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Guardian angels. “An angel on your shoulder.” Cute little cherub postcards and watches. Angels are not only a part of popular culture, but they are serious business to your grandmother, or that strange man who lives down the street and is convinced he sees them everywhere. A comfort to us all. Right?

Not quite.

The literature on angels is exhaustive, and much of it depicts them as awesome, even fearsome creatures. Whether they are messengers (Gabriel telling Mary she’s knocked up), soldiers (Michael kicking fallen angel Satan to the curb), or part of the rank and file, angels — in Jewish and Christian tradition at least — are God’s emissaries. And they come in many varieties. Some bear multiple wings (seraphim); others, multiple faces (cherubim). Some fight. Others fall. There are nine specific types (or “choirs”), to be exact. And every one of them has a job.

Guardian angel detail — Guardian angel protecting a soul (15th-century French Book of Hours, Morgan Library and Museum, New York).

In apocryphal, kabbalistic, and occult texts, calling upon angels for services, like protection, or gifts, like wisdom, is laid out in complex rituals involving circles, incantations, or bizarre scribbling. Even when you don’t call them, they still show up. In all four gospels in the New Testament, for example, angels appear to speak to many of the women who visit Jesus’ tomb. Yet, angels are not confined to the Old and New Testament. They may, in fact, have come from Babylon.

During the Babylonian exile (between 597 BCE and 538 BCE), Jewish scholars incorporated the celestial beings of their captors into what would become the first books of the Old Testament. Though tradition places Moses’ writings to around 1400–1300 BCE, most modern scholars believe the stories to only have been written down by the 6th and 5th centuries BCE — during the time of exile (after the fall of Jerusalem. It would only make sense, then, that those who first began to write down the history and beliefs of the Jewish people would work into their texts those things that influenced them during their time in Babylon. In fact, Jewish authors of the Old Testament were inspired not only by Babylonians, but the Assyrians and Sumerians as well.

Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth, for example, has many similarities with Genesis. And the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh recounts a massive flood that may have influenced the story of Noah and his ark. Harut and Marut, two supernatural creatures named in the Quran, are sent to earth to test humanity — and where else, but the ancient city of Babylon. Lamassu. Shedu. Apkallu. The Babylonians had many angelic-type creatures, or gods depicted with bird / angel wings. As did the Assyrians. The Mesopotamian sun god Shamash (also known as Utu) is often depicted as having angel-like wings. Oh, and he fights monsters, much like Michael, who, in some kabbalistic traditions, is likewise often linked to the sun.

The Babylonian god Ninurta hunting a chaos monster, the lion demon Tiamat.

Knowledge of the Babylonian influence on Judeo-Christian mythology, however, does not diminish the majesty and grandeur of seraphim, cherubim, and the other types of angels. In some ways, it legitimizes them as being part of a larger, deeply human need for the divine to reveal itself. Or kick some ass, as they do in John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). Inspired by biblical accounts of angels, Milton adds terror of an apocalyptic scale to his celestial beings. His are not kind messengers with bird-like wings. They are formidable warriors.

Fast forward to the twentieth century, cinema, and the boob tube. Angels are softened during the first half of the 1900s. They are stripped of their ominous nature and terrifying appearance. In television and movies, some angels are kind, writing wrongs and warming hearts (“Touched by an Angel”). Others are somewhat dull and bumbling (THE BISHOP’S WIFE (1947). And then there are guardian angels who are actually somewhat annoying (see James Mason aggravate Lucille Ball in FOREVER, DARLING (1956).

Angel Paul Bettany holds off an invasion of his brethren in LEGION (2010).

But sinister angels? Leave it to the latter part of the twentieth century and beginning of the 21st for such cynicism. Christopher Walken as Gabriel in 1995’s THE PROPHECY, for example, is an asshole. Then there are angels like Paul Bettany’s Michael in LEGION (2010) that fight other angels who, at God’s command, are prepared to destroy the earth. Turns out, ironically enough, that God has lost his faith in humanity.

Regardless of their depictions, motivations, powers, and abilities, angels serve. But it’s not just service to God — a belief of those who, well, believe — it’s service to us. Not as lapdogs doing our bidding. But as symbols showing us that there’s a bridge between heaven and earth. Metaphorical as that may be, that bridge might also inspire some to live better, be kinder, and serve each other in order to one day cross that bridge. Or — as is the case apparently with some of the more indignant angels — blow it up and go to hell.

The arrest of a Pennsylvania man on charges of grave robbing this week has led to hundreds of news outlets reporting the horrific details of his collection of hundred of bones and several skulls. Much like Ed Gein before him, Jonathan Christ Gerlach (yes, that’s his middle name) raided, at the very least, Mount Moriah Cemetery on the border of southwest Philadelphia — for purposes, at this time, unknown. Like Gein, was Gerlach a necrophiliac? Was he on his way to becoming a serial killer? Or was he, as some have suggested (based upon his being tagged in Facebook group about the sale of human remains) more interested in the money that can be had from “the bone trade” as it is sometimes called (oh, and he stole jewelry, too).

raiders-at-tomb-of-ameneminet — Are these grave robbers at the tomb of Ameneminet?

The history of grave robbing is fascinating, albeit gruesome, stretching back into antiquity. Ancient Egyptians were known to rob the tombs of the wealthy. In fact, most tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings were robbed within one hundred years of their sealing. But theft was not the only motivation for those who disturbed graves. In China, for example, in 506 BC, military general Wu Zixu dug up the corpse of King Ping of Chu to abuse and whip his corpse. Desecration, and the fear and revulsion that came with it, gave the abuser a sense of power over the living AND the dead.

The first known case of what is otherwise called “body snatching” was committed in 1319 by four medical students in Bologna, Italy. For centuries following — most notably the nineteenth century with the infamous duo of Burke and Hare active in the 1820s — grave robbers illegally sold human remains to medical schools primarily for purposes of teaching anatomy. Many doctors believed it to be a necessary evil. These body snatchers came to be known as “ressurectionists,” and many were paid handsomely for their ability to supply cadavers (with no questions asked as to how they were obtained). They would send spies to funerals to scout out the freshest bodies that would later be easily removed from the loose, newly disturbed ground. Some, like Burke and Hare, would even kill to get bodies, making the job all that much easier.

Iron coffins, grave alarms, and mortsafes (the iron cage around a grave) became common as a way to combat body snatchers. In the UK, the problem was so prevalent that the government issued the Anatomy Act in 1832, making grave robbing a criminal offense. Of course, the practice didn’t stop. And to this day, there’s a black market for bones, skulls, scalps, skin, teeth — you name it. Not for medical schools, but for private collections… even sexual gratification. Morbid obsession. Anti-social urges.

At “oddities” flea markets, conventions and the like, one can actually find and buy a human skull. They are often accompanied by a certification of some kind stating that the skull was obtained by legal means (e.g., a museum auction for deaccessioned pieces). But these are relatively few and far between, whereas availability on the black market / dark web / and even — as was apparently the case with Gerlach — social media groups, is prevalent.

"Resurrectionists” stealing dead bodies from a graveyard. — “Resurrectionists” stealing dead bodies from a graveyard. 1887 illustration by British artist Hablot Knight Browne.

Psychologists say the motivations for grave robbing vary. But at the root is a need for power and control. Thieves feel empowerment when they take from the dead, justifying their crimes as having no real victim, or seeing the theft as revenge for perceived injustice (“eat the rich”). Sociopaths find an outlet for anti-social behavior, whether its extreme vandalism, an inability to relate to the living, or an obsession with the dead and all things related to death. And psychopaths? They satisfy unspeakable urges. Some, like Ed Gein, go on to murder.

What were Gerlach’s motivations? The truth will come out in time. The details will be horrific. We will be further shocked by this man’s behavior. Perhaps what is most disturbing is that the reasons behind crimes like Gerlach’s are impossible to fully understand. But it gave him an identity in a subculture that exists at the fringes of polite society.

And that this subculture even exists is perhaps the most disturbing revelation of them all.

VAULT OF THOUGHTS

Category Archives: history

That Ain’t No Angel

A Short History of Grave Robbing

By Christopher Davis