THE FIRST place, deservedly, against these heretics — who have begun to fashion a veritable apotheosis of S. Michael — let scripture hold: which not only never testifies that he is God, but rather [testifies him] to be a creature subject to God the creator, as we saw above, q. 43. II. Nevertheless, let [this] be an argument: the perpetual, constant, & consenting judgment of the whole Church, ancient & modern, Eastern & Western, Southern & Northern — which is perspicuous partly from the things to be said, partly from the opinion of the adversaries themselves, since [they] profess that [it] is their endeavor to root out the opinions of S. Michael received hitherto, & engraved on the minds of all. III. In the Councils, outside the divine station, S. Michael is always placed back in the position, number & names of the Angels properly so called; and [he] is always mightily distinguished from Christ the Lord in words, & authority, and position. See the Mainz [Moguntinum]—
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Council, cited by me [at] Tob. 12. quaest. 12; & on the same matter the epistle 9 of Pope Zacharias, which among the epistles of S. Bonifacius is [numbered] 144 — to which [is] to be joined [the one] which in the same book is 135. IV. All the Fathers — as many as have either expounded in books or sermons the nature of the Angels, or [their] orders, or [have] at least named [them], & by name have named Michael — have always aggregated him to these, as one out of them. As many, likewise, as have written on Daniel & the Apocalypse; as many doctors as have ever commented on the Master of the sentences: so [they] have judged, so [they] have handed down — Dionysius Areopagita in the celestial Hierarchy; S. Gregorius, hom. 3.45 [so printed; i.e. hom. 34, the homily on the nine orders]; Basilius, hom. de Angelis; Sophronius, in Archangelum; Chrysostomus; Damascenus; Rabanus, l. 1. de cruce, f. 7 — where of S. Michael thus: But Michael, prince & captain of them that dwell on high, all the aethers together commemorate Thee by the virtue of God, both to rule and to cover [At Michael princeps habitantum dux & in alto, Te memorat virtute Dei simul aethera cuncta, Et regere & tegere]; Divus Hieronymus; & the rest. For who could enumerate [them] all? V. To Christ Jesus, as to true God, sacrifice is made by the Church. But to S. Michael no one ever offered a mass; & when, in his honor, mass is offered to God himself, only his prayers & suffrages are sought — as in his feast among the Latins, & in the daily Liturgy among the Aethiopians, & the Arabic [Liturgy] of saint Basil, which now exist in Latin. VI. [misprinted “XI.” in the original] In the litanies, S. Michael is always placed after Christ the Lord & the Blessed Virgin; & while to Him [it] is said, Miserere nobis [“Have mercy on us”], to him [it] is said, ora pro nobis [“pray for us”]. How much difference [there] is between these modes of praying, S. Cyrillus demonstrates, lib. 8. Thesauri, cap. 2; Orig., hom. 14. in Num. Whence even the highest and most profuse Encomiast of the same S. Michael, Pantaleon (orat. de miraculis): “Thee,” [he] says, “(O Michael) the whole assembly of Christians — after God & his undefiled mother — we have [as our] greatest Patron & defender of [our] salvation.” And yet this recitation of the angelic names God confirmed even by a miracle, in [Gregory of] Tours, lib. de gloria Confess., c. 1. And in the second vespers of S. Michael, the Church says the same [thing in the] antiphon which receives the Marian ode [the Magnificat] at front and at back: Most glorious Prince, Michael Archangel, be mindful of us: here & everywhere always entreat the Son of God for us. VII. In the office of the Angels — in the whole Matutinum, in the hymns of vespers, the responsories, & other [pieces] of that kind — the same reasoning holds; also in that which we call the Confiteor, & in the prayers for the dying & for the dead. VIII. But a temple — according to the doctrine of S. Aug., l. 1. contra Maximum, c. 11, & l. 2. c. 11., l. 3. c. 3. & 21 — who ever built [one] to S. Michael? who dedicated [one]? Unless perchance — as at times some have spoken — thou understand [it as] built & dedicated to God indeed, but for his [Michael’s] honor & memory: as, l. 20. contra Faustum, c. 21, S. August. approves. For thus [there] are very many & most noble temples — both of other saints, and of S. Michael — ancient & recent, in the East & in the West. And in these, neither from the beginning, nor now, neither in the appointed ceremonies nor in the prayers, was S. Michael ever worshipped & invoked by Catholics otherwise than [as] the servant & angel of God & Christ. Such were the two temples built by Constantine the Great near Constantinople, where [was] that old Sosthenium of the Argonauts — of which Somozenus [Sozomen], l. 2. c. 2; Nicep., l. 7. c. 50. & lib. 8. c. 4; Cedrenus, in Basilio. Such
(col. 650 — right column; printed “657”)
the Conense, or Colossense [the church of the Michael-miracle at Chonae/Colossae] — of which the Emperor Emmanuel, in constit. de feriis, in Balsomon [Balsamon], in the Nomocanon of Photius, tit. 7; the Menologium of the Greeks, 8 idus Septembris; Nicetas Coniates, l. 3. hist., pap. 208; Lipomanus, tom. 6. Such the ἀχειροποίητον [acheiropoiēton, “(image) not made by hands”], of which, in the Cantacuzeni, c. 93, Pontanus. Such [the church] which S. Theod[ore] the Archimandrite, Siceonius [of Sykeon], built — in Surius, to. 2. p. 740, from his disciple Georgius. Such the Bithynian [one], of which in the acts of S. Entonomus [so printed; i.e. S. Autonomus] in Surius, tom. 5. Such also [the] three Roman [temples] — namely on the summit of the mole of Hadrian [Castel Sant’Angelo], in the forum Piscarium, & at the Vatican: of which, [under] the 8th day of May, Baronius in the Martyrologium. Such the temples of S. Michael substituted in place of the pagan Mars — which D. Braunius collects, tom. 5. Vrbium, a good many. Such also those six which the Emperor Justinian built up, as Procopius narrates, li. 1, in the book on this man’s buildings. And the Law mentions [one], quoniam, [in the] Codex de SS. Ecclesiis. Such, in S. Gregor., several: l. 2. epist. 1., l. 7. epist. 15., l. 8. ep. 12., & elsewhere. Such also today, in Italy: the Garganium, the Bononiense, & the Ticinense — in Sigonius, lib. 15. de Occidentali Imperio, & M. Velserus, l. 4. Boicorum. In Germany: the Luneburgense; the Bonnense Eifflianum; the Monachiense [Munich]; the Viennense; the Bambergense — in Baronius, tom. 6, & in l. 15 [of the life] of Otho Bishop of Bamberg, c. 9, [and] l. 4. c. ult.; the Gudingspergense — in Caesarius, l. 8. cap. 46, & another in the same [author], [l.] 5. c. 13; likewise the Fuldense; & others which S. Bonifacius built at Amaeneburg & at Ordorff, as is in his life, l. 3. Moguntiacorum, p. 351. & 477. In Belgium: the Lovaniense, in Molanus; the Brucellense, built hard by S. Gundula [St Gudula’s, Brussels]. In Gaul: the Sambriocanense. In Egypt: the Alexandrinum, of which Io. Comi, in Baronius, tom. 8, in the appendix. In Poland: that [church] where S. Stanislaus was cut down; & elsewhere, six hundred others. IX. Equal [is] the reasoning concerning very many altars & chapels, in other cities, temples, & citadels. X. Equal the reasoning concerning coenobies [monasteries], Colleges, whatsoever houses, & places — such as, along with the temples already named, several: for example the Bambergense [printed “Banbergense”], the Ordorffense, the Moguntinum, the Carthusian monastery, & — in Paulus Melissus, [in his] Palatine origins, c. 8. pag. 59 — the S. Mons, der heilig Berg [German, in black-letter in the original: “the holy Mountain,” the Heiligenberg by Heidelberg]; & other like [places]. XI. Equal also the reasoning concerning the feasts — by which no one ever persuaded himself that S. Michael is worshipped as God & Christ, but [only] as one — of His most holy ministers, friends, & princes only. That this is done every single month among the Aethiopians, Damianus a Goes reports; so [it is] in his Apparition, on the 8th day of May; in the dedication of his temple, on the 5th day among the Greeks, [and] on the 29th of September among [printed “epud”] the Latins — of which also the capitula of the Kings of the Franks, li. 2. c. 35; the Council of Mainz, cap. 36; & Honorius Augustodunensis, in the book which is entitled Gemma animae. Whence also Drepanius Florus:
Bright shine the sublime feast[-glories] of the Angelic day, [the day] that shall bring blessed gifts to the pious soul. For this day too Michael, nursling of the celestial court, consecrates for us with [his] conspicuous mouth.
And the Council of Arras [Atrebatense], in the year 1584: “For gratitude’s sake we admonish all & each subject to us, that with a certain special devotion [they] venerate the Angels; & that [they] keep their feasts with pious works, prayers, & other exercises of religion — namely the first of March, on which is celebrated the feast—
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—[the feast] of the Angel guardians of our souls; & the eighteenth of the same March, on which is honored the memory of Gabriel, the paranymph [bridal-herald] of our redemption; & the eighth of May, on which the Apparition of S. Michael is solemnized; & the dedication of Saint Michael, which is celebrated [on] the penultimate [day] of September. And since [the faithful] so observe that day of S. Michael [in] the month of September, that from all servile work — as on the highest feast of the Nativity, [and] of All Saints — they abstain: that so they may conciliate to themselves the benevolence of that same S. Michael, & of all the rest of the holy Spirits, & under their protection may the better work out their own salvation, & may avail unto the honor of the divine majesty, before which [those Spirits] are believed to stand perpetually.” Certainly, when the Emperor Otho was journeying to Rome, [that] he tarried a while at Augusta [Augsburg] in order to keep the feast of S. Michael, Regino narrates at the end of his work.
XII. What [of the fact] that so many, & so religiously, have gone on pilgrimage hitherto to [the shrines of] Michael, whether in Italy or in Gaul? Is their mind another [than reverence]? [Is there] another opinion concerning S. Michael? And among these [pilgrims] that great Emperor Otho — who, as Peter Damian is witness in the life of S. Romuald, proceeded thither with bare feet — [to the place] where, as Lucan sang [in] bk. 5:
XIII. So many hitherto, & so celebrated & manifest, have been the apparitions of S. Michael, & yet in them he never signified, by even the least indication, [that] he was Christ, but rather [signified himself to be] his messenger & servant; & demanded for himself not that highest worship [latria] which is owed to the Lord, but that lesser [worship] which is owed to the servants of the Lord, & which is therefore called δουλικός [doulikos, “of servants,” i.e. dulia]. For so [he] did around the year of the Lord 536 — or rather 493 — as both in the Martyrology, & in the Annals (tome 6), Baronius notes, in the Gargan apparition; around the year 709 (in Sigebert; Guaguinus, bk. 3 cap. 4); in the Abrincan or Sambriocan [apparition] around the times of Constantine the Great, of which Molanus [notes] in the Martyrology on the 16th day of September; in the Byzantine [apparition], & again another, in the time of Michael the Emperor & Theodora his mother, in Pantaleon[‘s] oration on the miracles of S. Michael; around the second century of the Lord, in Metaphrastes (on the 5th day of September), [and in] Nicetas Coniates, [in the apparition] at Colossae; & in that which [appeared] to Constantine the Great, & afterward to Probianus the Physician — doubting, at great peril of his salvation, concerning the power & efficacy of the cross — in Nicephorus (bk. 7 c. 50); [and in the apparition] which [appeared] to S. Wilfrid, gravely ill & sojourning away from his fatherland, in Venerable Bede (bk.—). They make little of [these]. For what great [thing] would men make, who make nothing great? Is their authority in denying greater than [that] of so many authors — of so many living in those ages, & so weighty; of so many of the succeeding ages thereafter — in affirming? In S. Ephrem (oration on the 40 Martyrs, tome 3, fol. 235): “Lest the enemy trouble the Martyrs of Christ, did not Angels guard the space of the lake? — here indeed Gabriel, there Michael; & from on high, Christ the overseer of all.”
XIV. [There] stands, in [the acts] of S. Procopius — who was once called Nicias — a history, [an] outstanding miracle, because he [was] greatly kindled toward the Christian religion. For when the most ample Leader [Dux] was having a golden cross made at Scythopolis, on it — divinely, without the goldsmith’s work & knowledge — three names were engraved: Emmanuel, Michael, Gabriel; but so that Emmanuel held the highest place, [and] the lower [place] — which the transverse part of the outstretched arms has — [held] Michael & Gabriel. Was not, then, by that very [arrangement], Christ the Lord clearly distinguished from those two — & indeed as the supreme from the inferiors? See Surius, & (bk. 2 de cruce cap. 13) our Gretser.
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XV. The very name of Angel or Archangel, which is precisely given to S. Michael — does [it] not signify him to be properly an Angel, & not God? For since “Angel” properly signifies a messenger & letter-carrier, is [it] rightly attributed to God? or to Christ the Lord, except by reason of [his] humanity? & indeed [only] with those circumstances added, whence [it] may be gathered that it treats of him according to that inferior nature? And although God is Lord & Prince of all creatures, yet that word itself — when [it] enters into composition [with] τῆς ἀρχῆς [tēs archēs], that is, the word Principality — denotes almost only him who is prince of others of the same kind, both in good & in evil [things]: as Architect, archiater [chief physician], archimandrite, architypographer [chief printer], Archilestes [chief bandit], archpirate. But Christ, neither as [he is] God, nor as [he is] man, is of the same kind with the nature of the Angels.
XVI. Nay, the very name of Michael has refused so great an excellence, & so great a weight of dignity. For if [it] were an appellation of God or of Christ, either no one, or certainly very few, would take [it] — as was said of [the name] Jesus (bk. 1 cap. 2 quaest. 18). But both in the Old & in the New Testament, [there] are very many Michaels in places everywhere: Numbers 13, verse 13; 1 Paralip. [Chronicles] 5:13 & 14, cap. 6:40, cap. 7:3, cap. 8:16 & 34, cap. 8:16 & 34 [so repeated in the original], cap. 12 verse 20, cap. 27:18; 2 Paralipom. 21:2; Exod. 8:8 [so printed — probably a slip for Esdr. (Ezra) 8:8, where a “Michael” occurs]. Among the Orientals, how many [are] Emperors, Patriarchs, [and] others [of] this name? Among us, how many men of all ranks — even Novators [innovators]? Nay, so common [vulgare] is this name that now — which I do not praise — [it] is said by some, out of contempt, of an illiterate [man] & one unskilled in the Latin tongue: es ist ein Deutscher Michel [German: “he is a German Michel”], or ein einfältiger Michel [“a simpleton Michel”]. Altogether, then, [it is] a new & unheard-of fabrication about Michael’s divinity.
XVII. S. Michael’s images & statues, which are everywhere — do they show Christ? or not rather an Angel — [one] who [is] subject to Christ the Lord, who receives from him, & from his cross, the power of crushing the demon? who weighs out the deserts of souls, [as] the balance-holder [libripens] of the supreme leader? And yet from these images [there] was not lacking—
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—[there] was not lacking [an image] which, by a great miracle, poured forth oil from itself for the cure of all diseases, as the cited Pantaleon narrates in [his] oration on the miracles of Saint Michael. Again. [There] still exist Imperial images, in which Michael is reckoned far below CHRIST the Lord, only among the Angelic minds — as [in] that Henrician panel (of which I spoke, Tob. 12 q. 14), & that most noble Utrecht [Traiectensis] cross, adorned with Greek characters & images (of which our Gretser, Tome 3 de cruce bk. 4, pag. 540). XVIII. Certain coins [nomismata] also declare Michael’s outstanding excellence — but so that they attribute to him nothing at all of divinity. These are called Angelici, vulgarly Angelotti; concerning which — as concerning the “tortoises” [shields] of the Lacedaemonians, which [I will] touch below (c. last, q. 16) — the Greeks were once wont [to say] against the Judges, [that they] let themselves be corrupted by gold; [and] the English [are wont] jestingly to say: VVestmonastery, where the court & tribunal is; [and] “the Angels work miracles.” And [images] of this kind seem to have existed even in more ancient ages, [seeing that] in the Cassinese Chronicle [certain persons] are called Michalati (bk. 3 c. 57; bk. 4 c. 17) — although, from Michael the Emperor of Constantinople (whether he was the son of Theophilus & Theodora, or someone else), certain [others] are also called Michaelitae, as William of Tyre notes (bk. 11 c. 11), who mentions them again afterward (bk. — c. 15); [and] cited a little before [is] Gretser (Tome 3 de cruce bk. 1 c. 27). And to this — or to the above argument — pertains also that Imperial flammeolum [pennant], or standard, which is named from the image of S. Michael (in Curopalates, p. 93) Archistrategus, as the same Gretser notes in the notes of the second Tome (p. 610). XIX. What of [him] who was wont to fast whole 40 days in honor of S. Michael — Saint Francis: did he perhaps reckon him CHRIST? By no means. But he held him only for an Angel, as [it] is to be seen in the writers of the sacred [stigmata] which he received in that fast in the year of the Lord 1224 — D. Bonaventure (cap. 13), D. Antoninus (part 3, Chron. tit. 24, cap. 7). XX. Those who believe the most flourishing kingdom of the Gauls [to be] under the tutelage of S. Michael — do they not by that very mode understand [it] in the way that Daniel (cap. 10) sets the kingdoms of the Persians & Greeks under the guard of certain angels? [in] which [way] Catholics place cities, places, [and] men under the patronage of the heaven-dwellers? So altogether, as [it] is permitted to read in Io. Stephanus Durantus (bk. 2 de Ecclesiae Ritibus cap. 31). XXI. [There] is in Gaul a military Order of S. Michael, which Louis the Eleventh instituted — as, in the same place, Durantus mentions [it], [and] Guaguinus (bk. 10), Genebrardus (in the year of the Lord 1496), & our Azor (Tom. 1 Institutionum Moralium bk. 13 cap. 6, at the end). Has, then, any knight of this Order thought S. Michael [to be] CHRIST? Of all [of them], no one at all. XXII. The same [is the view] not only of all Theologians, but also of the jurisconsults — in Justinian, Novella the eighth, tit. 3 — where he who swears, first indeed swears by God, & Jesus Christ, [and] the Holy Spirit; then by the B. Virgin; third & last by the holy Archangels Michael & Gabriel. Whence also [it] is understood who [those] most reverend Archangels are that are named in canon 1, Quoniam, [in the] Codex de sacrosanctis Ecclesiis; & in Balsamon, on the 9th canon, tit. 7. XXIII. The same [is] also [the view] — whatever, as [in] the foregoing
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question [it] seemed, Broughton fabricates — [the same] is the opinion of all the Jews, & indeed in that very [book] which he praised as the supporter of this novelty, the book Zohar. For often [Michael is] as [it were] a pure pure Angel, & as [it were] the sharer of the same nature & companion to Gabriel & Raphael; sometimes [he] is also joined to Uriel — as f. 12 colum. 46, where the particle את [et, the accusative-marker] in the first [chapter] of Genesis is discussed, & the mystic chariots are constructed (fol. 30 colum. 120, fol. 31, & elsewhere). See, if [you] like, what [things] are handed down in the Cabala concerning the 4 [living creatures], or the wheels, or the gems; & what [things] are gathered by them from Canticles [Song of Songs] 3, verse 9, concerning argeman [ארגמן, “purple”]. For to them it [argaman] is: א Uriel, ר Raphael, ג Gabriel, מ Michael, נ Nuriel [the letters of ארגמן, read as an acronym for the five angels]. And since the Thargum is of the highest authority among all Jews, is not in this [Targum] he himself most clearly placed below God, & collocated in the nation & tribe of the other Angels (Cantic. 8, verse 9)? For there too [he] says [that] he wishes to protect Israel with them, & to implore the divine mercy for it. XXIV. What of the prince & Phylarch of the Saracens? He — in Theodore Lector (Collectanea bk. 2) & Nicephorus (bk. 14 cap. 35) — when he had resolved to embrace the Christian faith & baptism, was solicited by Severus the Monophysite heretic to believe Christ the Lord [to be] of only one, [the] divine, nature, & to be initiated by baptism by the men of his faction. But he, by a clever device, said [that] letters had been brought to him about the death of S. Michael the Archangel. But those [Monophysite] envoys said [that] it could not be [that] an Angel should die. But he — reasoning most brilliantly from S. Michael the inferior to the superior [namely] Christ & God, & establishing a great distinction between them — said: “How, if Christ has not two natures, did God endure the bare cross, since not even an Angel can suffer anything, or die?” XXV. The same is the opinion of all the other heretics of our time, as [it] is to be seen in their Postils — but especially in the recent Praxis of the Gospels of Martin Moller (part 4, pag. 527 & following) — although [he] ineptly concedes Michael to be not only an Angel, but (as I was saying above, quaest. 42) in certain places Christ himself; whence [he cites] Daniel 10 & 12, [and] Apocalypse 12. [It] is also [the view] of all those who retain the feast of the angels, as the Lutherans in the Convent of Torgau, & in the Brunswick Agenda (of whom Lindanus, Apologia part 2 cap. 59). [It] is also [the view] of Luther in the cited sermon on S. Michael. [It] is also of certain other ancient heretics — so [much] that some of them, carried into another abyss of madness, trifled [that] S. Michael was to be condemned to the punishments of gehenna: the Lollards, namely, concerning whom [is] Trithemius in the Hirsau Chronicle (anno 1315, pag. 211). XXVI. The same, finally, remains even now among the Turks, who — in a book of great authority among them, entitled Doctrina Machumet — read (fol. 190): “Michael, Gabriel, Saraphiel” — that is, Sar, or prince, Raphael — “Archangels, Secretaries of the Deity.” Since therefore even the Turks themselves, [and] the heretics old & new, [and] the catechumens & all Christians, [and] the Fathers, & the whole Eastern & Western Church, & Scripture itself, not only do not assent but even dissent & cry out against [it] — let the newfangled, most-vain delirium [deliratio] concerning the divinity of S. Michael be gone,
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Amen. XXVII. Concerning the body of Moses [contending] with the devil — as we read in the epistle of S. Jude — Michael the Archangel disputed, & dared not bring against him a judgment of blasphemy, but said: “The Lord command thee” (Jude v. 9). If S. Michael was the Lord himself, why did [he] not dare to bring a judgment of blasphemy against Satan, or to fasten [on him] the mark of a curse? why does [he] send him off to the Lord, that [he] might be rebuked by him? Far otherwise, evidently, than [in] Zechariah cap. 3 — where the Lord & Iehovah himself is called [speaking], who, to indicate the plurality of the divine persons, said to the Devil: “The Lord Iehovah rebuke thee, Satan” (as Bellarmine shows, bk. 1 de Christo c. 5); or certainly, if an Angel too said this in Zechariah, [he] said [it] as [one] sustaining the person of the Lord, as Arias Montanus wishes on that place, & Bellarmine does not deny at the cited place. XXVIII. What [things] Euthymius disputes against the Bogomils in [that] place — the same, insofar as they say Michael to be Christ, avail against our Novators. “Whereas,” he says, “they say [that] Michael the Archangel [is] by nature the Son of God & Lord, who, having been made man, carried out human salvation — I marvel at their incredible impudence. For if Michael the Archangel is created, & a servant, as likewise all the other celestial powers, how [is he] by nature the Son, & of the same essence with the Father? Unless perhaps [he] says [that] the Father too [is] created, & the servant of his own self — which indeed is absurd, & self-contradictory. But that natural Son himself — & our Lord Jesus Christ — is called ‘the angel of great counsel,’ because, just as the word of a man, which is brought forth by the mouth, announces the motion of the mind whence [it] has proceeded: so also the Word of God announced to his disciples the great counsel of the Father — or of the humanity assumed by himself — & the evangelical precepts, & the salvation of believers proceeding from these. Wherefore [he] was saying: ‘I speak nothing of myself, but whatever [things] I have heard from my Father, these I announce to you.’ Since therefore Michael the Archangel is a servant, but the Lord [is] he who is by nature the Son & assumed humanity, [it] is clear [that] the appellations are empty which they attribute to the Archangel Michael, when they call him either Jesus or Christ. And so let [it] be passed over in silence. But what they say — that his flesh put on [a body] devoid of matter, & [they] take away the true generation from the Virgin — are drawn from the madness of the Manichaeans, & from those heresies which existed before it. In that Title [tract] therefore, which is written against the Armenians, read the seventh chapter, & go forward to those [things] to which you are thence referred, & you will find vigorous refutations. Now that is ridiculous & absurd, which they say — that from the name ‘Satanael’ the syllable ‘el’ was taken away. For even before [Christ] had overthrown his tyranny, ‘I was seeing,’ he says (God made man), ‘Satan falling like lightning from heaven’ — when the syllable ‘el’ had not yet been removed. [It] is also superfluous to show that [Christ], after his ascension, sat on the throne of Satanael at the right hand of the Father. For Satanael, as we have shown, neither was by nature a son, nor firstborn, nor had a throne, nor ever sat at the right hand of the Father.” But because the cited author Braun (bk. 8, by [that] argument) is not so ready-at-hand to all, I shall not be reluctant to transcribe his words here. “Just as,” he says, “once, outside the cities — in the gates, & in the higher places — the infidels worshipped Mars as protector of the city & of the community, [one] who might help them in battles & in the expeditions of the warriors: so our forefathers, the first Christians — detesting the impious worship of Mars, [and] consecrating his altars to the true & living God — attributed [them] to the memory & tutelage of S. Michael. [Michael], who,
(col. 656 — right column; printed “663”)
as once [he] was assigned by God to Daniel [as] defender of the Hebrew Church, so — [as] archistrategus, leader, & prefect — through the grace of God might guard & defend the battle-line of the militant Church of the Christians, & [its] wavering army.” [That it] is so observed by the Christian & pious custom of many cities, can be confirmed.
Of the shrine of Mars in the duchy of Schleswig, at Lüneburg, & at Jülich [Iulini] we have spoken — everywhere the Church of S. Michael is substituted. At Antwerp, the temple of Mars, converted to the honor of S. Michael, was the first seat for the pastors of the people; now [it] is the magnificent Abbey of S. Michael, of the Premonstratensian order. [There] was also a shrine of Mars on the mount outside Liège [Leodium], where now is the Abbey of S. Giles [Aegidius] of the Canons Regular, [with] the memory of S. Michael, & a famous Church. Well known is the history of S. Michael on Mount Gargano. At Bologna, the memory of S. Michael “in Bosco.” In Piedmont [Pedemonte], the shrine of the same Archangel [is] illustrious [as] a noble Abbey on a high mount [the Sacra di San Michele]. In Dalmatia, at the famous bulwark & unconquered citadel of Clissa, on a most high rock, stands the famous oratory of S. Michael the Archangel. In our Cologne neighborhood, [there] is seen the Monastery of Eifel [Eifflia], on a most high mount — once sacred to Mars, now [with] a most ancient chapel to S. Michael. Nay, & at Bonn, where Mars Militaris anciently had a temple — which Aurelius Sintus the prefect (in the year 1047 from the founding of the City, [and] 295 from Christ’s birth) restored at his own expense — there now stands a Monastery, & a sacred College of noble Virgins, [which] displays S. Michael (both on the apex of the Church & in the entrance of the temple) figured [forth] as the tutelary Saint & protector of the place; from which [it] is named “the vale of Angels” [vallis Angelorum].
But let us enter Cologne [Agrippina] herself — [our] fatherland, by far the dearest to us — where the shrine which (we mentioned above) [stood] consecrated to Mars over the Rhenish gate, was changed, by the piety of [our] forefathers, into an oratory of S. Michael. Which [shrine] now, necessity so demanding, has been removed by the authority of the Magistrate; & for preserving the memory of antiquity, two statues have been set up — of which the one represents Mars, the other S. Michael the Archangel — with such an inscription:
From this dwelling, [as] a shrine of Mars, the most celebrated gate stood forth; this [gate] Agrippa, parent of the city, built. He added illustrious altars, where [men] rendered the laws of Wars, & the trophies stood fixed to the Gods; here the sword of great Julius Silvius had been hung, & [the sword] with which Otho had stabbed himself. [Now] a Gate of Michael — Christ reigning — let [it] be called, since the images of bloody Mars are falling; but [it] was a dark pile, & useless to the city: [the sacred things] being transferred, therefore, a level way is made for the sacred [rites]. As now the walls of Mavors [Mars] are demolished, so let the right hand of God’s [Michael] guard the city, [as] a gate, from the enemy.
That this tutelary memory of S. Michael was especially pleasing to the people of Cologne, is easily clear from this: that in various higher places the piety of [our] forefathers set up oratories marked with the name of so great a patron. As at another ancient gate of the city, toward the south, at the Monastery of S. Cecilia, where — on a higher place — stands the famous oratory & convent of S. Michael; as also on another [gate], [and] on the towers, gates, & vaults of others of our Churches. Nay, the founders of the chief & Metropolitan church [the Cathedral] resolved to close the summit of so great a mass with a Chapel of S. Michael, as [with] a colophon, & to join both bell-towers, at [their] apex, to the oratory of so great an intercessor.
QVÆSTIO —
(col. 657 — left column; printed “668”)