54
ANGELS
AIsVtELS
Lord from the descriptions of the Evangelists ; but, in fact, there is such complete unity of conception underlying both discourses and narratives, that no useful purpose can be served by treating theui separately.
i. Angels in Heaven.— 1. They form an army or host. Lk 2" ' There was >vith the angel (who appeared to the shepherds) a multitude of the heavenly host' (nTpana). Our Lord carries the militaiy metaphor even further when He speaks of 'more than 12 legions of angels' (Mt 26''^'). Oriental hyperbole was fully employed in e.xpress- ing the magnitude of the heavenly army. Rev 5" speaks of ' myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands' ; and He 12=^ speaks of ' the myriads of angels ' — both in probable allusion to Dn 7'". In Job 25' also the question is asked : ' Is there any number of his armies ? ' Similarly the Pal. Targ. to Ex 12'= tells of 90,000 myriads of destroying angels ; and in Dt 34^ the same Targuni speaks cf the glory of the Shekinah being revealed to the dying Moses, with 2000 myriads of angels and 42,0(XI chariots ; as 2 K 6" tells of a ' mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.'
2. They form a court. Heaven is 'God's throne' (Mt 5" 23--), and there also ' the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory' (Mt lO-**). The angels, as courtiers, stand in v:ist niuUiiudrs before the throne (Rev 5" 7"). As in laiihly .omt> there are gradations of rank and dijniiv. -■> in lu'uven. It is St. Paul who speaks ni.ist exi.liiitly of 'the principalities and powers in the heavenly places' (Eph 3'°), and of Christ's being ' exalted far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion ' (Eph l-^); and 'evidently Paul regarded tliem as actually existent and intelligent forces' (Robinson, in loco) ; but the same conception presents itself in the Gospels in the reference to archangels, who were four, or in some authors seven, in number : Gabriel, Raphael, IMichael, and Uriel being those most frequently mentioned. In Lk P* the angel wlio appears to Zacharias says : ' I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God ' ; as in To 12'' the angel says to Tobit : ' I am Raphael, one of tlie seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints and go in before the glory of the Holy One.' Even in the OT the angels are spoken of as forming 'a council': e.g. in Ps 89', where C;od is said to be ' very terrilile in the council of the holy ones,' and in Ps 82' where He is said to ' judge amidst the Elohtm.' This idea was a great favourite Avith later Jews, who maintained that ' God does nothing without consulting the family above ' (Sanhedrin, 386). To the same circle of ideas belong the words of the Lord Jesus : ' Every one that shall confess me before men, him will tlie Son of Man confess before the angels of (iod ; bnt lie that denieth me in the presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of God' (Lk 12'''-'). Evidently the angels are interested spectators of men's behaviour, responsive to their victories and defeats, their sins and struggles ; and we are here taught that to be denied before such a \ r. t lo sponsive assembly intensifies the remm -e of the ajpostate, as to be confessed before tliein uiteii-ities the joy of those who are 'faithful unto deatli.' Agam, in many courts, and particularly in that of the Persians, there were -secretaries or scribes, whose business it was to keep a ' book of records ' (Est 6'), in which the names and deeds of those who had deserved well of the king \vere hmioin ably recorded. The metaphor of Inasiii as a palace and court is so far kept up, that the .lews often spoke of hooks in heaven in >\lueli men's deeds are recorded. Not only do we read in Slavonic Enoch 19^ of 'angels wlio are over the souls of men, and who write down all their works
and their lives before the face of the Lord ' ; and in the Ajiocalypse of John, where symbolism
bounds, of 'books' being 'opened,' and of the •dead' being 'jiulged according to what was written in the books ' : but even in an Epistle
of St. Paul we read of those ' whose names in the book of life' (Ph 4=), and in He 12-^ of ' the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven ' ; and precisely in accord with the above our Lord bade His disciples rejoice, because their names 'are written in heaven,' i.e. enrolled for honour (Lk 10-").
3. They form a choir in the heavenly temple. The description of heaven in the Apocalypse is quite as much that of a temple as a palace. Heaven contains its altar (8^ 9"), its censers (5^ 8^), its musicians (5^ lo=), and its singers (5" 14» l."i^). Ill I \tia r.iWical literature the veil is. often nnniiMih.l, i niic ualing the abode of God in the Miisi Holy riaie, within which the archangels are permitted to enter (To 12'=-'*, Enoch 40^). The only reference in the Gospels under this head is the song of the angels, described in Lk 2"'-. It is possible, in spite of the reading of some very ancient Greek MSS (N*ABD), that this song, like tliat of the seraphitn in Is 6'-, is a triple antiphonal