Uriel

• 1. Introduction

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  Uriel is an archangel whose Hebrew name means "God is my flame". A variant spelling, Oriel, reads instead as "God is my light". The name also appears in Greek, in Geʽez and Amharic, and in the form Uriele.

  Tradition ties him to truth and calls him a master of knowledge and the archangel of wisdom. In Russian Orthodox tradition and in folk Catholicism, he counts among the seven major archangels.

  In the 7th century, a woman named Urielle, sister of the Breton king Judicael, made the name popular in Celtic Brittany. The name there has male forms such as Uriel, Auriel and Oriel, and female forms such as Urielle, Eurielle and Orielle.

  Who is this figure, mentioned in Rabbinic tradition and in certain Christian traditions, yet so often confused with other angels? What does he do in the stories told about him? And why did the church in Rome both strike him from its lists and credit him with a basilica? The answers begin with his name.

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• 2. A Name Between Names

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  Only two of the seven archangels in Jewish angelology, Michael and Gabriel, are named in the canonised Jewish scripture. The angels of the Hebrew Bible are generally left nameless. Raphael arrives later, in the Book of Tobit, which the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches accept as canonical. Lutheran churches and the Anglican Communion place it among the apocrypha.

  When writers add a fourth archangel to the named three, to stand for the four cardinal points, that fourth is generally Uriel. Christian Gnostics list the fourth angel under the name Phanuel. Scholars debate whether the Book of Enoch gives one angel two names. Uriel means "God is my flame", while Phanuel means "God has turned". The Testament of Solomon makes Uriel its third angel, with Sabrael fourth.

  Apocryphal, kabbalistic and occult works go further and equate him, or confuse him, with a long roster. The roster includes Urial, Nuriel, Uryan, Jeremiel, Vretil, Sariel, Suriel, Puruel, Phanuel, Azrael and Raphael.

  The Second Book of Esdras, found in the biblical apocrypha, gives him a speaking role. The Vulgate calls this book Esdras IV. The prophet Ezra asks God a series of questions, and God sends an angel to instruct him. The text says: "And the angel, who was sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered me".

  The Revelation of Esdras names the angels who will rule at the end of the world. Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael appear beside Gabuthelon, Beburos, Zebuleon, Aker and Arphugitonos. The last five turn up in this book and nowhere else in apocryphal or apocalyptic works. A far larger assignment for Uriel waits in the Book of Enoch.

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• 3. The Guide of Enoch

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  In chapter IX of the Book of the Watchers, a text of the 2nd century BCE, only four angels are named. They are Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel. Some versions add a fifth, Suryal or Suriel. Chapter XX lists seven angels with their duties. Its entry for Uriel calls him "one of the holy angels, who is over the world and over Tartarus". Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqâêl, Gabriel and Remiel complete that list.

  The crisis in the Book of the Watchers comes from the fallen Grigori, who took human wives. Their half-angel, half-human children were the nephilim. Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel stood before God to testify on behalf of humankind and to ask for divine intervention.

  God then sends Uriel to the son of Lamech with a warning. The message begins with two words, "Hide thyself!", and tells Noah that a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth. Uriel is responsible for delivering it.

  After judgment falls on the nephilim and the fallen ones, including their two main leaders, Samyaza and Azazel, Uriel explains what becomes of them. He tells Enoch that "the angels who have connected themselves with women" will stand in that place until the day of the great judgment. Their spirits take many forms, defile mankind and lead people to sacrifice to demons. The women who went astray become sirens. Enoch records that he alone saw the vision, the ends of all things.

  Uriel stays with Enoch as his guide for the rest of the Book of the Watchers. He performs the same service in many of the other books that make up Enoch.

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• 4. Gate, Sword and Rescue

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  In the Secret Book of John, an early Gnostic work, Uriel commands the demons who help Yaldabaoth create Adam. It is a very different role from the one he plays in Enoch.

  Christian apocryphal gospels cast him as a rescuer instead, though the sources differ on the details. King Herod orders the Massacre of the Innocents. Uriel carries John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, and John's mother, Saint Elizabeth, to join the Holy Family after their Flight into Egypt. Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks depicts their reunion.

  Other texts make him a keeper of Eden. He is often identified as a cherub and as the angel of repentance, who "stands at the Gate of Eden with a fiery sword". In the Apocalypse of Peter, the angel of repentance is shown as pitiless as any demon. The Life of Adam and Eve treats him as the cherub, or spirit, of the third chapter of Genesis. It also counts him among the angels who helped bury Adam and Abel in Eden.

  Smaller deeds attach to him as well. During the plague in Egypt, he checked the doors for lamb's blood. In the end times, he holds the key to the pit. He also led Abraham to the west. A scriptural angel of presence appears in Isaiah 63:9, where "the angel of his presence saved them".

  Modern angelology piles on titles: seraph, cherub, regent of the sun, flame of God, archangel of salvation and angel of the divine presence. Artists often show him with a book or a papyrus scroll, which stands for wisdom.

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• 5. Calendars and Chalices

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  On the 8th of November, Eastern Orthodox churches keep the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers. Churches that follow the Julian calendar reach that date on the 21st of November of the modern Gregorian calendar. Uriel is commemorated there alongside the other archangels and angels, and he is regarded as patron saint of the arts and sciences. Every Monday of the year is dedicated to the angels.

  Coptic Christians of Ethiopia and Eritrea celebrate him on the 11th of July. Their Homily on the Archangel Uriel presents him as a great archangel and as the angelus interpres, the angel who interprets. In that role he explained prophecies to Enoch and Ezra and helped both men.

  The Homily's most striking scene takes place at the crucifixion of Jesus. Uriel dips his wing in the blood and water flowing from Christ's flank and fills a cup with it. Carrying the cup, he and the Archangel Michael rush into the world and sprinkle it all over Ethiopia. A church is built wherever a drop falls. Ethiopian Orthodox icons therefore often show Uriel holding a chalice filled with the blood of Christ.

  Lutheran churches also honour him. Some include statuary of the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, Michael and Raphael. In Anglican practice, he receives a different kind of attention.

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• 6. Struck From Rome's List

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  At the Council of Rome of 745, Pope Zachary set out to clarify the church's teaching on angels. His aim was to curb a growing tendency toward angel worship. The council condemned obsession with angelic intervention and angelolatry, yet it reaffirmed that reverence for angels was permitted.

  The synod nonetheless struck many angels' names from the list eligible for veneration in the church of Rome. Uriel was among them. Only Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, the archangels mentioned in the recognised Catholic canon of scripture, remained licit.

  In the 16th century, Uriel was said to have appeared before the Sicilian friar Antonio Lo Duca. The archangel told him to build a church in the Termini area. Lo Duca reported the apparition to Pope Pius IV, who asked Michelangelo to design it. The result became the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and of the Martyrs, at Esedra Plaza.

  Outside the church's approval, others invoked him too. In the first half of the 11th century, Bulgarian followers of the dualist heresy Bogomilism called on Uriel in their rituals. They lived in the dukedom of Ahtum, in present-day Banat. Gerard of Csanád, the Catholic bishop of the area after 1028, witnessed this.

  A small exorcism, placed in the 15th century, also names him. Robert Ambelain reports it in Arabic Astrology, on page 18, without a date or place of origin. It reads: "Conjuro te diabolo per sanctum Michaelem, sanctum Gabrielem, sanctum Raphaelem, sanctum Urielem". Here the banned angel stands beside the three that Rome allowed.

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• 7. Anglican Light

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  In the traditions and hagiography of the Episcopal and other Anglican churches, Uriel is the patron saint of the sacrament of confirmation. The Anglican liturgical calendars celebrate him on the Feast of the Archangels.

  Some Episcopal churches also see him as keeper of beauty and light and as regent of the sun and the constellations. Their iconography fills his hands with symbols. In his right hand he holds a Greek Ionic column, which stands for perfection in aesthetics and man-made beauty. In his left hand he holds a staff topped with the sun.

  The Church of St. Uriel the Archangel at Sea Girt, New Jersey, is a testimony to Anglican devotion to him.

  At the University of Oxford, his name lives on in a motto. The longstanding words Dominus illuminatio mea mean "The Lord is my light". They are a Latin translation of Uriel's name.

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• 8. Modern Afterlives

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  In 1635, Thomas Heywood's Hierarchy of Blessed Angels described Uriel as an angel of the earth. Heywood's list is really a list of the angels of the four winds. Uriel takes the south, Michael the east, Raphael the west and Gabriel the north. Raphael also serves as a governor of the south, together with Uriel. The medieval Jewish Book of the Angel Raziel lists the four winds too, calling him Usiel, or Uzziel. According to that book, it was inscribed on a sapphire stone and handed down from Seraph to Metatron and then to Adam.

  Poets and scholars gave him a planet. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Golden Legend makes Uriel one of the angels of the seven planets, and his planet is Mars. Benjamin Camfield's A Theological Discourse of Angels, from 1678, lists him that way as well.

  In Hermetic Qabalah, his name is commonly spelled Auriel. He is the archangel of the North and of the element of Earth, which reverses Heywood's south. The modern Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn links him with the vegetation of the Earth. Its iconography shows him holding stems of ripened wheat and wearing robes of citrine, russet, olive and black.

  Popular culture has made him a character. A psychedelic rock band called Uriel formed in London in 1967 and released one album in 1969 under the pseudonym Arzachel. The band was eventually known as Egg.

  Fiction and games have cast him as a villain. He is a minor antagonist in the second season of the TV series Lucifer. He is a major antagonist in the fourth season of Supernatural, played by Robert Wisdom. Matt Ward plays a past version of the character in season 5. In Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, he goes by the modifier "Demon-like Judge of Fire". The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth uses him as one of two angel bosses, alongside Gabriel.

  Other works treat him differently. He appears in the later books of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The game Warframe makes Uriel its 63rd playable Warframe, with a devilish look and three summonable demon-like entities. One of them is called Gulphagor, akin to the demon Belphegor, the embodiment of sloth. In the Good Omens TV series, Uriel is one of the archangels, portrayed by Gloria Obianyo.

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