Ariel (; ) is an

angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

found primarily in Judaism and Christianity.

Bible and Mesha Stele

The word ''Ariel'' appears in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Mesha Stele The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tel ...

under various spellings but not as the name of an angel. In and its parallel passage the meaning of the word is unclear. In it is a personal name. In it is a part of the altar. In it means

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and in it probably has a related meaning. On the Mesha Stele, it appears to mean '' matzevah'' (sacred pillar). According to Samuel Feigin, "all the places where it appears seem to be archaic or archaistic in character. The different spellings ... indicate that the word is a loan from a foreign language." He argues that the original meaning of the word was related to death and suggests that it is related to ''Arali'' (Sumerian) and ''Arallu'' (Babylonian), names for the

ancient Mesopotamian underworld The ancient Mesopotamian underworld (known in Sumerian as ''Kur'', ''Irkalla'', ''Kukku'', ''Arali'', or ''Kigal'', and in Akkadian as ''Erṣetu''), was the lowermost part of the ancient near eastern cosmos, roughly parallel to the region kn ...

. It may be the root of Erelim, the name of the angels of death in the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

.Samuel Feigin, "The Meaning of Ariel," ''Journal of Biblical Literature'' 39.3/4 (1920): 131–137.

''Pistis Sophia''

In the Coptic '' Pistis Sophia'' (British Library, Add MS 5114), Jesus bids the apostles preach that they "be delivered from the rivers of smoke of Ariel." Because of the association of Jerusalem with the name "Ariel", it is likely that this is an allusion to the fires of

Gehenna Gehenna ( ; ) or Gehinnom ( or ) is a Biblical toponym that has acquired various theological connotations, including as a place of divine punishment, in Jewish eschatology. The place is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as part of the border ...

(or Gehinnom), a valley near Jerusalem deemed cursed because of its association with early pagan religions ( Ba'als and

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite gods, including Moloch) where children were sacrificed by immolation. In later Jewish, Christian and Islamic scripture, Gehenna is a destination of the wicked and often translated in English biblical versions as "

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...

". According to tradition, fires located in this valley were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it.

''Book of Enoch'' and John Milton

Harris Fletcher (1930) found the name Ariel in a copy of the Syncellus fragments of the

Book of Enoch The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Hebrew language, Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, ''Sēfer Ḥănōḵ''; , ) is an Second Temple Judaism, ancient Jewish Apocalyptic literature, apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the Patriar ...

. Fletcher suggested that the text was known to

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

and may be the source for Milton's use of the name for a minor angel in ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...

''. However, the presence of the name in the Syncellus fragments has not been verified (1938), and, reviewing for example the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

, earlier versions of the Book of Enoch are now known to not contain the name Ariel. In ''Paradise Lost,'' Ariel is a rebel angel, overcome by the seraph Abdiel in the first day of the War of Heaven.

Occult and mysticism

According to the German occultist Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535): "Ariel is the name of an angel, sometimes also of a demon, and of a city, whence called Ariopolis, where the idol is worshipped." "Ariel" has been called an ancient name for the leontomorphic

Gnostic Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...

Demiurge (Creator God). Historically, the entity Ariel was often pictured in mysticism as a lion-headed deity with power over the Earth, giving a strong foundation for Ariel's association with the Demiurge. It is possible that the name itself was even adopted from the Demiurge's

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

counterpart

Ahriman Angra Mainyu (; ) is the Avestan name of Zoroastrianism's hypostasis of the "destructive/evil spirit" and the main adversary in Zoroastrianism either of the Spenta Mainyu, the "holy/creative spirits/mentality", or directly of Ahura Mazda, th ...

(who is likely the predecessor of the Mithraic " Arimanius"). "Ariel" is sometimes associated with the better known Judeo-Christian Archangel Uriel, as for example some sources claim that the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

court astrologer

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, ...

called "Ariel" a "conglomerate of Anael and

Uriel Uriel , Auriel ( ''ʾŪrīʾēl'', " El/God is my Flame"; ''Oúriḗl''; ''Ouriēl''; ; Geʽez and Amharic: or ) or Oriel ( ''ʾÓrīʾēl'', "El/God is my Light") is the name of one of the archangels who is mentioned in Rabbinic tradition ...

," though this is not mentioned where the name Anael appears in the only conversation of Dee with Barnabas Saul.Deborah E. Harkness -''John Dee's conversations with angels'' Page 50 1999 "Dee believed that the etymology of "Uriel" was the "light of God," and Uriel obligingly clarified the derivation of his name in ... The angel Anael appeared in the only conversation to survive from Dee's relationship with Barnabas Saul" In

Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a ...

, ''Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels'' (1635) Ariel is called both a prince who rules the waters and "Earth's great Lord." In several occult writings, Ariel is mentioned with other elemental titles such as the "3rd archon of the winds," "spirit of air," "angel of the waters of the Earth" and "wielder of fire." In mysticism, especially modern, Ariel is usually depicted as a governing angel with dominion over the Earth, creative forces, the North, elemental spirits, and beasts. Other entries in angelologies to Ariel are found in Jacques Collin de Plancy, '' Dictionnaire Infernal'' (1863) and Moïse Schwab ''Vocabulaire de l'Angélologie'' (1897).

Citations

General and cited references

* Constance Briggs (1997). ''The Encyclopedia of Angels: An A-to-Z Guide with Nearly 4,000 Entries''. Plume. . * Elizabeth Marian Butler (1949). ''Ritual Magic''. . * Gustav Davidson (1967).
A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels
'. The Free Press. . * David Godwin (1994). ''Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia''. Llewellyn Publications. . * Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1888). ''The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis)''. (Th
1889 edition
)

External links

* {{Authority control Archangels in Judaism Archangels in Christianity Individual angels