thought receives great extension. According to the older Jewish re- presentation their work in nature was limited to extraordinary cases ; but later this was not so, and the whole world was thought to be full of spirits and demons. In the Book of Jubilees the angels are brought into close relation with the elements. The author mentions angels of fire, wind, tempest, darkness, hail, hoar-frost, valleys, thunder, lightning, cold, heat, the seasons, dawn and evening, and all spirits of His works in heaven and earth. Similarly in Enoch Ix. we read of spirits of sea, hoar-frost, hail, snow, mist, dew and rain. Again in the Slavonic Enoch xix. 4 we have “the angels who are over seasons and years, and the angels who are over rivers and the sea, and those
‘who are over the fruits of the earth, and the angels over every herb,
giving all kind of nourishment to every living thing”. In the N.T. this conception is also found, especially in the Apocalypse. Thus we read\of an angel “that hath power over fire” (xiv. 18) and an “angel of the waters” (xvi. 5), cf. also vii. 1, viii. 5, 7-12. The interpolation in John v. 4 presents us with the same idea in the angel that troubled the waters. In Heb. i. 7 the language of Ps. civ. 4 is reversed, and God is said to make His angels winds and His ministers a flame of fire. A similar belief in the evanescent personality of the angels is expressed in the Rabbinical statements of the daily creation of angels, and their transformation now into this, now into that. While these thoughts are all but unknown to the O.T., it frequently connects the sons of God with the stars. In the Song of Deborah the stars fight against Sisera (Jud. v. 20); in Job xxxvili. 7 the morning stars are identified with the sons of God. In Neh. ix. 6 the host of heaven is actually said to worship God, and by this personal beings must be meant (cf. Is. xxiv. 21 with ver. 23). In Enoch we read of “a prison for the stars of heaven and the host of heaven” (xviii. 14), and of “the stars which have transgressed the commandment of God, and are bound here till ten thousand ages, the number of the days of their guilt, are consummated” (xxi. 6). A similar association is found in Rev. ix. 1 (cf. ver. 11). A closely related function of the angels is that of ruling and representing the nations. This is first found in Deut. iv. 19, xxxii. 8, LXX (cf. xxix. 26). According to these passages the nations are allotted to the host of heaven or the sons of God, while Yahweh chooses Israel for Himself (cf. Sirach xvii. 17). This undergoes a development in Daniel. Im Deuteronomy the nations have their angels, while Israel has Yahweh. In Daniel Israel also has its own angel, Michael. In Is. xxiv. 21-23 we find the same thought, the host of the high ones on high being connected with the kings of the earth. In Rabbinical literature we have a