A Historical Approach 3
During the fourth century, Augustine wrote On the Holy Trinity and devoted part of this work to the discussion of the angel of the Lord. Unlike those who had come before him, Augustine was not as quick to say that the angel of the Lord should be viewed as being God in bodily form, or even suggesting that the angel is Christ. He did, however, look at many of the same passages that the others had already dealt with. Yet one of the major differences in his view and the others is his reference to the prophets. Augustine is the first of these four to say that it is possible that God spoke through this angel in a similar fashion as to when he spoke through His prophets. In fact, Augustine is somewhat hesitant to claim that the angel is indeed the Lord God Himself. He comments on Stephen’s record of God speaking to Abraham, but he is also careful at claiming that God appeared directly to Abraham. As he moves on to Exodus 3, a slight problem rises in his argument as he cannot get away from the fact that it appears as if the angel and the Lord are one in the same as they speak with Moses. So which side is Augustine taking? Does he side with thinkers such as Ireaneus, Tertullian, and Eusebius, or is he developing a new line of thought? It appears as if Augustine is taking this discussion in a new direction, ready to offer a new opinion on the topic.
So he looks at Genesis 18, Abraham’s meeting with the three men. This passage serves as one of the key texts for those who claim that God appeared in the form of an angel to speak with His children. They latch onto this passage, claiming that these three men are an early look at the Trinity. Yet Augustine believes that these men had to be angels (although the text does not make this claim). He has already said that he does not believe that God appears to His children to where they could see Him with their eyes. Therefore, he cannot turn around and claim that these three men are an example of God in three physical persons, for that would be God directly revealing Himself to Abraham. God does not allow Moses to see His face in Exodus, so why would He allow Abraham to in this passage? By claiming that these are angels, Augustine sets up his discussion on Genesis 22. He is fine with stating that God sends angels to deliver His messages, and he is fine with saying that it is not God Himself who makes the appearance. So when Abraham is in the process of sacrificing his son, Isaac, Augustine believes that this situation is an instance where God speaks His message through a messenger or an angel. So ultimately, Augustine does not really agree with the opinions of those before him. In one sense, he wants to be able to say that the angel of the Lord is God, but he has trouble accepting the fact that God physically revealed Himself to His children. Therefore, Augustine concludes by comparing the angel of the Lord to the prophets. This angel is simply a messenger of the Lord (at a time before the prophets) who was sent to deliver a specific message to specific people in a specific time.
For the first time it appears as if the conversation is beginning to shift. For a few centuries it was commonly accepted that God appeared to His children, at times in the form of an angel. However, with Augustine’s research a new idea was presented. Maybe these passages should no longer be viewed as a physical representation of God on earth. Instead, maybe these angels and men are nothing more than an early prophet, sent by God to deliver a message. The problem though is that neither option adequately deals with all the passages mentioned at once. Whereas some passages such as Exodus 3 appear to make it clear that God appears in the form of an angel or that the angel should be viewed as God Himself, other passages question this assumption when the Lord Himself is not even mentioned.
Several centuries later, Aquinas took up this discussion, building off of some of Augustine’s claims. There is quite a large time gap between Augustine and Aquinas spanning almost one thousand years. But there was not much change in the discussion over these one thousand years. In Summa Theologica, Aquinas comments on some of the ideas that had appeared since Augustine. For instance, it appears as if there were some thinkers who claimed that the angels did not appear in bodily form, the same argument that Tertullian dealt with in reaction to Marcion. In many ways, Aquinas’ argument mirrors that of Tertullian. Like Tertullian, Aquinas did not specifically deal with the passages that mentioned the angel of the Lord. Instead, his goal was to prove that the angels could in fact appear in physical form.
To do so, Aquinas looked at Genesis 19. His claim is that if an angel intends to appear to one specific person in some spiritual or imaginary sense, then only that one person would see him. However, in Genesis 19, Abraham, along with Lot and those in Sodom, saw the angels. Now Aquinas is not arguing that angels exist only in bodies. Instead, he suggests that at specific times such as these, the angels assumed bodies to deliver the message to those on earth. The problem is that Aquinas does not deal with the angel of the Lord passages. Whereas Tertullian extends his proof about the angel’s physical appearance into a discussion on the identity of the angel of the Lord, Aquinas basically ends his discussion.
Yet there is one last point that Aquinas makes. He connects the angels, who deliver the word of God, to the word of God. He compares the idea of the angels taking on a bodily form to the idea that God’s word would one day come in bodily form, in Jesus. In this closing statement it appears as if Aquinas agrees with Augustine, in that the angels should be seen more like a prophet rather than a human manifestation of God. Now Aquinas does not explicitly state this, so this all purely speculation, but since he claims that it is the word that comes in the bodily form of Jesus and not the angels, it does not appear as if he wants to make the connection between the angel of the Lord and God. Instead, it seems as if the angel is God’s messenger, delivering His truths. God and Jesus, then, are completely separate from the angel, Jesus being the word made flesh.
Once more, all quotes and ideas came directly from the works of Augustine and Aquinas. The next post will finish out this historical approach as we look at Martin Luther...
Matt
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