The Mind’s Ascent to God by a Ladder of Created ThingsNinth step. CONSIDERATION OF THE ANGELS

We have reached the highest step in our ascension to God, the highest of the steps which may be taken by created beings: for no created substance is more sublime than the angelic if we are speaking only concerning natural perfection. Therefore we will first consider the angels in respect of the excellence of their nature, next in regard to their exalted grace, and last in respect of the offices which they perform. We do not propose to set out a complete discourse concerning angels, but only to touch on such matters as may assist us in raising our mind to God.

Now if an angel be compared with a human and rational soul, it may fitly be called a perfect soul, while the soul may be called an imperfect angel. The prophet speaking of the soul of a reasoning man, says, ‘Thou makest him a little lower than the angels’:? for an angel is a whole and perfect spiritual being; the human soul is divided and imperfect, for it has the form of a body and for this reason is part of the man.

And so an angel is pure spirit, man partly spirit, partly flesh, or partly an angel and partly a beast, as if one were to say, an angel is all gold, man partly ‘gold, partly clay.

Wherefore it is true, as the prophet says, that man was made a little lower than the angels, and it is also true that the human soul, being part of a man, is a little less than an angel. Whence it follows that an angel is more like unto God than is a man or his soul, because God is Spirit, not body, and hath no bodily shape. Nevertheless the greater likeness of the angel to God makes plain that God is not a Spirit raised above the angelic sublimity by an infinite distance of honour, for God is uncreated Spirit, eternal, boundless, alone powerful, alone wise, alone good, alone most high.

Wherefore, my soul, if thou dost acknowledge that the angelic nature ought rightly to be reflected by thee, how much more shouldst thou respect and admire the divine nature which surpasses the dignity of angels in every way and beyond all measure.

But not only may it be said that in nature and substance an angel is perfect man and man an imperfect angel, but it is so in regard to intelligence and knowledge. ‘Thus a man, or a human soul, labours hard in matters which have to be learnt, and he must make use of the service of the senses and acquire knowledge little by little as he passes from effect to cause and from cause to effect, while he often remains uncertain, often makes serious mistakes, and seldom arrives at certain knowledge: whereas an angel by one simple intuition understands the matter, perceives at one and the same time causes and their effects, penetrates not only the accidents, but also to the very substance of a matter, and sees not only corporeal things but spiritual. |

And so man, while he wanders in this world, in respect of his understanding is not a little less and lower than the angels, but he is so much lowered that a man, though in talent he may be skilled and may give great attention to the pursuit of wisdom, yet when compared with an angel may truly be called a child, or even an infant, a babe.

For rightly did the prophet sing concerning us mortals, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” Hear Solomon, that very wise man, and what he thinks of the knowledge by which we are so puffed up, ‘All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it.’2 And again: ‘He [God] hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.’ 3

If all things are difficult and inexplicable to man, and if a man understands nothing of this visible world from the first created thing unto the last; if, I say, he understand nothing perfectly, as he seeks to unfold its nature, properties, accidents, powers, and the rest which lie hidden: in how many mistakes will he be involved if he attempts to investigate those things which are above the heavens!

Wherefore, O soul, if thou art wise, pursue the knowledge of salvation and the wisdom of the saints which lies in this, that thou fear God and keep his commandments: that prayer delight thee more than disputations, and the charity which buildeth up more than the knowledge which puffeth up ;4 for this is the way that leadeth unto life and the kingdom of heaven, where to us little ones shall be given equality with the angels who ‘always behold the face of the Father which is in heaven.’ 5

I Ps, viii. 2. 2 Eccles. i. 8. 3 ibid., iii. 11.

4 1 Cor. viii. 1. 5 St. Matt. xviii. 10.

But there is a third point in which the human soul is not only a little less but very much beneath an angel: namely, the power and control over bodies. For the human soul has power to move its own body only, by the exercise of its will, it cannot in this way move other bodies; it moves its own body by a progressive movement over the ground, but it cannot suspend it over water or lift it above the air and carry it whither it wills: but angels, by a single motion of their spirit, that is by the exercise of the will, carry heavy bodies aloft and bear them whither they will: thus one angel seized Habacuc and in a very short space of time carried him to Babylon that he might bring food to Daniel, and then carried him back to Palestine.

Secondly, a man cannot fight against his enemies with his spirit alone, he needs hands and arms: but an angel, without hands and without arms, can war against a whole host of armed men by a single onset of his spirit and can conquer: thus did one angel once slay a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians, And if an angel is able to do this, what cannot the Creator and Lord of the angels do? He who made everything out of nothing could, if he willed, bring all things back to nothing.

The human mind, exercising great industry and labour, by the arts of painting and sculpture can form pictures of men, which so represent the living men that they seem to breathe and to be alive; angels, without labour and without hands or tools and almost in a moment of time, can so fashion for themselves a body out of the elements, that it is taken to be a human body, even by wise persons, since it walks, speaks, eats, drinks, is able to be touched and felt and even to be bathed. Thus Abraham prepared food for the angels and washed their feet;! and as the Apostle explains he received angels as his guests, believing that he was receiving men. And the same thing happened to his nephew Lot, when he admitted into his house two angels, taking them to be pilgrim men. Again, Raphael the angel spent many days with the young man Tobias, walking, speaking, eating, and drinking, as if he were truly and really a man, and yet afterwards when he was about to depart he said, “All these days did I appear unto you; but I did neither eat nor drink, but ye did see a vision,' and then suddenly he vanished from their sight.4

Great and wonderful power indeed, suddenly to form a body which seemed to differ in no respect from a living human body, and suddenly to dissolve that same body whenever he willed, so that no trace of it remained! And if this power of the angels is so great and so admirable, what must be the power of the Creator of the angels, who made them and gave them the degree of power which he willed? And so our knowledge and that of the angels compared with the knowledge of God is ignorance, and our righteousness and that of the angels is unrighteousness: thus our power and that of the angels, compared with the power of God, is weakness: and therefore in truth God is said to be only wise,5 only good, the only Potentate.7

Lastly, if we consider the position of angels and of men, we shall find out here also whether or no the soul is not only a little less but very much beneath the angels: I may freely use the word which the Apostle uses. For God gave to the human soul a place on earth, to the angels a place in heaven, that is in his palace, ‘All the whole heavens are the Lord’s: the earth hath he given to the children of men.’ 2

Hence in Saint Matthew the Lord calls them ‘the angels of heaven,’3 in Saint Luke he says, ‘Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,’ and a little later, ‘There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.’ 4.

And moreover God has so bound the soul to the body that apart from it, it cannot change its place: but God has bound the angels to no body, and he has bestowed on them power to pass very swiftly from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, or wherever they will. Thus an angel, by the dignity of his nature nearer to God, also by his subtilty, as it were, imitates the omnipresence of God. For God is always everywhere by the immensity of his nature, and since he is everywhere, he is in no need of change of place: an angel by a very swift movement passes from place to place and manifests his presence in all places, so that he appears in some way to be everywhere.

But, my soul, if thou desirest to hear the Lord of the angels, there is no reason why thou shouldst envy that sublime place in which they are, or their exceeding swift motion without fatigue, for not only wilt thou, as a soul, when loosed from the body, be equal unto the angels, but when thou hast returned to the body which Christ will fashion like unto his glorious body,? with that same body thou shalt possess heaven as thine own abode, and that body will become spiritual,? and without labour or weariness will forthwith be in that place where thou, its soul, desirest and biddest it to be. For thy Lord doth not deceive thee, and he saith in the Gospel: “In my Father’s house are many mansions,’ and, ‘I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also’;3 ‘Father, I will that they may be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.’ 4

And where Christ is, thou knowest, and what sort of body he hath; for thou dost daily acknowledge and dost say, ‘The third day he rose again from the dead: he ascended into heaven.’ 5

And thou knowest that after his resurrection his body used to enter among the disciples, the doors being shut; ® and when he departed he was accustomed to leave them, not by walking, but by vanishing: that is, he was used to move bodily from place to place by a swift motion, as if he were spirit not body.

But if thou aspirest to that glory, it behoves thee first to conform thy body to the body of Christ’s humility, that so Christ may conform thy body to his glorious body.

Next it behoves thee to follow his steps, ‘For Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps,’ says the Apostle Peter: and what are his steps? ‘Who did no sin,’ he saith, ‘neither was guile found in his mouth: who when he was reviled reviled not again, when he suffered he threatened not.’ 7

The steps of Christ are two, and if thou wander from them, thou wilt lose thy way and never wilt reach thy home: it behoves thee not to do evil, but to suffer, and as a consequence to do good and not look for good things to come to thee here: and, that which is the highest of all, it behoves thee to love thy neighbour for God’s sake with a true and pure love, a love of friendship and not of passion, freely and not for the sake of a reward from men, content with the reward of God which surpasses all measure.

In the beginning God created the angels separately that he might at the same time form their nature and infuse grace, as Saint Augustine testifies in the books on the City of God. Then as by a single turning of the mind towards God they clave to him by love, they were crowned with bliss and glory, while the wicked were cast down. And so their pilgrimage was very short and their abode in their native land eternal: if indeed that delay can be said to be very short which intervened between their creation and their beatitude.

But we men indeed received grace with our nature when we were created, but in our first parent not in ourselves, and so when he fell we all fell: as the Apostle says, ‘In whom all have sinned’;? and although we have been reconciled to God by the Mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus,3 yet we are condemned to a long exile, and while we remain in the body, wandering apart from the Lord, we walk by faith and not by sight: and because there is much to distress devout men who long for their native land, that is, that we have to live in the meanwhile amongst most cruel enemies, there is a danger lest we be surrounded and taken captive and at length be shut out from the possession of that most sweet home.

Hence these words, ‘Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech: and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar.’ !

But although in this respect we are inferior to the angels, yet the loving-kindness of God doth wonderfully console us, not only in that from our race sprang Christ and Mary whom he placed in heaven above all angels, but also because he hath willed to make not a few of mankind superior to many angels by the gift of grace, though they are inferior to them in all the endowments of nature, and some he hath made even equal to the highest angels. Indeed Saint John Chrysostom, expounding the Epistle to the Romans, did not hesitate to place Peter and Paul, the chief of the Apostles, in that place where seraphim fly and glorify God; and the same thing is piously believed of Saint John Baptist and some other saints.

Add to which the good angels after their first service attained to glory, and the evil angels after their first sin were condemned to everlasting punishment: and so men ought not to bemoan the length of the way, since in the course of it they may again and again correct their failings and by penitence attain forgiveness.

It remains for us to say a few words concerning the duties of angels. They may be said to be five in number.

« Ps cxx. 4 2 Cry. Hom. xxxii in Ep. ad Rom.

The first is continually to sing praises and hymns to their Creator. And that we may understand how much God values this service, we will consider that the highest angels are appointed to this duty, and that all the choirs of angels follow them as their leaders, and join in chorus with wondrous delight. Hear Isaiah: ‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.’: Here thou hearest the name seraphim, which are the chiefs of the highest order: thou beholdest them covering face and feet, which signifies their reverence, as though they durst not gaze upon their faces or touch their bare feet: thou seest them flying eagerly while they sing, and this signifies their love and desire always increasing of drawing near to God: and these two things are necessary for those who desire to please God, while they sing his praises, namely that to love they should join reverence, and to reverence love, as David the prophet expresses when he says, ‘Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice unto him with reverence.' From this thou mayst learn, O my soul, what great veneration is due to God, when those highest princes of heaven who always stand before him and always see his face, though in such exceeding high place and in long familiarity, yet never dare to neglect fear and reverence while they sing his praises.

And what wilt thou answer, thou dust and ashes, when in the judgement thou art charged with sleepiness and wanderings of mind in such a divine work, for which thou wast not worthy? Learn at least this, since thou art taught by so great an example, that

¥ Is. vi. 1. a Ps. ii. 11.

thou oughtest to perform thy praises and sing thy hymns with fear and trembling, with attention and watchfulness, with love and longing for thy God.

The second office of angels is to offer to God the prayers of mortal men, and to commend them by their own petitions: for thus saith the angel Raphael in the book Tobit, ‘When thou didst pray with tears, and when thou didst bury the dead. . . and when thou didst leave thy dinner, I offered thy prayer unto the Lord’; ! and in the Apocalypse John saw an angel standing before the altar with a golden censer: ‘And there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.’ Here indeed is seen the incredible clemency and pity of our God; for, not content with exhorting us first by his prophets and then by his Son and by his Apostles to pray and make petition, he also added the promise to give whatsoever we shall ask: ‘Ask,’ he saith, ‘and ye shall receive’;3 and elsewhere, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name, he shall give it you.’4 And not content even with this promise, he adds also that he will give a reward to them that ask: ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee’;5 a reward, namely, beyond that for which thou hast asked; for thus saith the Lord in the same place concerning almsgiving and fasting, ‘Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee.' But not content with this argument of his fatherly kindness, God hath appointed angels as it were our most intimate attendants, to take charge of the prayers as being memorials of the poor, and to offer them before him and read them, lest any petition of the poor should ever be forgotten. Who of earthly princes ever promised a reward to those approaching him, seeking favour or justice? And yet those who approach the princes of this world are men, as the princes themselves are men, formed of the same clay, and subject to the same God, the highest of all princes. But if it be a great matter to give rewards to those who beg for them, it ought not to seem much to receive them freely and to appoint a faithful attendant to preserve the petitions carefully, and to be solicitous for their quick despatch.

The third office of angels consists in this, that they are sent as ambassadors to declare those things which God desires to make known, and especially those things concerning redemption and eternal salvation: for thus the Apostle speaks to the Hebrews, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?'

Thus in the Old Testament we see that angels appeared to patriarchs and prophets and made known to them what God had commanded them to make known.? So also in the New Testament we read that the archangel Gabriel was sent as a messenger to Zacharias and to the Virgin Mother of God,3 then that angels were sent to the shepherds, 4 to Saint Joseph,5 after the Resurrection of our Lord to the women going to the sepulchre, and after the Ascension to all the disciples.

And this seems to be the reason why God, who is in every place and who can easily speak himself within the hearts of men, yet wills to send angels, namely that men may understand that human interests are matters of concern to God and that by him all things are governed and directed; for men might easily persuade themselves that divine inspirations were their own reasonings and plans. But when they perceive or hear angels sent by God, and that the things foretold by angels happen as they foretold, they cannot doubt that God exercises a providence over human affairs and that those matters are especially directed and arranged by him which appertain to the eternal salvation of the elect.

The fourth office of the angels is to protect men, both individually and in a multitude: for the loving-kindness of God our Father is pleased to commit to these his most faithful servants the infirmities of mortals and to place them in authority, now as it were fulfilling the duties of a guide to youths, of guardian to little children, of patron to followers, of shepherd to sheep, of physician to the sick, of defender of the weak, of protector of those who cannot defend themselves without taking refuge beneath the wings of others more powerful than they.

Concerning the protection and guardianship of individual persons, David is witness, “He hath given his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways’; so also, a most faithful witness, Christ himself, saith, ‘Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.'

Concerning the protection of states and kingdoms, Daniel is witness, for he calls the angels protectors of the Persian kingdom, the Prince of Persian, and the protector of the Grecian kingdom he names King of Grecia, and the protector of the children of Israel he calls by the name Michael.

And lastly concerning the protector of the Churches, John writes in the Apocalypse, where he makes mention of the angel of the Church at Ephesus and of the angel of the Church at Smyrna and so of other Churches.

And so in every kingdom there are two kings, one visible, a man, and one invisible, namely an angel; and in the Catholic Church universal there are two high priests appointed under Christ the Lord, one visible, a man, and one invisible, an angel, whom we believe to be the archangel Michael: for as of old he was venerated as protector of the synagogue of the Jews, so now of the Christian Church.

Seest thou not, O soul, how solicitous for us is that High Majesty who is in no need of our goods? What could he do to show forth his great love that he hath not done? He hath laden us with benefits that we should willingly abide with him: he hath surrounded us with guardians lest we should be snatched away: what would he do if we were indeed a treasure in his sight? And truly he himself is our great and only treasure.

Therefore, my soul, yield thyself sometimes to this love, and when thou considerest the immensity of this love of him who loves thee, yield thy whole being, holding no part back, to his service and good pleasure, hand it over, give it by an irrevocable oath and vow: let none of those things that are seen influence thee, but consider those that are not seen, and yearn after them, ‘For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.'

The last office of the angels is to be also soldiers and armed leaders. ‘To bind their kings in chains and their nobles with links of iron.' There are angels who burnt up wicked cities with fire and brimstone,' who slew the first born of all Egypt, who smote many thousand Assyrians at one blow; and there will be angels who at the last day ‘shall sever the wicked from among the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.' Therefore devout men should love their fellow citizens, the holy angels: let the wicked fear the power of the angels, ministers of the wrath of God Almighty, and from their hands none will be able to deliver them.

St. Matt. xiii. 49.