In Jewish works, in which much space and attention is paid to angels, Gabriel is mentioned among the highest.

In both the Old and New Testaments, there is another Angel. His name is not given, but it is specifically stipulated that he is not just an Angel, but an "Angel of the Lord". Many biblical scholars believe that we are not talking here about any angel in general, but about a concrete, higher one. This is also indicated by the fact that he is called the Lord's Angel. He appeared to Moses in the flames of the burning bush,24 he appeared before Balaam,25 and inspired Gideon.26 He is said to have sown death among the enemies of Israel,27 and in general he often helps God's people. Sometimes the visitation of this angel is difficult to distinguish from the visitation of God Himself. Some people, having been vouchsafed the visitation of the Angel of the Lord, thought that the Lord Himself appeared before them, and as to the Lord, they turned to the Angel.28

According to the Gospels, an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah to announce the birth of John the Baptist, he also informed Joseph that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, announced to the shepherds the birth of Christ, rolled away the stone from His tomb. Most likely, both the Old and New Testaments speak of the same Angel. Who is he? Michael, Gabriel, someone else? We don't know. Perhaps this is another higher Angel acting on behalf of God, whose name for some reason is not revealed to us.

In the time of the Savior, the Jews paid a lot of attention to angels. Numerous apocryphal, non-canonical books, as well as texts found in Qumran, speak about Angels and their participation in human life. But the New Testament avoids these conversations because the reader's attention should be focused on the person of Jesus Christ.

About the number of angels

I remember how once, when I was studying at the Theological Seminary, a certain student who had not learned the lesson (we were just studying the topic of Angels), in response to the teacher's suggestion to make a report on any topic, babbled: "I will tell you about the number of Angels..." The teacher stood up from the table menacingly: "Did you count them?.."

Such a topic was not included in the seminary course, because all we can say about the number of Angels is that there are countless of them.

The Old Testament patriarch Jacob, seeing the hosts of angels, exclaimed: "This is the host (that is, the great army) of God,"29 and in the book of Daniel it is even more specifically said: "Thousands of thousands and thousands of them stand before God,"30 (that is, we are talking about millions of angels).

Explaining the biblical story about the innumerable angels, St. Cyril of Jerusalem said that our earth is only a dot, a speck of dust in the sky. And accordingly, just as the space of heaven is greater than the earth, so the number of heavenly inhabitants is immeasurably greater than the number of earthly inhabitants. There are also a great many demons, but fewer than angels. "Imagine," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "how numerous the Roman people are; imagine how numerous are the other coarse peoples that now exist, and how many of them have died in a hundred years; imagine how many have been buried in a thousand years; imagine men, from Adam to the present day: great is the multitude of them. But it is still small in comparison with the Angels, of whom there are more! There are ninety-nine sheep of them, and the human race is only one sheep. By the vastness of the place, one should judge the number of inhabitants. The earth which we inhabit is as it were a point in the centre of the heavens, so that the heaven which surrounds it has as many inhabitants as the greater space; the heavens of heaven contain an immense number of them. If it is written that "thousands of thousands served Him, and thousands of thousands stood before Him," it is only because the prophet could not express a greater number."

And one more thing: Despite the fact that both Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition say a lot about Angels, we know very, immeasurably little about them. "The names of certain powers (Heavenly) have not yet been announced to us and are not yet known," says St. John Chrysostom. Prep. Symeon the New Theologian also writes about the existence of "a creature as yet unknown to us...".

How do we depict Angels?

Angels do not have any specific appearance, at least not the appearance that would be perceived by a person. These are spirits that have an immaterial nature. However, Angels sent to a person to communicate some message or to help take on a form that can be perceived by us. In classical stories (for example, the lives of saints), this is the view of a handsome young man dressed in ancient elegant clothes or dressed in military armor. However, it is quite obvious that the Angels also appear to us in the form of people dressed in modern clothes and behaving like ordinary people. This happens when the angels do not want a person to know that he is being visited by heavenly messengers.