RE: Why are angels always males?
May 5, 2021 at 4:26 am
(This post was last modified: May 5, 2021 at 5:27 am by Belacqua.)
(May 4, 2021 at 11:48 pm)WinterHold Wrote: I tend to avoid believing in any kind of "Anthropomorphism" when it comes to religion.This is wise, I think. As much as I love all that medieval and Renaissance art, the way they show angels has led to misunderstanding. There's a good reason for refraining from such imagery.
Quote:Then, these two wings, three wings and 4 wings creatures have different jobs, for example there are the "carriers of God's throne":
There are a lot of similarities here between what you say here and the Christian tradition that developed over the centuries. It would be very interesting to know about cross-influences, common sources, etc. Ancient Mesopotamian and Sumerian art has multi-winged creatures before either Christianity or Islam were up and running, so I suspect they have roots in the same ideas.
Pseudo-Dionysius, who did the most to describe angels in the Christian tradition, was from Syria, so he would be closer to Middle Eastern sources, at least geographically.
He and Dante and others used to give angels a large and varied role, as you describe. Classical theologians often insisted that God himself took no action -- being perfect and impassible he could not change or move -- so interventions in the material world were ascribed to the angels acting on his behalf. They would know what was necessary without God giving them a push.
These days I'm reading Marsilio Ficino, and he works hard to connect the angels with Plato's Ideas. He puts them in the level just "below" God himself. Since God is complete unity, the Ideas or the angels are the first emanation into multiplicity. From there, they act in the world in their various ways.
Quote:Some of the Jinn are righteous, others are bad. The ones who follow "Satan's" way are called "demons".
This is very interesting! Again there are fascinating similarities between Jinn the spirits that the Romans called geniuses -- though differences too. It would be very nice to know about how the ideas developed, and from where.
You know that the guy who lives in Aladdin's lamp is called a "genie" in English. I had always assumed that it was a Jinn, but that the use of the word "genie" showed it to be the same species of thing as a Roman genius. Now I've been Googling, and it turns out that this coincidence can't be traced back farther than the French translator of The 1001 Nights. The French word for genius is "genie," and that guy thought it sounded similar to "jinn," as well as familiar to French readers. So he called it a genie and somehow the French word got taken into English.
The scholars speculate that the words have a common root, but apparently no one's sure. It just seems too good to be a coincidence.
If you meet one, please ask him!
Thank you for taking the time to answer in such a complete way. I love learning about these things.