Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 25:2 (Summer 2021)
Article: Angels: Augustine And The Patristic Tradition— The Reality, Ontology, And Morality Of Angels In The Church Fathers And Augustine
Author: Corneliu C. Simut

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Angels: Augustine And The Patristic Tradition— The Reality, Ontology, And Morality Of Angels In The Church Fathers And Augustine

Corneliu C. Simut

Corneliu C. Simut is Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Emanuel University, Oradea, Romania. He earned a PhD in ecclesiastical history from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, a ThD in Dogmatics from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, a DD in Systematic Theology from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and a Dr. Habil. in Religious Studies from the Reformed Theological University in Debrecen, Hungary. He is the author of F. C. Baur’s Synthesis of Böhme and Hegel: Redefining Christian Theology as a Gnostic Philosophy of Religion (Brill, 2014) and the Editor-in-Chief of Perichoresis, the theological journal of Emanuel University. Professor Simuț is also Senior Fellow of Newton House in Oxford, England, Research Associate at the Faculty of Theology and Religion within the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Doctoral Supervisor at Union School of Theology, Bridgend, Wales. He is married to Ramona and they have two children: Ezra and Lara.

Introduction

This paper is an investigation of Augustine’s angelology in the context of patristic theology about angels. The argument begins with a brief presentation of how the Church Fathers understand the problem of angels and especially three of the main issues which are common to patristic discussions about

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angels: the creation of angels by God as specific beings (or the reality of angels), the nature and function of angels as beings created by God (or the ontology of angels), and the behavior of angels in connection with God and humans (the morality of angels).

Methodologically, the paper deliberately deals with patristic angelology without the traditional delineations of Western and Eastern thought. Regardless of whether the Church Fathers mentioned in the paper were active in the Latin or Greek churches, their perspectives of angels will be treated as a whole, in an integrative manner which focuses exclusively on angelic reality, ontology, and morality, although their works contain numerous mentions to other issues pertaining to theological angelology. At the same time, the paper is an attempt to see if the general trend of patristic angelology is continued by Augustine in his writings. For the sake of efficiency and concision, the patristic references to angels are severely limited to only a small number of Church Fathers, while Augustine’s angelology is restricted to Books 11 and 12 of his The City of God.

Patristic Angelology

The doctrine of angels in patristic theology is an ...