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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." 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?" 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?
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."
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