{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090256.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090256.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090256.htm","text":"17. The Higher Powers are Men; And Christ is Their Light Also.\nAnother, again, appeals to the text, \u201cLet us make man according to our image and likeness, 4718 \u201d and maintains that whatever is made according to God\u2019s image and likeness is man. To support this, numberless instances are adduced to show that in Scripture \u201cman\u201d and \u201cangel\u201d are used indifferently, and that the same subject is entitled both angel and man. This is true of the three who were entertained by Abraham, and of the two who came to Sodom; in the whole course of Scripture, persons are styled sometimes men, sometimes angels. Those who hold this view will say that since persons are styled angels who are manifestly men, as when Zechariah says, 4719 \u201cThe messenger of the Lord, I am with you, saith the Lord Almighty,\u201d and as it is written of John the Baptist, 4720 \u201cBehold I send My messenger before thy face,\u201d the angels (messengers) of God are so called on account of their office, and are not here called men on account of their nature. It confirms this view that the names applied to the higher powers are not those of species of living beings, but those of the orders, assigned by God to this and to that reasonable being. \u201cThrone\u201d is not a species of living being, nor \u201cdominion,\u201d nor \u201cprincipality,\u201d nor \u201cpower\u201d; these are names of the businesses to which those clothed with the names have been appointed; the subjects themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has come to be a throne, or a dominion, or a principality, or a power. In Joshua, the son of Nun, we read 4721 that in Jericho there appeared to Joshua a man who said, \u201cI am captain of the Lord\u2019s host, now am I come.\u201d The outcome of this is that the light of men must be held to be the same as the light of every being endowed with reason; for every reasonable being is man, since it is according to the image and likeness of God. It is spoken of in three different ways, \u201cthe light of men,\u201d and simply \u201cthe light,\u201d and \u201cthe true light.\u201d It is the light of men either, as we showed before, because there is nothing to prevent us from regarding it as the light of other beings besides men, or because all beings endowed with reason are called men because they are made in the image of God.\nJosh. 5:13, 14.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Epistle to Gregory and Orige...","type":"page"}