The Emergence and Implication of the Role of Angels in Augustine’s Understanding of Creation: The Extension and Mirroring of Christ

Abstract

Angels take on a unique role in Augustine’s understanding of creation. Traditionally, researchers have focused on De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim, Confessiones, and De Civitate Dei contra paganos to generate a descriptive account of the angelic role in creation. As such, not much attention has been paid to the emergence of his understanding of angels in his earlier texts. The largely descriptive accounts have also left the theological implication, specifically the linkage between Augustine’s angelology and Christology, unaddressed. This paper offers a two-fold contribution. First, this paper argues that the often-overlooked text De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber represents the pivotal moment in the development of Augustine’s germinating thoughts on angels and creation. Augustine’s mature notions of angels as created light and created wisdom, as well as angelic noetic movement, find their roots in De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber. Second, this paper argues that, from De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber to his more mature works, angels extend Christ’s work in creation. Augustine solves the problem of fashioning the corporeal from the spiritual by locating the production of intellectual prototypes within angels. Together with the designation of angels as “knowledge”, “light”, and “wisdom”, angels mirror Christ’s activity as creator.