Angels and creation -- Angelic community -- Angels in salvation history -- Augustine and spiritual warfare

This book ventures to describe Augustine of Hippo's understanding of demons, including the theology, angelology, and anthropology that contextualize it. Demons are, for Augustine as for the Psalmist (95:5 LXX) and the Apostle (1 Cor 10:20), the gods of the nations. This means that Augustine's demons are best understood neither when they are spiritualized as personifications of psychological struggles, nor in terms of materialist contagions that undergird a superstitious moralism. Rather, because the gods of the nations are the paradigm of demonic power and influence over humanity, Augustine sees the Christian's moral struggle against them within broader questions of social bonds, cultural form, popular opinion, philosophical investigation, liturgical movement, and so forth. In a word, Augustine's demons have a religious significance, particularly in its Augustinian sense of bonds and duties between persons, and between persons and that which is divine. Demons are a highly integrated component of his broader theology, rooted in his conception of angels as the ministers of all creation under God, and informed by the doctrine of evil as privation and his understanding of the fall, his thoughts on human embodiment, desire, visions, and the limits of human knowledge, as well as his theology of religious incorporation and sacraments. As false mediators, demons are mediated by false religion, the body of the devil, which Augustine opposes with an appeal to the true mediator, Christ, and the true religion of his body, the church.

This monograph has set itself the goal to examine, outline, elucidate, and supplement the existing body of knowledge concerning a theme from patristic and medieval theology recalled in 1953 by Marie-Dominique Chenu, and that is the assertion that man was created as a replacement for fallen angels (Yves Congar: créature de remplacement; Louis Bouyer: ange de remplacement). The study first shows that the idea of man having being created to take the place of fallen angels was introduced by St. Augustine and developed by other church fathers. It then identifies the typical contexts in which the subject was raised by authors of the early Middle Ages, but goes on to focus on the discussion that developed during the twelfth century (Anselm of Canterbury, the school of Laon, Rupert of Deutz, Honorius of Autun), which represents the high point of the theme under investigation, culminating in the assertion that man is an "original" being, created for its own sake, for whom God created the world – a world which together with, and through, man is destined for the heavenly Jerusalem. The question as to whether man would have been created if the angels had not sinned (cur homo) bears a clear similarity to a further controversy, the origins of which also go back to the twelfth century, and that is whether the Son of God would have become incarnate if man had not sinned (cur Deus homo). Next, the book sheds light on how the subject begins to gradually fade away through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both within monastic tradition, which nonetheless held onto Augustine's motif, and within scholastic theology, which asserted that man was created for his own sake. The conclusion summarizes the findings and points to the surprisingly contemporary relevance of the foregoing reflections, particularly in relation to the critique that the Swiss philosopher and theologian Romano Amerio († 1997) offers concerning a statement in the pastoral constitution of the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et spes 24), according to which man is "the only creature on earth that God willed for itself".

The following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason. Now one class of such men endeavor to transfer to things incorporeal and spiritual the ideas they have formed, whether through experience of the bodily senses, or by natural human wit and diligent quickness, or by the aid of art, from things corporeal; so as to seek to measure and conceive of the former by the latter. Aeterna Press

Ellen Muehlberger explores the diverse and inventive ideas Christians held about angels in late antiquity. During the fourth and fifth centuries, Christians began experimenting with new modes of piety, adapting longstanding forms of public authority to Christian leadership and advancing novel ways of cultivating body and mind to further the progress of individual Christians. Muehlberger argues that in practicing these new modes of piety, Christians developed new ways of thinking about angels. The book begins with a detailed examination of the two most popular discourses about angels that developed in late antiquity. In the first, developed by Christians cultivating certain kinds of ascetic practices, angels were one type of being among many in a shifting universe, and their primary purpose was to guard and to guide Christians. In the other, articulated by urban Christian leaders in contest with one another, angels were morally stable characters described in the emerging canon of Scripture, available to enable readers to render Scripture coherent with emerging theological positions. Muehlberger goes on to show how these two discourses did not remain isolated in separate spheres of cultivation and contestation, but influenced one another and the wider Christian culture. She offers in-depth analysis of popular biographies written in late antiquity, of the community standards of emerging monastic communities, and of the training programs developed to prepare Christians to participate in ritual, demonstrating that new ideas about angels shaped and directed the formation of the definitive institutions of late antiquity. Angels in Late Ancient Christianity is a meticulous and thorough study of early Christian ideas about angels, but it also offers a different perspective on late ancient Christian history, arguing that angels were central rather than peripheral to the emergence of Christian institutions and Christian culture in late antiquity.

How might premodern exegesis of Genesis inform Christian debates about creation today? Pastor and theologian Gavin Ortlund retrieves Augustine's reading of Genesis 1-3 and considers how his premodern understanding of creation can help Christians today, shedding light on matters such as evolution, animal death, and the historical Adam and Eve.

Wrestling with Angels gathers writings by Rowan Williams, spanning the years 1980-2000. It focuses on his engagement with a range of modern theologians and philosophers - Hegel, Wittgenstein, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Balthasar, Simone Weil, Marilyn McCord Adams, and more. Key themes explored in this volume include negative theology, postmodernity, violence, innocence, divine action, and the nature of historical development in theology.--From publisher's description.

Angels and saints. Catholics tend to think of them as different from the rest of us. They’re cast in plaster or simpering on a holy card, performing miracles with superhero strength, or playing a harp in highest heaven. Yet they are very near to us in every way. In this lively book, Scott Hahn dispels the false notions and urban legends people use to keep the saints at a safe distance. The truth is that Jesus Christ has united heaven and earth in a close communion. Drawing deeply from Scripture, Dr. Hahn shows that the hosts of heaven surround the earthly Church as a "great cloud of witnesses." The martyrs cry out from heaven’s altar begging for justice on the earth. The prayers of the saints and angels rise to God, in the Book of Revelation, like the sweet aroma of incense. Dr. Hahn tells the stories of several saints (and several angels too) in a way that’s fresh and new. The saints are spiritual giants but with flesh-and-blood reality. They have strong, holy ambitions—and powerful temptations and opposition that must be overcome. Their stories are amazing and yet familiar enough to motivate us to live more beautiful lives. In this telling of their story, the saints are neither otherworldly nor this-worldly. They exemplify the integrated life that every Christian is called to live. Still, their lives are as different from one another as human lives can be. Dr. Hahn shows the heavenly Church in all its kaleidoscopic diversity—from Moses to Mary, Augustine to Therese, and the first century to the last century. Only saints will live in heaven. We need to be more like the saints if we want to live in heaven someday. Dr. Hahn shows us that our heavenly life can begin now. It must.