fore, to what I shall record out of the holy Scriptures, which[1] I do not need to be expounded, but only listened to.
Chap. lvi.—God who appeared to Moses is distinguished from God the Father.
"Moses, then, the blessed and faithful servant of God, declares that He who appeared to Abraham under the oak in Mamre is God, sent with the two angels in His company to judge Sodom by Another who remains ever in the super-celestial places, invisible to all men, holding personal intercourse with none, whom we believe to be Maker and Father of all things; for he speaks thus: God appeared to him under the oak in Mamre, as he sat at his tent-door at noon-tide. And lifting up his eyes, he saw, and behold, three men stood before him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent; and he bowed himself toward the ground, and said;'"[2] (and so on till;)[3] "'Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the adjacent country, and beheld, and, lo, a flame went up from the earth, like the smoke of a furnace.'" And when I had made an end of quoting these words, I asked them if they had understood them.
And they said they had understood them, but that the passages adduced brought forward no proof that there is any other God or Lord, or that the Holy Spirit says so, besides the Maker of all things.
Then I replied, "I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood the Scriptures, [of the truth] of what I say, that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to[4] the Maker of all things; who is also called an Angel, because He announces to men whatsoever the
- ↑ Two constructions, "which" referring either to Scriptures as whole, or to what he records from them. Last more probable.
- ↑ Gen. xviii. 1, 2.
- ↑ Gen. xix. 27, 28; "and so on" inserted probably not by Justin, but by some copyist, as is evident from succeeding words.
- ↑ Some, "besides;" but probably as above.
