ANGEL, a term used in the vocabulary of monotheistic re ligions to describe a personal being intermediate in nature, status, and powers, between God and man. It may be conjectured that in most instances a belief in such beings is an attempt to retain the subordinate gods and spirits of a polytheistic or an animistic faith which preceded the development of monotheism. Of the four great monotheistic religions, Islam and Christianity accepted current Jewish ideas of angels, while in Zoroastrianism they are clearly either degraded gods or personified qualities and ab stractions.
The religion of the Old Testament recognized many such in ferior superhuman beings. Whilst it was strictly monolatrous, and recognized Yahweh alone as an object of worship for Israel, it conceived of Him as dwelling in royal state, surrounded by at tendants and servants (cf. I Kings xxii. 19; Job i. 6, ii. 1 ; Ps. xxix. 1) . These are called "sons of God" (bene elohim or elim), and in Gen. vi. the origin of giants is ascribed to unions be tween such beings and mortal women. But Yahweh has other classes of beings at his orders and under his control; such are the "Cherubims" of Gen. iii. 24 ; Ez. ix.—apparently pictured in some such form as the divine or semi-divine winged bulls of Assyrian sculpture, the "seraphim" of Isaiah's vision—flaming six-winged serpents, or the numerous "men" who act as Yahweh's agents in the visions of Zechariah and Ezekiel and elsewhere. The "hosts" referred to in the phrase "Yahweh of Hosts" may also belong to this class.
The word "angel" (Heb. mal'ak), however, is seldom ap plied to such beings as these. The following is a list of passages in which it thus occurs, doubtful text or interpretation being indi cated by an asterisk: Gen. xix. I,* xxviii. xXxii. I ; Job iv. 18 ; Ps. lxxviii. 49*; xci. I I ; ciii. 20 ; civ. 4; cxlviii. 2; Dan. iii. 28; vi. 22. The term is used in a pecu liar sense in Zechariah of the pro phetic spirit which gave to the prophet the sense of 'a dual per sonality—the "God within" him. Elsewhere the phrase Angel of Yahweh is employed to indicate the very presence of Yahweh— indeed the term is practically in terchangeable with "presence." Its appearance is probably due to a growing feeling that to speak of Yahweh as coming in ordinary human form was unworthy of his majesty. As men began to out grow the old anthropomorphic ideas they felt their way towards a conception which did not picture the whole of the personality of Yahweh to appear on earth, but yet insisted that it was really He and no other who came into human life. Thus the "angel" who appeared to Manoah and his wife (Jud. xiii.) accepts the sacrifice, and is in truth Yahweh Himself.
During the exile and the three centuries which followed the return, the thought of Israel was greatly influenced by the con ceptions of the Gentile world, particularly, it seems, by those of Persia. We certainly find in the late Persian period and after the age of Alexander, that angels, in the modern popular sense of the term, play a much larger part in the realm of Jewish ideas. In the Book of Daniel each nation has its own guardian angel, commonly called "prince"; e.g. the guardian angels of Persia and Greece are mentioned in x. 20, and Michael, guardian of Israel, in vv. 13, 21. From this time onwards angels play a prominent part in all Jewish religious writings. Thus we find Raphael as one of the leading characters in the Book of Tobit, and the Enoch literature—to say nothing of other apocalyptic books of this period—is full of rangels, good and bad.
With the growth of a belief in good angels there sprang up also a theory of wicked angels, demons, and the like. A number of different lines of thought converge here, of which two may be regarded as the most important. One of these is the belief in the effect of a "spirit" on man. Any abnormal psychological state was thought in early times to be due to the "breath" of God, a new life-force which entered into a man and changed him. To this source were ascribed the prophetic "ecstasy" and other phe nomena which, today, might be classed as insanity or even epilepsy. Obviously the effect produced was sometimes evil, and though in primitive times men did not hesitate to ascribe even moral evil to Yahweh, yet as the doctrine of his moral goodness grew under the influence of prophetic teaching, it clearly became necessary to introduce another source. Hence arose a belief in wicked angels, "unclean spirits," and similar beings—a spiritual army hostile to God, as the good angels were His servants and messengers.
The other line of development is that of Satan. This person appears in the Old Testament—particularly in Zechariah and Job —as one of the servants of Yahweh, or rather, an important official of His court. It was the business of the Satan (the word in the O.T. is not a proper name) to detect evil in men and to charge them before Yahweh with their sin, actual or potential. In order to test them, he was compelled to "tempt" them, and when once the thought of an arch-enemy of God and man had been observed in the Persian Ahriman, it was easy for the "tempter" to pass from the side of God to that opposed to Him. Thus there grew up the conception of the Devil, supported by a hierarchy of sin, standing over against the divine court and king dom. (See DEVIL.) (W. H. BE. ; T. H. R.)