Christian angels have not always had the snow-white wings and flowing robes we tend to associate with their image nowadays. In fact, the first known depictions of angels as winged humans did not even appear until the 4th century. Before then, angels and humans were virtually identical in the iconography that existed. These interpretations were in keeping with many canonical the descriptions of angels, which give no indication that angels differ drastically from men.
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground.
Gen 18:1-3 NRSV
So Tobias went out to look for a man to go with him to Media, someone who was acquainted with the way. He went out and found the angel Raphael standing in front of him; but he did not perceive that he was an angel of God. Tobias said to him, “Where do you come from, young man?” “From your kindred, the Israelites,” he replied, “and I have come here to work.”
Tobit 5:4-5 NRSV
When Abraham encounters three angels in Genesis 18, they are described simply as men. There are no further qualifiers to indicate that they are any different from Abraham, or that they are inhuman in any way. Abraham seems to realize their importance, but whether or not this is due to their appearance, it is impossible for us to tell. In the Book of Tobit, it is made explicit that the angel Raphael looks exactly like a human, and he is able to pretend he is a man for almost the entire book without any of the humans questioning him. He reveals himself to be an angel of God eventually, but while he is interacting with Tobit and Tobias, he is wholly, unquestionably anthropomorphic. There are enough Biblical passages like these two that it is unsurprising that for the first several centuries, the angels in Christian art were indistinguishable from the humans to anyone unfamiliar with the scenes being depicted.
The oldest surviving images of angels are in the catacombs of Rome; they date to the second half of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century. Because angels must take some form in order to be perceived by humans, they are often anthropomorphized. The earliest Christian angels are visually undifferentiated from men. Only a knowledge of the iconography allows the viewer to recognize that some of the figures that appear to be men are actually angels.
Martin, 16-17
With the rise of Christianity in the 4th century came the evolution of Christian iconography, and the first instances of angels began to appear. The theological debates on angelic essence and character had begun, and while there were many conflicting opinions, it was generally agreed that humans and angels were distinct, dissimilar creatures. The depiction of angels with wings in art seemed partially to grow out of the necessity to represent this distinction between men and angels. There had to be some indication that angels, whatever they may be, were of a different nature than people, although the degree to which this was considered to be true was up for debate. Wings seem to be a natural result of the need for representing differentiation. Already, the nature of angels was starting to come through in how they were drawn: they existed between God and men, and wings was a logical metaphorical representation of this position.
The shift to winged angels took place during the fourth century, a time that saw first the legalization of Christianity and the conversion of the Roman Empire to this relatively young religion. As the Christian community grew in sophistication, so did its art. By the late fourth century, it no longer sufficed to represent angels, who held a position somewhere between God and people, simply as men. Between God and man is the sky, a conceptual place where divinity had always been localized, a physical plane occupied exclusively by winged creatures. How else but by flying with wings could an angel carry a message from God down to earth?
Martin, 18
Of course, it is highly unlikely that this imagery was created by Christian artists. Angels are not the first anthropomorphic figures with wings to appear in art from that region. Their cultural world was populated with Greco-Roman statues and paintings of bird-winged pagan gods such as Nike and Cupid from centuries before the birth of Christ, and the resemblance between these classical deities and Christian angels is hard to miss. Not only are there obvious similarities in the concept––a personification of divine figures who interact with humans with wings to represent an aspect of their divinity--there is also a clear cultural explanation: as Christianity spread across the Greco-Roman empire, Greco-Romans converted and brought their own iconography along with them, assimilating it into their new religion. And as a direct result of the transference of religious significance surrounding this iconography paired with the pre-existing conceptions of angelic form and nature, a new symbolic approach to the question of how to represent angels began to spread.
The evidence for a Christian invention of winged angels is simply too scanty and the influence of pagan iconography too manifest for pagan art to be discounted as the primary model for angels.
Peers, 35
Although the debt that Christian iconography owed pagan models is clear, Christian painters and mosaicists were able to judge the appropriateness of depictions of winged figures and did not simply absorb existing iconography. The addition or omission of wings in depictions of Angels in Christian art likewise reveals a symbolic quality of wings and the abilities of these appendages to signal terrestrial or celestial modes of sites of activity.
Peers, 36
The origins of angelic iconography in pagan artwork do not diminish the religious or symbolic importance of its development or its further use. On the contrary, the contribution of Greco-Roman religious and artistic culture to Christianity resulted in one of the most invaluable means of engaging with the connections between angelic appearance and divine nature.
- Holy Bible: NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. National Council of the Churches of Christ, 1989.
-Martin, T. (2001). "The Development of Winged Angels in Early Christian Art.” Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie VII, Historia Del Arte, no. 14.
doi:10.5944/etfvii.14.2001.2373.
- Peers, G. (2001). Subtle bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. University of California Press.
-Martin, T. (2001). "The Development of Winged Angels in Early Christian Art.” Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie VII, Historia Del Arte, no. 14.
doi:10.5944/etfvii.14.2001.2373.
- Peers, G. (2001). Subtle bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. University of California Press.