RAPHAEL, Saint. - I. SACRED SCRIPTURE. - Angel who presents himself with this symbolic name (Heb. Réphá'el "God has healed" or "heals") and defines himself
(phot. Felice).
RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS
The Holy Father observes the radio transmitter donated to him by Dutch Catholics (1930).
"one of the seven angels who stand before God and have access to the majesty of the Lord" in Tob. 12:15 (cf. Rev. 8:2). Only in non-biblical texts is R. called "archangel," a name reserved in the Bible for St. Michael.
R. plays a very important part in the life of Tobit. Under the appearance of Azariah (v.), son of Ananiah, he offers to accompany the young man from Nineveh to Rages (v.) in Media (Tob. 5:5-21). During the stop on the first evening of the journey along the Tigris, he commands Tobiah, frightened by a large fish that tries to attack him, to seize the animal and extract its gall, heart and liver (ibid. 6:3-9). These last two anatomical parts will be used as incense to drive the demon Asmodeus (v.) away from Sarah. In Ecbatana (ibid. 6:10-22) R. leads Tobiah to Raguel (v.) and urges him to ask for the hand of his daughter Sarah, who belonged to him by right as a close relative, assuring him that a union contracted above all for the purpose willed by God and the burning of the fish's heart and liver would have prevented the recurrence of a mysterious death, which had already befallen seven suitors of Sarah on their wedding night. While the wedding is being celebrated for 14 days (ibid. 8:23), R. goes to Rages to collect the sum deposited with Gabael. On his return to Nineveh, he explains to Tobiah how to cure his father's blindness by means of the fish's gall (ibid. 11:4-17). To the old Tobit, who did not know how to reward the supposed Azariah, son of Ananiah, R. makes himself known and then disappears, after having shown the duty to praise and bless God and the moral value of fasting and almsgiving (ibid. 12:6-14).
In the apocryphal writings R. is often mentioned in the book of Enoch (9:1; 10:4; 20:3; 22:3, 6; 32:6; 40:9; 54:6; 68:2 ff.; 71:8 ff.), which attributes to him a notable part in the struggle against the demon Azazel and in the last judgment. He is said to "preside over the spirits of men" (20:3) and "over all the diseases and wounds of the children of men" (40:9). Also in the Church, which celebrates his feast on October 24, R. is invoked as an intercessor for the health of soul and body and as a protector in travels.
Bibliography3 works
Angelo Penna
II. LITURGY
The feast of St. Raphael the Archangel is celebrated on Oct. 24 with a double major rite.
The liturgical celebrations in his honor appear
late and rarely. He is completely absent from the Sacramentaries and
Martyrologies until the 10th-11th centuries; then he is found in isolation
and on the most disparate dates: at Venice on Apr. 22, in
Spain on May 7, in French breviaries of the Middle Ages
on July 9 or 15 or on the feria II of the third week of
Sept. The Mercedarians have his feast on Sept. 18. Peter de
Natalibus presents him together with St. Michael on May 8;
finally the popular Martyrologies of Molanus, Canisius
and Ferraris have his name on Oct. 20. In a Sacramentary of Ivrea, written between 1075 and 1090, the
feast of St. R. is found on Jan. 3, as also in a missal of the
Bibl. Marciana of Venice, of 1392 (Cod. lat. III,
XLVIII), but as a later addition; in a sacramentary of the Bibl. capitolare of Verona (IX, fol. 103) of the
12th century the feast of St. R. follows that of St. Michael, Sept.
29. Well known is the church of the angel R. at Venice, of the
7th century, but rebuilt in 1618. After the 15th century the feast of
St. R. enters many diocesan Propers and also into the appendix pro aliquibus locis of the Roman Missal. But only Benedict XV prescribed it for the whole Church together with that
of St. Gabriel, on Oct. 26, 1921 (AAS, 13 [1921], 543-44), fixing it on the date that had gradually become established, that is,
Oct. 24.
It should be noted, however, that apart from the feast properly so called,
the name of St. R. is already found in ancient times in the litanies of the
saints and in the prayers of the Itinerarium clericorum.
Bibliography5 works
Giuseppe Löw
III. ART
St. R. is the least represented of the three
best-known archangels: Michael (v.), Gabriel (v.) and R. Rare
are the examples of his figurations in early Christian
art, where he always has his own name written nearby;
this served as a distinction also for the other archangels, who, with the exception of Michael, were not distinguished by particular attributes. He thus appears in some gilded glass, in a
sarcophagus of Poitiers, in a fragment of limestone
found in 1884 near Geminy, evidently a matrix, as the names written in reverse attest; within roundels
the archangels were represented, each with his own name
beside him, and in the center the Savior,
An isolated figure also appears in the church of
Sts. Thraso and Saturninus in Rome. The Middle Ages do not
have many depictions of R. either; he is found in the church
of Münster, at Essen, and, together with the other archangels, in the
enamels of the Pala d'Oro in the basilica of St. Mark in Venice (11th century).
From the fifteenth century onward the representations of R.
become more numerous, both as the companion of
Tobias and, generically, as the companion and protector of travelers, and in this function of his many votive
images were offered to him. He is sometimes represented
beside the Virgin with the Child together with various saints, as
in the panel by Ghirlandaio in the Uffizi and in that by a Florentine painter of the 15th century in the sacristy of S. M. Novella or in the frescoed lunette by Melanzio in the Museum
of Montefalco; Andrea della Robbia unites R. and Tobias
with St. Francis receiving the stigmata in a glazed
terracotta in S. Croce in Florence; and likewise they unite him with
other saints: B. Gozzoli (S. Gimignano, S. Agostino) and
Raffaellino del Garbo (Florence, S. Ambrogio). Much
more frequently artists paint him together with
Tobias, and only rarely do the other
archangels also appear (Botticini, Florence, Uffizi); besides the very famous
painting by Pollaiolo in Turin, those to be remembered are
those by Torbido in the Museo del Castelvecchio in Verona, by
Palmezzano in the Pinacoteca of Faenza, by Savoldo in the
Galleria Borghese in Rome, by Rembrandt in the Louvre, and
for the eighteenth century the most beautiful decoration of the organ
of the church of S. R. in Venice; still in the 19th century this
same iconography is repeated by Amos Cassioli in the cemetery of Antella. A marble group by G. Baratta is also preserved
in S. Spirito in Florence; in the Museum of ceramics of Pesaro there is a plate decorated in 1522 by Mastro Giorgio with R. and Tobias.
A separate mention is deserved by the painting by Marco d'Oggiono in the Pinacoteca di Imera in Milan for the iconographic novelty of R. united with Michael and Gabriel as triumphators over Satan - See plate XV.
