According to the sages, the kinds of intelligences and spirits of heaven are the heavenly angels, who have no body nor any thing corporeal, neither feathers nor wings. When an effulgence of the luminous attributes of the self-existing Being falls upon them, it is by the mediating power of this ray, that deeds of wonderful purity proceed from them; and in this production there is no need of a motion, nor of an instrument, in like manner as in the forthcoming of a work of God his will is sufficient. This meaning has been made intelligible to the understanding of the vulgar by saying, that an angel with feathered wings traversed the distance of a road which could not be travelled over in a thousand years. They say also that Isráfíl is one of the powers of the sun; the angel of death proceeds from Saturn; Míkáil from the moon; and Jebríil emanated from the tenth power of intelligence. As often as, on account of the revolution of the heavens or the motion of the stars, something suitable manifests itself in the elemental matter, compounded and uncompounded, it issues into existence by way of emanation from the superior wisdom; and the revelation of the prophet, and the instruction of the perfect to mankind, takes place by the intervention of the last-mentioned angel. On that account there is an intrinsic connexion between the souls of the prophets and this by-standing angel. According to the Eastern philosophers, Jabríil is a god of a kind similar to human nature, and called in Persian _Wakhshur_, “prophet,” and _Serósh pajám sipár_, “Serosh, the message-bringer.” In the opinion of the philosophers, the crystalline heaven is the ninth heaven, and the heaven of the fixed stars the throne of God. The exalted rational spirit is without an habitation, and, without being in the body, is connected with it, in a manner similar to that of a lover with his mistress. This doctrine is very ancient with the Orientals, as has been stated in the account about the Azar Hóshangían, but with the first master among the learned, Aristotle and his followers, it is a tradition. According to general consent, the soul is eternal. “Believe not that those who were killed in the way of God are dead; on the contrary, they are living and nourished at the side of their Lord.”[112]