KNOWLEDGE OF ANGELS By Jill Paton Walsh Peter Davison/Houghton Mifflin, 268 pp., $21.95 To state that "Knowledge of Angels" is a religious fable addressing the question of whether knowledge of God is innate or revealed unduly emphasizes theological discourse. For Jill Paton Walsh's incandescent novel is not so much a presentation of philosophical ideas, like an illuminated psalter, as it is a mesmerizing story populated by provocative characters in vivid atmospheric landscapes. The setting is an imaginary Mediterranean island during the Middle Ages, populated by Christians, Saracens and Jews a...
