Angels

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**Symbio Joe**

Sorry if already discussed but I did not find anything about the topic via forum search.

Okay here is what bugs me it's the meaning of "angel" in the dark future of ... you know the place. For a imperial citizen the word angel equals Space Marine, doesn't it? They are called Angls of Death and there are a lot of other "Angels of ..." but it seems the word Angel itself is barely used. It is just ripped out the bible and never was questioned. Hey a human with wings awesome! There is not really a history behind the word in the imperium like "The God Emperor created Angels who are his servants...".
Or am I totally wrong here? Please help me out.

**Squig_herder**

From my understanding the angel you speak of is almost all but forgotten, as the emperor is the god, and no others [modern gods]. Since that the space marines and like are created by their god and are the pinicle of genenetic enhancement for human [save primarches] they are seen as angels/demi-gods.

It is not wrong just different

**eltharion72**

What Squig says is probably true. If you look in the Blood Angels fluff it states that Sanguinus the Primarch had white wings.

**darkangels_rule**

all religion was banned tens of thousands of years ago and the cult of the emperor rules all anything else is regarded as heresy and punishable by death
so the angels you speak of are not even ancient history (it was most probably expunged from the books)

**1hadhq**

The ecclesiarchy may have not used the concept of Angels, but still uses the concept of "saints".

I think the concept of "angels" is so deeply inbuilt, there was no need to declare a figure like Sanguinius as "angel", the standard bog imperial citizen just looked at him and
decided to use an old half-forgotten description at a winged primarch. The meaning may be lost or banned, but not completely.

Would be also only logical to have a counter concept to demons, such as Angels are.
Some remnants of old culture are in use still, like Seraphim in the adeptus sororitas.

**Dreadwinter**

Sanguinius?

**ArbitorIan**

In the Gaunt's Ghosts books, Larkin has a conversation with a statue of an angel.

**1hadhq**

ArbitorIan wrote:In the Gaunt's Ghosts books, Larkin has a conversation with a statue of an angel.

Good point.

a) there is an statue of an angel - so at least someone knows about them.
b) larkins knows the concept of angels - a fine proof, since his homeworld wasn't so "highcultural" or "religious".

**LiterateWolf**

Angels are guardians and protectors of Good. The Emperor created the Primarchs which in turn lead to the Space Marines who defend all of humanity from aliens, daemons, and traitors. Hence, the Angels of Death. However, if you look at the Terra paintings, you do see angels flying around. Seems that genetically engineered humans with wings enhance on the divinity of the Emperor.

Just my 2 cents.

**Symbio Joe**

I little update on this topic. My question was wrong. Angel is not ripped out of the bible the greek word angelos = messanger. Became messanger/executor/guardian of a god. They appear in diffrent religions and are not specific christian.
So Space Marines/Primarchs totally fit into the concept as they fullfill the will of the God Emperor.

**Orkeosaurus**

Well, there's an obvious difference between a Jewish/Christian/Muslim angel and, say, Hermes.

However, don't forget there's a huge amount of time before year 41,000. The concept of "Angels" could have been melted down and recast a dozen times over the years. They've gone through a lot of changes in just the last 5,000.

**chromedog**

Not to say that even the "christian" angels can not be absolute badasses when they have to be - The archangel Michael carries a sword for a reason, after all.

You have to bear in mind that the christian bible is translated from ancient hebrew to english via ancient greek and roman - some things will always be lost in translation.

**Emperors Faithful**

Yes, but the thing with the bible is that it's NO FUN. The war is already won without much effort. With the angels in 40k there is a REAL struggle between angels and deamons.

**Wehrkind**

One could look at angels in 40k as the warp equivalent of "positive" emotions. Just as daemons are the manifestation of hate, sloth, excess and the like, "angels" would be love, faith, loyalty, etc. The virtues being accepted as human ideals (culturally) they naturally would manifest as ideal looking humans. With wings, because apparently humans really dig wings.

This leads to the interesting idea that the "saints" are actually partially or fully possessed by angels/daemons, the greatest being elevated to the angel equivalent of a daemonprince (rules wise, not "I rule a planet and the laws of physics as I see fit).

**Orkeosaurus**

I think part of the issue with "positive" emotions is that a lot of the time they're part of the Chaos Gods; they're taken to such extremes that they become negative.

For instance, Love is embodied in both Slaanesh and Nurgle to an extent (romantic and paternal), Faith is embodied in all of them to an extent (being gods and all), Loyalty and Honor are both aspects of Khorne, Hope is an aspect of Tzeentch, etc.