Reformation controversy over angels?

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py3ak

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The Belgic Confession Art. 12 devotes a surprising amount of space to the doctrine of angels. In his commentary on it, P.Y. De Jong says that there were many controversies about angels at the time of the Reformation, but my copy of his work is imperfect and if he gives citations I cannot see them.

What were the controversies about angels at that time? Who particularly wrote on the subject?
 
Thank you, Patrick. It sounds like the hunt will have to go further afield.
 
Could it be referring to the Protestant rejection of the Romish doctrines concerning praying to angels, hierarchies among angels, etc?
 
That's certainly possible, Tyler, although the text of the Belgic Confession doesn't allude to those kinds of questions very directly in this article. If so, it would be another instance of the Reformation reviving a Patristic point of view over against some later developments.

Why then art thou cast down, O man, at being ignorant of that which even the heavens know not? Nay, not only are the heavens ignorant of this generation, but also every angelic nature. For if any one should ascend, were it possible, into the first heaven, and perceiving the ranks of the Angels there should approach and ask them how God begat His own Son, they would say perhaps, “We have above us beings greater and higher; ask them.” Go up to the second heaven and the third; attain, if thou canst, to Thrones, and Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers: and even if any one should reach them, which is impossible, they also would decline the explanation, for they know it not.
12. For my part, I have ever wondered at the curiosity of the bold men, who by their imagined reverence fall into impiety. For though they know nothing of Thrones, and Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers, the workmanship of Christ, they attempt to scrutinise their Creator Himself. Tell me first, O most daring man, wherein does Throne differ from Dominion, and then scrutinise what pertains to Christ. Tell me what is a Principality, and what a Power, and what a Virtue, and what an Angel: and then search out their Creator, for all things were made by Him. But thou wilt not, or thou canst not ask Thrones or Dominions. What else is there that knoweth the deep things of God, save only the Holy Ghost, who spake the Divine Scriptures? But not even the Holy Ghost Himself has spoken in the Scriptures concerning the generation of the Son from the Father. Why then dost thou busy thyself about things which not even the Holy Ghost has written in the Scriptures? Thou that knowest not the things which are written, busiest thou thyself about the things which are not written? There are many questions in the Divine Scriptures; what is written we comprehend not, why do we busy ourselves about what is not written? It is sufficient for us to know that God hath begotten One Only Son.
13. Be not ashamed to confess thine ignorance, since thou sharest ignorance with Angels. Only He who begat knoweth Him who was begotten, and He who is begotten of Him knoweth Him who begat. He who begat knoweth what He begat: and the Scriptures also testify that He who was begotten is God.

Cyril of Jerusalem, “The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem,” in S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. R. W. Church and Edwin Hamilton Gifford, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 67.
 
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