Name for divine beings beneath the Great Mana and the First Life, comparable to the angels and archangels of Jewish and Christian lore. It has ousted the common Semitic mal’ach for angel used throughout the Old Testament: where the older term occurs in Mandaean writings it denotes genii of sorcery or evil spirits. The literal meaning of Uthra is “wealth,” “abundance,” denoting these beings as emanations from the divine fullness. They were generated (partly in orders of mediate descent) within the world of light, and in their entirety, with their respective sh’kinas, make up that world. Some of them, however, are fallible (see under “Firmly grounded”). [Hans Jonas  ]