Client
: Personal folio piece.
Medium : Pencil
Sketch ( on
Cartridge ) 28cm by 20cm :
coloured and enhanced in Adobe
Photoshop 2003 a.d
Notes : A variation
of this piece can be viewed here »
Design Notes :
Soundtrack (music to draw
to): Conan the Barbarian -
Basil Poledoris |
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FALLEN
ANGELS: The collective name given
to the beney ha'elohim (םיהלאה
ינב),
who, for whatever reason, chose to rebel against
the Yahweh Elohim (
the Creator God ) and so were expelled
from the ranks of the heavenly host. Fallen
angels can be split into two main groups (
there are other interpretations, one of
which can be touched on at http://www.andrewcollins.com/
or by reading his book 'from the ashes
of angels' : read it and liked
it) :
1. The
Rebels who allied themselves with Lucifer
and staged the first war in Heaven.
2. The fallen Watchers or
'Grigori'.
Both groups are profound, unredeemable-enemies
of the Creator God and all of his Creation,
especially humankind. Their struggle is against
all that is sacred, seeking ever to corrupt,
to destroy the beauty of the cosmos, to plunge
the universe into chaos, and snuff out the
perfect and unapproachable light of God's love. Mystical
movements and offshoots of the main religious
traditions often give the most detailed accounts.
In Judaism the semi-secret lore of the Kabbala
(Cabala)
reveals countless facts about Heaven and its
inhabitants.
The Islamic angels are most fully developed
in Sufi mysticism.
In Christianity, the richest sources are: the
Apocrypha ( non-canonical
writings ), the Gnostic tradition
(a long-running parallel
version of Christianity) and the
Hermetic tradition associated with alchemy
(alchemists
were to have invoked both angels and demons
in their attempts to know and control Nature).
One of the most common stories of why the Rebels
fell is that God informed the angels that he
intended to create humanity and that the angels
should bow down before this new species. Some
of the angels found this abhorrent, in particular
Lucifer ( the morning
star ). His pride would not permit
his submission to ' those talking apes' or
'meat puppets' as it is suggested he called
them *.
He was joined by other angels, nearly one-third
of the entire heavenly host, the 13th century
Bishop of Tusculum suggested that percentage
equalled 133306668, give or take. This value
was reaffirmed by Alphonso de Spina (circa
1460 ). Don't ask me how they did the
math. (The closest numeric
value I could attribute to the angelic host
was in Revelations 5:11 "And I beheld,
and I heard the voice of many angels round
about the throne and the beasts and the elders:
and the number of them was ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." )
Lucifer and his legion attempted a coup d'état.
Luci lost.
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O for
a voice like thunder,
and a tongue to drown the throat of war!
When the senses are shaken,
and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand?
When the souls of the oppressed fight
in the troubled air that rages,
Who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury
comes from the Throne of God,
when the frowns of his countenance
drive the nations together,
who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle
and sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
and fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand?
O who has caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
William
Blake
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The
'Grigori' distinguished themselves via a series
of non-canonical books titled the Books of
Enoch, found in the Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament. According to these ancient texts,
God asked a select group of angels to assist
the Archangels in the creation of Eden. The
Watchers ( guess what they do? ) who
descended to earth saw the daughters of man
and became enchanted with them. Consequently,
they coined the phrase 'how you doin'?' They
also revealed to humanity some of the secrets
of Heaven; such as the movement of the celestial
bodies and the art of making savage weapons.
Two hundred Watchers took human wives and created
offspring, giants, creatures of legend known
as the Nephilim. A single verse from the Book
of Genesis also alludes to these events but
nothing more is written of this angelic poon-tang
fest in biblical canon. The actions of the
Grigori angered God, he threw them out of Heaven,
cast them down to hell and delivered them into
chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.
God sent the Great Deluge, opening all the
fountains of the great deep in order to clean
up the moral and genetic mess that devastated
the adamic inhabitants of this world. Some
notable angels said to have fallen are Semyazza,
Sammael and Azazel.
A far later account tells of two angels, Loki,
the mal'akh ha-mavet ( Angel of Death, Heb. מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת )
and a Grigori by the name of Bartleby, who got
into a theological discussion over drinks as
to whether murder in the name of God was okay.
It was known that Bartleby ran rings around Loki
intellectually ( not to mention the fact
that the angel of death was more than half cut )
the Grigori convinced Loki to forgo his position
and take a lesser one - one that didn't involve
divinely sanctioned slaughter. So - very inebriated
- Loki informed the great ' I am '
of his intention, threw down his fiery sword
and gave God the finger. For this action the
pair were banished for the remaining span of
human history to Wisconsin, North America. The
position of mal'akh ha-mavet has apparently remained
vacant ever since.
*I
know the turns of phrase are attributed to
Gabriel in "The Prophecy " lets
just assume its in common use amongst celestial
upper management. While we're on the topic
of films if you didn't catch the "Dogma "
reference,
rent the movie, buy it, just watch it :)
nemo vos seducat volens in humilitate et religione
angelorum quae non vidit ambulans frustra inflatus
sensu carnis suae |
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