The Seven Archangels

I was poking around the gift ship of a small Catholic church and came across a bracelet I'd never seen before. This is one of the things I enjoy about the Catholic tradition, its quirky vastness. You're always bumping into something you've never seen before, some obscure saint or local shrine or bit of history.

The bracelet caught my attention because it had representations of "the seven archangels." 

If you're a Protestant, you've heard of two archangels: Michael and Gabriel. You might also know the archangel Raphael from the book of Tobit in the Apocrypha. 

The other four archangels are much more obscure: Uriel, Camael, Jophiel, and Zadkiel.

Do note that, if you go down this rabbit hole, that the spelling of the names vary.

The idea that there are seven archangels comes from Tobit 12.15, where Raphael says, "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One." The names of some of these archangels comes from Jewish angelology. For example, some of these archangels are named in the book of 1 Enoch, which influenced the New Testament writers. 

In the Christian tradition, the seven archangels are named by Pseudo-Dionysius, the influential Christian theologian and mystic who wrote around the 5th and 6th centuries.

Anyway, I bought the bracelet. Too fascinating to pass up.  

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