This post continues and concludes a theme begun in part 1, which can be read by clicking here.
The One God over the gods, the Lord over all the lords of the earth, cared for the earth and the people on it, especially the lowly, the needy, the dispossessed, the abuse, the disrespected, that is, those unjustly treated by the people and powers of the world. The people of Israel were close to the heart of God and directly cared for by him because of the injustices they had faced and experienced, and were told that because of what God had done for them, they should take extra care and concern for others. “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deut.10: 17- 19 RSV). For this reason, the people of Israel got to know not just the powers that be, the angelic beings seen and experienced as gods by everyone else, they got a special revelation of the one God of gods, the God over all the earth, the God who not only ruled the powers that be, but created them, giving them their spiritual nature which allowed them to have such command over the things of the earth. Others, who had opened themselves up to the pathos of God, also, in their own way, got to know something of the one God, so that many from all over the earth followed not just the gods of the earth but looked for and tried to follow the one God behind them all.[1]
The gods, the spiritual principles which lie behind the world and help govern and direct it, are able to be called gods because of their relationship with the One. While God is properly designated as God, it is more, as Pseudo-Dionysius explained, a title given to him, but which is itself underneath who and what he is; for he deifies and brings others in union with him: he is the source of divinity, of theosis, of deification, and so is called “God” but the title “God” is, as with every title, analogous at best at representing the One.[2] We are called to union with him, and so are to be called “gods by grace” if we let grace lift us up and deify us.[3] Angelic beings, because they are already united with God, therefore are also able to be called god, and when they are, it is a way to recognize how they reflect the one God who is the source of their god-like nature. Thus, as pure spirits, they are said to be “intellectual” in nature, representing divine ideas coming from the Wisdom of God, Sophia, constructing and guiding the material world, and as such powers which direct and guide over the world, they are called, by the people of the earth, the gods of the earth.[4]
The problem which emerges is that many of these spiritual principles, these angelic spirits, fell away from God, closed themselves off from God’s will, becoming the “fallen angels” or “bad daemons” which continue to have some power over the earth and the principles which they exemplify. Certainly, as Peter Lombard explained, their authority to act with their natural power and ability is restricted due to their fall, but they still possess it and act on it in accordance to the limits God placed upon them.[5] For those who encountered such fallen beings, they seemed to be higher beings and often were confused as equals with the rest of the spiritual beings, and merged in with the pantheons of the world and became known as “gods,” receiving worship and honor which was not their due. Scripture therefore talks about the sacrifices given to “false gods,” to the bad daemons, pointing out how easily humanity was misdirected by these fallen powers.[6]
Therefore, we have two kinds of spiritual beings which have power and authority over the earth, and represent the principles from which the earth and nature are formed. The ancients, seeing and experiencing these principles, often more aware and directly experiencing them than we do today, worshiped them all equally as gods, and in their simplicity followed demonic powers, doing evil, thinking they were giving proper due to beings which deserved their honor and respect. Angelic beings, those who properly continued to be with God, and so are the gods in union with God, certainly deserved such respect and veneration as thanks for what they do for us, but without knowing which is which, without knowing which beings are good and which are not, such veneration could be dangerous and so the unfallen spiritual principles tended to remind any who experienced them to worship and adore the one God alone.[7] And yet, this is not to say no relative worship is to be given to the “gods,” but such worship must always be given in connection with and understanding of the relative nature of that worship, that it is not treating the angelic being as the absolute One but as one who participates and shares in graces which come from the One. [8]
This, then, sets the stage for us to understand who and what these spiritual principles are, both the angelic powers which remained with God and were often understood positively by the people of the earth as gods, but also the fallen powers, the bad daemons, which were also considered to be gods and who led many people astray. They both represent principles of creation, principles over the face of the earth, and the fallen powers, because of their disobedience, have caused great havoc and destruction over the face of the earth.[9]
Those fallen powers, those fallen spiritual principles, those fallen angels, are those which we are called to replace. We are to do this not just in the eschatological kingdom, but also here and now, on the earth, in world history. We are called to overturn them, overthrow them by casting them out wherever we find such fallen powers, and through grace, re-establish the principle they represent in and through our own actions and power over nature. That is, we are to engage those spiritual principles they represent and in and through ourselves, turn what they have made harmful and destructive, that which has been made a force for evil, to a force for good and harmony. We can do this, not just because we are spiritual beings ourselves, and so have ties to the spiritual principles, but also because God became man and have turned all of humanity into mediators of the new and eternal covenant. But even before the incarnation, this desire for humanity to serve as mediators between heaven and earth, overturning evil spiritual powers wherever they are found, can be discerned in the first chapter of Genesis:
And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28 RSV).
Our subduing the earth is not to be seen as an act of tyranny, giving us power and dominion over the earth for the sake of our own selfish goals, but rather as the freeing of the earth from the fallen principles which misdirect it. We are to subdue the fallen spiritual powers, the fallen angels or bad daemons which represent the fallen principles of the earth, and liberate the earth from the effects of the fall and lift it up to God, rendering the earth as our loving gift to God instead of treating it as a plaything for ourselves. This, then, is exemplified by Paul, who tells us we are not to war after flesh and blood, over the material world, but against the fallen spiritual powers which hatefully dominate and control the world for their own hateful end: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12 RSV).
We are, with grace and love, to go over the face of the world and subdue all the dark, evil powers, casting them out of their positions of power, allowing humanity to replace them in history as well as in the eschaton. It is, of course, a battle which is to be waged in history, and a battle which we must be careful and always remember it is God with us which allows us victory. The desert fathers, starting with St. Antony, represented this principle as they went into the desert to do combat with the demonic powers there, turning what was once a wretched wasteland into a city of God.[10] Likewise, the great saints and mystics, with the rest of the Christians following after them, slowly found themselves driving out the dark, chaotic forces which ruled the earth, freeing it for humanity. “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out,” (Jn. 12:31 RSV), became the lived experience of Christendom. The guidance and rule of the fallen spiritual powers was to end, as humanity was lifted up by grace, and even the higher, spiritual principles, the unfallen angelic beings, were to find their position with humanity changed as humans as humanity founds its place next to them.[11]
But the battle continues, and will continue until the end of time. The fallen powers, as spiritual principles, though defeated, are not destroyed. While we replace them, it is possible they can come back and cast us off our seat of authority if we abandon God and try to take over the earth and subdue it for ourselves; for then, cut off from grace, we will face them as they return in greater force, with greater hate and destruction (cf. Matt. 12: 43- 45). Or, which is worse, we can, in our new position of authority, be left alone by the evil powers as they see we, in turn, take their path and follow them in evil, destroying the world in the process (exemplified by the woeful neglect of the earth which we see all around us today, decried by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’).[12] For if we are misguided by daemonic powers, the intention behind our error differs and the culpability is lessened, while if we follow through and take their place in evil, having turned away from the grace which we once had, the consequences and outcome of our actions will be greater and worse for ourselves (and the world, as revelation indicates about the “end times”).
[1] Such are the holy pagans of the pre-Christian age, who often were called “Christians” before “Christ,” that is, they followed the truth of the Logos which they knew and understood, allowing them to be seen as following Christ, albeit imperfectly because they came before the fall revelation of the Logos as the Logos assumed flesh and became man in Jesus. This is the point St. Justin Martyr most famously made in his First Apology: “We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious,” St. Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin in ANF(1):178.
[2] “How could it be that he who surpasses everything also transcends the source of divinity, transcends the source of all goodness? This is possible if by divinity and goodness you mean the substance of that gift which makes [us] good and divine and if you mean the inimitable imitation of him who is beyond divinity and beyond goodness, by means of which we are made divine and good. Now if this is the source of becoming divine and good of all those made divine and good, then he who transcends every source, including the divinity and goodness spoken here, surpasses the source of divinity and of goodness, “Pseudo-Dionysius, “Letter Two” in Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works. trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press,1987), 263.
[3] Jesus, therefore, acknowledged that we shall be called gods in John 10:34.
[4] Ficino expressed this point by saying, “On account of their natural, excelling unity, intellects are therefore called divine. And insofar as, collected into that unity, they thereby enjoy God also, they are at times called gods. For this reason, therefore, God Himself, who should otherwise be expressed [only] in terms of simplicity, is called both the first God of gods and the principle of universal divinity and deity,” Marsilio Ficino, On the Divine Names in On Dionysius the Areopagite: Volume I. Mystical Theology and The Divine Names, Part I. trans. Michael J.B. Allen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 179.
[5] That is, Lombard expresses a limit to the power of the evil, fallen angels based upon the boundary given to them by God and the good angels. They have more power or potential to control the things of the earth then they are allowed to do, but yet, as is known, they are not completely impotent, which is why their existence is known and felt. Thus, in the Sentences, we have the section, “That the evil angels have the potential to do many things by the strength of their nature which they cannot do because of the prohibition of God or of the good angels, that is, because they are not allowed,” Peter Lombard, The Sentences Book 2: On Creation. trans. Giulio Silano (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008), 33 [I have rendered the capital text into normal text here for ease of reading].
[6] See Deut. 32:17, Ps. 106:37, and 1 Cor. 10:20.
[7] We find this in the Apocalypse: “Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.’ For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10 RSV).
[8] There are various examples in Scripture where such honor is shown to angelic beings, such as when Joshua kneels before the angel of the Lord:
“When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood before him with his drawn sword in his hand; and Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us, or for our adversaries?’ And he said, ‘No; but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, and said to him, ‘What does my lord bid his servant?'” (Joshua 5:13-14 RSV).
This leader likely was Michael, the prince or angelic ruler set over the people of Israel (cf. Dan. 12:1).
[9] J.R. R. Tolkien, in his creation myth, expressed this point greatly by his representation of the fall. He had the Holy Ones, the Ainur, an angelic choir created by God, serving God with the production of beautiful music. Melkor, his Satan figure, thought he could do better and sought to make his own music, reflecting his own ideas, leading many with him to create a discordant response to the original music established by God (Eru). God was able to merge the two styles together to establish a third, more beautiful musical composition, but yet, their music, their songs, had consequences in the affairs of the earth, for it established the kind of place the earth was going to be. Each of the Ainur represented principles and nations of the earth, and their songs affected the way the earth and the peoples on it developed. This was made clear when Eru demonstrated to the Ainur the consequences of their music and the discord brought about by the fallen angels by showing the history of the earth, where the discord was seen represented by the dark, tragic side of the natural world and the various discord among the peoples and kingdoms of the earth. See J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion. ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977), 15 -22.
[10] William Harmless showed how this principle was found in the life of St. Anthony as understood by his early disciples and followers into the desert: “Later, in the desert, Antony appears as a sort of spiritual land developer, taming the wilderness and reclaiming it from the demonic. No sooner did he take up residence in the desert fort than the reptiles that had lived there ran away ‘as if someone were in pursuit,’ and the demons loudly complained, ‘Get away from what is ours! What do you have to do with the desert?'” William Harmless, S.J., Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 86.
What Antony had was a charism, a mission, to go out into the desert and subdue the demonic powers of the world found in it, and in doing so, he and his fellow monks and nuns saw themselves taking over and replacing the spiritual principles which the daemonic powers in the desert had once controlled.
[11] Angels certainly continue to help, and indeed, enlighten us when need be, and so continue to deserve our love and honor, but thanks to the incarnation, our position in relation to them has changed, the “childhood” of humanity is over.
[12] “‘LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore’ – ‘Praise be to you, my Lord’. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. ‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs’.
This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she ‘groans in travail’ (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters,” Pope Francis, Laudato Si’. Vatican Translation. ¶1-2.
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