Is the September Angel Uriel or Zuriel?

The historical answer is Zuriel. Lansdowne MS 1203 writes Zuriël beside Libra and September, and Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy puts Zuriel in the same place in its scale of the number twelve.

Uriel appears in only one of the three month sources, a modern guide that heads its September entry “Uriel (AKA: Zuriel)” without citing anything. Uriel has a long textual history of his own, and none of it involves Libra or September.

Quick Facts

Libra and September row: Zuriël in Lansdowne MS 1203, page 52, and Zuriel in its list of angelic characters, pages 59-60
Agrippa's seventh sign angel: Zuriel: Libra, September and the kidneys (Book II, chapter 14)
Where Uriel enters: “Uriel (AKA: Zuriel)” in the modern Angels of the Months guide, with no source given
Uriel's own texts: 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras, which give him no zodiac sign or month
When Libra starts: About September 24 in standard date tables; September 1 to 23 fall in the Virgo row, Hamaliel in Agrippa

What do the three September sources write in the Libra row?

The name Uriel enters the September row through a single modern guide. Angels of the Months on Archangels and Angels titles its entry “The Angel of September - Uriel (AKA: Zuriel)”, speaks only of Uriel after that, and carries an editor’s note that its author gave no references.

Lansdowne MS 1203, in Joseph Peterson’s edition, writes Zuriël beside Libra and September in its sign table on page 52. Its list of angelic characters on pages 59-60 spells the name Zuriel, and Peterson, who stars several corrected names in that list, leaves this one as it stands.

Agrippa reaches the same name by a different route. Zuriel is the seventh of the “twelve angels ruling over the signs” in Book II, chapter 14, placed beside Libra, September and the kidneys, the part of the body Agrippa gives the sign.

Neither historical table writes Uriel in the Libra row, so the guide’s “AKA” has no older witness among these three sources.

Three witnesses for the Libra and September row
Source	Name written	Sign	Notes
Lansdowne MS 1203, page 52	Zuriël	Libra (La Balance)	Capacity: Operation
Lansdowne MS 1203, pages 59-60	Zuriel	Seventh in the sign order	List of angelic characters; no correction by the editor
Agrippa, Book II, chapter 14	Zuriel	Libra	September; the kidneys
Archangels and Angels, Angels of the Months	Uriel (AKA: Zuriel)	None given	No source cited for the identification

Zuriël's capacity in the manuscript is “L'Operation,” which Peterson translates as Operation. The column runs through twelve faculties, from eyesight for Aries to sleep for Pisces, and says nothing more about what Zuriël's operation covers.

Where does Uriel come from, if not the zodiac tables?

The archangel Uriel comes from a different kind of text. He is named as an angel in 1 Enoch and in 2 Esdras, also called 4 Ezra, where he answers Ezra's questions and explains his visions; neither book gives him a zodiac sign or a month.

The Hebrew Bible uses Uriel only as a man's name, and Uriel's name is usually translated “God is my light,” with some interpreters reading “fire of God.”

Zuriel has no story of that kind. In the two tables he is a name in the Libra row, with a month, a faculty in the manuscript and a part of the body in Agrippa, and neither row mentions Enoch, Ezra or light.

What changes if Zuriel and Uriel are treated as one angel?

Once the names are joined, Uriel's attributes start to describe September, although none of them appears in the Libra row.

Each one can be traced back to the layer it came from:

“Angel of salvation”: the modern guide's own phrase for Uriel in its September entry, with no source given.
Lightning: the same guide compares sudden successes to a flash of lightning in a summer storm, and its editor notes that the guide's seasons describe the Northern Hemisphere.
Fire of God: one reading of Uriel's Hebrew name, which says nothing about Zuriel.
Prophecy and revealed knowledge: a modern profile claim that matches Uriel's part in explaining visions to Ezra in 2 Esdras; the pages that make it cite no text.
Patron of literature and music: a title on current September pages that none of the sources cited here gives to either name.

If you keep the names apart, you lose nothing the old tables say. Zuriel keeps Libra, September, Operation and the kidneys, and Uriel keeps Enoch, Ezra and the light in his name.

The guide's September theme, summer drawing to an end, one final push toward a goal and noticing what has already gone well, is a reflection credited to Sue Harping of Leeds. None of it depends on what the Libra row records.

A birthday page that adopts the merge hands a September reader Uriel's attributes, though neither name was offered as anyone's personal guardian. Lansdowne MS 1203 and Agrippa give Zuriel to the sign Libra, and the modern guide gives Uriel a lesson for one month of a northern year.