Ariel (angel)

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Ariel ( Hebrew אריאל "sacrificial hearth of God" or "lion of God") is used in late Jewish teaching as the name of the angel of the land animals. In medieval literature, however, he represents an elemental spirit .

Ariel in Religious History and Mysticism

“Ariel” appears as an epithet for Jerusalem in Isa 29.1  EU and Isa 33.7  EU . The etymology that became common later interprets this as “the lion of God” (Hebrew ari- + -el ). In translations of Symmachus and Aquila, "Ariel" is used for the city of Ariopolis, where "Ariel" (Mars) was worshiped. Possibly the name Ariel comes from the Zoroastrian Ahriman .

In Judeo-Christian contexts, Ariel, as an angel of wrath, is a ruler and punisher of demons (as in Solomon's testament , fourth century). His rank usually corresponds to the level of the virtues or the archangels and is placed relatively high among these, so that he heads different orders or choirs. Ariel is considered the angel of the present, of the face, as the prince regent of the Jewish throne angel hierarchy, Arelim, is also described as a cherub . Representations depict Ariel with a lion's head or as a demon ruling over the earth. The Judeo-Christian Archangel Uriel is often associated with Ariel. Both connections are sometimes referred to as "Auriel". In contrast, John Dee (1527–1608 / 09) declared Ariel himself as a composition of Anael and Uriel.

In the Gnostic script Pistis Sophia (around 300 AD), written in Coptic , Ariel punishes the lower world and is identified with the demiurge as well as with Jaldabaoth, Samael and Sakla. This punishing role is similar to that of the Mandaean 'Ur (עור "[lord of] darkness"), whose name was probably formed as a revaluation from Hebrew אור, or , "light" (cf. Babylonian urru ; possibly from this the connection with the archangel comes from Uriel , see below). In this destructive function, Ariel was placed in the vicinity of Nemesis , Sachmet or Arioch .

According to Scholem , Ariel is the older name of the demiurge Yaldabaoth , who is partly depicted as a lion-headed figure. Both names can be found together on a gem with a lion-faced image. In the mythology of the Ophites , Jaldabaoth is considered the supreme archon , son of Chaos and Sophia. (In contrast, in Valentinian texts , “Jaldabaoth” is ignorant and not of a spiritual, but of a “psychological” nature.)

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) assigns Ariel to the element of the earth, u. a. by associating his name with the Latin of the constellation Aries . In other (mostly modern) scriptures, too, Ariel is described as an angel with the function of ruling over the elements, especially the earth. According to Thomas Heywood's Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635), he rules as prince over water and as lord of the earth. In other occult scriptures, Ariel is given a rulership over fire or air. In still other texts Ariel is associated with the rule over the earth, with creation, the elements of the north, elementals and animals. Moses Gaster (1856–1939; Wisdom of the Chaldeans ) sees Ariel as an angel of healing and links him to the archangel Raphael .

Literary reception

In Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), Ariel is a rebel angel. In Alexander Pope's comical epic Rape of the Lock (1712) there is a sylph called Ariel. Ariel, understood as "the light of God", is freed by Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest (1623).

An inspiration for this was possibly the mystic John Dee , who claimed to have been visited by an angel named Uriel, who had given him a magical crystal with which he would understand the language of the angels. Other authors have also claimed to have been guarded by Ariel as a guardian angel, such as the romantic Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), Julie Y. Tortora (The way of Angels), and Linda Sue Nathanson and Steven J. Thayer ( Interview With an Angel , 1997). There is such an Ariel in Gustav Meyrink's novella The Angel from the Western Window (1927) .

In Goethe's Faust , Ariel appears as the air spirit who guides the elves.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert H. West: Milton and the Angels. Athens 1955, p. 154.
  2. ↑ G. Quispel: The demiurge in the Apocryphon of John. In: Robert McLachlan Wilson (ed.): Nag Hammadi and Gnosis: papers read at the First International Congress of Coptology (Cairo, December 1976), Brill 1976, ISBN 90-04-05760-9 , pp. 1-34, here Pp. 21, 23.
  3. ↑ Schwab: Vocabulaire de l'Angélologie ; De Plancy: Dictionaire Infernal , 1863.
  4. ^ Gershom Scholem: Jewish Gnosticism, New York 1960, pp. 71 f.
  5. ↑ Simone Michel : The magical gems. About pictures and magic formulas on cut stones from antiquity and modern times. Akademie, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-05-003849-7 , pp. 97 f., 111.
  6. ^ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim: Occult Philosophy. Book 3, chap. 28; in the translation by James Freake, Llewellyn Worldwide 1993, ISBN 0-87542-832-0 , p. 553 (with subsequent note p. 555).
  7. ^ John Milton: Paradise Lost , Book 6, line 371 (online edition).
  8. ↑ Article Angels. In: Encyclopedia of Religion , vol. 1, p. 347 f.

literature

  • Stefan Münger: Article Ariel. In: K. van der Toorn; B. Becking; Pieter W. van der Horst (Ed.): Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Leiden / Boston / Cologne, 2 1999, 88–89.
  • Gustav Davidson: A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels. The Free Press 1967, ISBN 0-02-907052-X .
  • David Godwin: Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia. Llewellyn Publications 1994, ISBN 1-56718-324-7
  • Constance Victoria Briggs: The Encyclopedia of Angels: An A-to-Z Guide with Nearly 4,000 Entries. Plume, 1997, ISBN 0-452-27921-6 .