56. Moses is the first witness, informing us of the God
which, it is written, God agreed that the Gentiles should worship as gods'. And the prophets often use this word 'god' in an artificial sense and say that your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords2, and they often add the epithets 'great and mighty and terrible'.
They do not say this as though there really were gods, but because the Word is teaching us that the real God, the Creator of the universe, is alone Lord of all who are thought to be gods and lords.
For in order that the Holy Spirit should confirm this he said through holy David, the gods of the Gentiles, the so-called gods, are the images of demons but not gods. And he invokes a curse on those who make them? and worship them."
= I replied: "T had no intention, Trypho, of bringing forward these proof-texts, by which I understand that people who worship these idols and ones like them are condemned, but proof-texts which nobody will be able to refute.
They will seem strange to you, although they are read by you daily, and you can understand from this that because of your own wickedness God has hidden from you the capacity to perceive the wisdom which is in his words, except for some, in whose case according to the grace of his great compassion, as Isaiah says, he left a seed4 for salvation, that your entire race should not, like Sodom and Gomorrah, perish.
Pay attention therefore to the texts which I am going to cite from the holy Scriptures; they scarcely need to be expounded but only to be heard.
56.
Moses is the first witness, informing us of the God who appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre along with the two angels who were sent for judgment on the men of Sodom by another being, him who continually lives in the iPeut. 4:19; 10:17.
2Deut. 10:17.
3Ps. 113:16 (115:8).
4Jsa. 1:9.
region beyond the heavens and is seen by nobody and associates only with himself, whom we recognize as the Creator and Father of the universe."
[Here follows a quotation of Gen. 18:1-3.] And ceasing to quote any further I asked them if they recognized the passage.
They said that they recognized it, but that the passages quoted were irrelevant to prove that another God or Lord beside the Creator of the universe exists or was spoken of by the Holy Spirit.
I replied, "I will try to convince you of what I say, because you know these passages, that there is, and there is mentioned, another God and Lord below the Creator of the universe, who is also called a messenger
(angel) because he delivers as a message to men whatever the Creator of the universe wants him to deliver, the Creator above whom there is no other God."
And repeating my previous words I asked Trypho, "Do you think that God was seen under the oak at Mamre by Abraham, as the story relates?"
He said, "Yes."
"And," said I, "he was one of those three whom the holy prophetic Spirit describes as men seen by Abraham?"
He said, "No.
But God had been seen by him before the appearance of these three.
Then these three, whom the story calls men, were angels, two of them sent for the destruction of Sodom, and one sent to bring the good news to Sarah that she was to have a son.
This was his commission and when he had completed it he departed."
"Then," said I, "how is it that one of the three who was in the tent, who was also the one that said 'In due season I will return to you and Sarah shall have a son'!, appears to have returned when Sarah did have a son, and the prophetic word there indicates that he was God:
Listen to what was explicitly said by Moses: [Here follows a quotation of Gen. 21:
1Gen. 18:14.
9-12.] Notice now that he who then said under the oak that he would return (for he knew beforehand that it would be necessary to give Abraham advice about the demands
Sarah would make on him) did return, as it is written, and is God, as the words indicate which run thus: God said to Abraham; let it not be difficult in your sight concerning the child and concerning the slavegirll".
This was the question asked.
Trypho said, "Yes.
By this argument you have not proved that there is another God as well as this one seen by Abraham, who was seen also by other patriarchs and prophets, but you have shown that we were not correct in our opinion that the three figures who were in the tent with Abraham were simply angels'2...
I said in reply, "Returning to the Scriptures, I will try to convince you that this figure who is mentioned and described as seen by Abraham and Isaac and Moses is another God than the God who is Creator of the universe, other in number, I mean, not in will, for I do not assert that he ever did anything except what the Creator of the world, above whom there is no other God, intended both to do and to say."
And Trypho: "Prove now that he exists, so that we may agree on this point. We do not suppose that you assert that he says or did or uttered anything apart from the will of the Creator of the universe."
I said, "The passage already quoted by me will demonstrate this to you".
[Here Justin quotes Gen. 19:23-25.] The fourth companion who had remained behind with Trypho said: "We are compelled to admit that one of the two angels who came down to Sodom whom Moses' story called Lord is different from God himself who. was seen by Moses.''3
1Gen. 21:12.
2Paragraph 10 is omitted.
956 :14-22 is omitted.