The Angels and Their Offices

The same approach has to be followed when we speak about the angels. We are not to suppose that it is by accident that a particular office falls to a particular angel — to Raphael, for instance, the work of curing and healing; to Gabriel, the conduct of wars; to Michael, the duty of attending to the prayers and petitions people make. We are not to imagine that they came by these offices in any other way than by what they deserved, by the eagerness and the fine qualities each of them showed before this world was made. Afterward, in the order of archangels, this or that office was assigned to each one, while others earned a place in the order of angels, to serve under this or that archangel, or under some leader or head of an order. [a]

All of this was arranged, as I have said, not carelessly and by chance, but by a most fitting and just decision of God, who ranked them according to what they deserved, in keeping with his own approval and judgment. So the church of the Ephesians was to be entrusted to one angel, the church of the Smyrnaeans to another; one angel was to be Peter’s, another Paul’s; and so on down through every one of the little ones who are in the church, since angels who daily look on the face of God must be assigned to each of them. And there must also be some angel who camps around those who fear God. None of this, we may be sure, is to be thought of as done by accident or chance, or because the angels were created that way — on that view the Creator would stand accused of playing favorites. We are to believe instead that these offices were conferred by God, the just and impartial Ruler of all things, in keeping with what each individual spirit deserved, and with its good qualities and its strength of mind.

Now let us say something about those who hold that spiritual natures differ in kind, so that we may not fall into the silly and godless tales told by people who pretend that there is a difference of spiritual nature both among the beings of heaven and among human souls, and who conclude from this that different creators called them into being. It does seem, and truly is, absurd to credit one and the same Creator with making rational beings of different natures; but these people are ignorant of the cause of that difference. What they say is that it looks inconsistent for one and the same Creator, where nothing has been done to deserve it, to confer the power of rule on some and put others under authority, to grant a princedom to some and make others subordinate to rulers. In my judgment these opinions are completely overturned by following out the reasoning explained above, which showed that the cause of the diversity and variety among these beings lies in their own conduct, marked either by greater earnestness or by indifference according to the goodness or badness of their nature, and not in any favoritism on the part of the One who arranges them. But so that this may be shown more easily in the case of heavenly beings, let us borrow an illustration from what has been done, or is done, among people, so that from things we can see we may go on to look at things we cannot. [e]

Paul and Peter are beyond question shown to have been men of a spiritual nature. Now Paul is found to have acted against religion in persecuting the church of God, and Peter to have committed so grave a sin that, when the servant girl questioned him, he swore he did not know who Christ was. How is it possible that these men — who on the view of the people we are speaking of were spiritual beings — should fall into sins of that kind, especially since those people are forever saying that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit? And if a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and if, as they hold, Peter and Paul sprang from the root of a good tree, how are they to be reckoned to have borne fruit as wicked as this?

And if they give the answer that is usually invented — that it was not Paul who persecuted but some other person, I do not know who, who was in Paul, and that it was not Peter who denied him but some other individual in him — then how could Paul say what he says, if he had not sinned? “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Or why did Peter weep so bitterly, if it was someone other than himself who sinned? By this every one of their silly claims is shown to have no foundation.

On our view there is no rational creature that is not capable of both good and evil. But it does not follow, because we say there is no nature that cannot admit evil, that we are claiming every nature has admitted it — that is, has become wicked. We may say that any man’s nature admits of his being a sailor, but it does not follow from that that every man will become one; or again, it is possible for anyone to learn grammar or medicine, but that does not prove that every man is a doctor or a teacher of grammar. So if we say there is no nature that cannot admit evil, it is not thereby indicated that every nature has done so. [h]

On our view not even the devil himself was incapable of good. Though he was capable of admitting good, he did not for that reason want it, or make any effort toward virtue. As we are taught by the passages we quoted earlier from the prophets, there was once a time when he was good, when he walked in the paradise of God between the cherubim. He had the power of receiving either good or evil, and he fell away from the path of virtue and turned to evil with all the powers of his mind. In the same way the other creatures, having the capacity for either condition, in the exercise of their free will flee from evil and hold fast to good.

There is no nature, then, that cannot admit good or evil, except the nature of God — the spring of all good things — and of Christ. For Christ is wisdom, and wisdom certainly cannot admit folly; he is righteousness, and righteousness will certainly never admit unrighteousness; he is the Word, or Reason, which certainly cannot be made unreasoning; he is the light as well, and it is certain that the darkness does not receive the light. In the same way the nature of the Holy Spirit, being holy, does not admit defilement, for it is holy by nature, by what it is. If any other nature is holy, it has this property of being made holy by receiving the Holy Spirit, or by his breathing into it. It does not have it by nature but as something added from outside, and for that very reason it can be lost, being something added.

So a man may have a righteousness that is added to him, and it is possible for him to fall away from it. Even the wisdom a man has is added, although it lies within our own power to become wise, if we give ourselves to wisdom with the eagerness and effort of a whole life; and if we always pursue the study of it, we may always have a share in wisdom. That will follow in a greater or a lesser degree, in proportion to how we have lived and how eager we have been. For the goodness of God, as befits him, urges and draws everyone toward that blessed end where all pain and sadness and sorrow fall away and disappear.

So then, as far as I can see, the discussion up to this point has sufficiently proved that it is not through any lack of discernment, and not from some chance cause, that the “rulers” hold their dominion or that the other orders of spirits have obtained their several offices. They received the steps of their rank on account of what they deserved — though it is not ours to know, or to inquire, what those acts of theirs were by which they earned a place in one particular order. It is enough to know this much, in order to show God’s impartiality and righteousness: as the apostle Paul declares, “With him there is no favoritism.” He assigns everything instead according to what each one deserves and how far each has progressed. [k]

So no one holds the office of an angel except as a result of what he deserved; none of the “powers” exercises power except by virtue of the progress it has made; none of those called “thrones” — that is, the powers of judging and ruling — administers its powers except by desert; and no “dominions” rule undeservedly. For that great and distinguished order of rational creatures among the beings of heaven is arranged in a glorious variety of offices.

The same view is to be held about those opposing influences that have given themselves over to such places and offices. The property by which they are made “rulers,” or “powers,” or powers that rule the darkness of this world, or spirits of wickedness, or malignant spirits, or unclean demons, does not come from what they essentially are, nor from their having been created that way. They obtained these degrees in evil in proportion to their conduct and to the progress they made in wickedness. And that is a second order of rational creatures: those who have given themselves to wickedness in so headlong a rush that they are unwilling, rather than unable, to call themselves back, the thirst for evil having become a settled passion in them and giving them pleasure.

But the third order of rational creatures is that of those whom God judges fit to fill out the human race, that is, the souls of men — souls taken up, as a result of their moral progress, into the order of angels. We see some of them taken into that number: those who have been made sons of God, or children of the resurrection, or who have left the darkness and loved the light and been made children of light; or those who, proving victorious in every struggle and being made men of peace, have become sons of peace and sons of God; or those who, putting to death their members on the earth and rising above not only their bodily nature but even the uncertain and fragile movements of the soul itself, have joined themselves to the Lord and been made altogether spiritual, so that they may be forever one spirit with him, discerning each individual thing along with him, until they arrive at a condition of perfect spirituality and discern all things by their perfect illumination in all holiness through the Word and wisdom of God — and can themselves no longer be discerned by anyone at all.

There are opinions that some people are in the habit of putting forward and defending without any need, and we think they are not to be admitted at all: that souls sink to such a pitch of degradation that they forget their rational nature and dignity and fall into the condition of animals without reason, large or small. In support of these claims they generally quote supposed statements of Scripture — that an animal with which a woman has had unnatural relations is to be counted equally guilty with the woman and ordered to be stoned; or that a bull that gores with its horn is to be put to death in the same way; or even the speaking of Balaam’s donkey, when God opened its mouth and the speechless beast of burden answered with a human voice and rebuked the prophet’s madness. Every one of these claims we not only do not accept; being contrary to what we believe, we refute them and reject them. Once such twisted opinions have been refuted and rejected, we will show, at the proper time and place, how the passages they quote from the sacred Scriptures ought to be understood.

From the first book of On First Principles, as Jerome translated it in his letter to Avitus: “It is evidence of great negligence and sloth that anyone should fall down to such a depth, and be so emptied out, that in coming to evil he is fastened to the coarse body of an irrational beast of burden.”

And again, from the same book, in the same letter: “At the end and completion of the world, when souls and rational creatures have been sent out as though from the bolts and the starting gates, some walk slowly because of their sluggish habits, while others fly at speed because of their diligence. And since all of them possess free will, and may of their own accord admit either good or evil, the first group will be in a worse condition than they are now, while the second will advance to a better one; for different conduct and differing wills will admit of a different condition in either direction — that is, angels may become men or demons, and again, out of these they may rise to be men or angels.”