OPINIONS OF THE JEWS, CHRISTIANS, MAHOMETANS, AND ORIENTAL NATIONS
CONCERNING THE APPARITIONS OF GOOD ANGELS.
After what we have just related from the books of the Old and New
Testament, it cannot be disavowed that the Jews in general, the
apostles, the Christians, and their disciples have commonly believed
in the apparitions of good angels. The Sadducees, who denied the
existence and the apparition of angels, were commonly considered by
the Jews as heretics, and as supporting an erroneous doctrine. Jesus
Christ refutes them in the Gospel. The Jews of our days believe
literally what is related in the Old Testament, concerning the angels
who appeared to Abraham, Lot, and other patriarchs. It was the belief
of the Pharisees and of the apostles in the time of our Saviour, as
may be seen by the writings of the apostles and by the whole of the
Gospel.
The Mahometans believe, as do the Jews and Christians, that good
angels appear to men sometimes under a human form; that they appeared
to Abraham and Lot; that they punished the inhabitants of Sodom; that
the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mahomet, and revealed to him all
that is laid down in his Koran: that the genii are of a middle nature,
between man and angel;[59] that they eat, drink, beget children; that
they die, and can foresee things to come. In consequence of this
principle or idea, they believe that there are male and female genii;
that the males, whom the Persians call by the name of _Dives_, are
bad, very ugly, and mischievous, making war against the _Peris_, who
are the females. The Rabbis will have it that these genii were born of
Adam alone, without any concurrence of his wife Eve, or of any other
woman, and that they are what we call _ignis fatuii_ (or wandering
lights).
The antiquity of these opinions touching the corporality of angels
appears in several _old_ writers, who, deceived by the apocryphal book
which passes under the name of the _Book of Enoch_, have explained of
the angels what is said in Genesis,[60] "_That the children of God,
having seen the daughters of men, fell in love with their beauty,
wedded them, and begot giants of them._" Several of the ancient
Fathers[61] have adopted this opinion, which is now given up by
everybody, with the exception of some new writers, who desire to
revive the idea of the corporality of angels, demons, and souls--an
opinion which is absolutely incompatible with that of the Catholic
church, which holds that angels are of a nature entirely distinct from
matter.
I acknowledge that, according to their system, the affair of
apparitions could be more easily explained; it is easier to conceive
that a corporeal substance should appear, and render itself visible to
our eyes, than a substance purely spiritual; but this is not the place
to reason on a philosophical question, on which different hypotheses
could be freely grounded, and to choose that which should explain
these appearances in the most plausible manner, even though it answer
in the most satisfactory manner the question asked, and the objections
formed against the facts, and against the proposed manner of stating
them.
The question is resolved, and the matter decided. The church and the
Catholic schools hold that angels, demons, and reasonable souls, are
disengaged from all matter; the same church and the same school hold
it as certain that good and bad angels, and souls separated from the
body, sometimes appear by the will and with the permission of God:
there we must stop; as to the manner of explaining these apparitions,
we must, without losing sight of the certain principle of the
immateriality of these substances, explain them according to the
analogy of the Christian and Catholic faith, acknowledged sincerely
that in this matter there are certain depths which we cannot sound,
and confine our mind and information within the limits of that
obedience which we owe to the authority of the church, that can
neither err nor deceive us.
The apparitions of good angels and of guardian angels are frequently
mentioned in the Old as in the New Testament. When the Apostle St.
Peter had left the prison by the assistance of an angel, and went and
knocked at the door where the brethren were, they believed that it was
his angel and not himself who knocked.[62] And when Cornelius the
Centurion prayed to God in his own house, an angel (apparently his
good angel) appeared to him, and told him to send and fetch Peter, who
was then at Joppa.[63]
St. Paul desires that at church no woman should appear among them
without her face being veiled, because of the angels;[64] doubtless
from respect to the good angels who presided in these assemblies. The
same St. Paul reassures those who were with him in danger of almost
inevitable shipwreck, by telling them that his angel had appeared to
him[65] and assured him that they should arrive safe at the end of
their voyage.
In the Old Testament, we likewise read of several apparitions of
angels, which can hardly be explained but as of guardian angels; for
instance, the one who appeared to Hagar in the wilderness, and
commanded her to return and submit herself to Sarah her mistress;[66]
and the angel who appeared to Abraham, as he was about to immolate
Isaac his son, and told him that God was satisfied with his
obedience;[67] and when the same Abraham sent his servant Eleazer into
Mesopotamia, to ask for a wife for his son Isaac, he told him that the
God of heaven, who had promised to give him the land of Canaan, would
send his angel[68] to dispose all things according to his wishes.
Examples of similar apparitions of tutelary angels, derived from the
Old Testament, might here be multiplied, but the circumstance does not
require a greater number of proofs.
Under the new dispensation, the apparitions of good angels, of
guardian spirits, are not less frequent in most authentic stories;
there are few saints to whom God has not granted similar favors: we
may cite, in particular, St. Frances, a Roman lady of the sixteenth
century, who saw her guardian angel, and he talked to her, instructed
her, and corrected her.
Footnotes:
[59] D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. _Perith. Dives_, 785. Idem, 243, p. 85.
[60] Gen. vi. 2.
[61] Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 4. Philo, De Gigantibus. Justin. Apol.
Turtul. de Anima. _Vide_ Commentatores in Gen. iv.
[62] Acts xii. 15.
[63] Acts x. 2, 3.
[64] 1 Cor. xi. 10.
[65] Acts xxvii. 21, 22.
[66] Gen. xvi. 9.
[67] Gen. xxii. 11, 17.
[68] Gen. xxiv. 7.