<b>The author of this article "Imaginary Chart", welcome to the Douban App to pay attention to Ta. </b>
In Christian paintings and sculptures, Michael often appears as a teenager holding a sword or spear to fight a dragon or demon, or standing on a dragon or demon.
This text is from Revelation 12: There was a battle in heaven. Michael fought with his messengers and the dragons, and the dragons fought with his messengers, but they did not win, and there was no place for them in heaven. The great dragon is the ancient serpent, called the devil, also called Satan, who deceives the whole world. It was thrown to the ground, and so were its messengers. In Revelation 20: I see an angel descend from heaven with a bottomless key and a large chain. He caught the dragon, the ancient serpent, also called the devil, also called Satan, and tied him up for a thousand years, threw it in the bottomless pit, closed the bottomless pit, and sealed it with a seal, so that he could no longer confuse the nations. When the millennium is over, it must be temporarily released.
In 324, after Constantine the Great defeated Licinius, a portrait of an angel slaying a dragon became the paradigm of religious painting with Michael as the theme, and in the 4th century AD, bishop Basilio of Caesarea placed Michael above all angels, calling him archangelos.
In religious paintings and sculptures with Michael as the theme, Michael often carries a balance in addition to holding a weapon. On the one hand, this is because Michael is seen as the angel of death, who came before the death of the people, giving every soul the last chance to atone for their sins before leaving the world, scaring away the demons who have targeted the soul, and bringing the redeemed soul to heaven.
On the other hand, in the final judgment, Michael would weigh the soul in an absolute balance, and the soul of the sinner was heavy and therefore sent to hell, but this passage is not explicitly stated in the book of Revelation, which says, "And I saw the dead, no matter how big or small, standing before the throne." The case file has been expanded, and another volume has been expanded, which is the book of life. The dead are judged according to what they have done in these case files."
The so-called book of life refers to the roster of believers, the souls who are not on the roster go directly into the lake of fire, and the souls in the roster are judged according to their deeds, the so-called salvation by faith, and so on. Michael's balance is easily reminiscent of Matt's scale in Egyptian mythology, but the passage of the human soul measured in heaven appears many times in the Bible, such as job chapter 31, if I am weighed by the scale of justice, so that God can know my purity.
In the myths of the Mandians, there are also stories of the use of balances to weigh souls, and the angel Abathathar Muzania places human souls at one end of the scale and fish scales at the other end to measure the value of people.
(End of full text)
<b>The author of this article, "Imaginary Chart", now lives in Minsk, has published 38 original texts, and is still active in the Douban community. Download Douban App to search for users "imaginary charts" to follow Ta. </b>