Angels-ZOROASTRIANISM

In the history of religions,

Zoroastrianism has been an unusually efficacious
faith

, exercising an influence on the doctrines of other religions
disproportionate to the size of its following. The notion of angels
as agents of God (rather than as demigods) is but one of Zoroastrianism’s
legacy to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Zoroastrianism was founded in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran)
in about 1000 B.C. (some sources say much earlier, others around 600
B.C.) by the prophet Zoroaster. It was the official religion of the area
until Alexander the Great’s conquest, after which it was later restored.
In the seventh century A.D., Islamic invaders took over the area, and
Zoroastrianism disappeared from the land of its
birth. A relatively small body of Zoroastrians,
who are called Parsees in the subcontinent, survive
in contemporary India, many in the Bombay
area.
The religion of Zoroaster is best known for
its dualism. The god of light and the upper
world, Ohrmazd or Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord),
and his angels are locked in a cosmic struggle
with the god of darkness and the lower world,
Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (Evil Spirit), and
his demons. Unlike Christianity, in which the
outcome of the war between God and the Devil
has already been decided, Zoroastrianism portrays
the struggle as more or less evenly
matched (although many strands of the tradition
would assert that Ahura Mazda’s triumph is
inevitable). Individual human beings are urged
to align themselves with the forces of light, and
are judged according to whether their good or
evil deeds predominate.
Eventually there will be a final battle
between good and evil, after which there will
be a general judgment in which everyone will
be put through an ordeal of fire (a river of molten metal), in which
good individuals will have their dross burned away and evil people
will be consumed. The souls of the blessed will be resurrected in
renewed physical bodies.
Many of the components of this vision of the end times—a final
battle between good and evil, judgment of the wicked, resurrection of
the dead, and so on—were adopted by Jewish apocalyptic thinkers.
From texts composed by these apocalypticists, such notions were
adopted into Christianity and Islam.
For reasons that are unclear, angels are often associated with religions
and religious movements that place a special stress on such
events expected to take place at the end of time (referred to as the
eschaton in Greek, from which we get the word eschatology).
It appears that Zoroaster set out to reform the preexisting religion
of Persia rather than to create a new religion. It is also clear that he
preached the centrality of one god, Ahura Mazda. The other divinities
of the earlier pantheon were reduced to the status of mere agents of
the supreme deity—that is, to angels. Also, some of the gods of the
original Indo-European pantheon were transformed into demons,
although this transformation may have resulted from factors completely
independent of the reforming activities of Zoroaster.
Chief among the Zoroastrian angels are the holy immortals (the
amesha spentas or ameshaspands). These beings are named after qualities
valued by Zoroastrians, such as Vohu Manah (Good Thought or
Good Sense) and Armaiti (Piety or Harmony). In a certain sense, the
amesha spentas are the archangels of the Zoroastrian religious system.
Corresponding to these archangels of light are agents of the evil Ahriman,
such as Druj (the Lie).
As Zoroastrianism developed, the number of celestial beings multiplied,
leading some observers to remark that the old polytheistic system
had unwittingly been revived in the later stages of this religious
tradition. At some point, a new class of angel, the yazatas, emerged.
They became so important that they seemed to eclipse Ahura Mazda
himself. Chief among the yazatas was Mithra, the god/angel of light.
Yet another group of angelic beings to emerge were the fravashi.
They seem to have originally been spirits of the ancestors, but gradually
developed into guardian spirits, both of human beings and of celestial
beings. Somewhat like the notion of Plato’s ideal forms, the
fravashi is the immortal part of the human being that remains in
heaven even when the individual is incarnate on the earth.

Angels-ZOPHIEL

Zophiel (God’s Spy) is a spirit invoked in the prayer

of the Master of
the Art in Solomonic conjuration rites. He is also one of Michael’s two
chieftains. Milton mentions Zophiel in Paradise Lost as the one informing
the heavenly hosts of a further attack by the rebel crew, whereas in
Friedrich Klopstock’s The Messiah he represents “the herald of hell.”
The American poet Maria Del Occidente chose Zophiel as one of the
main characters of her book-length poem Zophiel, inspired by the story
contained in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. In this poem, Zophiel is a
fallen angel but retains traces of his original virtue and beauty.

Angels-ZOHAR

The Zohar, or Sefer ha-zohar, meaning “The Book of Splendor

,” is considered
the central work in Jewish mysticism, as well as the most influential
work of the Cabala. Its compilation is attributed to Shim’on bar
Yoh’ai, although its true author is Mosheh de Leon (1240–1305), a
Castilian cabalist who wrote it during the last third of the thirteenth
century. The Zohar joined the Bible and Talmud in the triad of the
most sacred books of Judaism.
The Zohar was written mostly in Aramaic and presents an elaborate
mystical system that considerably influenced the later evolution
of Jewish mysticism through its mythical conceptions on cabalistic
theosophy. Mosheh de Leon wrote the main part of the Zohar, which
circulated in manuscript and was published in 1558 in Mantua and
Cremona, whereas the rest was written by a later anonymous cabalist
early in the fourteenth century. The latter part differs from the first
both in style and in its cabalistic concepts.
The Zohar presents five central myths: the myth of the cosmogonical
process, the initial evolvement of the ten sefiroth from the eternal
Godhead; the myth of the dynamic interrelationship within the realm
of the Divine emanations; the sexual symbolic myth of the relationship
between the masculine and feminine elements in the Divine world, the
latter represented by the Shekinah; the myth of the struggle between
the holy Divine realm on the right and the evil system on the left; the
messianic myth and the apocalyptic description of the redemption.
Jewish mysticism has given considerable consideration to angels,
grouping them into categories such as angels of severe judgment and
angels of mercy, as well as evil and ministering angels. Like other mystical
texts, the Zohar assigns specific heavenly roles to angels and
arranges them into various hierarchies: these angels, representing
spiritual powers of the finest and ethereal substance, may assume
human form or may appear as spirits when they execute their missions
on earth. Furthermore, according to the Zohar, the good angels came
into being on the first day of Creation and enjoy eternal life, whereas
the others, who rebelled against God and were consumed by fire, were
created on the second day of Creation. The angels live in the seven
heavenly halls, the heikhalot, and a special hall is set aside for a certain
type of angel that mourns the destruction of the Temple.
According to the Zohar, every human comes into the world with
a good angel and a bad one, and when he dies, he is met by angels of
peace or destruction depending upon his deeds on earth. Angels know
the future of mankind, which is made known in heaven by a herald. In
addition, every day angels are sent to Earth with special missions:
some serve the human body, whereas others serve the soul. According
to the Zohar the first encounter between the angels and man took
place when the mysterious Book of Heaven was handed to Adam
through Raziel, Hadraniel, and Raphael.

Angels-ZODIAC (ANGELS OF THE)

The zodiac (literally, “circle of animals,” from the Greek zoion, living
being, figure), is the name given to the imaginary circular zone of the
heavens in which the Sun, Moon, and planets have their orbits. Because
the orbits of the planets in the solar system all lie within approximately
the same geometric plane, from any position within the system all of the
heavenly bodies appear to move across the face of the same set of constellations.
The zodiac is divided into twelve astrological signs associated
with the twelve constellations—Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo,
Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
The notion of the zodiac is very ancient, with roots in the early
citied cultures of Mesopotamia. The first twelve-sign zodiacs were
named after the gods of these cultures. The Greeks adopted astrology
from the Babylonians, and the Romans, in turn, adopted it from the
Greeks. These peoples renamed the signs of the Babylonian zodiac in
terms of their own mythologies, which is why the familiar zodiac of
the contemporary West bears names from Mediterranean mythology.
The notion of a twelve-fold division derives from the lunar cycle (the
orbital cycle of the Moon around the Earth), which the Moon completes
twelve times per year.
Because various gods have traditionally been associated with the
signs of the zodiac, it seems natural to suggest a possible correlation
between angels and the zodiac. The connection is also a natural one to
make because angels and astrological signs are both located primarily in
the celestial realm. It was thus almost inevitable that angels came to be
associated with the zodiac. The traditional correlations are as follows:
Sign Angel
Aries Malahidael or Machidiel
Taurus Asmodel
Gemini Ambriel
Cancer Muriel
Leo Verchiel
Virgo Hamaliel
Libra Zuriel or Uriel
Scorpio Barbiel
Sagittarius Advachiel or Adnachiel
Capricorn Hanael
Aquarius Cambiel or Gabriel
Pisces Barchiel
Many Judaic beliefs about astrology and angels were derived from
Chaldean and Egyptian sources. The names of many of the angels were
manufactured from the nature of their assignments in an almost atavistic
regression to a pagan pantheon that assigned gods and goddesses for
almost every natural force. The number of these became so vast in the
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature that the rabbis believed they
posed a threat to Judaic monothesism and so condemned all of the
writing in this genre. Because such writings were suppressed, little
information regarding the nature of these angels survives today.

Angels-ZAGZAGEL

Zagzagel is the angel of the burning

bush who figured prominently in
the life of Moses. Moses “led the flock along the side of the wilderness
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord
appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush” (Exod. 3:1,2). Zagzagel
was Moses’ tutor and was one of the three angels who accompanied the
soul of Moses to heaven. Zagzagel is also a teacher of angels who speaks
seventy languages. He is the chief guard of the fourth heaven, although
he is said to reside in the seventh heaven, the abode of God.

Angels-ZADKIEL

The name Zadkiel (also Tzadkiel or Zidekiel, among other variant
spellings) means “the righteousness of God.”

Zadkiel is an angel with
several different identities

, depending on the reference source. In A
Theological Discourse of Angels, by Benjamin Camfield, Zadkiel is the
angel of Jupiter, because he is ruler of the sign of the zodiac of that
planet. According to the Zohar (Numbers 154A), Zadkiel is one of
two chieftains who assist Michael when the archangel goes into battle.
Zadkiel is also said to be a co-chief of the order of shinanim (along
with Gabriel) and one of the nine rulers of heaven, as well as one the
seven archangels presiding next to God. In rabbinic works, Zadkiel is
“the angel of benevolence, mercy, memory, and chief of the order of
dominions” (Davidson, p. 324). But perhaps the most common identity
of Zadkiel is the one presented in the Bible, where he prevents
Abraham from sacrificing his young son Isaac to God.

Angels-Yazatas

The prophet Zoroaster was the reformer who transformed Persian
polytheism into the first monotheism. Although little is known about
the old Persian polytheism, apparently some of the old gods were
demoted and retained as angels in Zoroaster’s synthesis.
The struggle between good and evil occupies center stage in the
Zoroastrian worldview. The god of light and the upper world,
Ohrmazd or Ahura Mazda (Wide Lord), and his angels are locked in a
cosmic struggle with the god of darkness and the lower world, Angra
Mainyu or Ahriman (Evil Spirit), and his demons.
The oldest angels in the Zoroastrian system are the six (sometimes
seven) holy immortals, often identified as archangels. The holy
immortals play an important role in the foundation of the faith,
revealing the true religion to Zoroaster in a series of visions. As
Zoroastrianism developed, the number of celestial beings multiplied,
leading some observers to remark that the old polytheistic system had
unwittingly been revived in the later stages of this religious tradition.
At some point, a new class of angel, the yazatas (“worshipful
ones”), emerged. They became so important that they seemed to
eclipse Ahura Mazda himself. Chief among the yazatas was Mithra,
the god/angel of light and truth, the mediator between earth and
heaven, as well as the preserver and judge of this world. Other new
angels, some of them transparently former gods of the old Indo-European
pantheon, were Haoma, angel of the sacred intoxicant; Vata (or
Vayu), who rules the winds; and Verethragna, the Persian equivalent
of the Indian god Indra.