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God appeared again to Abraham at the oak of Mature in three men, who
it is not to be doubted were angels, although some think that one of
them was Christ, and assert that He was visible before He put on
flesh. Now it belongs to the divine power, and invisible,
incorporeal, and incommutable nature, without changing itself at all,
to appear even to mortal men, not by what it is, but by what is
subject to it. And what is not subject to it? Yet if they try to
establish that one of these three was Christ by the fact that,
although he saw three, he addressed the Lord in the singular, as it
is written, "And, lo, three men stood by him: and, when he saw
them, he ran to meet them from the tent-door, and worshipped toward
the ground, and said, Lord, if I have found favor before thee,"
etc.; why do they not advert to this also, that when two of them came
to destroy the Sodomites, while Abraham still spoke to one, calling
him Lord, and interceding that he would not destroy the righteous
along with the wicked in Sodom, Lot received these two in such a way
that he too in his conversation with them addressed the Lord in the
singular? For after saying to them in the plural, "Behold, my
lords, turn aside into your servant's house," etc., yet it is
afterwards said, "And the angels laid hold upon his hand, and the
hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, because the
Lord was merciful unto him. And it came to pass, .whenever they had
led him forth abroad, that they said, Save thy life; look not behind
thee, neither stay thou in all this region: save thyself in the
mountain, lest thou be caught. And Lot said unto them, I pray
thee, Lord, since thy servant hath found grace in thy sight," etc.
And then after these words the Lord also answered him in the
singular, although He was in two angels, saying, "See, I have
accepted thy face," etc. This makes it much more credible that both
Abraham in the three men and Lot in the two recognized the Lord,
addressing Him in the singular number, even when they were addressing
men; for they received them as they did for no other reason than that
they might minister human refection to them as men who needed it. Yet
there was about them something so excellent, that those who showed them
hospitality as men could not doubt that God was in them as He was wont
to be in the prophets, and therefore sometimes addressed them in the
plural, and sometimes God in them in the singular. But that they
were angels the Scripture testifies, not only in this book of
Genesis, in which these transactions are related, but also in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, where in praising hospitality it is said,
"For thereby some have entertained angels unawares." 5 By these
three men, then, when a son Isaac was again promised to Abraham by
Sarah, such a divine oracle was also given that it was said,
"Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and all the
nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." And here these two
things, are promised with the utmost brevity and fullness, the nation
of Israel according to the flesh, and all nations according to faith.
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