> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2013 00:52:31 -0500
> From:
[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: [M-R] how many angels dance?
> To:
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> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> On 06/30/13, Andrew Larsen wrote:
>
> > My favorite solution is that angels are solemn creatures and therefore do not dance.
>
> Some have supposed that they do dance. E.g., among Christians, in the seventh century, the translator into Syriac of a hymn on baptism attributed to Severus of Antioch (_Patrologia orientalis_, VI, pt. 1, p. 137: "the angels dancing and singing praise in spiritual companies and bands"; tr. E. W. Brooks) and perhaps already in the earlier sixth century if this thought were in Severus' lost Greek-language original. And in the seventeenth century, John Milton (_Paradise Lost_, V, 618-19: "That day, as other solemn dayes, they [the angels] spent / In song and dance about the sacred Hill"). Earlier medieval rabbinical commentary on the Torah has angels dancing as well; see <
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1521-angelology>, at "Variety of Angelic Forms", 2d paragraph (a more current reference would be welcome).
>
> How early is this supposition attested? Is it widespread in medieval angelology?
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
>
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