Greek Mythology - Were there angels involved in the ancient Greek religion?

Question

I'm in the process of writing a novel (just for fun) and I was wondering if the ancient Greek religion included angels of any sort? When I refer to angels I do not specifically refer to the idea of Christian angels, but merely the same concept.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

I'm not an expert, but the Greeks and Romans had gods, not angels. All the significant people are Gods. Angel means "messenger." Not sure if the Greek gods had any messengers.

Answer 2

Sometimes Yahoo! throws up error messages when you link to specific Wikipedia pages, so I'm telling you right now, go there and look up "Daemons".



The first link actually has nothing to do with greece. Daemons is also the name of a type of process in Unix (and Linux). FreeBSD has a mascot called the BSD Daemon, which was designed by Disney Animator John Lassiter. He's so cute I couldn't resist. The SECOND is interesting. It is one of a number of Medieval Legends about the Poet Vergil (you can access them all at the bottom of the page) which gives you some idea how the Classical World saw Daemons.

Answer 3

In a sense, yes they did.



The Greek word "angelos" simply means messenger. It is used in classical Greek mythology at times where oracles or soothsayers gave messages from the gods. Hermes was at times a messenger as well.



The Greek Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament from about 250BC) used the word in the Biblical sense of an angelic messenger from God. That usage carried over to the New Testament.



So Christianity adopted and adapted "angelos" and it came down to us in the form "Angel".



So, yes, there were divine messengers in the ancient myths where each was referred to as an angelos.

Answer 4

The gods of ancient greece behaved a lot how we think angels do.

They're eternal beings who can come down from the heavens (Mt. Olympus) and interact with mortal humans.

Answer 5

Actually they were! In an Ancient Hellenic sculpture of Apollon one TRUE god who listens and cares about you, forgives and remembers the good deeds you offered HIM. Well, in that specific wall-sculpture there were angels surrounding the God.

Answer 6

they didnt but they stringly believed in spirits and they had gods for everything.



reply to megz:



they did have a messenger god.