Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Archangels

Sachiel

SAH-kee-el
Planetary Archangels

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Origin 1200 to 1600

Sachiel, closely linked with Zadkiel, whose name means the Righteousness of God, is the planetary archangel of Jupiter, the angel of mercy, benevolence, and abundance. He belongs to the medieval magical and Kabbalistic tradition, and in later angelology Zadkiel is named as the angel who stays the hand of Abraham at the binding of Isaac. As the Jovian archangel he governs what Jupiter rules: grace, generosity, expansion, good fortune, law, prosperity, and forgiveness. He is invoked on Thursday and in workings for wealth, growth, mercy, and success. In the Tree of Life he is the archangel of Chesed, the sphere of Mercy and of Jupiter, and his colors are royal blue and purple.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1200 to 1600 1Tradition: The grimoire tradition
Place of Origin
Latin Europe 1
Place of Origin
Reach the Renaissance through the medieval Latin grimoires 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
A late medieval grimoire commonplace, with no identifiable originator 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
No individual author 1
Rival Systems
A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own account
Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy: the angel of Jupiter is Zadkiel. Sachiel does not appear in his table of the seven angels at all. The name recorded here belongs to the scheme of the planetary hours and the days of the week. 2Tradition: Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Identity
Ruling Planet
Jupiter 1
Learn More
A Planetary Archangel

In this collection Sachiel appears as the archangel governing Jupiter, one of the seven "planets" of pre-modern astronomy (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Pairing an archangel with each planet belongs to the tradition of Western ceremonial magic and Christian Kabbalah, where it was set out in works such as Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) and the later pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, and codified in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Several archangels are listed more than once in this collection because they were inherited through three overlapping schemes, planetary, elemental and sephirotic, that Western esotericism never fully reconciled; Sachiel here carries the planetary attribution to Jupiter. The scheme is presented as a documented esoteric tradition rather than as religious doctrine or as a claim about spiritual beings.

Why Jupiter's Angels Are All Called Righteous

Hebrew astronomy calls Jupiter Tzedek, righteousness, and that one fact explains most of the confusion around this angel.

Because the planet is named for justice, every angel attached to it acquires a name built on the same root or a near neighbour of it. The sephirotic table gives Chesed, Jupiter's sphere, to Tzadkiel, the righteousness of God. The grimoire tradition gives Thursday, Jupiter's day, to Sachiel. Zadkiel, Zedekiel and Tzadkiel circulate as variants of the first. The result is a small cloud of similar names occupying the same planetary office in different systems, and reference works differ on how many angels are actually in the cloud.

Sachiel's own credentials are the day scheme. The Heptameron gives him Thursday, dies Iovis, which reaches English as Thursday through the Germanic identification of Jupiter with Thunor, the thunder god. Jeudi and giovedi keep the Latin.

The offices assigned to him are the classical Jupiterian ones: wealth, patronage, law, increase, the favour of superiors. Those are read off the planet's character in the astrological tradition rather than off anything told about the angel, which is the general rule for the planetary set.

Whether Sachiel and Tzadkiel are one angel in two transmissions or two angels in two systems is genuinely unresolved. Some tables merge them; others keep them apart. This collection records both, in their own systems, rather than choosing.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Sachiel belongs to the medieval magical and Kabbalistic tradition rather than to canonical scripture, and the atlas files the planetary office under ceremonial magic.

Jupiter, Planets

Sachiel holds the Jupiterian office in the seven planetary archangels, the angel of mercy, benevolence and abundance.

Sachiel is paired with Thursday and Jupiter in the scheme of the planetary hours that also names the weekday. Sachiel does not appear in Agrippa's own table of the seven planetary angels at all.

Source Grimoires: A History of Magic BooksOwen Davies

Belongs to Tradition

Hermeticism, Religions

One of the planetary, elemental and sephirotic archangels of the Western esoteric synthesis, the scheme by which this atlas classifies the type.

Originates in Language

Hebrew, Languages

The name is Hebrew in form, built on the theophoric pattern of a stem plus el, God. It is post-biblical and the individual stem is not securely identified.

Related To

Tzadkiel, Archangels

The tradition links Sachiel closely with Tzadkiel, both read as the righteousness of God and both set over Jupiter and mercy. The atlas keeps them apart because that is a link made within the tradition, not one name in two spellings.

Sources
1. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies, Oxford University Press, 2009chs. on the medieval and early modern grimoireView the Source
2. Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Llewellyn, 1533Angelic correspondences in occult philosophyView the Source
A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels
Gustav Davidson, The Free Press, 1967Entry for the archangel SachielView the Source

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