Chapter 11.—Of the Same Appearance.

20. That place of Scripture demands neither a slight nor a passing consideration. For if one man had appeared, what else would those at once cry out, who say that the Son was visible also in His own substance before He was born of the Virgin, but that it was Himself? since it is said, they say, of the Father, “To the only invisible God.”274    1 Tim. i. 17 And yet, I could still go on to demand, in what manner “He was found in fashion as a man,” before He had taken our flesh, seeing that his feet were washed, and that He fed upon earthly food? How could that be, when He was still “in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God?”275    Phil. ii. 6, 7 For, pray, had He already “emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, and made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man?” when we know when it was that He did this through His birth of the Virgin. How, then, before He had done this, did He appear as one man to Abraham? or, was not that form a reality? I could put these questions, if it had been one man that appeared to Abraham, and if that one were believed to be the Son of God. But since three men appeared, and no one of them is said to be greater than the rest either in form, or age, or power, why should we not here understand, as visibly intimated by the visible creature, the equality of the Trinity, and one and the same substance in three persons?276    [The theophanies of the Pentateuch are trinitarian in their implication. They involve distinctions in God—God sending, and God sent; God speaking of God, and God speaking to God. The trinitarianism of the Old Testament has been lost sight of to some extent in the modern construction of the doctrine. The patristic, mediæval, and reformation theologies worked this vein with thoroughness, and the analysis of Augustin in this reference is worthy of careful study.—W.G.T.S.]

21. For, lest any one should think that one among the three is in this way intimated to have been the greater, and that this one is to be understood to have been the Lord, the Son of God, while the other two were His angels; because, whereas three appeared, Abraham there speaks to one as the Lord: Holy Scripture has not forgotten to anticipate, by a contradiction, such future cogitations and opinions, when a little while after it says that two angels came to Lot, among whom that just man also, who deserved to be freed from the burning of Sodom, speaks to one as to the Lord. For so Scripture goes on to say, “And the Lord went His way, as soon as He left communing with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.”277    Gen. xviii. 33

CAPUT XI.

20. De eadem visione. Non parvam neque transitoriam considerationem postulat iste Scripturae locus. Si enim vir unus visus fuisset, jam illi qui dicunt et priusquam de Virgine nasceretur per suam substantiam visibilem Filium, quid aliud quam ipsum esse clamarent? Quoniam de Patre, inquiunt, dictum est, Invisibili soli Deo (I Tim. I, 17). Et tamen possem adhuc quaerere, quomodo ante susceptam carnem, habitu est inventus ut homo: quandoquidem ei pedes loti sunt, et humanis epulis epulatus est? Quomodo istud fieri poterat, cum adhuc in forma Dei esset, non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis Deo? Numquid enim jam semetipsum exinanierat, formam servi accipiens, in similitudine hominum factus, et habitu inventus ut homo (Philipp. II, 6, 7)? cum hoc quando fecerit per partum Virginis noverimus. Quomodo igitur antequam hoc fecisset, ut vir unus apparuit Abrahae? An illa forma vera non erat? Possem ista quaerere, si vir unus apparuisset Abrahae, idemque Dei Filius crederetur. Cum vero tres viri visi sunt, nec quisquam in eis vel forma, vel aetate, vel potestate major caeteris dictus est; cur non hic accipiamus visibiliter insinuatam per creaturam visibilem Trinitatis aequalitatem, atque in tribus personis unam eamdemque substantiam?

21. Nam ne quisquam putaret sic intimatum unum in tribus fuisse majorem, et eum Dominum Dei Filium intelligendum, duos autem alios angelos ejus , quia cum tres visi sint, uni Domino illic loquitur Abraham; sancta Scriptura futuris talibus cogitationibus atque opinionibus contradicendo non praetermisit occurrere, quando paulo post duos angelos dicit venisse ad Loth, in quibus et ille vir justus qui de Sodomorum incendio meruit liberari, ad unum Dominum loquitur. Sic enim sequitur Scriptura dicens: Abiit autem Dominus postquam cessavit loquens ad 0859 Abraham, et Abrabam reversus est ad locum suum.