Annotation CLXV

”In the beginning was the Word.” — John 1:1

Whether the angels learned anything from the evangelical writings.

Chrysostom, in the first homily — or in the preface of the homilies — on John, hints that the angels learned much from the preaching of John the Evangelist, which they were before ignorant of: for he writes thus: “John utters to us nothing human, but out of the deep and hidden treasures of the Holy Spirit [utters] all [things] — which not even the angels knew before he said [them] here; for they too learned along with us, through the voice of John, and through us learned what we came to know. Which the blessed Paul also signified by these words: ‘That the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known to the Principalities and Powers in the heavenly [places] through the Church.’ If, then, it plainly appears that the Principalities and Powers, the Cherubim and Seraphim, learned these [things] through the Church, [it appears] that the angels themselves showed themselves hearers of it with the greatest attention — for on this account we obtain no small honor, that the angels learned along with us [things] which they knew not.” He confirms this same [thing] in the fourth homily Against the Anomoeans, saying: “There are certain dispensations which those Powers understood along with us — [things] which, before we understood [them], were utterly unknown [to them]; and [they understood them] not only along with us, but even through us [they] themselves understood [them],” etc. Of the same opinion is Origen, homily 23 on Luke, and Theodoret in [the dialogue] The Unchangeable. See below, Annotations 182, 299, and 320.