Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/240

Rh 226 M I C M I C these marks fit exactly the evil times of Manasseh as described in 2 Kings xxi. Chap. vii. 1-6, in which the public and private cor ruption of a hopeless age is bitterly bewailed, obviously belongs to the same context (comp. vol. xiii. p. 415). Micah may very well have lived into Manasseh s reign, but the title in i. 1 does not cover a prophecy which certainly falls after Hezekiah s death, and the style has nothing in common with the earlier part of the book. It is therefore prudent to regard the prophecy, with Ewald, as anony mous. Ewald ascribes the whole of chaps, vi., vii. to one author. Wellhausen, however, remarks with justice that the thread is abruptly broken at vii. 6, and that verses 7-20 represent Zion as already fallen before the heathen and her inhabitants as pining in the darkness of captivity. The hope of Zion is in future restora tion after she has patiently borne the chastisement of her sins. Then Jehovah shall arise mindful of His oath to the fathers, Israel shall be forgiven and restored, and the heathen humbled. The faith and hope which breathe in this passage have the closest affinities with the book of Lamentations and Isa. xl.-lxvi. We have seen that the text of Micah has suffered from redactors ; it is also not free from verbal corruptions which make some places very obscure. The LXX. had many readings different from the present Hebrew, but their text too was far from sound. Of commentaries on Micah, that which deals most fully with the question of the text is Roorda s Latin work, Leyden, 1869. The most elaborate book on Micah is Caspari s (Uvber Micha den Morasthiten und seine prophetische Schrift, Christiania, 1851-52). In English Pocock s Commentary (2d ed., 1692) and Cheyne s Micah (1882) are to be noted. See also the literature on the minor prophets in general cited under HOSEA, and W. 11. Smith s Prophets of Israel (1882). (W/R.S.) MICHAEL (?*, &quot;who is like God?&quot;) appears in the Old Testament as a man s name, synonymous with Micaiah or Micah. In the book of Daniel the same name is given to one of the chief &quot; princes &quot; of the heavenly host, the guardian angel or &quot;prince&quot; of Israel (Dan. x. 13, 21 ; xii. 1), and as such he naturally appears in Jewish theosophy as the greatest of all angels, the first of the four who surround the throne of God (see GABRIEL). It is as guardian angel of Israel, or of the church, the true Israel, that Michael appears in Jude 9 and Rev. xii. 7. In the Western Church the festival of St Michael and All Angels (Michaelmas) is celebrated on September 29th ; it appears to have grown out of a local celebration of the dedication of a church of St Michael either at Mount Garganus in Apulia or at Rome, and was a great day by the beginning of the 9th century. The Greek Church dedicates November 8 to St Michael, St Gabriel, and All Angels. MICHAEL, the name of several Byzantine emperors. MICHAEL I. (Rhangabe) was an obscure nobleman who had married Procopia, the daughter of Nicephorus I., and been made master of the palace ; his elevation to the throne was due to a revolutionary movement against his brother-in-law Stauracius, who reigned only two months after the death of Nicephorus on the battlefield (812). Elected as the tool of the bigoted orthodox party in the church, Michael diligently persecuted the Iconoclasts on the northern and eastern frontiers of the empire, but meanwhile allowed the Bulgarians to ravage a great part of Macedonia and Thrace ; having at last taken the field in the spring of 813, he was defeated near Bersinikia, and Leo the Armenian was saluted emperor in his stead in the following summer. Michael, after having been compelled to become a monk, was permitted thenceforward to live unmolested in the island of Prote, where he died in 845. MICHAEL II. (The Stammerer), a native of Amorium in Phrygia, was of humble origin, and began life as a private soldier, but rose by his talents and assiduity to the rank of general. He was one of those who had favoured the election to the throne of his old companion in arms Leo the Armenian in 813, but, detected in a conspiracy against the government of that emperor, had been sentenced to death in December 820 ; his partisans, however, suc ceeded in assassinating Leo on the morning of Christmas Day, and called Michael from the prison to the throne. The principal features of his reign (820-829) were a pro tracted struggle (of nearly three years) against his brother general, Thomas, who aimed at the throne, the conquest of Crete by the Saracens in 823, and the beginning of their attacks upon Sicily (827). Conciliatory on the whole in his policy towards the image worshippers (his own sympathies were iconoclastic), he incurred the wrath of the monks by entering into a second marriage with Euphrosyne, daughter of Constantine VI., who had previously taken the veil. He died in October 829, and was succeeded by Theophilus his son. MICHAEL III. (The Drunkard) was the grandson of Michael the Stammerer, and succeeded his father Theophilus when only three years of age (842). Until his majority at the age of eighteen the affairs of the empire were managed by the empress-regent his mother Theodora ; his education was shamefully neglected, and it was during this period that Michael formed the disgraceful personal habits which are indicated by his surname. In 861 Michael, together with his uncle Bardas, undertook an expedition against the Bulgarians, which resulted in the conversion of the Bulgarian king, who thenceforth bore the Christian j name of Michael. The emperor had been less successful in the campaign which he led in person against Omar of Melitene in 860, but in 863 his uncle Petronas gained an important victory over the Saracens in Asia Minor. The year 865 was marked by the first appearance of the Russians in the Bosphorus. Michael was assassinated in his palace in 867 by Basilius the Macedonian, whom he had associated with himself in the empire in the previous year. MICHAEL IV. (The Paphlagonian) owed his eleva tion to Zoe, daughter of Constantine IX., the last of the Macedonian dynasty ; this princess was married to Romanus III., but becoming enamoured of Michael, her chamberlain, she poisoned her husband and married her attendant (1034). Michael, however, being of a weak character and subject to epileptic fits, possessed the supreme power only in name, and was a mere instrument in the hands of his brother, John the Eunuch, who had been first minister both of Constantine and Romanus. John s diplomacy was successful in keeping the Arabs in the archipelago and Egypt quiet for some time, and he was at last able to secure a victory for the imperial arms at Edessa in 1037. The attempt to recover Sicily in the following year with the help of the Normans was less pro sperous, and in 1040 the island wholly ceased to be a Byzantine province. About the same time, the Bulgarians having overrun Macedonia and Thrace, and threatening Constantinople, the indolent and infirm emperor, to the surprise alike of friends and foes, put himself at the head of the army, and not only drove the enemy beyond the frontier, but followed them into their own territory. He died, shortly after his triumph, on December 10, 1041. MICHAEL V. (Calaphates or The Caulker), nephew and successor of the preceding, derived his surname from his father Stephen, who had originally followed the occu pation of a caulker of ships. He owed his elevation (December 1041) to his uncle John, whom along with Zoe he almost immediately banished ; this led to a popular tumult and his dethronement after a brief reign of four months (April 1042). He lived for many years afterwards in the quiet obscurity of a monastery. MICHAEL VI. (The Warlike) was already an old man when chosen by the empress Theodora as her successor shortly before her death in 1056. His government was feeble in the extreme, and he was at last compelled to abdicate by Isaac Comnenus, who had defeated his army in Phrygia (August 1057). He also spent the rest of his life in a monastery. MICHAEL VII. (Ducas or Parapinaces) was the eldest son of Constantine XI. Ducas, by whom along with his brothers Andronicus I. and Constantine XII. he was. invested with the title of Augustus ; this joint succession took place in 1067, but in 1071 it suited the policy of the uncle Joannes Caesar to make Michael sole emperor. For