It was
God the Son, the Logos, who created the angels[38], as well as
ourselves; it was He who spoke to Moses, to Abraham, and to Lot; and it
was He who conveyed the Supreme will, and the knowledge of the only true
God, to the inhabitants of the world of spirits. Agreeably to this
principle, in the passage under consideration, Justin affirms (not that
Christians revered and worshipped the angels, but), that God the Son,
whom Christians worshipped as the eternal Prophet, Angel, and Apostle,
of the Most High, instructed not only us men on earth, but also the host
of heavenly angels[39], in these eternal verities, {113} which embrace
God's nature and the duty of his creatures. [Trypho, Sec. 141. p. 231.]
[Footnote 38: Thus Tatian (p. 249 in the same edition of
Justin), "Before men were prepared, the Word was the Maker of
angels."]
[Footnote 39: "The OTHER good angels." Justin (Apol. i. sect.
lxiii. p. 81.) reminds us that Christ, the first-begotten of the
Father, Himself God, was also an Angel (or Messenger), and an
Apostle; and here Christ, as the Angel of the Covenant and the
chief Apostle, is represented as instructing THE OTHER ANGELS in
the truths of the economy of grace, just as he instructed his
Apostles on earth,--"As my Father hath sent me, even so send I
you."]
It is evident that Justin himself considered the host of angels to be
equally with ourselves in a state of probation, requiring divine
instruction, and partaking of it.
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