THE LAST FIGHT BETWEEN THE HEAVENS AND THE HELLS

Anatole France in the 1914 novel La Révolte des Anges adapted the Christian references to make a parable about revolts and revolutionary movements.

In Milton's Paradise Lost (1674), the angel Lucifer leads a rebellion against God before the Fall of Man. A third of the angels, including pagan angels such as Moloch and Belial, are hurled by God from Heaven.

ArtEdit

The subject of the War in Heaven has been depicted by many noted artists, both in paintings and in sculptures, including works by Pieter Paul Rubens, Guido Reni and Jacob Epstein.

War in Heaven

War in Heaven by Pieter Paul Rubens, 1619

Michael fights rebel angels, by Johann Georg Unruhe 1793

Detail of preceding

Michael fights rebel angels, by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1720

Michael and Satan, by Guido Reni, c. 1636

St Michael's Victory over the Devil, by Jacob Epstein at Coventry Cathedral

The fall of the rebel angels, by Charles Le Brun, after 1680

Michael and the Dragon. Die Bibel in Bildern(Revelation) engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860.

MusicEdit

A choral antiphon for the feast of Michaelmas, Factum est Silentium, paraphrases the events described in Revelation 8:1 and Revelation 12:7–12:

Factum est silentium in caelo,

Dum committeret bellum draco cum Michaele Archangelo.

Audita est vox millia millium dicentium:

Salus, honor et virtus omnipotenti Deo.

Millia millium minestrabant ei et decies centena millia assistebant ei.

Alleluia.

Variant 1:

Dum draco committeret bellum et Michael pugnavit cum eo et fecit victoriam.

There was silence in heaven

When the dragon fought with the Archangel Michael.

The voice of a thousand thousand was heard saying:

Salvation, honour and power be to almighty God.

A thousand thousand ministered to him and ten hundreds of thousands stood before him.

Alleluia.

Variant 1:

For a serpent was waging war; and Michael fought with him and emerged victorious.

The antiphon has been set as a choral motetby a number of composers including Felice Anerio, Richard Dering, Melchior Franck, Alessandro Grandi and Costanzo Porta.

A hymn written by the German poet and hymnodist Friedrich Spee in 1621, "Unüberwindlich starker Held" ("Invincible strong hero"), also makes reference to the Archangel Michael overcoming the dragon.[30]Bach's cantata Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19 is on this subject.

Video gamesEdit

The War in Heaven is a 1999 Christian-themed video game developed by Eternal Warriors and published by ValuSoft.

The 2016 video game Stellaris makes reference to the War in Heaven, using it as a unique event when 2 opposing fallen empires (far more powerful than the player) go to war.

The 2020 video game Hades features a variant called "Aspect of Lucifer" for the protagonist's automatic rifle. The weapon's description implies that Satan himself used a form of this rifle in combat during the war in heaven.

Æsir–Vanir War

Asura

Devas

Gigantomachy

Theomachy

Titanomachy

Revelation 12:7–9

^ Joan Young Gregg (1997). Devils, Women, and Jews: Reflections of the Other in Medieval Sermon Stories. State University of New York. p. 28. ISBN 0-7914-3417-6.

^ Sections 14–15 of the Armenian,Georgian, and Latin versions of the Life of Adam and Eve

^ Quran 7:11–12 Archived 22 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine

^ Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church(Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Origen

^ Book 5, lines 654–668 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 29 June 2008. [...] but not so wak'd / Satan, so call him now, his former name / Is heard no more [in] Heav'n; he of the first, / If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, / In favour and præeminence, yet fraught / With envie against the Son of God, that day / Honourd by his great Father, and proclaimd / Messiah King anointed, could not beare / Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaird. / Deep malice thence conceiving & disdain, / Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre / Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd / With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave / Unworshipt, unobey'd the Throne supream / Contemptuous [...].

^ Jonathan Edwards; Sereno Edwards Dwight; David Brainerd (1830). The Works of President Edwards: With a Memoir of His Life ... G. & C. & H. Carvill. p. 87.

^ Holweck, Frederick (1911). "St. Michael the Archangel". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York. Retrieved 28 January 2010.

^ M. Eugene Boring; Fred B. Craddock (2004). The People's New Testament Commentary. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 799–800. ISBN 0-664-22754-6. The ejection of the Accuser from heaven is not (as in Milton's Paradise Lost) the story of the origin of Satan as an angel who rebelled against God in primeval times. Neither here nor elsewhere do biblical authors give speculative 'explanations' about the origin of Satan or evil. Such a myth had developed in pre-Christian Judaism (1–2 En.), and there are fragmentary echoes of it in the New Testament (Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4). That is not the picture in this story, which does not take place in primeval times but at the eschatological time of the establishment of God's kingdom by the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus [...].

^ Compare: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2008. It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past [...].

^ Compare: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 19 June 2008. It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past, which, as God would have the apostle to foresee while future, he would have him to review now that they were passed, that he might have a more perfect idea of them in his mind, and might observe the agreement between the prophecy and that Providence that is always fulfilling the scriptures.

^ "Revelation 12 Matthew Henry's Commentary". Mhc.biblecommenter.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016. 12:7–11 The attempts of the dragon proved unsuccessful against the church, and fatal to his own interests. The seat of this war was in heaven; in the church of Christ, the kingdom of heaven on earth. The parties were Christ, the great Angel of the covenant, and his faithful followers; and Satan and his instruments. The strength of the church is in having the Lord Jesus for the Captain of their salvation. Pagan idolatry, which was the worship of devils, was cast out of the empire by the spreading of Christianity. [...] The servants of God overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, as the cause. By the word of their testimony: the powerful preaching of the gospel is mighty, through God, to pull down strongholds. By their courage and patience in suffering: they loved not their lives so well but they could lay them down in Christ's cause. These were the warriors and the weapons by which Christianity overthrew the power of pagan idolatry; and if Christians had continued to fight with these weapons, and such as these, their victories would have been more numerous and glorious, and the effects more lasting. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ, as the only ground of their hopes.

^ One hundred and seventy-three sermons on several subjects: Volume 1, p. 137 Samuel Clarke, John Clarke, J. Leathley ((Dublin)), 1751 "7. that X. there was War in Heaven; Michael and his Angels *- fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon fought and his Angels ... But the Meaning of this Passage is not literal, as if the Devil had the power to fight against the Angels or Ministers of God's government"

^ Smith, Charles Edward (1890). "The Church and the Dragon". The World Lighted: A Study of the Apocalypse. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 128–129. What, now, is the war in heaven? Of course not literal war, nor literally in heaven; not the actual clash of arms between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his wicked cohorts. But something on earth worthy to be represented by such a Titanic contest. What can that be, if not the contest in the visible church concerning true and false doctrine?

^ Top, Brent L. (1992). "War in Heaven". In Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.). Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan Publishing. pp. 1546–1547. ISBN 0-02-879602-0. OCLC 24502140.

^ Matthew 25:41

^ "War in Heaven". The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved 31 May2020.

^https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/true-to-the-faith/plan-of-salvation?lang=eng

^ a b "Lucifer". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016. The brilliancy of the morning star, which eclipses all other stars, but is not seen during the night, may easily have given rise to a myth such as was told of Ethana and Zu: he was led by his pride to strive for the highest seat among the star-gods on the northern mountain of the gods (comp. Ezek. xxviii. 14; Ps. xlviii. 3 [A.V. 2]), but was hurled down by the supreme ruler of the Babylonian Olympus. Stars were regarded throughout antiquity as living celestial beings (Job xxxviii. 7).

^ Job 38:7

^ "Lucifer". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016.

^ "Mansoor 'seven battles described' – Google Search".

^ James R. Davila (2003). The Dead Sea scrolls as background to postbiblical Judaism and early Christianity: papers from an international conference at St. Andrews in 2001. Leiden: Brill Publishers. p. 252. ISBN 978-90-04-12678-7.

^ Fred L. Horton (2005). The Melchizedek Tradition. Cambridge University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-521-01871-5.

^ Joseph L. Angel (2010). Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Brill. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-90-04-18145-8.

^ "Fall of Angels". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016.

^ "Paradise Lost: Book 1".

^ Shrock, Dennis (2009). "2. the Renaissance Era: Richard Dering (Deering) ca. 1580-1630". Choral Repertoire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199716623.

^ Gant, Andrew (2017). O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226469621.

^ Keller, Karl. "Das St. Michaelslied von Friedrich Spee und "Der deutsche Michel""(PDF). historicum.net (in German). Retrieved 3 October 2017.

^ "The War in Heaven". www.gamevortex.com. Retrieved 11 November2020.