66. I again took up the argument at the point where
Let us make, he was talking to himself, just as we, when we are going to make something, often say to ourselves,
'Let us make'; or that God said Let us make to the elements, that is to the earth and to the other ingredients of which we know man to have been composed.
But to prevent you thinking this I will again repeat the words said by Moses himself, from which we can know indisputably that he conversed with another being, different in number and rational.
These are the words: And God said, Behold Adam has become as one of us to know good and evil2.
Surely when he said As one of us, he indicated a number of people present together, and at least two.
For I would not agree that the view held by a sect among you is true, either that the teachers of this sect can demonstrate that he was speaking to angels or that the human body was the creation of angels.
But this being, really produced by the Father, co-existed with the Father before all created things, and the Father was conversing with him, as the Word declared through Solomon, to the effect that this same being was a Beginning before all created things and was produced as an offspring by God which is called Wisdom by Solomon, and just the same thing was declared by the revelation which took place to Joshua son of Nun."
[A quotation of Josh.5:13-6:2 follows.] [Cap.64 tries to establish from Pss. 99 and 72 that the same being is witnessed to in the O.T., and Cap. 65 instances Isa. 42:
5-13 for the same purpose.] V. The Earthly Life of Jesus.
66.
I again took up the argument at the point where originally I had stopped in my demonstration that he was
1Gen. 1:26.
2Gen. 3:22.