monize the conflicting views concerning the day on which the angels were created by assuming that the higher ranks were created on the first day, and the lower ones later; comp. Tan. Wa-Yesheb 4 and Yelammedenu in Ozar Midrashim, I, 64 (where two contrary opinions are found besides one another); ER 1, 3, as well as 19, 160, and perhaps also BR 21.9 (ER, loc. cit., understands BR to say that the Cherubim were created first, taking מקדם to mean “in the beginning”); PRE 4; Konen 24 (in the two last-mentioned sources the archangels are differentiated from the other angels; comp. the words ז׳ מלאכים שנבראו תחלה, and Luria, note 1); Zohar I, 46a (the contrary opinion is given in III, 217); Ketab Tamim 59; Peletat Soferim 2; Zohar Hadash lib and 12a (mention is made here of angels who existed prior to the creation of the world; comp. Excursus I); R. Bahya on Gen. 38.12 The authoritative view maintaining that the angels were created on the second day (as to the reason given for this view, comp. also the statement in Alphabetot 89 and 103 concerning the disappearance of all the angels before the creation of the new world; see further Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem 34) is also found in Tan. Hayye Sarah 3 and in the quotation from this Midrash in Makiri Is. 43, 141; Batte Midrashot IV, 33; Targum Yerushalmi Gen. 1.26 Comp. also note 22 on vol. I, p. 59.
62 PRE 4; Konen 25 and 24 The fact that the angels were created of fire does not interfere with their incorporeality, for in legend fire, particularly the heavenly fire, is incorporeal (comp. Konen 24); see also Enoch, at the beginning and 20, which reads: “All the fiery hosts of great archangels and incorporeal powers” Although they are incorporeal, they are not eternal, since there are angels who come into being for a moment only and vanish immediately after Thus there are angels who spring up daily out of the stream Dinur (=“stream of fire”; comp. Dan. 7. 10); they praise God, and then disappear Out of every word uttered by God angels are created Comp. Hagigah 13b–14a; BR 78.1 (Michael and Gabriel are the only angels who do not vanish); Alphabetot 88; Trypho in Justin’s Dialogue, 128 Trypho’s remarks concerning angels are particularly important with respect to the attitude of the Synagogue towards angelology His remark, 60, that wherever Scripture speaks of the appearance of angels, it wishes to express symbolically God’s visible activity, is also found in BR 97.3; ShR 2.5 and 32.9 His other statement, 128, that the angels are borne by God’s power, corresponds to the view poetically expressed by the Rabbis that the splen-
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