I seem to be thinking a lot about angels at the moment

[tree_and_leaf]

Since two people on my flist have posted poetry about angels lately, and I've long been fascinated by them myself (while running very quickly away from the more sentimental iterations of popular culture: angels are not cute; they are pure intelligence, and not in the least like us), I thought I'd link to this article on angels I found in the Economist this lunchtime. It's not bad, though it's a pity they've not read the Book of Tobit - this would not only prevent them asserting, incorrectly, that the archangel Raphel was too lofty a personage to associate with fallen humans, but would give them what must be the oldest example of the 'ordinary looking stranger offers help, then vanishes inexplicably, because they were an angel in disguise all along' trope.

The end of the article, unfortunately, misses the point entirely, albeit in a revealing way: Among the imaginings is that ultimate and common dream, that humans may become angels themselves. Christian and Muslim mystics both believe it, as the natural progression of the spirit to a purer and higher state. But ordinary, not very religious people find themselves hoping for it too.

Now, I don't know about Muslim mystics, but while it's certainly a popular element of folk piety, it ain't Christian, and it wouldn't get you closer to God. Gnosticism is a remarkably persistent thing, it seems.

I must admit, anyway, it's the otherness of angels that I find interesting, probably, ultimately, for the same reason I like SF..

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

more sentimental iterations of popular culture: angels are not cute; they are pure intelligence, and not in the least like us)

I find this very tiresome, also, particularly the reduction of the cherubim to putti.

Now, I don't know about Muslim mystics, but while it's certainly a popular element of folk piety, it ain't Christian, and it wouldn't get you closer to God.

Word. And I find the bit about Muslim mystics hard to believe. From what I remember (mostly from a course in Classical Islamic Thought about twelve years ago) the Islamic view of angels is about like the Christian view. They're completely different to both djinn and humans, and serve as messengers of God. (I'm thinking that in Islamic thought angels aren't seen as having free will, so that might be the main difference, there.)

I did just look it up--apparently Rumi wrote a poem that referenced becoming an angel (or at least a poem that was translated as becoming an angel). But I don't gather that Rumi necessarily represents the mainstream of Sufi thought, let alone Islamic thought.

[tree_and_leaf]

Those bloody bored-looking Raffaelo putti (though the whole painting is quite amusing, because S Joachim is glaring at them as if he wants to kick them, and who could blame him?

Thanks for the info about Islam - that's about what I'd have expected, apart from the bit about Rumi. Christian hagiographers talk fairly frequently about their subjects being 'angel-like', but they don't literally mean that (and are also arguably being a bit too keen on the opposition between the body and the soul, which is lousy theology).

[liadnan]

Your post triggered an odd half memory about a painting in the National Gallery and a heresy about angels along such lines... took me ages to track it down but this is what I was thinking of.

[tree_and_leaf]

The humans-replacing-fallen-angels idea is quite popular in the middle ages - I wonder if that's what the Economist were thinking of? Not quite the same idea, but close enough that you can see how it would get confused.

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

but would give them what must be the oldest example of the 'ordinary looking stranger offers help, then vanishes inexplicably, because they were an angel in disguise all along' trope.

Huh. I have a story like this, but it sounds so irredeemably nuts I make a point of trying never to recount it.

[tree_and_leaf]

Gosh.

I shan't press you ;) but I'm inclined to think that it can't be madder than the Black Shape, anyway, and I certainly don't think you're mad.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

I always liked the following comment (http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/RelLearnSci.HTM):

The actual amount of information about the supernatural in the Bible or the Quran is actually very limited, so throughout history people have filed the gaps with endless elaborate speculations on what Heaven and Hell are like, the orders of angels, the end times, and so on.

My personal feeling is that it is probably best not to attract the attention of angels without a really good reason; I am not sure that the presence of absolute holiness is something I would want to deal with on a regular basis.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, the comment's pretty accurate, I think.

My personal feeling is that it is probably best not to attract the attention of angels without a really good reason; I am not sure that the presence of absolute holiness is something I would want to deal with on a regular basis.

*g* Well, there has to be a reason why Biblical angels always preface their messages with 'Don't be afraid...'

[azdak.livejournal.com]

angels are not cute; they are pure intelligence

Please tell me to shut up if I'm being rude, but isn't calling angels "pure intelligence" essentially doing the same thing as saying an angel is Auntie Rosie after she died and went to heaven? I mean, it's an attempt to fit the idea of angels into your understanding of the world, so that they make sense to you? I'm not well up on the Bible, but I'm certain that nothing written that long ago would think of anything in terms of "pure intelligence", or even describe it metaphorically in ways that could be interpreted as that. Isn't there a reference in the OT to angels sleeping with the daughters of Men? That doesn't sound very like pure intelligence (and it also sounds much more like us than not like us; and not at all like what Auntie Rosie became when she went to heaven...). Of course, I could be misremembering this and am happy to be corrected.

What I'm trying to get at is that while I, too, would get a lot more mileage out of thinking of angels as pure intelligence (whatever that may be - but at least it amkes me think), that tells you more about me, and the culture I grew up in and the kind of person I am than it does about angels. Because the one source of authority on this issue doesn't actually tell us what they are, so every generation has to imagine the answer for themselves. And surely there are times when flying babies, or wings of drifted snow, and buckets of sentiment, reflect aspects of divinity more helpfully than an abstract notion like "pure intelligence"?

Very possibly TL:DR....

[tree_and_leaf]

Umph. As far as the Biblical conception of angels go, it's complicated. The OT reference you cite is in Genesis, and you're right as far as that goes (though what it really sounds like to me is the Greek gods....) On the other hand, 'the Bible' covers an enormously long period of time, and by the time you get to the Greek influenced Wisdom literature or the New Testament, I think they could certainly have coped with the idea, and in fact, in their different ways Raphael in the book of Tobit and the scary and abstract angels and divine creatures are definitely in the Not Like Us At All category - though certainly 'pure intelligence' is probably an anachronistic way to describe it.

I don't, incidentally, object to the wings of snow and eyes of flame - clearly angels have to look like something to humans if they want humans to see them, even if they are adopting it for the occasion. It's the domestication that annoys me - though clearly people find it appealing; I just find it a very impoverished concept of the transcendent (and probably also an indictment of the church's failure, but that's by the way).

But the idea of Auntie Rosie as an angel isn't Christian not because it gets angels wrong (a fairly minor and indifferent point of theology, in the greater scheme of things), but because it gets humans wrong - it implies that the body is a dispensable part of us that we will transcend, which I think is a bit dubious in terms of what we know about consciousness (not all that much, of course, but I don't think we can justify a 'ghost in the machine' model of identity) and in terms of Christianity, with it's insistence on the importance of the body. Of course, the whole thing is probably largely the Church's fault in the first place, for being screwed up about bodies and sex, but that doesn't mean we have to keep perpetuating old mistakes. But even the mediaeval Church strongly rejected gnosticism and the idea that the flesh had to be got rid of, because God meets us in the sacraments, which use physical elements, and in a human being who is also himself (creating the odd paradox that for a Christian, angels are in many ways more 'other' than God him-, or if you prefer, herself. So while I'd agree that abstract nouns are not always a very helpful way to think about divinity, I'd say you've got to look either lower or higher than that for particularity...

so every generation has to imagine the answer for themselves

True enough, though. I suppose to an extent I am being snobbish. or at any rate Christianocentric- there's a lot of paganism in the popular angelology, which is all right if you're clear that that's what you're doing....