Statue of the Fallen Angel, Retiro Park (Madrid, Spain).

In most Christian denominations, a fallen angel is an angel who has been exiled or banished from Heaven.

Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God (see War in Heaven). The best-known fallen angel is Lucifer. Lucifer is a name frequently given to Satan in Christian belief. This usage stems from a particular interpretation, as a reference to a fallen angel, of a passage in the Bible (Isaiah 14:3-20) that speaks of someone who is given the name of "Day Star" or "Morning Star" (in Latin, Lucifer) as fallen from heaven. The Greek etymological synonym of Lucifer, Εωσφόρος (Eosphoros, "light-bearer")^{[1] [2]} is used of the morning star in 2 Peter 1:19 and elsewhere with no relation to Satan. But Satan is called Lucifer in many writings later than the Bible, notably in Milton's Paradise Lost (7.131-134, among others), because, according to Milton, Satan was "brighter once amidst the host of Angels, than that star the stars among."^[3]

[edit] Prospects for salvation

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, angels were all created good but some turned bad on their own.^[4] Angels don't need faith as they already have the knowledge of celestial things, so their rebellion against God constituted unforgivable sin.^[5] Matthew 12:32 qualifies unforgivable sin as being unforgivable in "this age or the age to come." Although most Christians do not interpret this to mean that those who have committed this sin may be redeemed after the passage of two ages,^[6] a tradition stretching back as far as Gregory of Nyssa and Origen has taught that the devil and fallen angels will eventually be saved. ^[7][8]

[edit] References

1. ^ http://scripturetext.com/2_peter/1-19.htm.
2. ^ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=phosphorous.
3. ^ http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/paradiselost/7?term=lucifer.
4. ^ The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Number 391
5. ^ The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Number 393
6. ^ Is Hell Closed Up & Boarded Over?, David Watt, New Oxford Review, Feb 1999
7. ^ Allen, Thomas (1891). Universalism Asserted. http://www.tlchrist.info/tallin.htm. ^{[page needed]}
8. ^ Russell, Jeffrey (1981). Satan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801494133. ^{[page needed]}

[edit] Source

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

• "Angels", Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913.
• "Catholic Encyclopedia". New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01476d.htm. 

[edit] Bibliography

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[edit] External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Jewish Encyclopedia

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