ANGELS ("ArreXot, used in the Sept. and New Test. for the Hebrew n+Dt•bn ; sing. a word signifying both in Hebrew and Greek men sengei; and therefore used to denote whatever God employs to execute his purposes, or to manifest his presence or his power. In some passages it occurs in the sense of an ordinary messenger (Job. i. 14 ; 1 Sam xi. 3 ; Luke vii. 24 ; ix. 52) : in others it is applied to prophets (Is. xlii. 19 ; Hag. i. 13 ; Mal. iii.) ; to priests (Eccl. v. 6; Mal. ii. 7) : to ministers of the New Testament (Rev. i. 2o). It is also applied to impersonal agents ; as to the pillar of cloud (Exod. xiv. 19) : to the pestilence (2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17 ; 2 Kings xix. 35) : to the winds (` who maketh the winds his angels,' Ps. civ. 4) : so likewise, plagues generally, are called evil angels' (Ps. lxxviii. 49), and Paul calls his thorn in the flesh an angel of Satan' (2 Cor. xii. 7).
But this name is more eminently and distinctively applied to certain spiritual beings or heavenly intelligences, employed by God as the ministers of His will, and usually distinguished as angels of God or angels of 7elumah. In this case the name has respect to their official capacity as messengers,' and not to their nature or condition. The term spirit,' on the other hand (in Greek srpEima, in Hebrew has reference to the nature of angels, and characterizes them as incorporeal and invisible essences. But neither the Hebrew ron nor the Greek srverma nor even the Latin Spiritus, cor responds exactly to the English spirit, which is opposed to matter, and designates what is imma terial ; whereas the other terms are not opposed to matter, but to body, and signify not what is immaterial, but what is incorporeal. The modern idea of spirit was unknown to the ancients. They conceived spirits to be incorporeal and invisible, but not immaterial, and supposed their essence to be a pure air or a subtile fire. The proper meaning of irvelikta (from .srve‘o, I blow, I breathe) is air in motion, wind, breath. The Hebrew tirl is of the same import ; as is also the Latin Spiritus, from I blow, I breathe. When, therefore, the ancient Jews called angels spirits, they did not mean to deny that they were endued with bodies. When they affirmed that angels were incorporeal, they used the term in the sense in which it was understood by the ancients ;—that is, as free from the impurities of gross matter. The distinction between a natural body' and a spiritual body' is indicated by St. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 44) ; and we may, with sufficient safety, assume that angels are spiritual bodies, rather than pure spirits in the modern acceptation of the word.
It is disputed whether the term Elohim b'r6t4 is ever applied to angels, hut the inquiry belongs to another place. [ELOHIM.] It may suffice here
to observe that both in Ps. viii. 5, and xcvii. 7, the word is rendered by angels in the Sept. and other ancient versions, and both these texts are so cited in Heb. i. 6 ;, 7 ; and that they are called Benei-Elohim, 17VI'M '12, Sons of God. In the Scriptures we have frequent notices of spiritual intelligences, existing in another state of being, and constituting a celestial family, or hierarchy, over which Jehovah presides. The Bible does not, however, treat of this matter professedly and as a doctrine of religion, but merely adverts to it incidentally as a fact, without furnishing any details to gratify curiosity. It speaks of no obligations from us to these spirits, and of no duties to be performed towards them. A belief in the existence of such beings is not, therefore, an essential article of religion, any more than a belief that there are other worlds besides our own : but such a belief serves to enlarge our ideas of the works of God, and to illustrate the greatness of his power and wisdom (Mayer, Am. Bib. Repos. xii. 36o). The practice of the Jews, of referring to the agency of angels every manifestation of the greatness and power of God, has led some to contend that angels have no real existence, but are mere personifications of unknown powers of nature : and we are reminded that, in like manner, among the Gentiles, whatever was wonderful, or strange, or unaccountable, was referred by them to the agency of some one of their gods. Among the numerous passages in which angels are mentioned, there are, however, a few which cannot, without stronger violence, be recon ciled with this hypothesis. It may be admitted that the passages in which angels are described as speaking and delivering messages, might be interpreted of forcible or apparently supernatural suggestions to the mind : but they are sometimes represented as performing acts which are wholly inconsistent with this notion (Gen. xvi. 7-12 ; Judg. xiii. 1-21 ; Matt. xxviii. 2-4); and if Matt, xxii. 3o, stood alone in its testimony, it ought to settle the question. Christ there says, that ' in the resurrec tion they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God.' The force of this passage cannot be eluded by the hypothesis [AccommoDATIoN] that Christ mingled with his instructions the erroneous notions of those to whom they were addressed, seeing that he spoke to Sadducees, who did not believe in the existence of angels (Acts xxiii. 8). So likewise, the passage in which the high dignity of Christ is established, by arguing that he is superior to the angels (Heb. i. 4, sqq.), would be without force or meaning if angels had no real existence.