Page:Annotated Edition of the Authorised Daily Prayer Book.djvu/66

xlvi throne, Ezekiel i., P.B. pp. 39, 131); cherubim (the etymology is uncertain, but they were winged beings associated with the heavenly chariot in Ezekiel and with the Temple in Exodus xxv., i Kings vi., P.B. p. 100).

The only angels named in our P.B. are the four Archangels who are often found associated in the Apocalypses. They are (P.B. p. 297): Michael (Daniel x. 13, literally Who is like God? the tutelary prince of Israel, see Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. 535); Gabriel (Daniel viii.-ix., lit. Man of God, see J.E. v. 841); Uriel (lit. Fire of God, see J.E. xii. 383); and Rephael (Raphael, angel of healing, J.E. x. 317). Though the word Saṭan occurs in P.B. (pp. 7, 100, 114) it is not used as a particular personality; this is clear from the use of the same root (P.B. p. 55) in the general sense of an adversary. Saṭan, from a root apparently meaning to oppose or hinder, is personified as a special individual in the Prologue of the Book of Job, but he has no independent power, and is subservient to the divine will. From the third Christian century onwards, Saṭan played a part in Jewish demonology, but the whole conception has now no place in Judaism, except in popular folklore. In P.B. Saṭan is (as was indeed the case in earlier Rabbinic theology) mostly identical with the evil impulse, the lower passions which are a hindrance to man’s pursuit of the nobler aims of life. It is against the dominance of this impulse that the Israelite still prays. (On Saṭan see L. Blau in Jewish Encyclopedia, xi. 68.)

The two main angelogical ideas represented in our P.B. are (a) that the angels surround the "Chariot" and Throne (Ezekiel i., P.B. p. 129) as God’s ministers (Ps. civ. 4, P.B. pp. 38, 130) and (b) that the angels whose characteristics are brilliantly described in P.B. pp. 38 and 129 ecstatically proclaim the praises and holiness of God (Isaiah vi. and Ezekiel iii. cited in P.B. in the Kedushah, pp. 39, 45, 131, 137, 160). In this attribute of praise the angels perform the same duty as Nature herself (Psalms xix., xcvi., xcviii. etc., P.B. pp. 20, 109, 110, 129, 292). Man fulfils the same ideal function, in