Re: Angels and Demons.

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_rubberducky.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 12:26:54 -0800


Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_quicksilver.net.nz> thusly:
>
> Andrew Barton:
>
>> The problem with using words like 'infernal' and 'angelic host' is that
>> we're used to thinking of them in terms of Christian cosmology.

>
> So? Angels are still denizens of the sky world and always have been.

How are you defining "angel"?

>> That sounds to me as though Sartarites might consider them as more
>> like demons than angels.

>
> Do the Sartarites call anything else angels? No.

Do the Sartarites call anything "sheep"? No. Sartarites do not speak English.

So the question is, do they use a term which could reasonably be *translated* "angel". And to answer that, we have to ask, once again, "How are you defining 'angel'?"

A Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) scholar would define "angel" as meaning "bodiless, non-human spirit which serves God". A Hindu could understand the term by analogy, and apply it to any lesser being or god which serves a greater one. A Sartarite, similarly, could apply the term to any servitor daimon (including the daimons of retribution, like the Flint Slingers), or more broadly, to any lessor god (the Thunder Brothers could reasonably be considered "angels" of Orlanth).

The man on the street uses the term "angel" less precisely, to mean either "supernatural being which looks like a winged human" (and the Orlanthi have *those* around--they're called "wind children"), or "someone who lives in Heaven". In common English usage, "angel" includes "good human who's died and gone to Heaven" (and that usage goes back at least as far as Hamlet), so Sartarites certainly believe in "angels" by that definition--the ancestors would qualify, as would various lessor daimons.

You are proposing your own, idiosyncratic definition of angels--"someone who lives in the sky", as near as I can tell--and saying that under your own odd definition, Certami are Gloranthan "angels". Well, I define "angels" as "beings that can talk and have feathers", which is at least as well-established a definition as yours. And under *my* idiosyncratic definition, Certami are certainly angels--and so are ducks.

*Samurai* angels.

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