Ellen Yeh 1100200144
Aiden Yeh
Research Writing
March 17, 2015
Is Angel Really an Angel? And Devil, a Devil?: A Case Study in
Supernatural Seasons 4 to 5
As the definition goes, the word angel is “a spiritual being believed to act as an
attendant, agent, or messenger of God, conventionally represented in human form
with wings and a long robe” (Oxford Dictionaries). God’s postman, beauteous
angels pass significant information to people. So, what kind of image do people
have when they think of angels?
John Ortberg, a senior pastor at Menlo Park
Presbyterian Church in California, simply depicts “A lot of times when people hear
about angels, they think about these cartoon figures with wings, halos and harps” (qtd.
in Harris, par. 5).
It describes mankind’s visualization of angels are bright and lovely.
David Van Biema indicates that most Americans have faith in that angels are always
around taking care of their lives (par. 1).
The image of angels is merciful and loved, yet the image of devil is evil and
terrified by human beings.
David C. Pack claims in his article, Who is the Devil, that
the appearance of devil and the thing devil do,
The devil has been a subject of intense interest for thousands of years.
He has been pictured as a ghost, a bogeyman, and a spook.
Or as a
“devilishly” handsome man in a red suit, with horns and a pitch fork.
He has even been portrayed as the nebulous “epitome of all evil.” Or the
cause of everything bad that people do. Most are probably familiar with
the expression “the devil made me do it.” (par. 1)
It shows the feature of devil is scary and confused people to do terrible things. The
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impression of the devil is, simply put, dangerous and hateful.
However, various ideas of angels and devils are determined in modern days.
In
Supernatural, the U.S. TV series, Season One started in 2005 and still continued to
Season Ten in March, 2015. The synopsis of this drama is about two brothers who
are hunters (that is their family business) to fight with the supernatural beings and
destiny.
In Supernatural, angels first appeared in Season 4. To viewer’s surprise,
angels are grim and unconcerned in the series. Angels sometimes do not care about
life of human beings in Supernatural, but public’s idea of angels is they protect
people without evil.
Devils, or fiends appeared in every season of the TV series
where they have shown to have emotions like human beings and not all of them are as
terrible as people thought.
Based on the unusual scenes about angels and devils of Supernatural, this paper
intends to investigate the characteristic of angels and devils in Supernatural seasons 4
to 5.
That is, it attempts to focus on the behavior and emotion of angels and devils.
This paper offers the knowledge of angels and devils as described in these books,
Bible, Dr. Faustus, and Paradise Lost as the comparison of Supernatural.
The paper,
finally, concludes that angels and devils are demonstrated to have sentiments and
various from the settlement of people thought in Supernatural. This paper also
provides people to see the transformation about angels and devils in humans’ mind
through time. Furthermore, this paper investigates the affiliation of angels and
devils between Supernatural and literature.
Angels and Devils in Literature
Angels and devils are mentioned in various literatures. They can emerge in
religious works, novels, poetry, or so on.
This paper offers three literature works,
Bible, Dr. Faustus, and Paradise Lost to see the transformation through the ages.
Talking about angels and devils, Bible is the significant one to be mentioned.
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In the Bible, angels are created by God. They are spiritual beings and have eternal
life. Although angels do not have gender, when they have to show themselves in
front of people, the appearances of the majority of angels are men.
In the New
Testament, Mark the Evangelist annotates that “And entering into the sepulchre, they
[Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome] saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted”
(Mark 16:5). The young man is an angel and he comes to send the messages to
people.
In the Bible, not all angels have wings.
James Cooper designates that what
categories of angels have wings,
Although certain types of angelic beings do have wings (the Seraphim,
Cherubim and the Four Creatures), “Ordinary Angels” are never
described with wings in the Bible. The idea that all angels have wings
might well have come from legends and folklore in the middle east,
where many of the religions (ancient and modern) have spirits and
winged creatures. (“What Do Angels Look Like?”)
Ordinary angels in the sentence mean angels who are not specifically named. Those
angels in the Bible are not specified whether they have wings to fly.
However, Cooper also points out that the Seraphim (An angelic being, regarded
in traditional Christian angelology) have six wings. Two wings of the Seraphim
adopted to cover their heads, two wings used to cover their feet, and only two of the
wings adopted to fly. Their principal duties are praising God.
The Cherubs also
have four wings on their bodies and they have four heads, while guarding the Lord’s
domain (par. 6).
In old and new Testament, only two names of angels are mentioned – Michael
(Fig. 1) and Gabriel (Fig. 2). On Got Questions Ministries website, the article “What
are the names of angels in the Bible?” claims that Gabriel is a special messenger.
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Gabriel disseminates wisdom and sends significant messages like the birth of Jesus.
Michael is an archangel, namely, the chieftain of all angels.
Michael is a soldier of
Lord that this angel has won wars as the battles with fallen angels (par.2-6).
Fig.1 Michael fights with
Fig. 2 Gabriel sends message
fallen angels.
to human beings.
Angels do not show any sentiment in the Bible, their responsibilities are what the
Lord mandates them to do.
Gong-Ming Huang, the faithful Christian who has
published more than ten books, points out that angels are numerous and powerful.
“Thousand thousands” and “ten thousand times ten thousand” are used to describe the
large number of angels.
Angels’ duties are obeying and fulfilling God’s will.
Therefore, the Lord gives them strength to complete their works. The destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah cities are caused by two angels whom obey God’s order.
Having to do the formidable mission like this, the Lord will confer considerable
power for them (par. 3-4).
Paul P. Enns points out angels are “ministering spirits,” but they are not the
servants of human beings. They respond to the duties to help believers.
who believe in God are protected by angels.
People
Answering prayer is angels’ duties, too.
Furthermore, guiding the right way for Christians to go to heaven are angels.
When
the beggar, Lazarus died, it was an angel’s guidance that led him to Abraham’s bosom
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(qtd. in Theology Dictionaries).
Talking about devil, people tend to substitute Satan into devil in their mind.
Jack Zavada claims that “He [Satan] is also called the devil, from a Greek word
meaning ‘false accuser’.
He delights in accusing the saved of sins that have been
forgiven” (“Satan - Adversary of God and Man”).
He indicates that people called
Satan as the devil and Satan often lies to people and cheats others.
Jeffrey Burton
Russell offers the acknowledgement that Satan in Hebrew word is ‫ןָּׂ טָּׂ ש‬, which means
“adversary,” and he is also denominated as the “obstructor” (27).
However, devil does not only refer to Satan, but also refers to the evil creatures
that influence or hurt people. Paul P. Enns indicates that devils are evil and have the
ability to deceive people.
It is indicated that serpents could be seen as one of the
devils in Bible. The serpent cheats Eve to eat the fruits on the trees.
It distorts the
truth and changes the way of Eve’s idea about the Lord that makes Eve betray God in
the end (qtd. in Theology Dictionaries).
To see through the transformation about angels, Dr. Faustus can be the one
example. In 1604, Christopher Marlowe published his play, Dr. Faustus. The basis
of the play is the story in German, Faust, in which a man whose name was Faustus
sold his soul to the devil because of the appetence of power, wisdom, pleasure, and
experiences.
In the play, two angels appear in Faustus’ shoulders when he has to
make the decision. These two angels have complemented aspects, one angel is
talking him to obey the Lord, another one is commanding him to follow the desire in
his heart.
In the article, Good and Evil Angels and the Old Man, claims that “The
most straightforward way of describing the part played by the Good and Evil Angels
in Doctor Faustus is that they are external, visible embodiments of the two impulses
that are at war within Faustus’ mind” which shows that two angels have indeed had a
quarrel and one of them even propose Faustus to follow his desire and make fallacious
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decision. (par. 1).
Devils in Dr. Faustus remain devilish.
In the play, devils induce Faustus to
continue obeying God’s will and follow the desire in his mind.
Devils also bring the
seven deadly sins to threat Faustus and avoid him to violate the contract.
Because of
the threat from devils and Faustus’s own appetence, at the end of the play, devils won
Faustus’ soul and tortured him in hell.
Nevertheless, Satan is not kindhearted. Does Satan virtually that terrible and
hideous?
In the 17th century, an epic poem from John Milton, Paradise Lost, about
the fall of man is published. The settlement of the poems started in Lucifer’s and
other fallen angels’ losing the battle in heaven and being punished to go to the hell.
Satan would like to make the Eden garden to become his new domain because of its
fertile natural resources, he tried to persuade Eve to disobey God (Genesis 3:1).
Numerous angels are obeying God’s order to follow the Son of the God.
They
also help God to fight against the angels who followed Satan. Their identical duty in
Bible is guidance of Eden.
It does not have considerable difference with Bible.
Raymond Joad points out angels in Paradise Lost are doing these duties,
The four main activities of angels in Protestant doctrine are to praise God,
bear messages, and to act as ministering spirits and as witnesses. Milton’s
angels do these things, but his narrative mode requires that he asks what
they do the rest of the time, and whether their consciousness and freewill
require other activities. (par. 1)
Angels do the identical things that God asked them to do. John Milton inquired
other questions like what those angels might do in their free time.
They might
assemble together to have a chat and relax for a while.
P. L. Carver indicates that Lucifer in Paradise Lost is fallen because of his pride
to express the ideas of equality with the Lord and the jealousy of son of the God (421).
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His appearance is glistening and remarkable at first (Fig. 3). However, the swindle
to Eve made him get the punishment from the Lord and became a serpent eventually.
The appearance of devils also seems various because most people consider Satan has
goat’s horn on his head and his face is red (Fig. 4).
Fig. 3 Satan was hidden
Fig. 4 Lucifer interviews the
because of the Eden’s
mayor, Hall.
gatekeeper.
Angels and devils can have equivalent and various views among these literature
works and Supernatural.
Role of angels remain mighty, but angels have
transformation like their duties and emotion in Supernatural. While devils are
detrimental and harmful, they are not coincident in Supernatural all the time. For
instance, minority devils have sacrificed the desire of hurting human beings to
exchange the peace.
Lucifer is not the only devil. Demons, monsters, or
supernatural creatures are considered as devils.
continuing in Supernatural either.
Emersion of vicious devils is
Devils often kill human beings in this TV series.
Nevertheless, sympathy of devils is entire opposed from the literature works covered
in previous.
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Works Cited
“Angel.” OxfordDictionaries. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
“Angel.” Theology Dictionaries.Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
The Bible. [Denotes King James version]. Online Bible. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
Biema, David Van. “Guardian Angels Are Here, Say Most Americans.” Time, 18 Sept.
2008. Web.20 Nov. 2014.
Carver, P. L. “The Angels in Paradise Lost.” The Review of English Studies (Fall
1940): 415-31. Print.
Cooper, James. “What do Angels Look Like?” Whyangels.com. Somerset, U.K. Web.
5 Jan. 2015
Doré, Paul Gustave. “Illustration for John Milton’s Paradise Lost.” 1866. Painting.
Paris. Web. 17 Feb. 2015
“Good and Evil Angels and the Old Man” Crossref-it.info. Web. 7 Jan. 2015
Harris, Dan. “Most Americans Believe in Guardian Angels.” ABC News, 18 Sept.
2008. Web.17 Nov. 2014.
Huang, Gong-Ming. “The Key to Open the Mystery which was Hidden for a Long
Time.” Jidujiao, 23 May 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
“Mayor Hall and Lucifer.” 1870. Painting. N.p. Web. 17 Feb 2015
Joad, Raymond. Milton's Angels: The Early-Modern Imagination. Oxford: U of
Oxford Press, 2010. Print.
Pack, David C. “Who Is the Devil?” The Restored Church of God. 2014. Web. 22 Nov.
2014
Reni, Guido. “Archangel Michael.” 1636. Painting. Santa Maria della Concezione,
Rome. Web. 15 Feb. 2015
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. New York: U of
Cornell P, 1987. 27. Print.
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Vecellio, Tiziano. “Polyptych of The Resurrection: Archangel Gabriel.” 1522.
Painting. Santi Nazaro e Celso, Brescia. Web. 15 Feb. 2015
“What are the Names of Angels in the Bible?” Got Questions Ministries. Web. 9 Jan.
2015
Zavada, Jack. “Satan - Adversary of God and Man.” About.com. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.