Angel

Brief Angelology

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Multitudinous angels, created for this purpose, stubbornly remain with the times and beings that already are no more. From the brushing of their wings, sharp like judgments, they make them live, yet in another way. They separate them from what they were not, and from what they could not be. Thus they keep them in their essence, animated by the gentle breath of their wings. By their quiet effervescence, they watch over their infinite sleep, – like the eagle circling above the nest to inspire its eaglets, – like the winds once palpitated in the face of the origins. They are the guardians of the past in agony, warning, for as long as it takes, the fatal coma.

Other angels roam the dark alleys of the future. They spread immense wings like ecstasy, they glide silently over the empty plains of the non-existent. Their powerful flight awakens the black waters, and all that is not yet. Against all odds, from far and wide, crack the shells of unborn times.

With their burning lips they give the beak to the fledglings of the possible.

We must finally evoke the angels of the present. They link (like quantum loops, and subliminal bursts of precognition) the distant past and the improbable future, the countless déjà-vu and the unlimited forthcoming, the immanent causes (dormant like dead saints) and the transcendent potency (radiant like seraphim). They fly and come, as in Jacob’s dream, between the uncertain and the unimaginable…

From these vast landscapes of various angels, which are like myriads of divine synapses, a vesperial mist is exhaled.

It announces in advance the rain to come, penetrating, fertile, and in the rainbow of the sky finally bent, it draps the first rays of dawn, gorged with soul plasma and liquid light.

Angel’s Ink

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« Michelangelo »

After a short life-walk, standing on some high ground, I did not discover any ‘Land’, in truth never promised, I just took a glimpse at perspectives, and at the assured prospect of continued exile.

Not an infinite exile, only bordered by death. But at least a never finished exodus, no matter what happens, so vast are the surrounding deserts.

Literature, and philosophy itself, as they appear, are like dry lakes, under the sun, when one is really dying for living water, and poetry even is a mule loaded with empty gourds, or a thirsty camel.

As for the arts, they no longer light up the days. The theater of sanctification does not call for applause. Divine names offer little certainty. The angels disappear as soon as they move. True theologies are negative. Exegeses are never meant to be completed.

I remember, rather disenchanted, the past soothsayers of the future. Some wide open doors, leading to tightly closed ways, were tentatively described by these unaccountable prophets, but for sure, they did not no propose any real way out, any effective exits, they were at best just supplying asymptotes.

New angels kept falling down, wave after wave.

The Kabbalah says that at every moment of our lives, multitudes of angels are created, only to disappear. Their role is brief as much as their songs.

They praise with lilac hallelujahs the serene lordship, the gray sound of the skies. And they then dilute themselves in thin air with no return.

My patience was waning under the short luminosity of nocturnal stars.

A somber angel then unexpectedly attacked me.

Her sharp wings barely shuddered. The air was shivering. I stepped aside.

The dodge, always the dodge.

I kissed her with my eyes. She advanced surreptitiously, leapt forward on the path of escape.

Was running away an option? But where?

Towards the future from which she seemed to have come, I did not see any encouragement.

I saw her gaze turned towards what she was already no longer, or was it towards what she already thought she could no longer be?

So I took this opportunity to pluck out one of her feathers, which I dipped incontinently in a transparent ink mixed with black tears.

Morning and Evening Knowledge

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Angel of Annunciation. Bernardino Luini

The sun was created on the fourth day of Genesis. Before the sun was created, what did the first « mornings » and « evenings » look like? In what sense was a “dawn” without a morning sunbeam? An “evening” without twilight?

Genesis speaks of « evenings » and « mornings »i, but not of « nights », except at the very beginning. « God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”ii

Why? Perhaps to suggest that the « Night » cannot be entirely given over to « Darkness ». Or because the Night, being absolutely devoid of any « light », cannot have an existence of its own. Nights = Darkness = Nothingness?

There is another possibility. The Night does exist, but the angels of light cannot have « knowledge » of it. Being made of light, they are incompatible with night. Therefore they cannot talk about it, let alone pass on its existence to posterity.

This is the reason why one passes, immediately, from evening to morning. « There was an evening, there was a morning”iii.

Another question arises, that of the nature of the « day ». Since the sun had not yet been created, perhaps we should imagine that « day » implied another source of light, for example an « intelligible light », or metaphorically, the presence of « angels of light », as opposed to « night », which would shelter the « angels of darkness »?

In any case, before the sun was born, there were three days – three mornings and three evenings – that benefited from a non-solar light and a quality of shadow that was intermediate and not at all nocturnal.

When the angels « knew » the creation (waters, heavens, lands, seas, trees, grasses…) in the first three days, they did not « see » it, nor did they get attached to it. They would have run the risk of sinking into the darkness of the night, which they did not « see », and for good reason.

In those evenings and mornings, they could also « know » the light of the spirit.

Only the “night angels” could remain in the night, this “night” which Genesis avoids naming six timesiv.

Nothing can be said about this night and this occultation of the spirit. Besides, the Bible does not even mention the word itself, as has already been said.

What is certain is that during the first three days there were no lights other than those of the spirit. Nor were there any nights other than those of the spirit.

During these three days and nights, creation received the original, founding memory of this pure light and this deep darkness.

We can also derive these words (mornings, evenings, days, nights) into other metaphors: the « mornings » of consciousness, the « nights » of the soul, – as S. Augustine who wrote about the « knowledge of the morning » and the « knowledge of the evening »v.

S. Thomas Aquinas also took up these expressions and applied them to the « knowledge of the angel »: « And as in a normal day morning is the beginning of the day, and evening is the end of the day, [St. Augustine] calls morning knowledge the knowledge of the primordial being of things, a knowledge which relates to things according to the way they are in the Word; whereas he calls evening knowledge the knowledge of the created being as existing in its own nature.” vi

Philosophically, according to Thomistic interpretation, ‘morning’ is a figurative way of designating the principle of things, their essential idea, their form. And the « evening » then represents what follows from this essence subjected to the vicissitudes of existence, which results from the interaction of the principle, the idea, the form, with the world, reality or matter.

“Morning knowledge” is a knowledge of the primordial being of things, a knowledge of their essence. “Evening knowledge” represents the knowledge of things as they exist in their own nature, in the consciousness of themselves.

Let us take an example. A tiger, an eagle or a tuna, live their own lives, in the forest, the sky or the sea. Perhaps one day we will be able to write about the unique experience of a particular tiger, a particular eagle or a particular tuna. We will have taken care to arm them with sensors from their birth, and to scrupulously record all the biological data and their encephalograms every millisecond of their existence. In a sense, we will be able to « know » their entire history with a luxury of detail. But what does « knowing » mean in this context? Over time, we will surely acquire the essence of their vision of the world, their grammars, their vocabularies, as a result of systematic, tedious and scholarly work. But will we ever discover the Dasein of a particular animal, the being of this tiger, this tuna or this eagle?

Since Plato, there has been this idea that the idea of the animal exists from all eternity, but also the idea of the lion, the idea of the dove or the idea of the oyster.

How can we effectively perceive and know the essence of the tiger, the tigerness? The life of a special tiger does not cover all the life possibilities of the animals of the genus Panthera of the Felidae family. In a sense, the special tiger represents a case in point. But in another sense, the individual remains enclosed in its singularity. It can never have lived the total sum of all the experiences of its congeners of all times past and future. It sums up the species, in one way, and it is overwhelmed on all sides by the infinity of possibilities, in another way.

To access the « morning knowledge », one must be able to penetrate the world of essences, of paradigms, of « Logos« . This is not given to everyone.

To access the « evening knowledge », one must be ready to dive into the deep night of creatures. It is not given to everyone either, because one cannot remain there without damage. This is why one must « immediately » arrive in the morning. S. Augustine comments: « But immediately there is a morning (as is true for each of the six days), for the knowledge of the angels does not remain in the ‘created’, but immediately brings it [the created] to the glory and love of the One in whom the creature is known, not as something done, but to be done.”vii

We can see that there are in fact three kinds of knowledge: diurnal knowledge, vesperal knowledge and morning knowledge.

The diurnal knowledge here is that of daylight, but one has yet to further distinguish between a daylight without the “sun” (like in the first three days of Creation), and a daylight bathing in sunlight.

As for the difference between vesperal and matutinal knowledge, it is the same as the difference between knowledge of things already done and knowledge of things yet to be accomplished.

.

iGn 1,5. Gn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

iiGn. 1, 5

iiiGn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

ivGn 1,5. Gn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

vS. Augustine. IV De Gen. ad litt. 22 PL 34, 312. BA 48,III

viS. Thomas Aquinas. SummaTheol., I a, Q. 58, a 6

viiS. Augustine. De Gen ad litt. Livre IV. XXIV, 41. Ed. Desclée de Brouwer. 1972, p. 341

Counting the Visions of Haggar

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Haggar, Sara’s servant, conceived – at Sara’s request – a son with Abraham. Haggar was then expelled into the desert by Sara who resented bitterness from her triumphant pregnancy.
The name « Haggar » means « emigration ». Pregnant and on the run, she met an angel near a well in the desert. It was not her first encounter with an angel.
According to Rashi, Haggar had already seen angels four times in Abraham’s dwelling. He also points out that « she had never had the slightest fear of them », because « she was used to seeing them ».
Haggar’s meeting with the angel near the well gave rise to a curious scene. There was a mysterious encounter between Haggar and the Lord, implying at least two successive, different, « visions ».
“She proclaimed the name of the Lord [YHVH] who had spoken to her: ‘You are the God [EL] of my vision [Roÿ], because, she said, did I not see, right here, after I saw?’ That is why the well was called ‘Beer-la-Haÿ-Roÿ’ [the ‘Well of the Living One of My Vision’]; it is located between Kadesh and Bered.”i
It is said that Haggar « proclaimed the name of the Lord [YHVH]« , but in fact she did not pronounce this very name, YHVH, which is, as we know, unpronounceable. She used instead a new metaphor that she had just coined: « El Roÿ » (literally ‘God of my Vision’).
She thus gave a (pronouncable) name to the (unspeakable) vision she just had.
From the name given to the well, that was conserved by the tradition, we infer that, a little while after having ‘called the Lord’, Haggar called the Lord a second time with yet another name: « Haÿ Roÿ » (‘The Living One of My Vision’). It is this second name that she used to name the well.
Haggar coined two different names, just as she had two successive visions.
In the text of Genesis, Haggar used the word « vision » twice and the expression « I saw » also twice.
She revealed that she had another vision ‘after she saw’: « Didn’t I see, right here, after I saw? ».
The first name she gave to the Lord is very original. She is the only person in the whole Bible who uses this name: « El Roÿ » (‘God of My Vision’).
The second name is even more original: « Haÿ Roÿ » (‘the Living One of My Vision’).
Here is a servant girl expelled away in the desert by her mistress. She then has two visions, and she invents two new names for God!
The name she gives to the second vision is « The Living One ». This vision is indeed very alive, it is « living », it does not disappear like a dream, it lives deeply in her soul, as the child moves in her womb.
The text, taken literally, indicates that Haggar had two successive visions. But Rashi takes the analysis further, in his commentary on Gen 16, 9:
« THE ANGEL OF THE LORD SAID TO HIM. For every saying, another angel had been sent to her. This is why for each saying, the word AN ANGEL OF THE LORD [ מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה ] is repeated.»
Then according to Rashi, four ‘angels of the Lord’ spoke with Haggar, who therefore had four visions corresponding to four different angels.

If we add the four other visions that she already had in Abraham’s dwelling, also according to Rashi, Haggar had at least eight visions in her life.

I say ‘at least’, because around twenty years later, Haggar had yet another spiritual encounter: an angel called her from the heaven, when she was in danger of dying after having been expelled, once more, from Abraham’s dwelling, as reported in Gen 21,17.
The last angel who spoke to Haggar, near the ‘Well of the Living One of My Vision’, had said :
« You shall bear a son, you shall call him Ishmael, because God has heard your affliction. »ii
Ishmael can indeed be translated as « God has heard ».
Haggar saw a vision and heard a divine voice, and God also « heard » Haggar. But why doesn’t the text say that God « saw » her affliction?
Here is a possible interpretation: in fact God does « hear » and « see » Haggar, but He does not “see” her separately from her unborn son. He « sees » the mother together with her son, the former pregnant with the latter, and He « sees » no immediate reason for affliction. Rather, God « sees » in her the vigorous thrust of a life yet to come, growing in her womb as a seed, and her future joy.
Haggar’s affliction has nothing to do with her pregnancy, it has everything to do with the humiliation imposed on her by Sara. It is this humiliation that God « heard ».
But then, why did the angel who spoke the second time say to her: « Go back to your mistress and humiliate yourself under her hand.” ?
Why does God, who « heard » Haggar’s affliction and humiliation, ask her to return to Abraham’s dwelling, for a further life of humiliation?
God reserves great glory for the afflicted, the humble, the humiliated. And as a price for a life of humiliation, Haggar « saw » the Most High, the Almighty, at least eight times. Many more times than Sara, it seems.

iGn 16, 13-14

ii Gen. 16, 11

The Angel of the Bizarre

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Plato says that, just before incarnating in her body, the soul must choose her destiny, her future way of life. At this crucial moment the soul is completely free. It is her sole responsibility to decide which kind of daimon she will use as her guardian during her brief earthly stay.

This idea goes totally against the « modern way ». For the most part, “modern thinkers”, for example Calvin, Hobbes, Voltaire, Marx, Einstein, Freud, have been advocating determinism or materialism for many centuries.

« Modern thinkers » are far removed from the Platonic world. And much more so from the intellectual and spiritual world in which the Egyptians of the pre-dynastic period, the Chaldean Magi or the Zoroaster supporters lived.

On these disappeared worlds, there are written sources, archaeological traces. It is not impossible to try to understand them better. Scrupulous scientists use their lives for this.

But how can « modernity » receive what Egyptologists or Assyriologists can extract from this long memory?

The noisy « modernity » remains silent, mute, speechless, on the oldest issues, the life and death of the spirit, the growth and degeneration of the soul.

How do « modern thinkers », for example, imagine the formation of the mind in the brain of the newborn child?

Epigenesis, they say, gradually shapes the human mind by connecting, strengthening or weakening neurons together during billions of continuous interactions with the world. It is a materialistic, epigenetic process. In this representation, there is no need for a primordial substance, an original soul, hidden under neurons, or descended from « heavens ». There is only a succession of half-programmed, half-contingent connections, a mixture of chance and neurobiological determinism, which end up constituting your mind or mine, the mind of a Mozart or of a Socrates.

In all cases, without exception, there is a totally unique, absolutely singular creation of a « person », a consciousness.

This “modern” view is widespread. But it is only a theory; it lacks clear evidence. There is no neurobiological evidence that the soul exists, and there is no neurobiological evidence that it does not exist.

The « modern » view, whether materialist or animist, determinist or spiritualist, wander and grope, blind-born, in baroque, devastated and irreconcilable intellectual landscapes.

We need to step back, a few centuries earlier, to reconsider the problem.

« What prevents an angelic thought from creeping into the powers of reason, even though we do not see how it creeps into them? »i

This sentence by a famous Renaissance thinker now has a « surrealist » flavor in the modern sense of the word. It effectively anticipates the Angel of the Odd (or the Uncanny) for more than three centuries.

This Angel had no wings, it was not a feathered « chicken ». Edgar Allan Poe explains that the only function of the « te Angel ov te Odd  » was to bring about these bizarre accidents that continually amaze skeptics.

At first, the writer did not believe a word of what the Angel was telling him. Well, he took it the wrong way. Shortly afterwards, he had a real hard encounter with the Angelic power.

“Meeting my betrothed in an avenue thronged with the elite of the city, I was hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows, when a small particle of some foreign matter lodging in the corner of my eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind. Before I could recover my sight, the lady of my love had disappeared—irreparably affronted at what she chose to consider my premeditated rudeness in passing her by ungreeted. While I stood bewildered at the suddenness of this accident (which might have happened, nevertheless, to any one under the sun), and while I still continued incapable of sight, I was accosted by the Angel of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a civility which I had no reason to expect. He examined my disordered eye with much gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in it, and (whatever a « drop » was) took it out, and afforded me relief.”ii

The Angel had taken revenge.

Skeptics abound. Fewer, those who detect subtle interferences, tiny signals from worlds too parallel.

What are these worlds? To make it in, we could call them « branes ». But it is still a metaphor that is too material, too physical.

There are conditions to perceive these phenomena, these interferences. You have to be free, and your mind must be on « vacation ».

There are many kinds of such ‘mind vacations’: sleep, fainting, melancholy, loneliness.

The modern disease par excellence, unemployment, could be considered as yet another kind of ‘vacation’. Most of us will have to live with it. It will soon be necessary to ensure political and social peace through a guaranteed universal income. We will have to go through this, necessarily, when the rapid progress of artificial intelligence will deprive societies of most of the usual jobs.

Then, in such a world, liberated from stress, « on vacation », interesting encounters with the bizarre will undoubtedly take place. Especially, in spite of themselves, the skeptics will have to learn to live by the new, odd, uncanny, norm.

i Marsilio Ficino Platonic Theology

iiEdgar Allan Poe. The Angel of the Odd

The 24-letters Names of God

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Apocalyptic and esoteric books have a definite taste for the ‘names’ of God and for His multiple ‘attributes’.

These ‘names’ are supposed to embody aspects of the divine essence.

You might think they are immutable by nature, but human language and human-made names are not immutable, by nature, so the names keep changing.

Philo of Alexandria devoted a whole book (De mutatione nominum) precisely to the question of changing names in the Bible.

Examples abound. Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai is renamed Sarah, and Jacob Israel.

In this book, Philo dealt with the important question of the names that God gave to himself.

About the specific name that God revealed to Moses, « I am that I am » (Ex 3,14), Philo has this comment: « It is equivalent to : my nature is to be, not to be said ».

In the original Hebrew, Ex 3,14 reads: אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה « Ehyeh asher ehyeh« .

A literal translation might sound like: « I am who I am », — or « I shall be who I shall be », since « ehyeh » is the 1st person of the present-future of the verb to be, — if we want to somewhat preserve the Hebrew idiosyncrasy of the original text.

We could also simply focus on the word ehyeh that doubly expresses the notion of « Being », in two different modalities: « I am ‘I AM’ « .

We could then assume that God’s name might be ‘I AM’, which may be confirmed by the fact that God also said to Moses, just immediately after:

« Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you. »i

In the Exodus, God clearly affirms a key aspect of his essence through his Name. This essence is « Being ».

In John’s Gospel, another aspect of the essence of God is given: Word, or Logos.

« In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. »ii

But can this Word be His Name?

It does not seem so, at least if we consider what John quotes about Jesus addressing God:

« I have manifested thy name (onoma) unto the men, which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me; and they have kept thy word (logon). « (John 17, 6).

Clearly, here, the Word (Logos) is not the Name (Onoma).

The Name is ‘manifested’. The Word is ‘kept’.

What does that mean?

The Name embodies the very ‘presence’ of God, it « manifests » his presence.

In many texts, the Hebrew word Shekhina is used to celebrate God’s ‘Presence’.

But the Word is something else entirely. It is neither the Name nor the Presence.

What is it then?

It is what was « in the Beginning », — and what was « with God », — and what was « God ».

More complex, admittedly.

Something else entirely than ‘just a Name’.

Logos is not God’s Name, and Logos is not God’s Shekhina.

Jesus also said to God: « And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name (onoma) whom thou hast given me, so that they may be one, as we are. « (John 17, 11)

According to John’s original text (in Greek), Jesus asked God to « keep » the men through His Name (onoma).

Jesus, who is the Logos (Verb), asks God to « keep » men through His Onoma (His Name).

This indicates that Logos and Onoma play indeed a different role.

What are these different roles?

The Logos « is with God » and « is God ». The Onoma is a ‘Name’ and is not God.

The men « keep » the Logos. The Onoma « keep » the men, « so that they may be one ».

The Logos is said to be « one » with God. The Onoma can make the men be « one »with God.

Though obviously not synonymous, ‘Onoma‘, ‘Logos‘ and ‘God’, are however somewhat converging into ‘oneness’.

Let’s add that any ‘Name’ of God has therefore to be considered to have a formidable power.

Any ‘Name’ of God potentially includes all the other Names, those that are revealed and those that will remain ever hidden.

In all likelihood, Hidden Names abound.

To speak metaphorically, there are as many Names as there are angels, and conversely, each angel « bears » one of God’s Names.

The Babylonian Talmud teaches on this subject: « The Archangel Metatron, who is said to bear the Name of God » (« Metatron che-chemo ke-chem rabbo) » (Sanhedrin 38b).

All these (infinite) Names are not just names.They are divine beings, or rather they are figures of the divine Being.

A text belonging to the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, the « Gospel of Truth », composed by Valentine in the 2nd century, specifies it in this way:

« The Name of the Father is the Son. It is He who, in the Principle, gave name to the one who came out of Him, who was Himself and begot Him as Son. He gave Him his own name. (…) The Father. He has the Name, He has the Son. We can see him. But the Name, on the contrary, is invisible, because it alone is the mystery of the Invisible destined to reach the ears which are all filled with it (…) This Name does not belong to words and it is not names that constitute its Name. He’s invisible.»iii

The same idea is expressed in a slightly different way in the Gospel of Philip, also from the Nag Hammadi manuscripts: »‘Jesus‘ is a hidden name, ‘Christ‘ is a manifested name »iv.

But if ‘Jesus’ is a hidden name, how can he be known?

Irenaeus of Lyons gives a possible answer: « Iesous is only the sound of the Name, not its virtue. In fact, the entire Name consists of not only six letters, but thirty. Its exoteric (or pronounceable) composition is IHCOYC [Iesous], while its esoteric composition consists of twenty-four letters.»v

The exoteric name IHCOYC consists of six Greek letters. The full Name contains thirty of them.

Simple arithmetic: 6 (exoteric letters) + 24 (esoteric letters) = 30 letters of the full Name

But Irenaeus of Lyons does not reveal what are the 24 esoteric letters. if he had done so, would they have stayed ‘esoteric’?

It is up to us then, to try figuring them out.

Knowing that the Greek alphabet includes precisely twenty-four letters, the first one being ‘alpha’, the last one being ‘omega’, we could imagine that this esoteric Name is not a fixed name, but that it is constantly woven from the infinity of all their possible combinations, like this one:

βαγεδζηκιθλμονξπρστυφωχψ

or this one:

ΞΟΠΡΥΣΤΨΩΧΦΑΓΒΕΖΔΗΚΘΛΙΜΝ

There 2424 such names…

Here is a selection of names that I like a lot:

ΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞ

and:

ΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏΏ

and:

ΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧ

and :

ΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙΙ

and:

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

We could also try with Hebraic letters such as:

יייייייייייייייייייייייי

and:

שששששששששששששששששששששששש

and:

ןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןןן

and :

הההההההההההההההההההההההה

A lot of research ahead of us!

iEx 3,14

iiJn 1,1

iii Quoted by Guy Stroumsa, Ancient Christian Magic : Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. Princeton, 1993.

iv Gospel of Philip 58, 3-4

vIreaneus of Lyons .Adv. Heres.I. 14, 1-9. Trad. A. Rousseau. 1979