And they prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven.
και ουκ ισχυσεν ισχυσαν ουδε τοπος ευρεθη αυτω ετι εν τω ουρανω
9 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Yet first Elijah must pray, and peace will come. After three years and six months, when Elijah's prayer is completed, the antichrist will be cast down from heaven. Until this day he has had the power of exaltation there, as have all the apostate angels. The Apostle Paul also says that the antichrist rises from the nether world: "until the man of sin comes, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above everything called God or worshipped" (2 Thess 2:3-4).
This may be referred both to the first casting down of the devil from the angelic rank because of pride and envy, and to his defeat by the Cross of Christ. Then, according to the Lord's word, the prince of this world was judged and deprived of his former dominion (Jn 12:31). Michael the Archangel and the angels could not endure his pride and vainglory. Before all else, they justly drove him from their company, as Ezekiel confirms. He was cast down by the cherubim from the midst of the fiery stones (Ezek 28:16), that is, I think, from the midst of the angelic orders, because of his iniquities and injustices. At the coming of Christ, the angels subject to Him, after the temptation of Christ, again abhorred him as a dishonored servant.
But let it be known that after the creation of the sensible world, as the holy Fathers think, he was cast down because of envy and pride. Yet this happened in such a way that, as the Apostle says, the former authority of the air was entrusted to him (Eph 6:12). Thus Papias says, "Some of them, that is, of the former angels, were permitted to rule and govern the ordering of the earth, and were entrusted to exercise authority well." But, he continues, "it happened that they brought their own rank to nothing."
The vision, intending to tell us about the events connected with the antichrist, implies an earlier beginning, which was partly mentioned before. For the fall of Satan from heaven is an earlier beginning. The Lord also said of this: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Lk 10:18). Why then does John say, "And there was war in heaven"? Sacred Scripture says that Satan did not bow before God. That is, he lifted up a strong and unbending neck against Him and committed apostasy. God, Who is good and humble by nature, endures him. But the angels of God, unable to bear the insolence of their ruler, removed him from dwelling with them. Therefore it is said here that Michael, one of the great leaders among the angels, fought with Satan and his companions. And Satan did not withstand the contest with him.
One must not think that the devil and his angels dared to wage war in heaven, since without God's permission the devil could not even tempt Job. Rather, he quite clearly called the Church heaven, where each of the faithful continually battles against spiritual vices. Therefore the Apostle says: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age" (Eph 6:12). Thus John says that Michael and his angels fight against the devil because, if this passage is rightly understood, by God's will he fights for her. He does so by praying for the pilgrim Church and bringing her help. As the Apostle says: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?" (Heb 1:14).
For the very name Michael is translated "help of God," and accordingly this work belongs precisely to him. Daniel also said that in the days of the last trials Michael will come to the aid of the Church: "And at that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands for the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation until that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book" (Dan 12:1). The angels are called his angels according to a certain manner of speech that we find elsewhere: "For their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father Who is in heaven" (Mt 18:10). "Their" means those who by faith have begun to be citizens in Christ. So here also they are "his angels," because they are understood to be under the protection of one head and endowed with one Life-giving Spirit. Caesar plainly identifies Michael with Christ: "By Michael understand Christ, and by his angels, the saints." The devil and his angels should be understood not only as those like him in nature and will, but also as men who, caught in their snares, have become companions of the devil. For because of the qualities of the will, it is said of the devil: "An enemy man has done this" (Mt 13:28), and of Judas: "One of you is a devil" (Jn 6:70). He is certainly called the devil because of the twofold composition of his army. Yet, as it is said, he was conquered and torn away by those who, after rejecting him, received faith in Christ and no longer repeated his errors. In them there remains unshaken "love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith" (1 Tim 1:5). Or, since the Church has already been separated from every admixture of evil and glorified with future blessedness, no place remains for the devil and his angels to seduce the wicked or tempt the good. Therefore the psalm, indicating the devil, says: "I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, but his place could not be found" (cf. Ps 36:36).
The Savior appeared in the world to save from death, to enter into battle with the enemy of life, and to destroy his works. Through His whole life, His preaching of repentance, and His self-denial unto death, Christ destroyed the devil's snares. When the Savior's battle with the spirit of malice was taking place on earth, a battle also had to be taking place in the spiritual world between the radiant angels and the spirits of darkness. The latter were defeated by the former. This thought is confirmed by Christ's own words: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Lk 10:18).
Then, at God's command, Satan was cast down from heaven with his followers. The holy Angels, who had remained faithful to God, were confirmed in good by the grace of God and became wholly unbending toward evil, which they had not possessed before. From that time the warfare between the Angels of light and the angels of darkness has not ceased, because the latter do not cease, in their hardened obstinacy, to be enemies and to arm themselves against God. The devil's fall from heaven was instantaneous and swift: "I saw," says the Pre-eternal Word, "Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Lk 10:18). Yet this swiftness of the fall did not reveal to him his own powerlessness or God's omnipotence, so deeply had he been darkened and fallen within himself.
You who are imprisoned in the dungeon of earthly wisdom, let us hear those who acquired spiritual freedom in the Lord and were illumined by spiritual understanding. You born blind, let us hear those whose eyes were opened by the touch of the finger of God. They saw the light of truth, and in the radiance of this light they saw and came to know what is invisible and unknown to fleshly and psychic minds. The word of God and the Spirit Who works with the word reveal to us, through His chosen vessels, that the space between heaven and earth, the whole visible azure abyss, the air, the region beneath heaven, serves as the dwelling place of the fallen angels cast down from heaven. "There was war in heaven," the great seer of mysteries, Saint John the Theologian, relates: "Michael and his Angels made war with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven." According to the explanation of Saint Andrew of Caesarea, this casting down of the devil and of the spirits drawn away by him from heaven followed their first sin. Then they were removed by the holy powers from the angelic assembly and driven out from it, as the holy prophet Ezekiel relates (Ezek 28:16). In the book of Job the fallen angel is already presented as wandering in the immeasurable space beneath heaven. He roamed there and swiftly flew through it, tormented by insatiable malice toward the human race (Job 1:7). The holy Apostle Paul calls the fallen angels "spiritual hosts of wickedness under heaven" (Eph 6:12), and their head "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph 2:2). The fallen angels are scattered in multitude throughout the whole transparent abyss that we see above us. They do not cease to disturb all human societies and every person individually. There is no evil deed and no crime of which they are not instigators and participants. By every possible means they incline man toward sin and teach it to him. This is evident from the writings of Cassian and many other holy Fathers. "Your adversary the devil," says the holy Apostle Peter, "walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Pet 5:8), both during our earthly life and after the soul's separation from the body. When the soul of a Christian leaves its earthly dwelling and begins to strive through the aerial space toward the heavenly homeland, the demons stop it. They try to find in it kinship with themselves, their own sinfulness and fall, and to bring it down into Hades, prepared "for the devil and his angels" (Mt 25:41). They act in this way by a right they have acquired.
Under the image of this warfare the seer of mysteries portrays the triumph and victory of the Christian religion over paganism. While the devil and his demons stirred up and armed the pagans with all their strength to battle against the Church of Christ, Michael the Archangel, with the host of angels who fought beside him, defended the Lord's Church from pagan malice and fanaticism. The result was that the Christian religion prevailed, the pagan gods were overthrown, and Satan with his demons was cast down from heaven to earth. This means that men ceased to serve them in the temples as gods and ceased to worship the personified passions and lusts of mankind. To the heavenly powers, after the glorified God-man ascended into heaven, all this already appeared as an event accomplished in deed. Therefore heaven resounded with cries of victory.
Let us not be curious. Let us not dare to enter into a detailed examination of what this mysterious battle is, which the seer of mysteries beholds and shows us. Rather, let us be cautious and think about our safety. It is dangerous when war is nearby. The heavenly realm in which we see the battle is adjacent to the realm of those born on earth. It is more dangerous when the enemy did not hesitate to attack a realm stronger than ours. He dared to raise war even against heaven, which is undoubtedly more inaccessible and more powerful than earth.
So that the dragon's fury against Christianity might be more intelligible to John, a vision from the recent past is presented to his gaze. The Apostle saw a battle that had taken place in heaven between good and evil spirits, in which the latter were defeated and cast down to the earth. In the flow of the discourse, it is best to see here a symbolic representation of the victory Christ won over the devil. Christ Himself had spoken of this earlier to the Apostles (Lk 10:18; Jn 12:31).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 11 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS