Where Angels Fear to Tread

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a novel by E. M. Forster. The title comes from a line in Alexander Popes An Essay on Criticism: For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The BBC adapted the novel for television in 1966 as a Play of the Month. It was apparently Alexander Pope who coined that phrase while writing a piece of literary criticism. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread?” Well the phrase may apply to cautious writers but it does not apply to angels in scripture or to angels in our tradition.