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Chapter 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 supercelestial 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 noontide. 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;’ ”361 (and so on;)362 “ ‘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 Scrip-
tures, [of the truth] of what I say, that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and
Lord subject to363 the Maker of all things; who is also called an Angel, because He announces
to men whatsoever the Maker of all things—above whom there is no other God—wishes to
announce to them.” And quoting once more the previous passage, I asked Trypho, “Do you
think that God appeared to Abraham under the oak in Mamre, as the Scripture asserts?”
He said, “Assuredly.”
“Was He one of those three,” I said, “whom Abraham saw, and whom the Holy Spirit
of prophecy describes as men?”
He said, “No; but God appeared to him, before the vision of the three. Then those three
whom the Scripture calls men, were angels; two of them sent to destroy Sodom, and one to
announce the joyful tidings to Sarah, that she would bear a son; for which cause he was sent,
and having accomplished his errand, went away.”364
“How then,” said I, “does the one of the three, who was in the tent, and who said, ‘I shall
return to thee hereafter, and Sarah shall have a son,’365 appear to have returned when Sarah
361 Gen. xviii. 1, 2.
362 Gen. xix. 27, 28; “and so on” inserted probably not by Justin, but by some copyist, as is evident from
succeeding words.
363 Some, “besides;” but probably as above.
364 Or, “going away, departed.”
365 Gen. xviii. 10.
Chapter LVI.—God who appeared to Moses is distinguished from God the Father.
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Chapter LVI.—God who appeared to Moses is distinguished from God the Fa…