Michael as Christ in Hippolytus of Rome's Commentary on Daniel

Hippolytus of Rome died about A.D. 236. He wrote his Commentary on Daniel somewhere between A.D. 202 and 211. (Schmidt, p1). Here we have what I believe is a clear reference by Hippolytus to Michael the Archangel as the pre-Incarnate Christ.

He stated his goal in writing this commentary at the outset:

Wishing to precisely demonstrate the times of the captivity which befell the sons of Israel and the prophetic dreams of the blessed Daniel, and also the manner of his life from childhood in Babylon, I myself come forward to speak in order to testify to the holy and righteous prophetic man, even to him who became a witness of Christ, who not only then in those times, revealed the visions of king Nebuchadnezzar, but also similarly, having thoroughly taught his youths, led the faithful witnesses onward into the world.
(Book 1.1.1 Concerning Susana and Daniel)

In the fourth book of his Commentary on Daniel Hippolytus discussed the identity of Michael the Archangel.

Hippolytus identifies Michael as the Angel of the LORD, who is also the same as the LORD. In this he is on the same footing as the early Church Fathers almost universally taught that the Angel of the Lord is the Jesus Christ before He was conceived in the Virgin Mary to be born as a human.

Hippolytus walked through a couple basic Scriptural proofs to demonstrate that Michael in Daniel 11 with Christ:

 Commentary on Daniel, Book 4:40.3-41.1

40.3. And so he says to him, “Do you know why I came to you? And now I will return to fight with the chief of the Persians, but I will proclaim to you what is written in the Scripture of truth, and there is no one who endures with me concerning these things except Michael your chief [ἢ Μιχαἡλ ὁ ἄρχων ὑμῶν], and I left him there, for from the day you gave your face to be afflicted before your Lord God your petition was heard, and I myself was sent to fight with the chief of the Persians. For some plot happened to prevent me from coming to the people so that therefore in haste your request may be answered, I myself stood against him and I left Michael your chief there

40.4. But who is Michael, but the angel who is granted to the people, as he says to Moses, “I will not go with you on the way because the people are stiff necked, but my angel will go with you”?

40.5. This one stood against Moses in the encampment when he carried the uncircumcised boy to Egypt. For it was not possible for Moses to be the elder and mediator of the law, who also announced the covenant of the fathers, and also to lead the uncircumcised boy, so that he may not be considered by the people as a false prophet and a deceiver.
[emphasis is mine]

In 40.4 Hippolytus refers to Exodus 33:1-3 which refers to the Angel of the Lord. This is the Angel of Yahweh, who is also Yahweh. The term Arch [ὁ ἄρχων] in Archangel means "ruler" in English. Hippolytus understood the word Arch [ὁ ἄρχων] to refer to the fact that this Angel of the Lord is the Ruler of the people of Israel. The text says:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’

² And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

³ Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

In case the reader missed the point, Hippolytus refers the reader in his next sentence (40.5) to Exodus 4:24. The reference is clear. Hippolytus said "This one stood against Moses in the encampment when he carried the uncircumcised boy to Egypt." Exodus 4:24 says:

²⁴ And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. 

Hippolytus identifies Michael the Archangel with the Lord himself who came to meet Moses when Moses was returning to Egypt.

 

Hippolytus of Rome: Commentary on Daniel, ©2010 T.C. Schmidt 1st Edition. Originally published on the now defunct Chronichon.net website. Now available from Gorgias Press 

https://www.gorgiaspress.com/hippolytus-of-romes-commentary-on-daniel

 

The Fetus and the Incarnation: Martin Chemnitz

English: Icon of Virgin Mary (Bogorodica) receiving the good news (Blagovestie) from Archangel Gavril that she will gave birth to Jesus, son of God (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The horrors committed by Kermit Gosnell are ignored by mainstream media, but his killings of children are only a small portion of the unborn sacrificed in this country every day. Millions of children are murdered because their parents are selfish and the child is inconvenient.

In the middle of this terrible holocaust Christ sanctifies conception, gestation, the womb, and birth. Human life and childhood is inconvenient: Yet the Son of God endured it for us. Martin Chemnitz wrote:

The angel expressly said that by this conception in and of Mary there should be born the Son of God (Luke 1:35). And He whom Mary conceived is called Imannuel (Matt. 1:23). Therefore, this individual unit of human nature, which by the operation of the Spirit in the conception was separated from the person of the Virgin Mary, at no time and at no moment of time existed or subsisted of and in itself before or outside the hypostatic union with the Logos." ...
Damascenus recorded Athanasius' statement "As soon as it was flesh it was the flesh of the Logos of God; as soon as it was flesh it was animated with a rational soul; in the very first instant of its existence it was united with the person of the Logos."(p.101)

This teaching is not idle sophistry, for it is an article of faith that Mary did not beget a man in whom God dwelt in the way that Elizabeth bore John the Baptist, in whom the Spirit of God dwelt. Rather she bore the only Son of God by receiving His flesh, as Augustine says, "He was conceived and born of the Virgin  Mary for whom this reason and in this sense is correctly called the God-bearer (θεοτοκος)." If reverently considered, this act produces the most comforting thoughts. For the Son of God embraced the human race with such great love that He did not shrink from descending to such a humble state that He not only did not assume a man who was already formed and born, but rather he united to Himself personally an individual human body in the very moment of its conception and made it His own. Thus the Son of God in assuming His own flesh, but without sin, also endured those things which commonly befall man in conception, pregnancy, and birth (as the fathers of the Council of Ephesus said). so that from His very beginning, rise, and as it were, root, He might first restore in Himself our depraved nature and so cleanse and sanctify our contaminated conception and birth that we might know that Christ's salvation applies even to man's fetus in conception, gestation, and birth. (p. 102)

Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ, from Chapter 6 "Teaching the Doctrine of the Hypostatic Union"