RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Michaelis Middleton
mas is also known as the Festival of St. Michael and All the Holy Angels. In England Michaelmas day is one of the four quarter-days, on which rents are paid, burghal councils elected, etc. Here, and also in other countries, it marks the beginning of the autumn term at schools and universities.
Bibliography: A. Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints, on Sept. 29; J. C. W Augusti, Denkwilrdigkeiten, iii. 281 sqq., Leipsic, 1820; A. J. Binterim, Denkwilrdigkeiten, v., i., pp. 465 sqq., Mainz, 1829; DCA, ii. 1177-79.
MICHELET, SIMON TEMSTRUP: Norwegian theologian; b. at Trondhjem Feb. 8, 1863. He was graduated from the University of Christiania (B.A., 1881; medalist, 1885; candidate in theology, 1887) ; studied at German universities, particularly at Leipsic, for several years, devoting himself to the history of religion, Semitic languages, and the Old Testament; received ordination and pastorates at Trondhjem and Christiania, 1894-96; was appointed professor of theology at the University of Christiania, 1896. He is a representative of the higher criticism, aiming through his publications to interest not merely academic circles, but also the Norwegian public. In his dogmatics he has been influenced by F. Petersen (q.v.), and in his exegesis by Frants Buhl (q.v.). He has argued in favor of retaining the ancient languages in the curricula of the gymnasia, and is a leader in the Norwegian student world. He has published Amos, oversat og fortolket Med en udsigt over de samtidige til-
stande i Israel (1893); Det gamle testamentes syn paa synden (1899) ; Gamle Helligdomme i nyt Lys (1902) ; and Aandens Tjenere, ikke Bogstavens (1907), on the confessional question. John O. Evjen.
MICHELIANS. See Hahn, Johann Michael.
MICRONIUS, MARTINUS (Marten de Cleyne): Dutch Protestant; b. probably at Ghent 1522 or 1523; d. at Norden (17 m. n. of Emden) Sept. 12, 1559. He studied at Basel and Zurich, and early in 1550 went to London as pastor of the Flemish congregation there. After the death of Edward VI. (1553), Mary forbade the preaching of Protestantism, and on Sept. 17 Micronius left England. He went to Denmark, but Lutheran opposition prevented him from the peaceable conduct of worship and he finally reached Emden. Meanwhile some of the London exiles had come into conflict with the Mennonites at Wismar, and Micronius, called from Emden, held a disputation with Menno Simons (q.v.) on Feb. 6 and 15, 1554. Lutheran hostility now drove him successively from Wismar, Liibeck, and Hamburg, but after a brief period of repose at Emden, he was called to the pastorate at Norden, where he remained until his death, except for a short visit to Frankfort in 1555, at Lasco's request, to organize the congregations of Dutch exiles settled there.
Micronius was a master of disputation. His writings show him to have been somewhat Nestorian in Christology and quite Zwinglian in Eucharistic doctrine, but universalistic in his concept of salvation. He was deeply influenced by his teacher and friend Bullinger, but his importance lay less in his theology than in the services he rendered the religious exiles from Holland. His chief works
were: De kleyne Catechismus oft kinderleere der Duytscher Ghemeynte van London (ed. 1552 and often; Eng. transl., London, 1552); Een corte undersouckinge des gheloo/s (1553); Een claer bewijs van het recht gebruyck des Nachtmaals Christi ende wot men van de miss houden sal (Buyten, London 1554); and Christlicke Ordinaneien, etc. (1554). Among his polemics mention may be made of his Een waerachtig verhaal, etc. (Emden, 1556), on his disputations with Menno Simons; Apologeticum scriptum (3 parts, 1557), against Joachim Westphal; and Een Apologie of verandtwoordinghe (Emden, 1558), against Menno Simons. (S. D. van Veen.)
Bibliography: J. H. Gerretsen, Micronius, Zijn leven, zijn geschriften, zijn geestesrichting, Nijmegen, 1895 (cf. S. Cramer, in ThT, 1896, pp. 304-317); Menno Simons, Opera omnia Theologica, pp. 545-618, Amsterdam, 1681.
MIDDLETON, CONYERS: English controversialist and author of the famous Life of Cicero; b. at York Dec. 27, 1683; d. at Hildersham (8 m. s.e. of Cambridge) July 28, 1750. He was graduated from the University of Cambridge (B.A., 1702-03; M.A., 1707; D.D., 1717). He was elected fellow of Trinity College, and was for a short time curate of Trumpington, near Cambridge. He won for himself a wide reputation by his caustic attacks on Bentley, the master of Trinity, who, in spite of his great scholarship, was very unpopular on account of his harsh personalities. In one of these (1720) Middleton assailed Bentley's proposal to issue an edition of the Greek Testament, discovering some errors in the advance sheets, and to this attack Bentley's retirement from that field has been wrongly attributed. Middleton was chosen principal librarian of Trinity College, 1721. See Deism, I., § 7.
In 1724 he visited Rome, and later wrote A Letter from Rome, showing an Exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism (London, 1729, republished 1868), in which he attempted to prove that the religion of the Roman Church was a continuation of the heathenism of ancient Rome. Middleton's controversies were not confined to Bentley, but extended to Daniel Waterland, Thomas Sherlock, and others. He assailed the medical profession in his De medicorum apud veteres Romanos degentium conditione dissertatio (Cambridge, 1726). His controversy with Waterland originated with the latter's attack upon Middleton's assertion that there were " contradictions in the evangelists which could not be reconciled," and that " the story of the fall of man was a fable or allegory." In 1741 he published the great work of his life, the History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero (2 vols., London, best ed., ib. 1848), written after the labors of six years, though the charge is made that it is plagiarized from a rare book by William Bellenden. This biography has been condemned as being too partial, and praising as " wise, virtuous, and heroic " acts which Cicero himself condemned. In his Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the Christian Church from the Earliest Ages through Several Successive Centuries (London, 1749), he denies the continuance of miraculous powers in the Church after the apostolic age. He attacked Sherlock in An Examination of the Lord-Bishop of London's Discourses concerning the
Middleton Midrash