WHO IS THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL?
Statue of St. Michael. Public Domain.
In order to answer the question posed by the title of this essay, it is necessary to take a brief detour through the related question, “What is an angel?” Without this the reader may find themselves lost by the end of my answer’s first sentence, “St. Michael is an archangel,” a situation no author would wish to find themselves in.
So—what is an angel?
Angels are heavenly beings that appear throughout the Old and New Testaments. They perform a variety of functions, all in the service of God’s will. God created angels and, while they have knowledge and supernatural power that is greater than the knowledge and power of humans, they are emphatically subordinate to God.
The main role of angels in Scripture is to carry messages from God to humans. While the English word “angel” specifically refers to a created supernatural being, the Hebrew and Greek words commonly used in Scripture to refer to these beings (mal’akh and angelos, respectively) both mean “messenger” and can be applied to humans as well as to non-humans. Unnamed angels, sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, converse with humans throughout the Old and New Testaments, in order to impart knowledge or commands from God. Three beings understood to be angels tell Abraham at the oaks of Mamre that he and his wife Sarah will have a son; (1) the prophet Daniel has a vision of an angel who reveals apocalyptic knowledge to him; (2) in the gospels angels announce both Jesus’ birth and, in some narratives, his resurrection from the dead. (3)
Angels can act on behalf of God in other ways, such as the angel who holds a burning coal to the prophet Isaiah’s mouth in order to purify his word, (4) or the archangel Raphael in the Book of Tobit, who is sent by God in Tobit’s time of need and accompanies Tobit’s son on a journey and helps him defeat a demon. Angels are also frequently depicted throughout scripture as surrounding the throne of God and offering ceaseless worship.
Sometimes Scripture will describe an angel’s form when they appear to humans—some have many wings, (5) some have many eyes. (6) Many angels appear in the form of men, although the description of their appearances and the reaction of the people those angels appear to indicate that these humanoid forms are often unsettling or frightening—think of the shepherds in Bethlehem who were sore afraid, or the sheer number of times an angel’s first words to a human are “Be not afraid.”
However angels may appear when they interact with humans, they are ultimately heavenly beings, creatures of spirit, and don’t necessarily have permanent bodies. They are also genderless and, although I follow the tradition of referring to Michael with masculine pronouns and gendered titles such as “prince”, it is important to remember Michael is not a man or a male angel. Angels are not human and thus exist outside of human ideas of gender.
Now that we have an idea of what angels are and what they do, who is Saint Michael, and why is he important?
Well, Saint Michael is an archangel.
Different hierarchies of angels are put forth at different points in Scripture, but in Michael’s case the title “archangel” is a sign of his power and his particular closeness to God. Michael is often called “saint” by the Church because he is a holy angel (and “saint” derives from the Latin “sanctus”, which means “holy”), but his sainthood is slightly different from the sainthood of Christians throughout history, because he isn’t human. As we will see a little further on, however, there is a robust tradition of invoking Michael’s help in ways that are both similar to and different from the practice of asking saints for their prayers.
Michael’s main attributes are that of a heavenly warrior and protector. The only book in the Old Testament that references Michael, the Book of Daniel, firmly establishes this. Michael does not actually appear to Daniel, but is referenced by an unnamed angel seen by Daniel in a vision. The angel who speaks to Daniel explains that he has been engaged in a cosmic battle with the prince of Persia (not a human prince but a heavenly being) and was assisted by Michael, “one of the chief princes.” (7) Every time Michael is mentioned in Daniel, his name is accompanied by the epithet “your prince” or “the great prince.” (8) According to this angel, Michael contends with the cosmic defenders of other nations on behalf of Israel, both at the present time for Daniel, and at the end of history before the resurrection of the dead.
Michael is referenced in the Book of Daniel with no introduction and very little explanation, implying that traditions about him were already fairly strong when this part of Daniel was written, and that people knew who he was. This is also the case in the New Testament, where the author of the epistle of Jude refers to Michael arguing with the devil over who has the right to Moses’ body after he has died. (9) Reading this verse for the first time immediately made me do a double-take (I’m sorry, Saint Michael and the devil stood over Moses’ body arguing over who had dibs?), but apparently the epistle’s author assumed their audience would know what they were talking about, and tossed the story out there as an example of avoiding slander. (10)
One of the strongest traditions about Michael is that he cast Satan and other fallen angels from heaven at some point early in Creation. Nowhere in the Bible does this narrative directly exist. The concept of fallen angels is largely derived from writings such as the Book of Enoch that never made it into the canon of scripture. However, the Book of Revelation does include what is probably the best-known passage in Christian scripture regarding Michael, in which the book’s narrator has a vision of Michael defeating a dragon:
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (11)
The battle is generally understood to be take place at the end of time, and in that sense it mirrors the reference to Michael in the Book of Daniel. It also displays a symmetry with the non-biblical but widely held tradition that Michael cast Satan out of heaven at the beginning of creation—Michael drove out the forces of evil out of heaven once, and he’ll do it again.
Most representations of Michael in Christian art take their inspiration from the scene in Revelation. Michael is often shown trampling a dragon underfoot while brandishing a sword or plunging a spear into its body. At first glance, it can be easy to mistake art depicting Michael for art depicting Saint George, another dragon-slayer, and vice versa. The trick, generally, is that if the figure is riding a horse, it’s George. If wings are present, it’s a dead giveaway for Michael.
Saint Michael’s feast day is September 29 in western church traditions (including Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Lutheranism) and November 8 in eastern church traditions (including Eastern Orthodoxy). The feast is often sometimes called Michaelmas in English-speaking places (a shortened form of “Michael’s Mass”), and it was a major feast in the western medieval church. It became one of the four quarter days associated with the turning of the seasons, during which debts were settled and wages were paid. Like many saints’ days, Michaelmas has a number of folk traditions associated with it. In the British Isles, for example, it was considered a bad idea to eat blackberries after Michaelmas, because when Michael kicked Satan out of heaven he landed headfirst in a blackberry bramble, and now every year after Michaelmas the blackberries go sour in memory of the devil making a crash-landing into them. Best to eat all the blackberries you can at Michaelmas, then, before they start to set your teeth on edge.
Michaelmas is celebrated in the western church on September 29 because a church dedicated to Michael was consecrated in fifth century Rome on September 30, and celebrations started the night before, but the positioning of Michael’s feast on the threshold of the season of decreasing daylight is also rife with symbolism. For Christians, Michael is still very much a protector, particularly where the forces of darkness are concerned. As literal darkness becomes more imminent with the beginning of autumn, we cast our minds to Michael and to all angels, with whom he shares his feast.
Michael is often invoked by Christians for protection, usually in a manner that differs slightly from other (human) saints. Christians may ask a human saint to pray for them, in the same way Christians ask their living friends to pray for them. The main difference with saints is that they happen to be dead, but this doesn’t matter very much because all Christians, both living and dead, are connected to each other through Christ, which makes death rather gloriously irrelevant. Michael, on the other hand, is not human and is not dead. As an archangel, he also possesses power that humans (both living and dead) do not have. No angel is ever to be worshipped, but because the action of angels is conformed to the will of God, asking Michael for protection is considered acceptable by churches with strong traditions regarding saints, including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches.
My personal favorite Saint Michael prayer was composed by the then-four-year-old son of Fr. Stephen Freeman, an Orthodox priest:
Dear St. Michael, guard my room.
Don’t let anything eat me or kill me.
Kill it with your sword. Kill it with your sword. Amen. (12)
I feel this gets straight to the heart of the matter and captures the strength of feeling I have myself experienced when asking Saint Michael to protect me when I am deeply frightened.
Michael is the patron saint of a number of professions, often those who may find themselves in danger, such as sailors, and those who help people in danger, such as paramedics. Michael is often also invoked as the patron of worldly powers of force, such as the military and police. All Christians may invoke Michael for protection when they are in harm’s way, but I find it imperative to remember that Michael’s sword is the sword of righteousness and is drawn only at the directive of God. A full understanding of Michael teaches us to shape our will to God’s, as all angels act in service of God’s will.
Ultimately, while Michael is a martial figure, his work is so perfectly conformed to the will of God that any cosmic battle he may do has the end of achieving a peace the that the battles of the world cannot. To that end, Michael is often hailed as a peacemaker, as in the second verse of the hymn “Christ, the Fair Glory of the Holy Angels”:
Send thine archangel Michael to our succor
Peacemaker blessed, may he banish from us
Striving and hatred, so that for the peaceful
All things may prosper. (13)
So—who is Saint Michael? A heavenly being with an old name and an old tradition, created by God to act on God’s will, the protector of Daniel’s people, one who shall fight the forces of evil at the last day, whose sword is the only weapon that will ever bring true peace, because it is wielded at the direction of God.
Perhaps the concept of angels, or just this particular concept of angels, is new to you. Perhaps you have been saying your own version of the “Kill it with your sword” prayer since you could talk. Whatever the case, I leave you with words I return to every Michaelmas, as I contemplate the existence of cosmic beings I cannot see: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” (14) And, in the case of St. Michael, some of those things are looking out for us.
Genesis 18:1–15
Daniel 10:4–12:13
Nativity: Luke 2:9–13. Resurrection: Matthew 28:2–7, Mark 16:5–7, Luke 24:4–7
Isaiah 6:6–7
Isaiah 6:2
Ezekiel 1:18
Daniel 10:13
Daniel 10:21; Daniel 12:1.
Jude 1:9
This line in Jude is likely a reference to the lost ending of The Assumption of Moses, a Jewish text from the first century that was not included in Hebrew Bible when it was canonized. The Assumption of Moses only survives in one sixth-century manuscript, in a Latin translation, and is not considered holy scripture by Jews or Christians. See Michael and Christ by Darrell D. Hannah, pg. 41.
Revelation 12:7–9, NRSV.
Stephen Freeman, “Prayer to my Guardian Angel and Some Other Thoughts,” Ancient Faith, 2007, https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2007/01/13/prayer-to-my-guardian-angel-and-some-other-thoughts/.
Rabanus Maurus (776-856); English translation via The Hymnal 1940.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.5.185–6.
