History and the Doctrine of Guardian Angels

[sdi]

I stumbled across the following (modern) folk prayer the other day:

May the angels walk beside you always, offering wisdom in times of uncertainty, courage in the face of fear, luck in moments of opportunity, and protection in times of vulnerability.

The prayer is fine as far as it goes, even though I have a tendency to be dismissive of modern folk spirituality: my default response is to look down on such things. The reason for this, I think, is that spirituality is and must be descended from mystical experience, and it is difficult to authenticate the mystical experiences of others; lacking better tools, I favor time as a filter to separate the wheat from the chaff, and so the more archaic the belief, the more likely it is to have had merits worth preserving. However, I realized today that I am being rather unfair to this prayer in particular.

As you all surely know by now, I am very fond of my guardian angel, and so, in an effort to understand them (or as an offering to them, which I suppose is the same thing), I have been tracing the doctrines about these kinds of beings for a while. The earliest source I have found so far is Hesiod, Works and Days ll. 121–6 (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White):

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖ᾽ ἐκάλυψε,—
τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι καλέονται
ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων,
οἵ ῥα φυλάσσουσίν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα
ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ᾽ αἶαν,
πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον—,
[...]

But after the earth had covered [the golden] generation—they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received;— [...]

Translation is treason, and Evelyn-White's is no exception, but as best as I can discern with the help of several dictionaries, Hesiod outlines here the following five tenets:

• Guardian angels live on the earth with us (as contrasted with the gods in heaven, the silver generation in the underworld, etc.).

• Guardian angels are morally good and guide us in right behavior.

• Guardian angels protect us from spiritual harm.

• Guardian angels encourage us through difficult situations.

• Guardian angels dispense good fortune.

Astute readers will note that these five points are the exact same ones from the folk prayer I mentioned above, merely rearranged. One might be inclined to see Providence ensuring continuity of doctrine over the last three thousand years, and if that is so, then it makes for a good antidote to my conservative tendencies.

I suspect Hesiod's teachings go back further still, either to Egypt or Mesopotamia (though I despair of tracing it back any further than that). If anyone knows of textual references from either, I would be grateful.

Comments

[sdi]

In my memory, the descending grades of people had merely been historical, and not current spiritual entities.

I think that's how it's usually interpreted, though Hesiod does give each past-tense generation a present-tense fate. (The gold and silver men are transformed into governing spirits, the bronze men became shades in Hades, and the heroes live forever in the Blessed Isles.)

Despite that, though, I forgotten that my interpretation is idiosyncratic!—while I was reading Works and Days once, my angel suggested I read it as a metaphor for successive ontological generations of beings beneath the gods—the golden men being the highest dæmons, silver the next highest, etc.—and I suppose that's stuck with me. For whatever it's worth, Proclus tells us something concordant, where the highest dæmons are god-like (and may as well be called "gods"), but the next-highest are guardian angels.


As for the two suggestions, thank you, I appreciate it! It should be easy to dig up a copy of The Treasures of Darkness to see if I can find anything. As for the Germanic tradition, I hadn't even considered it since our sources are so much later, but you're right: if it's plausible that modern folk prayers can preserve an accurate echo of three-thousand-year-old teachings, surely it must be plausible for the eddas and sagas to do similarly? It's worth checking to see if there's an angle there...

[sdi]

Hm. Actually, now that you mention it, Valkyries smell a little like Zoroastrian fravashi, who, if I remember right, are, on the one hand, militaristic, female psychopomps; and on the other, assigned to individuals at birth...

I hadn't meant to read up on the Avesta, but...

[jprussell]

Huh, I didn't know about that! Most of my exposure to the Indo-Iranic (or, to use a more loaded, but probably historically accurate, term, "Aryan") branch of Indo-European myth comes from comparisons made by Indo-Europeanists like Dumezil.

As for some possible sources, The One-Eyed God by Kris Kershaw is focused on Odin, and specifically on His aspect as chief of the berserkers, but it is phenomenally wide-ranging in terms of sources cited. I can't remember if the valkyries come up or not, but I wish someone would write a similarly thorough work on them.

Lady with a Mead Cup by Michael Enright focuses more on the material world ritual reflections of the valkyries/norns/other female spirits by tracing the role of the seeress in Celtic and Germanic warbands from late antiquity into the dark ages. There is definitely blurriness between whether valkyries are spiritual beings, human women, "uplifted" human women, or some combination.

Maria Kvilhaug also touches a lot on female spiritual entities providing a holy drink to initiates, with her masters thesis The Maiden with the Mead focusing on it specifically, and coming up a lot in The Seed of Yggdrasill, though if you caught my reviews of the latter, you'll know that I have fairly mixed feelings about Kvilhaug. One of her strengths, though, is pulling together wide-ranging and obscure sources. She has a whole section in Seed of Yggdrasill on "magical teachers/mates" of heroes that cites a lot of sagas and medieval folklore that I want to follow up on in more detail.

Anyhow, I'll let you know if anything else comes to mind or jumps out at me.

Cheers,
Jeff

[sdi]

So many references—thanks again!