The whole passage is thus rendered by Langus (as read in Lumper), "Verum hunc ipsum, et qui ab eo venit, atque ista nos et aliorum obsequentium exæquatorumque ad ejus voluntatem bonorum Angelorum exercitura docuit, Filium, et Spiritum ejus propheticum, colimus et adoramus."]
This interpretation is strongly confirmed by the professed sentiments both of Justin and of his contemporaries, { 112} with regard to the Son of God and the holy angels.
It was a principle generally received among the early Christians, that whatever the Almighty did, either by creation or by the communication of his will, on earth or in heaven, was done by the Eternal Word. 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, § 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. It is also evident that many of his contemporaries entertained the same views; among others, Irenæus and Origen. [Irenæus, book ii. c. 30. p. 163. Origen, Hom. xxxii. in Joann. § 10. vol. iv. p. 430.] I will not swell this dissertation by quoting the passages at length; though the passages referred to in the margin will well repay any one's careful examination. But I cannot refrain from extracting the words in which each of those writers confirms the view here taken of Justin's sentiments.