Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 9

the story Yahweh appeared alone.[11] At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder,[12] and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim.[13] In all these cases the angels, like the _Mal'akh Yahweh_, are connected with or represent a theophany. Similarly the "man" who wrestles with Jacob at Peniel is identified with God.[14] In Isaiah vi. the seraphim, superhuman beings with six wings, appear as the attendants of Yahweh. Thus the pre-exilic literature, as we now have it, has little to say about angels or about superhuman beings other than Yahweh and manifestations of Yahweh; the pre-exilic prophets hardly mention angels.[15] Nevertheless we may well suppose that the popular religion of ancient Israel had much to say of superhuman beings other than Yahweh, but that the inspired writers have mostly suppressed references to them as unedifying. Moreover such beings were not strictly angels.
The doctrine of monotheism was formally expressed in the period immediately before and during the Exile, in Deuteronomy[16] and Isaiah;[17] and at the same time we find angels prominent in Ezekiel who, as a prophet of the Exile, may have been influenced by the hierarchy of supernatural beings in the Babylonian religion, and perhaps even by the angelology of Zoroastrianism.[18] Ezekiel gives elaborate descriptions of cherubim;[19] and in one of his visions he sees seven angels execute the judgment of God upon Jerusalem.[20] As in Genesis they are styled "men," _mal'akh_ for "angel" does not occur in Ezekiel. Somewhat later, in the visions of Zechariah, angels play a great part; they are sometimes spoken of as "men," sometimes as _mal'akh_, and the _Mal'akh Yahweh_ seems to hold a certain primacy among them.[21] Satan also appears to prosecute (so to speak) the High Priest before the divine tribunal.[22] Similarly in Job the _bne Elohim_, sons of God, appear as attendants of God, and amongst them Satan, still in his r?le of public prosecutor, the defendant being Job.[23] Occasional references to "angels" occur in the Psalter;[24] they appear as ministers of God.
In Ps. lxxviii. 49 the "evil angels" of A.V. conveys a false impression; it should be "angels of evil," as R.V., _i.e._ angels who inflict chastisement as ministers of God.
The seven angels of Ezekiel may be compared with the seven eyes of Yahweh in Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10. The latter have been connected by Ewald and others with the later doctrine of seven chief angels,[25] parallel to and influenced by the Ameshaspentas (Amesha Spenta), or seven great spirits of the Persian mythology, but the connexion is doubtful.
In the Priestly Code, _c._ 400 B.C., there is no reference to angels apart from the possible suggestion in the ambiguous plural in Genesis i. 26.
During the Persian and Greek periods the doctrine of angels underwent a great development, partly, at any rate, under foreign influences. In Daniel, _c._ 160 B.C., angels, usually spoken of as "men" or "princes," appear as guardians or champions of the nations; grades are implied, there are "princes" and "chief" or "great princes"; and the names of some angels are known, Gabriel, Michael; the latter is pre-eminent,[26] he is the guardian of Judah. Again in Tobit a leading part is played by Raphael, "one of the seven holy angels."[27]
In Tobit, too, we find the idea of the demon or evil angel. In the canonical Old Testament angels may inflict suffering as ministers of God, and Satan may act as accuser or tempter; but they appear as subordinate to God, fulfilling His will; and not as morally evil. The statement[28] that God "charged His angels with folly" applies to all angels. In Daniel the princes or guardian angels of the heathen nations oppose Michael the guardian angel of Judah. But in Tobit we find Asmodaeus the evil demon, [Greek: to poneros daimonion], who strangles Sarah's husbands, and also a general reference to "a devil or evil spirit," [Greek: pneuma].[29] The Fall of the Angels is not properly a scriptural doctrine, though it is based on Gen. vi. 2, as interpreted by the Book of Enoch. It is true that the _bn[=e] Elohim_ of that chapter are subordinate superhuman beings (cf. above), but they belong to a different order of thought from the angels of Judaism and of Christian doctrine; and the passage in no way suggests that the bne Elohim suffered any loss of status through their act.
The guardian angels of the nations in Daniel probably represent the gods of the heathen, and we have there the first step of the process by which these gods became evil angels, an idea expanded by Milton in Paradise Lost. The development of the doctrine of an organized hierarchy of angels belongs to the Jewish literature of the period 200 B.C. to A.D. 100. In Jewish apocalypses especially, the imagination ran riot on the rank, classes and names of