Schuster
The picture for the October 22, 2014 entry shows Schuster on top of the love seat, riding high. Three months later, the consequences of his daily and nightly sleep fests have become evident: "The love seat is ruined!" I am quoting Mary, of course. Last night, as a matter of fact. However, there has been a change to the structure of the love seat. The little dog has spent so much time there that the pillow, which 3 months ago was firm, is now soft, and the little guy sinks down into the sofa between the pillow and the backing. In fact I looked over once last night and Schuster had mostly disappeared down into, so to speak. At least the seat is still the firmest seat in the house, probably because we don't sit there much.
More consequences, Angels and the Great Chain of Being
Mary and I still stop whenever we pass Schuster on the love seat to touch him, stroke his furry back, scratch his ear, rub his belly, kiss his head. Angels, being purely spiritual creatures, cannot do any of that touching; Angels do not have the five senses that we humans do. I hadn't thought of this for some time, but in Medieval and Renaissance thought, we humans were understood to be the link between the natural and the spiritual world in the great chain of being, the hierarchical order of reality that made up the world we live in. Human beings are both flesh and spirit; dogs, for example, are purely flesh and blood; angels are pure spirit, as I said a moment ago.
According to the Pseudo-Dionysius (Ha, I believe the real Dionysis was a first century Christian while the writer of the treatise on angels, the Pseudo-Dionysis, was sixth century), there are nine ranks of angels, each with a specific nature and function. Edmund Spenser in the Faerie Queene referred to the nine ranks as the "trinal triplicities," a delicious phrase signifying three groups of three: Let's see, there were the Seraphs, the Cherubs, the Thrones; the Dominations, the Virtues, the Powers; then the Princedoms, the Archangels, and the lowest group in the hierarchy, the Angels. Love, power, and humility, among other qualities, characterized the orders; the lowest did not envy the highest, for example; the highest did not scorn the lowest. Power: an angel's touch could unmake a world, or one of us, and the angels, speaking generically, were thought to move the heavenly spheres, of which there were also nine, the lowest being the moon. Love is the most interesting quality of the angels, for all of the angels are moved, or move, literally and spiritually, by love. The purest and most powerful in that regard would be the Seraphim who are closest to God, and undoubtedly the most beautiful, the most magnificent, burning with love for God. The Biblical sense of angels, I suppose, comes from Isaiah 6, and, I am guessing, Psalm 29. Angels visit Abraham in Genesis and bring destruction down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Luke gives us Gabriel St. Paul's letters also contain references, since he understood that we were battling Principalities and spiritual Powers way beyond our comprehension. The Bible, in fact, is rich with references and images. The cultural climate we have inherited is much diminished, as we have become the great (though there is really nothing great about our imaginations) deniers (as in denying that there is truly a spiritual dimension to reality). Today, our world view has no place for angels.
I loved teaching Renaissance literature and being immersed in a world-view rich and substantial. My only regret is that I was constantly aware of how little I really knew and how little time there was to correct that deficiency. Though I haven't checked, it might be interesting to look up the Pseudo-Dionysis on the internet or the Great Chain of Being. There were varying arrangements of the angelic orders, and though writers like John Milton knew the medieval sources, he tended to go his own way with their presentation. His sense of their wonder and magnificence is mostly spot on, as we have learned to say. Here, for example, is Adam in Book 5 of Paradise Lost calling to Eve to watch the approach of Raphael come down from Heaven to warn them about the presence of Satan in the garden; he comes like a second sunrise:
"Haste hither Eve, and worth thy sight behold
Eastward among those Trees, what glorious shape
Comes this way moving; seems another Morn
Ris'n on mid-noon; som great behest from Heav'n
To us perhaps he brings, and will voutsafe
This day to be our Guest." (307-313)
I love Milton, but I suspect that the change toward modernity and the modern cultural climate is already evident in Milton's verse, for Milton's angels are much closer to our flesh and blood reality than they might safely be, if we see the story as in any sense moving us toward a concept of reality that is purely physical. That idea is only clear if you are standing in the twenty-first century looking back. Dante's Angels reflect the Pseudo-Dionysis understanding; Milton's Angels reflect Milton's more physical grasp of the nature of all reality: Adam asks Raphael whether he can eat with them, and Raphael responds with a lengthy and somewhat pedantic explanation that involves revealing the principles at work in the universe, simply, yes: "For know, whatever was created, needs/To be sustained and fed" (414-415). Reality in Milton, spiritual reality, is much more tangible than in Dante. PL was published around 1660; Milton visited Galileo in 1608 (I hope), so he knew about the discoveries. One of the consequences of that knowledge was to imagine a less clear distinction between the sublunar and the translunar realms, as had existed in Dante's time. Angels visited Abraham in Genesis and ate; Milton provides an explanation of why that is possible. In so doing he also, unconsciously or not, embodies the cultural changes taking place in the minds of people in the western world.
If I may, Goneril and Regan and Edmund in King Lear embody a similar cultural change. For these very evil, wicked, vile characters, Reason is not a moral faculty; Reason is a tool for getting what you want, what you desire. All three understand very well the moral dimension of Reason, but they understand it so the can use it to their advantage. Of course a son and daughter ought to love and honor their parents, and I do sweet father, until you hand over your estate. Then it is out into the storm with you! Lear, in a very ignorant manner for such an old man, equates matter with spirit and that is one of his terrible flaws; his foolish pride is another. (There are more, of course; it is a very great tragedy). Essentially Lear says, how can you not love me, I gave you everything? To tie love to matter, to stuff, is to violate the spiritual universe we live in. Isn't it? Every parent must learn the disconnect there. Once again there is a discernible movement in Shakespeare toward the world we have inherited, the world that now contains Auschwitz and gas chambers, atomic bombs and Hiroshima. Edmund and the girls would not hesitate to kill the Jewish people if it provided a means to the power they desired; again, reason, for them, is only a tool, not a moral faculty. When Reason fails to perceive spirit, the human race is lost for good.
Some references for further reading:
Want real fictional angels? Try
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
His space trilogy:
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
Dante, Hell-the angel who opens the Gate in Dis for Dante and Virgil! Magnificent!
Each level of Purgatory has a governing angel, all worth meeting!