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| Moreover Also, from the Fact that He Who Was Seen of Abraham is Called God; Which Cannot Be Understood of the Father, Whom No Man Hath Seen at Any Time; But of the Son in the Likeness of an Angel.
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Chapter XVIII.5146
| 5146
According to Pamelius, ch. xxvi. |
Argument.—Moreover Also, from the Fact that He Who Was
Seen of Abraham is Called God; Which Cannot Be Understood of the
Father, Whom No Man Hath Seen at Any Time; But of the Son in the
Likeness of an Angel.
Behold, the same Moses tells us in another place
that “God was seen of Abraham.”5147
And yet the same Moses hears
from God, that “no man can see God and live.”5148
If God
cannot be seen, how was God seen? Or if He was seen, how is it
that He cannot be seen? For John also says, “No man hath
seen God at any time;”5149
and the Apostle Paul, “Whom no
man hath seen, nor can see.”5150
But certainly the Scripture does
not lie; therefore, truly, God was seen. Whence it may be understood that it
was not the Father who was seen, seeing that He never was seen; but the
Son, who has both been accustomed to descend, and to be seen because He
has descended. For He is the image of the invisible God, as the
imperfection and frailty of the human condition was accustomed
sometimes even then to see God the Father in the image of God, that is,
in the Son of God. For gradually and by progression human frailty
was to be strengthened by the image to that glory of being able one day
to see God the Father. For the things that are great are
dangerous if they are sudden. For even the sudden light of the
sun after darkness, with its too great splendour, will not make
manifest the light of day to unaccustomed eyes, but will rather strike
them with blindness.
And lest this should occur to the injury of human
eyes, the darkness is broken up and scattered by degrees; and the
rising of that luminary, mounting by small and unperceived increments,
gently accustoms men’s eyes to bear its full orb by the
gentle increase of its rays. Thus, therefore, Christ
also—that is, the image of God, and the Son of God—is
looked upon by men, inasmuch as He could be seen. And thus the
weakness and imperfection of the human destiny is nourished, led up,
and educated by Him; so that, being accustomed to look upon the Son, it
may one day be able to see God the Father Himself also as He is, that
it may not be stricken by His sudden and intolerable brightness, and be
hindered from being able to see God the Father, whom it has always
desired.5151
Wherefore
it is the Son who is seen; but the Son of God is the Word of God:
and the Word of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and this is
Christ. What in the world is the reason that we should hesitate
to call Him God, who in so many ways is acknowledged to be proved
God? And if, moreover, the angel meets with Hagar, Sarah’s
maid, driven from her home as well as turned away, near the fountain of
water in the way to Shur; asks and learns the reason of her flight, and
after that offers her advice that she should humble herself; and,
moreover, gives her the hope of the name of mother, and pledges and
promises that from her womb there should be a numerous seed, and that
she should have Ishmael to be born from her; and with other things
unfolds the place of his habitation, and describes his mode of life;
yet Scripture sets forth this angel as both Lord and God—for He
would not have promised the blessing of seed unless the angel had also
been God. Let them ask what the heretics can make of this present
passage. Was that the Father that was seen by Hagar or not?
For He is declared to be God. But far be it from us to call God
the Father an angel, lest He should be subordinate to another whose
angel He would be. But they will say that it was an angel.
How then shall He be God if He was an angel? Since this name is
nowhere conceded to angels, except that on either side the truth
compels us into this opinion, that we ought to understand it to have
been God the Son, who, because He is of God, is rightly called God,
because He is the Son of God. But, because He is
subjected5152
| 5152
[De subordinatione, etc.: Bull, Defensio,
etc., vol. v. pp. 767, 685. The Nicene doctrine includes the
subordination of the Son.] | to the Father,
and the Announcer of the Father’s will, He is declared to be the
Angel of Great Counsel.5153
| 5153
[Isa. ix. 6, according to the Seventy.
Ex. xxiii. 20. See Bull, Defensio,
etc., vol. v. p. 30. Comp. Hippol., p. 225, supra;
Novatian, p. 632, infra.] | Therefore, although this passage
neither is suited to the person of the Father, lest He should be called
an angel, nor to the person of an angel, lest he should be called God;
yet it is suited to the person of Christ that He should be both God
because He is the Son of God, and should be an angel because He is the
Announcer of the Father’s mind. And the heretics ought to
understand that they are setting themselves against the Scriptures, in
that, while they say that they believe Christ to have been also an
angel, they are unwilling to declare Him to have been also God, when
they read in the Old Testament that He often came to visit the human
race. To this, moreover, Moses added the instance of God seen of
Abraham at the oak of Mamre, when he was sitting at the opening of his
tent at noon-day. And nevertheless, although he had beheld three
men, note that he called one of them Lord; and when he had
washed their feet, he offers them bread baked on the ashes, with butter
and abundance of milk itself, and urges them that, being detained as
guests, they should eat. And after this he hears also that he
should be a father, and learns that Sarah his wife should bring forth a
son by him; and acknowledges concerning the destruction of the people
of Sodom, what they deserve to suffer; and learns that God had come
down on account of the cry of Sodom. In which place, if they will
have it that the Father was seen at that time to have been received
with hospitality in company with two angels, the heretics have believed
the Father to be visible. But if an angel, although of the three
angels one is called Lord, why, although it is not usual, is an angel
called God? Unless because, in order that His proper invisibility
may be restored to the Father, and the proper inferiority5154
| 5154
[De subordinatione, etc.: Bull, Defensio,
etc., vol. v. pp. 767, 685. The Nicene doctrine includes the
subordination of the Son.] | be remitted
to the angel, it was only God the Son, who also is God, who was seen by
Abraham, and was believed to have been received with hospitality. For He
anticipated sacramentally what He was hereafter to become. He was
made a guest of Abraham, being about to be among the sons of
Abraham. And his children’s feet, by way of proving what He
was, He washed; returning in the children the claim of hospitality
which formerly the Father had put out to interest to Him. Whence
also, that there might be no doubt but that it was He who was the guest
of Abraham on the destruction of the people of Sodom, it is
declared: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrha fire and brimstone from the Lord out of
heaven.”5155
For
thus also said the prophet in the person of God: “I have
overthrown you, as the Lord overturned Sodom and
Gomorrha.”5156
Therefore the Lord overturned Sodom, that is, God overturned Sodom; but
in the overturning of Sodom, the Lord rained fire from the Lord.
And this Lord was the God seen by Abraham; and this God was the guest
of Abraham, certainly seen because He was also touched. But
although the Father, being invisible, was assuredly not at that time
seen, He who was accustomed to be touched and seen was seen and
received to hospitality. But this the Son of God, “The Lord
rained from the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and
fire.” And this is the Word of God. And the Word of
God was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and this is Christ. It
was not the Father, then, who was a guest with Abraham, but
Christ. Nor was it the Father who was seen then, but the Son; and
Christ was seen. Rightly, therefore, Christ is both Lord and God,
who was not otherwise seen by Abraham, except that as God the Word He
was begotten of God the Father before Abraham himself. Moreover,
says the Scripture, the same Angel and God visits and consoles the same
Hagar when driven with her son from the dwelling of Abraham. For
when in the desert she had exposed the infant, because the water had
fallen short from the pitcher; and when the lad had cried out, and she
had lifted up her weeping and lamentation, “God heard,”
says the Scripture, “the voice of the lad from the place where he
was.”5157
Having
told that it was God who heard the voice of the infant, it adds:
“And the angel of the Lord called Hagar herself out of
heaven,” saying that that was an angel5158
| 5158
[See note 2, p. 628, supra.] | whom it had called God, and
pronouncing Him to be Lord whom it had set forth as an angel; which
Angel and God moreover promises to Hagar herself greater consolations,
in saying, “Fear not; for I have heard the voice of the lad from
the place where he was. Arise, take up the lad, and hold him; for
I will make of him a great nation.”5159
Why does this angel, if angel
only, claim to himself this right of saying, I will make of him a great
nation, since assuredly this kind of power belongs to God, and cannot
belong to an angel? Whence also He is confirmed to be God, since
He is able to do this; because, by way of proving this very point, it
is immediately added by the Scripture: “And God opened her
eyes, and she saw a well of running water; and she went and filled the
bottle from the well, and gave to the lad: and God was with the
lad.”5160
If,
then, this God was with the Lord, who opened the eyes of Hagar that she
might see the well of running water, and might draw the water on
account of the urgent need of the lad’s thirst, and this
God who calls her from heaven is called an angel when, in previously
hearing the voice of the lad crying, He was rather God; is not
understood to be other than angel, in like manner as He was God
also. And since this cannot be applicable or fitting to the
Father, who is God only, but may be applicable to Christ, who is
declared to be not only God, but angel also,5161
| 5161 [See
vol. i. p. 184.] | it manifestly appears that it was not
the Father who thus spoke to Hagar, but rather Christ, since He is God;
and to Him also is applied the name of angel, since He became the
“angel of great counsel.”5162
And He is the angel, in that He
declares the bosom of the Father, as John sets forth. For if John
himself says, that He Himself who sets forth the bosom of the Father,
as the Word, became flesh in order to declare the bosom of the Father,
assuredly Christ is not only man, but angel also; and not only angel,
but He is shown by the Scriptures to be God also. And this is
believed to be the case by us; so that, if we will not consent to
apprehend that it was Christ who then spoke to Hagar, we must either
make an angel God, or we must reckon God the Father Almighty among the
angels.5163
| 5163
[Among the apparitions are noted Gen. xxxii. 24; Ex. iii.; Num. xxii. 21;
Josh. v. 13; 1 Kings xxviii. 11.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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