http://www.ccel.org/ccel/berkhof/systematictheology.

txt

very beginning of the Christian era. Some of them were regarded as

good, and others as evil. The former were held in high esteem as
personal beings of a lofty order, endowed with moral freedom, engaged
in the joyful service of God, and employed by God to minister to the
welfare of men. According to some of the early Church Fathers they had
fine ethereal bodies. The general conviction was that all angels were
created good, but that some abused their freedom and fell away from
God. Satan, who was originally an angel of eminent rank, was regarded
as their head. The cause of his fall was found in pride and sinful
ambition, while the fall of his subordinates was ascribed to their
lusting after the daughters of men. This view was based on what was
then the common interpretation of Gen. 6:2. Alongside of the general
idea that the good angels ministered to the needs and welfare of
believers, the specific notion of guardian angels for individual
churches and individual men was cherished by some. Calamities of
various kinds, such as sicknesses, accidents, and losses, were
frequently ascribed to the baneful influence of evil spirits. The idea
of a hierarchy of angels already made its appearance (Clement of
Alexandria), but it was not considered proper to worship any of the
angels.

As time went on the angels continued to be regarded as blessed spirits,

superior to men in knowledge, and free from the encumbrance of gross
material bodies. While some still ascribed to them fine ethereal
bodies, there was an ever increasing uncertainty as to whether they had
any bodies at all. They who still clung to the idea that they were
corporeal did this, so it seems, in the interest of the truth that they
were subject to spatial limitations. Dionysius the Areopagite divided
the angels into three classes: the first class consisting of Thrones,
Cherubim, and Seraphim; the second, of Mights, Dominions, and Powers;
and the third, of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. The first
class is represented as enjoying the closest communion with God; the
second, as being enlightened by the first; and the third, as being
enlightened by the second. This classification was adopted by several
later writers. Augustine stressed the fact that the good angels were
rewarded for their obedience by the gift of perseverance, which carried
with it the assurance that they would never fall. Pride was still
regarded as the cause of Satan's fall, but the idea that the rest of
the angels fell as the result of their lusting after the daughters of
men, though still held by some, was gradually disappearing under the
influence of a better exegesis of Gen. 6:2. A beneficent influence was
ascribed to the unfallen angels, while the fallen angels were regarded
as corrupting the hearts of men, as stimulating to heresy. and as
engendering diseases and calamities. The polytheistic tendencies of
many of the converts to Christianity fostered an inclination to worship
the angels. Such worship was formally condemned by a council which
convened at Laodicea in the fourth century.

During the Middle Ages there were still a few who were inclined to
assume that the angels have ethereal bodies, but the prevailing opinion
was that they were incorporeal. The angelic appearances were explained
by assuming that in such cases angels adopted temporal bodily forms for
revelational purposes. Several points were in debate among the
Scholastics. As to the time of the creation of the angels the
prevailing opinion was that they were created at the same time as the
material universe. While some held that the angels were created in the
state of grace, the more common opinion was that they were created in a
state of natural perfection only. There was little difference of
opinion respecting the question, whether angels can be said to be in a
place. The common answer to this question was affirmative, though it
was pointed out that their presence in space is not circumscriptive but
definitive, since only bodies can be in space circumscriptively. While
all the Scholastics agreed that the knowledge of the angels is limited,
the Thomists and Scotists differed considerably respecting the nature
of this knowledge. It was admitted by all that the angels received

94 de 556 9/9/2019 11:41 a. m.