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We might have supposed that the words uttered at the creation of man,
"Let us," and not Let me, "make man," were addressed to the
angels, had He not added "in our image;" but as we cannot believe
that man was made in the image of angels, or that the image of God is
the same as that of angels, it is proper to refer this expression to
the plurality of the Trinity. And yet this Trinity, being one
God, even after saying "Let us make," goes on to say, "And God
made man in His image,"5 and not "Gods made," or "in their
image." And were there any difficulty in applying to the angels the
words, "Come, and let us go down and confound their speech," we
might refer the plural to the Trinity, as if the Father were
addressing the Son and the Holy Spirit; but it rather belongs to the
angels to approach God by holy movements, that is, by pious
thoughts, and thereby to avail themselves of the unchangeable truth
which rules in the court of heaven as their eternal law. For they are
not themselves the truth; but partaking in the creative truth, they
are moved towards it as the fountain of life, that what they have not
in themselves they may obtain in it. And this movement of theirs is
steady, for they never go back from what they have reached. And to
these angels God does not speak, as we speak to one another, or to
God, or to angels, or as the angels speak to us, or as God speaks
to us through them: He speaks to them in an ineffable manner of His
own, and that which He says is conveyed to us in a manner suited to
our capacity. For the speaking of God antecedent and superior to all
His works, is the immutable reason of His work: it has no noisy and
passing sound, but an energy eternally abiding and producing results in
time. Thus He speaks to the holy angels; but to us, who are far
off, He speaks otherwise. When, however, we hear with the inner
ear some part of the speech of God, we approximate to the angels.
But in this work I need not labor to give an account of the ways in
which God speaks. For either the unchangeable Truth speaks directly
to the mind of the rational creature in some indescribable way, or
speaks through the changeable creature, either presenting spiritual
images to our spirit, or bodily voices to our bodily sense.
The words, "Nothing will be restrained from them which they have
imagined to do,"1 are assuredly not meant as an affirmation, but as
an interrogation, such as is used by persons threatening, as e.g.,
when Dido exclaims, "They will not take arms and pursue?"
We are to understand the words as if it had been said, Shall nothing
be restrained from them which they have imagined to do?3 From these
three men, therefore, the three sons of Noah we mean, 73, or
rather, as the catalogue will show, 72 nations and as many languages
were dispersed over the earth, and as they increased filled even the
islands. But the nations multiplied much more than the languages.
For even in Africa we know several barbarous nations which have but
one language; and who can doubt that, as the human race increased,
men contrived to pass to the islands in ships?
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