Explaining Apparitions and Visions of Angels

Church teaching, including Scripture and Tradition, holds that angels are purely spiritual beings. Yet we also believe that they occasionally appear to have physical bodies, as in the Scripture stories: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2).

Angels do not need bodies for their interactions with God and one another; for that matter, they do not need bodies for their usual interactions with us, giving us spiritual protection, guidance, and inspiration. On the rare occasions when they take physical appearance, it is done for the sake of the persons to whom they appear.

How is this done?

We can write it off as a complete mystery, but St. Thomas likes to explain as much as logic allows: he says that an angel can appear to have a body by manipulating the air. This reasoning involves the ancient model of physics in which there are four elements: earth, water, fire, and air. This is not ignorant or foolish; it is similar to our own idea of four states of matter: solid, liquid, plasma, and gas. The physical bodies that angels take cannot be of earth or water, since this would not allow them to appear and disappear so quickly. Again, the bodies cannot be composed of fire; they would burn everything they touch. Therefore, when an angel appears, it takes a physical body by condensing air to have visible shape and color, like smoke.

An apparition of an angel occurs outside of the mind, and therefore can be seen by numerous people, as was the angel Raphael in the Old Testament book of Tobit. Similar examples of angels appearing to more than one person simultaneously are when angels appeared to Abraham and Sarah to announce the birth of their son Isaac (Gen. 18:1-10); to Lot and his daughters, telling them to flee from the city of Sodom before it is destroyed (Gen. 19:1-22); to Samson’s mother and father, instructing them on how to raise their son (Judg. 13:3-23); to Daniel’s companions and the king of Babylon, when he had them cast into a fiery furnace (Dan. 3:24-25); to Judas Maccabeus and his army when setting out to battle (2 Macc. 11:6-13); and to the shepherds, to announce the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:8-15).

Since angelic apparitions are manipulations of the air and not true living bodies, these apparitions do not engage in physical functions such as speaking, eating, or drinking. Just as an angel can manipulate the air to appear as a body, so he can also manipulate the air to simulate a human voice (or other sound), and seem to be speaking, though he has no lungs or vocal chords. Thus, Raphael tells Tobit and Tobias, “All these days I merely appeared to you and did not eat or drink, but you were seeing a vision” (Tob. 12:19).

In fact, there are two types of angelic visions. An angelic apparition is a bodily vision, produced by a manipulation of matter (in the air). This is technically different from a vision of an angel which occurs when an angel acts directly upon the sensory perception of a person from within. In these cases the angelic message is not perceived by a person’s external senses, but by their imagination, and for this reason it may be called an imaginary vision. This is seen in the description of the angel’s messages to St. Joseph.

But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife” (Matt. 1:20).

Joseph continued to receive angelic messages in dreams, directing him to flee to Egypt, return to Israel, and settle in Galilee (Matt. 2:13, 19, 22). The angel is said to appear in a dream, meaning while he was sleeping; but this does not rule out people having visions of angels while awake.

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