In Job angels are only once mentioned--viz., in chap. iv. 18, and then they are spoken of in such a way, that we are doubtful whether or not to regard the verse simply as a poetic metaphor. The idea which runs through the part of the chapter in which the passage occurs is this: "Job, you are suffering; the innocent do not perish; the righteous are not cut off; you have been very proper; man has nothing to say against you; but you are not right in accusing God of injustice; you doubtless have done some wrong, for even God's servants are not wholly trusted; they sometimes misbehave unknowingly, and his own angels are called perverse by him (Job iv. 18); you cannot expect to be better than they, and it is no shame to you to be in the same category as they are." But it must be allowed that the words of the story--"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them; and the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it"--do really intimate a full belief in good angels and bad, who were not so much angels, messengers, or envoys, as subordinate powers resembling the barons of ancient England, the Paladins of Charlemagne, or the kings created by Buonaparte; amongst whom all were, so to speak, "good angels," except Bernadotte, of Sweden, who rebelled against the imperial thraldom, and became to his late master a modern satan. In whichever way we regard the subject of angels, amongst the Persians there is little doubt that the Iranian conception of God was wholly anthropomorphic, and that the Medians and their magi, as well as their Persian neighbours, acknowledged a "father of lies," who was antagonistic to the deity.* * Quintus Curtius informs us (_Life of Alexander the Great_, b. v. a ii.) that Darius had in Babylon a consecrated table, from which he used to eat; that Alexander began to be ashamed of his sacrilege in treading upon it--(it had been placed as a footstool for his imperial chair)--the sacrilege being against the gods presiding over hospitality, carved upon the table. These may be regarded as angels or otherwise, according to fancy.