Religious Themes in Film

Lesson 7: City of Angels: Angelology

Angels in love with humans: What we have that they don’t.

"Ain't Got No Body"

Let’s examine the motivations behind the angel Seth’s desire to become human in City of Angels. Even though the human being he loves dies pretty quickly after Seth’s transformation into a human, Seth is still happy with his decision.

Why would an angel, by most accounts an immortal, pure and perfect being of “fire and “flame,” decide to suffer as a mortal creature made of decaying flesh? The angels get to be continually in God’s presence – something that humans can only hope for. Why would an angel give all that up?

Although believers hold the angels up as perfect models of worshipers, the spirituality of the angels is actually too perfect. The traditions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity point out that humanity has a relationship with God that the angels never can have. The angels’ worship of God lacks the fullness of a human’s worship. Angels have only experienced joy, never sorrow. Their joy lacks the depth of a human being.

Another element of this stems from the fact that angels do not have bodies. Although they appear in the Bible (and in movies and television shows) disguised as humans, these are mere masks they wear. They are not corporeal, so they cannot see or feel or hear like we can. Remember Seth in City of Angels: “Do you ever wonder what that would be like? Touch?” And again, when he quotes a little girl: “What good would wings be if you could feel the wind on your face?”

A physical body, however, is an integral part of worship. They human being is capable of genuflecting, kneeling, laying prostrate, and standing tall in its adoration of its god. Human beings can worship with all their senses and with their entire senses. The angels can only worship in a single attitude, according to their rank.

This is the meaning behind the final scene in City of Angels. The angels stand rigid while Seth runs and jumps in the water. As a human, he feels the cold water; he smells the salt air. He takes in all the sounds, sights, and feeling of nature and, in so doing, he relishes in the creation of his Maker.

Furthermore, as the movie graphically demonstrates, angels cannot make love. The act of making love is the ultimate representation of people’s unity with each other and symbolic of their unity with the divine. When we make love, we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually at one with the Other, so much so that it becomes confusing where the Self ends and the Other begins.

Angels are incapable of this kind of love both spiritually and physically. They cannot love humans this way; they cannot love their God this fully. God created only human beings in his image (not angels), so, therefore, only the human soul and body are capable of a love that mirrors God’s. According to Islamic mysticism: “When the angel falls in love, he is the perfect human.”

Angels + Humans = Trouble

There are ancient stories of angels and spiritual beings who become attracted to human beings, perhaps because love must seem so much fuller to them. Unlike the film City of Angels, however, these stories assume that angels that are attracted to human beings are evil and, in some cases, that they should be punished.

We have already mentioned Genesis 6:1-4 where the Sons of God (angels) come down and take human women for their wives:

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fail; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them…

Gnostic texts, such as the "Book of Enoch" and the "Twelve Testaments," also tell the same story as Genesis 6, with varying outcomes. The angels, however, are always punished.

The Jewish story of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, is another human-meets-spirit-next-door tale. Lilith refuses Adam’s advances and ends up having intercourse with demons. Her daughters, the Lilim, become the succubi of medieval Christian monasteries, haunting the monks in their dreams.

The incubi, along with the succubi, are another spiritual form that has intercourse with human beings, often while the human sleeps. There are many stories of rather friendly succubi and incubi that live with humans. In some cases, the spirits marry the humans and have children.

The Islamic spirit form called the jinn (the root of genie) is yet another. In classical Arabic poetry, the jinn appears as a sort of nymph to the poet. The poet follows the spirit into the desert where the poet goes mad or dies of thirst.

In most of these cases when a celestial spirit lusts after a human, it is a bad thing. The angels and humankind at large at punished for the actions of Genesis 6 when God sends the flood. Incubi and succubi are synonymous with nightmares. And other spirits who sleep with humans are called demons.

If it had stuck with tradition, the movie City of Angels would have ended with a flood.

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