Gabriel
In Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other Abrahamic religions Gabriel is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to humankind as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran.
In the Book of Daniel, Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel to explain his visions. Gabriel also appears in the Jewish apocryphal First Book of Enoch and other Hebrew writings">Hebrew language">Hebrew writings incompletely preserved or wholly lost in Hebrew. Alongside the archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of the Israelites, defending them against the angels of the other peoples.
In the New Testament's Gospel of Luke, Gabriel appears to Zechariah foretelling the birth of John the Baptist. Gabriel later appears to Mary, mother of Jesus to announce that she would conceive and bear a son via virgin birth. Many branches of Christianity—including Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism—revere Gabriel as a saint.
Islam regards Gabriel as an archangel sent by God to various prophets, including Muhammad. The first five verses of the Al-Alaq, the 96th chapter of the Quran, are believed by Muslims to have been the first verses of the revelations given by Gabriel to Muhammad. He is associated with communication about anything about God.
Etymology
The name Gabriel is composed of the first person singular possessive form of the Hebrew noun gever, meaning "man", and ʾĒl, meaning "God" or "mighty one". This would translate the archangel's name as "man of God". Proclus of Constantinople, in his Homily 1, stated that the meaning of Gabriel's name prefigured that Jesus, whose birth was announced by Gabriel, would be both man and God.In his work, the four homilies on the Missus Est", Saint Bernard interpreted Gabriel's name as "the strength of God", and his symbolic function in the gospel story as announcement of the strength or virtue of Christ, both as the strength of God incarnate and as the strength given by God to the timorous people who would bring into the world a fearful and troublesome event. "Therefore it was an opportune choice that designated Gabriel for the work he had to accomplish, or rather, because he was to accomplish it therefore he was called Gabriel."
Judaism
Hebrew Bible
The only book in the Hebrew Bible that explicitly mentions Gabriel is the Book of Daniel. Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel to explain his visions. Later, in Daniel's final vision, an angel, not named but likely Gabriel again, appears to him and speaks of receiving help from Michael in battle against the prince of Persia and also Michael's role in times to come. The Book of Daniel contains the first instances of named angels in the Hebrew Bible. Gabriel's main function in the Book of Daniel is that of revealer, responsible for interpreting Daniel's visions, a role he continues to have in later traditions. In Daniel 10–12, while Gabriel is not named directly, many scholars infer his continued presence as the messenger who delivers Daniel’s final apocalyptic revelations.Though he is not specifically named, the "man clothed with linen" mentioned in chapters 9 and 10 of the Book of Ezekiel is interpreted as Gabriel in Yoma 77a of the Babylonian Talmud.
Intertestamental literature
Gabriel is not referred to as an archangel in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. However, a wealth of Jewish literature was written during the Second Temple period. Much of the literature produced during this intertestamental period was of the apocalyptic genre. The names and ranks of angels and demons were greatly expanded in this literature, and each had particular duties and status before God. Gabriel was first referred to as an archangel in these texts.In particular, there are many references to Gabriel in the Book of Enoch. According to the book, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel complain to God about the many wrongs perpetrated by Azazel and Samyaza. As a result, God decides to destroy the Earth and all of its inhabitants except for Noah. He sends Gabriel and the other archangels to go after the fallen angels and cast them into the darkness until the day of their judgment. In Chapter 20, Gabriel is listed as one of seven holy angels who watch. In Chapter 40, Gabriel is listed as one of four presences who stand on the four sides of God. These four archangels will be the ones to cast the fallen angels into the abyss of condemnation on Judgment Day. The final reference to Gabriel in the Book of Enoch is found in Chapter 71: "And that Head of Days came with Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Phanuel, thousands and ten thousands of angels without number."
The Book of Enoch is not considered to be canonical scripture by most Jewish or Christian church bodies, although it is part of the biblical canon used by the Ethiopian Jewish community, as well as the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches.
Rabbinic Judaism
According to Rabbinic Judaism, Gabriel — along with Michael, Uriel, and Raphael — is one of the four angels that stand at the four sides of God’s throne and serve as guardian angels of the four parts of the Earth. Michael stands at the right hand of God, while Gabriel stands at the left. Michael and Gabriel often work together, but Michael is mainly occupied in heaven, while Gabriel typically executes God’s will on earth. Like all the angels, Gabriel has wings, but otherwise takes the form of a man. Gabriel is also associated with the metal gold.Shimon ben Lakish concluded that the angelic names of Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel came out of the Babylonian exile. Alongside the archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of Israel, defending the Israelites against the angels of the other nations.
Mystical Judaism
Gabriel is one of God's archangels in the Kabbalah literature. He is portrayed as working in concert with Michael as part of God's court, and he is identified with the sefira of Yesod. Gabriel is not to be prayed to because only God can answer prayers and sends Gabriel as his agent.According to Jewish mythology, in the Garden of Eden there is a tree of life or the "tree of souls" that blossoms and produces new souls, which fall into the Guf, the treasury of souls. Gabriel reaches into the treasury and takes out the first soul that comes into his hand.
Christianity
New Testament
Gabriel's first appearance in the New Testament is found in the first part of Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke, in which he relates the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist. John's father Zechariah was childless because his wife Elizabeth was barren. An angel appears to Zechariah to announce the birth of his son. When Zechariah questions the angel, the angel identifies himself as Gabriel.Gabriel appears again in the second part of Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke, this time to announce the birth of Jesus to Mary. While in the first passage the angel identifies himself as Gabriel, in the second passage it is the author of Luke who identifies the angel as Gabriel.
The only other named angels in the New Testament are Michael and Abaddon.
Non-canonical texts
Gabriel is more frequently referenced in early Christian pseudepigraphic texts than in any of the canonical Biblical texts. For example, Gabriel is mentioned in some of the infancy gospels. Gabriel is also mentioned in some of the early Christian apocalyptic texts, such as the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Second Book of Enoch.In Gnosticism, angels are portrayed as belonging to a pantheon of spiritual beings involved in the creation of the world. According to one ancient Gnostic manuscript, the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, Gabriel is a divine being and inhabitant of the pleroma that existed before the demiurge. There is also a reference to Gabriel in Chapter 17 of the Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic text dated to 280 AD.
Latter-day Saints
In the theology of the [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], Gabriel is believed to have lived a mortal life as the prophet Noah. The two are regarded as the same individual; Noah being his mortal name and Gabriel being his heavenly name.Feast day
The feast day of Saint Gabriel the Archangel was exclusively celebrated on 18 March according to many sources dating between 1588 and 1921; unusually, a source published in 1856 has the feast celebrated on 7 April for unknown reasons. Writer Elizabeth Drayson mentions the feast being celebrated on 18 March 1588 in her 2013 book "The Lead Books of Granada".One of the oldest out-of-print sources placing the feast on 18 March, first published in 1608, is Flos sanctorum: historia general de la vida y hechos de Jesu-Christo... y de los santos de que reza y haze fiesta la Iglesia Catholica... by the Spanish writer Alonso de Villegas; a newer edition of this book was published in 1794. Another source published in Ireland in 1886 the Irish Ecclesiastical Record also mentions 18 March.
The Feast of Saint Gabriel was included by Pope Benedict XV in the General Roman Calendar in 1921, for celebration on 24 March. In 1969, the day was officially transferred to 29 September for celebration in conjunction with the feast of the archangels Ss. Michael and Raphael. Today, the 29 September date has been adopted by not only the Catholic Church, but also the Church of England, the Lutheran churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Western Orthodox churches.
The Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches that follow the Byzantine Rite celebrate the Feast of the Archangels on 8 November. For those churches that follow the traditional Julian Calendar, 8 November currently falls on 21 November of the modern Gregorian Calendar, a difference of 13 days. Eastern Orthodox commemorate Gabriel not only at the Feast of the Archangels, but also on two other days:
- 26 March, the "Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel" and celebrates his role in the Annunciation
- 13 July, also known as the "Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel", which celebrates all the appearances and miracles attributed to Gabriel throughout history. The feast was first established on Mount Athos when, in the 9th century, during the reign of Emperor Basil II and Empress Constantina Porphyrogenitus and while Nicholas Chrysoverges was Patriarch of Constantinople, Gabriel appeared in a cell near Karyes, where he wrote with his finger on a stone tablet the hymn to the Theotokos, "It is truly meet...".
The Coptic Orthodox Church celebrates Gabriel's feast on 13 Paoni, 22 Koiak, and 26 Paoni. One medieval Coptic work, the Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel, attributes the feast day of 22 Koiak to the day Gabriel was given the rank of archangel in heaven.
The Ethiopian Church celebrates Gabriel's feast on 18 December, with a sizeable number of its believers making a pilgrimage to a church dedicated to "Saint Gabriel" in Kulubi and Wonkshet on that day.
Gabriel's horn
A familiar literary trope of Gabriel has him blowing a trumpet blast to announce the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. However, though the Bible mentions a trumpet blast preceding the resurrection of the dead, it never specifies Gabriel as the trumpeter. Different passages state different things: the angels of the Son of Man ; the voice of the Son of God ; God's trumpet ; seven angels sounding a series of blasts ; or simply "a trumpet will sound". Likewise the early Christian Church Fathers do not mention Gabriel as a trumpeter; and in Jewish and Muslim traditions, Gabriel is again not identified as a trumpeter.The earliest known identification of Gabriel as a trumpeter comes from the "Hymn for Protection in the Night", attributed to the Armenian Saint Nerses IV the Gracious :
The sound of Gabriel's trumpet on the last night, make us worthy to hear, and to stand on your right hand among the sheep with lanterns of inextinguishable light; to be like the five wise virgins, so that with the bridegroom in the bride chamber we, his spiritual brides may enter into glory.
A 1455 Armenian manuscript shows Gabriel sounding his trumpet as the dead climb out of their graves.
Another example occurs in John Milton's Paradise Lost :
Betwixt these rockie pillars Gabriel sat
Chief of the Angelic guards ...
He ended, and the Son gave signal high
To the bright minister that watch'd, he blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps
When God descended, and perhaps once more
To sound at general doom..
It is unclear whether Milton was inspired by the Armenian works, though they presumably have a common source.
The image of Gabriel's trumpet blast to announce the end of time was taken up in evangelical Christianity, where it became widespread, notably in African American spirituals.
Islam
Gabriel in many places in the Qur'an, is revered as one of the primary archangels and as the Angel of Revelation in Islam. He is primarily mentioned in the verses, and of the Quran. However, the Quranic text doesn't refer to him as an angel. In the Quran, the archangel Gabriel appears named in and, as well as in, where he is mentioned along with the archangel Michael.Tafsir narrates that Muhammad saw the archangel Gabriel in his full angelic splendor only twice, the first time being when he received his first revelation. Islamic tradition holds that Gabriel was sent to numerous pre-Islamic Biblical prophets with revelation and divine injunctions, including Adam, whom Muslims believe was consoled by Gabriel sometime after the Fall, too. He is known by many names in Islam, such as "keeper of holiness". In Hadith traditions, Jibril is said to have six hundred wings.
In Islam, the tree of souls is referred to as the Sidrat al-Muntaha.
As a messenger
Muslims believe that Gabriel was tasked with transmitting the scriptures from God to the prophets and messengers, as Asbab al-Nuzul or revelation. When Muhammad was questioned which angel is revealing the holy scriptures, he told the Jews they are revealed by Gabriel.Muslims also revere Gabriel for several events that predate what they regard as the first revelation narrated in the Quran. Muslims believe that Gabriel was the angel who informed Zechariah of the Nativity of John the Baptist, as well as Mary about the future nativity of Jesus; and that Gabriel was one of three angels who had earlier informed Abraham of the birth of Isaac. Gabriel also makes a famous appearance in the Hadith of Gabriel, in which he questions Muhammad on the core tenets of Islam.
Gabriel is also believed to have delivered punishment from God to the Sodomites by leveling the entire city of Sodom with the tip of his wing. According to a Hadith narrated by Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, which is compiled by al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, Gabriel has the ability to regulate feeling or perception in humans, particularly happiness or sadness.
As a warrior
Gabriel is believed to have helped Muhammad overcome his adversaries significantly against an ifrit during the Night Journey. Gabriel is also believed to have helped Muhammad overcome his adversaries during the Battle of Badr, where according to scholars and clerics of Islam, the various hadiths, both authentics and inauthentics, has mentioned that Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and thousands of best angels from third level of heaven, all came to the battle of Badr by impersonating the appearance of Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, a Companion of the Prophet and bodyguard of the prophet. This is deemed as Zubayr's honor according to Islamic belief. Meanwhile, Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri has recorded in his historiography works of Quran and Hadith revelation in Prophetic biography, that Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas testified he saw two unidentified warriors clad in white had protected Muhammad during the Battle of Uhud, that later being confirmed by Muhammad those two unidentified warriors were Jibril and Michael in disguise.Moreover, he is believed to have further encouraged Muhammad to wage war and attack the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. Another appearance of Gabriel in Islamic religious texts were found in numerous Hadiths during the Battle of Hunayn, where the Gabriel stood next to Muhammad. Gabriel is also said to have fought Iblis, when the latter tempted ʿĪsā. Ibn Barrajan regards Gabriel to be an angel created from fire, like Iblis, thus settling Gabriel symbolically into the head of opposition to the leader of the devils.
Other Islamic texts and some apocryphal literature also supported Gabriel's role as a celestial warrior. Though alternate theories exist, whether the occurrence of the Holy Spirit in the Quran refers to Gabriel or not, remains an issue of scholarly debate. However, a clear distinction between apocryphal and Quranic references to Gabriel is that the former doesn't designate him as the Holy Spirit in the First Book of Enoch, which narrates the story of Gabriel defeating the Nephilim.
Other traditions
The Yazidis worship Seven Archangels, including Jabra'il, Mikha'il, Rapha'il, Dedra'il, Azra'il, Shamka'il, and Azazil, who are emanations from God with which God entrusted the world. Other angels in Yazidism include Azrafil, Nekir and Nukir. The Yazidis associate Gabriel with Tawûsî Melek.Yazdânism and Yarsanism share many elements with Yazidism, including seven secondary divine manifestations, emanationism and the incarnation of the archangel Gabriel.
Mandaeans venerate Ptahil as the "Fourth Life". Ptahil is an uthra, identified with Gabriel, who creates the poorly made material world with the help of Ruha, a sinful and fallen female ruler who inhabits the World of Darkness. Ruha and Ptahil's roles in creation vary, with each gaining control when the other's power subsides. According to Brikha Nasoraia, the creation of the material world occurs by God's command, but is delegated to Ptahil with the assistance of Gabriel and others.
Art, entertainment, and media
Angels are described as pure spirits. The lack of a defined form allows artists wide latitude in depicting them. Amelia R. Brown draws comparisons in Byzantine iconography between portrayals of angels and the conventions used to depict court eunuchs. Mainly from the Caucasus, they tended to have light eyes, hair, and skin; and those "castrated in childhood developed a distinctive skeletal structure, lacked full masculine musculature, body hair and beards..." As officials, they would wear a white tunic decorated with gold. Brown suggests that "Byzantine artists drew, consciously or not, on this iconography of the court eunuch". Some recent popular works on angels consider Gabriel to be female or androgynous.Painting and sculpture
Gabriel is most often portrayed in the context of the Annunciation. In 2008, a 16th-century drawing by Lucas van Leyden of the Netherlands was discovered. George R. Goldner, chairman of the department of prints and drawings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, suggested that the sketch was for a stained glass window. "The fact that the archangel is an ordinary-looking person and not an idealized boy is typical of the artist", said Goldner.The Military Order of Saint Gabriel was established to recognize "individuals who have made significant contributions to the U.S. Army Public Affairs community and practice". The medallion depicts St. Gabriel sounding a trumpet, while the obverse displays the Army Public Affairs emblem.