Religious Themes in Film

Lesson 7: City of Angels: Angelology

For Thought

1. When you read Danielou, you get the sense that the Church Fathers saw angels everywhere. Christians philosophers used to study angels and their characteristics in the same way that biologists study apes today. Why was there such an interest in supernatural beings such as angels at their time? What does such a viewpoint say about a people’s cosmology (the way the see the universe)?
2. Today, we are experiencing an angel renaissance. However, the contemporary angel craze is centered on guardian angels. What does this say about these people cosmology? Is it the same as those of the Middle Ages? Why do you think people are looking to their guardian angels in these days?
3. Think about how angels are depicted in art. Compare angels depicted in the classical paintings compared to how they are depicted now. Think about modern depictions of angels: baby-faced cherubim and Victoria Secret models. What do these depictions tell us about our own view of angels and the supernatural?
4. How do you answer Satan’s complaint that God isn’t fair?
5. What can a study of angels tell us about ourselves?

Anderson, Gary. “The Exaltation of Adam and the Fall of Satan.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, 6. 1997 (105-134).

Awn, Peter J. Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology. Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1983.

Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, ed. The Jerome Biblical Commentary. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1968.

Charles, R.H., ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Danielou, Jean. The Angels and Their Mission. Allen, Texas: The Newman Press, 1953.

Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels. New York: The Free Press, 1967.

Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews, Vol I. James L. Kugel, trans. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Layton, Bentley, ed. The Gnostic Scriptures: Ancient Wisdom for the New Age. New York: Doubleday, 1987.

Matt, Daniel C. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism. Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1997.

Meeks, Wayne A., ed. The HarperCollins Study Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Rinehart & Co. Inc., 1951.

Nigosian, S. A. The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition & Modern Research. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.

Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. Koln, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1996.

Rumi. The Essential Rumi. Coleman Barks, trans. New York: Castle Books, 1997.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.

Schultz, Joseph. Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law. Jewish Quarterly Review 61: 1970/71.

Waite, A.E. The Holy Kabbalah: A Study of the Secret Tradition in Israel. Hertfordshire, England. 1996.

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