The New International Encyclopædia/Michael (angel)

MICHAEL, mī′kā̇-ĕl or mī′kĕl (Heb., ‘Who is like God?’). An angel called in Dan. x. 13 one of the chief princes, who had special care of the Jews (Dan. x. 21, ‘Michael your prince’), and who will fight for them and finally redeem them (Dan. xii. 1). In Jude 9 Michael is represented as fighting with the Devil for the body of Moses. In Rev. xii. 7–9 he fights against the Dragon. In the Book of Enoch Michael appears as one of the four angels who stand at the throne of God. Raphael, Gabriel, and Lemuel being the others, and in the oldest list of the seven archangels (Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Suriel, Gabriel, and Remiel) the fourth place is occupied by Michael (Ethiopic text of Enoch, chap. xx). His special function, as described in Enoch, is to act as scribe in entering in the heavenly books the deeds of the angelic patrons of nations, while in the Ascension of Isaiah he records the deeds of all men in the heavenly books. According to the Talmudic account, Michael is the prince, the chief of the angels, standing in relation to the rest as the High Priest does to Israel on earth. He is therefore looked upon as the medium through whom the Law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the Western Christian Church September 29th (Michaelmas) has been set aside as his day; the Greek Church keeps November 9th. Zimmern (Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 376 seq.) has shown that some of the conceptions connected with Michael represent attributes of Babylonian gods, like Marduk and Nebo transformed to ‘angels.’ Consult: Weber. Lehre des Talmud (Leipzig. 1897): Kohut, Jüdische Angelologie (Leipzig. 1866); Lucken, Michael (Gottingen. 1898).