A photo from open sources
Winged humanoids are becoming especially popular. But where from did they come from? The history of representations of angels reflects millennia ups and downs of religious thought. “Angelos” in Greek means “messenger”. In the Greek translation of the Bible, the word messengers Of God. Angels acquired our usual form only by the XIV century, as on this fresco in the Italian chapel. (Photo by SuperStock / Getty Images.) In the early days of Christianity, some believers believed Jesus Christ is one of the angels. We know this because the authors the end of the IV century made a lot of efforts to refute these representation. Jesus “officially” lost angelic status only in 325 at the Nicene Council, convened by the Roman emperor Konstantin I to develop a single, unified Christian theology from many variegated teachings. Only there it was finally “established” that Christ has the same nature as God. It was understood that angels are something else. Well, but who are they? Representations of angels were as heterogeneous as the views of the first Christians on Of Christ. The monk and ascetic of the 4th century, Evagrius, for example, wrote that the essence of man consists of three parts. “Lower” calls in us hunger, drowsiness, desire for carnal pleasures. Another emotional makes us angry, proud, etc. The third part – rational. It is she who makes us look like God and angels. By Evagrius’s thoughts, anger is a kind of demon that attacks us. If we cannot deal with it on our own, to the rescue rational angel comes. Many people liked this theory, and angels began to be perceived as incorporeal “minds,” or “intellects”. Then the discussion broke out whether such angels. Some apologists for monasticism claimed that guardian angel must be earned, and this can only be done in the monastery. However, in urban culture, more prevailed democratic point of view. Bishops and other ministers of the church assured parishioners that everyone has a guardian angel. In Egypt, even there was a hypothesis that true ascetics who refused carnal pleasures and families themselves can become angels already on the earth. The hermits modestly rejected this compliment: they say we are more like animals than disembodied creatures. The end result the populist point of view won: we are not angels, but we are all worthy of guardian angels. Believers did not even have time agree on how angels such as theologians began to argue about the self-organization of the heavenly messengers. The bible about this little reported, and those wishing to fill in the gaps of Holy Scripture divorced a bunch of. Unknown author, codenamed Pseudodionysius, who wrote about 500 years, using the ideas of his predecessors, divided the heavenly hierarchy (his work was called – “Oh heavenly hierarchy “) for nine ranks. From the highest to the lowest – angels, archangels, beginnings, forces, virtues, dominions, thrones, cherubs and seraphim. The church, however, did not recognize this hierarchy. Around the same time, the tradition was born to believe that not all angels – angels. Say Satan was once an angel named Lucifer, but then fell. Thus, people gave the angels free will and made them even more like themselves. A number of medieval theologians eventually suggested that two people are fighting for the human soul the angel is the fallen and the guardian angel. Part of the church doctrine the theory did not become either, but it is popular among the people to this day. Already Christian theologians of the 2nd – 3rd centuries (for example, Origen Alexandria) believed that the fallen angels were assigned an important role in the divine design. In their opinion, they are participating in control of the universe (as far as the Lord allows them), tempting man and doing other nasty things. Naive historians believe that the Middle Ages is far behind. There it was! According to Gallup commissioned survey in 2008 Baylor University (USA), about 55% of Americans continue to believe that they are protected by guardian angels. Sociologist Carson Mencken of this university has collected more than 1,100 stories of “communication” with heaven intercessors. As a rule, we are talking about “miraculous” salvation during accident, attack, clinical death. Very people I want to believe that their life is in reliable, omnipotent hands. Based on materials from National Geographic.
Angels Time Evolution
