the Lord appeared to Moses by an angel, interpretation is to be rejected as absurd,
THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book III.
cept they confess that they were angels, as that which follows also shows? Because it 1s not said an angel spoke or appeared to him, will they therefore venture to say that the vision and voice granted to Moses was wrought by an angel because it is so written, but that God appeared and spake in His own substance to Abraham because there is no mention made of an angel? What of the fact, that even in respect to Abraham an angel is not left unmentioned? For when his son was ordered to be offered up as a sacrifice, we read thus: '*'And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And He said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burntoffering upon one of the mountains that I will tell thee of.'' Certainly God is here mentioned, not an angel. Buta little afterwards Scripture hath it thus: "'And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am Il. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him." What can be answered to this? Will they say that God commanded that Isaac should be slain, and that an angel forbade it? and further, that the father himself, in opposition to the decree of God, who had commanded that he should be slain, obeyed the angel, who had bidden him spare him? Such an interpretation is to be rejected as absurd, Yet not even for it, gross and abject as it is, does Scripture leave any room, for it immediately adds: '* For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, on account of me.'' ® What is "*on account of me,'' except on account of Him who had commanded him to be slain? Was then the God of Abraham the same as the angel, or was it not rather God by an angel? Consider what follows. Here, certainly, already an angel has been most clearly spoken of; yet notice the context: **And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord saw:7 as it is said to this day, In the mount the Lord was seen.''*® Just as that
Himself to be understood, because He is called an angel by the prophet, as announcing the will of His Father and of Himself; I have therefore thought fit to produce a plainer testimony from this epistle, where it is not said by an angel, but '* by angels."'
24. For Stephen, too, in the Acts of the Apostles, relates these things in that manner in which they are also written in the Old Testament: '' Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken,'' he says; '' The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia.''* But lest any one should think that the God of glory appeared then to the eyes of any mortal in that which He is in Himself, he goes on to say that an angel appeared to Moses. 'Then fled Moses," he says, ''at that saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire ina bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from®™ thy fect, 2-7 ett., »LLere certainly ene speaks both of angel and of Lord; and of the same as the God of Abraham, and the Gdéd of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; as is written in Genesis.
25. Can there be any one who will say that the Lord appeared to Moses by an angel, but to Abraham by Himself? Let us not answer this question from Stephen, but from the book itself, whence Stephen took his narrative. For, pray, because it is written, '"*And the Lord God said unto Abraham;''3 and a little after, "'And the Lord God appeared unto Abraham;''4 were these things, for this reason, not done by angels? Whereas it is said in like manner in another place, ''And the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;'' and yet it is added immediately, ''And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him:''5 of whom we have already spoken. For how will these people, who either will not rise from the words to the meaning, or easily throw themselves down from the meaning to the words,—how, I say, will they be able to explain that God was seen in three men, ex-
X Acts vii. 2. 2 Ex. ii. 15 and iii. 7, and Acts vii. 29-33. 3 Gen, xii. 1. 4 Gen. xvii. 1.
6 Propter me. 7 Dontinus vidit, 8 Dominus visus est.
5 Gen. xviii. 1, 2.