AFRICA [brings] always something new — but much more [does] heretical licence. For to the modern Lutheran Novators, & to most of the Calvinians too, Michael is truly and properly CHRIST the Lord. On this very place Chytraeus: “The great captain Michael,” [he] says, “of equal power, majesty & glory with God the eternal Father, who appears to Joshua [as he is] surveying the situation of the region.” Gaspar Huberinus, published at Wittenberg in the year 1557, says — on the feast of S. Michael — [that] the Michael who appeared to Joshua here, & elsewhere (Genes. 28 and 31, Daniel 10 & 12, in the epistle of Jude, and Apocal. 12), is Christ, & an uncreated Angel. Simon Pauli likewise, in [his] Postil for the feast of S. Michael. Calvin, on this place, fol. 22, says [that] the same [one] is here who was captain to Moses; and [that] the Captain was CHRIST himself, the mediator. “And so,” [he] says, “[he] is promiscuously called an Angel, & is distinguished by the title of the eternal God. Of which thing Paul is for us a fit witness, who expressly testifies [that it] was CHRIST. And Moses himself, in the person of the Mediator, embraced God [as] present. For when, after the calf had been fashioned, God pronounces that he will no longer be the leader of the people, [he] at the same time promises that he will give one out of the Angels — but as it were out of the crowd: which Moses vehemently deprecates. Namely because, the Mediator being removed, [he] could not hope that God would be propitious. [It] was therefore a rare pledge of God’s favor, that the prince & head of the Church, to whom Moses had grown accustomed, was present at hand. And certainly the adoption of God could not be ratified otherwise than through the hand of the Mediator.” And [at] f. 23: “In that [he] makes himself other than God, therein is noted a personal distinction; but the unity of essence is not severed. We have said, with regard to Moses, [that] the name of Iehoua is often ascribed to the presiding Angel — who without doubt was the only-begotten Son of God. Namely because [he] both is true God—
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—God: & yet, in the person of the Mediator, by dispensation, inferior to God.” Beza, on the epistle of Jude, vers. 9, half-timidly: “These same things,” [he] says, “are written [in] Zachariae 3.2. — but in a certain vision, in which not Michael, but Iehoua himself so speaks: unless perchance Michael is that same [one], who [is] also the image of God the Father, & [his] ἀπαύγασμα [apaugasma, “effulgence, radiance”], & by Zacharias is called the Angel of Iehoua — who also is himself Iehoua.” But most audaciously Hugo Brugthonus [Hugh Broughton], on Danielis cap. 8, vers. 16, pag. 29, [says] of Gabriel: “This,” [he] says, “[is] the only created Angel to whom scripture attributes a proper name.” And on cap. 10, pag. 34: “Which may be observed from the legation of this Gabriel: no other created spirit among the Angels has obtained a proper name. For Michael is CHRIST according to the most learned of the Christians — & Iehoua, & the Angel Iehoua, according to the Zohar & very many doctors of the Hebrews.” Again, pag. 58: “This, being admitted, signifies who that Michael is: not a created Angel, but the sole Archangel, captain of the hosts of Iehoua, the Son of God, who counted [it] not robbery to be equal with God.” And in the Latin concentus, p. 152: “Christ shows himself to be one with the Father. For [he] stands for his own people.” Tremellius & Iunius, on Dan. 8, v. 13, say [that] he who is questioned by the Angel, & who [at] v. 16 gives command to Gabriel, is CHRIST; [and on] cap. 10, vers. 13: “Christ [is] called Michael by a composite word — as if thou shouldst say, who is par [equal], or equal to God the mighty himself, just as speaks the Apostle, writing to the Philippians in the second chapter.” And at verse 21, when the Prophet says [that] Michael alone stands by the people of God, they expound [it] to him thus: “Christ alone stands by his Church, & is called your Prince; as elsewhere the Servator of his body, & head of the Church, & — above — the antecessor [forerunner] of the people, 9.25. & 26.” The same men, on chapter 6 of this book, say always [that it] is Christ who appeared here; & again on Ecclesiasticus, cap. 46, not. 1. The same Iunius (controvers. 2, lib. 1, cap. 5, n. 4, pag. 21), when Bellarmine had said, from the epistle of S. Jude, [that] the contention with the Devil over the body of Moses was carried on by an Angel, appended — a new Aristarchus [the proverbial hyper-critic] — this his censure: “namely, as the interpretation of that place commonly obtains. Otherwise [it] can conveniently be taken of the same rebuke, if thou understand Jesus Christ by the appellation of Michael the Archangel: For Michael Archangelus, if thou interpret [it] in Latin, sounds: who is par, or equal, to God — the prince of the Angels.” And when Bellarmine had said (libro 1, de Christo, cap. 5) [that] an Angel [is] never called Iehouah, unless perchance insofar as [he] represents the Lord, the same Iunius denied this very thing in the same place (Num. 5), saying [that it] “can be confirmed neither by authority, nor by any probable reason, nor by example.” But with open pipes (as [they] say) [i.e. at full blast], controu. 3, lib. 1, cap. 9, Num. 11: “The Prince,” [he] says, “of the troops of the Lord, or of the Angels, is the Lord Jesus Christ himself — who also in the history of Joshua is called Iehouah. Michael therefore, as even the etymon of the name shows, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The former is proved [from] Iosuae 5 & 6; the latter from Danielis 12, Iudae, & Apoc. 12.” And [at] num. 13: “S. Michael is indeed called, in the Roman Church, the praepositus [overseer] of paradise, & prince of the celestial militia: but of an Angel we rightly deny [this] to be said. We deny that any Angel whatsoever is set over Paradise; [we deny] the Prince of Iehoua, whether in heaven or on earth, [to be] other than [he] who is Iehouah; we acknowledge Christ the Lord, Iosuae 6.2. That these [titles] are properly said of any other whomsoever, [is] alien from piety.” A middle [course] the chief Lutheran of Görlitz wished to hold — as he indeed styles himself, “Minister
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or Preacher,” Mart. Mollerus. For in part 4 of his postils, in the sermon on the feast of S. Michael, pag. 527, [he] rather often confesses Michael to be only an Angel; yet [he] adds [that] in certain places of scripture [he] is Christ — namely Danielis c. 10 & 12, and likewise Apo. 12.
To this novelty the door was opened by the very parent of the Novators, Luther, when — in tome 4 of the German [works], Wittenberg edition, in the year 1551, f. 5376 [so printed], in a sermon delivered in the year 1544 upon the epistle of the Mass on the feast of S. Michael, from ch. 12 of the Apocalypse — [he] said: “The Prince of this war, whom (John, in the Apocalypse) calls Michael, can be no other than our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For although Michael is otherwise also the name of one Angel (Dan. 10, where [the Prophet] calls him one of the chief Princes), here nevertheless [it] is not a personal name of that kind (as any man is distinguished from another by his own proper name), neither is [it] a creatural name — but the name of the Lord & Creator himself, who alone bears this name. For [he] is called [so] even properly; &, if [it] were rightly interpreted, [it] is nothing else than ‘equal to God’ [Deo aequalis]. This name is [such] as befits none but the Majesty — just as scripture often says: ‘Who [is] as the Lord? who [is] like to the Lord among the sons of God?’ And yet the person of one [alone] is [given] such a name, by which [he] is called ‘equal to God’ — not as Angels & men are also called sons of God, but: ‘A certain one as God’ [Quidam sicut Deus]. So properly sounds the Hebrew Michael: one, singular, who [is] equal to God, or perfect as God — just as scripture also calls him the sole divine image, Coloss. 1: ‘Who is the image of the invisible God’ — that is, altogether equal to God the Father, & yet invisible to us, &c.” [He] subjoined afterwards, concerning Arius, [that] “he denied this prince Michael, saying that he was not the natural Son of God, or not of the same stock [stemma] or essence, of which the Father is.”
Nay, before Luther, [this] was the error of the heretical Bogomils, in Euthymius (Panopliae, p. 2, tit. 23, n. 8): [that] the Word of the Father is Michael, & was made flesh. But [they] narrated these things so ridiculously and fabulously, that [one] is ashamed for them. “They say,” says he [Euthymius], “[that] when men were oppressed by the bitter Dominion of the demons, and were being cruelly destroyed, scarcely a few stood on the Father’s part, & ascended into the order of angels — those, namely, who are recounted in the genealogies of the Gospel according to Matthew & according to Luke. But [that] at length the father at some time perceived that he was being deceived and afflicted with wrong — [he] who, though [he] had bestowed the more excellent part of man, and, in perfecting him, had completed those which are the principal parts, was nevertheless being deprived of the greater number of the race of men; and, taking pity on the soul which he himself had breathed in — which was being afflicted with so wretched a servitude — for its avenging, in the five-thousand-five-hundredth year, [he] belched forth [eructasse] from his heart a word — that is, a Son & God. For [it] is written: ‘My heart hath belched forth [eructavit] a good word.’ And this word & son they contend to be Michael the Archangel: ‘for his name’ (says he) ‘shall be called the Angel of great counsel’; [that he is] called Archangel, because [he] excels all the Angels; and Jesus, because [he] cures every disease and every pain; and Christ, because [he] was anointed in flesh; [that he] came down from the heavens, & flowed in through the right ear of the virgin, [and] put on flesh — which in appearance indeed might seem to consist of matter, & to be like a human body, though in very truth [it] is without matter, and divine. And [that he] went out again through that—
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—that same part through which [he] had entered, the virgin perceiving neither his entry nor [his] exit. [That they] simply [say that he] was found lying in a cave, & wrapped in swaddling-clothes. And [that he] accomplished the dispensation in flesh, and did & taught the things which are contained in the Gospels — [but] in appearance & seeming only was [he] subject to human affections; and, when [he] seemed to be crucified & to die, & to rise again, [he] dissolved the scene, & laid the fable open; and, the person [the actor’s mask] laid down, [he] confounded the deserter [Satan]: & bound [him] with a gross and heavy chain [and] shut [him] in Tartarus, and took away from him the syllable of his name, El, which is angelic, and permitted [him] to be named not Satanael, but Satana. But, the ministry fulfilled on account of which [he] had come, [he says that he] returned to the father, & sat down at his right hand on the throne from which Satanael had been cast out. Then [that he] entered in thither, whence [he] had gone out, & was resolved again into the father — in which father indeed, at the beginning, [he] was enclosed in his womb.
But [it] is pleasing to paint over [fucare] & confirm this new vanity — whether by those very [arguments] which we have seen alleged by them, or by any other jugglings of arguments whatsoever. In the first place, then: Michael signifies Who [is] as God; or, [as] Pantaleo interprets, Captain of the host of God; or — as [we] just now heard Luther saying — A certain one as God. Therefore [he] is the Son of God, Christ the Lord. II. To the same Christ the Lord are most congruent the descriptions which were set out in the foregoing question — namely, to be the Prince of the hosts of the Lord, the Prince of the Israelites, [and] one (& from the frequent scriptural use of the name אחד [eḥad, “one”] [this] can be proved) of the first princes. And [it] is confirmed in three ways. 1. by that very reasoning which closed the previous question. Since God is the prince of the Israelitic people, how should one of the Angels dare to arrogate this title to himself — beyond that one [alone], who said (Isaiae 14, versu 13): In heaven will I ascend: above the stars of God I will exalt my throne; I will be like the most High. 2. Since [he] who appears to Joshua says that he [is] the prince of the hosts of the Lord, [he] can be understood [as] the Prince of the celestial militia — that is, of all the Angels (Luc 2). And who [is] a prince of that kind, besides Christ? 3. In Daniel, cap. 10, vers. 13, we can, with Tremellius & Bruchthonus [Broughton], translate, instead of one, the first — of the first princes. For, as Fonseca also notes (l. 5 Metaphys., cap. 14, quaest. 2), unum [one] is often so taken: Genes. 1, vers. 5, and there was made evening & morning, one day — that is, the first: since immediately [there] is subjoined, [at] versu 8, the second day; vers. 13, the third, &c. [So too] one of the Sabbath, 2. Cor. 16, versu. 2 [so printed; the passage is 1 Cor 16:2] — that is, the first, as [at] Matth. 28, v. 1 our Interpreter renders [it], though in Greek [it] is εἰς μίαν σαββάτων [eis mian sabbatōn, “on day one of the week”]. III. D. Augustinus, hom. 9 on the Apocalypse, explaining those words of cap. 12, Michael & his Angels fought with the Dragon: “By Michael,” [he] says, “understand Christ; & [by] his Angels, holy men.” And so, on this place of Joshua, Procopius: “God,” [he] says, “appeared, furnished in habit with arms.” Let [there] be added the Ambrosian Commentary [on] 1. Thess. 4, & there S. Thomas; nay, even S. Ambrose himself, as [it] seems — since, [in] lib. 5 de fide, ca. 4, to prove that Joshua rightly believed Christ, [he] adduces this passage hither. IV. Often in the Zohar Michael is called cohena rabba [כהנא רבא], that is, the great Priest — as on Genes., lect. 1, fol. 19, colom. 74, versu 30, & fol. 31, colum. 102; [in] lect. לך לך [Lekh lekha, “Get thee out,” the third lection of Genesis], fol. 51, colum. 228. But who, besides Christ the Lord, [is] that great priest? And [at] fol. 34, colum. 133, versu 44, [he] is called אחשק״ב [so printed; an angelic name which Serarius next resolves into aḥash, “great,” + qaʾam, “he that establisheth”]. Now since אחש [aḥash] is great, as [may be] ga-
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-thered from Daniele 3 & the book of Esther, & קאם [qaʾam, Aramaic “to stand, establish, confirm”] is to conserve, establish, give life, make covenant, call, command — who other, besides Christ the Lord, could be called the great conservator, giver of life, [and] establisher of pacts, of vows, and of precepts? I will answer with these little arguments first, [and] then I will show the falsity of the same opinion.