Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| It is Proved from the Scriptures that Christ Was Called an Angel. But Yet It is Shown from Other Parts of Holy Scripture that He is God Also. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XX.5172
5172
According to Pamelius, ch. xv. | Argument.—It is
Proved from the Scriptures that Christ Was Called an Angel. But
Yet It is Shown from Other Parts of Holy Scripture that He is God
Also.
But if some heretic, obstinately struggling
against the truth, should persist in all these instances either in
understanding that Christ was properly an angel, or should contend that
He must be so understood, he must in this respect also be subdued by
the force of truth. For if, since all heavenly things, earthly
things, and things under the earth, are subjected to Christ, even the
angels themselves, with all other creatures, as many as are subjected
to Christ, are called gods,5173
5173
[Ps. xcvii. 7; John x.
36; Hippol., p. 153,
supra.] | rightly also Christ is God. And
if any angel at all subjected to Christ can be called God, and this, if
it be said, is also professed without blasphemy, certainly much more
can this be fitting for Christ, Himself the Son of God, for Him to be
pronounced God. For if an angel who is subjected to Christ is
exalted as God, much more, and more consistently, shall Christ, to whom
all angels are subjected, be said to be God. For it is not
suitable to nature, that what is conceded to the lesser should be
denied to the greater. Thus, if an angel be inferior to Christ,
and yet an angel is called god, rather by consequence is Christ said to
be God, who is discovered to be both greater and better, not than one,
but than all angels. And if “God standeth in the assembly
of the gods, and in the midst God distinguisheth between the
gods,”5174 and Christ
stood at various times in the synagogue, then Christ stood in the
synagogue as God,—judging, to wit, between the gods, to whom He
says, “How long do ye accept the persons of men?”
That is to say, consequently, charging the men of the synagogue with
not practising just judgments. Further, if they who are reproved
and blamed seem even for any reason to attain this name without
blasphemy, that they should be called gods, assuredly much more shall
He be esteemed God, who not only is said to have stood as God in the
synagogue of the gods, but moreover is revealed by the same authority
of the reading as distinguishing and judging between gods. But
even if they who “fall like one of the princes” are
still called gods, much rather shall He be said to be God, who not only
does not fall like one of the princes, but even overcomes both the
author and prince of wickedness himself. And what in the world is
the reason, that although they say that this name was given even to
Moses, since it is said, “I have made thee as a god to
Pharaoh,”5175 it should
be denied to Christ, who is declared to be ordained5176 not to Pharaoh only, but to
every creature, as both Lord and God? And in the former case
indeed this name is given with reserve, in the latter lavishly; in the
former by measure, in the latter above all kind of measure:
“For,” it is said, “the Father giveth not to the Son
by measure, for the Father loveth the Son.”5177 In the former for the time, in
the latter without reference to time;5178 for He received the power of the
divine name, both above all things and for all time. But if he
who has received the power of one man, in respect to this limited power
given him, still without hesitation attains that name of God, how much
more shall He who has power over Moses himself as well be believed to
have attained the authority of that name?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|