Philo of Alexandria (about 20 BCE–50 CE) applied the logic of Platonic daimonification to the Jewish lawgiver Moses. Philo is important for three reasons: he did theoretical work identifying angels, daimones, and pure human souls. He also discussed why an angelic soul such as the pre-incarnate Moses would arrive on earth in flesh. Finally, Philo’s depiction of Moses as a living law in complete control of his emotions reinforced the ethical emphasis of the tradition. Philo's portrayal of Moses as a king descended from heaven best resembles the thought of the Hermetic Kore Kosmou.

Chapter 8 presents angelification in the Christian apocalypse Zostrianos. Zostrianos is the mysterious reputed author of the longest tractate in the Nag Hammadi library (NHC VIII,8.1). The first known reception of this text was by Christians, one-time friends of Plotinus who tried to fit into his philosophical circle at Rome. Zostrianos ascends into four extra-cosmic dimensions in which he experiences successively higher forms of angelification. The text of Zostrianos is designed to lead its readers into contemplative ascent prefaced by a life of purifying virtues. These virtues completely cut one off from the structures of civic society in an effort to generate an angelic subjectivity on earth.

This introduction distinguishes angelification (becoming an angel) from angelomorphism (becoming like an angel), although it acknowledges ambiguity. After briefly discussing angelification in modern literature and film, it defines both angels and daimones in the ancient sense, discusses the analogous concept of a hero, and distinguishes angelification and daimonification from the broader concept of deification in the ancient world.

The Vision of Tnugdal (1149) was written in Latin in Regensburg. It provides a case study for the genre of otherworld visions. The author, an Irish monk, shows the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, in his treatment of divine mercy and justice as expounded by a guide who accompanies the visionary and explains the nature of the otherworld. Hell is segmented into eight locations for different punishments. The less grievous sinners, still redeemable, are at the top, with those eternally damned already in the pit of hell. Outside a segmented heaven two intermediate locations are designated for those neither particularly good nor particularly bad. This lengthy and popular work demonstrates considerable learning and a unique creativity with its vivid descriptions of punishments and demons and its spatial, intellectual, and spiritual vision of heaven. The vision expounds a theology of fear while extoling the redemptive power of both internal and external pilgrimage.

Chapter 3 examines the creation of the image of God, pointing to the significance of the materiality and visibility of the image when compared with the invisibility of angels. This relates to how Gregory depicts the image of God as divine. Due to his narration of how God mixes the spiritual image with the dust, we shall see that Gregory portrays the image and the dust as becoming a unity, and thus a single, living human person. Drawing from Genesis 1, Gregory argues explicitly that God creates women and men equally as images of God; moreover he writes about the female image in a manner which demonstrates further his view of the image quite literally as a physical, living and divine image of God.