Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/241

Rh M I C M I C 227 this position Michael, whose &quot;character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a monk and the learning of a sophist,&quot; was by no means fitted, and at length two generals of the name of Nicephorus, surnamed Bryennius and Botaniates, simultaneously rebelled against him in 1078 ; with hardly a struggle he resigned the purple and retired into a monastery, where he afterwards received the title of archbishop of Ephesus. MICHAEL VIII. (Palaeologus), born in 1234, was the son of Andronicus Palteologus Comnenus and Irene Angela the granddaughter of Alexius Angelus, emperor of Constantinople. At an early age he rose to distinc tion, and ultimately became commander of the French mercenaries in the employment of the emperors of Nicsea. A few days after the death of Theodore Lascaris II. in 1259, Michael, by the assassination of Muzalon (which he is believed but not proved to have encouraged), succeeded to the guardianship, shared with the patriarch Arsenius, of the young emperor John Lascaris, then a lad of only eight years. Afterwards invested with the title of &quot;despot,&quot; he was finally proclaimed joint-emperor, and crowned alone at Nicsea on January 1, 1260. In the following year (July 1261) Constantinople fell into the hands of the Caesar Alexius Strategopulus, and Michael, having got himself crowned anew in the church of St Sophia, caused his boy colleague to be blinded and sent into banishment. For this last act he was excommunicated by Arsenius, and the ban was not removed until six years afterwards (1268), on the accession of a new patriarch. In 1263 and 1264 respectively Michael, with the help of Urban IV., concluded peace with Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, and Michael, despot of Epirus, who had previously been incited by the pope to attack him ; the friendly inter vention had been secured by a promise on the emperor s part to help forward the reunion of the Eastern and Western churches. In 1269 Charles of Sicily, aided by John of Thessaly, again made Avar with the alleged purpose of restoring Baldwin to the throne of Constantinople, and pressed Michael so hard that ultimately, yielding to the importunities of Gregory X., he caused the deputies of the Eastern church to attend the council of Lyons (1274) and there accept the &quot; filioque &quot; and papal supremacy. The union thus brought about between the two churches was, however, extremely distasteful to the Greeks, and the persecution of his &quot; schismatic &quot; subjects to which the emperor was compelled to resort weakened his power so much that Martin IV. was tempted to enter into alliance with Charles of Anjou and the Venetians for the purpose of reconquering Constantinople. The invasion, however, failed, and Michael so far had his revenge in the &quot; Sicilian Vespers,&quot; which he helped to bring about. He died in Thrace in December 1282, and was succeeded by his son Andronicus II. MICHAEL IX. (Palaeologus) was the son of Andronicus II., and was associated with him on the throne from 1295, but predeceased him (1320). MICHAELIS, JOHANN DAVID (1717-1791), one of the most influential scholars and teachers of last century, belonged to a family which had the chief part in main taining that solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages which distinguished the university of Halle in the period of Pietism. Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668- 1738) was the chief director of Francke s Collegium Orientate Theologicum, a practical school of Biblical and Oriental philology then quite unique, and the author of an annotated Hebrew Bible and various exegetical works of reputation, especially the Adnotationes uberiores in Hagio- graphos, 1720. In his chief publications J. H. Michaelis had as fellow-worker his sister s son Christian Benedict Michaelis (1680-1764), the father of Johann David, who was likewise influential as professor at Halle, and a very sound scholar, especially in Syriac. J. D. Michaelis was trained for academical life under his father s eye. Halle was not then the best of universities ; a narrow theological spirit cramped all intellectual activity, and the eager viva cious youth, already distinguished by a love for realities and a distaste for small pedantries, found much of the teaching wearisome enough. He acquired, however, a good know ledge of the Latin classics, Greek, he tells us, was hardly taught at all, and his knowledge of Greek literature was gained by his own reading in later years, learned all that his father could teach, and was influenced, especially in philosophy, by Baumgarten, the link between the old Pietism and Semler, while he cultivated his strong taste for history under Ludwig. In the winter-semester 1739-40 he qualified as university lecturer. One of his disserta tions was a defence of the antiquity and divine authority of the vowel points in Hebrew. His scholarship still moved in the old traditional lines in which no further pro gress was possible, and he was also much exercised by religious scruples, the conflict of an independent mind with that submission to authority at the expense of reason encouraged by the type of Lutheranism in which he had been trained. A long visit to England in 1741-42 lifted him out of the narrow groove of his earlier education. In passing through Holland he made the acquaintance of the great Schultens, whose influence on his philological views was not immediate, but became all-powerful a few years later. England offered to him no such commanding per sonal influence, and he was not yet able to turn to profit the stores of the great libraries, but his personality was strengthened by contact with a larger life, and his theo logical views were turned aside from the pietistic channel. Michaelis never ceased to regard himself as essentially orthodox, though he did not feel able fully to subscribe the Lutheran articles, and more than once declined on this account to be professor of theology. But his views acquired a distinctly rationalistic complexion, and the orthodoxy of his Gottingen lectures and publications on dogmatic (delivered from a philosophical chair) is of a very washed-out kind. His really useful work, however, lay in other directions ; the change of his theological views was important because it relieved him from trammels that hampered the free course of his development as a scholar. From England Michaelis went back to Halle ; but he felt himself out of place, and in 1745 gladly accepted an invitation to Gottingen as privat-docent. In 1746 he became extraordinary, in 1750 ordinary, professor, and in Gottingen he remained till his death in 1791. In the first years of his new position Michaelis passed through a second education. In the young and intellectually vigorous Georgia Augusta he came under the powerful personal influence of such men as Gesner and Haller. His intellect was active in many directions ; universal learning indeed was perhaps one of his foibles. Literature modern as well as ancient occupied his attention ; one of his works was a translation of four parts of Clarissa ; and transla tions of some of the then current English paraphrases on Biblical books manifested his sympathy with a school which, if not very learned, attracted him by its freer air. His Oriental studies were reshaped by diligent perusal of the works of Schultens ; for the Halle school, with all its learning, had no conception of the principles on which a fruitful connexion between Biblical and Oriental learning can be established. His linguistic work indeed was always hampered by the lack of MS. material which is felt in his philological writings, e.g., in his valuable Supplementa to the Hebrew lexicons (1 784-92). l He could not become 1 By a strange fortune of war it was the occupation of Gottingen by the French in the Seven Years War, and the friendly relations he