Angels-APOCRYPHA AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA

Between approximately 200 B.C. and A.D. 100, numerous religious
writings were circulating in the Jewish world that, although they had
the flavor of Scripture, were eventually rejected from the Jewish
canon. These books of dubious authenticity are referred to as the
Apocrypha (from Greek apokryptein, to hide away; apocryphal later
acquired the connotation of “spurious”) and the Pseudepigrapha
(anonymous or pseudonymous writings, the latter often attributed to a
famous biblical personage, like Elijah or Enoch). These writings were
characterized by an apocalyptic emphasis that often pictured supernatural
redemption at the hands of God and his angels, a trait they share
with the Dead Sea Scrolls and with the Book of Revelation.
One reason these writings were rejected from the canon was that they
populated the cosmos with so many angels that the rabbis feared new
forms of idolatry focused on angelic beings would emerge. In the Book
of Enoch (40:1), for instance, the author observes that he “beheld
thousands of thousands, and myriads and myriads, and an infinite
number standing before the Lord of spirits,” a description that seems
to have inspired the author of the Book of Revelation (5:11).
Many of the writings rejected from the Jewish canon by the rabbis
were retained in the Catholic canon. With respect to angel lore, the
most important of these apocryphal compositions is Tobit, a book that
contains the tale of the angel Raphael aiding Tobias, son of Tobit.
During the Reformation, the Protestants decided to eject all of the
apocryphal books from their Bible and adopt the Jewish canon as the
Protestant Old Testament. This action was taken primarily because
certain books of the Apocrypha seemed to support the notion of purgatory
(an idea rejected by Protestants) or the belief that the living
could somehow “buy” salvation for the dead (as, for example, in 2
Macc. 12:43–46).