But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels
are not referred to when it is said, "Let there be light, and there
was light;" if he suppose or teach that some material light, then
first created, was meant, and that the angels were created, not only
before the firmament dividing the waters and named "the heaven," but
also before the time signified in the words, "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth;" if he allege that this phrase, "In
the beginning," does not mean that nothing was made before (for the
angels were), but that God made all things by His Wisdom or Word, who
is named in Scripture "the Beginning," as He Himself, in the gospel,
replied to the Jews when they asked Him who He was, that He was the
Beginning;[506]--I will not contest the point, chiefly because it
gives me the liveliest satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated
in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. For, having said, "In
the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth," meaning that the
Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where it says,
"How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom hast Thou made them
all"[507]), a little afterwards mention is fitly made of the Holy
Spirit also. For, when it had been told us what kind of earth God
created at first, or what the mass or matter was which God, under
the name of "heaven and earth," had provided for the construction of
the world, as is told in the additional words, "And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep,"
then, for the sake of completing the mention of the Trinity, it is
immediately added, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." Let each one, then, take it as he pleases; for it is so
profound a passage, that it may well suggest, for the exercise of the
reader's tact, many opinions, and none of them widely departing from
the rule of faith. At the same time, let none doubt that the holy
angels in their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal
with God, yet secure and certain of eternal and true felicity. To
their company the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and not
only says, "They shall be equal to the angels of God,"[508] but
shows, too, what blessed contemplation the angels themselves enjoy,
saying, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for
I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face
of my Father which is in heaven."[509]