Discourse on the Angels or Spirits of Empires

An angel was not sent immediately to announce God's mercy to him; because for twenty-one days the Prince of the Persians <note original: "Princeps Persarum">In the Book of Daniel, this is interpreted as a guardian angel or spiritual power overseeing the Persian Empire. resisted him, counting up the sins of the Jewish people, arguing that they were justly held captive and should not be released. And behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, etc. To me, who was offering your prayers to God and to my mission, which was being resisted by the Angel of the Persians, the Angel Michael came to my aid, who is set over the people of Israel. Moreover, by "chief princes," we understand the Archangels. And I remained there beside the king of the Persians, etc. He calls the Angel—that is, the Prince—the King of the Persians: and he shows that he stayed a little while with Michael, who was speaking against the Prince of the Persians. And elsewhere Jerome St. Jerome (c. 347–420 AD), a Church Father best known for translating the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate)., in his commentary on Ezekiel, chapter 28, says that provinces were handed over to angels to be governed, just as judges are appointed by an Emperor. So also Rufinus Tyrannius Rufinus (c. 345–410 AD), a monk and historian who was a close friend of Jerome until they had a bitter falling out over theological doctrines., once a very close friend of Saint Jerome (though he later became a rival), in his Exposition of the Creed: "From the beginning, certain powers of the heavenly virtues were set in charge, by whom the race of mortals would be governed and managed." Indeed, God, in a most beautiful order, Lipsius, Physiology of the Stoics, book 1, dissertation 10. Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) was a Flemish humanist whose work sought to reconcile ancient Stoic philosophy with Christianity. scattered [them] through this body of the Universe according to the nature or dignity of each; as Damascenus St. John of Damascus (c. 675–749 AD), a Syrian monk and scholar. says: "guarding parts of the earth, and presiding over nations and places" original Greek: "φυλάττοντας μέρη τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐθνῶν καὶ τόπων προϊσταμένους".

Cardinal Bellarmine, On Ecclesiastical Writers, writing under the years 1400 to 1500. Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was a powerful Jesuit Cardinal and a central figure in the Counter-Reformation. 6. Truly illustrious was Giovanni Pico, Count of Mirandola, a man who, in the previous century, was the greatest in talent and learning for his age—for he lived only thirty-three years—and to whom, in Bellarmine's opinion, nothing at all seems to have been lacking except maturity. In his Against Astrology, book 4, chapter 4, he writes thus:

Just as God rules and moderates the elemental mass (being the lesser part) through the celestial realm (which is better), so it is fitting that human affairs be governed not by physical bodies, but by the mystery of Angels, who by nature and dignity stand as mediators between us and God. Therefore, when you descend from God to the earth, descend through the heavens; when you descend from God to men, descend through the Angels. Thus the an-