St. Michael.
Lat. Sanctus Michael Angelus. Ital. San Michele, Sammichele. Fr. Monseigneur Saint Michel. (Sept. 29.)
‘Michael, the Great Prince that standeth for the children of thy people.’—Dan. xii. 1.
It is difficult to clothe in adequate language the divine attributes with which painting and poetry have invested this illustrious archangel. Jews and Christians are agreed in giving him the pre-eminence over all created spirits. All the might, the majesty, the radiance, of Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, are centred in him. In him God put forth his strength when He exalted him chief over the celestial host, when angels warred with angels in heaven; and in him God showed forth his glory when He made him conqueror over the power of sin, and ‘over the great dragon that deceived the world.’
To the origin of the worship paid to this great archangel I dare not do more than allude, lest I stray wide from my subject, and lose myself, and my readers too, in labyrinths of Orientalism. But, in considering the artistic representations, it is interesting to call to mind that the glorification of St. Michael may be traced back to that primitive Eastern dogma, the perpetual antagonism between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, mixed up with the Chaldaic belief in angels and their influence over the destinies of man. It was subsequent to the Captivity that the active Spirit of Good, under the name of Michael, came to be regarded as the especial protector of the Hebrew nation: the veneration paid to him by the Jews was adopted, or rather retained, by the Oriental Christians, and, though suppressed for a time, was revived and spread over the West, where we find it popular and almost universal from the eighth century.
The legends which have grown out of a few mystical texts of Scripture, amplified by the fanciful disquisitions of the theological writers, place St. Michael before us in three great characters:—1. As captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. 2. As lord of souls, conductor and guardian of the spirits of the dead. 3. As patron saint and prince of the Church Militant.
When Lucifer, possessed by the spirit of pride and ingratitude, refused to fall down and worship the Son of man, Michael was deputed to punish his insolence, and to cast him out from heaven. Then Michael chained the revolted angels in middle air, where they are to remain till the day of judgment, being in the mean time perpetually tortured by hate, envy, and despair: for they behold man, whom they had disdained, exalted as their superior; above them they see the heaven they have forfeited; and beneath them the redeemed souls continually rising from earth, and ascending to the presence of God, whence they are shut out for ever.
‘Now,’ says the old Legend,[63] ‘if it be asked wherefore the books of Moses, in revealing the disobedience and the fall of man, are silent as to the revolt and the fall of the angels, the reason is plain; and in this God acted according to his wisdom. For, let us suppose that a certain powerful lord hath two vassals, both guilty of the crime of treason, and one of these is a nobleman of pure and lofty lineage, and the other a base-born churl:—what doth this lord? He hangs up the churl in the market-place as a warning and example to others;—but, for the nobleman, fearing the scandal that may arise among the people, and perhaps also some insult to the officers of the law, the judge causes him to be tried secretly, and shuts him up in a dungeon; and when judgment is pronounced against him, he sends to his prison, and puts him privily to death; and when one asketh after him, the answer is only “He is dead:”—and nothing more. Thus did God in respect to the rebel angels of old; and their fate was not revealed until the redemption of man was accomplished.’
This passage from the old Italian legend is so curiously characteristic of the feudal spirit of Christianity in the middle ages, that I have ventured to insert it verbatim. If religion did, in some degree, modify the institutions of chivalry, in a much greater degree did the ruling prejudices of a barbarian age modify the popular ideas of religion. Here, notwithstanding the primary doctrine of Christ—the equality of all men before God, we have the distinction between noble and churl carried into the very councils of Heaven.
But, to return to St. Michael: on whom, as the leader of his triumphant hosts, God bestowed many and great privileges. To him it was given
to bid sound th’ archangel trumpet,
and exalt the banner of the Cross in the day of judgment; and to him likewise was assigned the reception of the immortal spirits when released by death. It was his task to weigh them in a balance (Dan. v. 27; Ps. lxii. 9): those whose good works exceeded their demerits, he presented before the throne of God; but those who were found wanting he gave up to be tortured in purgatory, until their souls, from being ‘as crimson, should become as white as snow.’ Therefore, in the hour of death, he is to be invoked by the faithful, saying, ‘O Michael, militiæ cœlestis signifer, in adjutorium nostrum veni, princeps et propugnator!’
Lastly, when it pleased the Almighty to select from among the nations of the earth one people to become peculiarly his own, He appointed St. Michael to be president and leader over that chosen people.[64] ‘At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people’ (Dan. x. 13, xii. 1): and when the power of the Synagogue was supposed to cease, and to be replaced by the power of the Church, so that the Christians became the people of God, then Michael, who had been the great prince of the Hebrew people, became the prince and leader of the Church militant in Christendom, and the guardian of redeemed souls, against his old adversary the Prince of Hell. (Rev. xii. 6, 7.)
The worship paid to St. Michael, and which originated in the far East, is supposed to have been adopted by the Oriental Christians in consequence of a famous apparition of the Archangel at Colossæ, in Phrygia, which caused him to be held in especial honour by the people of that city, and perhaps occasioned the particular warning of St. Paul addressed to the Colossians. But although the worship of angels was considered among the heresies of the early Church, we find Constantine no sooner master of the empire, and a baptized Christian, than he dedicates a church to the Archangel Michael (by his Greek name Michaëlion), and this church, one of the most magnificent in Constantinople, became renowned for its miracles, and the parent and model of hundreds more throughout the East.
In the West, the honours paid to St. Michael are of later date: that a church dedicated to him must have existed in Rome long before the year 500 seems clear, because at that time it is mentioned as having fallen into ruin. But the West had its angelic apparitions as well as the East, and St. Michael owes his wide-spread popularity in the middle ages to three famous visions which are thus recorded.
In the fifth century, in the city of Siponte, in Apulia (now Manfredonia), dwelt a man named Galgano or Garganus, very rich in cattle, sheep, and beasts; and as they pastured on the sides of the mountain, it happened that a bull strayed and came not home: then the rich man took a multitude of servants and sought the bull, and found him at the entrance of a cave on the very summit of the mountain, and, being wroth with the bull, the master ordered him to be slain; but when the arrow was sent from the bow it returned to the bosom of him who sent it, and he fell dead on the ground: then the master and his servants were troubled, and they sent to inquire of the bishop what should be done. The bishop, having fasted and prayed three days, beheld in a vision the glorious Archangel Michael, who descended on the mountain, and told him that the servant had been slain because he had violated a spot peculiarly sacred to him, and he commanded that a church should be erected and sanctified there to his honour. And when they entered the cavern they found there three altars already erected, one of them covered with a rich embroidered altar-cloth of crimson and gold, and a stream of limpid water springing from the rock, which healed all diseases. So the church was built, and the fame of the vision of Monte Galgano, though for some time confined to the south of Italy, spread throughout Europe, and many pilgrimages were made to the spot on which the angelic footsteps had alighted.
The second vision is much more imposing. When Rome was nearly depopulated by a pestilence in the sixth century, St. Gregory, afterwards pope, advised that a procession should be made through the streets of the city, singing the service since called the Great Litanies. He placed himself at the head of the faithful, and during three days they perambulated the city; and on the third day, when they had arrived opposite to the mole of Hadrian, Gregory beheld the Archangel Michael alight on the summit of that monument, and sheathe his sword bedropped with blood. Then Gregory knew that the plague was stayed, and a church was there dedicated to the honour of the Archangel: and the Tomb of Hadrian has since been called the Castle of Sant’ Angelo to this day.
This, of all the recorded apparitions of St. Michael, is the only one which can be called poetical; it is evidently borrowed from the vision of the destroying angel in Scripture. As early as the ninth century, a church or chapel dedicated to St. Michael was erected on the summit of the huge monument, which at that time must have preserved much of its antique magnificence. The church was entitled Ecclesia Sancti Angeli usque ad Cœlos. The bronze statue, which in memory of this miracle now surmounts the Castle of St. Angelo, was placed there in recent times by Benedict XIV., and is the work of a Flemish sculptor, Verschaffelt. I suppose no one ever looked at this statue critically—at least, for myself, I never could: nor can I remember now, whether, as a work of art, it is above or below criticism; perhaps both. With its vast wings, poised in air, as seen against the deep blue skies of Rome, or lighted up by the golden sunset, to me it was ever like what it was intended to represent—like a vision.
A third apparition was that accorded to Aubert, bishop of Avranches (A.D. 706). This holy man seems to have been desirous to attract to his own diocese a portion of that sanctity (and perhaps other advantages) which Monte Galgano derived from the worship of St. Michael. In the Gulf of Avranches, in Normandy, stands a lofty isolated rock inaccessible from the land at high water, and for ages past celebrated as one of the strongest fortresses and state prisons in France. In the reign of Childebert II., St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, had a vision, in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to repair to this rock, then the terror of mariners, and erect a church to his honour on the highest point, where a bull would be found concealed, and it was to cover as much space as the bull had trampled with his hoofs: he also discovered to the bishop a well-spring of pure water, which had before been unknown. As the bishop treated this command as a dream, the Archangel appeared to him a second and a third time; and at length, to impress it on his waking memory, he touched his head with his thumb, and made a mark or hole in his skull, which he carried to the grave. This time the bishop obeyed, and a small church was built on the spot indicated; afterwards replaced by the magnificent Abbey Church, which was begun by Richard duke of Normandy, in 966, and finished by William the Conqueror. The poverty of invention shown in this legend, which is little more than a repetition of that of Monte Galgano, is very disappointing to the fancy, considering the celebrity of Mont-Saint-Michel as a place of pilgrimage, and as one of the most picturesque objects in European scenery, with its massive towers, which have braved the tempests of a thousand years, rising from the summit of the peak, and the sea weltering round its base. It failed not, however, in the effect anticipated. The worship of St. Michael became popular in France from the ninth century; the Archangel was selected as patron saint of France, and of the military order instituted in his honour by Louis XI. in 1469. The worship paid to St. Michael as patron saint of Normandy naturally extended itself to England after the Norman conquest, and churches dedicated to this archangel abound in all the towns and cities along the southern and eastern shores of our island; we also have a Mount St. Michael on the coast of Cornwall, in situation and in name resembling that on the coast of France. At this day there are few cities in Christendom which do not contain a church or churches dedicated to St. Michael, some of them of great antiquity.
I must not omit that St. Michael is considered as the angel of good counsel:—that ‘Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint Michel est de faire grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult saints conseils,’ and in particular, ‘sur le bon nourissement que le père et la mère donnent à leurs enfans.’[65] It is to be regretted that ‘Monseigneur Saint Michel’ should be found rather remiss in this part of his angelic functions.
We shall now see how far these various traditions and popular notions concerning St. Michael have been carried out in Art.
In all representations of St. Michael, the leading idea, well or ill expressed, is the same. He is young and beautiful, but ‘severe in youthful beauty,’ as one who carries on a perpetual contest with the powers of evil. In the earlier works of art he is robed in white, with ample many-coloured wings, and bears merely the sceptre or the lance surmounted by a cross, as one who conquered by spiritual might alone. But in the later representations, those coloured by the spirit of chivalry, he is the angelic Paladin, armed in a dazzling coat of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield. He has a lofty open brow, long fair hair floating on his shoulders, sometimes bound by a jewelled tiara; sometimes, but not often, shaded by a helmet. From his shoulders spring two resplendent wings. Thus we see him standing by the throne of the Madonna, or worshipping at the feet of the Divine Infant; an exquisite allegory of spiritual and intellectual power protecting purity and adoring innocence.
There is a most beautiful little figure by Angelico, of St. Michael standing in his character of archangel and patron of the Church Militant, ‘as the winged saint;’ no demon, no attribute except the lance and shield. The attitude, so tranquilly elegant, may be seen in this sketch (34). In the original the armour is of a dark crimson and gold, the wings are of rainbow tints, vivid and delicate; a flame of lambent fire rests on the brow.
But the single devotional figures of St. Michael usually represent him as combining the two great characters of captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. He stands armed, setting his foot on Lucifer, either in the half-human or the dragon form, and is about to transfix him with his lance, or to chain him down in the infernal abyss. Such, however varied in the attitude, expression, and accessories, is the most frequent and popular representation of St. Michael, when placed before us, as the universally received emblem of the final victory of good over evil.
34 St. Michael. (Angelico, Fl. Acad.)
In those churches of Christendom which have not been defaced by a blind destructive zeal, this image meets us at every turn: it salutes us in the porch as we enter, or it shines upon us in gorgeous colours from the window, or it is wreathed into the capitals of columns, or it stands in its holy heroic beauty over the altar. It is so common and so in harmony with our inmost being, that we rather feel its presence than observe it. It is the visible, palpable reflection of that great truth stamped into our very souls, and shadowed forth in every form of ancient belief,—the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal and earthly part of our nature. This is the secret of its perpetual repetition, and this the secret of the untired complacency with which we regard it; for even in the most inefficient attempts at expression, we have always the leading motif distinct and true, the winged virtue is always victorious above, and the bestial vice is always prostrate below: and if to this primal moral significance be added all the charm of poetry, grace, animated movement, which human genius has lavished on this ever blessed, ever welcome symbol, then, as we look up at it, we are ‘not only touched, but wakened and inspired,’ and the whole delighted imagination glows with faith and hope, and grateful triumphant sympathy,—so at least I have felt, and I must believe that others have felt it too.
In the earliest representations of this subject, we see the simplest form of the allegory, literally rendering the words of Scripture, ‘The dragon shalt thou trample under foot’ (Ps. xci. 13). Here there is no risk of a divided interest or a misdirected sympathy. The demon, grovelling under the feet of the victorious spirit, is not the star-bright apostate who drew after him the third part of heaven; it is the bestial malignant reptile:—not the emblem of resistance, but the emblem of sin; not of the sin that aspires, which, in fact, is a contradiction in terms;—no sin aspires;—but of the sin which degrades and brutifies, as all sin does. In the later representations, where the demon takes the half-human shape, however hideous and deformed, the allegory may so be brought nearer to us, and rendered more terrible even by a horrid sympathy with that human face, grinning in despite and agony; but much of the beauty of the scriptural metaphor is lost.[66]
The representations of St. Michael and the dragon are so multifarious that I can only select a few among them as examples of the different styles of treatment.
The symbol, as such, is supposed to have originated with the Gnostics and Arians, and the earliest examples are to be found in the ancient churches on the western coast of Italy, and the old Lombard churches. I have never seen it in the old mosaics of the sixth century, but in the contemporary sculpture frequently. It would be difficult to point to the most ancient example, such is the confusion of dates as regards dedications, restorations, alterations; but I remember a carving in white marble on the porch of the Cathedral of Cortona (about the seventh century), which may be regarded as an example of this primitive style of treatment: the illustration, from a slight sketch made on the spot, will be better than any description (35).
Another instance will be remembered by the traveller in Italy, the strange antique bas-relief on the façade of that extraordinary old church the San Michele at Pavia; not the figure in the porch, which is modern, but that which is above. In the Menologium Grecum is a St. Michael standing with a long sceptre, a majestic colossal figure, while kneeling angels adore him, and the demons crouch under his feet.[67]
By Martin Schoen: St. Michael, attired in a long loose robe and floating mantle, tramples on the demon; he has thrown down the shield, and with his lance in both hands, but without effort, and even with a calm angelic dignity, prepares to transfix his adversary. The figure is singularly elegant. The demon has not here the usual form of a dragon, but is a horrible nondescript reptile, with multitudinous flexile claws, like those of a crab, stretched out to seize and entangle the unwary;—for an emblematical figure, very significant (36). In an old fresco by Guariente di Padova[68] the angel is draped as in Martin Schoen’s figure, but the attitude is far less elegant.
Sometimes the dragon has a small head at the end of his tail, instead of the forked sting. I recollect an instance of St. Michael transfixing the large head, while a smaller angel, also armed, transfixes the other head.[69] This is an attempt to render literally the description in the Apocalypse: ‘For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.’ (Rev. ix. 19.) In a most elegant figure of St. Michael, from the choir of the San Giovanni, at Malta, I found the demon thus characterised, with a tail ending in the serpent head.
In an old Siena picture[70] St. Michael is seated on a throne: in one hand a sword, in the other the orb of sovereignty; under his feet lies the dragon mangled and bleeding: a bad picture, but curious for the singular treatment.
36 St. Michael (Martin Schoen)
In the sixteenth century these figures of St. Michael become less ideal and angelic, and more and more chivalrous and picturesque. In a beautiful altar-piece by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Florence Academy, there is a fine martial figure of the Archangel, which, but for the wings, might be mistaken for a St. George; and in the predella underneath, on a small scale, he is conqueror of the demon. The peculiarity here is, that the demon, though vanquished, makes a vain struggle, and has seized hold of the belt of the angel, who, with uplifted sword, and an action of infinite grace and dignity, looks superior down, as one assured of victory.
Raphael has given us three figures of St. Michael, all different, and one of them taking rank with his masterpieces.
The first is an early production, painted when he was a youth of nineteen or twenty, and now in the Louvre. St. Michael, armed with a shield on which is a red cross, his sword raised to strike, stands with one foot on a monster; other horrible little monsters, like figures in a dream, are around him: in the background are seen the hypocrites and thieves as described by Dante; the first, in melancholy procession, weighed down with leaden cowls; the others, tormented by snakes: and, in the distance, the flaming dolorous city. St. Michael is here the vanquisher of the Vices. It is a curious and fantastic, rather than poetical, little picture.
The second picture, also in the Louvre, was painted by Raphael, in the maturity of his talent, for Francis I.: the king had left to him the choice of the subject, and he selected St. Michael, the military patron of France, and of that knightly Order of which the king was grand master.
St. Michael—not standing, but hovering on his poised wings, and grasping his lance in both hands—sets one foot lightly on the shoulder of the demon, who, prostrate, writhes up, as it were, and tries to lift his head and turn it on his conqueror with one last gaze of malignant rage and despair. The archangel looks down upon him with a brow calm and serious; in his beautiful face is neither vengeance nor disdain—in his attitude no effort; his form, a model of youthful grace and majesty, is clothed in a brilliant panoply of gold and silver; an azure scarf floats on his shoulders; his wide-spread wings are of purple, blue, and gold; his light hair is raised, and floats outward on each side of his head, as if from the swiftness of his downward motion. The earth emits flames, and seems opening to swallow up the adversary. The form of the demon is human, but vulgar in its proportions, and of a swarthy red, as if fire-scathed; he has the horns and the serpent-tail; but, from the attitude into which he is thrown, the monstrous form is so fore-shortened that it does not disgust, and the majestic figure of the archangel fills up nearly the whole space—fills the eye—fills the soul—with its victorious beauty.
37 The St. Michael painted by Raphael for Francis I.
That Milton had seen this picture, and that when his sight was quenched the ‘winged saint’ revisited him in his darkness, who can doubt?—
Over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flowed
Livelier than Melibœan, or the grain
Of Sarra worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce.
By his side,
As in a glittering zodiac, hung the sword,
Satan’s dire dread, and in his hand the spear.
A third St. Michael, designed by Raphael, exists only as an engraving.[71] The angel here wears a helmet, and is classically draped; he stands in an attitude of repose, his foot on the neck of the demon; one hand rests on the pummel of his sword, the other holds the lance.
It seems agreed that, as a work of art, there is only the St. Michael of Guido (in the Capuccini at Rome) which can be compared with that of Raphael; the moment chosen is the same; the treatment nearly the same; the sentiment quite different.
Here the angel, standing, yet scarcely touching the ground, poised on his outspread wings, sets his left foot on the head of his adversary; in one hand he brandishes a sword, in the other he holds the end of a chain, with which he is about to bind down the demon in the bottomless pit. The attitude has been criticised, and justly; the grace is somewhat mannered, verging on the theatrical; but Forsyth is too severe when he talks of the ‘air of a dancing-master:’ one thing, however, is certain, we do not think about attitude when we look at Raphael’s St. Michael; in Guido’s, it is the first thing that strikes us; but when we look farther, the head redeems all; it is singularly beautiful, and in the blending of the masculine and feminine graces, in the serene purity of the brow, and the flow of the golden hair, there is something divine: a slight, very slight expression of scorn is in the air of the head. The fiend is the worst part of the picture; it is not a fiend, but a degraded prosaic human ruffian; we laugh with incredulous contempt at the idea of an angel called down from heaven to overcome such a wretch. In Raphael the fiend is human, but the head has the god-like ugliness and malignity of a satyr; Guido’s fiend is only stupid and base. It appears to me that there is just the same difference—the same kind of difference—between the angel of Raphael and the angel of Guido, as between the description in Tasso and the description in Milton; let any one compare them. In Tasso we are struck by the picturesque elegance of the description as a piece of art, the melody of the verse, the admirable choice of the expressions, as in Guido by the finished but somewhat artificial and studied grace. In Raphael and Milton we see only the vision of a ‘shape divine.’
One of the most beautiful figures of St. Michael I ever saw, occurs in a coronation of the Virgin by Moretto, and is touched by his peculiar sentiment of serious tenderness.[72]
In devotional pictures such figures of St. Michael are sometimes grouped poetically with other personages, as in a most beautiful picture by Innocenza da Imola,[73] where the archangel tramples on the demon; St. Paul standing on one side, and St. Benedict on the other, both of whom had striven with the fiend and had overcome him: the Madonna and Child are seen in a glory above.
And again in a picture by Mabuse,[74] where St. Michael, as patron, sets his foot on the black grinning fiend, and looks down on a kneeling votary, while the votary, with his head turned away, appears to be worshipping, not the protecting angel, but the Madonna, to whom St. Michael presents him (38). Such votive pictures are not uncommon, and have a peculiar grace and significance. Here the archangel bears the victorious banner of the cross;—he has conquered. In some instances he holds in his hand the head of the Dragon, and in all instances it is, or ought to be, the head of the Dragon which is transfixed:—‘Thou shalt bruise his head.’
Those representations in which St. Michael is not conqueror, but combatant, in which the moment is one of transition, are less frequent; it is then an action, not an emblem, and the composition is historical rather than symbolical. It is the strife with Lucifer; ‘when Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and the great dragon was cast out.’ (Rev. xii. 7.) In churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, or to ‘the Holy Angels,’ this appropriate subject often occurs; as in a famous fresco by Spinello d’Arezzo, at Arezzo.[75] In the middle of the composition, Michael, armed with sword and shield, is seen combating the dragon with seven heads, as described in the Apocalypse. Above and around are many angels also armed. At the top of the picture is seen an empty throne, the throne which Lucifer had ‘set in the north;’ below is seen Lucifer, falling with his angels over the parapet of heaven. (Isaiah xiv. 13.) The painter tasked his skill to render the transformation of the spirits of light into spirits of darkness as fearful and as hideous as possible; and, being a man of a nervous temperament, the continual dwelling on these horrors began at length to trouble his brain. He fancied that Lucifer appeared to him in a dream, demanding by what authority he had portrayed him under an aspect so revolting?—the painter awoke in horror, was seized with delirious fever, and so died.
In his combat with the dragon, Michael is sometimes represented alone, and sometimes as assisted by the two other archangels, Gabriel and Raphael: as in the fresco by Signorelli, at Orvieto, where one of the angels, whom we may suppose to be Raphael, looks down on the falling demons with an air of melancholy, almost of pity.
In a picture by Marco Oggione,[76] Michael has precipitated the demon into the gulf, and hovers above, while Raphael and Gabriel stand below on each side, looking on; all are clothed in voluminous loose white draperies, more like priests than warriors; but it is a fine picture.
In the large Rubens-room at Munich, there are two pictures of Michael subduing the revolted angels. The large one, in which Michael is the principal figure, is not agreeable. Rubens could not lift himself sufficiently above the earth to conceive and embody the spiritual, and heroic, and beautiful in one divine form; his St. Michael is vulgar. The smaller composition, where the fallen, or rather falling, angels fill the whole space, is a most wonderful effort of artistic invention. At the summit of the picture stands St. Michael, the shield in one hand, in the other the forked lightnings of divine wrath; and from above the rebel host tumble headlong ‘in hideous ruin and combustion hurled,’ and with such affright and amazement in every face, such a downward movement in every limb, that we recoil in dizzy horror while we look upon it. It is curious that Rubens should have introduced female reprobate spirits: if he intended his picture as an allegory, merely the conquest of the spiritual over the sensual, he is excusable; but if he meant to figure the vision in the Apocalypse, it is a deviation from the proper scriptural treatment, which is inexcusable. This picture remains, however, as a whole, a perfect miracle of art: the fault is, that we feel inclined to applaud as we do at some astonishing tour de force; such at least was my own feeling, and this is not the feeling appropriate to the subject. Though this famous picture is entitled the Fall of the Angels, I have some doubts as to whether this was the intention of the painter; whether he did not mean to express the fall of sinners, flung by the Angel of judgment into the abyss of wrath and perdition?
39 St. Michael as Angel of Judgment and Lord of Souls (Justus of Ghent)
In those devotional pictures which exhibit St. Michael as Lord of souls, he is winged and unarmed, and holds the balance. In each scale sits a little naked figure, representing a human soul; one of these is usually represented with hands joined as in thankfulness—he is the beato, the elected; the other is in an attitude of horror—he is the rejected, the reprobate; and often, but not necessarily, the idea is completed by the introduction of a demon, who is grasping at the descending scale, either with his talons, or with the long two-pronged hook, such as is given to Pluto in the antique sculpture.
Sometimes St. Michael is thus represented singly; sometimes very beautifully in Madonna pictures, as in a picture by Leonardo da Vinci (A.D. 1498), where St. Michael, a graceful angelic figure, with light flowing hair, kneels before the Madonna, and presents the balance to the Infant, who seems to welcome the pious little soul who sits in the uppermost scale.
40 St. Michael (Signorelli, 1500. In the San Gregorio, Rome)
I have seen this idea varied. St. Michael stands majestic with the balance poised in his hands: instead of a human figure in either scale, there are weights; on one side is seen a company of five or six little naked shivering souls, as if waiting for their doom; on the other several demons, one of whom with his hook is pulling down the ascending scale.[77] With or without the balance, St. Michael figures as Lord of souls when introduced into pictures of the Assumption or the Glorification of the Virgin. To understand the whole beauty and propriety of such representations, we must remember, that according to one of the legends of the death of the Virgin her spirit was consigned to the care of St. Michael until it was permitted to reanimate the spotless form, and with it ascend to heaven.
In one or two instances only, I have seen St. Michael without wings. In general, an armed figure, unwinged and standing on a dragon, we may presume to be a St. George; but where the balance is introduced, it leaves no doubt of the personality—it is a St. Michael. Occasionally the two characters—the protecting Angel of light and the Angel of judgment—are united, and we see St. Michael, with the dragon under his feet and the balance in his hand. This was a favourite and appropriate subject on tombs and chapels dedicated to the dead; such is the beautiful bas-relief on the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey.
In some representations of the last judgment, St. Michael, instead of the banner and cross, bears the scales; as in the very curious bas-relief on the façade of the church of St. Trophime at Arles. St. Michael here has a balance so large that it is almost as high as himself; it is not a mere emblem, but a fact; a soul sits in each scale, and a third is rising up; the angel holds out one hand to assist him. In another part of the same bas-relief St. Michael is seen carrying a human soul (represented as a little naked figure) and bringing it to St. Peter and St. Paul. In a celebrated Last Judgment, attributed by some authors to John Van Eyck, by others to Justus of Ghent, St. Michael is grandly introduced.[78] High up, in the centre, sits the Saviour, with the severe expression of the judge. Above him hover four angels with the instruments of the Passion, and below him three others sounding trumpets (v. p. 54),—I suppose the seven pre-eminent angels: the Virgin and St. John the Baptist on each side, and then the Apostles ranged in the usual manner. ‘In the lower half of the picture stands St. Michael, clad in golden armour, so bright as to reflect in the most complete manner all the surrounding objects. His figure is slender and elegant, but colossal as compared to the rest. He seems to be bending earnestly forward, a splendid purple mantle falls from his shoulders to the ground, and his large wings are composed of glittering peacock’s feathers. He holds the balance; the scale with the good rests on earth, but that with the souls which are found wanting mounts into air. A demon stands ready to receive them, and towards this scale St. Michael points with the end of a black staff which he holds in his right hand.’ This picture, which is a chef-d’œuvre of the early German school, is now in the church of St. Mary at Dantzig.
The historical subjects in which St. Michael is introduced exhibit him as prince of the Hebrew nation, and belong properly to the Old Testament.[79] ‘After the confusion of tongues, and the scattering of the people, which occurred on the building of the Tower of Babel, every separate nation had an angel to direct it. To Michael was given in charge the people of the Lord. The Hebrews being carried away captive into the land of Assyria, Daniel prayed that they might be permitted to return when the seventy years of captivity were over: but the Angel of Persia opposed himself on this occasion to the angels Michael and Gabriel. He wished to retain the Jews in captivity, because he was glad to have, within the bounds of his jurisdiction, a people who served the true God, and because he hoped that in time the captive Jews would convert to the truth the Assyrians and Persians committed to his care.’ This curious passage from one of the early Christian fathers, representing the good angels as opposed to each other, and one of them as disputing the commands of God, is an instance of the confused ideas on the subject of angels which prevailed in the ancient Church, and which prevail, I imagine, in the minds of many even at this day.
In the story of Hagar in the wilderness, it is Michael who descends to her aid. In the sacrifice of Isaac, it is Michael who stays the arm of Abraham. It is Michael who brings the plagues on Egypt, and he it is who leads the Israelites through the wilderness. It was the belief of the Jews, and of some of the early Christian fathers, that through his angel (not in person) God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and delivered to him the law on Mount Sinai; and that the angel so delegated was Michael.
It is Michael who combats with Lucifer for the body of Moses. (Jude v. 9.) According to one interpretation of this curious passage of Scripture, the demon wished to enter and to possess the form of Moses, in order to deceive the Jews by personating their leader; but others say, that Michael contended for the body, that he might bury it in an unknown place, lest the Jews should fall into the sin of paying divine honours to their legislator. This is a fine picturesque subject; the rocky desert, the body of Moses dead on the earth, the contest of the good and evil angel confronting each other,—these are grand materials! It must have been rarely treated, for I remember but one instance—the fresco by L. Signorelli, in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
It is Michael who intercepts Balaam[80] when on his way to curse the people of Israel, and puts blessings into his mouth instead of curses: a subject often treated, but as a fact rather than a vision.
It is Michael who stands before Joshua in the plain by Jericho:—‘And Joshua said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.’ (Joshua v. 13-15.) This subject is very uncommon. In the Greek MS. already alluded to, I met with a magnificent example—magnificent in point of sentiment, though half ruined and effaced; the God-like bearing of the armed angel, looking down on the prostrate Joshua, is here as fine as possible.
It is Michael who appears to Gideon.[81] It is Michael who chastises David.[82] It is Michael who exterminates the army of Sennacherib; a subject magnificently painted by Rubens. (Some suppose that on this occasion God made use of the ministry of an evil angel.[83])
It is Michael who descends to deliver the Three Children from the burning fiery furnace. The Three Children in the furnace is a subject which appears very early in the catacombs and on the sarcophagi as a symbol of the Redemption;—so early, that it is described by Tertullian;[84] but in almost all the examples given there are three figures only: where there is a fourth, it is, of course, the protecting angel, but he is without wings.[85]
Michael seizes the prophet Habakkuk by the hair of the head, and carries him to Babylon, to the den of lions, that he may feed Daniel.[86] This apocryphal subject occurs on several sarcophagi.[87] I have seen it also in illuminated MSS., but cannot at this moment refer to it. It occurs in a series of late Flemish prints after Hemskirk,—of which there are good impressions in the British Museum.
The Archangel Michael is not named in the Gospels; but in the legends of the Madonna, as we shall see hereafter, he plays a very important part, being deputed by Christ to announce to his mother her approaching end, and to receive her soul. For the present I will only remark, that when, in accordance with this very ancient legend, an angel is represented kneeling before the Madonna, and holding in his hand a palm surmounted by stars, or a lighted taper, this angel is not Gabriel, announcing the conception of Christ, as is usually supposed, but Michael, as the angel of death.[88]
The legend of Monte Galgano I saw in a large fresco, in the Santa Croce at Florence, by a painter of the Giotto school; but in so bad a state, that I could only make out a bull on the top of a mountain, and a man shooting with a bow and arrow. On the opposite wall is the combat of Michael with the dragon—very spirited, and in much better preservation. To distinguish the apparition of St. Michael on Monte Galgano from the apparition on Mont St. Michel, in both of which a bull and a bishop are principal figures, it is necessary to observe, that, in the last-named subject, the sea is always introduced at the base of the picture, and that the former is most common in Italian, and the latter in French, works of art. In the French stained glass of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, St. Michael is a very popular subject, either with the dragon, or the scales, or both.
Lately, in removing the whitewash from the east wall of the nave of Preston Church, near Brighton, was discovered the outline of a group of figures representing St. Michael, fully draped, and with large wings, bearing the balance; in each scale a human soul. The scale containing the beato is assisted by a figure fully draped, but so ruined that it is not possible to say whether it represents the Virgin, or the guardian saint of the person who caused the fresco to be painted. I am told that in the old churches of Cornwall, and of the towns on the south coast, which had frequent intercourse with France, effigies of St. Michael occur frequently, both in painting and sculpture. On the old English coin, thence called an angel, we have the figure of St. Michael, who was one of the patron saints of our Norman kings.
I must now trust to the reader to contemplate the figures of St. Michael, so frequent and so varied in Art, with reference to these suggestions; and leaving for the present this radiant Spirit, this bright similitude of a primal and universal faith, we turn to his angelic companions.
41 Egyptian hieroglyphic of the Genius of Good overcoming Evil (v. p. 108)