Raphael: The Angel Who Heals, and Who Bound Azazel
The healing angel who spent weeks disguised as a traveler, then admitted he never ate a bite.
Raphael, "God heals," is the main character of the Book of Tobit, where he travels in disguise and then reveals, "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels." In 1 Enoch he binds the Watcher Azazel.
Raphael, "God heals," is the main character of the Book of Tobit, found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles and in the Apocrypha of older Protestant editions. Disguised as a young man named Azarias, he guides Tobias on a long journey, shows him how to use a fish's heart and liver to drive away the demon Asmodeus and its gall to cure his father's blindness, and then reveals himself: "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels."
His confession is one of the strangest lines in ancient literature. "All these days I did appear unto you; but I did neither eat nor drink, but ye did see a vision" (Tobit 12:19). For weeks, the family had lived and traveled with someone who was not physically what he seemed.
In 1 Enoch, Raphael is the enforcer. God sends him to bind Azazel hand and foot and throw him into the pit at Dudael, and to "heal the earth which the angels have corrupted." 1 Enoch 20 says he is "over the spirits of men," and he guides Enoch through the hollow places where the souls of the dead wait for judgment. Later traditions number him among the archangels, alongside Michael, Gabriel and Uriel. Raphael blends medicine and power. He heals, he banishes demons with practical instructions, and he restrains the most dangerous of the Watchers.
Raphael tells the family he traveled with that for the whole journey they had only seen "a vision" of him eating.
Tobit is generally read as a Jewish novella with folk-tale elements, like the helpful traveling companion, not as a historical account.
