iii, ANGELOLOGY AND DemonoLocy. — A. ANGELOLOGY.—1. The OT doctrine of angels.— There was throughout the East a general belief in angels as inhabitants of the spirit-world. In the OT these are recognized as spirits intermediate between God and man, and acting as the mes- sengers and servants of Providence. Their nature, while superior to that of man, is not purely spiritual ; their main function is that of executing the Divine behests. They are poetically conceived as forming the host of heaven (1 K 22"), who praise God in the sanctuary above (Ps 148? 150'), act as the ministers of His will (Ps 1037), attend Him when He manifests Himself in His kingly glory (Dt 332?; see Driver, ad loc.), and form His retinue when He appears for judgment (Jl 3", Zec 14’). The mention of the captain of the Lord’s host in Jos 5% is too slender a basis for the conclusion that the ancient Hebrew regarded the angels as an organized celestial hierarchy in which the cherubim and seraphim hold their respective ranks. Nowhere are the cherubim endowed with independ- ent personality; they are only ideal representa- tions, varying according to the conception of the writers who make mention of them. In like man- ner the seraphim of Is 6 seem to be only symbolic appearances. ‘There is, however, a very perceptible development of angelology in the OT itself. At first the LoRD God speaks directly to man (Gn 3") ; then He appears to men through His messengers, who are called ‘sons of God’ (Job 1%, Ps 291 89°), We have further the conception of the Angel of the Lorp, who is in some passages identified with J” (Gn 18, cf. with 19”), and in others hypostatically distinguished from Him (Gn 247, Zec 1). Whether this name is to be applied specifically to one angel who represents God’s presence, or is to be extended to any angel with a special commission, remains therefore a moot point. The doctrine that Israel was led by the angel of J” paved the way for the belief in angelic guardianship of individuals, which some would find in Ps347 91", although it is doubt- ful whether these passages contain more than a poetical expression of trust in a beneficent Provi- dence. On the other hand, angels were regarded as the instruments of judgment (2 S 241°, 2 1 ee. Ps 78%”), and even the forces of nature came to be personified as God’s messengers (Ps 104%).
Prior to the Exile, with rare exceptions such as Is 67-5, the prophets do not introduce angels, but already in the visions of Ezekiel and Zechariah they play a prominent part, and the mystic number of seven (Ezk 9, Zec 42-10) possibly points to the hierarchical idea which certainly afterwards gained ground (To 12%, ‘Rey 8?). Ezekiel calls
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them men; Zechariah calls them both men and messengers. By these prophets special prominence is also given to one angel who acts as Instructor or Interpreter. This is the fruitful germ from which has sprung the widespread invocation of angels and spirits in the worship of the Christian Church. Then, as in modern monastic piety, it appears to have arisen from a false conception of God as reign- ing in the remote heaven; angels were employed to bridge the gulf that separated Him from men. Zechariah is the first prophet to recognize different orders and ranks among the angels (2* 4 3!+4),
2. Post -ewilic development of angelology on Persian lines.—In the post-exilic period, chiefly under the Parsi influences brought to bear upon the Jews of the Dispersion, the OT doctrine of angels underwent a curious and interesting de- velopment. Not that the Jews adopted wholesale the doctrine of Zoroaster either on this or on other points; but the inevitable social and religious in- fluences amid which many of them lived in con- tentment and peace, could not but tell on their theology. All the more was this the case that Zoroastrianism was in the zenith of its prosperity as a religious system, and in many respects indeed, as we have seen, was allied to Judaism. In no direction did it influence Jewish thought more than in the department of angelology. Men’s minds were strongly attracted to the superhuman, and angels were multiplied until God was con- ceived as governing the world by hosts of these ‘intermediary beings who concerned themselves with the affairs of men with very various ends.’ The belief in a regularly graded hierarchy of good and evil spirits, which characterized the religion of Zoroaster, began to be distinctly reflected, at least as to its main features, in the Jewish theology of the period. The position reached with regard to this whole doctrine in the later Judaism was apparently the result of the Persian conception of pure beings who surrounded Ormazd as his servants, acting upon the ancient Jewish belief that the angels were the messengers of Jehovah’s will. Development of the doctrine on Iranian lines was facilitated by the general and undefined nature of the Heb. angelology. The latter offered no bar to the acceptance of an ideal structure based upon a common principle; and the religious character of the Mazdean doctrine of pure spirits gave it the appearance of being the complete form of their own more rudimentary belief. In the later Jewish literature, accordingly, the angels are viewed as a well-organized host, whose recognized chiefs (Dn 10") are admitted into God’s immediate presence, and form His secret council (Enoch 14”), They are seven in number (To 12'5), Three are named in Daniel and Tobit, viz. GABRIEL, 7.¢. ‘man of God,’ whose special function seems to have been to communicate Divine revelations (Dn 818 921, Lk 1!) ; MICHAEL, i.e. “who is like God?’ the guardian of Israel (Dn 10" 21 121, Bar 6’, cf. 1 Th 4%, Jude, Rev 12”); and RAPuHArL, i.e. ‘God heals,’ whose mission it was to cure disease (To 3), and to present the prayers of the saints before God’s throne (To 12%, cf. Zec 12), Three more are men. tioned in 2 (4) Esdras: URIEL, 7.e. ‘God is light’ (41); JEREMIEL, i.e. ‘God hurls’ (436); and PHAL- TIEL (the Syriac has Psaltiel, 5'5).* Who was the seventh? Is the silence of the pre-Christian Jewish literature on this point merely accidental, or was J” Himself reckoned the first of the seven arch- angels, as Ormazd was the chief of the seven amshaspands?+ On the latter supposition the analogy would be complete, but it would have