While the Gods oft in heaven remain for the time,
They send their messengers if we need their sweet rhyme.
The Radiance by many names have become known,
But these Angels assist in making their good to be sown.
Nine ranks of Angels there are believed to be;
And not all these Angels appear like you and me.
Some have no form, some are like men.
Some are like the animals in the wild or words from your pen.
Gabriel, Jibrael, Michael most well known,
Not just for Christians but in others have been shown.
Each Angel strong, with their own creed and style,
Angels are the messengers the Gods send across the mile.
They only come at their own discretion,
Although it is said, there is a way to summon one.
The Angels are all around us.
Some are winged, most are just.
Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, and Virtues;
Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim too.

It has been believed that belief in Angels is mostly a Christian belief. This, however, is not so. Angels, and the belief in Angels, has been around much longer than Christianity.

Most people believe that there is one (or more) higher power, and then themselves. But there was always thought to be a force in between, something that could possibly have been connecting the two and allowing messages and information to be passed. These are the Angels. They are oft called by other names, but Angels are what most people know them as.

You don't have to be a particular faith to call upon the Angels to help you. It is said that everyone has a Guardian Angel to look out for them; they are called "Watchers" by the Muslims, the Native Americans call them Spirits, and Animal Guides. I think that St. Thomas Aquinas said it best when he made the statement, "Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact angels have no religion as we know it...their existence precedes every religious system that has ever existed on earth."

Angels are beings, often believed to be higher than humans and closer to the Gods. They appear in many forms, and sometimes do not take form at all. Nobody knows what Angels truly look like, because Angels are known to take whatever form they have to in order to deliver the messages that they are sent with, or carry out their set mission. Hermes, the Greek messenger god, and his Roman counterpart Mercury, are thought to be Angels of some kind because they deliver messages no matter what it takes (the prime duty of Angelic beings), and they change forms as Angels do to get their messages across to the reciever. The Archangel Gabriel (known as Jibrael, to the Muslims) in Muslim tradition was very very important. According to Islaamic belief, he was the one who came to Mohammed, and gave the Koran to him. As well, in Norse mythology we see Angels in the Valkyries - the strong women who accompanied Odin, king of the Norse gods, during a battle. The men who were deemed worthy would see a Valkyrie swooping towards him on her steed (int some myths, they rode great winged horses, in others they rode atop of giant eagles - the eagle is Odin's token bird) just as they were about to die, and in the moment of death their soul would be grabbed by the Valkyrie, and he would be taken up with her to Odin's hall of Valhalla, where the great Norse heroes went after death (some stories also say that because the goddess Freyja was a token goddess of war as well, that she and Odin split the heroes between Valhalla and her hall.)

No one is quite sure where the Angels came from, how long they have been around, or what culture first created the concept of such beings. In most ancient cultures, there have been radiant creatures who could have been seen as some sort of Angels. Cupid, the son of Venus in Roman mythology, was considered to be an angel.

When the Egyptians began to turn from their cultural beliefs towards Christianity, the transition was very difficult to them because they had spent so many years worshipping all of their different gods. Isis was a goddess who wore wings; these were said to be symbols of protection and comfort, because she would wrap her wings around her children and her followers to protect them from outside forces and give them comfort when they needed this. She and many other gods were replaced by Angels during this transition; the thought of having an Angel watch over them in place of a god or goddess was very comforting to the Egyptian people.

Today's modern Angels (at least in image) are said to be descended from not the Greco-Roman images of Angels, but the Angels as believed in by the people of the Persian empire (same time as Roman empire's spread - the Persian [Persia is now Iran] and Roman empires were said to be the most advanced and illustrious of all the civilizations of that time). The Persian empire is also believed to be one of the very first monotheistic (one god) religions, Zoroastrianism (still worshipped today by around 100,000 people, according to the U.S.A.'s History channel). They were one of the first to concieve and adhere to the idea of one higher power of good (Ahura Mazda - "Lord Wisdom," or "Wise Lord"), with a dark, evil adversary (Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman - Angra Mainyu in Persian means "Fiendish spirit".

Of all the Angels, the most famous are Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Lilith, and Lucifer. As many know, Lucifer was considered in Judeo-Christian beliefs to be the "right-hand" Angel of God at one point. This is where the Jewish and Christian beliefs split: Christians believe that Lucifer was cast out of heaven for some evil deed and became Satan, the devil. The Jewish still hold that Lucifer is within his Angelic station and rank in heaven, and his job is to test Humankind and make sure they do not grow too corrupt and far from God (the Jewish people do not even mention "the devil" in the Torah, as far as I can see there isn't really much mention of him in the Old Testament either).

Gabriel and Michael are mentioned a number of times throughout many religions. Gabriel is seen as a great and powerful Messenger; as Jibrael, he came to the prophet Mohammed and delivered the Word of Allah in the form of the Qu'ran. In the New Testament of the Bible, Gabriel was the one who came to Mary, mother of Jesus, to tell her that she would be the Deliverer of the Son of God.

The Book of Tobit and the Archangel Raphael has had their existance and role within Judeo-Christian history contested. The Book of Tobit was in the Old Jewish Torah (before the canonized Hebrew Bible). It told the story of a man called Tobit, his son Tobias, and Tobias' wife Sarah. This book is considered by some to be heresy, because of the beliefs that Angels are messengers and nothing more - within the book of Tobit, Raphael was given a personality and a freedom of choice to make his own decisions (which is something believed was only awarded to Humanity). Raphael was one of the Seven Archangels who transported messages between Earth and heaven (a few of the others were Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Ariel).

There is also very much debate about the existance of the Angel/She-Demon known as Lilith. According to the Book of Adam and Eve (and mentioned in a couple other texts), Lilith was the first wife of Adam in the beginning of the Creation of the world. She was created as Adam was from the dust of the Earth, because of this she believed herself to be the equal to Adam in every way. This became a bit of a problem for Adam who, after a huge fight over the stationary position during the more physical parts of their relationship, petitioned God for help. It is said that Lilith, following the fight, had fled to the Red Sea, where she was tracked down by three Angels. These Angels told her that she must return to Adam, wherein she refused. Upon hearing that Adam had been given a new, more subserviant wife, the woman Eve, Lilith is said to have flown into a fit of rage. She cursed Eve and her descendants, promising to kill them as they lie in their cradles crying (this is often still believed today in some cultures). However, because of a pact she had made with the three Angels that had come to her, any child who had the names or symbols of the three above their heads in their cradles when she approached must be spared. She became furious but honored this pact, instead settling for killing some of her own demonic children when she was kept from killing the targeted child.

Our visions today of Angels and thoughts upon how Angels appear differ in many respects from how Angels looked to our ancestors and the believers who came before us.

For example: in today's world, the Cherubim (the second highest level of Angels closest to the Higher Powers, according to the Angelic Heirarchy) are pictured as small, chubby children with wings, playing in flowers or with hearts. In all actuality, the original Cherubim were very protecting Angels. Gargoyles were Cherubim - this is why their statues were often placed around the home, to ask the Cherubim for protection against whatever evil might try to befall the household. Many Cherubim had the appearance of a "lion bird" meaning that they had a lion's body and four wings, but they had also four heads - one of a man, one of a lion, one of an eagle, and one of a bull. In the Book of Revelations, the last book of the Modern day Christian Bible, the prophet John writes about seeing four of the Cherubim surrounding the throne of God, singing his praises.

The Ancient Egyptians believed in angelic beings known as the Sefert - these creatures were said to have the bodies of lions and the heads of hawks. They were the guardians of the body parts of the god Osiris after he was slain by his brother Set and had the 14 pieces of his body spread out across the world.