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According to medieval Jewish scholars, there are 301,655,722 angels-the bodiless spirits who stand midway in the chain of being between God and man. In A Dictionary of Angels (Free Press; $15), Poet-Anthologist Gustav Davidson, 72, has put together a wacky and wonderful compendium of angelic lore, including brief biographies of 3,406 angels whose names, habits and histories are recorded in the Bible, rabbinical and cabalistic literature, writings of the church fathers and poetry...
...command dictated the Koran. Raphael, who escorted Tobias on his journey to Media, has a host of spiritual assignments: chief of the order of virtues, ruling prince of the second heaven, the guardian angel of science and knowledge, the healer of human disease. Of almost equal importance, says Davidson, is Uriel, archangel of salvation, often credited with warning Noah of the Flood. Despite their hierarchical importance, none of these four is the largest angel: that honor, according to the Zohar, goes to Metatron, whose height was equal to the breadth of the world-although other angelic experts insist that Aupiel...
Somewhat less is known about the fallen angels than those who still reside in heaven, but Davidson nonetheless provides some background on 103 of Satan's allies. Focalor, a mighty duke who commands 30 legions of demonic spirits, has the special mission of sinking ships of war. Mammon is hell's ambassador to England. Rabdos can stop planets in their course. One of the least fortunate of devils is Azza, who is eternally destined to be suspended between heaven and earth as punishment for having sexual intercourse with mortal women...
...agnostic who began his Dictionary as "a literary diversion," Davidson thinks that primitive man came to believe in angels because of his need to account for the fearful things he could not see or understand. Many contemporary Christian theologians concede the mythic character of most religious references to angels. Although unable to say for sure how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, Davidson otherwise has come to several conclusions about them as a group. Most are male, and their principal language is Hebrew-one reason, perhaps, why 11,000 angels are alleged to guard every...
...occasion, and stewards prepared to serve 600 bottles of imported wine a day to accompany the meals cooked by 20 imported Belgian chefs. While bands played such incongruous tunes as Marching Through Georgia, squadrons of police escorts roared down Kinshasa's boulevards all week long on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles...