Total Number Of Angels example essay topic

Angels: angels are the ninth and last order of angels. These angels are commonly known as the Guardian Angels, to which one is assigned to every living creature, to guide them and to record their good deeds. They are said to be invisible, like all angels, but can materialize into visible form and make themselves known to people. This kind of puts a crimp on the number of angels that are in Heaven, which you will see in the next section. The number of angels is quite simple to figure out. A monk by the name of De Spina came up with the figure that is supposedly the most accurate, sometime in the 14th or 15th centuries CE.

Here is how we get it: total number of angelic orders 9, number of legions in an order - 6,666, number of angels in a legion: 6,666. So the total number of angels is 399,920,004. This was the total number of angels before the war in heaven. Once the war began, however, Lucifer drew one-third of the total host of heaven to his side, which amounted to 133,306,668 angels. Although the Fallen Angels probably lost some of their ranks during the war, the Fallen Angels now have the ability to procreate, so their ranks have probably swelled since their initial rebellion.

Perhaps the clearest proofs of this doctrine exist in the books known to Protestants as the "Apocrypha" (called "De utero-canonical" by Catholics), which Protestants removed from the Bible (the first time this had happened in the history of Christianity). In 2 Maccabees 15: 11-16 Jeremiah the prophet prays for the Jews centuries after his death (compare Jer 15: 1), along with the deceased high priest On ias. Likewise, Tobit 12: 1-22 (especially 12, 15) presents Raphael the angel as one of the "seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints". Tobit 12: 15 is apparently referred to in Rev 5: 8 and 8: 3-4, which speak of the "prayers of the saints" being offered to God, and in Rev 1: 4, which mentions the "seven Spirits".

There is plenty of proof, however, in Protestant Bibles. (1994. Metzger, Murphy) Revelation 1: 4: "John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace {be} unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne". The seven angels participate in the giving of "grace" and "peace" by God, a principle anathema to Protestants. Some Protestant commentators, aware of a certain difficulty here for their position, seek to redefine the "seven Spirits" as the Holy Spirit, but a check with the cross-references above make this implausible.

Other commentators accept these spirits as the seven archangels of Jewish angelology, as indeed they appear to be. Revelation 5: 8 and 8: 3-4 "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four {and} twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer {it} with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, {which came} with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand".

Bibliography

1) 1996.
Buns on, Matthew. Angels A to Z: A Who's Who of the Heavenly Host. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks 2) 1967.
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels. New York: The Free Press. 3) 1996.
Fox, Matthew and Rupert Shel drake. The Physics of Angels. San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco. 4) 1990.
Godwin, Malcom. Angels: An Endangered Species. New York: Simon and Schuster. 5) 1998.
Keck, David. Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 6) 1994.