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| That God Also Appeared to Jacob as an Angel; Namely, the Son of God.
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Chapter XIX.5164
| 5164
According to Pamelius, ch. xxvii. | Argument.—That God
Also Appeared to Jacob as an Angel; Namely, the Son of God.
What if in another place also we read in like manner
that God was described as an angel? For when, to his wives Leah
and Rachel, Jacob complained of the injustice of their father, and when
he told them that he desired now to go and return into his own land, he
moreover interposed the authority of his dream; and at this time he
says that the angel of God had said to him in a dream, “Jacob,
Jacob. And I said,” says he, “What is it? Lift up
thine eyes, said He, and see, the he-goats and the rams leaping upon
the sheep, and the she-goats are black and white, and many-coloured,
and grizzled, and speckled: for I have seen all that Laban hath
done to thee. I am God, who appeared to thee in the place of God,
where thou anointedst for me there the standing stone, and there
vowedst a vow unto me: now therefore arise, and go forth from
this land, and go unto the land of thy nativity, and I will be with
thee.”5165
If the
Angel of God speaks thus to Jacob, and the Angel himself mentions and
says, “I am God, who appeared unto thee in the house of
God,” we see without any hesitation that this is declared to be
not only an angel, but God also; because He speaks of the vow directed
to Himself by Jacob in the place of God, and He does not say, in my
place. It is then the place of God, and He also is God.
Moreover, it is written simply in the place of God, for it is not said
in the place of the angel and God, but only of God; and He who promises
those things is manifested to be both God and Angel, so that reasonably
there must be a distinction between Him who is called God only, and Him
who is declared to be not God simply, but Angel also. Whence if
so great an authority cannot here be regarded as belonging to any other
angel, that He should also avow Himself to be God, and should bear
witness that a vow was made to Him, except to Christ alone, to whom not
as angel only, but as to God, a vow can be vowed; it is manifest that
it is not to be received as the Father, but as the Son, God and
Angel.5166
Moreover, if this is Christ, as it is, he is in terrible risk who says
that Christ is either man or angel alone, withholding from Him the
power of the divine name,—an authority which He has constantly
received on the faith of the heavenly Scriptures, which continually say
that He is both Angel and God. To all these things, moreover, is
added this, that in like manner as the divine Scripture has frequently
declared Him both Angel and God, so the same divine Scripture declares
Him also both man and God, expressing thereby what He should be, and
depicting even then in figure what He was to be in the truth of His
substance. “For,” it says, “Jacob remained
alone; and there wrestled with him a man even till daybreak. And
He saw that He did not prevail against him; and He touched the broad
part of Jacob’s thigh while He was wrestling with him and he with
Him, and said to him, Let me go, for the morning has dawned. And
he said, I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me. And He
said, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And He said to
him, Thy name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy
name; because thou hast prevailed with God, and thou art powerful with
men.”5167
And it
adds, moreover: “And Jacob called the name of that place
the Vision of God: for I have seen the Lord face to face, and my
soul has been made safe. And the sun arose upon him.
Afterwards he crossed over the Vision of God, but he halted upon his
thigh.”5168
A man,
it says, wrestled with Jacob. If this was a mere man, who is
he? Whence is he? Wherefore does he contend and wrestle
with Jacob? What had intervened? What had happened?
What was the cause of so great a dispute as that, and so great a
struggle? Why, moreover, is Jacob, who is found to be strong
enough to hold the man with whom he is wrestling, and asks for a
blessing from Him whom he is holding, asserted to have asked therefore,
except because this struggle was prefigured as that which should be
between Christ and the sons of Jacob, which is said to be completed in
the Gospel? For against this man Jacob’s people struggled,
in which struggle Jacob’s people was found to be the more
powerful, because against Christ it gained the victory of its
iniquity: at which time, on account of the crime that it
committed, hesitating and giving way, it began most sorely to halt in
the walk of its own faith and salvation; and although it was found the
stronger, in respect of the condemnation of Christ, it still needs His
mercy, still needs His blessing. But, moreover, the man who
wrestled with Jacob says, “Moreover, thy name shall no longer be
called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name;” and if Israel is the
man who sees God, the Lord was beautifully showing that it was not only
a man who was then wrestling with Jacob, but God also. Certainly
Jacob saw God, with whom he wrestled, although he was holding the man
in his own struggle. And in order that there might still be no
hesitation, He Himself laid down the interpretation by saying,
“Because thou hast prevailed with God, and art powerful with
men.” For which reason the same Jacob, perceiving already
the force of the Mystery, and apprehending the authority of Him with
whom he had wrestled, called the name of that place in which he had
wrestled, the Vision of God. He, moreover, superadded the reason
for his interpretation being offered of the Vision of God:
“For I have seen,” said he, “God face to face, and my
soul has been saved.” Moreover, he saw God, with whom he
wrestled as with a man; but still indeed he held the man as a
conqueror, though as an inferior he asked a blessing as from God.
Thus he wrestled with God and with man; and thus truly was that struggle prefigured,
and in the Gospel was fulfilled, between Christ and the people of
Jacob, wherein, although the people had the mastery, yet it proved to
be inferior by being shown to be guilty. Who will hesitate to
acknowledge that Christ, in whom this type of a wrestling was
fulfilled, was not man only, but God also, since even that very type of
a wrestling seems to have proved Him man and God? And yet, even
after this, the same divine Scripture justly does not cease to call the
Angel God, and to pronounce God the Angel. For when this very
Jacob was about to bless Manasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph, with
his hands placed across on the heads of the lads, he said, “The
God which fed me from my youth even unto this day, the Angel who
delivered me from all evils, bless these lads.”5169
Even to such a point does he
affirm the same Being to be an Angel, whom he had called God, as in the
end of his discourse, to express the person of whom he was speaking as
one, when he said5170
“bless these lads.” For if he had meant the one to be
understood as God, and the other as an angel, he would have comprised
the two persons in the plural number; but now he defined the singular
number of one person in the blessing, whence he meant it to be
understood that the same person is God and Angel. But yet He
cannot be received as God the Father; but as God and Angel, as Christ
He can be received. And Him, as the author of this blessing,
Jacob also signified by placing his hands crossed upon the lads, as if
their father was Christ, and showing, from thus placing his hands, the
figure and future form of the passion.5171
| 5171 [A
very beautiful patristic idea of the dim vision of the cross to which
the Fathers were admitted, but which they understood not, even when
they predicted it. 1
Pet. x. 11.] | Let no one, therefore, who does
not shrink from speaking of Christ as an Angel, thus shrink from
pronouncing Him God also, when he perceives that He Himself was invoked
in the blessing of these lads, by the sacrament of the passion,
intimated in the type of the crossed hands, as both God and
Angel.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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