APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES.

1.-THE FOUNDATION LEGEND OF THE SHRINE OF APOLLO SMINTHEUS.

ON the coins of Alexandria Troas of Roman date we find certain types,

which are evidently related to the story of the foundation of the Smintheion;
as well as another which may refer to the foundation of the city itself.
They have been discussed at length by Wroth.1 The most remarkable
(Fig. 1, a) shows on the left a grotto, surmounted by a cultus-statue of

a -.1

(1 Z f
FIcw. 1.--COINS OF ALEXANDRIA TROAS.

Apollo Smintheus; within the grotto is another statue, precisely similar, but
lying on the ground. Before the grotto stands a herdsman, holding a pedum
in his left hand, and raising his right in a gesture which, as Wroth says, may
be interpreted as expressing either adoration or surprise. 'On the right, a
bull is seen running away, as if terror-stricken, with its head turned back

1 B. M.C. Troas, etc., pp. xvii. ff. ; ep. grown up round an earlier cultus-figure. The
Imhoof-Blumer, Griechische Miinzen, p. 624. coin-engraver of Roman date, however, in
To avoid possible misconception, it may be illustrating the legend, has naturally repre-
observed that, though the statue of Apollo sented, not the primitive figure, long dis-
Smnintheus represented on the coins was the appeared, but the one which he knew.
work of Scopas, the legends must first have
134
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 135
towards the cavern. It would seem that some local legend connected with
the discovery of the statue of the god is here portrayed. The engraver
appears to have naively blended two incidents of the legend-first, the
chance finding in a cavern of the statue of Apollo Smintheus by a
herdsman-next, the setting up of a statue for worship in a place of honour
over the cavern. On other coins of Alexandria Troas a herdsman-who is
evidently the same herdsman-is represented in the presence of a divinity
who appears to be Apollo . . . and he often appears standing beside the
feeding horse that occurs frequently as a coin-type of Alexandria Troas'
(Fig. 1, d).
Wroth continues: 'The type of an eagle holding a bull's head in its
talons' (Fig. 1, b) 'has been explained by Leake ... as referring to some
foundation-legend of the same character as the legends told of the Syrian
Antioch and Nicomedia, according to which, when a founder' (i.e. Seleucus I.
or Nicomedes I.), 'undetermined as to the site of his intended city, was
sacrificing to some deity, an eagle carried away the head of the victim and
deposited it on the future site. From the appearance of this type as a
symbol in the "field" of certain coins' (Fig. 1, c) 'representing the
Emperor sacrificing to Apollo Smintheus, it may be inferred that the
foundation-legend of Alexandria Troas was in some way connected with that
divinity.'
The 'some way' presumably means that the eagle was said to have
carried off the bull's head from a sacrifice which Antigonus was offering to
Apollo Smintheus, and deposited it on the site of the future city of Alexandria.
The inference is plausible enough. But this by way of digression, for we are
concerned with the foundation not of Alexandria but of the Smintheion, at
Chrysa near Hamaxitos.
Most of the literary references are concerned with explaining the
appearance of the mouse or rat as the attribute of Apollo. As they
have all been conveniently collected by Dr. Farnell,2 I need not recite
them here. Nor do I intend to make more than a passing reference to
the explanation of the rodent as the plague-rat.3 Whether the attribute of

2
Cults of the Greek States, vol. iv. p. 448. *ApymAos connected with apyds? The mice or
I may mention here J. V. Grohmann's mono- rats kept below the altar in the Smintheion
graph Apollo Smintheus u. die Bedeutung der were white. --I take this opportunity of grate-
Mduse in der M1yth.der Indogermanen (Prag, fully acknowledging the many helpful sug-
1862), which proceeds on the theory that mice gestions which have been made to me by Mr.
are 'Gewitterwesen,' and Apollo a storm- Cook in the course of this investigation.
god like Rudra and Wotan. Mr. A. B. The whole question will, I hope, be
Cook calls my attention to a curious in- threshed out by Mr. P. N. Ure, who very
stance of the mouse (or rat) as a 'founda- kindly placed his notes at my disposal. I
tion-animnal.' Heraclides Ponticus frag. 42 may refer also to Dr. Louis Sambon's articles
(F. H.G. ii. 224) "ApytAov rvb p0v KaAhoiQo in the Times for Jan. 30 and Feb. 4, 1911 (he
oi• bp04vros, Kahrh Xp77oFabvVCr- explains the serpent of Asklepios as an agent
Opies" •d•Aw
irioav' al 'ApytAov c&vd4aaoav cp. Steph. Byz. for the destruction of rats); and, for a very
s.v. "ApylAos... 8 &ret8; mbrbOpa-
vnudavodr07~ full treatment of the archaeolof y of plague,
'
KiW 6 Os 'ApylAos KaAETraL. 5 EIS to Dr. Raymond Crawfurd's Plague and Pesti-
aKcarrdrVrv
-?b OGeeA'ousScaraS6aAE'ra&m
7ipros7 6p07.
&S Is lence in Literature and Art (Oxford, 1914).
136 G. F. HILL

Apollo was a rat, or a field vole, I have no hesitation in saying that it is as

the instrument of plague that the animal is associated with Smintheus. As
Dr. Crawfurd points out, even mice that destroy crops cause famine, and the
association of typhus (which the ancients would class as plague) with famine
is historically notorious. There is a striking passage in Strabo which
illustrates this 4: oV8T 'Tb-J vv ?&OV (T&~v'I,~pcOv), d4' ocal
r'-X^jol oi5
,oVUVy
o 8'V
Xo/a~' votter
7rok1XXKtL ovv'Q'q 9U
7qoXOvOro'av. T~ 7 KavTappa TO'-TO70
T70io PwpaOotv, c1a1r0ical ,to-Oobv lipvvOat pvoOyTpov?rav , 7rpo? piTpov
a7ros~eXOV, [calt] s•e•e('ouro /~hXte. 7rpoa-eXd'p3ve86 Ical i~XXtovordwivtIcat
iTrov. In the same way, pestilence might follow on the fatnine caused by a
visitation of locusts, and it was probably owing to his intervention as plague-
god on the occasion of such visitations that Apollo earned his title of
Ilopvowrlov. (At Tauste near Saragossa in 1421 it was St. Michael who
delivered the people from a plague of locusts).5 The special connexion of
Smintheus with the plague is further indicated, as Mr. Ure reminds me, by
the coincidence that in Rhodes we find a cult of Apollo Aoi~utoCand a
festival Sminthia and a month Sminthios. On the evidence of the fragment
of Aeschylus' Sisyphus (238) 'AX"' Ti~ ivOo, 0; repvqp4,
tapovpao
it has been maintained that the obi'vOo9 o'Lr
was a •Et Apovpa^o4, the
although
.
use of the that /pji~
itself does not mean field
very epithet suggests by
ao/lv00o
mouse. Finally, there is, I believe, considerable dispute amongst naturalists
as to the period when the rat first made its appearance in the West.6 But
there has not, I believe, been any serious discussion by them of the Egyptian
evidence, from which it would appear that rats were well known and
distinguished from mice in antiquity.7 If so, it is incredible that they
should not have found their way on shipboard to Greek lands.
For my present purpose the important passage among the authorities on
the Smintheion is the Scholium on Iliad I. 39: ev Xp6o'y, r -Xet i Mvala4,
Kpitvis7tr lepe; 77V Toie70^EOtL'AT7rXXwvoo . opPeLt(YO 0 0et(
oa4, 70To7T, r04?~epEr•• 8/
aVTOV TOt( ,j~ oVL 7TOVS icapro;E zXvalvovr8o. ovX'e064
o e •ypo C
O7rEE0 av7oT 7IrpOp"8lv oVy aiVTOVi
aTaXXa/y?^a,at,
e o a'PXtIoVoXovo 7)7
7rap' ?evtaOEt d8eb b4r E'Xr7' TCoWv drraXXdgetv, ica
7rapeTyEVETo, v aacv
TO
T7oevo-ar TobVS i3 &0 OEtpeve. vo ovy Eve7eXaTo7
,7rapaXp •/a araX.Xaoaoe
T7V E7rrtadvetav aVTroi at 7T Kptlv t. oi5 yevoY/Jevovo Kp'ivti iepOv
v8rqTX
8pvrTa70 •qulvO'a p7rpooayope;vcas, er7ret8 KaTa 77v E'YXCOp-oP
0(6,, avrvov
o,6
4 iii. 4, 18 (C. 165). Eastern Roman Empire, including the Ex-
5 AA. SS. Sept. 29, p. 86. archate of Ravenna, under the name of m.
6 A. E. Shipley in Journ. Econ. Biol. 1908, ponticus. Its home was Middle Asia; and I
vol. iii. p. 61, says that 'according to Helm find it difficult to believe that it cannot have
M. Rattus passed into Europe at the time of been known at an early period in Asia Minor.
the Volkerwanderung, and doubtless accom- o
Cp. for instance, Andrew Lang, Custom
panied the migrating Asiatic hordes on their and Myth, p. 113. Keller, loc. cit., says that
journeys westward.' The brown rat is a the alleged rats in ancient Egyptian sculpture
much later comer. 0. Keller, Antike Tier- are neither mus rattutsnor m. decumanus, nor
welt, 1909, i. p. 204 f., finds no evidence for even m. alexandrinus; but he does not say
the rat in civilised Europe before the twelfth what the animals are.
8 Dindorf
century, though he feels sure that it was (1885), i. p. 11.
known long before that time throughout the
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 137

ar8 oifL o wrraphtIIoXuvt.

to me, as to Dr. Leaf,ivoc
It seems1aXelc-ov caXofivrat.
who first Wo-Topla
called my )attention to the subject, that
there can be no shadow of doubt that the herdsman of the coins described above
is Ordes, the apPXLtpoV/KoXo of Krinis. The difficulty, if it is a difficulty, that
the priest Krinis seems to have been a large owner of cattle, disappears when
we realise that the herd very probably belonged not to him but to the god.
In him and in his chief herdsman we see the mythical type of the sacred
officials known as 8ov/c0Xot.9 It should be noted in this connexion that
Imhoof-Blumer in describing the coins that illustrate the discovery of the
Smintheion took the animal for a horse. Wroth pointed out that on the
specimens known to him it was clearly a bull. But a grazing horse is so
constantly associated on Troad coins with Apollo that there would be nothing
surprising if it did take the place of the bull in some versions of the story.

-01

FIG. 2.-Coi'Ns OF GARGARA.

The Troad Apollo may well have bred horses as well as bulls. That the
herdsman, in any case, was a herdsman of horses as well as bulls, is clear
from the coins on which he is represented grazing a horse. The coins of
Gargara in the Troad (Fig. 2) seem to throw some light on this point. The
chief god of Gargara was certainly Apollo; his head furnishes the type for the
obverse of all the coins from the fifth to the third century B.c. The reverse
types in this period are a grazing bull, a galloping horse, a ram's head or a
wheel. It is only in the period after 133 B.C. that other types come in, such
as the lion of Kybele. The wheel is probably solar; the connexion of the
ram with Apollo is well-known; it is therefore highly probable that the two
remaining types are also Apolline.
That the Apollo of the Troad was a god of herds and also of the plague, we
are reminded by the story that he served Laomedon as his herdsman, and

Cp. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa, iii. 1017, who speaks without qualification of an ApXLIo3,KOAXo
of Apollo Smintheus,
138 G. F. HILL
that when, after Apollo and Poseidon had built the walls of Pergamon and
their treacherous master refused the reward they had earned, they punished
him, Poseidon by sending a monster out of the sea, and Apollo by sending a
pestilence.
However this may be, it looks as if the coins of Alexandria represent a
slightly different version from the Scholiast, or supply an episode which he
has omitted; for it would seem that Ordes was guided (perhaps by the
runaway bull)lo to the cavern where he found the statue of the god ready
for worship, and only requiring to be set upright.
Another scene from the foundation-legend seems to me to be recorded
on the coins (Fig. le, f) 11which represent Apollo seated in conversation with
another person, with a three-legged table (not a Delphic tripod 12) between
them, and the herdsman in the background. On one specimen Apollo holds an
uncertain object (possibly a bundle of arrows), on another his bow is clearly
seen. The second figure is accompanied by a dog. I cannot help thinking
that this represents Apollo being entertained in the house of the herdsman.
But the figure seated opposite to him is unexplained, unless we suppose that
some version of the myth represented, Krinis as being brought face to face
with Apollo in the herdsman's house.

2.-CATTLE IN FOUNDATION-MYTHS.

If the bull, as I have suggested, was the guide of Ordes to the cave of
Apollo, we have here only one more instance of that type of foundation-myth
in which an animal serves as a means of communication between the pious
founder, in search of a site, and the god. The use of bulls or cows for this
purpose has been dealt with by Mr. A. B. Cook,13and it is interesting to note
that, in most of the instances collected by him, the bull or cow is connected
with Helios or Apollo. Thus the Cretans are said to have called the sun the
' Adiounian bull' on the ground that, when he changed the site of his city he
led the way in likeness of a bull. One of the stories of the foundation of
Ilium was that Ilos was told by an oracle of Apollo to found a city wherever
he saw one of his cows fall; and it was likewise a Delphic oracle that

10 The facts that the bull is running in the Anderson, Atlas, P1. 86, Figs. 2, 8. On one
opposite direction, and that the cavern has of the coins there is an attempt to show
already been discovered by Ordes, need afford objects lying on the table-top.
no ground for hesitation, if we remember the 13 Zeus, i. p. 468. To the instances there
way in which the various stages of a story given he now adds Harpokr. s.v. Bo'XECa ...
were constantly combined in one composition W4dALS TT 7Tr9 'HwEpov, .. ..$v LkoNTEcaavos 'v
in ancient art. Tots 'HrELpwrLKO4s (frag. 9a (F.H.G. iii. 30,
11Imhoof-Blumer, L b
op. cit. pp. 625-6, Nos. Miiller)) civopderOaf P7a1l Lh Tr6,Y OepY E rl
a' TvbwAeCv-
216-7., Bobs bXovki7v77dv 7ICE OheXaOv
12 A Delphic tripod is almost invariably KaAhwvos KaralCXvwY'v, cp. Suid. s.vv. BoVXEra
shown in profile, but in this case there is an and OeipLv,Et. mag. p. 210, 34 ff., Favorin. Lex.
attempt to give a view of the flat top of the p. 385, 31 if. (all the same story in less com-
piece of furniture. It is evidently a light plete form).
table of the sort illustrated in Schreiber-
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 139
commanded the foundation of Thebes on the spot where a cow should lie
down. The use of kine by the Philistines in sending home the Ark is
adduced by Hopf 4 as an instance of the deliberate use of such animals as
guides.
The same writer gives the following instances from Northern legend
of cattle as divine guides: kine in a Swedish legend indicate the place
where a church is to be built; cows suckling calves indicate the site for
a church, a black bull the site for a castle. Oxen point out the place
where a wooden cross, which has floated thither on water, is to be set
up, and an ox the site on which the monastery of Ochsenhausen is to be
built.
English mythology provides two or three legends of the same type.15
One is concerned with Ramsey Abbey, another with Durham Cathedral.
The founder of Ramsey 16 was Ailwin, an alderman of East Anglia, who
had long suffered from gout. His fisherman Wulfget had a vision of
St. Benedict, who told him to cast his net and take the biggest of the
fish called hakede to Ailwin, and tell him to accept it as a gift from the
Saint, and found a monastery on the Isle of Ramsey in honour of Mary
the Mother of Mercy and St. Benedict and all Holy Virgins. He is to
choose the site by seeing where his cattle lie down at night, and where
the bull when he rises strikes the earth with his right foot, there he is
to erect his altar. As a token, St. Benedict makes Wulfget's finger
crooked, and tells him that Ailwin will make it straight again. Ailwin,
on receiving the message, straightens the finger, and goes to the island.
On reaching it he is at once cured of the gout, and finds his cattle
lying in the form of a cross with the bull in the middle, and the bull
indicates the altar-site with his right foot in the predicted way.
Ailwin, like Krinis, was an owner of cattle; and the vision appeared
not to him, but to his fisherman, as Apollo manifested himself not to
Krinis but to his chief herdsman.
As to Durham, the tradition17 is well-known that, as the carriage
bearing the coffin of St. Cuthbert was approaching the present site of
Durham, it was suddenly arrested. After prayer and fasting, it was
revealed to Eadmer that the saint should find his last resting-place at
Dunholme. The this name, was unknown to the bishop and
plac'e, by
his attendants, who wandered about for some time in search of it. The
discovery was accidentally made by hearing a woman who was seeking
her cow, say that it had strayed in Dunholme.

14 L. Hopf, Thierorakel und Orakelthiere in sense confirmed by the representation of the

alter und neuer Zeit, Stuttgart, 1888, p. 78. cow and her attendants on one of the towers
15 I owe the first two references to Mr. of the Cathedral. It is briefly mentioned in
C. R. Peers. the Rites of Durham (1593, Surtees Society,
16 Hi.storia Ranzesiensis (Rolls Series, vol. vol. 107, p. 57): 'Revelacion had they to
83, pp. 183-185). carry him to Dunhome. And as they weare
1" Wm. Hutchinson, Hist. of Durham, i. going, they had intelligence by a woman lack-
p. 78. He says the story is not vduched for ing her kowe, where that Dunhome was.'
by any monastic writer, though it is in a
H.S.-VOL XXXVI. L
 140 G. F. HILL
It was a white cow, again, that guided Wilfrid, archbishop of Canter-
bury, to the spot where
In Clent, in Cowbage, Kenelm, king born,
Lieth under a thorn,
His head off shorn;
so that the body of the martyred king was dug up. The healing well of
St. Kenelm afterwards sprang up in the same spot.18
Guadalupe in Spain has a wonder-working image of Our Lady which
was discovered in the following manner.19 About 1317-1322 a cow-herd
of Caceres lost a cow. Going in search of it for three days he at last
reached the site of the present monastery, where he found the animal
dead. Thinking to save the skin, he began by making the usual cruci-
form incision on the breast of the carcase, whereupon it suddenly started
up alive. To the man in his confusion Our Lady appeared, and bade
him take, his cow back to the herd, and go home and tell the priests
that they should come and dig in that spot, and they would find in an
ancient grave an image of Her. Which accordingly came to pass.
Analogies to the yoke of kine employed by the Philistines are found in
various mediaeval legends. The site of a chapel of Sainte Noyale of the
Morbihan was indicated by two young bulls fresh to the yoke; the grave and
site of the shrine of St. Jugon, in the same district, by two oxen, similarly
unbroken; and two unbroken young heifers carried the statue of St.
Catherine, which had been discovered under a great stone, to the site of her
chapel, two oxen having refused the task.19a

3.-THE LEGEND OF MTE. GARGANO.

Most pertinent to the present question, however, are two legends,

concerned with shrines of the Archangel Michael. It is not necessary for
our purpose to go into the question of the date of the alleged ap-
parition of St. Michael which led to the foundation of the famous shrine
in the grotto on Mte. Gargano. For a tedious discussion of that question
reference may be made to the work of the Bollandists,o0 where the
earliest versions of the legend are also discussed. It does not matter,
from the present point of view, whether the events are supposed to have
18 See the
story in Caxton's Golden Legend, was converted and turned her palace into a
July 17. church of St. James and finished her life in
19 Acemel y Rubio, Guia illustrada der good works (Jacobus de Voragine, Leg. Aur.
Monasterio de Ntra. Sra. de Guadalupe, 1912., ed. Graesse, p. 425).
pp. 12 f. I owe the reference to Mr. W. H. 20 AA. SS., Sept. 29, pp. 60 ff. Gothein's
Buckler. criticism on the futility of the discussion
1•a All these are given by P. Sibillot, Le (Culturentwicklung Siid-Italiens, p. 69-70) is
Folklore de France, 1907, iv. p. 116. They not undeserved. What is important in such
remind us of the wild bulls of the wicked matters is the date when the legend took
queen Lupa of Galicia, which, tamed by the shape, and that, Gothein maintains, must
sign of the cross, brought the body of St. have been in the second half of the seventh
James the Greater to her palace; so that she century.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 141

happened in the late fifth or the early sixth century, and whether it
was a Gelasius or a Pelagius who was Pope at the time. For the
same reason I quote the legend not from the text given by the Bol-
landists, but from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, which
had such an enormous vogue that it is. a better indication of popular
belief than anything else of the kind: He writes21: Apparitio ipsius
angeli multiplex est. Prima, qua in monte Gargano apparuit. In Apulia
namque est quidam mons nomine Garganus juxta civitatem, quae dicitur
Sypontus. Anno autem domini cccxc in praedicta urbe Syponto erat
quidam vir nomine Garganus, qui secundum quosdam libros a monfe
illo nomen acceperat, vel a quo mons ille nomen acceperat, qui ovium et
boum infinita multitudine pollebat. Cum autem circa praedicti montis
latera pascerentur, contigit, quendam taurum alios relinquere et verticem
montis conscendere. Cum domum aliis redeuntibus non rediisset, col-
lecta dominus multitudine famulorum per devia quaeque requirens ipsum
tandem in vertice montis juxta ostium cujusdam speluncae invenit: Per-
motus ,itaque, cur solivagus incederet, mox in ipsum sagittam toxicatam
direxit, sed statim velut a vento retorta ipsum, qui jecerat, repercussit.
Turbati super hoc cives episcopum adeunt et super re tam stupenda ipsum
requirunt. Qui triduanum jejunium iis indixit et a Deo quaerendum esse
admonuit. Quo peracto sanctus Michael episcopo apparuit dicens: sciatis,
hominem illum voluntate mea suo telo esse percussum; ego enirn sum
Michael archangelus, qui locum hunc in terris incolere tutumque servare
statuens hoc volui probare indicio, ipsius me loci inspectorem esse atque
custodem. Statimque episcopus atque cives cum processione locum adeunt
et ingredi non praesumentes orationi prae foribus insistunt.
For the time nothing more seems to have been done; but the sub-
sequent intervention of St. Michael on behalf of the Sipontines and
Beneventans in a battle with the heathen Neapolitans raised the question
whether a regular cult should not be established on the sacred spot.
The bishop had a vision of the Saint, who revealed to him that he
himself had built and dedicated 22 the church there; and in fact, when
the bishop and people entered the cave next day, they found a large
underground church with three altars and a spring of sweet and healing
water.
The place became a famous resort of pilgrims, the cures wrought by
its waters being many and famous.
Garganus Mons appears to be identical with the X6dov 4 b'vo/ua

21 Ed. Add. MS. 35, 254 B); the same arrow is repre-
Graesse, pp. 642 ff. The representa-
tion of the legend of Mte. Gargano is not very sented in flight three times, towards the bull,
common in art. There are of course the three turning in the air, and returning.
22 I take this to be a reminiscence of the
apparitions of the saint represented on the
bronze doors of the church itself (see below, function of St. Michael as high-priest, which
p. 158). The scene where Garganus shoots has its roots in a Jewish conception. See W.
the bull is given in a fine fourteenth-century Lueken, Michael, pp. 91-100.
illumination of the Tuscan school (Brit. Mus.
L2
142 G. F. HILL

Aplov of Strabo (VI. 3. 9, C. 284), and it is significant that on the summit

was a shrine of Calchas; those who consulted the oracle there sacrificed
a black ram and slept on the fleece thereof.23 This oracle of the seer,
whose gift of prophecy, as Homer tells us, was due to Apollo, may very
possibly have been in the same cavern which afterwards served for St.
Michael. Strabo it is true does not mention any healing spring in con-
nexion with the shrine of Calchas; and the shrine of Podaleirios which
he describes in the next sentence, as having a TroTrdLtov7rTvaVce7rps
Tav TCoyOpE/lPat7dv voaov? cannot be brought into connexion with it,
since this second shrine was low down near the foot of the mountain.24
However this may be, the essential elements in the foundation-legend
are the guiding of the owner of a herd to the sacred spot by one of his
cattle, and the discovery of a sacred cavern, ready installed for worship.
For the episode of the arrow which returns and smites the man who
loosed it or ordered it to be loosed is common to too many mediaeval
stories of the Saints to be significant 25; and we may regard the inter-
vention of the Bishop and the Pope as intended merely to add official
weight to the narrative.
That there is some analogy between this legend and that of the
Smintheion, if it be admitted that the running bull on the coins of
Alexander has been rightly interpreted, it seems to me impossible to deny.
Of course it is easy to .submit it to destructive criticism, and whittle
23 Both at the shrine of St. Michael on Mte. the narrator says the apparition was St.
Gargano and at Mont St. Michel there are Peter, the place and the blow with the lance,
stories of 'pernoctation,' but I doubt, from he maintains, show that originally Michael was
the nature of them, whether they can be intended. The word used for the weapon by
regarded as cases of incubation. In 1022 the John the Deacon (Translatio S. Severini, in
Emperor-Saint Henry II visited Mte. Gargano Waitz, Scrr. Rerum Langobard. 1878, p. 428)
and obtained permission to remain in the is baculum. But it was not necessary for
church during the night, when Mass was G(othein so to corrupt his translation in order
celebrated by angelic ministrants. One of to prove a corruption of the legend ; for after
them approached him to give him the Bible all, Michael, as he himself remarks (p. 66), in
to kiss and touched him as a sign, with early art and literature wields normally not a
the result that his thigh was permanently lance but a staff or sceptre. For instance it
withered. (Gretser, Opera, vol. x. pp. 520- is with a Bf60os that he works his miracle at
521; cp. J. A. Herbert, Brit. Mus. Catal. of Chonae, and it is a sceptre that he carries in
Romances, vol. iii. pp. 590, 598). At Mont the splendid ivory of the British Museum.
St. Michel a man who spent the night in 24 Weiss in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll,' s.v.
the church suffered the penalty of death : see Garganus mons, speaks misleadingly of 'ein
Huynes, Hist. gdn. de l'Abbaye de Mont St. Orakelheiligtum des Kalchas und Podaleirios,'
Michel, 1872, i. p. 46. There is also a story and others have also run the two shrines into
of the leader of the Saracens who, on an one. In Strabo they are quite distinct; and
expedition against Cosenza, spent the night the Scholium to Lycophron, Alex. 1047, only
in a church of St. Michael, and saw in a ne
says: p'larv obv b'rTrEOPv 'raL(6 no8axetlpos)dv
vision an old man who announced his inimin- 7
'I7raAhLcrA 1 Lo V rTov 7TO KhXXav'ros.
K•voraTpL•OV
and St. Savinian.
ent death and struck him on the hip with his 25 E.g. St. Christopher
staff. The Saracen had previously uttered Cp. the legend from Upper Savoy, P. Sbillot,
threats against the city of St. Peter, and on Folklore de France, 1907, iv. p. 120. The
making enquiries decided that it was that statement that the arrow was poisoned, how-
Saint who had appeared to him. E. Gothein ever, is peculiar. Has it any reference to
(Die Culturentwicklung Siid-Italiens, 1886, p. plague? If so, it is significant in this story,
84) treats the evidence cavalierly: though after all, as we shall see.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 143
it away. The man Garganus does not found the shrine, in
as.Krinis does;
fact he disappears from the story altogether after the cave is found. No
image of St. Michael is found in the cave, but only altars dedicated by the
saint himself. There are no mice or rats as at the Smintheion; there is a
healing spring, which is lacking at the Smintheion. One could find other
discrepancies with little difficulty. But an exact correspondence in com-
parisons of this sort is not to be expected; indeed it would be highly
suspicious if it occurred.
4.-MONT St. MICHEL.

Another equally famous shrine of St. Michael, at Mont St. Michel,

boasts a legend"6 in which a bull also plays a large part. I need not go into
the whole story, but will merely mention that St. Michael appeared to
Autbert, bishop of Avranches, and told him to found a church in his honour.
The bishop was so difficult to persuade that the vision had to be repeated
a third time; even then he was only convinced by means of a kind of
surgical operation, which would have pleased Sydney Smith; the Archangel
pressed Autbert's head with his finger in such a way as to leave a hole in it,
through which the brain could be seen. The bishop got off less easily than
Wulfget of Ramsey. The site of the church, in this case, was indicated as
the spot where a thief had tethered a bull which he had stolen and was
holding to ransom ; and the area of the church was marked out by the space
which the bull had trodden down.
It is hardly necessary, in connexion with this story, to recall the subject
of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. The thief of the Mont St. Michel legend
corresponds to the Greek Hermes, or the Roman Mercury, who is the
patron god of all thiev'es; the bull to the cattle of Apollo or the Sun-god; 27
and although in the mediaeval legend St. Michael does not say that the bull
belongs to him, I think it is a legitimate assumption that he himself
corresponds to Apollo.
It has been maintained 28 that the Mont St. Michel legend is an artificial

26 The Celtic
legend, in which Arthur slays In the Rumanian version Michael and Gabriel
a giant from Spain, is apparently quite dis- recover the sun and the other lights of
tinct; but it is parallel to the defeat of the Heaven with the help of St. Ilie, St. Peter
Devil by Michael, for Spain is the Celtic and St. John (M. Gaster, RumioanianBird
Hades. The story is told by Geoffrey of Mon- and Beast Stories (1915) pp. 99 f.) -In Indian
mouth, Book X., ? 3, and in Malory's Morte mythology, the demon of drought or darkness,
Darthur, Book V., Chapter V. the dragon Vritra, imprisons in the bowels of
27 See A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. p. 410. Mr. the mountains the cows (clouds) of Indra (the
Cook has suggested that the part played by thunder-god) ; Indra conquers him and liber-
St. Michael in the Balkan myth of the ates the waters and the light. See A. A.
'Stealing of the Sun' (the Devil steals the Macdonell, History of SaiLskrit Literature,
sun from God, and Michael gets it back by a pp. 84 ff.
trick) might be explained by the equation of 21 As by Gothein, CulturentwicklulngSdd-
Michael with Apollo. But I must leave this Italiens, p. 103, and other less learned writers.
issue to others more competent in folklore to Gothein (p. 73) even maintains that there is
decide. The myth in question is given by close similarity between the Mte. Gargano
O. Dihnhardt, Natursagen (19"07)i. pp. 136 ff. legend and that of Chonae (of which later).
144 G. F. HILL

adaptation, with embroidery, of the legend of Mte. Gargano. But it is not

enough to say that one legend is an artificial development from another
unless you can give reasons for the variations which are introduced. I
confess that the differences between the two legends seem to me more
striking than the resemblances, if we except the fact that a bull serves as
guide in both. But that use of an animal as guide, as we have seen, is
an element essential to the type of foundation myth with which we are
concerned.
If St. Michael has taken over, as we shall see there is some ground to
suppose he has done, the paraphernalia of Apollo or the Sun-God, we can
understand the employment of the bull; it is the leader of his herd, whether
we look upon the herd as the divine beasts of the Sun-God, or as the cattle
which are under the tutelage of the pastoral god, Apollo Nomios. And it is
worth noticing in this connexion that the worship on Mte. Gargano may have
been originally a local cult of the Apulian herdsmen,29before it became a
national cult. It has been observed that the two great festivals of St.
Michael, early in May and late in September, coincide with the seasons of
the great pastoral movements in these regions, when the herds go up to and
down from the highlands. Of course it must be admitted that no saint
whose cult was localised in so remote a part would have much chance of
celebrity unless his festival was arranged for some such season.

5.-GENERAL ANALOGIES AND APPROACHES BETWEEN APOLLO AND

ST. MICHAEL.

The hint which these stories give us of a connexion between the

mediaeval idea of St. Michael and the ancient idea of Apollo is one which
might be worth following up in detail by any one who has the necessary
time and erudition. Neither being at my disposal, I am only able to put
together a few slight suggestions.
Such statements of the connexion between the two as I have come
across in modern writers seem to be confined to generalities.30 I suppose
these generalities to be based on the feeling that between the Angel of Light,
the conqueror of the Evil One who takes the shape of a dragon, and the
bright god whose arrows destroyed the Python, the analogy is very close.
That the Python may have been originally the spirit of the shrine which
Apollo took over, makes no difference to the fact that to the popular mind it
eventually represented the demon of evil. It was doubtless this feeling that
inspired the modern sculptor, who, asked to replace the figure of St. Michael
It is true that at both places the Saint mani- 3o E.g. 'On vit Jupiter ou Thor transforine
fests himself in natural marvels, but the en saint Pierre, Apollon en saint Michel':
chasm of Chonae down which he makes the P. Saintyves, Les Saints Successeur8 des?Dieux
rivers disappear, and the grotto of Mte. (1907), pp. 11-12. But later on (p. 350-1)
Gargano are no more ' unverkennbar Aihnlich' this writer instances only the correspondence
than Macedon and Monmouth. of St. Michael with Jupiter.
2
Gothein, op. cit. p. 43.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 145
in the church at Solofra, that had been damaged by fire, took as his model
the Apollo Belvedere. Trede, who reports this 31 as having happened in the
eighties of last century, observes:' the artist had in fact hit the mark, for
that Apollo is in the act of slaying the Python. The artist saw in St.
Michael a successor of Apollo, and it cannot be said that he was wrong.' It
is only fair to say that the same writer in the course of his book, though he
is able to connect St. Michael (sometimes rather vaguely, it'is true) with
Mithras, Mars, Hercules, Jupiter, Bacchus and Mercury, can find but little
evidence of his succeeding to the privileges of Apollo.
If we confine ourselves to generalities, there is also the fact that Michael
has a great predilection for mountain-tops, so that he would very naturally
inherit any cult connected with such places, as in many places in Greece
St. Elias (helped doubtless by his name, but also by his history) has inherited
the cult of Helios.
It may be mentioned that in his manifestations Michael constantly uses
the vehicles proper to a sky-god; sometimes he appears in thunder and
lightning, often as a column, sometimes as a globe, of light.32
But the accepted view is that, in Greek lands especially, Michael
succeeded Hermes in his capacity of psychopompos.33 Both are divine
heralds, so that this connexion between the two is very natural. Never-
theless the functions of herald and of messenger of death by no means
exhaust St. Michael's sphere of action.
I do not wish to lay any particular stress on the identification of Apollo
with St. Michael,' the foremost angel of great Zeus Iao'--7yyeXe rrporeveov
?ueydaXoto 'Iow-in. a Berlin papyrus,34simply because the document is
aZ•(v
magical one, in which all sorts of identifications are made, which are
inadmissible in ordinary circumstances.35 Nor is much to be made of the
name 'of a church near Constantinople, which was known as the church roT0
MtXa•X Trov avareXXovro9, ecclesia Orientis Archangeli."
apXtOr-par•'YOV
For it is
though tempting to connect the title with the sun-god,37 it is
31 Th. Trede, Dau Heidentum in der r6m- is a storm-god.
i.chen Kirche, iv. (1891), p. 331. 33 See for instance, J. C. Lawson, Modern
32 See the Mont St. Michel Greek Folklore, p. 45.
legends (e.g.
Huynes, Hist. gun. i. p. 95); also Willelmus 34 Parthey, Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri,
Mon., Chron. Coenobii S. Alich. de Clusa, in 128, quoted by A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. p. 233.
Mon. HIist. Patr., Scr. iii. 253: viderat . . . 35 The theology of such a document may be
a prefato monte globum igneum frequenter as perverse as that of Origenes, whose notion
usque ad celum longo tractu porrigi; and 255: that Michael is the angel of prayer, Gabriel
ecce autem circa noctis medium . . . immiensus that of war and Raphael that of pestilence, is
ignis instar magne columpne videtur e celo rightly scouted by Gothein (p. 50, note) as
supra montem descendere, suisque flammis running diametrically cotnter to popular
coruscis, aere sereno, totum circumlambere. belief. See however, below, p. 150, n. 54 for
With reference to St. Michael as a storm-god, an instance of Raphael in connexion with
Mr. Hasluck reminds me of the curious pestilence.
belief that the squalls prevalent at C. Malea "6AA. SS. loc. cit. p. 51.
(C. S. Angelo) are caused by S. Michael 3 Oriens
Aug. is the usual legend on
flapping his wings (B.S.A. xiv. 1907-8, p. Roman. coins of the third century with the
174). I have already referred above (note 2) type of Sol.
to Grohmann's theory that Apollo Smintheus
146 G. F. HILL
maintained that the word may mean 'appearing in a vision.' Another quite
uncertain point of contact is at Epidaurus, where St. Michael and St. Damian
are worshipped.38 It has occurred to me that St. Damian,- primarily a
physician saint, may represent Asklepios, and St. Michael stand for
Apollo Maleatas, whose cult at Epidaurus was of considerable importance.
But this is a mere guess.
A clear case of contact, however, seems to me to be given by the fact
that at the Pythian Baths (O4pHPa IIOta) 39in Bithynia, obviously from their
name healing baths under the patronage of the Delphic God, the church
which Justinian enlarged was dedicated to Michael.40
A very curious problem 41 is raised by the equation, which we find in
inscriptions at Idalium in Cyprus, between Apollo 'A/vvKXato(or "A~vvKXo
and the Phoenician god Resef-Mikal, of whom there was, for instance, a
temple at Kition. It might be supposed that Mikal-whatever that meant
-having by its sound suggested 'AjlvKXato9,the identification with Apollo
followed, without any substantial ground. But there is other evidence for
the equation of Resef with Apollo. The place Arsuf between Joppa and
Caesarea, which represents the same name (for it must be remembered that
the vocalization of R s f as Resef is purely conventional) is on the site of the
ancient Apollonia.42 Now there is no reason for supposing that the ancient
Phoenician god Mikal was identical with the Jewish archangel Michael. But
there seems to be no doubt that in Syrian legend Reseph is represented by
two Christian saints, St. George and-St. Michael.43 A curious incident
in early Christian history has been brought into connexion with this
Phoenician god Mikal.44 There was at Alexandria a great temple, which
was built by queen Cleopatra, dedicated to Saturn (Zuhal), in which there
was a great brazen idol called 'Michael' (Mikail). In its. honour the
inhabitants of Alexandria and Egypt celebrated a great festival on the 12th
Hetur, corresponding to the second month of Tishrin, with sacrifice of many
beasts. When Alexander became patriarch of Alexandria45 and the Christian
faith obtained there, he desired to break this idol in pieces and abolish the
sacrifices. But the Alexandrians withstood him, so he used cunning and said
to the people: 'Your idol is worthless, but if you celebrate that festival
in honour of the angel Michael, and sacrifice your victims to him, he himself

18 Rouse, Greek Votive and uses bow and arrows and lance (like the
Offerings, p. 37.
39 Steph. Byz. s.v. Wdpya. The site is Kouri Apollo of Amyclae), and also a war-mace.
near Yalova. See Hasluck in B.S.A. xiii. He is sometimes identified with Perseus (see
1906-7, p. 298. Clermont-Ganneau, op. cit. pp. 373 ff. ; Mr.
40 Procopius, de aedif. v. 3. H. St. J. Thackeray tells me that he has dis-
41 My attention was called to this by Dr. covered fresh proof of this identification).
Rendel Harris. 44 See Enmann, Kypros.. der Urspruug
42 E. Schiirer, Gesch. des iiidischen Volkes, des Aphroditekultus, in A1Mim. Petersb. A ad.
ii.4 1907,p. 133. Sci. (1886), p. 37. The authority for the
4a Clermront-Ganneau, Horus et S. Georges, story is the Annals of Eutychios, Patriarch of
in Rev. Archdol. 32, 1876, p. 381. On Resef Alexandria 933-937/8 (Migne, I'atr. Graeca,
or Reshuf, as represented in Egyptian monu- Tom. 111, col. 1005, 435). Cp. the edition by
ments, see R. Pietschmann, Gesch. der Ph6n- Cheikho i. p. 124 (not accessible to me).
izier, 1889, pp. 150, 151. He is a war-god, 45 In 312 A.D.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 147
will be your intercessor before God and bring you more good than your idol.'
They consented; the idol was broken up and made into a cross, and the
temple he called the church of Michael (that is the church which is called
Caesarea, and was burned when the Westerners (Magharibeh, i.e. the Moors)
entered Alexandria and laid it waste); and the festival and victims were
consecrated to the Angel Michael; whence even now the Copts in Egypt and
Alexandria celebrate the feast of the Angel Michael on that day, and slay
a great number of victims.
This is the story as given by Eutychios.46 The 12th Hathor is
November 8th, which is the great Coptic festival of the Archangel. But in
the Synaxarium (ed. Guidi, in Patrologia Orientalis I. p. 587) the story
appears under the date of the other great feast of St. Michael, 12th Sane =
June 6th. Here the idol is Zohal (Saturn) himself; Cleopatra is de-
scribed as the daughter of Ptolemy; and the destruction of the Church
Kaisariyeh is ascribed to the 1iMuslimlfn. Of the various Egyptian deities
who might be intended by' Saturn,' Mr. Griffith mentions the male Egyptian
Nemesis, with whom Kronos is identified in a curious Coptic text of Shenfite,
confirmed by a statement of Achilles Tatius.47 The avenging angel and
Nemesis are clearly akin in character.
It is possible that the god whom Eutychios calls Mikail was Resef-Mikal,
for Resef or Reshuf or Reshpu, as the Egyptians called him, had long been
well-known in Egypt. But it is fairly obvious from the story, taking it for
what it is worth, that there was not necessarily any resemblance in functions
between this Mikail and the Archangel Michael. The astute patriarch merely
took advantage of a resemblance in names. Doubtless the same kind of
game was played in other places in order to supersede the cult of Helios
by that of St. Elias. The chain Apollo = Resef-Mikal = Michael cannot,
therefore, be regarded as very strong. It is even possible, as Sir Arthur
Evans suggests to me, that Mikal is a mere Phoenician adaptation of the
word 'A4wvcXa^o,and that there was never any independent Phoenician god
of that name.
6.-THE WEAPONS OF THE PLAGUE-GOD.

It is however in their capacity of healers that we shall find some of the

most interesting analogies between Michael and Apollo. Apollo shared his
healing functions with many other deities or demigods; but one of his
peculiar functions was the sending of plague; and, as we have seen, he who
sends can also stay it. Michael also is a stayer of plague, and he seems to
act also as God's agent in sending plague, being indeed practically in-
distinguishable from the Destroying Angel.
If Michael were conceived as an archer, the parallel would be complete,
46 On the
whole question I have had the 4 See Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xxii. 162. In
advantage of consulting Mr. Llewellyn the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ii.
Griffith, who has gone into it very fully and 1179 it is suggested, not very plausibly, that
provided the material for most of the remarks Michael = Moloch = Saturn.
that follow.
148 G. F. HILL

but his usual weapons are sword or lance, whereas Apollo's are bow and
arrow. Nor does Michael make use of rats or mice, as the Sminthian
Apollo did. I may digress for a moment on Apollo's weapons in this con-
nexion. Dr. Crawfurd has brought together a great deal of evidence about
the use of the arrow as symbolizing pestilence.48 It was, I suppose, the
nearest image that the popular mind could find for the deadly sudden and
invisible impact of the sickness."4 Perhaps too the health-giving rays of the

. ..........

i4:
41,

...

FIG. 3--COINs OF SELINUS.

sun, dispelling malarial mists, may have been thought of as shafts from Apollo's
bow; but this idea seems to me to be more suitable to a northern clime.50
It is true that it has inspired the current interpretation of certain very
interesting coins of Selinus in Sicily (Fig. 3). It will be remembered that
48 Pclgue and Pestilence, passim. hurling darts at other gods and certain
'
40 In Italian spargere la saetta' is used of animals (T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archaeology,
a particularly noxious smell. The word 1914, p. 78).
7rotico'v, meaning originally a particular poison 50 In a southern climate the hurtfulness of
for smearing arrows with, came to mean the sun's rays in summer-time is probably
poison in general. I think the change must more impressive than their kindliness in
have been assisted by the same feeling that winter. The contrast is well put in the
poison acts secretly and (usually) swiftly like Allegoriae Homericae of Heraclides (c.. 8,
an arrow. Dr. Crawfurd (p. 8) says that p. 27, ed. Schow, 1782): at hoNiucal do'cot
' To-day even physicians must needs call the 9Xov-r T^?s 0op~s 7pdO(Paov7rp's rbv
,ry
AcLELoTIrJv
poisons of pestilence 'toxines' as though they 10ov. b'av IA'v yap n OEperos aby4-, /a'aic' icat

were arrow-poisons discharged from a bow' ; 7rpaEa, 81' 72s aAEaS ,taOdh-
• E•cpd-'o
but I would question whether at the date owrIlptoro hvOpc7oros r v'oxIX abX-
Wrerat, i7rtj/Era p4yyos"
when the name was first so used its original 8Krlph • ral tW xrpos voiYEpobs rb 7ys
'iKKca-oa,
sense of arrow-poison was still realized.- &r7Tobs dEEhXETraL, IC'VoV'ra
3\ T'& icaL
o/.caTra,
v
Though I do not wish to enteri on the thorny 3th TVy &wOi TOO) 70 TP07W
Po
ooovira,
•7EPEXO'TOS
Oa T
paths of comparison with remote mythologies, Aott.LLicos7a'dOEcOr Av torLi, i 8' oUv-
I may be permitted to mention that in a WV,
pop&' tbV 'AirdAAwra,
Mexican MSS. the Morning-Star, who is a a[idorov"O.'Opos 6r•aEo~lao
TrorsairovtSlots Oardirots d7rtypdIwv TbV
sender of sickness, is constantly represented 8ta•fj•58, .
O'
O•6d, •..
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 149
when that city suffered from pestilence owing to the stagnation of the waters
of its rivers in the neighbouring marshes, Empedocles was called in to advise
a remedy. By cutting a new channel he drained off the foul waters, and the
rivers Selinos and Hypsas were con-
verted into health-giving streams. On
the coins we find represented the river-
........................................
gods offering sacrifice at altars, which
serpent and cock indicate as altars of
health; also, Heracles clubbing the Ifi i
Cretan bull, the symbolism of which
is clear enough in this connexion, and
Apollo loosing an arrow from his bow
as he stands in a chariot driven by
Artemis. The current explanation of
this type is that Apollo is here repre-
sented as hXeli/ca'Kov, slaying the pes-
tilence as he slew the Python. But it
seems to me to be more in keeping
with the Greek idea to regard him as
sending out the arrows of death, even
as we are told he did by Homer, or as
we may see him destroying the children
of Niobe.
I have said that Michael is not
represented as an archer; and the sup-
posed :instance of the representation of
the angel of pestilence, in a fifteenth- ... .
....................
century fresco in S. Pietro in Vincoli,
.......
..............
as hovering in the sky, bow in hand, 51
turns out on examination to be mis-
Fir. 4.-MATER MISERIC.ORDIAE.
described.
But the representation of pestilence by arrows is by no means uncommon
in art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Starting from the words of
the Psalm (Vulg. xc. 5-6: non timebis a timore nocturno, a sagitta volante
in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris: A.V. xci. 5-63: thou shalt not be
afraid for the terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for
the pestilence that walketh in darkness), the art of the Renaissance represents
the Almighty, or Christ as His agent, hurling plague-darts upon the heads of
51 So described
by Dr. Crawfurd, p. 96; the plague of 680, in which, according to
but Mr. G. D. Brooks, of the British School Paul the Deacon, a good and a bad angel
at Rome, having kindly made a thorough in- passed through the city (of Pavia) by night,
spection of the fresco at close quarters, ahd when the bad angel, at the bidding of
assures me that the flying angel in the sky to the good one, smote so many times with his
the left is empty-handed. The action of the lance on the door of a house, so many would
angel standing on the cupola is not clear. die in that house on the next day. The two
The fresco was commissioned by Sixtus IV at angels are represented at work, so that the
the time of the plague of 1476 and represents archer in the sky would be superfluous.
150 G. F. HILL

mankind, while the victims are interceded for or even actually defended by
the darts being caught in the outspread cloak of the Virgin 52 or of some saint.
Dr. Crawfurd has illustrated several of the pictures or banners with this
subject. Another instance, unpretending but beautiful, is a picture by Giov.
Boccati (Fig. 4),53 in which the Virgin Mater Misericordiae stanridsalone,
sheltering kneeling folk under her outspread cloak, on which the darts
hurled by the Almighty are caught harmlessly.
Others, chiefly of the Umbrian School, are mentioned or illustrated by
Dr. Crawfurd54; but perhaps the most remarkable of all that he gives is the
fresco painted by Benozzo Gozzoli in Sant' Agostino at San Gimignano in
1464. St. Sebastian--whose function as an averter of plague seems simply
to have grown out of the association of arrows with his story55-protects the
kneeling people; his cloak, held out by angels, catches and breaks the darts
which are hurled from heaven by the Almighty with the assistance of angels.
Christ and the Virgin appear as mediators, Christ showing His wounds, the
Virgin her breasts.56
Less imposing, but hardly less interesting, are the popular German

52 On the type of the Virgin della Miseri- Yrjo Hirn, The Sacred Shrine, 1912, p. 360).
cordia in general see P. Perdrizet, 'La One of the most interesting instances is to be
"Mater Omnium" du Musie du Puy,' C.R. found in the last Judgment at the top of the
du LXXIe Congrd• archgol. de France, 1904. Hereford Mappamundi, where the kneeling
Bombe has somewhat perfunctorily analysed figure of the Virgin is accompanied by the
the iconography of the Perugian plague-ban- legend: Veici beu fiz mon piz la quele chare
ners his (6esch. der Peruginer Malerei preistes E les mameleites dont leit de Virgin
.in
(Italien. Forschungen des Kunsthistorischen. queistes Evez merci de touz si corn uos
Instituts, v. 1912, pp. 262-266). inemes deistes I Ke moi ont servi kant Sau-
.3 My attention was called to this, and a veresse me feistes: i.e., See, fair son, my
photograph sent to me, by Baron de Cosson. body, wherein thou becamest flesh, and the
Dr. Tancred Borenius (whom I have to thank paps from which thou didst suck a Virgin's
for various information in this connexion) milk ; have pity, as thou thyself didst pro-
refers me for this picture to Rassegna d'Arte, mise, on all them that have served me, for
xii. pp. 170 f. It is now in the collection of thou hast made me their Saviour (K. Miller,
Mr. D. F. Platt of Englewood, New Jersey.- AMappaemundi,Heft iv. 1896). Hirn refers
The much more ambitious panel by Domenico to similar scenes in French miracle plays; cp.
Pecori, referred to by Crowe and Cavalcaselle MIiraclesde Nostre Dame, e(l. Paris et Robert,
(ed. Borenius, v. p. 131) is illustrated by i. 1876, p. 49: Doulx chier filz, vez cy la
Venturi, Storia dell' Arte Ital. vii. 2, p. 446. mamelle [ Dont je te norry bonnement, etc.
51 In A picture in Mr. R. Benson's collection (Cata-
Bonfigli's banner in S. Francesco del
Prato at Perugia it is the Archangel Raphael logue, p. 39, No. 21) shows the same symbol-
who attacks Death with a spear; in the sky ism. Mr. Montgomery Carmichael kindly
above, beside the arrow-hurling Christ, are refers me to the very apposite passage in
two angels, one of destruction wielding his Arnoldus Carnotensis, de laudibus B.M.V.
sword, one of mercy sheathing it. (Migne, Patr. Lat. t. 189, col. 1726: securumn
55 The same thing did not, as might have accessum iam habet homo ad Deum, ubi
been expected, happen to St. Edmund; for mediatorem causae suae Filium habet ante
though he was a great healer, his only asso- Patrem, et ante Filium Matrem. Christus,
ciation with plague seems to have been when nudato latere, Patri ostendit latus et vulnera,
the pestilence at Toulouse in 1631 was stayed Maria Christo pectus et ubera ; nec potest
by his influence (J. B. Mackinlay, Saint ullo modo esse repulsa, etc. For the same
Edmund, 1893, pp. 240 f.) gesture used in intercession by ordinary human
56 The baring of the Virgin's breasts is a beings, see C. Sittl, Die Gebdrdender Griechen
development of the much more common ges- und Rdmer, 1890, p. 173. I do not think that
ture of laying her hand on her bosom (see it is represented in ancient art.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 151
woodcuts connected with the plague.57 One type represents the Almighty
shooting three arrows at once from a bow (Heitz and Schreiber 3 and 4). In
another (H. and S. 5) the people take refuge
beneath the cloak of the Virgin which is held
out by two angels; above, the Almighty
'holds two darts in one hand, one in the other.
In yet another (H. and S. 6, here Fig. 5) the
Virgin and SS. Dominic and Francis kneel
and intercede, while above the Almighty
holds three darts, called Pestilenz, Terumng
and Krieg. This design is obviously inspired
by the vision of the Franciscan friar described
by Jacobus de Voragine in his life of St.
Dominic (Graesse, p. 470). But the differ- ::.::::
::
entiation of the arrows evidently refers to the
:
passage in 2 Sam. xxiv. 13 ff., according to
which King David was given the choice
between seven years of famine, or three FIG. 5. -PEST-BLATT,.
(From Heitz u. Schreiber.)
months of flight before his enemies, or three
days of pestilence. There is a group of fifteenth-
century illuminationss which are found in con-
nexion with the Penitential Psalms, and which
are generally called the 'Choice of David' or
the 'Penitence of David.' It will be remem-
bered that the King chose to fall into the hands
of God rather than of man, and the pestilence
accordingly came upon Israel, and the angel
stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to de-
stroy it. So far as I know, the prophet Gad,
through whom the choice was offered to David,
does not figure in these pictures. In one MS.
(British Museum, Royal 2 A xvi. f. 79) an angel
appears from heaven, holding a sword, a skull
and a birch-scourge. In the Heures d'Anne
. de Bretagne (Fig. 6),59 on the other hand, an
angel offers the king three arrows. Now this
Fic. 6. (Fronmthe Heures
might well be taken to represent the choice of
.d'Anne de Bretagne.) David, each affliction being symbolized by an
arrow--the Bible furnishes plenty of instances of
this metaphor. But in a late fifteenth-century Flemish Breviary,60 the
Almighty Himself appears in the Heavens holding two darts. Obviously
57 See Pestblitter des XK . Jahrhunderts, published by the Bibliothbque Nationale, from
herausg. von P. Heitz mit einleit. Text von which I have ventured to borrow the illus-
W. L. Schreiber (Strassburg, 1901). tration.
58 Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary 60 I have only a cutting of this from a
-Art, i. p. 64. catalogue, and can give no further details.
59 P. 29 in H. Omont's small facsimile,
 152 G. F. HILL
here there can be no possibility of the choice between three afflictions,
and I infer that sometimes, if not always, in this group of illustrations, all
the arrows represent the pestilence.61 If they were always three in number,
it might be argued that they indicated the three days during which the
pestilence raged. In some of the illuminations we find the plague indicated
in the more usual way by the Archangel Michael, flying with drawn sword
above the head of the king.
But perhaps the most striking instance of the belief is to be found in
literature much earlier than the fifteenth century, in one of the Dialogues of
St. Gregory.62 He speaks of the pestilence of 590 as 'that mortality which
lamentably wasted this city (and in which, as you know, men with their
corporal eyes did behold arrows that came from heaven, which did strike
divers).' Of course the question may be put: was this an invention (uncon-
scious, no doubt) on St. Gregory's part, based on knowledge of the beginning
of the Iliad ? I am inclined to think not; had it been so, we should probably
have had the arrows attributed to some particular agency.
'Mahometans,' says Dr. Crawfurd,63'believed that spirits were sent by
God-armed with bows and arrows to disseminate plague as a punishment for
sin.' We have a description by Gabriele de' Mussi of Piacenza of the plague
which attacked the Tartars who in 1346 were besieging the Christians in
Caffa.64 'And lo ! a sickness came upon the Tartars, and the whole army was
thrown into confusion, and languished, and every day infinite thousands
perished. It seemed to them that arrows flew forth from heaven, and smote
and beat down the pride of the Tartars." The symptoms of plague which
followed are described in a single sentence.65

7.-ST. MICHAEL AND THE PLAGUE.

These arrows are, so to speak, anonymous, just as in St. Gregory's story.

But it is natural that when a plague-compelling action could be associated
with a saint, the opportunity would not be lost; and associated with that very
same occasion of the plague of 590 we have the impressive legend of the
vision of St. Gregory. It will be remembered that the saint, in order to stay

61 It is
clear, however, from the Pestblatt poeic faculty is not dead, has evolved : 'Zwar
which I have mentioned above that sometimes sah withrend einer grossen Pest Papst Gregor
at least the three arrows were meant to indi- einen, gleich dem homerischen Apollo Pfeile
cate the three forms of visitation between schiessenden Engel' (p. 57).
which David was called upon to choose. I do " Plague and Pestilence, p. 80.
not know whether pestilence or some other 64 Hystoria de AMorbosive mortalitate que
form of destruction is indicated in the jeton fuit anno Domini MCCCXLVIIJ. The passage
figured by Van Mieris (Histori der Neder- relating to Caffa is printed by N. Jorga,
land3che Vorsten, i. p. 209) under the year Notes et Extraits pour servir l'ihistoiredes
1488, on which is a skeleton holding three Croisades au X Vesilcle, IVe Sdrie (Bucharest,
arrows and a coffin, with the legend: Heus Acad. Roumaine, 1915), p. 6.
quid gestis ? en hic te manet exitis (sic). 65 Statim, signati corporibus in juncturis
62 iv. 36. I quote the old translation by humore Zoagulato, in inguinibus febre putrida
'P.W.' Out of the statement of Gregory, subsequente, expirabant.
Gothein, presumably to show that the mytho-
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 153
the plague, ordained processions round the city, at which the Major Litanies
were sung; and on the third day, as the procession came opposite the
Mausoleum of Hadrian, he was vouchsafed the vision of Michael, the angel of
death, alighting on the summit of the monument and sheathing his bloody
sword in token that the mortality was at an end; so that from that day the
building was known as Castellumrn Sancti Angeli. When exactly the legend
arose we cannot say; it is not mentioned by St. Gregory himself, or in the old
lives of him, and he could hardly have failed to mention it in the passage
already quoted had he known and believed it.
The question of course arises: what was the exact significance of this
vision ? Did it mean that Michael had slain the dragon of poisonous breath,
who may have been conceived as the agent of the pestilence; or had Michael
himself, as the angel of destruction, been the agent of the pestilence ? I do
see how it is possible to decide; indeed it is perhaps reasonable to assume
that there may have been a confusion of the two-ideas in the minds of those
among whom the legend grew up.
This is the most remarkable and impressive of all the cases of the
association of Michael with the plague, whether as sender or stayer thereof.
He is not normally one of the saints most popularly invoked for protection in
times of pestilence, like St. Sebastian, St. Roch or St. Antony. Any saint, of
course, not to speak of the Virgin, may be invoked for protection against this
evil as against any other. Nevertheless Michael's undoubted importance as
a healing saint caused frequent interpositions on his part in crises of this
kind. The most famous was in the pestilence of 1656.66 Michael appeared
in a vision to the Archbishop of Siponto, Giovanni Alfonso Puccinelli, and
told him that he had obtained from the Holy Trinity the grace that whoever
would use, with due devotion, in houses, cities or other places, stones from his
church in Mte. Gargano, should escape from the plague. Many bits were
accordingly cut out of the walls of the Church, inscribed with a cross between
the letters S M and let into buildings as a protection against the plague.
In the plague of 1631 all the inhabitants of the Rue St. Michel at
Pontorson are said to have escaped infection."7
In 1529 the Archangel delivered Antwerp from an epidemic which was
the English Sweat.
known.as
The plagues which ravaged Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were frequently commemorated by medals.68 One type,69found at
Milan in 1576 and at Breslau in 1631, gives a view of the city with the angel
of death passing over it, a flaming sword in his hand. A medal struck at
Erfurt 70commemorates the cessation of the plague of 1683: the Archangel,
standing on a skeleton, returns his sword into his sheath, with the motto,
Mors iugulans cedit vita salusque redit. Finally I may mention the jetons
which were struck at Brussels in 1667 and 1668 with the figure of St.
66 A A. SS. loc. cit. pp. 65 ff. N.mmis (Tiibingen, 1882).
67
Huynes, Hist. Gdndrale de lont St. 69 Op. cit. p. 91, No. 277 ; p. 104, No. 293.
Michel, i. p. 133. 1oOp. cit. p. 112, No. 330.
68 L. Pfeiffer u. C. Ruland, Pestilentia in
154 G. F. HILL

Michael, one of them with the inscription Divus Michael in Peste Patronus.71
If it is objected that St. Michael was a special patron of Brussels, since he
shares the dedication of the Cathedral with St. Gudule, it may be replied
that, since there is no invocation of the latter saint on these jetons in con-
nexion with the plague, it is clear that St. Michael was considered as specially
qualified to protect the people from this affliction.
As we are dealing with jetons, it may be mentioned that, in accordance
with the widely prevalent practice of wearing certain kinds of coins or medals
as charms against sickness, people used to wear medallic charms against
plague.72 On none of these does St. Michael appear. I believe, however,
that his importance as a healer assisted in the adoption of the English gold coin
known as an 'angel' (from its type of Michael and the Dragon) as a touch-
piece, given to those people who had been touched by the King for scrofula
or the King's Evil.73 As I do not wish to press any of my evidence unduly,
I must in fairness say that this was practically the only English coin, avail-
able in the days when the practice of touching for the King's Evil prevailed,
on which any saint at all was represented; nevertheless it cannot be denied
that there was a certain appropriateness in the type. It seems highly
probable that the 'angel,' as soon as it was issued in or soon after 1465,
became popular as a charm, thanks to its type; and it was this popularity
and suitability that dictated its adoption as the touch-piece. All angels that
are pierced for suspension are not necessarily, as sometimes supposed, touch-
pieces, but even if they are not, we may be sure that they were worn as
amulets against sickness or some other kind of peril. After this denomina-
tion had disappeared from the currency, pieces with the same types continued
to be made for the sole purpose of giving to those who had been touched by
the King. Had it not been felt that St. Michael was in place in this matter,
any coin with a cross or with a religious motto might have been used.
Whatever may be the truth about the touch-pieces, there can, I think,
be no doubt about the connexion of St. Michael with the pestilence in the
popular mind. It is, just as with Apollo, because of his power as a healer
that he is the most efficient agent of pestilence, and vice versa. Were he
merely the blind agent of destruction, he would be as intimately connected
with other disasters, such as famine, earthquake and war. But, though the
Germans who invaded Italy took him for their champion in war, he has no
such intimate association with other disasters.74
73 It is to Dr.
71 Van
Loon, Hist. JMdtall. des Pays Bas, Crawfurd, again, that we
iii. p. 24. The inscription is chronogrammatic owe the authoritative account of this subject ;
and gives the date 1668. Another, in the see his book The King's Evil (Oxford, 1911).
74 That he interfered in battle on behalf of
British Museum, without the words 'in
peste,' works out at 1667. A third, also in the Sipontines with thunder and lightning is
the British Museum, has a quite different hardly to the point, nor is his creation of the
inscription and the date 1668. St. Michael chasm at Chonae ; for in both cases his action
also occurs on a jeton of 1678; there may is beneficial to the faithful. The former
have been a recrudescence of plague in that apparition, by the way, has been used as an
year, although I do not find any record of it argument for making him the successor of the
in Simpson's work. Dioscuri. It will hardly bear such pressure.
7" Pfeiffer u. Ruland, op. cit. p. 89. But it is worth noting that in the apparition
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 155

8.-ST. MICHAEL AS HEALER IN PHRYGIA.

It must be remembered that Michael began his career as a Christian

Saint less as the leader of the heavenly host in battle, in spite of the Scrip-
tural importance of this function of his, than as a healer of the sick.75 The
story of the troubling of the water of the pool of Bethesda by an angel
(S. John 5. 4), though omitted by recent editors, is an early indication of the
recognition of an angelic agency in healing waters, and may have been the
germ of the cult of Michael as the patron of such sources.
Undoubtedly his most famous shrine in Eastern Christendom, and the
scene where, so to speak, he first entered on his r6le as a great Christian
Saint, was that at Colossae. The strength of the Jewish population in this
part of Phrygia may have assisted in the foundation of the cult. The legend
in its extant form cannot be older than the ninth century,76and it has been
contaminated with strange elements. The redactor does not know the name
Colossae, which had in his time been supplanted by Chonae, 4 km. to the
south. He confuses the apparition of Michael at Chonae with that at
Chairetopa, as he calls the city of Ceretapa; indeed he supposes the latter
place, which is many miles distant, to be in the immediate neighbourhood of
Chonae. However this may be, he tells us (I abbreviate considerably) that
the Apostle John, having overthrown the image of Artemis at Ephesus, came
with Philip to Hierapolis, on a campaign against the power of Artemis,
which extended to Hierapolis and Colossae. At Hierapolis the Apostles
contended with a demon in the shape of a viper goddess (Echidna), whose
power was vanquished by their prayers. At Chairetopa they produced a
healing-fountain sacred to St. Michael. A small chapel, built by a pagan
whose daughter was miraculously cured, preceded the great church of St.
Michael of Chonae or Colossae; it was served by a hermit of great sanctity,
Archippos. The heathen plotted to destroy the sacred shrine, which
wrought such wonders, by turning the streams of two rivers on to it; but
Archippos' faith was rewarded by the saint who, appearing in glory, with his
staff caused the waters to stand and disappear down a mighty chasm, which
he opened with earthquake and thunder. The water of this place wrought
many wonders of healing; for Michael had promised: 'Whosoever shall take
refuge in this place in faith and fear calling upon the Father and the Son
and the Holy Ghost and Michael the leader of the Host, by the name of God
and by my name, he shall not go forth again suffering.'
on Mte. Tancia, which St. Silvester is said to 75 This is well brought out by Lucius,
have seen all the way from Soracte, two Anfdnge des Heiliyenkults in der christlichen
angels appear, with celestial fire, and drive Kirche, 1904, pp. '267f.
the pestilent dragon away, just as according 76 AA. SS. Sept. 29, pp. 38 ff.; Bonnet,
to the Athos prescription for the scene of the Narratio de Miraculo Chonis patrato, Paris,
battle with the dragon in Revelation, c. 12, 1890; Graffin et Nau, Patrologia Orientalis,
instead of Michael two angels are recom- t. 4 (1908). See W. M. Ramsay, Church in
mended (Wiegand, Der Erzengel Michael, p. the Roman Empire, 1893, pp. 465-480; W.
14). For the legend of Mte. Tancia, see Lueken, Michael, 1898, p. 78; E. Lucius,
Poncelet in Arch. della R. Soc. Romana di Anfdeibge des Heiligenkults in der christlichen
Storia patria, xxix. (1906), pp. 545 ff. Kirche, 1904, pp. 67 f.
-
H.S.-VOL. XXXVLI M
156 G. F. HILL

It is generally admitted that this cult of St. Michael was engrafted on

older local cults. Its establishment was part of the triumph over the most
powerful of the cults of Western Asia Minor at the time. It is noteworthy
that the cult of Artemis seems, judging from the coins, to have been
particularly strong at Colossae.77 But Hierapolis also figures largely in the
story, and at this place, famous for its warm baths, by far the most important
cult seems to have been that of Apollo,78 who was associated with other
healing deities such as Asklepios and Hygieia-the coins again bear witness
to this 79"-and certain chthonic powers. Under one of the temples of Apollo
there was a Plutonium, and, as fhe legend betrays, there was a cult of Echidna.
Is it going too far to say, with Lueken,80 that Michael, the dragon-fighter,
takes the place of Echidna, who is driven out by the Apostles Philip and
John, just in the same way as Apollo in Delphi takes the place of the
Python ? It may be objected that the function of Michael as a dragon-queller
was not so important at this time as other of his functions; nevertheless the
battle in heaven as described in the Book of Revelation can never have been
unfamiliar. A more serious objection is that the episode concerning the
Echidna does not really belong, in origin, to the Michael legend; it is
borrowed by the redactor from the apocryphal Acts of Philip.81 But there
can be little doubt that in the minds of those who believed the legend-and
for us that is the important matter-the vanquishing of the Echidna was the
prologue to the establishment of the cult of Michael in this district. Certainly
we seem to have as much justification for accepting this explanation of the
genesis of the Christian cult, as the one which is given by K. J. Neumann,s2
to wit, that Michael took over the functions of the native Anatolian god Men
Karou.

9.-THE MICHAELION NEAR CONSTANTINOPLE.

Another instance of the establishment of Michael in the place of an old

healer-god is connected with the Michaelion, on the shores of the Bosporus,
near Constantinople. Lucius s3 thinks that he succeeded Sarapis, but this is
little more than a conjecture.84 This shrine was one of those where in-
cubation was practised, and it is clear from all accounts that it was originally
a pagan sanctuary; for the legend said that the figure of a man of terrible
aspect, winged like an eagle, had appeared there to the Argonauts, pro-

77 Out of sixteen coins catalogued by Head In favour of this theory it must be admitted
(B.M.C. Phrygia, pp. 154 ff.) six have types that there was an important medical school
connected with Artemis (including the Ephe- at the temple of Men Karou.
sian cultus-figure). 83
Anfiinge, pp. 269 f.
7s See L. Weber in Xprires Fr. Leo darge-
4
According to Sir W. M. Ramsay, Church
bracht, pp. 480 ff., and in Nrum. Chron. 1913, in the Roman Empire, p. 477, note, the
pp. 4-9. Michaelion replaced the temple of 'Zeus,
79 Num. Chron. 1913, pp. 11-13, 133-136. erected by the Argonauts. But neither in
so W. Lueken, Michael, p. 78. Sozomen ii. 3 nor in Cedrenus, i. p. 210 (Bonn
81 R. A.
Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostel- ed.), to which he refers, do I find any refer-
geschichten, ii. 2, pp. 7 ff., 24 f. ence to Zeus.
82In Gothein, op. cit., Nachtrag, p. 601.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 157

phesying to them victory, and that they had built there, on their return with
the Fleece, a shrine known as the Sostheneion. Malalas says that, in the
statue which the Argonauts made of the heavenly being that had appeared to
them, the Emperor Constantine recognized an angel in monk's clothing,85 and
it was revealed to him that the angel was Michael. No one has yet succeeded
in explaining what kind of Greek statue can have been mistaken by anybody
for an angel in monk's clothing. Since, however, there was a temple of
Sarapis, on the European shore of the Bosporus near the Black Sea end, and
since the Argonaut story seems to imply the fulfilment of a vow for a safe
return from the perils of the sea, (Sostheneion being explained by Byzantine
writers as 'place of rescue'), Lucius thinks that Sarapis, who rescued men
from peril by sea as well as from disease, was Michael's predecessor here. We
are thus reminded of Michael's finction in Brittany, where his great shrine
is known as Mont St. Michel au peril de la Mer. But we are still faced with
the difficulty about the statue. Lucius makes the sapient observation that
a winged goddess in monkish dress was unknown to ancient mythology and
art, and adds that, if indeed this statue actually existed there in pagan times,
it need not really have been the cultus-statue of the place, but may have been
a votive figure of some kind. I fear I must leave it at that.
The place where this Michaelion stood had, according to one account,
originally been called Hestiaion. It is not unreasonable therefore to assume,
with Gothein,s8 that it had once been sacred to Hestia, though we need not
accept his reason for this dedication, to wit, that the temple stood on a spot
where the seafarer, leaving the inhospitable Black Sea, saw it as a sign
that he was nearing home. His further conjecture that the place was also
sacred to Asklepios is drawn merely from the fact that healing powers were
shown by the later occupant of the shrine, namely Michael.
Dr. Rendel Harris 87 claims the Michael of this Michaelion-or rather
the Michaels of the two churches, one on each side of the Bosporus, which
seem to have existed and to have been confused-as representing the
Dioscuri. 'The story is late folk-lore for the legends which we read in the
Argonautika.' Michael has taken the place of Polydeukes, 'and so has
to descend into the arena from a superior region and in celestial array.'
The weak point in this explanation, which is certainly otherwise more
plausible than those mentioned above, is that the vision merely foretells
their victory, does not actually fight for them, even by means of such natural
phenomena as Michael used when he fought for the Sipontines against the
heathen of Naples.
There are numerous other cases, than those already mentioned, of the
association of the cult of St. Michael with healing springs.88

s5 iv. p. 78-9 (Bonn ed.'): &-yyhovuaqyeeov ss On the 'Tempietto di Clitunno' see

7raph'roV-dou'Aros rlv XpL- Leclerq in Cabrol, Dict. d'Arch. Chret. i.
aXr-rLraauopaXovo 2147 ff. For other cases, see Barns in Hast-
86 p. 63. ings' Dict. of Religion and Ethics, viii. 621 ff.
87
Cult of the Heavenly Twins, 1906, pp. (Portugal, England, Wales). Further infor-
131-134. mation about shrines of St. Michael as healer
M2
 158 G. F. HILL

10.-ST. MICHAEL AS DRAGON-QUELLERAND THE GERMAN INFLUENCE.

It may be asked: if Michael was thus pre-eminently a healer, how was

it that the conception of him as the Warrior, although, in spite of its
Scriptural foundation, it was in abeyance so long, came into prominence ?
The answer is generally supposed to be found in northern influence.
There can be no doubt that in northern lands 89 Michael, at a com-
paratively early date, inherited the functions of Wotan. Going straight to
Scripture, and unhampered by local connexions with earlier healing cults,
the Northerners found in Michael the analogue to their dragonr-slayinggods.
It was Michael who led the Lombards to victory in Italy, and his name or
figure appears on Lombard-Italian coins from
the seventh to the ninth century.90 Wiegand
accordingly maintains that the rise of the
&EFL d
VIIP
~LL1"~rel~~
artistic conception of Michael as a dragon-
queller in Italy was due to Lombard influ-
ence. No one will be inclined to dispute the
German right to the special patronage of the
Ji ?
angel of destruction. But, as regards the art-
type, it is unfortunate that Wiegand spoils his
case by a most perverse use of the evidence.
It is in the bronze doors 91 of the church on
Mte. Gargano (Fig. 7), made in 1076 in Con-
stantinople to the order of Pantaleon of Amalfi,
that he finds the turning-point in the icono-
graphy of Michael in the south. Although
the fight with the dragon had been repre-
FIG. 7.- (From the doors of
Mte. S. Angelo.) sented before, the instances had remained
isolated; but from the appearance of Michael
on these gates onwards the idea was to develop and bear fruit, In order to
prove his point, he takes the representation of Michael in the first panel of
these doors, and insists that in artistic content it goes far beyond anything
that Greek or Italian art was capable of producing at the time. I confess
that, so far as design goes, it seems to me that it would be difficult to find
anything more purely Byzantine in arrangement and conception than this
scene, in which the Archangel, holding his sceptre, stands majestically
on a mount, clad in priestly vestments, with the Devil (in human shape)
crouching below. Bertaux,92indeed, is careful to point out that this subject,
in Greek lands are given by Hasluck (B.S.A. 90 Most conveniently illustrated in G. Sam-
xiii. 1906-7, p. 298): Poemanenum in Mysia, bon, Repertorio generale delle Moniete coniate
where he succeeds Asklepios, and incubation in Italia, i. 1912, pp. 53 ff.
shrines at Tepejik and Ulubad on the Rhyn- 91 The best illustration, and a poor one at
dacus; also at Nenita in Chios. For the that, is in H. W. Schultz, Denkm'mlerder
shrine at Syme see Rouse, Greek Votive Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien (1860),
Offerings, p. 237. Taf. 39, from which Fig. 7 is taken.
89 F. Wiegand, Der Erzengel Michael in der 92 L'Art dans l'Italie mdridionale, i. p. 404.
bildenden Kunst (Stuttgart, 1886), pp. 22 ff.
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 159
like many others in the same series, is quite within the ordinary lines of
Byzantine art, and to distinguish it from subjects strange to that art, such
as St. Cecilia and St. Valerian; subjects which, nevertheless-so thoroughly
Byzantine were the men who cast these doors-are treated just as if they
were Byzantine subjects.
It may be that the fact that Michael was a champion of the Lombard
warriors induced them to give prominence to this side of his activity. But
on the gates of the church this representation is only one of the ten scenes
connected with Michael, out of the twenty-four which make the decoration
of the whole. Of the others thirteen are concerned with other angels, and
one contains an inscription. It is clear that the aim of the artist was to
give a sort of complete pictorial account of angels and their performances
in general. How possibly could the struggle between Michael and the
Dragon be omitted ? Though placed first, in accordance with its importance
in the scriptural account, as well as for chronological reasons, it has no other
sort of prominence over the remaining scenes, as it would have had if its
introduction had the significance which the modern German critic would*
give it.93
Wiegand is better advised when he comes 94 to the representation of
St. Michael, this time really transfixing the dragon, in a relief by a local
artist on the marble throne in the same church. Bertaux95 has noticed the
strange style of this figure, quite foreign to Byzantine iconography; Michael
holds not sceptre and orb, but lance, and below his feet writhes the dragon:
the artist seems to be conceiving the mysterious power of which the
Lombards of Pavia and Beneventum had made a sort of national divinity,
and which recalled to these Germans, living as converts on Italian soil, the
exploits of their old northern dragon-slaying gods.
The difficulty in the way of accepting the theory of Northern influence
in the matter is this:-Why was the rise of this conception delayed in
Italy until nearly two centuries after the disappearance of the Duchy of
Beneventum as a political entity ? Why, if it is due to Lombard artistic
origination, does it not appear, either iri Beneventum or in Pavia, when
the Lombards were still in the most flourishing period of their existence,
instead of at a time when they had almost become absorbed by the race
among whom they had settled? The coins, as I have said, show the
importance of Michael as a Lombard Saint; but in all the representations
that we find of him he is still without the dragon. Although on the coins
of the Lombard kings of Northern Italy he appears to be more militant
than elsewhere-for he does carry a shield, even though his weapon is not a

3" The triumph of Michael over the devil which was hidden from meil, (2) Michael
appears in the left hand top panel of the left promising the Sipontines victory over the
wing. The remainder of the left wing is Neapolitans, (3) Michael explaining to the
occupied with scenes from the O.T.; at the bishop that his church is already dedicated-
top of the right wing begin the scenes froni appear at the bottom of the right wing. The
the N.T. The three scenes from the local arrangement thus seems to be more or less
legend: (1) Michael appearing to the bishop chronological.
and praising him for enquiring of God that 94 P. 44. 5 P.
450,
160 G. F. HILL

spear bub a long-shafted cross-still it is significant that on Beneventan

coins, where, if Wiegand were right, we should look to find him fully armed
and transfixing the dragon, he has no military character whatever. And, as
I have said, in any case all this evidence about the specifically Lombard

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FlG. 8.-(From an Anglo-Saxon Herbarium.)

Michael belongs to a period long anterior to the time when the work in
Monte Sant' Angelo was produced. Accordingly we must regard the relief
of the dragon-slayer on the marble throne, if it is Lombard in character, as
a survival,ratherthan as a sign of an active artistic influence. It would be
 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 161
in any case, a precarious basis on which to construct a theory of the superior-
ity of German over Italian culture in the eleventh century.
I must finally discuss, if only to negative its direct connexion with the
subject, a remarkable illustration (Fig. 8) which occurs in an Anglo-Saxon MS
of the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus.96 The subject has been explained
as Apuleius holding a volume which he has received fromnthe deity of
healing, who is supposed to be Apollo; on the other side of the deity
in question is a soldier, with one hand resting on a shield. The supposed
Apollo is clad in ecclesiastical vestments, apparently alb, chasuble, and stole
or maniple. His head having been damaged in the fire from which the
Cotton Library suffered, it is not possible to say whether he is tonsured, but
apparently not. I can see no trace of the laurel-wreath which is shown
in the .coloured reproduction in the Burroughs-Wellcome publication, and
which has probaby helped him to the name Apollo. He stands on a lion,
which grasps in its jaws the shaft of the spear which he holds. I call it
a spear, although I am doubtful whether what we see below the body of the
lion (note that it does not transfix the animal) is not rather the butt-end than
the point." If this be so, the point of the spear, if it is a spear, and not a
cross or a labarum, is lost at the top of the picture; but there hardly seems
to be room for any sort of head to the object. To more than one person
the figure has at first sight suggested St. Michael. The dress is not
improper to the priest-Archangel. But he is not winged; and though a
wingless Archangel is no impossibility at an early date, as we have the
wingless angel of the Annunciation in the Catacomb frescoes,98we are here
dealing with the eleventh century. Analogous to St. Michael, as apparently
symbolizing the conquest of the evil by the good principle, are the Frankish
sandstone reliefs at Xanten ;99 the figures are in mail, with shields, and
stand on monsters into whose jaws they thrust the butt-ends of their
spears, recalling, as St. Michael is said to have done to the Germans, the
deeds of the primitive Germanic Dragon-slayers. Next, the animal below
the feet of the figure in the Apuleius is not a dragon but a lion. It
may
be argued that the lion may stand fbr Satan well enough; 100 but the
only
instance I find of this connexion with St. Michael is on a fifteenth
century
German silver relief.101 It is however interesting to note that in the
splendid
"6 Br. Mus. MS. Cotton, Vitellius C. III., pulpit at Aachen (Strzygowski, Der Dom zu
fol. 11 b. The MS. is of the first half of the Aachen, 1904, p. 8; other references in
eleventh century. My attention was called Dalton, Byz. Art and Arch. p. 212) used to
to it by Dr. Louis Sambon, and I have to be called St. Michael, without any good
thank the Curator of the Wellcome Historical ground.
Medical Museum for a copy of the little '9 E. Aus'm Weerth, Kunstdenkmniler des
work on Anglo-Saxon leechcraft published by chr. Mittelalters in den Rheinlanden, i. p. 38,
Burroughs, Wellcome and Co. (1912), in which Taf. XVII. 3.
a full, illustrated description of the Herbarium 100 See F. Piper, 7und Symbolik
will be found, and for the loan of the negative der chr. Kunst, i. p. M•ythologie
407.
of this particular illustration. 101 E. Aus'm Weerth, op. cit. i. p. 18, Taf.
11 There is a distinct
ring round the point, VII. 7. It is curious that the author has
which would prevent its penetrating far, but taken this figure for St. George. He is
is quite natural with a pointed butt. winged, and drives the butt-end of a long
18 Wilpert, p. 187. The figure of a warrior cross into the jaws of a supine lion, while in
on the Coptic-Hellenistic ivory relief of the his other hand he wields a sword.
162 APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES
illustration to an English eleventh century Psalter in the British Museum
the dragon not only has a lion's head, bitt suggests a lion by its pose.102
A symbolic representation of Christ, with a reference to the text
(Ps. xc. 13 Vulg.): super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis: et conculcabis
leonem et draconem, seems just possible,103and at any rate it would appear
that, whoever the figure is, he represents the triumph of the good principle
over the evil, that is-in the narrower interest of the Herbarium-of
medicine over disease.104

It is time to bring these somewhat disjointed remarks to a close. I

cannot claim to have shown more than that St. Michael and Apollo
correspond to each other in some of their functions. One more expert
in the handling of such subjects might have made a better case out of
the materials. I have not attempted to prove, as a friend told me he
hoped I should, that the swan of Apollo and the Michaelmas goose are one
and the same; but my mind is open on the subject. Apollo did not
fulfil all the functions of St. Michael nor St. Michael all those of Apollo.
But there is, it would seem, a. parallelism in their functions as destroyers
of an evil principle, as light destroying darkness, as the controlling agency
of plague; and we have observed more parallels than one between their
myths which seem to point to a common, possibly solar, origin. In so far
as they show a resemblance to each other not only in some functions, but
also in their essential character, they may be regarded, if I may be allowed
to use biological terms, as not merely analogous but to some extent
homologous. It would be absurd to look for any exact correspondence, since
the human mind does not work logically in such matters. But given like
circumstances, the mythopoeic faculty will produce something of the same sort
in different ages and climes.
I should like to protest, in closing, against the theory that the worship
of saints is always a mere relic of paganism-an assumption which has been
largely exploited with a view to discrediting the worship. To suppose that
the worshippers of saints will be discouraged by archaeological dissertations
of this kind betrays singularly little knowledge of human nature. The people
whose minds are open to such evidence are already free of the superstition
in question. There is no doubt that the mediaeval or modern worship is
often engrafted on an old pagan stock, and the choice of the stock may have
been assisted by some likeness of function or name or other association. But
the fact that we must not lose sight of is that, even had the pagan
worship never existed, mediaeval Christianity was perfectly capable of
inventing its own cults and legends. G. F. HILL.
102 Br.
Mus. Tib. C. VI. ; Herbert, Illum. Ic4 The passage from the psalm is also
Manuscripts, P1. XIV. supposed to inspire the common representation
103 As Mr. Maclagan On this of bishops on their tombs, as trampling on a
suggests.
piece of symbolism, see E. Male, L'Art lion or a dragon : a sign, as Cahier, Caractdr-
religieux du XIIIe siucle, p. 61; but in the istiques des Saints, p. 514, says, not of saint-
most famous instance, the Beau Dieu of hood but of prelacy. St. Leu, archbishop of
Amiens, all four creatures are represented Sens, is represented on a lion, but his name
under the feet of Christ, and there is no spear. may have assisted him to this attribute.