Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] 'But,' they say, 'Christ also carried an angel.' On what grounds? 'On the same grounds as he carried a man.' Then the reason is the same. Christ carried a man because the salvation of man was the reason — namely, to restore what had perished. Man had perished; man had to be restored. But there is nothing of the kind as the reason for Christ carrying an angel. [2] For even though destruction is indeed reserved for angels, namely the fire made ready for the devil together with his angels, no promise of recovery has ever been extended to them; Christ received no commission from the Father concerning the salvation of angels. What the Father neither promised nor commissioned, Christ could not administer. For what purpose, then, did he also carry an angel — unless perhaps as a mere companion, to help him bring about man's salvation? [3] For was the Son of God not sufficient by himself to free man alone, cast down as he was by a single, solitary serpent? Then there is no longer one God, nor one author of salvation, but two artisans of salvation, and each in need of the other, no less. Or was it perhaps that he might free man through the angel? Then why did he descend himself, to accomplish what he was about to carry out through an angel? If through the angel, what need of himself? If by himself, what need of the angel? Indeed he bears the title 'angel of great counsel' — meaning envoy — a name describing a function, not a nature; for he was about to announce to the world the Father's great design, namely, the restoration of man. He is not, however, to be understood as 'angel' in the sense of some Gabriel or Michael. [4] For the son, too, is sent by the lord of the vineyard to the tenants, just as the servants were, to demand the fruits — yet the son is not on that account reckoned one of the servants merely because he took up the servants' office. I would sooner say, then, if need be, that the Son himself is the angel (that is, the messenger) of the Father, than that an angel dwells in the Son. But since it stands written concerning the Son himself, 'You have set him a short degree beneath the angels,' how could he be supposed to have clothed himself in an angel, when it was precisely by turning man — in flesh and soul, a Son of man — that he was set beneath them? [5] Whereas, as the Spirit of God and the power of the Most High, he cannot be reckoned lower than the angels — being, that is, God and the Son of God. So by however much he was made lower than the angels while carrying a man, by that much he was not so while carrying an angel. This opinion might well suit Ebion, who makes Jesus out to be a bare man, and merely of the seed of David — that is, not also the Son of God — though certainly more glorious than some prophet — so that it might be said an angel was in him in the same way as, say, in Zechariah: [6] except that Christ never said, 'And the angel who spoke in me said to me.' Nor did he ever use that everyday formula of all the prophets, 'Thus says the Lord' — for he himself was the Lord, speaking in his own presence and on his own authority: 'But I say unto you.' What more is needed on this point? Hear Isaiah crying out: 'Not an angel, nor a messenger, but the Lord himself saved them.'