ARCHANGEL. — The term occurs only twice in the New Testament (1 Thess. 4:16; with the article: Jude 9), in the singular, and designates St Michael (q.v.), called *ha-šar hag-gādhōl* (the great prince) in Dan. 12:1. The prefix *ārḥ*, much in use in the Hellenistic (and Byzantine) period with terms of office or dignity, expresses the highest degree. Hence *ārḥāngelos*.
The term recurs in the first four centuries (better manuscripts of the Protoevangelium of James; Sibylline Oracles, VIII, 460 [early 3rd century]; St Ephrem, *Sermo adv. haereticos* [Opera graeca, 2, 269]; Theodoret, *in Cant. Cant. praefatio*; St Ambrose, *De virginibus*, 2, 2, 10 sqq.; Sedulius, *Opus Paschale*, 2, 3; etc.); Raphael, however, appears more rarely and later (St Isidore, *Etymolog.* VII, 5, 13 sqq.; George Syncellus).
It was forbidden to admit other names of angels or archangels besides the three biblical ones (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael) in the Council of Laodicea (c. 360-65, canon 35), the Roman Council of 745 (actio 3: ‘Non plus quam trium angelorum nomina cognosci’), and the quasi-Council of Frankfurt of 789 (canon 28, 16: ‘De ignotis angelorum nominibus’); cf. Hefele-Leclercq, I, pp. 1017 sqq. Nevertheless, St Isidore and George Syncellus include Uriel among the archangels.
Today the late classification (already in the 4th century in the Sacramentary of Serapion and in the *Constitut. Apost.*, VIII, 12, 8, 27, and cf. VII, 35, 3: ed. Funk, I, pp. 498, 505, 431; II, p. 172), propagated by Pseudo-Dionysius (*De coelesti Hierarchia* 6, 2), which placed the archangels in the penultimate rank of the angelic hierarchy (q.V. ANGELO; CORI ANGELICI), is rightly rejected; to angels and archangels was reserved the sole office of ‘messengers’ (Gregory the Great, *Hom. 34 in Evang.*). The archangel is the head of the celestial host (Josh. 5:14-15, LXX) and in this sense Michael is called *archistrategos* (Slavonic Enoch, 30:10; *Epist. Apostol.*, Coptic text, in Schmidt, op. cit., p. 49).