******************************************** 1.  Riehm (op. cit. p. 302 seq.) thinks it is made out that the religious tradition of remote antiquity is distinguished by its “modest simplicity”, and by a “style suited to its exalted subject.”  Only in the course of time was it adorned with all sorts of miraculous and mysterious elements, and that by the “fancy of the people,” which, however, does not so easily gain entrance into serious literature(!) He appeals to the fact that the conception of angels, though certainly long developed with the people, occurs in the earlier prophets only in isolated instances, and in the later prophets, as Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, more frequently.  It is difficult to sift out what is true and what is false in this confused argument.  In the Priestly Code there are, it is true, no angels, but on the other hand we have Azazel and Seirim (2Chronicles xi. 15; Isaiah xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14, comp. supra), for where the gods are not, the ghosts have sway.  In one of the two main sources of the Jehovist (J), we find chiefly the Mal’ak Jahve (message of Jehovah); that is Jehovah Himself in so far as He appears and manifests Himself, whether in a natural phenomenon or in human form.  Different are the B’ne Elohim, beings of divine substance:  they perhaps are indicated in the 1st plural in the mouth of Jehovah (Genesis iii. 22, xi. 7).  Both of these are doubtless very old.  In the other principal source (E) a mixture appears to have taken place:  the heavenly hosts are not only the children and companions of Deity, but also its messengers, conductors of the communication between heaven and earth (:xviii. 12); here we have the Mal’akim beside God and in the plural.  This view also is not exactly a late one, as we see from the vision of Micaiah (t Kings xxii. 19).  What does Riehm mean by high antiquity?  A period from which no monuments are preserved to us?  Why does he limit his attention to the prophetic literature?  He concedes that the idea of angels was early present “in the fancy of the people,” and he should have been equal to the further concession that those who wrote down the FOLKLORE occupied a somewhat different position to POPULAR BELIEF from that of the prophetic preachers of repentance.  Not even the historical books admit of being measured by the same standard in this matter as the pre-historic tradition.  And which is the more original—­that the angels use a ladder as in Genesis, or that they have wings as in Isaiah?  And finally as for the reference to Ezekiel (?), Zechariah, and Daniel, the difference appears to me to be tolerably plain between a systematic angelology which operates always with numbers and names and the childlike belief in angels.  The former removes God to a distance, the latter brings Him near. *************************************************