551 bce) the true God, his nature, and a kind of ethicalcovenant, which humans may accept and obey or reject and disobey. One of the amesha spentas, Vohu Manah (Good Mind), revealed to the Iranian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster died c.
In Zoroastrianism there was a belief in the amesha spentas, the holy or bounteous immortals, who were functional aspects or entities of Ahura Mazdā, the Wise Lord. Though such occurrences are not usually sanctioned doctrinally or theologically, some angelic figures, such as Mithra (a Persian god who in Zoroastrianism became an angelic mediator between heaven and earth and judge and preserver of the created world), have achieved semidivine or divine status with their own cults. In other words, popular piety, feeding on graphic and symbolic representations of angels, has to some extent posited semidivine or even divine status to angelic figures. Because of the Western iconography (the system of image symbols) of angels, however, they have been granted essential identities that often surpass their functional relationships to the sacred or holy and their performative relationships to the profane world. Whatever essence or inherent nature they possess is in terms of their relationship to their source (God, or the ultimate being). Thus, angels have their significance primarily in what they do rather than in what they are. The term angel, which is derived from the Greek word angelos, is the equivalent of the Hebrew word mal’akh, meaning “messenger.” The literal meaning of the word angel thus points more toward the function or status of such beings in a cosmic hierarchy rather than toward connotations of essence or nature, which have been prominent in popular piety, especially in Western religions.
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