ST/JD/38
Michael the Archangel
- Gender
- Male
- Floruit (period)
- Biblical
- Floruit date range
- ? - ?
- Description
- Appears in Daniel 10:13ff and 12:1 as 'one of the chief princes' of the heavenly host and as the special guardian or protector of Israel. In Revelation (12:7--9) he is the principal fighter of the heavenly battle against the devil, 'who was cast unto the earth and his angels were thrown down with him'. The formal cult of St Michael appears to have begu in the East. A famous apparition of St Michael on Monte Gargano (SE Italy) in the late 5th cent. was important in spreading the cult to the West. Local feasts which commemorated apparitions at Monte Gargano and Mont-Saint-Michel were kept on 8 May and 16 October. ODS, 368--9.