Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss an
interesting question: just how many angels, exactly, betrayed God, were cast out of heaven,
and became demons. We’re going to begin by looking at an earlier iteration of the Devil,
one that portrays him as an instrument of God used to test humanity, not as the ruler of hell
and king of demon kind; this will take us into the Book of Job, which demonstrates how the Devil was
used in that capacity and wasn’t always viewed as a fallen figure. Then, we’re going to look
at the Book of Revelation, which describes the fall of the angels, and finally, we’re going
to dive into the various theories that quantify the angel population and detail the proportion
of them that fall from heaven and become demons; one hypothesis postulates there to be 133,306,668.
Let’s get into it.
Satan, also known as Beelzebub, the Devil, Iblis, Mephistopheles, Lucifer,
and numerous other infamous names and titles, wasn’t always viewed through the same lens we
use in contemporary times - which is to say perceiving him as the great defiler,
the nemesis of God, the bane of man, the corruptor of hearts, the fallen one,
the leader of Hell’s hordes, the lord of infernal fire, and so on and so forth.
In fact, the notion of fallen angels is entirely absent from the Old testament,
which means accounts pertaining to the number of angels who forsook Heaven,
replacing its light with the darkness of Hell, didn’t exist until the advent of yet later works,
like the New Testament and the Book of Enoch. But before we move our focus to that,
Let’s spend a little time looking at what could be called Satan’s antecedent,
which is the earlier conceptualization of him that’s included in the Old Testament.
In Hebrew, satan means adversary, and Satan, as an epithet for the Devil, is actually a truncated
version of ha-satan, meaning the adversary, which, as originally conceived, referred to a post held
or duty performed by an angel that served God, one unfallen. This angel, as directed by God,
would oppose mankind, bringing strife and suffering to test resolve, to see if, even
in the face of unbearable circumstances, people would keep their faith and remain true to God.
This is demonstrated in the book of Job, one of the books of the Old Testament.
The story begins in heaven, where God extols the righteousness of his servant Job to the
assemblage of angels gathered before him. One of these angels, called ha-satan in Hebrew,
approaches God and presents him with this question: how do you know Job is actually good;
are you sure it’s not just a superficial display put on because you reward him?
Ha-Satan then follows up this question with a proposal, which is something to this effect:
Let me go forth. I’ll unleash every sort of pain imaginable. Then, when he is laid low,
when truly everything has been taken from him, let us see if his faith holds true. Stripped of
everything, made pitiable, let us see if his dedication to you remains. Said another way,
it’s a proposal to test whether Job is just maintaining a facade to reap God’s rewards.
Ha-Satan descends to the mortal plane and afflicts Job with every sort of torment. He loses his kids,
his servants, his fat herds, and he becomes riddled with boils. Despite all of this,
though, he still keeps God in his heart. But eventually, he reaches a sort of breaking point
and demands that God, who materializes in the form of a storm cloud, explain why his design
beset him with hardship. In response, God takes Job on a sort of tour of the universe,
pulling back the proverbial curtain, thereby showing how vast and complex creation really is.
Through this experience, Job comes to understand that creation is boundless and ever-changing, that
not everything that transpires can be a blessing. Ultimately, this leaves Job with a profound sense
of humility. He continues life as a God fearing man, later regaining double what he lost.
This takes us to the New Testament, which paints the Devil in a less equivocal light.
Satan ceases to be a tool wielded by God to oppose humanity, thereby testing its faith,
instead becoming the opposer of God himself, making him the great enemy. Originally,
the Devil was a mighty and majestic angel, by some accounts presiding over the order of virtues
and leading the Seraphim, the angels ranked highest in the nine-tiered angelic hierarchy.
If you want to know all 9 orders check out the video in the pinned comment.
The pitfalls of pride and ambition are most commonly cited as what precipitated
the Devil’s fall, but other versions have been put forward. In the book of Revelation, the last
book of the New Testament, the notion of fallen angels is made quite clear. Here’s the passage:
“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the
third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them down to earth…. And there was war in heaven:
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought… and prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out,
that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
One interpretation is that one third of the stars being brushed out of the sky
by the dragon’s tail symbolizes one third of the angels falling from heaven. According to the
Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, who lived in the 13th century CE, and corroborated by Alphonso de Spina,
a Catholic Bishop of the 15th century CE, the proportion of angels who fell from heaven
was indeed one third. By their account, this fallen third totaled 133,306,668,
meaning the remaining two thirds totaled 266,613,336 and the original grand total,
every angel pre-fall, was 399,920,004. Apparently this number, nearly 400 million, was arrived at
through this line of calculation: there are nine angelic choirs. Each choir comprises
6,666 legions. Each legion constitutes 6,666 angels. Multiplying the two figures gives a sum
of 44,435,556. Finally, multiplying this number by the number of choirs gives us 399,920,004 angels.
Assuming all of the angels that fell became demons, the total number of demons who betrayed
God and joined the Devil, as reckoned here, would be 133,306,668. And the notion of fallen angels
becoming demons has been maintained by prominent members of the clergy, like Thomas Aquinas,
a friar, priest, and important philosopher and theologian of the 13th Century CE.
Another version claims it was only 200 angels who fell from Heaven, and yet another, this one
expounded by William Auvergne, a 13th century Bishop of Paris, claims that one tenth of each
of the nine angelic orders fell. This was further elaborated upon, explaining that the hierarchy of
fallen angels mirrored its heavenly counterpart. This is to say the highest ranked angels,
after they fell, became the highest ranked demons, and so on, down each stratification.
As for the total number of angels, there too are other versions, though none as precise as
the one already covered. The Third Book of Enoch states that each prince of heaven is supported
by 496,000 angels. Also, in Jewish lore there are theories that yield astronomical numbers,
such as: there being 11,000 guardian angels protecting each person, and there being an angel
for every blade of grass in every patch, field, or plain that bristles on the face of the earth.
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