Archangels
Planetary Archangels
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Origin 1200 to 1600
Raphael, whose name means God heals, is the planetary archangel of Mercury, the great divine physician and the patron of travelers, healers, and seekers of knowledge. He is the central figure of the Book of Tobit, where he journeys in disguise with young Tobias, drives off a demon, and restores the sight of the blind Tobit. As the Mercurial archangel he governs what Mercury rules: mind, intellect, communication, commerce, movement, and the arts of healing and learning. He is invoked on Wednesday and in workings for health, safe travel, study, and clear thinking. His symbols are the caduceus or healer's staff, the pilgrim's traveling gear, and a fish (the remedy from Tobit), and in the elemental scheme he is also the archangel of Air in the east.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1200 to 1600 1Tradition: The grimoire tradition Place of Origin Place of OriginReach the Renaissance through the medieval Latin grimoires 1 Attributed Author / CompilerA late medieval grimoire commonplace, with no identifiable originator 1 Attributed Author / Compiler Origin of the NameHebrew Rafa'el, God heals 2 Origin of the NameIn the Book of Tobit; Catholic/Orthodox canon, not Jewish or Protestant 2 Origin of the NameNot named anywhere in the Hebrew Bible 2 Scriptural ReferenceThe central figure of the Book of Tobit, where he travels in disguise with the younger Tobias, binds the demon Asmodeus, and restores the sight of the elder Tobit. 3Tradition: Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy Rival Systems
A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountAgrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy: the angel of Mercury is Michael, and Raphael is the angel of the Sun. That is the exact reverse of the pairing recorded here. What is recorded here is the scheme of the planetary hours and the days of the week, which descends through the grimoires and not through Agrippa. 4Tradition: Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy Identity
Ruling Planet Learn More
A Planetary Archangel
In this collection Raphael appears as the archangel governing Mercury, one of the seven "planets" of pre-modern astronomy (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Pairing an archangel with each planet belongs to the tradition of Western ceremonial magic and Christian Kabbalah, where it was set out in works such as Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) and the later pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, and codified in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Several archangels are listed more than once in this collection because they were inherited through three overlapping schemes, planetary, elemental and sephirotic, that Western esotericism never fully reconciled; Raphael here carries the planetary attribution to Mercury. The scheme is presented as a documented esoteric tradition rather than as religious doctrine or as a claim about spiritual beings.
The Only Archangel with a Story of His Own
Michael and Gabriel appear in scripture to deliver a message and leave. Raphael gets a novel.
The book of Tobit stands in the Greek Old Testament, is deuterocanonical for Catholics and Orthodox and outside the Hebrew and Protestant canons. Aramaic and Hebrew fragments of it turned up at Qumran, which settled the long argument about whether the Greek was the original. In it Raphael travels the length of a journey disguised as a kinsman, gives his name as Azarias son of Ananias, and behaves throughout like a companion rather than an apparition. He advises the young Tobias about a fish, and the parts of that fish then drive off the demon Asmodeus and cure the old man's blindness.
Only at the end does he say what he is: one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter before the glory of the Holy One. That single verse is where the Latin West got its number seven, and the reason lists of archangels so often stop at that figure.
The name is built on the root meaning to heal, and 1 Enoch gives him the healing of the earth itself after the fall of the watchers.
Of all the planetary attributions in this collection, Mercury for Raphael is the one with the strongest independent case. Mercury governs physicians and travellers in the classical planetary characters, and Raphael in Tobit is precisely a physician on a journey. The correspondence looks less like a table and more like a reading.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Raphael is paired with Wednesday and Mercury in the scheme of the planetary hours that also names the weekday. That scheme runs through the grimoires, not Agrippa, whose own table gives Mercury to Michael instead.
Belongs to Tradition
Raphael is named in the Book of Tobit, canonical in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
One of the planetary, elemental and sephirotic archangels of the Western esoteric synthesis, the scheme by which this atlas classifies the type.
Raphael is named in the Book of Tobit and in the Enochic literature of the Second Temple period.
Depicted In
Archangel Raphael, confirmed via the named card title "The Divine Physician, Archangel Raphael".
Archangel Raphael, confirmed on The Lovers in the Major Arcana correspondence list.
Archangel Raphael, one of the confirmed fifteen archangels this deck keys its forty five cards to.
Held Differently
Anglicanism, Denominations The Articles of Religion have the Church read Tobit for example of life and instruction of manners but not to establish any doctrine, and Raphael is named in no other book of the Anglican canon.
The Church of England reads Tobit among the books appointed for lessons without founding doctrine on it, which is the whole standing Raphael has in its formularies.
Lutheranism, Denominations Raphael is named only in Tobit, which the Lutheran Bible prints among the Apocrypha as useful and good to read but not as a ground of doctrine, so he is present in the tradition without being taught from it.
Rejected Here
Baptist, Denominations Baptist confessions follow the Reformed canon in excluding Tobit, so Raphael has no scriptural warrant in Baptist teaching.
The Westminster Confession places Tobit among books of no authority in the Church of God, to be used no otherwise than other human writings, and Raphael is named nowhere else in the Reformed canon, so the archangel has no standing in Reformed teaching.
The Church of Scotland holds the Westminster Confession as a subordinate standard, and that confession excludes Tobit, the sole scriptural source for Raphael, from the canon.
Presbyterian standards follow the Westminster Confession in denying canonical authority to Tobit, which is the only book that names Raphael.
Element Of
Raphael is commemorated in the Coptic calendar and Tobit stands within the Coptic canon.
Raphael is counted among the archangels of the 8 November synaxis and Tobit stands within the Orthodox canon.
Raphael is received in the Ethiopian church, whose canon is the broadest of any Christian communion and includes both Tobit and the Book of Enoch.
Haredi practice keeps the bedtime formula in which Raphael stands behind the one lying down.
Latter-day Saint scripture names Raphael among the messengers of the restoration, which gives him a canonical standing in this tradition that he lacks in every Protestant body.
Raphael stands behind the sleeper in the bedtime Shema formula, and his name, God heals, is read in the tradition as his office.
Raphael is the third archangel of the Roman feast of 29 September, named in the Book of Tobit, which Rome receives as canonical scripture.
Originates in Language
Sources
1. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies, Oxford University Press, 2009chs. on the medieval and early modern grimoireView the Source 2. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611Tobit 12:15View the Source 3. An Introduction to the Apocrypha
4. Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Llewellyn, 1533bk. II, the scale of the number seven, where Agrippa sets Raphael over the Sun and Michael over Mercury; the atlas follows a different, later planetary-angel schemeView the Source A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels
Gustav Davidson, The Free Press, 1967Entry for the archangel RaphaelView the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
Is the archangel Raphael the same figure as Israfil in Islamic tradition?
Until 2026-07-30 the site tagged Raphael as an Islamic archangel on the strength of a shared name alone, not through evidence. That tag was not carried across when religion membership for archangels was later reviewed: the Islamic identification runs through Israfil, and the atlas holds nothing establishing that the two figures are one and the same. Raphael's own name-origin properties tie him to the Book of Tobit and note his absence from the Hebrew Bible. Recording the identification would have been a guess, so it was left out and the question written down instead.
What would resolve this A survey of classical Islamic angelology, hadith collections and tafsir establishing whether Israfil is identified with Raphael inside the tradition itself rather than only in later comparative writing, together with the earliest datable text that makes the equation. A positive finding is one recorded link between Raphael and Islam, with that source attached. A negative finding closes this question as withdrawn.
Islamic studies, comparative angelology, history of religionsDivinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition
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