Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan's Realm

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Church Fathers

The Church Fathers • • •73 CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Church Fathers Jome of theearly Christian writings were accepted ras authoritative; others were excluded from the New Testament as apocryphal. A few, like the Shepherd of Hernias, once regarded by some Christians as Scripture, arenow classified among the "Apostolic Fathers." Theoldest documents in this group belong to thesame ageas thelatest writings in the New Testament. Butsoon weencounter a new type of Christian literature, discursive, often argumentative, basing its authority on the events anddocuments of an earlierday. The term "Church Fathers" is somewhat vague. It includesthe leaders andteachers of the Church from the apostolic period to some date in the Middle Ages. Theageof the Fathers is sometimes thought to endwith Gregory theGreat (Pope from 590 to 604), but the patristic library edited by Migne includes many later authors. The literary output of the Fathers isvoluminous and diversified —including works in Greek, Latin and Syriac. Aside from the official pronouncements of Church Councils, wehave treatises on theology, histories, sermons, liturgies, hymns, letters, biblical commentaries and other forms. Every conceivable subject is somehow touched upon; but the prevailing interest is doctrinal. The Fathers were deeply concerned with defining the teachings of theChristian faith and with defending it against pagans, Jews and Manicheans, andagainst heretics within the Church. One is not surprised to find a pronounced dualism in the thought of theChurch Fathers. Fortheir basic source, the New Testament, ispervaded bythis spirit. Few of the personalities we shall meet, diverse asthey were inbackground and temperament, failed to devote much attention to Satan, his past history and present enterprises, to evil angels andwicked spirits. These matters , derived from Jewish apocalyptic and elaborated in the Christian Scriptures, were developed still further bythescholars 74 • • • Fallen Angels of the Church. To present this subject fully would require a massive volume—we shall touch upon a few of its main features. THE INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS vi. The early Christians seem to have known the tale of the angels who consorted with the daughters of men, as told in the Book of Enoch. But aside from two New Testament references already quoted,1 the matter is not discussed till we come to Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second century. Justin, a Palestinian of non-Jewish origin, composed an Apology for the Christians, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and a Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew. Justin ascribes all evil to the demons, of whose reality he is intensely conscious. In the Apology he insists repeatedly that the persecution of the Christians is due to baseless slanders—slanders invented and spread by demons.2 These demons are the offspring of angels, to whom God had committed the care of mankind, but who transgressed by succumbing to love of women. (Sometimes Justin confuses the wicked angels and their demon children.) 3 The so-called gods of the heathen, declares Justin, are none other than these demons, who have imposed their false divinity on men, partly by deceit, partly by terror.4 This is something new. It has some precedents in Hellenistic thought, but none whatever in Judaism. The rabbinic teachers did not doubt the existence of evil spirits; but they never identified them with pagan gods. The latter, Judaism always held, have absolutely no existence. Justin's view, however, was widely adopted by Christian thinkers. And he used it cannily. For, says Justin, the evil spirits, having set themselves up as deities, made advance preparations to prevent their overthrow by Christianity. They devised myths (like that of Dionysus) to suggest "that the things which are said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets." They also invented rituals similar to those of the Church, to discredit the latter.5 In the Dialogue with Trypho Justin makes more frequent mention of Satan than he does in the Apology; but the fallen angels are not overlooked. In arguing with Trypho, Justin stresses the free will of the angels, who are therefore liable to sin and subject to punishment.6 Trypho, however, protests vehemently against the "blasphemous" assertion that the angels sinned and rebelled against God.7 Now the Dialogue represents Trypho as conceding The Church Fathers • • • 75 point after point, allowing arguments which no professing Jew could have admitted. It is all the more convincing that on this matter, of the sinfulness of the angels, Justin depicts his antagonist as unyielding. Clearly, this was...