Digression on the Angels
DIGRESSION ON THE ANGELS, GOD’S NOBLEST CREATURES
§ 35. Thus far we have treated the six-day arrangement of the works of creation as it was described by Moses, the source of the rest of the prophets. Someone may ask: Were the angels exempted from the listing of things created, because no express mention is made of them? Not at all, because nothing is uncreated and eternal besides God. Also, Scripture shows clearly elsewhere that the angels were created: Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7: “He makes His angels winds and His servants flames of fires”; Col. 1:16: “In Him” (Christ) “all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through Him and in Him.” Consequently, though Moses may not have made clear mention of angels in his account of the six days—but only mentions those works of God that are mostly obvious to human eyes—nevertheless, when he later introduces the angels as the servants of God, it is easy to conclude that their creator is God, to whom they offer their services. The Manichaeans did not want to admit that God created the angels, according to Augustine (Contra Faust., bk. 21, ch. 4). However, Damascenus (Orth. fid., bk. 2, ch. 3) rightly sets this against them: “Because they are creatures, they cannot be creators.”