“Seeing” Angels

So much of the Bible and medieval mythology seems to be wrapped up in the phenomenon of “seeing.” Everyone is concerned with seeing God of course, whether corporeal or in his actions, and there has been a lot of discussion in class about images that represent people/scenes from the Bible. Part of the nature of “seeing” has to do with faith, with seeing God even if he is shrouded in mystery, but another part has to do with the actual images and way things would be conceptualized. It’s a way to sort of put yourself in the shoes of a medieval Christian and see through their eyes. Between the writings from the clergy and laity and the scripture itself, one might think this would come easy and a clear picture would arise, but the images themselves are so mystical that these acts of seeing can also be difficult. The surviving artwork from the period provides a bit of help in deciphering what the conceptualization looked like, but in other ways they also are just as complicating as they are illuminating.

The scripture that describes the angels gives a fair amount of details, but the angels themselves are so abstract that its difficult to actually put the words into pictures. Taking Ezekiel 1 for example:

“The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze…Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.”

In one way, this description comes as no surprise. Angels are kind of like humans with wings, right? Once you consider the four faces and the gleaming bronze hooved feet, the image gets a bit more difficult to contend with. The other famous multi-faced, cleft-hooved is of course Satan, so what’s the deal with the angels looking so similar? It is in this kind of passage that we are reminded of the words of Baltmann on the mythology of Christianity. Would most modern Christians believe that angels came down to heaven with four faces and bronzed hooves? Likely no. Would most medieval Christians believe that? Likely yes.  

Another place I looked with this question in mind is in The Many. The explanation that his writing is more of a “fusion” of Christianity and Platonism/Neoplatonism and likely the angel hierarchy situation was imported into Christianity. Following a trend that seems to be arising in thinking about this material, the angelic hierarchy seems to at once help and hinder the understanding of whats actually going on. Part of the issue comes from the nature of a story: “When he retold the story, Josephus did not mention the Lord, which might seem a curious omission, unless it was natural for him, an educated Jew from the high priestly family, to think that an angle, or three angels, was another way of describing the Lord” (66). The blending of languages and the cross-cultural foundations lead to this kind of confusion. If it really is the three angels that told Abraham to destroy Sodom and spoke of the birth of Isaac and not the Lord, where do we go from there? Some Christians make the claim that this description was a “pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus” or that “this scene is said to represent the Trinity, Jewish tradition says three archangels, and the original text is not clear” (66). There is more information with The Many that traces different angelic forms, ranging from angels ruling different months/days, gnostic interpretations that differ greatly from the old testament, angels being made of fire and light, etc. Even within more of the scripture, Isaiah 6, the descriptions continue in this kind of fashion: “With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the ound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” Trying to interpret all these descriptions and differing images and issues within translation create a feeling not far off from this cacophonous image of the angels from Hildegard von Bingen. If I had to try to represent all this in a painting, it would likely look as confusing as this, too.

 

              It is in these kinds of proceedings that I am reminded of our first-week discussions of Bultmann and his words on the mythology of Christianity. In his words, “Can Christian proclamation today expect men and women to acknowledge the mythical world picture as true?” (3). This is directly applicable in the discussion of angels, how much of these images and descriptions can be accepted as pure truth? If we accept that angels are sort-of humans that just do the bidding of God and disregard all the talk about multi-faced, multi-winged, cloven bronze feet, what else is able to be thrown aside as well? At what point does the Bible and its stories become unfounded? I believe the task is a bit more complicated than Bultmann would have it, “we can only completely accept the mythical world picture or completely reject it” seems to be a bit defeatist. If anything, these widely differing and extremely complex angelic discussions point towards a great cultural interest in both the past and present. There is so many unanswered claims and questions (I didn’t even discuss Celestial Hierarchy by Pseudo-Dionysius!) and there is so much out there to still be gained.

- CRC