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Participation and Polemics: Angels from Origen to Augustine*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2017

Adam Ployd
Adam Ployd*
Affiliation:
Eden Theological Seminary
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Extract

When I shared an earlier draft of this article with a colleague who spends much more time in the modern theological world than I do, his reply was simple: “So, angels are a thing? And people want to talk about them?” Angels receive fairly short shrift in most twentieth- and twenty-first-century theology, but in late antique Christianity they certainly were “a thing,” if by “a thing” we mean an essential part of religious discourse, manifest in textual and material sources that testify to the significance of angels in theological speculation, popular piety, and ascetic practice.

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Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 110 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 421 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2017 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the members of the St. Louis “Christianity and the Ancient World” colloquy for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers at HTR for their generous criticism.

References

1 In the review that follows, I highlight scholarship on angels only in early Christianity. Readers interested in angels in other periods or contexts should consult the following: Peers, Glenn, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Keck, David, Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Müller, C. D. G., Die Engellehre der koptischen Kirche (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959)Google Scholar.

2 Peterson, Erik, The Angels and the Liturgy (trans. Walls, Ronald; New York: Herder and Herder, 1964)Google Scholar; originally published as Das Buch von den Engeln: Stellung and Bedeutung der heiligen Engel im Kultus (Leipzig: Hegner, 1935). Daniélou, Jean, The Angels and Their Mission According to the Fathers of the Church (trans. Heimann, David; Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957)Google Scholar. Daniélou repeats many of these same themes, focused primarily on the angelic role in the governance of the nations and the economy of salvation, in Origen (trans. Walter Mitchell; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955) 220–45. See Muehlberger, Ellen, Angels in Late Ancient Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 6–8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Bucur, Bogdan Gabriel, Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Ledien: Brill, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, Michel, “The Beginning and End of Early Christian Pneumatology,” AugStud 29 (2008) 169–86Google Scholar; Tuschling, R. M. M., Angels and Orthodoxy: A Study in their Development in Syria and Palestine from the Qumran Texts to Ephrem the Syrian (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007)Google Scholar; Silke-Petra, “Qualifying ‘Angel’ in Justin's Logos Christology,” StPatr 50 (2003) 353–57; Segal, Alan, “‘Two Powers in Heaven’ and Early Christian Trinitarian Thinking,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (ed. Davis, Stephen T., Daniel Kendall, S.J., and Gerald O'Collins, S.J.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 73–95 Google Scholar; Gieschen, Charles, Angelomorphic Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1998) 114–19Google Scholar; Hurtado, Larry, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998)Google Scholar; Levison, John R., The Spirit in First-Century Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1997)Google Scholar; idem, “The Prophetic Spirit as an Angel according to Philo,” HTR 88 (1995) 189–207; idem, “The Angelic Spirit in Early Judaism,” SBLSP 34 (1995) 464–93; Stuckenbruck, Loren, Angel Veneration and Christology: A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John (Tübingen: Mohr, 1995)Google Scholar; Fossum, Jarl, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985)Google Scholar; Strousma, Guy G., “Le couple de l'ange et de l'esprit: traditions juives et chretiennes,” RB 88 (1981) 42–61 Google Scholar; Oeyen, Christian, “Eine frühchristliche Engelpneumatologie bei Klemens von Alexandrien,” IKZ 55 (1965) 102–20Google Scholar; 56 (1966) 27–47.

4 Muehlberger, Angels, 28.

5 Ibid., 19.

6 Ibid., 54.

7 Ibid., 57.

8 Muehlberger is certainly not ignorant of the relevant theological issues. In particular, her second chapter, “Locating Christ in Scripture,” covers some of the same theological topography that I will explore. However, her categories of cultivation and contestation, though illuminating elsewhere, do not do full justice to the theological trajectory and diverse polemical contexts that I hope to outline from Origen to Augustine. Thus, I do not intend to diminish Muehlberger's work but to complement and enhance it by offering an alternative—but not incommensurate—narrative of angelic discourse that more adequately accounts for the theological shift we see in Augustine.

9 Readers will note that Evagrius disappears from my analysis of angelic discourse. This is due only to the fact that he does not explicitly use the language of “participation” for his angels and therefore does not offer a clear example of the specific trend I want to trace. However, given his place within “Origenism” and the role that the Origenist controversy will play in my reading of Augustine, Evagrius can be seen to fit within the larger polemical contexts I describe.

10 Origen, Princ. 2.9.5 (Origenes vier Bücher von den Prinzipien [ed. Herwig Görgemanns and Heinrich Karpp; Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985] 408). All translations of Greek and Latin sources are my own. For precision, I give the Greek or Latin for significant terms or phrases where appropriate. Due to issues of recension, it is notoriously difficult to know what is truly from Origen and what is redacted by his Latin translators, most notably Rufinus. In what follows, I hope to mitigate that difficulty by drawing not simply from Princ. but also from Origen's more reliable Greek corpus, such as Against Celsus and the Commentary on John.

11 See, inter multa alia, Origen, Comm. Rom. 1.18.3, 2.7.4, 2.10.2, 4.12.1, 8.8.7, 8.11.2; Cels. 5.61–62, 6.52–53; Hom. Luc. 29.4, 31.3; Fr. Luc. 166; Hom. Jer, 10.5.1, 17.2.1. For my appreciation of Origen's engagement and use of this trio, I am indebted to Martens, Peter, Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 111–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Origen, Princ. 2.9.5 (Görgemanns and Karpp, 408–10).

13 On the notion of hairesis and “schools of thought” in the context of early Christianity, see Brakke, David, The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010) 71–72 Google Scholar; Heine, Roland, Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 48–64 Google Scholar.

14 See esp. Origen, Princ. 3.1.8; Comm. Rom. 2.7.4, 2.10.2, 4.12.1, 8.11.2.

15 On this claim, see Martens, Origen and Scripture, 111 n. 19.

16 See Brakke, Gnostics, 128–32; Strutwolf, Holger, Gnosis als System: Zur Rezeption der valentinianischen Gnosis bei Origenes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crouzel, Henri, Origen (trans. Worrall, A. S.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) 205–18Google Scholar; le Boulluec, Allain, “Y-a-t-il des traces de la polémique antignostique d'Irénée dans le Péri Archôn d'Origène?” in Gnosis and Gnosticism: Papers Read at the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies (ed. Krause, Martin; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 138–47Google Scholar; Daniélou, Jean, Origen (trans. Mitchell, Walter; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955) 191–208 Google Scholar; Koch, Hal, Pronoia und Paideusis: Studien über Origenes und sein Verhältnis zum Platonismus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1932) 14–17 Google Scholar.

17 See David Brakke's description of “the salons of wealthy and intellectually inclined Christians in Alexandria” (Gnostics, 128; see also 116 and 125).

18 Brakke, Gnostics, 128–32. See also Strutwolf, Gnosis als System, 210–70.

19 Beyond this general description of determinism associated with Valentinus, Marcion, and Basilides, Origen also takes specific aim at the theory of μετενσωμάτωσις, which he sometimes associates with Basilides (Comm. Rom. 5.1.27; Cels. 1.20, 4.17, 5.49, 8.30; Comm. Jo. 6.64–66, 6.86). While Origen seems to offer a similar understanding of transmigration—one of the key errors that Augustine will later condemn him for—his version does not allow rational minds to be embodied in non-rational creatures, i.e., an angel would never become a gopher (see Princ. 1.6.2 below). For more on Basilides and μετενσωμάτωσις, see Clement, Strom. 4.12. For other early Christian rejections of μετενσωμάτωσις as a general heretical dogma (along with the related term μετεμψύχωσις), see Irenaeus, Haer. 2.33; Tertullian, An. 31–35.

20 Origen, Princ. 1.6.2 (Görgemanns and Karpp, 218–22).

21 This assertion becomes problematic when Origen claims that the Son participates in the Father and the Spirit in the Son. See below, pp. 430–31.

22 On Origen as background to 4th-cent. disputes, see Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 20–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Rowan, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001) 117–58Google Scholar.

23 As Muehlberger herself notes, Athanasius (as with other Nicenes) often works to distinguish the Son from the angels in order to defend his fully divine status in opposition to older angelic Christologies (see esp. Muehlberger, Angels, 62–69; Athanasius, C. Ar. 1.55–57, 3.12–14). However, in none of these discussions does he use the technical language of participation to demarcate the angelic from the divine. It is only in his later pneumatological disputes that this language occurs. Even though I focus on those texts that use this language of angelic participation, it is important to recognize that they are part of a larger theological trend regarding angels’ relationship to the Trinity.

24 Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1.1.1 (Athanasius Werke I/1. Die dogmatischen Schriften. 4. Lieferung. Epistulae I-IV ad Seraption [ed. Dietmar Wyrwa and Kyriakos Savvidis; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010] 449). For the dating, see Works on the Spirit (ed. Mark DelCogliano, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres; Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011) 25–29. The question of dating for these letters is a contentious issue. For other options, see Haykin, Michael A. G., The Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 and 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 59–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1.1.2 (Wyrwa and Kyriakos, 450).

26 For this term, see Daniélou, Jean, “Trinité et angélologie dans la théologie judéo-chrétienne,” RSR 45 (1957) 5–41 Google Scholar.

27 See esp. Levison, “The Angelic Spirit in Early Judaism”; idem, The Spirit in First-Century Judaism; Barnes, “Early Christian Pneumatology.”

28 Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology, xxiii. Bucur's argument builds upon the earlier work of Christian Oeyen, Eine frühchristliche Engelpneumatologie.

29 See Barnes, “Early Christian Pneumatology,” 175–76.

30 Although I say “Origen's language,” there is not necessarily a genetic dependency. Given what we see below in Didymus, who certainly did know Origen's work, it is likely that this language of angelic participation was at the very least “in the air” of fourth-century Alexandria, which was in general highly influenced by Origen.

31 Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1.27.1–2 (Wyrwa and Savvidis, 517–18).

32 For more on this see ibid, 1.26.6.

33 Ayres, “The Holy Spirit as the ‘Undiminished Giver’: Didymus the Blind's De spiritu sancto and the Development of Nicene Pneumatology,” in The Holy Spirit in the Fathers of the Church: The Proceedings of the Seventh International Patristic Conference, Maynooth, 2008 (eds. D. Vincent Twomey SVD and Janet E. Rutherford; Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010) 57–72.

34 On the range of dating options, see Works on the Spirit, 37–42.

35 Didymus, Spir. 25–27 (SC 386, 164–68).

36 For Didymus’ relationship to Origen and the Alexandrian “school,” see Layton, Richard A., Didymus the Blind and His Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria: Virtue and Narrative in Biblical Scholarship (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

37 Origen, Cels. 6.64 (SC 147, 338).

38 Idem, Princ. 1.3.8 (Görgemanns and Karpp, 180).

39 Idem, Fr. Prin. 9, preserved in Justinian, Ep. Men. (Görgemanns and Karpp, 168).

40 Idem, Comm. Jo. 2.10.75–76 (GCS 10, 65).

41 Heine, Origen, 98–101; idem, “The Christology of Callistus,” JTS n.s. 49 (1998) 56–91; Crouzel, Origen, 155.

42 Muehlberger, Angels, 53.

43 Obviously the different contexts cannot be completely separated, and the Origenist controversy was itself greatly shaped by the socio-political landscape. But I believe the emphasis ought to be put on the theological legacy of Origen to explain why Augustine redefines the consequences of angelic participation.

44 Because Muehlberger does not engage this text, I will spend a little extra time unpacking what it has to say on angelic participation and stability in order to give a fuller view of Augustine's thought.

45 Teske, Roland J., “ Genesi ad literram liber, De ,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (ed. Fitzgerald, Allan D.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999) 376–77Google Scholar; Vannier, A. M., “Creatio,” “conversio,” “formatio” chez S. Augustin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1991) 88 Google Scholar; Agaësse, P. and Solignac, A., La Genèse au sens littéral I-VII (Bibliothèque Augustinienne; 76 vols.; Paris: Brepols, 1972) 48:25–31 Google Scholar.

46 Augustine, Gen. litt. 4.24.41 (CSEL 28.1, 124). For the relationship between Augustine's angelic speculation and his aporia regarding the meaning of “days” in creation, see Agaësse and Solignac, “La connaissance angélique et les jours de la création,” in La Genèse, 645–53.

47 Augustine, Gen. litt. 8.24.45 (CSEL 28.1, 263).

48 Ibid., 11.32.42 (CSEL 28.1, 365–66).

49 For the significance of ontological mutability in created intelligible matter (such as the angels) for Augustine, see Tornau, Christian, “Intelligible Matter and the Genesis of Intellect: The Metamorphosis of a Plotinian Theme in Confessions 12–13,” in Augustine's “Confessions”: Philosophy in Autobiography (ed. Mann, William E.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 181–218 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Christian, William A., “Augustine on the Creation of the World,” HTR 46.1 (1953) 1–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Augustine, Conf. 12.6.

50 Augustine, Civ. 11.9 (CCSL 48, 329–30).

51 It is noteworthy that Augustine “interrupts” this discussion of the angels with a chapter (Civ. 11.10) on the pure simplicity of the divine nature. This juxtaposition echoes the themes we have seen in the three Alexandrian authors.

52 This argument stretches over Civ. 11.11–13.

53 Augustine, Civ. 11.13 (CCSL 48, 333–34) [Italics added]. On this passage see, J. Patout Burns, “From Persuasion to Predestination: Augustine on Freedom in Rational Creatures,” in In Eloquio, Dominico, In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken (ed. Blowers, Paul M. et al.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002) 311 n. 36Google Scholar.

54 Muehlberger, Angels, 57.

55 For assessments of Augustine's relationship to the Origenist controversy, see Roombs, Ronnie J., Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul: Beyond O'Connell and His Critics (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2006) 71–77 Google Scholar; Clark, Elizabeth, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) 227–44Google Scholar; O'Connell, Robert J. , S.J., The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Altaner, Berthold, “Augustinus und Origenes,” Historisches Jahrbuch 70 (1951) 15–41 Google Scholar. Heidl, György, The Influence of Origen on the Young Augustine: A Chapter in the History of Origenism (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2009)Google Scholar, argues that Augustine had access to some works of Origen as early as 386, but much of the evidence that Heidl presents could be accounted for by the general influence of Origen and Christian Platonism among Augustine's Milan acquaintances.

56 Augustine, Ep. 40.6.9.

57 Clark, The Origenist Controversy, 140, 160, 164; O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul, 79–89.

58 Augustine, Ep. 73.

59 Augustine, Priscill. 4.4.

60 O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul, 11–13. Burns, “From Persuasion to Predestination,” offers an elegant analysis of Augustine's developing view of human willing, explicitly connecting it to his developing angelology and his rejection of “Origenism.” Because he is not concerned with angelic participation per se, Burns covers more ground than I do here. Augustine's use of angelic participation language should be seen as part of that larger narrative that Burns presents. Of particular interest to both Burns and O'Connell is Augustine's discussion of human and angelic volition in Lib. arb. 3. It is noteworthy that in this early work Augustine does not use participation language to describe the angels. This further suggests that when Augustine does deploy this language, he does so with an eye to the Origenist controversy.

61 Augustine, Haer. 43 (CCSL 46, 311); see also, idem, Priscill. 5.5.

62 Jerome, Ruf., 1.23, 1.27, 2.12, 2.15; Ep. 124.3–4, 8, 11. See also Augustine, Ep. 73.3.7.

63 The passage from Haer. 43 even concludes with Augustine saying he has dealt with these errors of Origen in Civ.

64 Augustine, Gen. litt. 6.9.15 (CSEL 28.1, 181). See also Augustine's rejection of the idea that “there can be a transference of soul from brute beast to human being” (Gen. litt. 7.9.13 [CSEL 28.1, 208]). O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul, 201–45, provides a close reading of Gen. litt. vis-à-vis the disputed origin of the human soul. On the significance of Origen's legacy for Augustine's anthropological concerns in Gen. litt., see esp. 218–19.

65 Augustine, Civ. 11.23 (CCSL 47, 341).

66 On the significance of Civ. 11, see O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul, 291–93.