Fallen angel

The first idea of the concept of fallen angels may be found in Canaanite beliefs about the bənē hāʾĔlōhīm ("sons of God"), expelled from the divine court.

In such accounts, God sends the Great Deluge to purge the world of these creatures; their bodies are destroyed, yet their souls survive, thereafter roaming the earth as demons.

Rabbinic Judaism and early Christian authorities after the third century rejected the Enochian writings and the notion of an illicit union between angels and women.

Thus, Western Christian philosophy also implemented the fall of angels as a thought experiment about how evil will could occur from within the mind without external influences and explores questions regarding morality.

Fallen angels further appear throughout both Christian and Islamic popular culture, as in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy (1308–1320), John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the Hasan Karacadağ's Semum (2008).

The Elohist sources speak of bənē hāʾĔlōhīm ("sons of God"), manifestations of the Divine (ʾēl) and part of the heavenly court in the Canaanite pantheon.

The paradigmatic interpretation parallels the Adamic myth in regard of the origin of evil: In both cases, transcending one's own limitations inherent in their own nature causes their fall.

Accordingly, the fallen angels represent creatures of Greek mythology, which introduced forbidden arts, used by Hellenistic kings and generals, resulting in oppression of Jews.

The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish religious work, accepted as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beta Israel, refers to the Watchers, who are among the angels created on the first day.

[45] As a punishment, God puts the angels in chains, but they still copulate with the demoness Naamah, who gives birth to demons, evil spirits and witches.

[47] The Book of Revelation, chapter 12, speaks of Satan as the "Great Red Dragon" whose "tail swept a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth".

[54] Christian tradition has associated Satan not only with the image of the fallen "morning star" in Isaiah 14:12, but also with the denouncing in Ezekiel 28:11–19 of the King of Tyre, who is spoken of as having been a "cherub".

[62] In this period, the Second Temple of Jerusalem was still central to Judaism, but synagogues were also established as institutions for prayer and the reading of Jewish sacred texts.

[68] Many Church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Lactantius[69][70] accepted the association of the angelic descent to the sons of God passage in Genesis 6:1–4.

"[80] In terms of the history of fallen angel theology it is thought to be rooted in Enochian literature, which Christians began to reject by the 3rd century.

[68][81] However, the Book of Watchers, which identified the sons of God with fallen angels, was not rejected by Syriac Christians or the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

[87] Later scholars tried to explain the details of their spiritual nature, asserting that the ethereal body is a mixture of fire and air, but that they are still composed of material elements.

[98] Like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity shares the basic belief in fallen angels as spiritual beings who rebel against God.

[108] With the proposition that there is only one ultimate principle, Christian philosophy threatened the hypothesis that God can only cause good and needed to explain the origins of moral evil.

[109] While according to many theories of Ancient Greek philosophy hold an intellectualist account of morality (i.e. that evil derives from a impeded intellectual cognition) the sin of angels, who are purely spiritual beings, needed an alterantive explanation.

They remain loyal to God on earth, do good deeds, and bearing some resemblances to saints, as seen in the Dialogus Miraculorum, in which a knight is guided by a fallen angel to lead him back on the path of piety.

[118] Later Protestant thinkers increasingly dismissed belief in fairies and neutral angels as part of either fairy-tales or a delusion cast by Satan.

[131] In a similar story, a cherub called Fuṭrus (فطرس) was cast out from heaven and fell to the earth, but is restored after he touches al-Husayn's cradle.

[132] Some recent non-Islamic scholars suggest Uzair, who is according to Surah 9:30 called a son of God by Jews, originally referred to a fallen angel.

[140][139] Unlike the majority opinion in later Christianity, the idea that Iblīs attempts to usurp the throne of God is alien to Islam and due to its strict monotheism unthinkable.

[144] Unlike in the Book of Watchers and Christian tradition, the story is not about angelic revolt or original sin, but the struggle of human beings.

[150] Following the canonical Christian narrative, Satan convinces other angels to live free from the laws of God, thereupon they are cast out of heaven.

Unlike most earlier Christian representations of hell, it is not the primary place for God to torture the sinners, but the fallen angels' own kingdom.

[154] The Turkish horror film Semum (2008), produced and directed by Hasan Karacadağ, is about a shayṭān who has been summoned from hell to torment a woman named Canan.

The movie is based on the Ibn Abbas interpretation of the Quran and depicts the devil as a fallen angel who seeks revenge on humans for being abandoned by God (Allah).