Archangel Asiel, Timor Dei

Asiel, whose name is glossed "Timor Dei" — the Fear of God — beneath many surviving copies, was one of the most frequently reproduced names in the arquebusier-angel canon, rivaling Eliel and Uriel across colonial workshops. Like his militia siblings, he stands in courtier's dress with a matchlock gun at parade rest, an angel painted as a Habsburg soldier rather than a scriptural messenger.

The "Timor Dei" epithet reframes the gun itself — not a weapon of conquest, but an instrument of reverent awe, heaven's own discipline made visible. It is a small but telling piece of theological retrofitting: an imported colonial technology, repurposed as a virtue.

Notice the exact curl of the plume and the lace at the collar — the tailoring is as considered as the theology.