ANGELS

Abstract

This article argues that the modern notion of government and the very terminology of public administration find their first formulation in angelology. The theological tradition distinguishes in angels two aspects or functions: a properly “governmental” or administrative one, and one of “assistance,” in which they contemplate and glorify God. But one of the essential results of a genealogy of government is that these two functions are the two sides of a single governmental machine, which we can call, respectively, “economy” and “glory,” “government” and “kingdom.” Moving from these premises, the present article explores the different configurations assumed by the function of angels in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of the three religions answers in its own way the Gnostic dilemma concerning the opposition between a god who is foreign to the world and one who governs it. The conclusion to be drawn from a comparative analysis of angelology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that if the government of the world is still today in the hands of the Christian Occident (even if we do not know for how long), this is certainly not unrelated to the fact that Christianity is the only one of the three monotheistic religions that has turned the government of the world into an internal articulation of divinity and that has, thus, divinised angelic power.