Archangel Raphael

Archangel Raphael is one of the principal angels of the Abrahamic traditions. His name in Hebrew (Rafa'el) means "God heals" or "God has healed." Unlike saints of human origin, Raphael is understood in Jewish and Christian literature as a created spiritual being, not a person born of earthly parents, and therefore has no historically attested birth, death, or burial. He is one of only three angels named in the scriptures received by the Western Church (together with Michael and Gabriel). The chief biblical witness is the Book of Tobit, a work of Second Temple Judaism retained in the Catholic and Orthodox canons and treated as apocryphal in most Protestant traditions. Extra-biblical Jewish writings, above all 1 Enoch, also give him a place among the archangels who stand before God.

In the Book of Tobit, set among the Israelite diaspora under Assyria, God sends Raphael in answer to the simultaneous prayers of the blind Tobit in Nineveh and of Sarah in Ecbatana, whose seven successive husbands had been killed by the demon Asmodeus. Raphael appears in human guise under the name Azariah, son of the great Hananiah, and offers to accompany Tobit's son Tobias on a journey to Media to recover a deposited sum of money. Beside the Tigris he instructs Tobias to catch a fish and to keep its heart, liver, and gall. The heart and liver, burned as incense on the wedding night, drive Asmodeus from Sarah; the gall later restores Tobit's sight. Only after these healings does the companion disclose his identity: "I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord" (Tobit 12:15). He then vanishes, having refused any earthly wage.

Outside Tobit, 1 Enoch numbers Raphael among the four (or seven) archangels and charges him with healing the earth after the Watchers' transgression and with binding the fallen angel Azazel. Later Jewish and Christian angelologies variously include him among the seven who stand before God. Medieval and early modern Christian writers sometimes identified him with the unnamed angel who stirred the pool of Bethesda (John 5), but that identification is not made in the Gospel and remains a pious tradition rather than a scriptural claim. In Islamic angelology the trumpet-blowing Israfil is a distinct figure and should not be simply equated with Raphael.

Liturgical veneration of Raphael grew in both East and West. In the Roman Catholic Church his feast was long kept on 24 October; since the calendar reform of 1969 he is commemorated with Michael and Gabriel on 29 September, the Feast of the Archangels. Eastern Orthodox churches honor him with the other bodiless powers on 8 November (Synaxis of the Archangel Michael). Iconography typically shows a youthful winged figure carrying a staff or pilgrim's gourd, a fish (from Tobit), or a vial of medicament, often leading the young Tobias. Because he is an angel rather than a deceased human, he was never formally beatified or canonized; his cult rests on scriptural witness and immemorial liturgical tradition.

Devotion to Raphael has made him patron of travelers, pilgrims, the blind, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others engaged in healing, as well as of happy meetings, betrothed couples, matchmakers, and young people setting out in life. Churches, hospitals, and medical institutions throughout the Christian world bear his name. The Tobit narrative continues to shape his image as a discreet companion on the road and as an agent of both bodily healing and the binding of spiritual harm.