod; An angel informed the holy Betrothed of the death of Herod, commanded him to return to Judea and settle in Nazareth, a small and humble city of Galilee (Matthew 2:19–20). During the Lord's presence in the flesh on earth, the Angels of God ascended and descended to the Son of God, serving Him (1 John 1:51). With terrible bitterness, the fallen angel rebelled against the incarnate God the Word. The true highest triumph of good was God's perception of humanity, and therefore it was a triumph for the Angels; but for the proud devil, who despised humanity defeated and captured by him, the union of humanity with the Divine was an unbearable blow. He armed himself against the God-man both personally and through instruments, i.e. through submissive people. He dared to appear before the Lord and tempt Him with gluttony, vanity and temporary goods, and even dared to demand worship from Him. The casting out of demons and the great miracles performed by the Lord proved to him the incarnation of the Son of God; the demons subordinate to him openly confessed this; but anger completely darkened him and carried him away to the greatest crime. He poured his poison into the hearts of the Jews, whom the Holy Spirit rightly called a host of Satan, taught them to reject, persecute and put to shame the God-Man; he taught the unfortunate Judas to betray his Teacher and Lord. But the Lord, by death on the cross, satisfied the justice of God for the sins of mankind, redeemed it from the captivity of sin and thus overthrew the fallen Angel from his dominion, acquired by him by being carried away into obedience to himself and the sin of our forefathers. “Now is judgment for this world,” said the Lord before His suffering, “now the prince of this world will be cast out. And if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. And these things he said, signifying by which death he would die” (John 12:31–33). The Prince of Peace, the ruler of the world, was overthrown from his dominion. Theology of St. John of Damascus and St. Cassian. Collatio VIII, p. 7, also Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Ambrose of Milan, Demetrius of Rostov. See Chronicle and Chetya Menaion on November 8. borrowed from the above chapter of St. Cassian. Philokalia, 2nd part, St. Callistai Ignatius, chapter 15. John of Damascus. Theology. Saint Demetrius in the Chronicler. Theology of Saint John of Damascus. Conversations by Rev. Macarius the Great 4th and 7th. Rev. Cassian Collatio VIII, caput XIII Rev. Cassian, Collatio VIII, caput 8. St. Andrew of Caesarea Sermon 12th interpretation on the Apocalypse and St. Cassian Collatio VIII, caput 8. Verses 14, 15 and 16 are read by Rev. Cassian thus: You are a Cherub, stretched out and covering, and I placed you in the holy mountain of God, you walked among the fiery stones, perfect in your ways, from the day you were created, until iniquity was found in you. With the multitude of your purchase your bowels were filled with unrighteousness, and you sinned, and I cast you down from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, in the midst of the fiery stones. Collatio VIII, caput. 8. By the name of fire stones, Saint Andrew of Caesarea means other heavenly angelic powers. Word 12 interpretation of the Apocalypse. You might be interested in: