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| Whether God the Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Same Appearance. The Vision to Abraham.
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Chapter 10—Whether God the
Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person
of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Same
Appearance. The Vision to Abraham.
17. And first, in that which is
written in Genesis, viz., that God spake with man whom He
had formed out of the dust; if we set apart the figurative meaning,
and treat it so as to place faith in the narrative even in the
letter, it should appear that God then spake with man in the
appearance of a man. This is not indeed expressly laid down in the
book, but the general tenor of its reading sounds in this sense,
especially in that which is written, that Adam heard the voice of
the Lord God, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, and
hid himself among the trees of the garden; and when God said,
“Adam, where art thou?”267
replied, “I heard Thy voice, and
I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself from Thy
face.” For I do not see how such a walking and conversation of
God can be understood literally, except He appeared as a man. For
it can neither be said that a voice only of God was framed, when
God is said to have walked, or that He who was walking in a place
was not visible; while Adam, too, says that he hid himself from the
face of God. Who then was He? Whether the Father, or the Son, or
the Holy Spirit? Whether altogether indiscriminately did God the
Trinity Himself speak to man in the form of man? The context,
indeed, itself of the Scripture nowhere, it should seem, indicates
a change from person to person; but He seems still to speak to the
first man, who said, “Let there be light,” and, “Let there be
a firmament,” and so on through each of those days; whom we
usually take to be God the Father, making by a word whatever He
willed to make. For He made all things by His word, which Word we
know, by the right rule of faith, to be His only Son. If,
therefore, God the Father spake to the first man, and Himself was
walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, and if it was
from His face that the sinner hid himself amongst the trees of the
garden, why are we not to go on to understand that it was He also
who appeared to Abraham and to Moses, and to whom He would, and how
He would, through the changeable and visible creature, subjected to
Himself, while He Himself remains in Himself and in His own
substance, in which He is unchangeable and invisible? But,
possibly, it might be that the Scripture passed over in a hidden
way from person to person, and while it had related that the Father
said “Let there be light,” and the rest which it mentioned Him
to have done by the Word, went on to indicate the Son as speaking
to the first man; not unfolding this openly, but intimating it to
be understood by those who could understand it.
18. Let him, then, who has the
strength whereby he can penetrate this secret with his mind’s
eye, so that to him it appears clearly, either that the Father also
is able, or that only the Son and Holy Spirit are able, to appear
to human eyes through a visible creature; let him, I say, proceed
to examine these things if he can, or even to express and handle
them in words; but the thing itself, so far as concerns this
testimony of Scripture, where God spake with man, is, in my
judgment, not discoverable, because it does not evidently appear
even whether Adam usually saw God with the eyes of his body;
especially as it is a great question what manner of eyes it was
that were opened when they tasted the forbidden fruit;268
for before
they had tasted, these eyes were closed. Yet I would not rashly
assert, even if that scripture implies Paradise to have been a
material place, that God could not have walked there in any way
except in some bodily form. For it might be said, that only words
were framed for the man to hear, without seeing any form. Neither,
because it is written, “Adam hid himself from the face of God,”
does it follow forthwith that he usually saw His face. For what if
he himself indeed could not see, but feared to be himself seen by
Him whose voice he had heard, and had felt His presence as he
walked? For Cain, too, said to God, “From Thy face I will hide
myself;”269
yet we are
not therefore compelled to admit that he was wont to behold the
face of God with his bodily eyes in any visible form, although he
had heard the voice of God questioning and speaking with him of his
sin. But what manner of speech it was that God
then uttered to the outward ears of men, especially in speaking to
the first man, it is both difficult to discover, and we have not
undertaken to say in this discourse. But if words alone and sounds
were wrought, by which to bring about some sensible presence of God
to those first men, I do not know why I should not there understand
the person of God the Father, seeing that His person is manifested
also in that voice, when Jesus appeared in glory on the mount
before the three disciples;270
and in that when the dove descended
upon Him at His baptism;271
and in that where He cried to the
Father concerning His own glorification and it was answered Him,
“I have both glorified, and will glorify again.”272
Not that the
voice could be wrought without the work of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit (since the Trinity works indivisibly), but that such a voice
was wrought as to manifest the person of the Father only; just as
the Trinity wrought that human form from the Virgin Mary, yet it is
the person of the Son alone; for the invisible Trinity wrought the
visible person of the Son alone. Neither does anything forbid us,
not only to understand those words spoken to Adam as spoken by the
Trinity, but also to take them as manifesting the person of that
Trinity. For we are compelled to understand of the Father only,
that which is said, “This is my beloved Son.”273
For Jesus can neither be believed
nor understood to be the Son of the Holy Spirit, or even His own
Son. And where the voice uttered, “I have both glorified, and
will glorify again,” we confess it was only the person of the
Father; since it is the answer to that word of the Lord, in which
He had said, “Father, glorify thy Son,” which He could not say
except to God the Father only, and not also to the Holy Spirit,
whose Son He was not. But here, where it is written, “And the
Lord God said to Adam,” no reason can be given why the Trinity
itself should not be understood.
19. Likewise, also, in that which
is written, “Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of
thy country, and from thy kindred, and thy father’s house,” it
is not clear whether a voice alone came to the ears of Abraham, or
whether anything also appeared to his eyes. But a little while
after, it is somewhat more clearly said, “And the Lord appeared
unto Abraham, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.”274
But neither
there is it expressly said in what form God appeared to him, or
whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit appeared to him.
Unless, perhaps, they think that it was the Son who appeared to
Abraham, because it is not written, God appeared to him, but “the
Lord appeared to him.” For the Son seems to be called the Lord as
though the name was appropriated to Him; as e.g. the apostle
says, “For though there be that are called gods, whether in
heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many,) but to
us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we
in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we
by Him.”275
But since it
is found that God the Father also is called Lord in many
places,—for instance, “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my
Son; this day have I begotten Thee;”276
and again, “The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand;”277
since also the Holy Spirit is found
to be called Lord, as where the apostle says, “Now the Lord is
that Spirit;” and then, lest any one should think the Son to be
signified, and to be called the Spirit on account of His
incorporeal substance, has gone on to say, “And where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty;”278
and no one ever doubted the Spirit
of the Lord to be the Holy Spirit: therefore, neither here does it
appear plainly whether it was any person of the Trinity that
appeared to Abraham, or God Himself the Trinity, of which one God
it is said, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and Him only shall
thou serve.”279
But under
the oak at Mamre he saw three men, whom he invited, and hospitably
received, and ministered to them as they feasted. Yet Scripture at
the beginning of that narrative does not say, three men appeared to
him, but, “The Lord appeared to him.” And then, setting forth
in due order after what manner the Lord appeared to him, it has
added the account of the three men, whom Abraham invites to his
hospitality in the plural number, and afterwards speaks to them in
the singular number as one; and as one He promises him a son by
Sara, viz. the one whom the Scripture calls Lord, as in the
beginning of the same narrative, “The Lord,” it says,
“appeared to Abraham.” He invites them then, and washes their
feet, and leads them forth at their departure, as though they were
men; but he speaks as with the Lord God, whether when a son is
promised to him, or when the destruction is shown to him that was
impending over Sodom.280
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