Uriel

Book of Angels #265
Masada World page

Official Releases

Performances

Masada String Trio, Marciac, 2008

Covers

Depictions

Uriel descending from heaven on a sunbeam to join Gabriel, Ithuriel, and Zephon in the Garden of Eden, where they come upon Adam and Eve in embrace (lower right) and Satan in the form of a toad "squat at the ear of Eve." From Paradise Lost. London: Richard Bently, 1688.

Notes

literally "fire of God"
one of the leading angels in noncanonical lore, and ranked variously as a seraph, cherub, regent of the sun, flame of God, angel of the presence, presider over Tartarus (Hades), archangel of salvation (as in 2 Esdras), etc.

Angelology

from Davidson, Gustav. Dictionary of the Angels (Including the Fallen Angels), p. 298-299:

Uriel ("fire of God")--one of the leadihg angels in noncanonical lore, and ranked variously as a seraph, cherub, regent of the sun, flame of God, angel of the presence, presider over Tartarus (Hades), archangel of salvation (as in I1 Esdras), etc. In the latter work he acts as heavenly inter- preter of Ezra's visions. In Elloch I, he is the angel who "watches over thunder and terror." In The Book ofAdam and Eve he presides over repentance. Uriel "is supposed to be," says Abbot Anscar Vonier in The Teaching ofthe Catholic Church, "the spirit who stood at the gate of the lost Eden with the fiery sword." The Book of Adam and Eve designates him as this spirit, i.e., one of the "cherubims" of Genesis 3. He is invoked in some of the ancient litanies. He has been identified as one of the angels who helped bury Adam and Abel in Paradise (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible); as the dark angel who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel; as the destroyer of the hosts of Sennacherib (I1 Kings 19 : 35 ; I1 Maccabees 15 : 22) ; as the messenger sent by God to Noah to warn him of the impend- ing deluge (Enoch I, 10: 1-3). all of which feats or missions have been credited to other angels, as elsewhere noted. In the view of Louis Ginzberg, the "prince of lightsw in The Manual of Discipline refers to Uriel. In addition, Uriel is said to have disclosed the mysteries of the heavenly arcana to Ezra; interpreted prophecies, and led Abraham out of Ur. In later Judaism, says R. H. Charles (The Book of Enoch), "we frnd Uriel instead of Phanuel" as one of the 4 angels of the presence. Uriel is also the angel of the month of September and may be invoked ritually by those born in that month. The Magus claims that alchemy "which is of divine origin" was brought down to earth by Uriel, and that it was Uriel who gave the cabala to man, although this "key to the mystical interpretation of Scripture" is also said to have been the gift of Metatron. Milton describes Uriel as "Regent of the Sun" and the "sharpest sighted spirit of all in Heaven" (Paradise Lost 111). Dryden, The State of lnnocence, pictures Uriel as descending from heaven in a chariot drawn by white horses. Despite his eminence, Uriel was reprobated at a Church Council in Rome, 745 C.E. Now, however, he is Saint Uriel, and his symbol is an open hand holding a &me. Burne-Jones' painting of Uriel is reproduced as a frontispiece in Duff, First and Second Books offidras. The name Uriel derives, it is claimed, from Uriah the prophet. In apocryphal and occult works Uriel has been equated or identified with Nuriel, Uryan, Jeremiel, Vretil, Suriel, Puruel, Phanuel, Jehoel, Israfel, and the angel Jacob-Lsrael. See the p~eudepi~raphic PIayer ojjoseph, quoted in part in Ginzberg, The Legends ofthejews V, 310. In this work Jacob says: "When I was coming from Mesopotamia of Syria [sic], Uriel, the angel of God, came forth and spoke: 'I have come down to the earth to make my dwell- ing among men, and I am called Jacob by name.' " The meaning of the foregoing is puzzling, unless Uriel turned into Jacob after wrestling with the patriarch at Peniel; but the incident as related in Genesis 32 suggests a different interpretation. A commentary on Exodus 4:25 speaks of a "benign angelw attacking Moses for neglecting to observe the covenantal rite of circumcision with regard to the latter's son Gershom, the benign angel being identified as Uriel in Midrash Aggada Exodus, and as Gabriel in The Zohar I, 93b. The latter source reports that Gabriel "came down in a flame of fire, having the appearance of a burning serpent," with the express purpose of destroying Moses "because of his sin." In The Legends ofthejews 11, 328, the angel here is neither Uriel nor Gabriel but 2 angels, the wicked Hemah and Af. Uriel is said to be the angel of vengeance that Prud'hon pictured in his "Divine Vengeance and Justice," a canvas to be found in the Louvre. Uriel, "gliding through the Ev'n/On a Sun beam" (Paradise Lost IV, 555) is reproduced on p. 296 from Hayley, The Poetical Works of John Milton. The Uriel in Percy MacKaye's Uriel and Other Poems is not our angel but William Vaughn Moody, American poet and playwright (1869-1910), to whom the title poem is addressed in memory. The most recent appraisal of Uriel is the one offered by Walter Clyde Curry in Milton's Ontology Cos- mology and Physics, where, on p. 93, Professor Curry says of Uriel that he "seems to be largely a pious but not too perceptive physicist with inclinations towards atomistic philosophy." To illustrate in what high esteem Uriel was held, we find him described in the 2nd book of the Sibylline Oracles as one of the "immortal angels of the undying God" who, on the day ofjudgment, will "break the monstrous bars framed of unyielding and unbroken adamant of the brazen gates of Hades, and cast them down straightway, and bring forth to judgment all the sorrowful forms, yea, of the ghosts of the ancient Titans and of the giants, and all whom the flood overtook . . . and all these shall he bring to the judgment seat . . . and set before God's seat."