110 Fun Facts About Angel

The word 'angel' comes from the Greek angelos, which literally means what?

Messenger is all it meant: Greek angelos covered human envoys too. The Latin Bible later split the two, keeping angelus for the heavenly kind and nuntius for the rest.

In the nine-choir hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, which order of angels ranks highest, closest to God?

Seraphim top the nine choirs, which run in three tiers of three. Archangels, despite the grand name, sit second from the bottom, just above ordinary angels.

In Isaiah's vision of God's throne, six-winged angels call out which word three times over?

Holy, holy, holy: the cry became the Sanctus, still sung in the Mass. The angels fly with only two of their six wings and use the others to cover their faces and feet.

In Ezekiel's vision, a cherub has four faces: a human, a lion, an eagle and which other creature?

An ox, or calf, completes the set. Christian art later gave the four faces to the Gospel writers, and the ox usually went to Luke, whose Gospel opens with a priest serving in the Temple.

Which archangel tells Mary she will bear a son in the Gospel of Luke?

Gabriel had already told the priest Zechariah that his elderly wife would bear John the Baptist. When Zechariah doubted him, the angel struck him mute until the birth.

Which archangel is described as the warrior of God and chief of the heavenly armies?

Michael leads heaven's armies in the Book of Revelation, where he and his angels fight the dragon and hurl it down to earth. The Book of Daniel calls him the great prince who protects Israel.

In the Book of Tobit, which archangel poses as a man named Azariah and heals Tobit's blindness with a fish?

Raphael, whose name means 'God has healed', tells young Tobias to keep the fish's gall for his father's eyes and to burn its heart and liver, which drives off the demon Asmodeus.

In the Book of Acts, an angel wakes which chained apostle and leads him out of Herod's prison?

Peter thinks he is dreaming until he is out in the street. When he knocks at his friends' gate, the servant Rhoda is so overjoyed to hear his voice that she runs off without letting him in.

In Jewish mysticism, which biblical figure, taken up by God without dying, became the angel Metatron?

Enoch 'walked with God, and he was not, for God took him', says Genesis. The mystical book known as 3 Enoch fills the gap: he is carried to heaven and remade as the highest of the angels.

In Roman folklore, Lucifer, meaning 'light-bringer', was the name for which planet?

Venus as the morning star was Lucifer to the Romans. The name passed to the devil after the Latin Bible used it in Isaiah 14, where a fallen king is mocked as a star dropped from heaven.

In ancient Jewish retellings of Genesis 6, which giants are born to fallen angels and human women?

The Nephilim are fathered by the Watchers, angels who came down to take human wives. In the retelling the giants ravage the earth, and the Flood is sent partly to be rid of them.

Which medieval theologian, nicknamed the Angelic Doctor, taught that guardian angels come from the lowest order of angels?

Thomas Aquinas added that a guardian arrives at birth, not at baptism. The gift, he reasoned, is given to people as rational beings and not only as Christians.

Which biblical figure's donkey saw the Angel of the Lord blocking the road before he did?

Balaam beat the donkey three times for balking before God let her speak and ask what she had done to deserve it. Only then did he see the angel in the road, sword drawn.

In Islamic tradition, which archangel is the angel of death, who parts each soul from its body?

Azrael, in one telling, has no idea who will die next. He finds out only when a leaf bearing the person's name falls from the tree beneath God's throne.

In Islamic tradition, the archangel Israfil will announce the Day of Judgment by sounding which instrument?

Trumpet: tradition pictures Israfil with it already at his lips, waiting for God's order to blow. He is never named in the Quran, only in later reports.

In Islamic belief, how do the angels Munkar and Nakir test the faith of the newly buried?

The two angels question them about their faith. Those who answer well are left to rest in comfort until the resurrection, and those who cannot are punished.

According to Joseph Smith, which angel guarded the golden plates that became the Book of Mormon?

Moroni, in the book's own story, is the last prophet to write on the plates and the man who buried them. Some 14 centuries later, Smith said, he came back as an angel to show where they lay.

Which Surrealist painter was so fascinated by Millet's The Angelus that he wrote a whole book about it?

Salvador Dalí argued that the two peasants were not saying the evening prayer but mourning a buried child. Millet said he was only recalling his grandmother, who stopped field work to pray when the church bell rang.

Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, is in which country?

Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez said in 2009 that the falls should go by a Pemon name, Kerepakupai Merú, arguing that the country's best-known landmark was indigenous land long before any outsider saw it.

What was the profession of Jimmie Angel, the American whose name was given to Angel Falls?

Aviator. In 1937 Jimmie Angel landed his plane on the mesa above the falls, where its wheels sank into soft ground, and he, his wife and two companions spent 11 days walking out.

Which sculptor created the Angel of the North in Gateshead?

Antony Gormley angled the wings about 3.5 degrees forward instead of leaving them flat. He wanted the huge steel figure to give, in his words, 'a sense of embrace'.

The Angel of the North stands on a hilltop site once used by which industry?

Coal mining: the mound covers a former colliery's pithead baths. The sculptor said the figure should remind people that miners worked in the dark beneath it for two hundred years.

Which singing cowboy founded the American League's Angels baseball franchise in 1961?

Gene Autry only wanted the new club's games for his own radio station. When the first ownership bid fell apart late in 1960, he ended up buying the team himself.

Which child actor played Roger, the boy who sees the angels, in Angels in the Outfield (1994)?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was 13 when the film came out. The team around him hid future stars in small roles as ballplayers, among them Matthew McConaughey and Adrien Brody.

Which Charlie's Angels actress quit as a regular after one season, while her swimsuit poster sold in the millions?

Farrah Fawcett's exit brought a breach-of-contract lawsuit from the show's producers. To settle it she agreed to come back for guest episodes spread over two later seasons.

In Charlie's Angels, how did the unseen boss Charlie Townsend give his detectives their assignments?

Via a speakerphone: John Forsythe recorded Charlie's lines in a sound studio and never came to the set, so he hardly ever met the actresses who played his Angels.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire Angel was cursed with a soul by whom?

A Romani clan restored his soul as punishment for murdering one of their own. The curse works through conscience: after more than a century of killing, he is left to feel guilt for all of it.

In which city is the Buffy spin-off series Angel set?

Los Angeles is where he heads once his doomed romance with Buffy has to end. He sets up there as a private detective, looking for redemption one case at a time.

Which former Sunnydale cheerleader joins Angel's detective agency in the spin-off's first season?

Cordelia Chase arrives hoping to become an actress and ends up running the agency's office. When her half-demon colleague Doyle dies, he passes on to her his visions of people in danger.

What is the name of George Bailey's guardian angel in It's a Wonderful Life?

Clarence Odbody, an angel second class, has gone 200 years without earning his wings. Saving George finally wins them, and a bell ringing on the family's Christmas tree announces it.

What is Bedford Falls called in the alternate world where George Bailey was never born?

Pottersville is named for Mr Potter, the grasping landlord George has spent his life holding back. With no George to stop him, the town is all sleazy bars, and even his mother and Mary do not know him.

Whose 1997 single 'Angels' was voted the best song of the previous 25 years at the 2005 Brit Awards?

Robbie Williams never took 'Angels' to the top of the UK chart. The ballad that won that vote peaked at number four.

Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-winning play Angels in America is subtitled what?

A Gay Fantasia on National Themes comes in two parts, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. The first ends with an angel crashing through a sick man's bedroom ceiling to hail him as a prophet.

Angel food cake has no butter or oil, so which ingredient gives it its lift?

Egg whites, whipped to a foam, do all the lifting. The baked cake is so fragile that it is cooled upside down in its tube pan, which keeps it from collapsing.

Distillers call the whisky that vanishes from ageing casks the 'angels' share'; what causes the loss?

Evaporation through the oak carries off a little spirit every year a cask sits. The escaping alcohol even feeds a sooty black fungus that darkens walls and trees around distilleries.

Angel sharks are unusual among sharks because they resemble which other animals?

Rays are what they resemble, flat-bodied with broad fins, and they hunt to match. An angel shark lies buried in the sand and lunges upward when a fish swims within reach.

The US Navy's Blue Angels took their name in 1946 from a nightclub in which city?

New York's Blue Angel club caught a pilot's eye in The New Yorker magazine as the team planned a show in the city. Until then they had performed simply as the Navy Flight Exhibition Team.

Which journalist spent a year riding with the Hells Angels for the book that launched his career?

Hunter S. Thompson's time with the club ended in a beating. He spoke up when one biker was beating his own wife, and several members stomped him for it.

Angel Island's immigration station was built largely to enforce an 1882 law excluding workers from which country?

China. Detainees carved hundreds of poems into the wooden barracks walls while they waited, and a park ranger's rediscovery of them in 1970 helped save the buildings from demolition.

The term 'angel investor' was borrowed from which world?

Broadway theatre called the wealthy people who financed a play its angels. They were paid back only if the production succeeded, and the word later passed to those who back start-ups.

Which villain gives the X-Men's winged founding member Angel a set of metal wings, remaking him as Archangel?

Apocalypse took him in after his feathered wings were amputated, fitted metal ones and made him Death, one of his Four Horsemen. Once free of the villain's control, he kept the wings and the new name.

The 'Angel of Independence' victory column stands on which Mexico City boulevard?

Paseo de la Reforma's column went up in 1910 with a short flight of steps at its foot. As the ground of Mexico City sank around it, more steps had to be built beneath them to reach the base.

In Arthur Machen's 1914 tale linked to the Angels of Mons legend, ghostly archers from which battle save British troops?

Agincourt's archers were, Machen insisted, pure invention. When a priest asked for his authorities so the tale could be reprinted, he said he had none, and the priest replied that he must be mistaken.

California's largest city was founded in 1781 as a pueblo named for whom?

Our Lady the Queen of the Angels is a title of the Virgin Mary. The 44 founding settlers were a mixed group: only two were white Spaniards, and about half had African ancestry.

'Angel dust' is a street name for which drug?

PCP, or phencyclidine, was developed in the 1950s as a surgical anaesthetic. Doctors gave it up for people because patients came round agitated and delusional, and it then turned up on the street.

In Genesis 28, which patriarch dreams of a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending?

Jacob dreamed it with a stone for a pillow, on the run from the brother he had cheated. In the morning he stood the stone upright, poured oil on it and named the place Bethel, 'house of God'.

The Fravashi, guardian spirits who fight on the side of Ahura Mazda, belong to which ancient religion?

Zoroastrianism holds that the Fravashi of the dead come home in the last days of each year, when families set out offerings for them and receive their blessing in return.

In rabbinic tradition, the essence of the angels is most often said to be what?

Fire, in most rabbinic writing. One Talmudic tradition has a fresh host of angels created every day: they sing God's praise once and then vanish into a river of fire.

Which president closed his first inaugural address with an appeal to 'the better angels of our nature'?

Abraham Lincoln had planned a blunter ending. His incoming Secretary of State, William Seward, urged some closing words of affection, and Lincoln reworked Seward's draft into the famous line a month before the war began.

A saying in the Jerusalem Talmud holds that the names of the angels came back with Jewish exiles from where?

Babylon is where, the rabbis said, the angels got their names. Earlier books of the Bible leave them nameless, and the first to be named appear in the late Book of Daniel.

Which Jewish thinker of Alexandria identified the angel with the Logos, the immaterial voice of God?

Philo made the Logos the eldest and chief of the angels, a go-between standing on the border of Creator and creation, so that a God beyond the world could still act within it.

In the Quran, the angels Harut and Marut warn each pupil 'we are a trial' before teaching which forbidden art?

Sorcery. A later legend explains how they came to be there: angels who mocked human weakness were sent down to be tested themselves, fell at once, and chose to take their punishment on earth.

In the Quran, God orders the angels to bow down before whom, a command Iblis refuses?

Adam. Iblis alone refuses, insisting that he is the better creature, and for his arrogance he is cast out of Paradise to become the tempter of humankind.

Tawûsî Melek, chief of the Yazidi faith's seven divine beings, is worshipped in the form of which bird?

Peacock: he is the Peacock Angel, left in charge of the world by its creator. Outsiders have often taken him for Satan, which is why Yazidis were wrongly branded devil worshippers.

In Gnostic myth, the hostile angels and archons that rule the material world serve which flawed creator?

The Demiurge, a lesser god, made the material world, and his powers act as jailers of the divine spark in each soul. Gnosis, secret knowledge, is what lets a soul slip past them into the light.

Where is the wingless figure usually identified as the earliest known Christian image of an angel?

The Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome has a fresco, usually read as the Annunciation, whose angel has no wings; wings came later, modelled on the winged Victories of Roman art.

In the 1998 film City of Angels, which actor plays Seth, the angel who falls for Meg Ryan's heart surgeon?

Nicolas Cage plays Seth in this remake of Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire, and the Goo Goo Dolls wrote their hit Iris for its soundtrack.

Why does Mormon art usually depict angels without wings?

A saying of Joseph Smith, 'An angel of God never has wings', set the convention; he taught that angels are resurrected people with bodies of flesh and bones.

In late medieval paintings of the Annunciation, the angel often wears the vestments of which churchman?

A deacon's dalmatic, worn under a cope, dresses the angel in Jan van Eyck's Washington Annunciation, as if the heavenly visitor were serving at a High Mass.

Which 2007 Doctor Who episode introduced the Weeping Angels, monsters that look like stone statues?

Blink introduced the Weeping Angels, which can move only when nobody is watching them, so the Doctor's warning to Sally Sparrow is simple: don't blink.

In Matthew's Gospel, what does the angel do after rolling the stone away from the tomb of Jesus?

The angel sits on it, shining like lightning in clothes white as snow, and the soldiers guarding the tomb shake with fear and become like dead men.

The Letter to the Hebrews says some people have hosted angels unawares by welcoming whom?

Strangers deserve a welcome, the letter argues, because some hosts have fed angels without realising it; its next line asks readers to remember prisoners as if chained beside them.

When an angel halts the sacrifice of Isaac in the land of Moriah, which animal is offered instead?

A ram caught by its horns in a thicket takes the boy's place on the altar, and the spot is named for the promise that God will provide.

In the Book of Daniel, an angel shuts the mouths of which animals to save the prophet overnight?

Lions left Daniel untouched all night, and at dawn King Darius had the men who accused him thrown into the same den.

By some accounts, the Hells Angels guarding the Altamont stage in 1969 were paid $500 worth of what?

Beer, by some accounts, was the fee agreed with the Rolling Stones' management, and the stage was so low that the bikers were asked to ring it.

Which Asian capital's local name, Krung Thep, is commonly translated as 'City of Angels'?

Bangkok's everyday local name is only the opening of a ceremonial title 168 letters long, which Guinness World Records lists as the world's longest place name.

The hot savoury called angels on horseback is made by wrapping bacon around which shellfish?

Oysters are the angels, traditionally served in England after dessert; the similar devils on horseback are made with fruit instead.

London's Angel tube station, named after an old inn, has the Underground's longest what?

Escalators at Angel climb 27 metres over a 61-metre run, which makes them the longest on the Underground and in the United Kingdom.

The destroying angel, pure white and among the most toxic of its kind, is what type of living thing?

Mushroom foragers dread the destroying angel, a group of all-white Amanita species carrying the same amatoxins as the closely related death cap.

Two angels reach Sodom at evening and urge which man to flee before the city is destroyed?

Lot lingered so long that the angels seized his hand and led him out, and his wife became a pillar of salt for looking back.

In Luke's Gospel, an angel announces the birth of Jesus at night to which group of workers?

Shepherds keeping watch over their flock were terrified by the angel, who told them to look for a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a feeding trough.

In Matthew's Gospel, an angel warns Joseph in a dream to flee with the baby Jesus to which country?

Egypt sheltered the family from King Herod's search for the child, and they stayed until an angel told Joseph in another dream that Herod was dead.

Two golden cherubim face each other with outspread wings on top of which Tabernacle furnishing?

The Ark of the Covenant bore them on its pure-gold cover, the mercy seat, and God promised to speak from the space between the two winged figures.

In Genesis, what weapon turns every way beside the cherubim guarding the path to the tree of life?

A flaming sword was set with the cherubim east of the garden of Eden, so that nobody driven out could return, eat from the tree and live forever.

An angel announces the birth of which judge of Israel to the childless wife of Manoah?

Samson was to be a Nazirite from the womb, the angel said, so no razor was ever to touch his head; the visitor then rose skyward in the altar flame.

Which future judge was threshing wheat in a winepress when an angel called him a mighty warrior?

Gideon was hiding his grain from Midianite raiders, and when he asked for proof the angel touched his offering with a staff and flames from the rock consumed it.

An angel twice wakes which despairing prophet in the desert with baked bread and a jar of water?

Elijah, on the run from Jezebel, had asked to die; the angel's meal carried him forty days and nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Andrei Rublev's icon The Trinity shows three angels who visited which patriarch at the Oak of Mamre?

Abraham hurried to feed his three guests under the tree, a scene so central to the icon that it is also called The Hospitality of Abraham.

An angel finds which runaway servant by a desert spring and tells her to name her son Ishmael?

Hagar had fled her mistress Sarai's harsh treatment, and the angel sent her back with a promise of descendants too many to count.

In Isaiah's vision, a six-winged angel cleanses the prophet's lips by touching them with what?

A live coal, lifted with tongs from the altar, touched his mouth, and Isaiah was told that his guilt was taken away and his sin forgiven.

In John's Gospel, who peers into the empty tomb and sees two angels in white where Jesus had lain?

Mary Magdalene was weeping outside when she stooped to look in; moments later she turned round and mistook the risen Jesus for the gardener.

At his arrest, Jesus says his Father could at once send more than twelve of which units of angels?

Legions were the largest units of the Roman army, each several thousand strong, so the rebuke to an armed follower pictures angels by the tens of thousands.

Which apostle warned in a letter that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light?

Paul was attacking rival preachers he called false apostles, arguing that if their master could pass for something radiant, his servants could pass for righteous men.

In John's Gospel, an angel was said to stir the healing waters of which pool in Jerusalem?

Bethesda had five porches crowded with the sick, because whoever stepped in first after the water moved was said to be cured; Jesus healed a man who had waited there for years.

In Revelation, the angel of the bottomless pit is named Abaddon in Hebrew and what in Greek?

Apollyon means 'Destroyer', and the angel reigns as king over a swarm of armoured locusts with human faces, golden crowns and tails that sting like scorpions.

Which king says God sent an angel to rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from his blazing furnace?

Nebuchadnezzar had ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, then saw four men walking unharmed in the flames where three had been thrown.

Psalm 78 calls which food of the Israelites' wilderness years the bread of angels?

Manna rained down, the psalm says, after God commanded the skies and opened the doors of heaven so that mortals could eat their fill.

In Islamic tradition, the angel Malik is the chief guardian of which realm of the afterlife?

Hell's keeper is named in the Quran, where the damned beg Malik to have their Lord finish them off and he replies that they are there to stay.

In Islamic belief, the Kiraman Katibin are two angels assigned to every person to do what?

To record their deeds is the work of these 'noble writers': the one on the right notes every good act and the one on the left every bad one.

In 2 Kings, an angel strikes down 185,000 soldiers of which kingdom's army camped against Jerusalem?

Assyria's king Sennacherib woke to a camp full of corpses and went home to Nineveh, where he was later killed while worshipping in his god's temple.

The 1998 romance City of Angels is a loose remake of which Wim Wenders film set in divided Berlin?

Wings of Desire follows Damiel and Cassiel, angels who watch over Berliners unseen and unheard, and it won Wim Wenders the best director prize at Cannes.

In Renaissance art, the chubby winged infants often called cherubs go by which Italian name?

Putti began as symbols of earthly passion borrowed from Cupid, whereas the cherubim of Christian theology are among the most senior of all angels.

Two winged infants famous from countless postcards lean at the foot of which Renaissance altarpiece?

The Sistine Madonna, painted for a church in Piacenza and long kept in Dresden, has put its two daydreaming cherubs on stamps, T-shirts and even socks.

The cliff-top viewpoint Angels Landing, reached by a narrow ridge trail, is in which national park?

Zion's Angels Landing was once called the Temple of Aeolus, and chains line parts of the final half-mile, where the ridge drops away sheer on both sides.

Sarah McLachlan's ballad Angel became the soundtrack to TV appeals for which animal charity?

ASPCA commercials with McLachlan raised more than $30 million, although she wrote the song about a touring keyboard player's fatal heroin overdose.

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons introduced which Harvard symbologist, later hero of The Da Vinci Code?

Robert Langdon makes his debut racing through Rome to find a stolen canister of antimatter before it blows up the Vatican.

Which composer wrote the tune used for Hark! The Herald Angels Sing for a Gutenberg festival?

Felix Mendelssohn wrote it in 1840 to celebrate 400 years of the printing press, and an English organist fitted the tune to Charles Wesley's Christmas hymn in 1855.

Which English poet and artist said that as a boy he saw a tree filled with angels at Peckham Rye?

William Blake was eight or ten at the time, and on another occasion he thought he saw angelic figures walking among haymakers at work.

Which angel, played by Misha Collins, became a fan favourite of the TV series Supernatural?

Castiel was kept so secret that Misha Collins first read for the part of a demon, because the show's creator did not want fans to learn angels were coming.

Which adviser to Elizabeth I kept books he said angels dictated through the scryer Edward Kelley?

John Dee, court astronomer and owner of one of England's largest libraries, met Kelley in 1582 and from then on gave the sessions all his energies.

In Revelation 12, war breaks out in heaven between an army of angels and which creature?

A dragon, great and red with seven heads and ten horns, loses the battle and is thrown down to earth, where the text unmasks it as the devil.

In the Letter of Jude, the archangel Michael argues with the devil over the body of which prophet?

Moses is the prize in a quarrel that Jude turns into a lesson in restraint: even the archangel would not insult the devil, and left the rebuke to the Lord.

In Daniel, Michael comes to help an angel held up for 21 days by the prince of which kingdom?

Persia's prince blocked the visitor for three weeks until Michael stepped in, and the angel told Daniel he expected to face the prince of Greece next.

Which bird is the traditional dinner at Michaelmas, the feast of the archangels on 29 September?

Goose fattened on the stubble of harvested fields was the dish, and a saying promised that anyone who ate it on the day would not lack money all year.

Which angel, usually counted as the fourth archangel, is sent to instruct Ezra in 2 Esdras?

Uriel, whose name is read as flame or light of God, is the one generally added to the three best-known archangels so that each point of the compass has its own.

In Last Judgment scenes, what does the archangel Michael often hold to decide the fate of souls?

A pair of scales lets him weigh the souls of the departed on the Day of Judgement, and bankers and grocers are among those who claim him as patron saint.

Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo, named for a vision of an archangel, began as which emperor's tomb?

Hadrian built it as a mausoleum for himself and his family; legend says Michael appeared on its roof in 590, putting away his blade to show a plague was over.

Which French saint said the archangel Michael appeared to her in a garden when she was thirteen?

Joan of Arc testified that Michael, with Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine, guided her to help Charles VII free France from English domination.

Which actor played a cigarette-loving archangel with a sweet tooth in the 1996 comedy Michael?

John Travolta's angel has wings and smells of cookies, and he explains that archangels sent on missions are not barred from enjoying earthly pleasures.

In Islamic tradition, the archangel Michael is tied to mercy and to sending what upon the land?

Rain is his to send as the angel who carries out God's providence, and his tears are said to become angels of mercy who serve as his helpers.