~Mr Azira Phale, Angel~
It struck me during the church scene that perhaps the Germans were calling him Mr. Fell because they thought Phale was his last name. So, I took a closer look at the two halves that made the whole.
~Azira
...Arabic in origin, it means A Rising Star. Interestingly, Pre-Islamic Arabia practiced Vedic religion, and in Vedic Astrology, Azira is a common name for babies born within Krittika Nakshatra, the older name of the Pleides Constellation.
Krittika..."literally means a "sharp flame" or "sword of fire." Alternatively, the word "Krittika" may be derived from the Sanskrit root krit, which means "to twist threads" or "to wind as a snake." This clearly is related to the symbology of the Caduceus and the May Pole. The root 'krit' also means "to separate, cut asunder, or divide." This secondary meaning refers to the division of souls into two groups that occurs on the Day of Illumination. The subtle energy associated with the Pleiades constellation is considered a Sword of Fire because it cuts asunder or separates knowledge from ignorance. It separates light from darkness."
~Phale
The name is actually of what is known as Pictish-Scottish origin. "The Picts were a confederation of Celtic language speaking peoples who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. Their Latin name, Picti, appears in written records from Late Antiquity to the 10th century."
"This interesting surname is of Scottish and Irish origin, and it is an Anglicized form of the Scottish Gaelic "MacPhail", and the Irish Gaelic "MacPhoil", both patronymics from the Gaelic forms of the given name Paul, derived from the Latin "Paulus, meaning "small", and is has always been popular in Christendom."
Now of special note is Paul, the Saint, originally Saul of Tarsus, considered by many to be the actual founder of early Christianity, who very much believed in Angels, spoke of them appearing to him, and who at first, was bent on persecuting Jesus, only to become an Apostle after he appeared to him in the famous story of his travels on the road To Damascus. I came across an eye-opening article, theorizing that not only were Paul's writings edited and twisted, making him a patriarchal misogynist, but that he in fact believed in equality, was hugely inspired by Plato, and may very well have been Gay.
From: The (Possibly) Gay, Elite Apostle Who Believed in Radical Equality for All by Jay Parini
"I tend to agree with Bishop John Shelby Spong, a brilliant theologian and church leader, who argues that Paul was “a rigidly controlled gay male,” as he writes in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991). Be this as it may, Paul was clearly at war with his own body, tormented by the idea if not the reality of sexual desire, and eager to withdraw into the company of his male companions: Luke, Timothy, Silas, and others. His conflicted feelings about his own sexual nature may account for the “thorn in his flesh” that he wrote about in his second letter to the church at Corinth. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)"
Galatians 3:28: “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female. In Christ, all of these are one.” ~Saint Paul~
Saint Paul was later decapitated by Nero! Oh, and one last thing...
Azira is actually a girl's name.
BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE.
For those who have looked closer, you may have discovered that Petronius worked for Nero.
Petronius was chief advisor to Nero and helped with the planning of all debauchery, orgies, feasts and crimes. He was known as Arbiter of Taste.
And Petronius wrote the infamous Satyricon.
Influence Of The Satyricon Upon The Literature Of The World.
"...It is to the author's recognition of the importance of environment, of the vital role of inanimate surroundings as a means for bringing out character and imbuing his episodes and the actions of his characters with an air of reality and with those impulses and actions which are common to human experience, that his influence is due...This class of literature, though modified essentially from age to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in fiction is made. One may write a successful book without a thread of romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book.."
"Petronius writes cynically and satirically about Roman decadence, about a society that’s corrupt and materialistic. Paul, to a certain extent, is writing about the same thing. He is certainly not humorous most of the time; he’s expressing his straightforward outrage about what he is seeing around him."
Petronius, set up for a treason charge by a rival, was threatened with death but chose to take his own life in quite a dramatic fashion, which is described in the notes to Satyricon. He died a year before Paul.
*Satyricon is compared often in style to Au Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans, and one translation published in Paris,1902 has been attributed to Sebastian Melmoth aka Oscar Wilde.
Now, was St. Paul an influence in any way on Shakespeare? The Bard of course wrote about Religion and Politics in his plays but due to his enormous influence, St. Paul managed to touch Shakespeare's place in a much different way. This has led to the discovery of a place I had never heard of from this time period...and a new head canon.
During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the area around old St Paul’s Cathedral was a hive of activity and industry...the main gathering place for acquiring (and spreading) news and gossip, purchasing the latest fashions and commodities, and, of course, for being seen. Under its Nave, as known as Paul's Walk, while the people who went there and into the churchyard were known as Paul's Walkers.
Complaint of Thomas Dekker in 1608:
‘What swearing is there; yea, what swaggering, what facing and out-facing? What shuffling, what shouldering, what jostling, what jeering, what biting of thumbs to beget quarrels, what holding up of fingers to remember drunken meetings, what braving with feathers, what bearding with mustachios, what casting open of cloaks to publish new clothes.’
Indeed, with its dozens of booksellers, Paul’s Churchyard was the centre of the London book trade, and was popular throughout the entire country.
"Booksellers on Paternoster Row became a source of competition in the latter half of the century, eventually winning the prominent position in London bookselling, but Paul’s maintained its supremacy well into the seventeenth century." This link has a beautiful rendering that can be expanded to show the individual publishers."
I imagine Aziraphale would have spent hours here, likely with Crowley beside him, eagerly pouring over the thousands of books available, excitedly meeting other writers, getting lost among a mixture of saints and sinners, just enjoying humanity. And I head canon that THIS is what gave Aziraphale his idea to open a bookshop.
What kept bringing me back to St. Paul?
It's imposing presence caught my eye during the WW2 sequence. Turns out, it was bombed during the last days of December 1940, but survived due to the hard work of British firefighters.
“There are a lot of secrets in the design—a lot of buried subliminal stuff,” he reveals, noting that he hopes an eagle-eyed fan will find all the Easter eggs in Good Omens." Michael Ralph, Production designer, who also says that he based Azira's bookshop on the design of a compass.
Purposeful or no, using St. Paul as a guide through Good Omens has been a fun history lesson.
@consulting-nerd-of-many-things @ineffable-janthony @feifeicuttie @sarahthecoat @honeybeelullaby @echosilverwolf @englandwouldfalljohn@thegoodomensdumpster @fuckyeahgoodomens @artfulkindoforder @iamjohnlocked4life @artemisastarte @fellshish @brilliantorinsane
The Satyricon
https://www.uscatholic.org/church/scripture-and-theology/2012/04/putting-paul-his-place
The Influence of St. Paul on Shakespeare
An awesome podcast That Shakespeare Life on St. Paul's Bookshops
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