Skip to main content

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

  • 128 Accesses

Abstract

Michael the Archangel preserves purity and extinguishes evil as hechampions and protects the Chosen People (Dan. 10.13 and 10.21), leads the dead to judgment as their advocate (Epistle of Jude 9), and battles and defeats Satan (Rev. 12.7–9).1 These offices inspire the famous prayer of Pope Leo XIII:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do you, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about this world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Richard F. Johnson, “Archangel in the Margins: St. Michael in the Homilies of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41,” Traditio 53 (1998): 64.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Michael Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglaubens in vorrabbinischer Zeit (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992), pp. 65–73.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 71–92, particularly pp. 75–78.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Hurtado examines the problem of worship vs. veneration (ibid., pp. 17–39). See also Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology: A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John, WUNT 2.70 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995), pp. 47–51;

    Google Scholar 

  5. and Darrell D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity, WUNT 2.109 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1999). p. 104, n. 59.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, including the Demotic Spells, second ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. xliv–xlviii;

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fritz Graf, La magie dans l’antiquité gréco-romaine (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994); and Magic in the Ancient World, translated by Franklin Philip, Revealing Antiquity 10 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  8. As pointed out by Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, Antecedents and Early Evidence, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 32–33.

    Google Scholar 

  9. See both Eric Eynikel, “The Angel in Samson’s Birth Narrative—Judg 13” in Angels, the Concept of Celestial Beings—Origin, Development and Reception, edited by Friedrich V. Reiterer, Tobias Nicklas, and Karin Schöpflin, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2007 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 113–114 [pp. 109–123]; and Matthias Köckert, “Divine Messengers and Mysterious Men in the Patriarchal Narratives of the Book of Genesis,”in Angels, pp. 67–69 [pp. 51–78].

    Google Scholar 

  10. There is an enormous literature on the apocalypse and its emergence as a literary genre. For an introduction and general background, consult Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven, a Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1982);

    Google Scholar 

  11. John Joseph Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, second ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998);

    Google Scholar 

  12. Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1980);

    Google Scholar 

  13. P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979);

    Google Scholar 

  14. Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993);

    Google Scholar 

  15. and D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964). E. P. Sanders discusses the concept of “covenantal nomism,” by which he means the propensity of Second Temple sects to establish their validity and superiority through halakhic orthopraxy: Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 236 and 426–428. Dieter Heidtmann aptly designates angels as “boundary markers of God” (Grenzgestalten Gottes) when arguing for their necessary inclusion in contemporary Christian discourse: Die Engel: Grenzgestalten Gottes. Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit der christlichen Rede von den Engeln (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), particularly pp. 195–208.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Edward L. Greenstein, “Trans-Semitic Idiomatic Equivalency and the Derivation of Hebrew ml’kh ,” Ugarit-Forschungen 11 (1979): 329–336.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Hans Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum, WUNT 2 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1951), p. 103.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Adela Y. Collins, “The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses,” in Death, Ecstasy and Other Worldly Journeys, edited by John Joseph Collins and Michael A. Fishbane (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. 65–66 [pp. 59–93].

    Google Scholar 

  19. A. Finet, “Les anges gardiens du Babylonien,” in Anges et Démons, edited by Julien Ries and Henri Limet, Homo Religiosus 14 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’Histoire des Religions, 1989), pp. 37–52.

    Google Scholar 

  20. William George Heidt, Angelology of the Old Testament (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1949), p. 7.

    Google Scholar 

  21. S. D. McBride, The Deutoronomic Name Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1969), p. 5,

    Google Scholar 

  22. as cited by Aquila H. I. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, WUNT 192 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2005), p. 38, with a discussion of hypostatization, pp. 37–44. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, pp. 36–45, illustrates the ubiquity of the practice. Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy, pp. 93–96, briefly summarizes the scholarship and arguments as to the validity of the concept of hypostatization.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Saul M. Olyan, A Thousand Thousands Served Him (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993), p. 104.

    Google Scholar 

  24. James Barr, “The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53.2 (1985): 207 [201–235].

    Google Scholar 

  25. R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (New York: Putnam, 1961), pp. 76 and 146; Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy, p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  26. For the connection of foreign powers with wicked angels, see R. M. Grant, “Les êtres intermédiaires dans le Judaïsme tardif,” Studie materiali di storia delle religioni 38 (1967): 245–259. For Daniel more generally, Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, pp. 85–115 and Daniel with Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature 20 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999 reprint [1984]).

    Google Scholar 

  27. For an analysis of the political events of Hellenistic Palestine and the connection of Daniel and Maccabees with the Hasmonaean Revolt, see F. E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996), pp. 222– 296;

    Google Scholar 

  28. and Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975), pp. 109–112. Martin Hengel addresses the intellectual background, Judaism and Hellenism, translated by John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), pp. 175–218.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  29. Jean Duhaime, The War Texts, 1QM and Related Manuscripts , Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 6 (London: T & T Clark, 2004), provides a succinct introduction to the interpretive issues and the enormous literature on the War Scroll.

    Google Scholar 

  30. 1QM, text in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, translated by Geza Vermes (London: Penguin, 1998), pp. 163–164, as well as his The Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran in Perspective (Cleveland: Collins World, 1978), pp. 51–54, for a brief description and bibliography. See Davidson’s discussion, Angels at Qumran, pp. 212–233; also, James Davila, “Melchizedek, Michael, and War in Heaven,” Society of Biblical Literature 1996 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 259–272.

    Google Scholar 

  31. 1QM, in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English ; Davila, “Melchizedek, Michael, and War in Heaven,” pp. 260–262. Also, Sylvester Lamberigts, “Le sens de qdwsym dans les texts de Qumran,” Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 46 (1970): 24–39; Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, “Some Reflections on Angelomorphic Humanity Texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Dead Sea Discoveries 7 (2000): 292–312; Hannah, Michael and Christ, pp. 55–75, discusses Michael and his role in the Qumran texts.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. 4QShirShabb 403 1 i 31. Carol Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition, critical edition and translation, Harvard Semitic Studies 27 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 211–212 for translation, pp. 207–225 for text and commentary. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology, pp. 156–161, expands on Newsom’s observations as to the problems of translation caused by the highly abstract language of the texts, as does Anna Maria Schwemer, “Gott als König und seine Königsherrschaft in den Sabbatliedern aus Qumran,” in Königsherrschaft Gottes und himmlischer Kult im Judentum, Urchristentum und in der hellenistischen Welt, edited by Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), pp. 45–118.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Fletcher-Louis, “Some Reflections on Angelomorphic Humanity,” pp. 292–312; Otto Betz, “The Essenes,” The Cambridge History of Judaism 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999), pp. 444–453.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  34. For a summary of all of the arguments and current scholarship about the texts and their connection with the Qumran excavations, see James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls, second ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010). Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, p. 175ff. for the connections between Essenes and the Hasidim; Betz, “The Essenes,” pp. 445–446.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy, pp. 29–31; Joachim Schafer, “The Pharisees,” The Cambridge History of Judaism 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999), pp. 402–427.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Benedict Viviano and Justin Taylor, “Sadducees, Angels and Resurrection,” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 498 [496–498];

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Günter Stemberger, “The Sadducees—Their History and Doctrines,” The Cambridge History of Judaism 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999), pp. 428–443; Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy, pp. 32–33.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  38. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2009), p. 222; Hannah, Michael and Christ, pp. 70–74.

    Google Scholar 

  39. A point raised by Beate Ego, “Der Diener im Palast des himmlischen Königs,” in Königsherrschaft Gottes und himmlischer Kult im Judentum, Urchristentum und in der hellenistischen Welt, edited by Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), pp. 361–384. Other contenders included Gabriel, as well as the angels Yahoel and Metatron, and even Moses.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Tobit was likely written c. 300 bce in Palestine, although reminiscent of the Mesopotamian Diaspora. For the dating, refer to Paul-Eugène Dion, “Raphaël l’Exorciste,” Biblica 57 (1976): 399–401 [399–413]; and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Aramaic and Hebrew Fragments of Tobit from Qumran Cave 4 ,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 57 (1995): 655–675.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Daniel Harlow, The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 14–15, for the provenance and date of the text, and p. 35 for reference to the phiálē. Translation and bibliography in Sparks, The Apocryphal Old Testament, pp. 897–914.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Lueken agreed, for angels were far more accessible than God (Michael, pp. 6–7); W. Carrdisagreed: Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “haiárchai kai hai exousíai” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 70.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity, second ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1987), pp. 37–38. Rebecca Lesses makes a similar argument in regard to the hekhalot literature and the Sefer ha-Razim, “Speaking with Angels: Jewish and Greco-Egyptian Revelatory Adjurations,” Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996): 41–60.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Bowl 7, lines 8–9; James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1913), pp. 148–149.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, p. 18, voices the view of Jews as magical specialists. Louis Golomb, An Anthropology of Curing in Multiethnic Thailand (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), observed that in Thai society, the population in the religious majority often seeks magical healing from its minority neighbors. This is particularly the case for exotic diseases often presumed as “foreign” and therefore better understood by outsiders.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Hermann S. Schibli, “Xenocrates’ Daemons and the Irrational Soul,” The Classical Quarterly 43 (1993): 143–167; John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 30–32.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Plutarch, The Obsolescence of the Oracles, 416 ff./8.C–D, in Plutarch’s Moralia 5, edition with translation by Frank Cole Babbitt, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1962), pp. 384–386. Guy Soury, La démonologie de Plutarque (Paris: Société d’édition “Les belles lettres,” 1942), remains the only study dedicated to the subject of Plutarch and daimons.

    Google Scholar 

  48. See also F. E. Brenk, “An Imperial Heritage: The Religious Spirit of Plutarch of Chaironeia,” ANRW II.36.1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987), pp. 248–349; and Dillon, The Middle Platonists, pp. 216–219.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 360E–F, in Plutarch’s Moralia 5, edition with translation by Frank Cole Babbitt, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 60–61.

    Google Scholar 

  50. E. R. Goodenough provides a basic introduction to the thought of Philo, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, second ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986 reprint [1962]). See also Samuel Sandmel, “Philo Judaeus: An Introduction to the Man, his Writings, and his Significance,” ANRW II.21.1, edited by Wolfgang Haase (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 3–46;

    Google Scholar 

  51. Claude Mondésert, “Philo of Alexandria,” The Cambridge History of Judaism 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 877–900;

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  52. David T. Runia, “How to Read Philo,” Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandria (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), pp. 185–198.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Plato, Timaeus 40A, in Plato with an English Translation 7, edition and translation by Harold North Fowler, W. R. M. Lamb, and R. G. Bury, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 82–85. John Dillon, “Philo’s Doctrine of Angels,” in Two Treatises of Philo of Alexandria, Brown Judaic Studies Series 25, edited by D. Winston and J. Dillon (Chico, CA: Scholar’s Press, 1983), p. 197 [pp. 197–205].

    Google Scholar 

  54. Also, David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden: Brill, 1986).

    Google Scholar 

  55. At least he is designated as such by Franz Cumont, “Les anges du paganisme,” Revue de l’histoire de religions 72 (1915): 168 [159–182], who cites Augustine, De civitate dei 9.19.

    Google Scholar 

  56. C. Evangeliou, “Porphyry’s Criticism of Christianity and the Problem of Augustine’s Platonism,” Dionysius 13 (1989): 51–70.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), p. 115.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul (State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), p. 130 and passim; Remes, Neoplatonism, pp. 115– 118, 170–173. 100. Iamblichus, Les Mystères d’Égypte 78, edition and French translation by Edouard des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  59. These five dedications to “Zeus Most High” and the “Good” or “Divine Angel” from Stratonicaea are reproduced by A. R. Sheppard, “Pagan Cults of Angels in Roman Asia Minor,” Talanta 12/13 (1980–81): 78 [77–101];

    Google Scholar 

  60. and also by Stephen Mitchell, “The Cult of Theos Hypsistos between Pagans, Jews, and Christians,” Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, edited by Polymnia Athnassiadi and Michael Frede (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 137–138 [pp. 81–148]. Clinton Arnold summarizes the arguments as to their meaning in The Colossian Syncretism, WUNT 2.77 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995), pp. 70–75.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Josephus provides evidence for the substantial Jewish population in western Asia Minor: Jewish Antiquities, 12.147–153, translated by Henry St. John Thackeray, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 76–79. He references a letter from the Seleucid King Antiochus III to Zeuxis governor of Lydia, which discusses the settlement in the area of two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia and Babylonia during the second century bce.

    Google Scholar 

  62. F. Sokolowski, “Sur le culte d’Angelos dans le paganisme grec et romain,” Harvard Theological Review 53 (1960): 225–229; and Sheppard, “Pagan Cults of Angels in Roman Asia Minor.” 78 [77–101].

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. CIL VI.1.142, edited by Bottari, p. 23, provides images of the now lost mural. The thaumaturgic and salvific cult of Sabazios, which first attained prominence around Pergamon in the fourth century bce, spread throughout the Roman Empire as a mystery religion: M. J. Vermaseren and Eugene Lane, Corpus Cultus Iovis Sabazii, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1983–89). Pine cones found on fingers of bronze hands exalted Sabazios as the consort of Cybele the Great Goddess (Corpus Cultus Iovis Sabazii 3), where he replaced the youthful Attis most often encountered as the son and companion of Cybele.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  64. Attis is often characterized as a salvific “dying and rising god,” a construct discredited by Johnathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 99–107 and 125–129. That does not negate Vibia’s expectations of Sabazios’s powers.

    Google Scholar 

  65. PGM III:187–262, with the Michael invocation at 214–217. Text in K. Preisendanz, Papyri magicae graecae: Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, second ed. (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1974), pp. 40–43, with English translation by H. D. Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, including the Demotic Spells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 24. Morton Smith edits and emends the prayer to Michael and dates it, “Pagan Dealings with Jewish Angels,” Studii Clasice 24 (1986): 175–179. Also, Thomas J. Kraus, “Angels in the Magical Papyri, the Classic Example of Michael the Archangel,” Angels, pp. 611–627.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Augustus Audollent, Defixionum tabellae 208 (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1967 reprint [1904]), p. 277,

    Google Scholar 

  67. with a description and translation of the tablet in John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 216.

    Google Scholar 

  68. PGM III:1–164, translated by John Dillon, The Greek Magical Papyri, pp. 18–22. Also, Christopher Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells,” Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, edited by Christopher Faraone and Dirk Obbink (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 3–32.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Loren Stuckenbruck makes this point, “An Angel Refusal of Worship; The Tradition and its Function in the Apocalypse of John,” Society of Biblical Literature 1994 Seminar Papers 33 (Atlanta: Scholars’ Press, 1994), p. 695 [pp. 679–696]; as does Darrell D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity, WUNT 2.109 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1999). Hannah used the controversial term “angel Christology” rather than “angelomorphic Christology” in the belief that some early Christians did think of Christ as an angel (pp. 137–162). Gieschen reviews the distinctions (Angelomorphic Christology, pp. 27–29) as does Carrell (Jesus and the Angels, pp. 98–121).

    Google Scholar 

  70. A point made by A. Legault, “Christophanies et Angelophanies dans les récits évangélique de la Résurrection,” Science et esprit 21 (1969): 443–457.

    Google Scholar 

  71. O. A. Miranda, The Work and Nature of Angels According to the New Testament. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1961, pp. 1–3.

    Google Scholar 

  72. Otta Leppa reviews the long-standing arguments for non-Pauline authorship, The Making of Colossians: A Study on the Formation and Purpose of a Deutero-Pauline Letter, Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 86 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003), pp. 9–53, as does James D. G. Dunn, who also reviews pro-Pauline positions: The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, a Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 35–42. For background and context on the “Colossian error,” see Conflict at Colossae: A Problem in the Interpretation of Early Christianity, edited and translated by Fred O. Francis and Wayne A. Meeks, revised ed. (Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature, 1975); and W. Carr, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai árchai kai hai exousíai” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981), pp. 66–72.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  73. Eduard Schweizer, “Slaves of the Elements and Worshippers of the Angels,” Journal of Biblical Literature 107 (1988): 465 [455–468]. The Qumran texts, e.g., often ambiguously used the term “Holy Ones” (qadōshim) to refer both to angels and the sectarians who become angelic through liturgical participation: Lamberigts, “Le sens de qdwsym dans les textes de Qumrān,” pp. 24–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. G. B. Caird, “The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Canadian Journal of Theology 5 (1959): 47 [44–51].

    Google Scholar 

  75. Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, pp. 249–251; Deborah W. Rooke, “Jesus as Royal Priest; Reflections on the Interpretation of the Melchizedek Tradition in Heb 7,” Biblica 81 (2000): 81–94.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Craig R. Koester, Hebrews, a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible Commentary 36 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 104–109;

    Google Scholar 

  77. Barnabas Lindar, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 37–41.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  78. Carrell (Jesus and the Angels, pp. 53–70) discusses characteristics of scriptural angelophanies as does Gieschen (Angelomorphic Christology, pp. 124– 151). Carrell notes mounted riders within the context of Christophanies, but his observations enlighten as to angelophanies (pp. 204–206; p. 135 for the connection with Daniel). See as well Christopher Rowland, “A Man Clothed in Linen: Daniel 10.6ff and Jewish Angelology,” Journal for the Studey of the New Testament 24 (1985): 99–110; and Carrell’s “Angelomorphic Christology in the Book of Revelation,” Society of Biblical Literature, 1994 Seminar Papers 33 (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1994), pp. 662–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Richard Bauckham, “The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity,” New Testament Studies 27 (1980/81): 322–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  80. Bauckham discusses the terms “lordships” and “glories” in Jude, 2 Peter, edited by Ralph Martin, Word Biblical Commentary 50 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), p. 56; as does Anders Gerdmar, Rethinking the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy, a Historiographical Case Study of Second Peter and Jude (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001), pp. 174–175.

    Google Scholar 

  81. J. Daryl Charles, “Jude’s Use of Pseudepigraphical Source-Material as Part of a Literary Strategy,” New Testament Studies 37 (1991), pp. 130–145; and “The Use of Tradition-Material in the Epistle of Jude,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 4 (1994): 12–13 [1–14].

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Also, S. J. Joubert, “Language, Ideology and the Social Context of the Letter of Jude,” Neotestimentica 24 (1990): 325–349.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Johannes Tromp, The Assumption of Moses, critical edition with commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1993), with a discussion of the recovered fragments from the missing diputation between Michael and Satan (pp. 270–285).

    Google Scholar 

  84. John Muddiman disputes this point as the basis for Satan’s prosecution. He looks instead to Moses’s and Aaron’s rebellion at Meribah (Num. 20.2– 13), for which God denied them entry into the Promised Land: “The Assumption of Moses and the Epistle of Jude,” in Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions, edited by Axel Braupner and Michael Wolter, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 372 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 171–172 [pp. 169–180]. Muddiman also argues against an alternative reconstruction of the lost ending of the Assumption offered by Richard Bauckham, who in Jude, 2 Peter, pp. 65–76, envisions the dispute between Michael and Satan to center on a quarrel over Moses’s burial by Michael and other angels and not Satan’s accusations of sin.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Georges Kiourtzian, Recueil des inscriptions grecques chrétiennes des Cyclades de fin du IIIe au VIIe siècle après J.-C. (Paris: De Boccard, 2000), pp. 247–282. Dresken-Weiland, “Angels in Early Christian Grave Inscriptions,” pp. 663– 664; Cline, Ancient Angels, pp. 78–93.

    Google Scholar 

  86. Dresken-Weiland, “Angels in Early Christian Grave Inscriptions,” p. 664, points to the “Angelics.” Kaaren L. King, What Is Gnosticism (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2003), well illustrates the fallacy of pre-Nicene “heterodoxy” as some broadly understood category. Cline rightly emphasizes the ambiguous nature of these tombstones: Ancient Angels, pp. 78–84.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Marvin Meyer uses the phrase “text of ritual power” in his introductory remarks on amulets, Ancient Christian Magic, edited by Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 13–19. Also, Kraus, “Angels in the Magical Papyri,” Angels, pp. 611–627; Don C. Skemer, Binding Words, Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), pp. 75–124.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Eric Francis Osborn, Justin Martyr (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1973), pp. 31–34; Goodenough, Theology of Justin Martyr ; Barbel, Christos Angelos .

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Copyright information

© 2013 John Charles Arnold

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Arnold, J.C. (2013). Michael, an Ecumenical Archangel. In: The Footprints of Michael the Archangel. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316554_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics