3. Then I added, "Gentlemen, do you not see that he whom
st. justin martyr Moses from the flame of the fiery bush." 33 And when I was assured by my audience that they would listen gladly, patiently, and eagerly, I went on,
2. "In the Book of Exodus it is written, Now after a long time the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned by reason of the works.34 And so on, until it is written, Go, gather together the ancients of Israel, and you shall say to them: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: Visiting, I have visited you, and I am concerned about what has befallen you in Egypt." 35
3. Then I added, "Gentlemen, do you not see that he whom Moses speaks of as an angel who conversed with him from the fiery bush is the same who, being God, signifies to Moses that he is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob?" c h a p t e r 60 Trypho replied, "We do not draw the same conclusion from the words you quoted, but think rather that it was an angel who was seen in the fiery bush, whereas it was God who talked with Moses; so that in that apparition there were really two persons together: an angel and God."
2. "Even if that were so, my friends," I answered, "that both an angel and God appeared together in the apparition to Moses, yet, as my previously quoted passages prove, it will not be the Creator of the world who is the God who said to Moses that he was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, but it will be he who was proved to you to have been seen by Abraham and Jacob, doing the will of the Creator of the universe, and putting into execution his will in the judgment of the people of Sodom. Thus, even if there were two persons, as you claim, both an angel and God, yet no one with even the slightest intelligence would dare to assert that the Creator of all things left his super-celestial realms36 to make himself visible in a little spot on earth."
Copyright © 2003. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. see B. Kominiak, The Theophanies if the Old Testament in the Writings of Justin Martyr (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1948).
33. Ex 3.2.
34. Ex 2.23. See Smit Sibinga, 81.
35. Ex 3.16. See Smit Sibinga, 85, 129.
36. See A. Méhat, "Le <lieu supracéleste> de saint Justin à Origène," in Justin, Martyr, Saint. Dialogue with Trypho (Selections from the Fathers of the Church, Volume 3), edited by Michael Slusser, Catholic University of America Press, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/de
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