I do not recollect any instance in which angels are represented in
Scripture as instigated by human passions; they are merely the agents
of the mercy or the wrath of the Almighty.
After the period of the Captivity, the Jewish ideas concerning angels
were considerably extended and modified by an admixture of the
Chaldaic belief, and of the doctrines taught by Zoroaster.[18] It
is then that we first hear of good and bad angels, and of a fallen
angel or impersonation of evil, busy in working mischief on earth and
counteracting good; also of archangels, who are alluded to by name;
and of guardian angels assigned to nations and individuals; and these
foreign ideas concerning the spiritual world, accepted and promulgated
by the Jewish doctors, pervade the whole of the New Testament, in which
angels are far more familiar to us as agents, more frequently alluded
to, and more distinctly brought before us, than in the Old Testament.
For example: they are represented—