Recording angel (about 1888) marking the Phipps and Loomis family plot, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh
Recording angels are angels in Judaic, Christian, and Islamicangelology. Recording angels are assigned by God with the task of recording the events, actions, and prayers of each individual human. These include bad sins and good deeds.
Description
In the Book of Malachi 3:16, the prophet describes Heaven as having conferring angels, and "The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name." In Judaic thought, Gabriel is the principal recording angel, as shown in Ezekiel 9:3-4, where he is "the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side" who put the mark of Passover on Jewish houses in Egypt.
In the Secrets of Enoch (also known as Second Enoch, or Slavonic Enoch) the recording angel is named Pravuil or Vretil: "And the Lord summoned one of his archangels by name Pravuil, whose knowledge was quicker in wisdom than the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord..."[1]
Recording Angel memorial, a stone sculpture in the United Kingdom Parliament, commemorating members and staff who died in the First World War
References
^Charles, R. H. and Morfill, W. R.: The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1896 (included in Charles, R.H., Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Volume II: Pseudepigrapha, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1913), Chapter 22 (by the higher numbering), near the end (verse numbers vary), online at scribd.com
