The term worship of angels primarily relates to either excessive honouring (or possibly invoking the names of) angels in Judaism and Christianity.
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The Jewish Bible strictly prohibits worship of any other than God. For this reason actual "worship" of angels is not documented in Judaism beyond the following:
Stephen, in Acts 7:42, comments on Old Testament worship of the Host of Heaven without making any connection to angels.
The primary contact point in the New Testament is the condemnation of the “worship of angels” in Colossians:
There is however a question as to whether the word used here in fact means "worship". The word used is simply the common word for "religion" (θρησκεία thrēskeia, Acts 26:5, James 1:26,27) not the word "worship" (λατρεία latreia, cf. verb form in Acts 7:42) used of God or pagan deities. This leaves open the possibility that what Paul meant was not actually Christians who bowed down and literally worshipped angels, but a wider range of uses perhaps including:[5]
and so on.
In the Latin Vulgate this had been rendered et religione angelorum, and this was rendered "religioun of aungelis" by Wycliffe.
Angels are primarily a concept of Judaism, though the Greek word aggelos ("messenger") does have some use in Greek religion relating to divine messengers. [7] The followers of the pagan monotheistic religion, Hypsistarianism worshipped the "Most High", Hypsistos, Jewish God and acknowledged the Gods of traditional Greek religion as angels. [8] But the reference to angels is still from Judaism, not paganism, and some modern scholars identify the Hypsistarian groups, with Gentile God fearers, that is to say uncircumcised semi-proselytes to, and sympathizers with, Hellenistic Judaism.[9]
In 1981 A.R.R. Sheppard published an inscription (from near Kotiaion) related to Holiness and Justice, personifications honoured, or worshipped, in areas of Phrygia and Lydia [10] The significant discovery in the inscription was Sheppard’s reading: ΦΙΛΑΝΓΕΛΩΝ (”Friends-of-angels”) an apparent evidence of pagan reverence of angels:
In 1996 Clinton E. Arnold, based on Sheppard's inscription, advanced the theory of a pagan, not Jewish, background to Colossians 2:8-23. Arnold argued for the general importance of angels in Asia Minor as a common folk practice in this region. He suggested that pagans were invoking the names of angels for protection following Jewish influences. [11].
However in 2005 Hasan Malay revisted the inscription and argues that Sheppard likely misread a phi Π as a gamma Γ, and the inscription should read ΦΙΛΑΝΠΙΛΟΙ, “Friends-of-the-vine” or “Vine-lovers”, with no angels. Malay also published a second inscription, dated 161 CE, confirming the existence of associations devoted to the vine from nearby Katakekaumene in Cappadocia, now in the Manisa Museum.[12] Hence the Kotiaion inscription should read:
While falling short of actual worship of angels 3rd Century Gnosticism developed heavily ideas concerning the archons. Celsus repeats the charge of worship of angels against Aristides[13]
The Angelici were a heretical sect of the 3rd century. Augustine supposes them thus called from their yielding an extravagant worship of angels. However Augustine provides no evidence for this charge and Epiphanius derives their name from the belief that God created the world through the angels.