9 When Michael the archangel
quarreled with the devil and contended over the body of Moses, he did not dare
to bring a judgment of blasphemy but said, ‘May God order you.’ It is not entirely obvious from what
scriptures Jude took this witness. But nonetheless we should know that we find
something like it in the prophet Zechariah. For indeed he says that, The Lord showed me Jesus the priest standing
before the angel of the Lord, and satan was standing at his right hand, that he
might oppose him. And the Lord said to satan, ‘May the Lord rebuke you, satan,
and may the Lord who chose Jerusalem rebuke you.’ But in this place it is
very easily understood that Jesus the priest desired that the people of Israel
be freed from the captivity of Babylon and return to their fatherland, but
satan resisted him, unwilling for the people of God to be freed, but instead
sold to the enemy, and these gentiles, and therefore the angel who was the
peoples’ helper, rebuked him and removed him from doing further injury to the
same people, But we remain uncertain when Michael had a struggle with the devil
over the body of Moses. But nevertheless there is no lack of those who say that
the same people of God have been called the body of Moses from the fact that
Moses himself was part of that people, and therefore that Jude was properly
able to say that what he had read had been done to the people had been done to
the body of Moses. But wherever and whenever this contention of the angel with
the devil occurred, we must carefully consider that if Michael the archangel
was unwilling to bring a charge of blasphemy against the devil who opposed him,
but restrained him with a mild word, how much more ought all blasphemy be
avoided by human beings, and especially lest they offend by a careless word the
majesty of the Creator. (The Commentary on the Seven Epistles of
Bede the Venerable [trans. David Hurst; Cistercian Studies Series 82;
Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 244-45)
