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Important Theological Question of the Day
I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I just want to know what gender (or, preferably, sex) they are!
As I was putting up my nativity set last night and placing the angel overlooking the crib, it occurred to me how feminized angels appear in our popular art. It’s always bothered me that the angel in my set has huge hands(!) and is wearing a dress. And a shiny stole, and, well, lookie there! She/he/it appears to have bosoms!
I was under the impression angels are male. Certainly, all the named ones are (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael). What’s up with all the pretty gal angels adorning our art?
I’m reminded of Alan Rickman’s first scene in Dogma.
Very not safe for Ricochet link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnyo5T32LKk
Hahaha “No wonder you’re single”
Hey @judgemental remember that time I painted you as the Archangel Michael?
That movie is far funnier than it has any business being, theological problems aside (thought it’s amazing how much it more or less got right…)
On the female angels thing -CS Lewis says that angels are sexless, but take the male gender. There was a really long explanation for why, but I don’t remember what it was. The origin of the female thing appears to be that Medieval artists usually presented angels as young men, and given the formalistic representation of Medieval artwork, later artists thought they were women.
But it’s been a long time since I did any angelography, so I could be misremembering. It was college, and the class was actually about CS Lewis.
D&D miniature?
So, here’s my semi-serious answer to the question. It’s not just popular art, but, as you say, the Medieval masters as well. I’m thinking of one of those paintings of the Annunciation where Gabriel is all smooth and prettified.
Angels are sexless — each their own species. But, what’s an artist to do? I think angels end up being depicted as some combination of power and (feminine) beauty to try to capture their otherworldliness.
Still wish my nativity angel’s hands were in proportion to her/his/its body…
They do mostly look androgynous in art, with slightly feminine faces but muscular bodies.
“Fear not …”
He had to say that. Anyone addressed by a being twenty feet over his head who glows with an inner light is going to be at least a little concerned.
Not only that, but whenever someone is being visited by an angel, he or she is being sent on mission! That’s serious stuff coming from God and is bound to change your life forever. Yeah, concern would be a normal response.
On the sexless thing. You can be minus a dongle and still be masculine.
K, ma’am…Just wondered. :-)
Btw, your Nativity set angel looks like he or she could kick up a serious bit of fuss/dust, absolutely.
About time for the annual R>SRN Christmas and related holidays episode, isn’t it, @garymcvey? Looking great, JM!
Byzantine art tended to show angels (and saints and pretty much everyone else) as robed and fairly sexless. I suspect this has contributed to the perception of angels as female, and perhaps also the people of Sodom (or perhaps Gomorra) who wanted to have sex with the angels suggest to people that they must have been female.
Not necessarily. After all, Lot offered his daughters to the crowd so as not to violate his own sacred duty to protect his guests, and the crowd turned down the women.
I think you’re on the right track.
The male/female angel thing has been a source of debate for quite some time, though, and caused quite a ruckus in 1905, over Gutzon Borglum’s (the Mt. Rushmore artist) angel sculptures in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
One of the comments to this article also mentions Lewis, saying “C.S. Lewis pointed out that angels in the Bible started out “Fear not…” while Victorian angels looked like they were about to say, “There, there…”.” I haven’t looked that up, but it sounds about right.
Looks like it can be both. But the one carrying his own head is definitely a man.
My wife had a prof in college who said he saw angels a couple of times. His way of describing them? Unearthly. Human-like in form, but not in size or scale. Very tall, not all there, and with expressions that could best be described as stern and disdainful.
I’ve heard Orthodox describe similar sightings, particularly during the Great Entrance of the Divine Liturgy (seeing ethereal and very tall robed figures processing with the priest and deacons), and young children (particularly very innocent ones, like those with Downs) have claimed to see them standing by people as they are baptized and chrismated. Still others have spoken in hushed tones of seeing them in the naves of churches when they thought they were alone.
Nobody (excepting the kiddos) who as described seeing them ever described them as other than alarming – they mean business.
I don’t know if this was the origin of the movie, but I always imagine the brainstorming session was a couple of altar boys turned atheists smoking pot and going “What if all that stuff was real? That would be so cool!”
Because yeah, at its heart, it’s based on the idea of God and angels and Satan all being true.
A few years ago I gave my mother a drawing of St. Michael holding a spear and looking like the toughest dude who ever existed. Under the picture were the words “Defende Nos,” or Defend Us. That’s the sort of prayer you expect to say to a soldier, not some wimpy man-boy. We live in an age of ever growing feminization. We now want women on the front lines of combat, but when push comes to shove it will be men who have to do the hand-to-hand with the Taliban. I don’t consider that sexist, but realistic.
But if you’re looking for toxic masculinity, try this:
May flights of angels sing me to my rest…
Wow. Thank you.
Defende nos.
Gratias vobis.
A long time hence, may it be so! :-)
Lot closed the door behind him, instead of showing the goods. He was just provoking them: “I’d just as soon give you my daughters!” Which is how the crowd interprets it: instead of saying “no thanks, we’ll take your guests instead of your daughters,” they replied with anger at the provocation.
St Thomas Aquinas proposed that angels are individually unique to an extent beyond humans because they are sexless and therefore not derivative. Furthermore, because there is a guardian angel for every human who has ever lived, and guardian angels are drawn mostly from the lower choirs (of which there are nine), angels vastly outnumber human beings. That’s a lot of variety.
I don’t object to a mix of male and female representation. We call God Father not because He is male but because “father” better describes the nature of our relationship to Him. The three angels named and described in Biblical tales do not represent the full variety of ways we can relate to angels or how they serve God… though perhaps they are more broadly informative than one might suspect.
Sensory experiences with angels are abundant and normal. Through exorcisms, the Church can also verify the variety of manifestations.
I have read accounts of angels as large as churches and as small as flies. Some provide physical intercession; others consolation, affirmation, or prophecy. The same angel that appears one way this time could appear by another form the next time.
You could put St Michael on your Christmas tree, traditionally represented as a man with a sword. But would it be any more accurate than a lion roaring in defense of the nativity? The form matters less than whether you are entertaining vain imagination or truly attempting to honor God’s great gift of the angels who serve our souls and His throne.
I have a somewhat more sexist interpretation. I guess I always reconciled the two by assuming that the angels high-ranking enough to be named in scripture were male. (At least the Arch-Angels, powers thrones and dominions. The -iphims, always struck me as too far removed from the human to be described as being one sex or the other, even artistically.) The femangles must have been too encumbered with domestic responsibilities to climb the celestial ladder, and were relegated to synchronized swooping to herald the announcement of some important message or saintly descent from the skies. No indication now much they get paid on the dollar relative to their masculine counterparts.
Along these lines, have you seen the video James Wood tweeted this past week? Iirc, it is called ‘Soy Boy Smackdown.’ Reminded me of Dennis Prager’s comment that such young ‘men’ “were brought up by feminists in a demonized culture.”
Roma Downey and the white male and black female (older) actors added their portrayals to the mix in “Touched by an Angel” although it was criticized as not very biblical.
Meanwhile there was this in the “Son of God” episode of the “Bible” series. A male Gabriel for sure, and scruffy from battle, not all shined up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNPhCKch4jI