Michael the Archangel

“ In the vault of the sky Christ appears, enthroned upon a rainbow, his feet resting on a globe. He is encircled by clouds, below which a ring of angels supports a cross, while to the right and left are seraphs sounding their trumps, and all the distant air is aquiver with angelic forms. Hovering midway between earth and sky is St. Michael, the archangel. Down on the earth are the myriads of the risen: the good on one side, in orderly bands, lifting hands and heads toward heaven, and on the other the lost souls in a tumult of flames and smoke. ”

“ Michael the Archangel—a strange, riven height, venerated by the people before the coming of the "Black Hag of Geneva, who sends body and soul quick to hell." Here, they said, in the old days those who knew would sometimes go apart, climbing the red height till they came to the Chapel of the Archangel, a very small and ancient place, of which the foundations still remained, standing in a thick wood of ash-trees. ”

“ Michael is mentioned in scripture five times, and always in a military view; thrice by Daniel, as fighting for the Jewish church against Persia; once by St. John, as fighting at the head of his angelic troops against the dragon and his host; and once by St. Jude, as fighting personally with the devil, about the body of Moses; for the very ashes of God’s servants have angelic protection. It has been thought by many, that there is no other archangel but Michael. An author of great name, who has not given his reasons or authority, inclines to this opinion ”

“ The silence lasted some time, and was at last broken by Hertha. "According to the legend, then, the archangel descends from that peak."
"With the first ray of the morning sun," replied Michael. "The sun rises there above the ridge. The people cling with unswerving fidelity to their time-hallowed beliefs, and will not relinquish their spring festivals and their worship of the sun. He is the ancient god of light, who either blesses or curses mankind; who mutters in the thunder, and then again ploughs the earth with his flaming sword that the spring may bring forth fresh life and beauty ”

“ And God sent Michael the archangel to them, who said, "Seth, thou man of God, weary not thyself with making supplication for the oil of mercy, for it cannot be given to thee now. But when the times are fulfilled, then shall come One who shall anoint thy father with that oil, and he shall rise up and return to the garden, he and all his seed; and the evil heart shall be taken from them, and a new heart shall be given them to understand that which is good, and God shall dwell in the midst of them, and they shall be His people. ”

“ As regards later Roman sacramentaries, the prayers for a mass in honour of St Michael are given in the Gelasianum on the 29th September. The Gregorianum gives on the same day the dedication of the basilica of St Michael without the addition “in via Salaria.” [704] It is probable that another church of St Michael is meant here whose dedication took place on the 29th and not the 30th September. The day of this church’s dedication has continued to our own time to be kept as the Festival of St Michael the Archangel. ”

“ Michael the Archangel, the candid host of martyrs, and all the whole company of saints that if he ever came within the lordship again, he should go hot-foot to his father, the devil, and tell his tales to the fiends of hell. This was, it must be confessed, rather violent language, but Sir Roger was in fact a little angry with the man for turning Penhow upside down, making the girls giddier than they were before, and crazing Eva by his nonsensical tales which nobody in his wits credited, though the knight confessed that they were amusing enough to listen to. ”

“ Almighty and eternal God, who in thine own marvellous goodness and pity didst, for the common salvation of mar, choose the glorious, archangel Michael to be the Prince of thy Church; make us worthy, we pray thee, to be delivered by his beneficent protection from all our enemies, that at the hour of our death no one of them may approach to harm us, and that by the same archangel Michael we may be introduced into the presence of thy high and heavenly majesty; Through the merits of the same Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. ”

“ Have not ideas become inverted in his mind, when he tells us of the Devil "leading St. Michael the Archangel in chains"? We apprehend that the saint was represented as the captor and Lucifer as the prisoner. We think, too, that the flight of Our Blessed Lady and Saint Joseph into Egypt was what was intended to be represented, not the return of the Holy Family therefrom. Both these subjects have been represented in works of art, but the former occurs much the more frequently. ”

“ And the Lord, holding the hand of Adam, delivered him to Michael the archangel: and all the saints followed Michael the archangel, and he led them all into the glorious grace of paradise. And there met them two men, ancient of days. The saints asked them: Who are you, that have not yet been dead, along with us in the regions below, and have been placed in paradise in the body? ”

“ The tenuous spiral of perfumed smoke carried up his emotional apostrophes through the prosaic ceiling of the old night-nursery past the stars, beyond the Thrones and Dominations and Seraphim to God. Michael’s contest with the sins of youth had become much more thrilling since he had accepted the existence of a personal fiend, and in an ecstasy of temptation he would lie in bed and defy the Devil, calling upon his patron the Archangel to descend from heaven and battle with the powers of evil in that airy arena above the coal-wharf beyond the railway lines. ”

“ It is now credible that the archangel Michael has care of christian men, who was prince of the Hebrew folk, while they believed in God; and that he manifested when he built himself a church among a faithful people on mount Garganus, as we have read a little before. It is done by God's dispensation, that the great heavenly angel is the constant supporter of christian men on earth, and their intercessor in heaven with Almighty God, who liveth and reigneth to all eternity. ”

“ Although the evil wrought was long lived, true devotion to the angels was practised in Colossae and there the Archangel Michael appeared. In honour of this apparition, the festival of St. Michael in September was established. Devotion to the Archangel was of very early date in Rome and in the Western Church generally. Masses in his honour are found in the oldest Roman Sacramentary (483-492) ”

“ So that it seems as if they considered Michael in some sort as we do the Messiah manifested in the flesh.
Let it be observed that the word archangel is never found in the plural number in the sacred writings. There can be properly only one archangel, one chief or head of all the angelic host. Nor is the word devil, as applied to the great enemy of mankind, ever found in the plural; there can be but one monarch of all fallen spirits. ”

“ The garrison laid down their arms before Satan. Michael placed his flaming sword at the feet of the conquering archangel.
"Take back your sword, Michael," said Satan. "It is Lucifer who yields it to you. Bear it in defence of peace and law." Then letting his gaze [344] fall on the leaders of the celestial cohorts, he cried in a ringing voice:
"Archangel Michael, and you, Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, swear all of you to be faithful to your God."
"We swear it," they replied with one voice.
And Satan said:
"Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, of all past wars, I wish but to remember the invincible courage that you displayed and the loyalty which you rendered to authority, for these assure me of the steadfastness of the fealty you have just sworn to me." ”

“ On either side are ranged the Prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints, severe, solemn, dignified figures. Angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, hover over Christ and the Virgin; under them is a group of archangels. The archangel Michael stands in the midst holding a scroll in each hand; immediately before him another archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth where men are seen rising from their graves ”

“ God commanded the archangel Michael to make for this penitent a hell upon earth, so that she might enter without dispute into Paradise. Then St. Michael descended from the skies as far as the gate of hell, and handed over this triple soul to the devil, telling him that he had permission to torment it during the rest of her days, at the same time indicating to him Bertha, Jehan and the child.
The devil, who by the will of God, is lord of all evil, told the archangel that he would obey the message. ”

“ In the war against the hostile spirit of the kingdom of Persia, the archangel Michael came to the help of the Angel of the Lord. The name מיכאל, who is as God, comes into view, as does the name Gabriel, only according to the appellative signification of the word, and expresses, after the analogy of Exo 15:11; Psa 89:7., the idea of God's unparalleled helping power. Michael is thus the angel possessing the unparalleled power of God. ”

“ The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in general. ”

“ The archangel Michael took supreme command. He reassured their minds by his serenity. His countenance, wherein his soul was visible, expressed contempt for danger. By his orders, the chiefs of the thunderbolts, the Kerûbs, grown dull with the long interval of peace, paced with heavy steps the ramparts of the Holy Mountain, and, letting the gaze of their bovine eyes wander over the glittering clouds of their [340] Lord, strove to place the divine batteries in position. After inspecting the defences, they swore to the Most High that all was in readiness. ”

“ Michael your prince - The archangel mentioned before, [212] , and who has been always supposed to be appointed by God as the guardian of the Jewish nation. It appears that God chose to make use of the ministry of angels in this work; that angels, as they could be only in one place at one time, could not produce influence where they were not; and that, to carry on the operation on the mind of the Persian king, it was necessary that either Gabriel or Michael should be present with him, and when one went on another commission another took his place ”

“ They are of common occurrence in Persia, and seem to be identical with “the high places” of Scripture where the priests of Baal celebrated their sacrifices. The conical mound near Karnak—which may be seen for miles around—has been consecrated by the Christians to the Archangel Michael, who is the patron saint of every height, hill, or cone, natural or artificial, in Brittany. The reason of this dedication has been conjectured to be that S. Michael is the assailant and conqueror of the spiritual Dragon of the Apocalypse. The mutilated image of that great serpent lies prostrate below the mound ”

“ The angels themselves are said to be divided into as many legions as there are archangels; whether these are seven or nine does not appear to be determined; but Michael, as in the present engraving, is always represented as the head or chief archangel, he is here accompanied by six only.
Dr. Laurence, regius professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and now archbishop of Cashel, recently printed at the Clarendon press, the long lost “Book of Enoch.” This celebrated apocryphal writing of ancient times calls “Michael one of the holy angels, who, presiding over human virtue, commands the nations.” ”

“ The angels are not all equal in dignity, but are divided into nine classes, or choirs, according to their rank or office, and, as theologians tell us, arranged from the lowest to the highest and named as follows; angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. Archangels are higher than angels and are so called because sent to do the most important works. It was the Archangel Michael who drove Lucifer from Heaven and the Archangel Gabriel who announced to the Blessed Virgin that she was to be the Mother of God. ”

“ In the compartment immediately beneath is the Archangel Michael, the guardian of souls, weighing in a pair of huge scales a soul, the balance seeming to preponderate in his favour. One who appears to have been weighed, and found wanting, is lying beneath329 the scales in an attitude of terror. ”

“ Nickleby” (one can hardly believe it) is said to be Dickens’s mother.
Mi ́chael (2 syl.) , the special protector and guardian of the Jews. This archangel is messenger of peace and plenty.—Sale’s Korân, ii. notes.
*** That Michael was really the protector and guardian angel of the Jews we know from Dan. x. 13, 21; xii. 1.
Milton makes Michael the leader of the heavenly host in the war in heaven. The word means “God’s power.” Gabriel was next in command to the archangel Michael.
Go, Michael, of celestial armies prince
Paradise Lost, vi. ”

“ The garden of God is a radiant place, And every flower has a holy face: Our Lady like a lily bends above the cloudy sod, But Saint Michael is the thorn on the rosebush of God. David is the song upon God's lips, And Our Lady is the goblet that He sips: And Gabriel's the breath of His command, But Saint Michael is the sword in God's right hand. The Ivory Tower is fair to see, And may her walls encompass me! But when the Devil comes with the thunder of his might, Saint Michael, show me how to fight! ”