Dialogues (Eranistes) · Part 4

Eran.--How then are we to understand the words, "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven"?

Orth.--Just as we commonly understand what is said about men who have been supposed to see God.

Eran.--Pray make this plainer, for I do not understand. Can God be seen of men also?

Orth.--Certainly not.

Eran.--Yet we hear the divine scripture saying God appeared unto Abraham at the oak of Mamre; and Isaiah says "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up," and the same thing is said by Micah, by Daniel and Ezekiel. And of the lawgiver Moses it is related that "The Lord spake to Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend," and the God of the universe Himself said, "With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches." What then shall we say; did they behold the divine nature?

Orth.--By no means, for God Himself said, "There shall no man see me and live."

Eran.--Then they who say that they have seen God are liars?

Orth.--God forbid--they saw what it was possible for them to see.

Eran.--Then the loving Lord accommodates his revelation to the capacity of them that see Him?

Orth.--Yes; and this He has shewn through the Prophet, "for I," He says, "have multiplied visions and by the hands of the Prophets was made like."

He does not say "was seen" but "was made like." And making like does not shew the very nature of the thing seen. For even the image of the emperor does not exhibit the emperor's nature, though it distinctly preserves his features.

Eran.--This is obscure and not sufficiently plain. Was not then the substance of God seen by them who beheld those revelations?

Orth.--No; for who is mad enough to dare to say so?

Eran.--But yet it is said that they saw.

Orth.--Yes; it is said; but we both in the exercise of reverent reason, and in reliance on the Divine utterances, which exclaim distinctly, "No man hath seen God at any time," affirm that they did not see the Divine Nature, but certain visions adapted to their capacity.

Eran.--So we say.

Orth.--So also then let us understand of the angels when we hear that they daily see the face of your Father. For what they see is not the divine substance which cannot be circumscribed, comprehended, or apprehended, which embraces the universe, but some glory made commensurate with their nature.

Eran.--This is acknowledged.

Orth.--After the incarnation, however, He was seen also of angels, as the divine apostle says, not however by similitude of glory, but using the true and living covering of the flesh as a kind of screen. "God," he says, "was made manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels."

Eran.--I accept this as Scripture, but I am not prepared to accept the novelties of phrase.

Orth.--What novelties of phrase have we introduced?

Eran.--That of the "screen." What Scripture calls the flesh of the Lord a screen?

Orth.--You do not seem to be a very diligent reader of your Bible; if you had been you would not have found fault with what we have said as in a figure. For first of all the fact that the divine apostle says that the invisible nature was made manifest through the flesh allows us to understand the flesh as a screen of the Godhead. Secondly, the divine apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews, distinctly uses the phrase, for he says, "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say his flesh; and having an High Priest over the House of God. Coming with truth drawing near with a true heart in fulness of faith."

Eran.--Your demonstration is unanswerable, for it is based on apostolic authority.

Orth.--Do not then charge us with innovation. We will adduce for you yet another prophetic authority, distinctly calling the Lord's flesh a robe and mantle.

Eran.--Should it not appear obscure and ambiguous we will say nothing against it, and be thankful for it.

Orth.--I will make you yourself testify to the truth of the promise. You know how the Patriarch Jacob, when he was addressing Judah, limited the sovereignty of Judah by the birth of the Lord. "A prince shall not fail Judah, nor a leader from his loins until he shall have come to whom it is in store and he is the expectation of the Gentiles." You have already confessed that this prophecy was uttered about the saviour.

Eran.--I have.

Orth.--Remember then what follows; for he says "And unto him shall the gathering of the people be...he shall wash his robe in wine and his mantle in the blood of the grape."

Eran.--The Patriarch spoke of garments, not of a body.

Orth.--Tell me, then, when or where he washed his cloak in the blood of the grape?

Eran.--Nay; tell me you when he reddened his body in it?

Orth.--Answer I beseech you more reverently. Perhaps some of the uninitiated are within hearing.

Eran.--I will both hear and answer in mystic language.

Orth.--You know that the Lord called himself a vine?

Eran.--Yes I know that he said "I am the true vine."

Orth.--Now what is the fruit of a vine called after it is pressed?

Eran.--It is called wine.

Orth.--When the soldiers wounded the Saviour's side with the spear, what did the evangelist say was poured out from it?

Eran.--Blood and water.