The consensus seems to be that angels have no gender. By whom was this decided? Is it still Catholic dogma? What about other churches?
It just seems to be assumed in movies, books, and TV that these things are (to quote the movie Dogma) “as anatomically correct as a Ken doll.” So does anyone know who resolved this vital question?
-- HamishThe position of the Church is that angels are genderless. Actually, angels don’t even especially have form until they assume one. Therefore, one can guess that angels can take on either a male or female form with equal ease.
However! Genesis speaks of the “sons of God” cohabitating with the “daughters of man”, a passage that many read as angels mating with humans to form the doomed Nephilim race. The psedipigraphical book of Enoch uses this as its very basis (and was accepted as scripture by a great many Jews for a long time in Biblical times) though the bible itself is pretty vauge on the topic. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (pt. 1 Q. 51 Art. 3 Reply Obj. 6) claims though that the “Sons of man” were the sons of Seth (Adam’s good son after Cain killed Able) and the “daughters of man” were the daughters of Cain. In other words, the children of Seth (good) sullied themselves with the daughters of Cain (evil) and managed to form a giant race from their liason.
In Hebrew, the terms used for angels all have the male gender. This means that in the Bible, all of the pronouns used that have an angel as their antecedent (the noun to which they refer) are all male as well, i.e. “he”, never “she”. (There is no Hebrew word for “it”; all things are referred to as either “he” or “she”. Presumably, translations reflect this lack of a neuter - I know that those that I’ve seen translating the Bible into English do, although I don’t know about Latin, Greek, etc.) This doesn’t necessarily mean that the angel is considered to have a sex. In Hebrew, all nouns are masculine or feminine; this may or may not have anything to do with the object/concept represented by the noun. For example, as you’d expect, the word for a male baby is a masculine one, whereas the word for a female baby is a feminine one. However, the word for a book is masculine, while the word for a notebook is feminine. Who knows which of these two categories the word for angel falls under? I think that unless (as in Dogma), we get an actual display of the anatomical correctness or lack thereof of an angel, the jury’s out.
Gender is a biological term.
Angels are non-biological entities.
Therefore…
Angels have no gender;
Unless, of course, they choose to assume a physical, biological form.
A note on a few other faiths:
Gnosticism: One of the primary beings in the Gnostic faith is the aeon Pistis Sophia. An aeon is sort of an arch-archangel; one of the emanations of the Greater God. The Pistis Sophia (“Faith-Wisdom”) created the lesser god Ialdaboth and then abandoned him in fear. Ialdaboth looked around, saw that he was alone and assumed he was the sole God and went on to create the world, Adam and Eve and the rest of the stuff you associate God with. When the Pistis Sophia saw what had happened, she went into the abyss and allowed the demons there to rape her (Pistis Sophia Prunikos or “Faith-Wisdom-Whore”) as penance, so we can assume she was female.
Islam: The Qur’an, in surah 53:27 states “Surely those who believe not in the Here-after name the angels with female names.” which could be taken to imply that angels are male. Or that female names are inferior – take your choice.
Judaism: There is a term, Shekinah, which gives some pause. In traditional terms, it is an aspect of God, reflecting part of creation. Although given a female pronoun, this could simply be a reflection of GilaB’s post and not an admission of gender. Kabbalah seems to hold Shekinah as a seperate entity and that she is a spirit of liberation and freedom (or so the internet tells me). Then again, Kabbalah says a lot of stuff that’s hard to support with any traditional writings, or in fact any writings that aren’t strictly Kabbalic (if that’s a word). Finally, I saw some stuff implying that Shekinah was the Holy Spirit and was female. Mind you none of these interpretations are bona fide angels in the normal sense, but one could make an argument that any being formed solely of spirit is angelic.
There’s one passage in the Old Testament where wisdom is personified, and it’s spoken of as female. You could equate this with the Holy Spirit.
I recall Jesus said something to the effect that angels have no gender. Someone was trying to trip up JC and asked him if a woman’s husband died and she remarried, which would be her husband in heaven. Jesus replied that in heaven we would be as the angels without marrying.
I can’t find the Chapter and Verse, because everytime I touch a Bible, it bursts into flames.
I’m guessing it’s the same guys who decided that sex was a sin and beating your kids was okay.
The passage Dr Matrix referred to is from Matthew 22.
The story is related as he described it, and the verse about angels is Matthew 22:30 :
“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”
However, this is not really support for the idea that angels are ungendered, just that there is no need for them to marry. While human marriage is a way for humans to help each other, God fulfills all in heaven.
This passage also follows closely after the parable of the wedding feast, which brings up again the idea of Christ as the bridegroom, and people (the church) as the bride, the only (and that metaphorical) wedding in heaven.
Ethilrist: would these be the same guys who go around condemning homosexuality while dressed in high drag? 