Ancient Faiths And Modern Part 17

CHAPTER IX.

Angels. The ideas a.s.sociated therewith. Why winged. Wishing- caps. Jehovah and His Angels made to walk by the historian.

The belief in Angels incompatible with that of an omnipresent and omniscient G.o.d. Pictorial representations.

Absurd conceptions of angelic wings. Angela want birds'

tails. Men have tried to fly. Difference between birds and men. Arms and wings. A writer at fault about this world is not to be trusted in his accounts of another. Bats and similar mammals. The Devil better winged than Michael--Yet Satan, a roaring lion, goes about as a bull with bat's wings. Angels and beetles. Harmony in creation. Strange idea of spirits. Spiritualism. Varieties of angelic forms. Not the products of lunacy. Angels and demiG.o.ds. Egyptian ideas.

a.s.syrian notions. Christian fancies. Birds and Men united in human celestialism. Persian Angels. Mithra winged. Angels in Persia twelve in number. Job, the work of a Persian Jew.

Angels referred to therein. Darius had a consecrated table.

Babylonian belief. Daniel. Greece and Rome. G.o.ds, DemiG.o.ds, Angels, and Saints. Christian demiG.o.ds. Angels' duties.

Book-keeping, clerks of wind and weather;--police-agents.

The inventor of Heaven admired centralization. Babylonian tutelary Angels. Christian ones. Christian saintly imagery.

The bleeding heart of Mary. A funny Chaldean G.o.ddess to match. Popish saints have an aureole, but no wings. Francis of a.s.sisi could make stigmata but could not change his arms into pinions. Babylonian and Papal emblems identical Development of Angels amongst the Jews in Babylon. Angelic mythology founded upon Astronomy and Astrology. Planets are Archangels. Angels and Devils mentioned on bowls found in Mesopotamia by Layard. The probable meaning of their names.

Hebrews adopted Chaldee beliefs: evidence. Juvenal. Jews and Chaldeans. Sadducees and Pharisees. Sadducees and our Reformers compared. A legal anecdote. Angels in Ancient Italy. Our angelic forms are of Etruscan origin. Some such beings had three pairs of wings. Etruscans had guardian angels for infants and children. Angels carry various matters. Angels of marriage. Angels for heirs of salvation.

Etruscan angel of marriage. Jewish match-maker. Raphael.

Description of an Etruscan painting in tomb of Tarquin. The angel of death. The Greek theology. The Greeks taught the Jews. The Jews never taught other nations. Greeks had a supreme G.o.d and a host of inferior deities. War in heaven.

t.i.tans--giants. Children of the sons of G.o.d and daughters of men. Greek origin of Christian and Miltonian angelic mythology. The begotten Son of G.o.d (Hercules born to Jupiter by Alcmena). Restores the kingdom to his father. Greek ideas of demons. Hebrew and Christian ideas of good and bad spirits. The recording angel. DemiG.o.ds and archangels. Greek deities not winged except Mercury. Some minor G.o.ds have pinions.--Pegasus has wings. Hymen, the angel of the covenant of marriage. Genius loci and cherubim. Alcmena and Mary. Jupiter and "the power of the Highest" Roman mythology. Romans adopted the Etruscan form of angels.

Christians adopted it from Romans. The Christian crozier is the Etruscan and Roman _lituus_, or "divining staff." Rome and London both avid of religious novelty. Instability in religion a proof of infidelity in the old. Hence a desire for infallibility, to crush doubt. Angelic mythology of the Bible. Christians use words in parrot fashion. Words ought not to stand for ideas. Prayer-cylinder in Thibet.

Contradictions. Figures and metaphors are theologian cities of refuge. Prophet who says that he converses with an angel- -is he to be credited? A spirit without flesh and bones, cannot move his tongue to utter words. Drunkards see "blue devils"--they are unreal If the appearance of a man in a dream is an illusion, his words are so too. Absurd ideas about phantoms. Notice of the deeds of a few Hebrew angels.

A resume of their history. Inspiration did not reveal angels. Human fancy did. Conspiracy in Heaven! The Genesis of h.e.l.l. What sort of a place it is supposed to be. G.o.d made the Devil, so man must multiply his imps! Lucifer taught Elohim! Old Testament less knowing than the New. The Devil not a fallen angel. The book of Enoch. Deductions drawn.

There is scarcely a single article in our current belief which does not prove, on examination, to have descended to us from Pagan sources, or to be identical with heathen beliefs older than the Hebrew. The idea of a personal G.o.d dwelling in some locality, vaguely described as "Heaven,"

in which He reigns, and rules, like a modern emperor, has been found to exist in almost every nation whose language we know, and whose history has descended to us. Human weakness makes it so. Such a ruler has been called Brahma, Siva, Vishnu, Mahadeva, Bel or Baal, Melech or Moloch, Ormazd, Elohim, Jah, Jehovah, Jupiter, Yahu, G.o.d, and a variety of other names; but He has always been hailed as king, and lord of all creation, having a throne beside which attend a number of servitors, standing before and around him, all ready to do his bidding and to go wherever they are sent. As a potentate rules on earth over provinces far distant from the central government, so the heavenly monarch was, and is yet, supposed to have "viceroys," "lieutenants," or "vicars," who have authority delegated to them, and exercise it under his superintendence.

A scheme such as we have described does not seem to have existed from the first amongst the Jews; for, when men of reasoning powers conceived the idea of a Creator, He was regarded as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It became gradually interwoven with theology; for when men of limited capacity thought of such a vast empire as the universe, they, under the influence of a grovelling anthropomorphism, recognized, as they imagined, the necessity of furnishing it with a system of acquiring intelligence, and promulgating decrees which should be far superior to any postal plan devised by human kings. Amongst the Kaffirs, men with missives race against time, and by means of relays, messages are sent to vast distances in a comparatively short period. By means of horses, skilfully engaged beforehand, an ancient Persian tyrant could make his commands known all over his vast empire in the course of a few days, and moderns, by means of railways and the electric wire, can forward information at a still more rapid rate.

Yet, to old theologians, and even to observant men of the present day, all these means of communication between G.o.d and his subjects seemed to be slow. We may, for example, notice a fly buzzing round the head of the running Kaffir, or the ears of the fleetest of Persian steeds, and a swallow on the wing outstrips a railway express. The velocity of the carrier-pigeon has long been known. All these were, therefore, regarded as swift-winged creatures, and fit for message bearers. As then, it was observed, that of all beings who could move, the bird is the swiftest in its movement from place to place, it was very natural that dogmatists should represent the messengers of the great king with powerful pinions, like those of the eagle or the albatross. In this manner the addition of wings to any mythological character sufficed to show that he who bore them was a celestial being; one who stood before the supreme ruler, and received from him delegated power--either as vicar, viceroy, or messenger. Thus the Greeks depicted Mercury with wings on his legs and elsewhere, and the Hebrews gave large pinions to their seraphim--sometimes as many as six being used by each (Isa. vi. 2.) The Etruscans pictured their angels with two wings only, and we have followed, implicitly, their lead. But the Hindoos did not in early times adopt ideas such as this. They noticed the speed of the sunbeam, the velocity of the hurricane, and the rapidity of thought; and since they saw many birds borne away by the wind, they imagined that celestial messengers must travel in a corresponding fashion. For one who rode upon the clouds of the typhoon, pinions were useless. I have in my possession a plate,* in which the celestial attendants on the G.o.d are all wingless, but have s.e.x. The name given to the attendants referred to is "Apsaras,"

who are described as having been produced in myriads when the ocean was churned. They are said to reside between the waters above the firmament and those below it, and are represented as being of consummate beauty and elegance of form, their business being to attend upon the G.o.ds and give them pleasure, by singing, music, dancing, and in every possible way. They are sometimes represented as being of both s.e.xes, all having the power to change their gender. Generally, they are described as females, and take the business of Venus in the Greek heaven, and of the Houris in that provided by Mahomet and his followers. The Hindoos have in their theology an abode of bliss, in which the pleasures are wholly sensual. In this they do not differ from the Christians, except that the latter only expect to indulge in music and a sanctified vengeance.

* Plate x., vol. 1, "Recherches sur l'origine, &c., des Arts de la Grece," D'Harcanville, London, 1785. The author states that the plate is copied from Le Voyage de Niebuhr, T. 1, Tab. vi.

With great ingenuity the Hebrews conceived that the will of G.o.d must be equivalent to His wish--that His wish must be the same as a command, and, consequently, that He could send His messenger from one spot to another in an instant; or, if He chose, He could go Himself and communicate personally, as He did with Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and Joshua. For such a Being even light would be too slow (see Psalm xviii.

10; civ. 3, 4).

From a similar thought arose the stories which have found their way into our fairy mythology of "wishing caps" which would enable the bearer to pa.s.s in an instant of time, and wholly invisibly, from one part of the world to another. In oriental countries, a carpet or a coat was the carrying agent, whilst amongst the more clumsy story-tellers of Europe, a pair of boots was furnished, whose wearer could cover twenty miles at a stride.

In the plenitude of our prejudice we may smile at the caprice which invented the "wishing cap;" but if we reflect calmly upon the matter, we discover more depth of thought in this than has been shown in the formation of tales in which winged angels are introduced. The contrast will readily be recognized if we take a scene from "Fortunatus," and another from the Old Testament The former, by putting on a cap, could transport himself in a moment from Formosa to Great Britain. Whereas we learn, from Genesis xviii, that three angelic men took "a walk" from somewhere to Sodom, that they might see what sort of a place it really was. The hero in the fairy tale was not fatigued; the angels of the Hebrew mythology were glad to wash their feet, and to eat and drink, so as to recruit their energies (v. 8; Ps. lxxviii. 25.) A mythical tale like this demonstrates incontestably the mean condition of the story-teller, who does not furnish Jehovah even with a mule or a.s.s, but makes Him go afoot.

We must, therefore, regard the theological contrivance which furnished angels with wings, as being a clumsy one; indicating superficiality, rather than profound thought, and emanating from human infirmity rather than divine inspiration or direct revelation. We shall see this more distinctly if we inquire into the ideas necessarily a.s.sociated with wings.

The theologians who have furnished their ideal messengers with wings show, in the first place, that they have the idea of an air upon which the sails can strike--of muscular structures to move the pinions, and of the necessity for food to enable the motive power to be kept up. The idea of a winged angel, therefore, necessarily implies a belief in the presence of a solid material body moving through an aeriform fluid, resembling the atmosphere just above the earth's surface. That there really was this belief a.s.sociated with celestial messengers we find in the Jewish scriptures, wherein it is stated, as if it were a common occurrence, that angels came to talk familiarly with men; as, for example, Gen. xviii, xix., x.x.xii.; and Judges i., where we are told that an angel came from Gilgal to Bochim, to deliver a statement, to the Hebrews, such as a silly girl at Lourdes a.s.serted the Virgin Mary had come from Heaven to make to her; see also Judges xiii., and the book of Tobit.

That angels were, moreover, supposed to possess thews and sinews, we find from Gen. x.x.xii. 24-30, wherein we are told that some celestial being wrestled with Jacob, but could not prevail against him. In a previous chapter, although it is only in a dream, Jacob saw them mount and descend a ladder as if their wings--if they then had them--were useless.

We shall not now be far from the truth, if we affirm that winged messengers, envoys, or angels, can only be supposed to exist by individuals whose G.o.d is nothing more than a man without universal power and knowledge. To any one who believes G.o.d to be omnipresent, the idea of His having amba.s.sadors, or vicars upon earth, is blasphemous.

The comparative coa.r.s.eness of those minds which fabricated the notion of winged men, as celestial messengers, will be the more certainly recognised, if we examine into the pictorial conception which they have permitted, and still allow, to pa.s.s, for the embodiment of their idea.

Let me, for example, invite the reader to cast his mental eye over the winged men-like bulls, &c., of a.s.syria and Babylonia; the winged genii of the ancient Egyptians; the winged soul and angel of Death of the Etruscans; the angels of ancient and modern Christian painters; and the pinioned heads which came from the walls to listen to the music of Saint Cecilia--according to Papal legends--and then to try to discover the locality of the muscular organs which are necessary to give movement to the wings. Everybody who has ever carved, at his dinner-table, a grouse, partridge, pheasant, duck, or other fowl, must be aware of the enormous ma.s.s of flesh which is a.s.sociated with the wings. If we bare the breast and remove the pinion bones from any bird which flies--(it is necessary to make this proviso, for such as the dodo, the apteryx, the ostrich, emu, and others, have wings which are only rudimentary, and not used for flight)--we find but a very meagre body remaining behind. Hence we see the necessity of furnishing an imaginary angel which has wings with muscles that will enable the pinions to be used; but in no pictorial representation of an angelic messenger do we ever find the ordinary figure of a man departed from, or any provision made for muscles to move the feathered organs. And we must notice, in pa.s.sing, that it is monstrous to suppose that a man must become, in part, a bird ere he can be useful to a G.o.d!

Again, we recognize in the conventional form of angels a total absence of knowledge of natural history, of gravity, of force, &c. Let us, for example, imagine for a moment that the metaphorical wings are real ones used in flight. We see directly that they will only raise the individual perpendicularly into the air. The angelic human creature, even if his wings were--as they ought to do--to replace his arms, would still lack a tail, to use as a rudder to direct his flight. It is clear, then, that no one has seen an angel, and that those who have pretended to have done so, were deeply ignorant men. To make our observations upon this point somewhat more comprehensible, we may just refer to the fact that many individuals, misled apparently by the ma.s.s of ideal celestial men--or angels--which are to be seen in almost every cathedral or parish church in Europe, have conceived the idea that they could fly, if only they could contrive the necessary apparatus to append to their arms, legs, or both; in other words, many men have fancied that they could do better for themselves than nature has done for them. But a few minutes' calm thought would teach any one familiar with the composition of forces, that an attempt at the imitation of a bird's flight must be a failure in man. Let me show this by a simple observation: A bird extends its wings, and by a strong stroke towards its own body, rises into the air, though neither solid nor rigid, both wings and air have apparently been so. In imitation of this bird, we will now suppose that a man places himself, with arms outspread, like the letter T between two uprights, forming something like the letter U.

The individual would then be represented thus [J]--unlike the bird, his _point d' appui_ would be solid, and his arms would be far more unyielding than feathers. Yet not one athlete in a million could spring upwards, so as to stand upon the summit of the U. Man's "pectoral muscles"--as physiologists call the ma.s.s of flesh below the collar bone and above the nipple--are intended to move the arm; the bird's pectoral muscles are intended to move the body. Cut off a man's arms and pectorals--the counterpart of the bird's wings and fleshy breast--and he has barely lost a tenth part of his weight; on the other hand, cut off the corresponding parts of a bird, i.e.t the pinions and the muscles which move them, and not a tenth part of the original weight is left behind. Speaking coa.r.s.ely, we may then affirm that man's body is relatively about a hundred times heavier--air being the standard--than that of a bird, and his pectoral muscles, relatively to his body, a hundred times less in bulk. Consequently, even if a human being could, by muscular action, develop the bulk of his "pectorals," so that they should be relatively to the rest of his frame, equal to those of a bird, still his bulk would be so much more solid than that of the bird's bones, flesh, and feathers, that his power of flight would be a hundred times less. A man, with the exception of his lungs, is in health, solid or fluid, in every part of him; a bird's bones, on the contrary, are everywhere permeated by air cavities, which make them as light as pith or cotton wool. A pound of lead and a pound of feathers are certainly equal in weight, yet, if both are allowed to drop from a balloon, the first will reach the ground a long time before the second. In like manner, by contrivance, I could with my breath sustain an ounce of eiderdown in the air, although I am quite powerless to sustain, by like means, the same quant.i.ty of solid meat. I say nothing of the relative position of the shoulder-joint in man and birds--although the point is physiologically important.

Again, we may a.s.sert that the originators of the angelic mythology were absolutely ignorant of that which is called comparative anatomy. We have already expressed our belief that no one has a right to expect that people will believe in the reality of a man's knowledge respecting the unseen world, so long as he is palpably at fault in his notions respecting the visible creation. Consequently we a.s.sert that one who is careless as regards actual phenomena and ignorant of common truths, cannot be trusted in metaphorical, mythological, or divine lore.

A comparatively small amount of observation proves to us that amongst the highest cla.s.ses of animal life, the wing is the counterpart of the arm or of the fore-leg. In the creature called the "flying squirrel,"

there is no pinion as there is in the "condor,"--there is simply an unusual development of skin which unites the fore and hind limbs much in the same way as the web unites together the toes of the goose or duck.

In the bat, which, though a mammal, is allied, as regards its power of flight, to the birds, we find that the fore-leg is developed so as to make a bony frame on which a thin skin may be stretched, which is still farther strengthened by being attached to the hind leg. In the ordinary bird, the skin which we see in the bat and flying squirrel is replaced by feathers, which are longer, broader, and lighter than a fold of skin.

The ordinary method, therefore, in which angelic beings are depicted does not a.s.sociate them with the highest cla.s.ses of animal life.

Our modern artists are much more skilful in depicting Satan than in pourtraying Raphael, Gabriel, or Michael.

Our last remarks would be comparatively unimportant, were it not that the close observation which the moderns have given, to every thing connected with natural history, has shown us that there is a harmony throughout creation. No animals have noses on their backs, nor eyes in their hind legs. No insect--so far as I can remember--has a thick neck; nor has any mammal or bird a thin one, like the wasp, bee, or fly. As we imagine that it is proper to extend our knowledge rather by the lights which we have already attained, than by silly or hap-hazard guessing, so we think that it is better to investigate the subject of angelic forms by comparative anatomy, than by the dreams of divines, who probably have never studied any other subject than the best means of gaining influence over their fellow-mortals. We a.s.sert that there is not in all the creation, known to man, any creature with arms and legs--or their equivalents, legs and wings, or fore-legs and hind legs--which has, in addition, wings upon arms, legs, head, or back. In such a combination there is something monstrous. I confess that I could, if satisfactory evidence were given, credit the occurrence of a devil with a tail--of a centaur with a horse's body and a human head--but I could not possibly believe that Satan went about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he could devour in the dress of a bull with bat-like wings, as well as horns and hoofs; or that an angel of G.o.d approaches us in a form nearer to the scarabseus of Egypt than to the human form divine. Yet when we say that a pictorial angel approaches nearer to a beetle that revels in filth, than to an etherial essence which ought to be very close upon perfection, we are still far from precision. Ladybirds, c.o.c.kchafers, and others of the cla.s.s allied to the scarabseus that was almost deified in Egypt, have six legs, two wings, and two wing cases--ten means of locomotion in all. b.u.t.terflies, moths, and the like, have six legs and two wings. Consequently, if there be any design in creation, and angels have been created, they can only be regarded as the connecting link between the highest and the lowest cla.s.ses of animal life.

If then, there be such a thing as harmony of design in Creation--if the Creator be not the author of confusion (1 Cor. xiv. 33)--if matter be material, and imponderable forces cannot be weighed or made otherwise recognisable by the senses, except by their effects--if the Almighty be omnipresent and omniscient, it is absolutely impossible for a thoughtful mind to believe in the existence of angels in any shape--whether material, immaterial, or essential. But this consideration forces us still further, and we feel compelled to ask ourselves, whether, with our minds const.i.tuted as they are, we can believe in, or understand any thing wholly immaterial? Whether we can imagine the existence, for, example, of "force" without matter?--a shape which is formless?--a form visible to the eye, yet wholly immaterial?

It seems to me to be desirable, at the present day, to call attention to this point in a particular manner, inasmuch as there are vast numbers, both in Europe and America, who believe in what is called Spiritualism, and are, in reality, as greatly the dupes of charlatans as were the disciples of Alexander the false prophet, whose history we gave in vol.

II. The jargon of these pretenders is based upon the a.s.sertion in the Bible that there are spirits--the accounts of certain of these returning to the earth which they have quitted, or conversing with human beings in dreams, or in reality. But both they and their victims fail to see that a spirit, being without a material existence, cannot put matter into motion--it cannot produce the waves in the ether that cause those impressions on eye and ear which give the idea of sight and sound.

We may best give our reader a glimpse of our meaning, if we compare a spirit to a picture projected on a sheet by a magic lantern. It is true that we can see it--yet we know that it is powerless to hear, to speak, to move; it cannot of itself even vanish. Yet there are many onlookers who, by a ventriloquist, can be made to believe that the picture speaks.

After prolonged observation, I believe that spirits, angels, demons, &c., have no reality except in the delusions of individuals whose diseased brains induce them to believe that they see apparitions and hear them speak. To this matter we shall probably return by and by.

We may now revert to a subject which we mentioned incidentally a few pages back--viz., the ideas which induced priestly inventors to depict the angels of their imagination in a particular form. Those who are familiar with the Bible, and not with any other book, and who decline to examine into the ways of G.o.d in the universe generally, will naturally reply to our strictures that the angels of the Jews were described in a particular fashion, because they were seen "in the visions of Elohim"

(Ezek. i. 1; Dan. x. 5, 6; and Rev. i. 10-20). But this observation involves the idea that the angels which have appeared are so various in shape, that an individual who had seen and described one, could not enable another man to recognize a similar messenger when seen under another form. In Genesis xviii, xix., x.x.xii., and Judges xiii, angels a.s.sume the form of men; in Isaiah vi. they have six wings--one pair being used to cover the face, another to cover the feet, and another to fly with. To this it may be objected that what Isaiah described were seraphim; yet verse 6 shows that one of these, at least, was a messenger or envoy. In Ezekiel i. we find an apparent description of angels, or an envoy, which is so involved that it is most difficult to understand it.

In Daniel x. an archangel is described as a brilliant man whose body was like the beryl--_tarshish_--a stone of a sea-green colour probably; or, possibly, a topaz, "whose eyes were like lightning, and whose arms and feet were like polished bra.s.s, and whose loins were girded with fine gold"--as if to conceal his s.e.x--a characteristic which we find, from Matt. xxii. 30, angels do not possess. The writer's description must, therefore, be cla.s.sed with that of afreets, genii, and the like, in the _Arabian Nights_ tales. In Zechariah, again, we find an angel or envoys described (ch. i.)--(a), "as a man riding upon a red horse," having behind him "red horses, speckled and white" (v. 8); (6), as "four horns"

(vv. 18,19); (c), as "four carpenters" (w. 20, 21.) Again, in chap, v., we find an angel in "a flying roll;" another in "an ephah;" another in a big piece of lead, and another in a woman, and still another in two beings of the same nature.

We can readily understand that some who are unacquainted with lunatics, would describe these portraitures as the result of insanity or hallucination; but those who are more conversant with persons of unsound mind will doubt whether any ordinary insane persons ever see or describe things which they have never met with. One or two, certainly, have wonderful flights of imagination, but these have been highly educated men of extensive reading, &c. In mania, when visions are seen, some person or other whose description has been read by the lunatic, or who has really been observed, appears--or something which the individual has seen depicted, or otherwise been told of, presents itself, or there is a strange jumble of reality and possibility--just as in dreams, comical, grotesque, or horrible combinations are common, and cause us no surprise. There is, however, too much consistency in the method in which angels are depicted, to enable us to believe that their form was decided by any lunatic or dreamer.

We scarcely can form an idea whether the Egyptians had a definite belief in angels, as the word is understood by moderns. With them, as it was with the Greeks, it is most probable that all beings which Jews and Christians alike would call angels, were designated "G.o.ds" or "demiG.o.ds." Be this as it may, we find that the Mizraim had deities who wore wings. A round disc, apparently intended to represent the sun, two erected serpents to support it, and a long broad pinion on each side of the body, was symbolic of "the Supreme." The same may be said to be true of a.s.syria and Persia--only that in the symbolism of the two last, the serpents did not, generally, appear. In plate 30a, of Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians, 2d series_, a human figure is represented as winged, and before him is a five-rayed star. In plate 35 of the same book, Isis is represented as a nude woman, winged; the position of one pinion being such that it serves to conceal the body from the waist almost to the knees. In plate 36, "Athor" is depicted as being attended by a human-headed bird. On the other hand, in plate 39, where the G.o.ds are instructing the king in the use of the bow, the former are bird-headed men without wings. Whilst in plate 44, the soul of a dying man is represented as a human-headed bird with wings, arms, and legs. In plates 52, 53 of the same work, we notice specimens of winged serpents. In plate 63, Isis again appears as a wing bearer, and in this figure we find, as we ought to do, that the feathers of the pinions are attached to the arms of the G.o.ddess.

In a.s.syria, we may gather from the sculptures which have been preserved, that there was not any idea of angels being essentially different to G.o.ds. Indeed, it is very difficult wherever there is a polytheism in any form, to understand the distinction between a G.o.d and an angel Even in the religion which pa.s.ses current as "the Christian," which acknowledges three G.o.ds as "coeternal together and coequal," we are distinctly told that one of the three "proceeds" from the father and the son (_Athanasian Creed_). The New Testament, again, repeatedly informs us that the son was "sent" into this world by his father to effect a special purpose--e.g.t "G.o.d sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him" (1 John iv. 9; see also John iii. 16, 17; Matt. xxi. 37; Mark xii. 4; John v. 38; vi. 29; vii. 28, 29; and compare with John i. 33 and Mal.iii. 1-3). If, therefore, we regard the bearer of a message or an order from the supreme king as an "angel," Jesus of Nazareth was certainly one, inasmuch as he said that he was sent hither by the father of all; and the Holy Ghost was another, for we find John (xv. 26) stating that Jesus would send him to the earth--an a.s.sertion repeated in chap, xvi. 7--whilst in the fourteenth chapter of the same book we observe that the father was to send this comforter, who was to abide in this world for ever (v. 16). Indeed, the presumed identification of Jesus with the promised Messiah, "the prince" of Dan.

ix. 25, shows the belief that he was one who was as much appointed to do a certain duty as was that "angel of death" which went out to destroy the a.s.syrian army (2 Kin. xix. 35).

With such indicated reservation, we notice that the angel which the G.o.ds sent to watch over various a.s.syrian kings is depicted almost invariably with wings. Now he is an archer, standing in a disc representing the sun, having wings below him; now he stands in front of the circle, the pinions and sometimes his body terminating in feathers resembling a bird's expanded tail. Then, again, the minor divinities bear wings, some of them no less than four (Bonomi's _Nineveh_, 2d ed. p. 157). It would be superfluous to linger over a description of the winged bulls with human heads, and the winged men with eagle or hawks' faces, which are so familiar to us in consequence of the researches of Layard and others.

All alike bear testimony to the connection, in human celestialism, between birds and men. Nor can we reasonably doubt, that the idea intended to be conveyed by the inventor of the a.s.syrian composition which we refer to was, that the being, thus symbolized, was famous for strength like the bull; for rapidity of movement, like the eagle; and for wisdom, like a man.

There is to be found amongst the relics of the ancient Persians a symbol of an angel who was supposed specially to guard the king. This somewhat resembles that used at Nineveh. There are, however, many forms of it.

For example, we find in Hyde's _De Religione veterum Persarum_ (Table 6) a figure of a Persepolitan king, above whom, in the air, and quite distinct from the sun, stands a venerable man fully draped, standing upon what seems to be a large pine cone reversed, which is surrounded by clouds instead of being furnished with wings. The man thus depicted extends the forefinger of one hand to the sun, whilst with the other he holds a ring. In Table 6 Mithra is represented as winged, after the modern fashion of angels.

Hyde a.s.sures us, in chapter twelve, that twelve angels were recognized by the ancient Persians, in addition to those who presided over the months and days. One of these appears to be the same as the Greek Rhadamanthus, who sat as supreme judge in the invisible world, and apportioned to the dead their rewards or punishments. A second was equivalent to Neptune and ruled the sea, but he had also under his charge everything which related to generation, or production generally.

The third was much the same as the more modern Lares and Penates, and superintended dwelling-houses and families. The fourth had a somewhat similar and subordinate office. The fifth was named after the stars, and had his kingdom in the south heavens. The sixth the learned author does not describe. The seventh really seems to be a sort of duplicate angel, called Haruts and Maruts, who were two naughty ones that rebelled, and are, according to some, imprisoned still in Babylon, being hung up by the heels. The eighth, Hyde is himself doubtful about, and does not describe. The ninth is the same as the German "storm-king." The tenth may fairly be styled the "angel of the victualling department." The eleventh is the giver of life, the opponent of Azrael, the minister of death; and the twelfth angel is one which we may call either by the name of "conscience" or "judgment" for he it is who approves or reprobates the works of man.

Though I quote from Hyde, I am somewhat doubtful of the value of his authority. He relies to a considerable extent upon the work known as the "Zend Avesta," and supposed to represent the tenets of Zoroaster and his followers. This book is, as I have mentioned, generally believed to be a genuine relic of antiquity by Continental scholars, though it is mistrusted by British orientalists, who regard it as a modern production founded upon Aryanism, Christianity, and Maho-metanism. In my judgment, my compatriots are right; and if it be proper to trust such a man as Sir H. Rawlinson in the matter of the "Avesta," one may be pardoned for believing with him that the book of Job was written by a Persian Jew, or translated by a Hebrew from a work in the time of Darius, or some other of the Ach?menidae.

In Job angels are only once mentioned--viz., in chap. iv. 18, and then they are spoken of in such a way, that we are doubtful whether or not to regard the verse simply as a poetic metaphor. The idea which runs through the part of the chapter in which the pa.s.sage occurs is this: "Job, you are suffering; the innocent do not perish; the righteous are not cut off; you have been very proper; man has nothing to say against you; but you are not right in accusing G.o.d of injustice; you doubtless have done some wrong, for even G.o.d's servants are not wholly trusted; they sometimes misbehave unknowingly, and his own angels are called perverse by him (Job iv. 18); you cannot expect to be better than they, and it is no shame to you to be in the same category as they are."

But it must be allowed that the words of the story--"There was a day when the sons of G.o.d came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them; and the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it"--do really intimate a full belief in good angels and bad, who were not so much angels, messengers, or envoys, as subordinate powers resembling the barons of ancient England, the Paladins of Charlemagne, or the kings created by Buonaparte; amongst whom all were, so to speak, "good angels," except Bernadotte, of Sweden, who rebelled against the imperial thraldom, and became to his late master a modern satan. In whichever way we regard the subject of angels, amongst the Persians there is little doubt that the Iranian conception of G.o.d was wholly anthropomorphic, and that the Medians and their magi, as well as their Persian neighbours, acknowledged a "father of lies," who was antagonistic to the deity.*