Reading the Bible as Jasnah

[Ripheus23]

Since Madam Elsecaller was looking for the truth about the Voidbringers, this post has to do with trying to reconcile all the Biblical/related information about the Echthros [I'm using L'Engle's term, which is derived from the New Testament's Greek form].

So, first, I'm going with the tradition that has Satan's angel-name as "Samael." Too many reasons to go into on that count right now. Anyway, like the Apostles later, I'm assuming that there were 7 archangels ("the seven who stand before the Lord") at first, one of whom betrayed God's plan, so he was replaced by a different 7th. So, Samael was that original traitor.

Presumably the archangels had the beatific vision. If this was so, it's difficult to understand how any of them, no matter their comparative power, could have believed themselves capable of defeating God. Milton in Paradise Lost is a semi-Arian kind of guy, I think, so he made sense of it by having Satan rebel against the Son, not God, as such. Still, I'm a Nicean Christian so I can't go with that option. What I'll propose is that "the sevenfold Spirit of God" mentioned in the Book of Revelation refers to the archangels as having been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now normally, only humans are indwelt by the Spirit (e.g. Jesus Christ par excellence). So these 7 (later 8) angels are special among the angels for having been so gifted. And supposing Samael was powerful enough as an angel, this dual empowerment might have given him "reason" to think he could defy God. At least, it would have been a factor. Also blasphemy against the Spirit is the eternal sin, and we can safely assume Samael is guilty of the eternal sin, so, yeah.

So, Samael rebels. Later we're told about the Nephilim, and even later about other fallen angels, and demons. Classically, "angel" wasn't supposed to be a species term. Not even divisions like "seraphim" or "cherubim" or "ophanim" were. Species are divided by the ability to reproduce their instances. So, let's say that Samael had 12 "Apostles" of his own, i.e. 12 other angels, not indwelt by the Spirit, but who rebelled with him. These are the fallen angels. Samael, having the power of the Spirit (for however long), tried to imitate God's creative work. The direct imitation gave rise to the demons. But by fusing the natures of the fallen angels with human natures, Samael generated the Nephilim; this is the source of the metaphor of the "sons of God" taking wives from among mortal humanity (which could not literally be true as angels are not a species as such). (If I were to guess at the numbers, here, I would suppose that there were 666 demons generated, and 144,000 Nephilim. Or maybe there are 666 Nephilim who, due to their human side, are indwelt by the Spirit but who commit the eternal sin thereafter; or maybe there are 666 entries in the genealogy of the Antichrist, in relation to possible demon-human crossings; but see below.)

Now, could the demon natures in turn get crossed with human or Nephilim natures? Off the top of my head, I can't remember anything in the Bible or the official tradition, clearly indicating so. If I were going to write a story based on these ideas, I'd suppose demon-human crossing would probably result in stillbirth (demon natures being inherently destructive, opposed to the creative power of God in the angels), and demon-Nephilim crossing... IDK. Monsters of some other form.

My broader theory is that Michael, another one of the 7 archangels, is also the Incarnation of the First Person of the Trinity, and is the entity known as Apollyon. So let's say Michael/Apollyon also imitated the work of the divine nature in Itself, such as to create a demon nature. In the Catholic New Advent Encyclopedia, there's an interesting note in the entry on Asmodeus (from the Book of Tobit):

Quote

The name of the demon mentioned in the Book of Tobias (iii, 8). The name is most probably derived from the Hebrew root meaning "to destroy": so that the being would correspond to the demon called Abaddon, the Destroyer in the Apocalypse 9:11.

IIRC the Book of Tobit has Asmodeus as "the worst of demons." Per the rest of the above, let's suppose the conflation of Asmodeus with Apollyon is due to Asmodeus being the sole demon uniquely generated by Michael.