Fallen angel

There are very few passages in the Bible that mention fallen angels. The only passage in the Old Testament is in Genesis 6.1-4, which describes the sin for which the angels were cast out of heaven. ?...that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.? The Book of Enoch clarifies exactly how this event took place. In the New Testament, Revelation 12, we find the most explicit mention of fallen angels: ?And his [the dragon?s or Satan?s] tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven [angels] and did cast them to Earth...and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the Earth and his angels were cast out with him.? These are the only two clear mentions of fallen angels in the Bible.

Today there are no original copies of The Book of Enoch, however it has been determined that the originals were composed in Palestine, in Hebrew or Aramaic. Enoch lived for three hundred and sixty five years then, according to the book of Genesis: ?Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him.? It was this curious statement that caused a slew of Enoch oral myths to be born. Enoch was the seventh generation from Adam and was believed to have received tutoring from divine sources. Many of the visions he saw are what are contained in The Book of Enoch. According to the book, the story of how the angels fell is as follows:

The angels, the children of Heaven, saw the beautiful daughters of man, and coveted them (all angels are men, so one can only imagine how attractive the flesh of a woman would appear to them). Semyaza led two hundred angels out of Heaven and descended onto Mount Hermon. Each of these angels then took a wife as they saw fit. Beginning with Azazel, the angels taught their wives all manner of forbidden things, including charms, enchantments, root cutting and knowledge of plants (drug cultivation). In time they began to have children by these wives, and these children grew to be mighty giants. Men of great renown, these men would inflict great ruin upon mankind. They consumed all in their path, in time feeding on human flesh and eventually each other. The outcry of the suffering of man reached the archangels in Heaven, who interceded with God. God replied to the appeal, and sent his warrior angels to bind and capture the fallen angels. Meanwhile, a warning of the impending flood was sent to Noah, who would build the famous arc to preserve mankind. The warrior angels sent did indeed bind and capture the fallen angels, and the flood did blanket the Earth.

The angels faced judgment, and were sentenced to a life of torture in Heaven. In this version of the myth, angels derive rapturous pleasure from singing the praises of God. One of their punishments was to spend eternity chained in a room where they can hear others singing nearby, but never be able to do so themselves. Additionally, they were occasionally burned by fire yet unable to scream, for their voices were eternal whispers.

Not all of the angels remained after judgment; they fell to Earth to escape torture. It is said that once an angel commits a sin, he will forever more be condemned to a life filled with it. For a creature of spirit, there is no half-way. That is the role of man. Once an angel sins he has become warped. No longer interested in his previous cares, he desires only the spread of sin, for evil is his heart. There is no way of knowing how many of the two hundred escaped to Earth, but it is certain that the twenty chiefs among them escaped the grasp of Raphael and Michael.

While this is the greatest of the tales that discusses the fall of angels, there are others. Angels are immortal, so unless another angel has captured or defeated them, they should still be here today. Even worse are the statements of Revelation, which say that eventually one third of all the angels will fall. According to some Bible analysis, more did in fact fall. Following the flood, more giants were found in the land, which suggests that another group of angels descended to Earth and took wives. The giant David faced, Goliath, is said to be one of these children. Tradition says that this group of angels was smaller and less malevolent than the first, and that their punishment was less severe.

