中世纪的犹太哲学家迈蒙尼德提出一个对于天使的更功能化的观点：天使是自然规律的隐喻。在他的观点中，天使即火之燃烧，水之流动，诸如此类。

Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, proposed a more functional view of angels as metaphors for the laws of nature: the burning of fire, the flowing of water, and so forth.

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To drink from this river would allow the fallen angels to forget their fallen state, to forget the fact of their fallen-ness from their more blissful former condition.

喝忘川之水让那些堕落天使,忘记他们的堕落的处境，忘记自己堕落这一现实,忘记自己是从幸福天堂堕落的事实。

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