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Dialogue with Trypho
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Chapter 128: The Word is Delivered not as a Lifeless Force, but as a Person Born of the Father's Essence.
"And that Christ, being Lord and God, the Son of God, and having appeared previously in power as a Man, an Angel, and in the glorious fire as at the bush, was also present at the judgment carried out on Sodom, has been fully shown by what has been said." Then I repeated again everything I had previously quoted from Exodus about the vision in the bush and the naming of Joshua (Jesus), and continued: "And do not think, gentlemen, that I am speaking unnecessarily when I repeat these words often; but it is because I know some wish to say that the power sent from the Father of all, which appeared to Moses, or to Abraham, or to Jacob, is called an Angel because He came to humans (for through Him the commands of the Father have been given to humans); is called Glory because He sometimes appears in a vision that cannot be endured; is called a Man and a human being because He appears in such forms as the Father pleases; and they call Him the Word because He brings messages from the Father to humans: but they claim that this power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just like they say that the light of the sun on earth is inseparable from the sun in the sky; as when it sets, the light sets along with it; so the Father, when He chooses, causes His power to come forth, and when He chooses, He brings it back to Himself.
IN THIS WAY: they teach, He created the angels.
But it is shown that there are angels who always exist and are never reduced to the form from which they came. And it has been clearly shown that this power, which the prophetic word calls God and Angel, is not different in name only like the light of the sun, but is indeed something numerically distinct, as I have discussed briefly before; when I stated that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by separation, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for example, I referred to fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, yet that from which many can be kindled is not made less, but remains the same."