And the whole cause of his also being God would be this: that he alone is by nature the Son of God, and is entitled 'only-begotten,' and that he preserves throughout the ensouled and living, intelligent image of the only God, being in all respects made like the Father, and bearing the very likeness of his Godhead.
For this reason, then, the divine oracles fittingly proclaim him God, as being the only Son and the only image of God, clothed with the powers of the Father's unbegotten and beginningless essence according to the pattern of likeness, and wrought by the Father, the most skillful of all craftsmen and the all-knowing, life-giving artist, to the utmost precision of that likeness — proclaim him God as one who, along with the other attributes, has also been deemed worthy of this appellation by the Father, having received it, and not possessing it as his own by right.
For the one gives, and the other receives; so that properly speaking that one alone is God, being so both singly and by nature, and not having received it from another, while the other has been deemed worthy of the second place, and holds his being God as something received from the Father, as being the image of God — a single Godhead being conceived in respect of both, according to the pattern, there being one God existing in himself, without beginning and unbegotten, but being contemplated, as it were through a mirror and an image, by means of the Son.
This indeed the spiritual oracle also teaches, saying that the one signified is a God to be worshipped in no other way than on account of the Father who dwells in him. For, it says, 'they shall pray in you, because God is in you'; and you yourself, being God, are the savior of Israel, and for this reason you are a mighty and hidden God, since God is in you, and there is none besides him.
Instead of 'Egypt has labored,' the Hebrew and all the other translators render 'the labor of Egypt,' in which the sense is as follows: 'the labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sebo'im shall worship you and become your slaves' — by which I take it are signified certain barbarous and obscure nations, and all those who had long before already been worn down by demonic superstition.
For since the Egyptians were thought to be the most superstitious of all nations, and to have been the first to originate the error of idolatry, the prophecy fittingly places them first among those to be subjected to Christ, and through them also makes clear what pertains to the other idolaters.
And these things have been fulfilled in the case of our Savior and Lord, in that he is worshipped among all nations, and countless multitudes of the nations throughout the inhabited world serve him.
And I think that the Ethiopians and the Sebo'im, prophesied here as about to worship Christ, are also signified through Psalm 71, in which it is said: 'Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and the kings of the Arabians and of Sheba shall bring gifts, and they shall worship him.' It is clear from the context that they shall worship the Christ prophesied in those psalms as well. From Psalm 32: How David, in like manner to us, knows the essential Word of God as the maker of all things by the command of the Father; and how the same prophet testifies that the same Word of God was sent from the Father for the healing of men; and how he foretells that in a short time he would fill the whole earth with his teaching.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. And in Psalm 106 it is said: He sent forth his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions. And again in Psalm 147: He who sends forth his word to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
For with the psalm now in hand, which says, 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established,' the holy Gospel agrees, saying expressly: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.' The Gospel fittingly names him God, since, through the passages already discussed, this same one now called 'Word' in theological terms has also been proclaimed Wisdom, and Offspring of God, and Priest, and Christ, King, and Lord, and God, and Image of God.
And that he, being other than the Father, was his minister — such that, at the command of the Greater, he created — is further stated in the present psalm, which goes on to say: 'Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all who dwell in the world be moved by him; for he spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.'
For it is evident that he who speaks, speaks to another, and he who commands gives a command to another besides himself. And clearly, at the incarnation of our Savior, countless multitudes from all the earth — that is, from all the nations upon the earth — no longer feared the demons as before, but feared the Lord Jesus himself.
And all who dwell in the world were shaken at the name of Christ, in accordance with the oracle now under discussion, which says: 'Let all the earth fear the Lord, and let all who dwell in the world be moved by him.'
These things, then, are from the thirty-second psalm. You would find things in agreement with these also in Psalm 148, which teaches that not only the things pertaining to earth, but also those pertaining to heaven, and, in short, the whole creation, came into being at the command of the God of all things. It says: 'Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the highest. Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you stars and light; for he spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.'
For if he himself commanded, who was so great as to receive the command concerning things of such magnitude, except the Word of God, who is variously described theologically throughout the present subject of ours, and who is fittingly called the Word of God, since the Almighty has deposited in him the creative and productive principles of all things, having entrusted to him the governing and administering of the universe by reason and order?
Let no one, then, suppose that the Word of God is similar to the articulate and spoken word among men, which is composed of syllables and made up of nouns and verbs; for our word possesses its being in sounds and syllables and in the things signified through these, being uttered through the tongue and the windpipe, the throat and the mouth; but he, being of an eternal and incorporeal nature, wholly and in every way different from the word among us, would carry nothing human about him, having only the shared use of the name in common.
Since one must not attribute to the God of all things either voice arising through the striking of air, or spoken words, or syllables, or tongue, or mouth, or anything at all human and mortal; for such a word would belong to a soul, being in no way able to exist or subsist by itself apart from a soul. For such is the word among men: properly speaking, without independent essence and without hypostasis of its own, being wholly a self-motion and an activity of the mind.
But the Word of God is not such as this; rather he has, of himself, his own proper hypostasis, wholly divine and intelligent, subsisting distinctly and again acting distinctly, being immaterial and incorporeal, and in all respects made like the nature of the first and unbegotten and only God, bearing within himself the rational principles of all begotten things, and the incorporeal and invisible forms of visible things. For this reason the divine oracles call him also Wisdom and the Word of God.
Hear me, Jacob and Israel, whom I call: I am the first, and I am forever; my hand founded the earth, and my right hand established the heaven. I will call them, and they shall stand together, and they shall all be gathered, and they shall hear who declared these things to them. The Lord, loving you, has done your will upon Babylon, to remove the seed of the Chaldeans. I have spoken, and I have called. I brought him, and made his way prosperous. Draw near to me, and hear these things. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. When it came to pass, there I was. And now the Lord, the Lord, has sent me, and his Spirit.
Observe, then, also here in what manner the one who said, 'I am the first, and I am forever,' who established the earth and the heaven, so plainly confesses that he has been sent by 'the Lord, the Lord,' thus in his customary manner proclaiming the Father twice as 'Lord,' so that you might have this also as an indisputable testimony to the matter under inquiry.
And it piously says that he is 'first' among begotten things, assigning to the Father the beginningless and unbegotten essence, which is above the 'first.' For the term 'first' presupposes a greater number, being placed foremost in honor and order — which would not be fitting to apply to the Father.
For the God who is over all is certainly not 'first' among begotten things, since no beginning at all is conceived for him; rather, he would be beyond and above 'the first,' inasmuch as he himself both begot and gave subsistence to 'the first' — the divine Word alone being entitled 'first' of all begotten things.
Now when the question is raised, according to the words 'he spoke and they came to be, he commanded and they were created,' to whom the creation of begotten things has been commanded, it has now been clearly demonstrated that it was to the one who said, 'My hand founded the earth, and my right hand established the heaven' — who also confesses that he has been sent by the Greater, saying, 'And now the Lord, the Lord, has sent me, and his Spirit.'
And it would be the God-Word who says these things also, since 'by the word of the Lord the heavens were established,' according to the citation from the Psalm. Nevertheless, even though the Word of God himself is theologically designated by the title 'Lord,' still he most piously calls his own highest and greater Father and Lord 'Lord' twice, using a distinguishing name for him.
For it says, 'And now the Lord, the Lord, has sent me,' inasmuch as the God who is over all things is properly and truly Lord, both of his own only-begotten Word and of all begotten things after him; and since the Word of God, in relation to these, has received in the second place lordship and dominion from the Father — being, as a genuine and only-begotten Son, fittingly and piously entitled 'Lord' also, in the second place. From Genesis: How Moses also, the greatest servant of God, in the account of the making of the world, knows the Father and God of all things conversing with another concerning the creation of man — and we have already learned that this is the divine Word.
And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness. And again, And God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; let us make him a helper according to him.
And lest anyone should suppose that these words were spoken to angels, Moses shows immediately that the one who was commanded was not an angel of God, saying: And God made man; according to the image of God he made him. From the same book: How the same Moses most plainly and openly speaks theologically of two Lords.
Moses plainly proclaims a second Lord, whom he also teaches was permitted by the Greater to execute punishment upon the impious. Nevertheless, although we openly confess two Lords, we do not employ the same theological terms concerning both; but, piously observing due order, we have been taught that the one who is highest is Father and God and Lord, and Lord and God of the second; while the Word of God, the second Lord, we have been taught is master of those under him, but not in the same way of the Greater.
For the God-Word is not Lord of the Father, nor God of the Father, but is the image and Word and Wisdom and Power of that one; while of those after him he is master, Lord, and God. But the Father is both Father of the Son, and his Lord and God. Whence, fittingly, the matters of our pious theology, tracing back, converge for us upon one origin and one God. From the same book: How the same servant shows the God-Word, already named the second God and Lord, to have appeared to the men of old in human form and shape, and to have conversed with them, as he relates.
And the Lord appeared to Abraham, and said to him, To your seed I will give this land. And again: And Abraham was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abraham, and said to him, I am God; be well-pleasing before me, and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between you and me, and I will multiply you exceedingly.
And again: And God appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at noon. And lifting up his eyes he looked, and behold, three men were standing above him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and did obeisance.
And following upon the vision, it goes on to say: And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing? For Abraham shall surely become a great and populous nation, and in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
And to these it adds further, as concerning another: For I knew that he would command his sons and his household after him, and they would keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, that the Lord might bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.
These very things the Lord who conversed with Abraham has himself recorded as saying, thereby confessing another Lord — namely, his own Father and Maker of the universe. And Abraham indeed, having, as a prophet, an accurate apprehension of the one who spoke with him, immediately after the things already set forth, entreats him, saying: Will you destroy the righteous with the impious, and shall the righteous be as the impious? If there be fifty righteous in the city, will you destroy them, and not spare the whole place for the sake of the fifty righteous? Far be it from you to do this thing, to slay the righteous with the impious, so that the righteous should be as the impious. Far be it from you, who judge all the earth, to do this — will you not do justice?
Now I do not think it fitting to say that these words are spoken to angels, or to any of God's ministers; for judging all the earth would not belong to just anyone. But indeed the one recorded above is not proclaimed an angel; rather he is a God and Lord superior to an angel, who was seen in human form, together with the two angels, at the oak already mentioned.
Again, moreover, one must not suppose that the God who is over all is signified by these things either; for to say that the Divine changes and takes the shape and form of a man is not pious. It remains, then, to confess that it is the Word of God who has been theologically described in what precedes; and hence, even now, among the people of the surrounding region, the place is venerated as though divine, in honor of those who appeared there to Abraham, and to this day the terebinth is still to be seen remaining there.
For those who were entertained by Abraham, depicted in painting, two on either side, and in the middle the greater one, surpassing in honor — this would be the Lord already made known to us, our own Savior, whom even those who do not otherwise know him worship, confirming the divine oracles. This same one, therefore, from that time sowing among men the seeds of piety, having put on human form and shape, revealed to the God-beloved forefather Abraham who he was, and delivered to him the mind of his own Father. From the same book: How the same prophet, concerning Jacob, more clearly displays the Lord in question, whom he also calls both God and angel, though speaking of the God who is over all.
And he journeyed to Haran, and came to a certain place, and slept there, for the sun had set. And he took one of the stones there, and put it under his head, and slept in that place, and dreamed; and behold, a ladder was fixed upon the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God ascended and descended upon it. And the Lord stood firmly above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; do not fear. The land on which you are sleeping, to you will I give it, and to your seed.
And your seed shall be as the sand of the sea, and shall spread abroad to the sea and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, and in your seed. And behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way you go, and I will bring you back into this land; for I will not forsake you, until I have done all that I have spoken to you.
And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and said, The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid, and said, How fearful is this place! This is nothing else but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone which he had put under his head, and set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and Jacob called the name of that place, House of God.
This one who here is thus at length designated Lord and God, you will find further on called angel of God, in the passage where Jacob himself says to his wives: And the angel of God said to me in a dream, Jacob; and I said, What is it? And I have seen, he says, all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you in the place where you anointed a pillar to me, and vowed a vow to me.
Was, then, he who said above, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac' — to whom also the God-beloved Jacob set up a pillar — indeed God and Lord (for one must believe him who speaks); yet not the God over all, but the second after that One, ministering and proclaiming to men the things of the Father.
Wherefore Jacob too, in the present passage, calls him an angel, saying, 'The angel of God said to me in my sleep, I am the God who appeared to you in this place.' Thus the same one is here plainly proclaimed both angel of the Lord and God and Lord. And in Isaiah the prophet he is styled 'Angel of Great Counsel,' and at the same time is addressed as God and Ruler and Potentate, in the passage where he foretells his birth among men, saying: 'A child has been born for us, and a son has been given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of Great Counsel, Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Potentate, Father of the age to come.'
And rising up that night he took his two wives and his two maidservants and his eleven children, and crossed over the crossing-place of Jabbok, and took them and brought all that was his across. But Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. And when he saw that he could not prevail against him, he touched the broad part of his thigh, and the broad part of Jacob's thigh grew numb as he wrestled with him. And he said to him, 'Let me go, for the dawn has come up.' But he said, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' And he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob.' And he said to him, 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but your name shall be Israel, because you have prevailed with God, and shall be mighty with men.' And Jacob asked him, and said, 'Tell me your name.' And he said, 'Why do you ask this, my name?' And he blessed him there, and called the name of that place 'Jacob, Form of God'; 'for I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved.' And the sun rose upon him when he had passed by the Form of God.
To Moses it had been said, 'No one shall see my face and live.' But here Jacob saw God, not merely in general, but face to face; and being saved, not in body but in soul, he was deemed worthy of the surname 'Israel,' a title befitting the soul, if indeed the name 'Israel,' when interpreted, signifies 'one who sees God.' He did not, then, see the God over all; for this One is invisible and unchangeable, and He who is highest of all essence could in no way be transformed into a man. It was of Him, then, that it was not yet the fitting time to disclose the title even to Jacob, though he inquired earnestly.
But if one should suppose him to be one of the angels, or of the divine spirits in heaven who minister the oracles to the saints, he is plainly deceived: this appears, first, from the fact that the one indicated is spoken of in the proper sense as Lord and is theologically named God — for the divine Scripture expressly proclaims him God, and calls him Lord, honoring him with the notation of the four letters among the Hebrews, which the children of the Hebrews are wont to compose only for the unutterable and ineffable name of God; and secondly, from the fact that Scripture clearly distinguishes him from the angels whenever the Word wishes to call others angels — as, for example, in the case of the impious men in Sodom: the one who was speaking as God and Lord with Abraham in no way deems his own presence worthy to go to them, as the divine Scripture again says: 'The Lord departed, when he had ceased speaking with Abraham, but the two angels went to Sodom in the evening.'
Thus the God-beloved Jacob rightly discerned the visions, so that at one time he named the place 'Camps,' from the sight of the angelic camps, but when he conversed with God, he called the name of the place 'Form of God,' adding, 'For I saw God face to face.' So too, when an angel appears to Moses, the divine Scripture signifies this very thing, saying, 'And an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the bush'; but when it indicates the very Master himself, God and Lord, it no longer names him angel.
Likewise at the Red Sea it clearly distinguishes the angel and the Lord, in the words: 'And the angel of God, who was leading the camp of the sons of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud also moved from before their face.'
But just as in the earlier passages the Lord has been introduced dealing with the ancients under a visible form, so also here through a cloud. It is said next: 'And it came to pass in the morning watch, that the Lord looked upon the camp of the Egyptians in the pillar of fire and cloud'; and throughout the whole wilderness God dealt with Moses through the cloud.
Precisely, then, when the account wishes to indicate the nature of an angel, it names him neither God nor Lord, but openly calls him angel; but when it recognizes the one appearing as Lord and God, it plainly employs these very titles. And that by 'Lord' and 'God' it does not signify the first Cause has been clearly demonstrated by the very wording of the divine Scripture, which called 'angel of God' the one previously named, in the case of Jacob, 'Lord' and 'God.'
It remains, then, that there is among existing things a certain God and Lord, second after the King of all and God of all. And this would be the Word of God who exists before the ages, greater than every angelic nature, but lesser than the first Cause.
And God said to Jacob, 'Arise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.' And Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, 'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and let us make there an altar to the Lord who answered me in the day of affliction, who was with me, and saved me in the way in which I went.'
Here God himself, the God of all, the only unbegotten one and highest of all, without appearing visibly — but rather dealing invisibly with Jacob, and moving him by an ineffable power — plainly speaks concerning another. For God said to him, 'Make an altar to the God who appeared to you.' Who it was that appeared to him we have just shown, having demonstrated that it was God the Word. From Exodus. How the God over all, who is himself the one dealing with Moses through an angel, teaches that he appeared to the fathers no longer through an angel, but through the Son.
And Moses was shepherding the flocks of his father-in-law, and he came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a fire of flame out of a bush. And after other words, when the Lord saw that he drew near to look, he called him out of the midst of the bush, saying, 'Moses, Moses, do not draw near here; loose the sandal from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.' And a little after, the Lord said to him, 'I am the One who is.'
And again the Lord spoke to Moses, and said to him, 'I, the Lord, appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and I did not make known to them my name, and I established my covenant with them.'
Just as in the case of the prophets among men — Isaiah, for example, and Jeremiah, and the like — the thing seen was a man, but it was God who, through the one who appeared, as through an instrument, uttered the oracle; and at one time it was the person of Christ, at another that of the Holy Spirit, at another that of the God over all, that was speaking through the prophet — so also now, to Moses being introduced to this vision, the Most High and God over all utters the foregoing oracles through the angel who appeared.
The sense of which might be something like this: 'To you, O prophet, since you are just being introduced to these matters and are able to take in nothing more than an angelic vision, for the present I have willed that my angel should be seen, and I make manifest to you only my own name, teaching that I am the One who is, and that my name is Lord. But to your fathers I revealed not this alone, but bestowed something greater than this; for I appeared to them.' Now who it was that appeared to the fathers, and that it was not the God over all, has been demonstrated beforehand, when we showed that the God and Lord seen by Jacob was called an angel of God.
One might reasonably ask, then, how here the One beyond all things, who is himself the only God over all, says that he appeared to the fathers. The question would be resolved if we attend to the precision of the divine Scripture. For where the Seventy have it, 'And I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God,' Aquila renders, 'And I was seen by Abraham and by Isaac and by Jacob, in God Sufficient.'
By this he clearly shows that the God over all, who alone truly is, was not seen by himself, nor, as with Moses, did he deal with the fathers through an angel, or through the bush, or through fire, but he was dealing with them 'in God Sufficient' — so that through the Son the Father was seen even by the fathers, according to what was said in the Gospels concerning him: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.' For in him and through him the knowledge of the Father was being revealed.
But when he was appearing as the savior of mankind, he was seen through the human form of the Son, giving in advance, from that time, to those who were beloved of God, a pledge of the salvation that was to come to all men through him; but when he was about to be the avenger and punisher of the impious Egyptians, he appeared no longer in 'God Sufficient,' but in an angel who was minister of the punishment, and in the appearance of fire, and of the flame that was about, like a savage and thorny substance, presently to devour them. They say, then, that the bush signifies the savage, cruel, and untamed wickedness of the Egyptians, and the fire the avenging and chastising power that overtook them.