FOUR little reasons above all — that Michael may be believed [to be] Christ the Lord alone, and not any of the created Angels — we have heard proposed in that foregoing question. To these, on account of the τὸ παράδοξον [to paradoxon, “the startling paradox”] of the novelty, [reply] must be made somewhat more accurately.
To the first, then, the consequence is denied. For, first, in that interrogation, who [is] as God?, [there] is clearly understood: No one — as S. Gregorius explains, homil. 34. Is Christ the Lord “no one” — the Homeric οὔτις [outis, “No-man,” Odysseus’s feigned name]? For so we take those [texts] also: Psal. 88, Who [is] as thou, mighty God?; & Psal. 112, Who [is] as the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high?; Exod. 15, Who [is] like to thee among the strong, O Lord? Secondly. If, on account of that interrogation, Christ the Lord were Michael, then by equal reasoning all the other interrogations [just] adduced would be his proper names — whether we take those whole sentences themselves, or in some fashion weave one name out of them. For the former could be done, as [at] Isaiae 8, versu 3: Call his name: Hasten-to-take-away-the-spoils, to-fall-upon-the-prey. The latter — [naming] by the letters or syllables that begin the words — [is] customary among the Jews: as, if from the interrogation of that Psalm 88 [there] were a name, Matth.; from Psal. 112, Micaelhalas; from [chapter] 15 of Exodus, Machabi [the acrostic of Mi kamokha ba-elim YHWH, “Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Lord?”] — of which I spoke in the first proloquium on the Machabees. But that Christ is so named — who ever blurted [it] out, even in a dream? Thirdly. Far more truly is [it] said that a certain Angel is so named, because — by himself, & by all his words & deeds — [he] unceasingly announces the immense nature, wisdom, goodness & power of God; so that all his [words and deeds], as it were, cry out this one thing: Who [is] as God? For this reason too [he] is said by some to be so hostile to idolatry, that on that account [he] disputed with Satan over the body of Moses (Iudae epist., versu 9). So indeed the holy man also says (Psal. 34): All my bones shall say: Lord, who [is] like to thee? — where Divus Augustinus, [in his] first enarration, [is] most beautiful. For if one of the Kings of the Egyptians was called Doso [“I-shall-give”], because to those asking something [he] often would answer δώσω [dōsō, “I will give”] — and gave nothing; and [if], in Tacitus, 1 of the Annals, Lucillius the Centurion was called Cedo alteram [“Fetch-me-another”], because, when [he] chastised the soldiers with a vine-rod, [he] kept using this [phrase] again and again — why should not some one of the Angels be able to be called Michael, because [he] perpetually proclaims abroad the divine power and immensity with these, as it were, words? So also [he] who, not so long ago, at Rome, was called Deo gratias [“Thanks-be-to-God”]; just as perhaps of old [others were] endowed with the same & similar names. But the interpretation of Pantaleo & of Luther — who have removed the interrogation — departs from the judgment of all others, & from the usage of the Hebrews, with whom this particle מי [mi, “who?”]—
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particle is interrogative — unless perchance a relative follow, so that [it] can be translated is qui [“he who”]. Whence — because the same Hebrews sometimes understand [i.e. supply] the relative — [it] ought now rather to be translated He, who is as God, as on Danielis cap. 10, versu 13, Tremellius & Iunius say; & then [it] seems the more to be confirmed [that] Christ the Lord is truly Michael. For he is the image of God (2. Cor. 4.4., Coloss. 1.15, Heb. 13 [so printed; the text meant is Heb. 1:3]); he [is] equal to God (Phi. 2. v. 6). But not surely is that hence necessarily inferred. For any man whatever is also the image & glory of God (1. Cor. 11. 7); & the particle sicut [“as”] does not necessarily demand omnimodal identity, but only some similarity — as Matth. 5. vers. 48: Be you perfect, as [sicut] also your heavenly Father is perfect; Luc 6. vers. 36: Be merciful, as also your father is merciful. See Damascenus, lib. 3. cap. 26; D. Thomas, 3 [part], quaest. 2. a. 6. ad 1. But to me [it] seems that Pantaleo consulted some petty Hebrew [Hebraeolum] about this word, and [that] that man retailed to him that interpretation of his — because in Hebrew nachah is to lead. But in the Hebrew text [the name] is never written with ה [he] but always with כ [kaf]. Fifthly. Other names of Angels too — Raphael, Gabriel — can be accommodated to Christ the Lord: because he is the healing God, & the man God, or the strength of God; or, as the heretic cited on Daniel will have [it] (cap. 8. fol. 30), the man of the mighty God — which is the notion of those names, as I showed [on] Tob. 3. q. 12. And indeed [they] can signify Christ so much the better, the less they have of the interrogative form. Yet who contends that Christ the Lord — to say nothing now of Raphael — is Gabriel? Rightly, [in] hom. 1 super missus est, S. Bernardus, when [he] explains why Gabriel was set over the announcing of the incarnation: “Nor does the name,” [he] says, “disagree with the messenger. For whom did [it] better befit to announce Christ, the virtue [power] of God, than him whom a like name honors? For what else is fortitude, than virtue? Nor does [it] seem unbecoming or incongruous that the Lord and the messenger be reckoned by a common word: since, [though] the appellation in both [is] alike, the cause of the appellation is nevertheless not alike in both. For otherwise is Christ called the fortitude, or virtue, of God — otherwise the angel. For the angel [is so called] only nuncupatively [in name]; but Christ substantively as well. Christ both is called & is the virtue of God — [he] who, coming [as] a stronger [man] upon the strong armed [man] who was wont to keep his court in peace, vanquished him with his own arm, & so mightily wrested from him the vessels of [his] captivity. But the Angel is called the fortitude of God either because [he] merited the prerogative of an office of this kind, whereby [he] should announce the advent of that same virtue; or because [he] was to comfort the virgin — timid by nature, simple, bashful — lest [she] take fright at the novelty of the miracle.” I should prefer, however, to explain that name — Michael, namely — by the interrogation: because, as I have said, this [is] more consonant with the Hebrew custom, & because so [have] all the ancients, & among them S. Hieronymus on Dan. 8. From the very name of Michael, therefore — whether we interpret it by the interrogation, with all Christians & Jews, or without the interrogation, as [has] hitherto been shown — [it] can in no way be established that he is truly Christ.
To the second. In two ways, I say, [may] someone be a Prince. One is, that [he] be such most absolutely — depending on no one at all, neither on earth nor in heaven. Otherwise: that [he] be indeed a Prince, but depending on an-
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-other. In the former way, God alone indeed is Prince, King & Lord; but not on that account is no other [besides him] Prince, King & Lord; nor, as often as any of these [titles] occurs in the scriptures, is God alone straightway to be understood. Nay rather, in the latter way [there] are several — and they of various degrees. For some depend on God alone; others on other creatures also. Wherefore Origines (homil. 11 on Numbers) will have Christ called King of Kings, Lord of them that lord it, because Angels are the Kings & Lords of those whom [they] rule. But I accomplish nothing, unless, the three adjoined confirmations [being dealt with] too, they plainly collapse. I give [my] answer. To the first I say [that] this text shows him who appears to be a Prince indeed — but below God, & in the latter way indicated above: because [he] does not say — what, if [he] had been God, [he] could certainly have said — I am the King of the whole world; I am the Prince of heaven & earth; I am the Prince of all nations; or, absolutely, I am the Prince of my people: but, with an indication of a superior to whom he himself was subject, of the Lord, [he] says — I am the Prince of the host of the Lord — that is, of that people, of that multitude and host, which the Lord chose to himself out of the whole globe of the lands, [and] over which [he] deigned to set me. And [it] is confirmed, 1., from the Chaldee Thargum — which, since [it] saw that this inferior principate was perspicuously signified in the Hebrew, expounded: I am an Angel sent from before the face of God — as was said above, q. 40. [It] is confirmed, 2., [by him] who — otherwise than [in] v. 14 — in the 70 [the Septuagint], v. 15, is called ἀρχιστράτηγος κυρίου [archistratēgos kyriou, “commander-in-chief of the Lord”] — that is, archistrategus, or commander [imperator] of the Lord: not that [he] commands the Lord (far be it!), but because [he] is under him, has been sent by him, [and] directs & protects his host and people. But before the incarnation, in what way could the second person of the Trinity be under God the supreme Commander? In what respect was the Son less than the Father? [It] is confirmed, 3., because Dan. c. 10. v. 13 clearly indicates [that] the first princes were several. Therefore by the name of those princes God is not to be understood — who is Prince & King one [alone]: as even from Homer the Philosopher asserted [it], Metaphys. 12: οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη, εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω [ouk agathon polykoiraniē, heis koiranos estō] — The lordship of many [is] not a good thing: let [there] be one sole King. And of these princes, one is called S. Michael — not of any other kind of Princes. To the second confirmation. By the host of the Lord I confess [that] the celestial militia can be understood: but not [it] alone — nay, [there can] also [be understood] this people of God in the world, Exod. 7. v. 4, c. 12. v. 41: The same day all the host of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. And on Dan. c. 8, Brougthonus himself, fol. 30: “The Jews,” [he] says, “are named the host of heaven, the stars & the host, & the holy people” — in Daniel himself, namely. But be [it] so: let us take the celestial militia — do we then judge ill that its Prince (in the manner expounded just now at the second argument) is Michael? Is [he] not, by the ancients — & by the moderns [too], who know nothing of, & detest, the newfangled inventions of our Novators — over and over called the Captain of the Angelic troops? by S. Basilius, hom. de Angelis; by Pantaleo, in the place cited; by Sophronius in [his] Encomium; by the Menologium of the Greeks, on the 6th day of September; by Laurentius Iustinianus, serm. de S. Michaele; & by others. Does not Apoc. c. 12 accord — where his Angels are related to do battle with the Angels of the dragon? Does not Michael himself so name himself, in Nicephorus l. 8. c. 4? Does not the Church too so name him on his feast, in the hymn Tibi Christe splendor, &c.? I think, however, that [it is] of the ter-
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-restrial militia & host of God [that] he here affirms himself Prince of the host of the Lord. First, because [he] wished to console the Leader of that same terrestrial host, and indeed the whole host, & to confirm and raise [them] up at the first entrance of the Chananaean wars — showing that he would be present, & that all that people was to him for heart and for care. Secondly, because this [has] seemed [good] to several of the ancients. Thirdly, because [he] is commended by this name also [in] Danielis 10, when of him [it] is said by Daniel, your Prince — so that [it] may clearly appear [that] his principate is celebrated insofar as [he] presides over men, not over the heaven-dwellers. Fourthly, because Dionysius Areopagita (in [his] book of the celestial Hierarchy, chapter nine) teaches [that] he [is] the prince of the old synagogue; [so too] the Author of the imperfect work, hom. 48; D. Hierony. on Dan. c. 10; S. Gregorius, lib. 17. Mor. c. 8; Theod. on Coloss. 1; Haymo, Ephes. 6; D. Thomas on Is. 10, & 4. sentent. dist. 43. q. 4. a. 3. ad 2., & [on] 1. Thess. 4; Pantaleo, de S. Michaele, conc. 1. & most of all orat. 2; Pachymeres, on that 9th chapter of Dionysius, fol. 68, says [that Michael] was given by God ἐφ’ ἡγεμόνα τοῦ τοιούτου λαοῦ [eph’ hēgemona tou toioutou laou, “to be leader of such a people”]; & Maximus, in the same place, fo. 46: Ἰουδαῖοι ἰδικὸν ἄγγελον εἶχον τὸν Μιχαήλ [Ioudaioi idikon angelon eichon ton Michaēl, “the Jews had Michael as their own particular angel”]; Rabanus, l. 1. de cruce, p. 7. & in declaratione p. 2. l. 2. fig. 3; Caesarius, libro octavo, c. 45. To the third confirmation I likewise say two [things]. First. [That the point] is not rightly inferred: “Vnus [one] sometimes signifies the first; therefore here [too].” For not always — as, on the title of the first Psalm, says D. August. Secondly. Suppose [it] does signify the first. S. Michael will be first — yet not simply (in the manner of him who, Apoc. 1. v. 8, says, I am α & ω, the beginning & the end; v. 17, I am the first & the last) — but first from among the first princes. But [there] are not several first Princes in the divinity — but one only, thrice-hypostatic. In the Angels, however, [there] are many, as from Eph. 1. & Col. 1. [is] perspicuous. And [he] who is the first of certain [beings] ought to be of the same kind with them. No man whatever is first among the first Lions; none of the first men is first of the Angels; but among the first men some [man] is first; among the first Angels, some [Angel is] first of the Angels — the holy Michael, namely. And this latter [point] mightily supports, by [its] weight, that opinion of which [more] afterwards — namely, [that] S. Michael is the first of the blessed Angels & supreme of all.
To the third argument. First: [it] is settled that the author of that commentary on the Apocalypse is not S. August. Secondly: Michael is Christ by representation, not in person & in very deed, as [was said] above, q. 4[0]; and so [is] l. 5. de fide, c. 4 to be taken. And therefore the Index of matters of S. Aug., when [it] points out that passage, says: Michael & his Angels signify Christ & holy men. And this Rupertus (on Iosue, c. 18, toward the end) hands down; & the Zohar, when [it] says: As often as Michael occurs, the Majesty of God is signified — f. 12. colum. 46, at the bottom. The Ambrosian Commentary, too, is pseudepigraphous — whose opinion D. Thomas ([on] 1. Th. 4) only set down, & straightway subjoined the other.
To the fourth. First. Because the authority of priests was once the greatest, thence [it] came about that some Princes were called sacerdotes [priests] — as 2. Reg. 8. v. 18: the sons of David were sacerdotes. For [it] is manifest that in the tribe of Iuda, from which those sons had sprung, Moses spoke nothing of the priesthood (Heb. 7. v. 14). And so Michael is sacerdos magnus [a great priest] — that is, a great Prince, as Daniel said above. Se-
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-condly. Suppose that Chaldee word Cohena [כהנא, kahana, “priest”] does signify a priest. But priest is twofold: one properly [so] called; the other metaphorically — in the manner in which all Christians are called priests, & [are said] to offer hosts, namely prayers & other good works of various kinds: 1. Pet. 2. v. 9; Apoc. 1.6. [printed “16.”], c. 5.10., c. 20.6.; Rom. 12.1., c. 15.16. “[He] who,” says Origenes (hom. 5. in Num.), “assists at the altar, discharges the office of a priest. The office of a priest is to pray for the sins of the people.” See the same, hom. 11, in the same place; & Tob. 3. q. 9. And thus truly S. Michael is a great Priest — [he] who assiduously offers prayers for us. Origenes, hom. 14. on Numbers: “Busy thyself,” [he] says, “how thou mayest be taken up into the fellowship of Michael the Archangel, who always offers the prayers of the saints to GOD.” “What” — says the Zohar cited before — “Aaron does on earth, this Michael does in the heavens.” And [that] the prayers of Angels [are] of this kind universally, I showed [on] Tobiae 3. q. 4. & the following, & [it] is evident [from] Apocal. 8. v. 3. & 4. What, that we read [that] Angels have sometimes discharged the true offices of the old priests? For, first, S. Michael himself consecrated his own temple on Garganus [Monte Gargano]. Whence Baptista [Mantuanus], in his fasti:
——Michael, most celebrated among the throngs of the Heaven-dwellers, made himself a temple on the high Summit of Garganus, and, [when] made, dedicated [it].
Secondly. S. Angels — before the eyes of very many onlookers — inaugurated & anointed S. Amphilochius [as] Bishop: in Nicephor. li. 11. c. 20. Thirdly. The same [Angels] have sometimes offered the sacred Eucharist to certain pious [persons] — as in the Pratum of Sophronius, in Caesarius, [and in] Marulus l. 4. c. ult., & others, [it] is to be seen; even in Scotus, l. 4. d. 5. q. 1. — where, however, [he] will have them to be only extraordinary ministers of the sacred things, as against Caietanus notes Dominicus Soto, in the same place. And great likewise is [he as] conservator, giver of life, [and] establisher of pacts, of vows, and of precepts — because [he] is a great prince & priest: but, as I have always said, depending on God. And indeed the Judges — are [they] not often called Salvatores [saviours] in the book of Judges? The other [point], which had been proposed toward the end of question 42, [it] is pleasing to defer into the following question.