In Jesus' time a Roman legion consisted of between five and six thousand foot soldiers, together with complements of other arms. In a day when gunpowder, TNT, and split atoms were unheard of this was indeed a mighty display of force. Thus, when Jesus told the impetuous disciple who had drawn his sword to prevent the Master's arrest that he could, if he prayed, have more than twelve legions of angels to defend him, he was reminding Peter and those around him of the invincible spiritual forces at his command.
On page 581 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, angels are defined thus: "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." Further light on the nature and office of angels may be found on pages 298 and 299 of the same work. It is clear from these passages that God's thoughts, messages, or spiritual intuitions, and nothing else, constituted the angel legions which Jesus had at his summons and which he habitually called upon to perform his mighty works.
One of the outstanding characteristics of an angel thought is power, and the Bible accounts of the visitations of angels often indicate an accompanying manifestation of spiritual might, as when angels appeared to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and Gideon. God's angel thoughts are manifested in whatever guides, governs, feeds, clothes, shelters, comforts, instructs, protects, and blesses the receptive thought. And it is by realizing the presence, power, and law expressed by God's angels that the Christian Scientist banishes fear, lack, sin, sickness, death, and all the evil beliefs that beset mankind.
