(Madrid, Spain).]]
A fallen angel, in Christian theology, is an angel who has been exiled or banished from Heaven. Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God (see War in Heaven).
The best-known fallen angel is Lucifer, a name frequently attributed to Satan in Christian belief. This usage stems from a particular interpretation of Isaiah 14:3-20 that speaks of someone who is given the name of "Day Star" or "Morning Star" (in Latin, Lucifer) as fallen from heaven. The word Lucifer, however, does not refer to Satan anywhere in the Bible. Some see the passage as using this name to describe the king of Babylon, who had exalted himself as being deity himself, after which God would cast him down. The same terminology is used in Ezekiel to describe the king of Tyre. The Greek etymological synonym of Lucifer, Eωσφόρος (Eosphoros, "dawn-bearer")[1][2] is used of the morning star in 2 Peter 1:19 and elsewhere with no reference to Satan.
Still, Satan is called Lucifer in many later writings, notably Milton's Paradise Lost (7.131-134, among others), because, according to Milton, Satan was "brighter once amidst the host of Angels, than that star the stars among."[3]
Prospects for salvation
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, angels were all created as good beings, but some decided to become evil.[4] Angels do not need faith as they already have the knowledge of celestial things, which means their action constitutes unforgivable sin.[5] Matthew 12:32 clarifies unforgivable sin as meaning that the sinner is not forgiven in "this age or the age to come." For most Christians this would not mean that those who have committed this sin may be redeemed after the passage of two ages,[6] since "the age to come" is usually interpreted to mean an eternal period after the eschaton. A minority tradition, still believed by some, stretches back as far as Gregory of Nyssa and Origen and teaches that the Devil and fallen angels will eventually be saved.[7][8]
Origin of the term
The origin of the term lies in the Hebrew word for "giant". The Hebrew word translated as "giants" here is nephilim, a plural, which itself derives from the root word Naphal, which means to fall.[improper synthesis?] The apocryphal Book of Enoch explains that a group of rebellious angels "left their first estate" (heaven, or the sky) and came down (fell) to Earth to marry human women and have children with them. Jude makes mention of these angels in the New Testament:
| “
| Jude 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
| ”
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Due to the disastrous results of this forbidden intermingling, many have come to view the word "fallen" as denoting a fall from grace,
[citation needed] though it seems that the original meaning was simply to descend from the heavens.
References
- ^ ScriptureText.com
- ^ Etymonline.com
- ^ Online-Literature.com
- ^ Vatican.va, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Number 391
- ^ Vatican.ca, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Number 393
- ^ NewOxfordReview.org. Is Hell Closed Up & Boarded Over?, David Watt, New Oxford Review, February 1999
- ^ Allen, Thomas (1891). Universalism Asserted. http://www.tlchrist.info/tallin.htm. [page needed]
- ^ Russell, Jeffrey (1981). Satan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801494133. [page needed]
Source
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
Bibliography
- Ashley, Leonard. The Complete Book of Devils and Demons Barricade Books. ISBN 1-56980-077-4
- Bamberger, Bernard Jacob, (March 15, 2006). Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan's Realm, 300pp. ISBN 0-8276-0797-0
- Davidson, Gustav, 1994. A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels. Free Press. ISBN 0-02-907052-X
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