Greg Allison, PhD: "Historical Theology:" Ch. 14--Angels, Satan and Demo...

Shepherd of Hermas on not fearing demonic attack: “’Fear the Lord, he said, and keep his commandment…But do not fear the devil, for if you fear the Lord you will rule over the devil, because he has no power. And where there is no power, there is no fear….But do fear the works of the devil because they are evil….All those who are full of faith resist him mightily and he leaves them alone, because he finds no place where he can gain an entrance.” ANF, 2:24-25. Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) Citing Jude 6, “But the angels, he says, ‘who did not keep their own pre-eminence…but left their own habitation…[God] has reserved these to the judgment of the great day, in chains, under darkness.’ He means the place near the earth, that is, the dark air. Now by ‘chains,’ he means the loss off the hoor in which they had stood, and the lust of feeble things.” “Comments on the Epistle of Jude,” in Fragments of Cassiodorus, 2, in ANF, 2:573. Origen on angels, individuals, churches and people. “To one angel, the church of the Ephesians was entrusted; to another, that of the Smyrneans. One angel was to be Peter’s; another, Paul’s. And so on down to each of the little ones that are in the church. For such and such angels as even daily behold the face of God must be assigned to each one of them. And there must also be some angels who encamp around those who fear God.” First Principles, 1.8.1, in ANF, 4:265. The references are Revelation 2-3, Acts 12.15, Matthew 18.10 and Psalm 34.7. Origen on demon possession. “There is a twofold mode of operation of wicked spirits. Sometimes they take complete and entire possession of the mind, so as not to allow their captives the power of either understanding or felling. For example, this is the case with those who are commonly called ‘possessed’, whom we see to be deprived of reason, and insane (such as those were who are related in the Gospel to have been cured by the Savior). At other times, these evil spirits use their wicked suggestion to deprave a conscious and intelligent soul with thouts of various kinds—persuading it to do evil—of which Judas is an illustration.” First Principles, 3.3.4, in ANF, 4:336. Lactantius on demonic endeavors to introduce errors, corruptions and false worship, hindering the church. Evil angels “strive to turn people away from the worship and knowledge of the True Majesty. Thus, people will not be able to obtain immortality. This is because these angels lost immortality on account of their wickedness.” Divine Institutes, 2.17, in ANF, 7:66. Augustine’s views on angels and demons from the City of God. “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly city, but the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly city, by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.” City of God, 5.9, in NPNF, 2: 91. Dionysius the Aeropagite added, creatively and speculatively, an hierarchy based on Biblical words: thrones, cherubim, seraphim, authorities, dominions, powers, angles, archangels, and principalities. Hierarchy 1—seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, in the “anteroom of divinity.” Hierarchy 2—dominions, powers and authorities. Hierarchy 3—principalities, archangels, and angels. They deputize their works downwards to the subordinates. Pseudo-Dionysius, 162-167. This will become a framework for the medieval period, notably, Acquinas’s fecundate mind.