**ARIEL** (Heb. 'ar'el'). — A biblical Hebrew term whose double etymology (from 'ar'el' = lion = and from 'ar'ah' = to burn =) gives it the meanings “lion of God” or “hearth of God,” expressing different symbolisms.
1. A personal name (“lion of God”): one of the ten (or eleven) leaders sent to Casiphia to invite the Levites and Nethinim to Temple service (Ezra 8:16); the seventh son of Gad (Num. 26:17, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate), whose true form of the name is ‘Ar’eli (Gen. 46:16).
2. In a metaphorical-hyperbolic sense, still current among Arabs and Persians, ‘ar’el’ (“lion of God”) designates a most valiant warrior (cf. the Egyptian ‘ar’ar’ = hero =):
Benaiah “slew the two ‘ar’el’ of Moab” (2 Sam. 23:20; 1 Chron. 11:22, Masoretic text). But the Septuagint, followed by R. Kittel (Die Hl. Schrift des A. Test., ed. E. Kautzsch, I, 4th ed., Tübingen 1922, p. 490) and many moderns, reads: “the two sons of A. of Moab.” Here A. would be the name of a Moabite. The Vulgate renders: “percussit duos leones Moab”; the same sense is obtained by A. Klostermann and K. Budde, who accept the Septuagint text and separate ‘ar’el’ from ‘el’: “the two young lions in Moab.”
3. The altar of burnt offering is called in Ezek. 43:15 ff. ‘ar’el’ (“hearth of God”), because the perpetual fire burns there to consume the victims (Lev. 6:12 ff.). Already in the 9th century B.C. the Moabite king Mesha (stele, line 12) says he took Ataroth from Israel “and carried off its ‘ar’el’ (altar) of Dodo (David?)”. Ezekiel (loc. cit.), by a solemn paronomasia, also calls the altar ‘ar’el’ (“mountain of God”). It has often been linked (especially by H. Gressmann) with the Assyrian arallu, which designates the nether world.
4. Jerusalem is symbolically called Ariel five times in the threatening oracle—the first apocalyptic description—in Isa. 29:1–7, most probably in the sense of “hearth of God,” to which V. 6b seems to allude. The city is regarded as “the altar of God,” and V. 2 foretells, at the approach of Sennacherib’s invasion, that it will be like Ariel: “it shall drop blood like the altar of burnt offering during the sacrifices.” Yahweh has his fire in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9; cf. 30:33).
5. Most scholars today understand the enigmatic ‘er’ell’ani of Isa. 33:7 as the plural of ‘ar’el’ in the sense of “heroes” (see above, §2): “their heroes shall cry out.” This seems required by the parallelism with “messengers of peace.” But the ancient versions translate it as a verb (from ‘ar’ah’ = to see =; Vulgate: videntes).
6. On the basis of this passage, rabbinic tradition, which interprets mal’akei shalom (“messengers of peace”) as angels (Vulgate: angeli pacis), made the ‘ar’elim (“the mighty ones”) the 5th of its ten angelic categories (M. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 2; D. Petavius, De Angelis, II, 1, 14). In later popular belief and in the Kabbalah, Ariel is a spirit (generally evil) of water and air. He appears as a beneficent spirit in Shakespeare’s *The Tempest* and in Goethe’s *Faust*, where he corresponds to the Swedish strömkalv, a demonization of the soft musical murmur originally connected with water.
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ARIETE. — Although the figure of the ram appears as a decorative motif on profane monuments, it is a symbol that Christianity employed from its earliest age. A classic episode from the Old Testament explains the reason for this attribution. The sacrifice of Abraham prefigures in the ram the figure of Christ. Repeated countless times in frescoes, on sarcophagi, on lamps, and on the gold backgrounds of glass vessels, the ram recalled Christ immolated to God as a providential substitute for guilty man. “The ram among the thorns is Christ Jesus crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross,” says St. Augustine (*Contra Maximus*: PL 42, 810), developing the same idea already expressed by Tertullian (*Adversus Iudaeos*, 13; PL 2, 673). For this reason, St. Ambrose asks, why is Christ figured by the ram? Because he is the head of humanity, walks ahead of all, and leads the entire flock (De Abraham: PL 16, 471). Christ guides us with his doctrine to the haven of salvation and with his grace toward redemption. Giulio Belvederi