Reading Isaiah like an Early Christian (4): "A child was born for us...named Angel of Great Counsel" (Isaiah 9:6)

Introduction 

The Septuagint Greek Translation of Isaiah 9:5-6

Isaiah 9:6 in the New Testament 

Early Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah 9:6

 Justin Martyr

 Irenaeus

 Tertullian

 Origen

 Novatian

Conclusion

Addendum on Eusebius' Commentary on Isaiah

Introduction

Most Christians who hear the words of Isaiah 9:6 feel instinctively that they are hearing a prophecy about the birth and Messianic destiny of Jesus:

6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Great will be his authority, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7 NRSV)

Handel's Messiah has certainly reinforced the Christological interpretation of this text in the popular Christian imagination. It may surprise some readers, therefore, to learn that many biblical scholars today maintain that, at the grammatical-historical level, this text is not a prophecy about a future Messiah. H. G. M. Williamson's comments are typical:

...the passage as a whole seems to announce that its readers are living at a turning point in the [Davidic] dynasty's fortunes and that the long-hoped-for rule of justice and righteousness is about to begin. None of this implies a break in dynastic rule or a restoration of the monarchy. The predominant thought of the passage neither demands, nor is even particularly suitable to, a postexilic date.¹

He argues that the birth or accession of a Davidic king, possibly Hezekiah or Josiah, adequately explains the historical occasion for this oracle. Joseph A. Fitzmyer similarly scolds scholars guilty of "reading [a Messianic] meaning into this...Isaian passage."² And John J. Collins states that "Modern critical scholarship...has generally rejected a messianic interpretation" of this text.³

This observation underscores the distinction made in the first article in this series between the grammatical-historical, literal meaning of texts, which is the the primary interest of biblical criticism, and the spiritual meaning of texts, the sensus plenior, which is the primary interest of theologians and anyone reading Scripture through the mystical lens of Christian faith. It is the latter sense that is the focus of the series, but it is important not to fall into a false dichotomy between the two senses.

Strictly speaking, if we limit ourselves to the grammatical-historical sense, we will have to surrender Isaiah 9:6 and many of our other favourite Messianic texts, and admit that the New Testament writers and even Jesus himself were poor exegetes. Conversely, if we go beyond the literal sense to assign a spiritual, Messianic significance to Isaiah 9:6, we should likewise be prepared to do so for other texts, even if they are not quoted in the New Testament.⁴

The Septuagint Greek Translation of Isaiah 9:5-6

It is immediately apparent from reading Isaiah 9:5-6⁵ in the New English Translation of the Septuagint that the Septuagint Greek differs markedly from the Hebrew Masoretic Text:

5 because a child was born for us, a son also given to us, whose sovereignty was upon his shoulder, and he is named Messenger of Great Counsel, for I will bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to him. 6 His sovereignty is great, and his peace has no boundary upon the throne of Dauid and his kingdom, to make it prosper and to uphold it with righteousness and with judgment from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord Sabaoth will do these things.

John J. Collins' essay, "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," provides a very helpful explanation of the nuances of the LXX translation. Collins comments on the titles given to the child in Isaiah 9:6 MT indicate the "ideal qualities" of a human king, "however hyperbolic they may be."⁶ The most striking of the titles, for Collins, are El Gibbor, "mighty God," and Abi ʿAd, "everlasting father." The LXX translation, however, "departs strikingly from the Hebrew at several points." There are indications in the preceding verses that the translator has readdressed the oracle "to a setting in the second century B.C.E. rather than to the time of Isaiah."⁷ The rendering of two different Hebrew words with the Greek παιδίον ("child") in Isaiah 7:16 and 9:5 points to an effort to systematise these two figures. Coming to the titles of the child in Isaiah 9:5(6), the Greek combines the two titles "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God" (MT פלא יועץ אל גבור) into one, megalēs boulēs angelos ("Angel/Messenger of Great Counsel"). The following titles, "Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (MT אביעד שר־שלום), are translated, egō gar axō eirēnēn epi tous archontas ("for I will bring peace upon the princes"). Collins notes, "The translator evidently read אבי as a verb and עד as a preposition."⁸ שר ("prince") may have been understood generically and thus made plural. There are some textual difficulties in the Hebrew at the end of the verse, possibly reflecting a lost fifth title of the child that the LXX translates with the added words, eirēnēn kai hugieian autō ("peace and health to him").

Scholars differ on the significance of angelos in the LXX translation—a word that, as we will see below, played a key role in early Christian interpretation of this text. By the time of the NT, angelos was largely a technical term meaning "angel," with the broader sense "messenger" having nearly faded at least in Christian circles.⁹ In the LXX, while angelos is the usual translation of Hebrew מלאך, it is also applied to human messengers with some frequency. Either way, the word emphasises the child's instrumental agency on God's behalf. Just as the Targum has demoted the child by taking his loftiest titles away and applying them to God,¹⁰ so the LXX translator may be demoting the child by reducing his status from "God" to angel or messenger. This is not necessarily a mistranslation of אל; Collins notes that the word is also translated angelos in Job 20:15,¹¹ where the theological stakes are lower. Collins is inclined to translate angelos in Isaiah 9:5 as angel, and to understand it "not so much a demotion as a clarification of his status in relation to the Most High."¹² To what extent the the LXX translator wished to assign the child to the category "angel" is unclear (just as it is unclear to what extent the original author wished to assign the child to the category "god").

Isaiah 9:6 in the New Testament

Considering how easily an application of this oracle to Jesus arises in the minds of any Christian reader (even without Handel's help), and the almost universal messianic interpretation of the passage in the Church Fathers (as we shall see), it is surprising that Isaiah 9:6 is never quoted in the NT. This should remind us that the NT is nothing like a Christian commentary on the OT. It does not provide an exhaustive account of how the early Church interpreted the Jewish Scriptures; not even close. In many cases, we must rely on the testimony of the Church Fathers to learn how a particular passage was interpreted in the early Church.

Nevertheless, there is strong circumstantial evidence in the NT itself for a Christological interpretation of Isaiah 9:6. In particular, the Gospel of Matthew narrates how Jesus "left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali" (Matt. 4:13 NRSV), and interprets this event as having fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah. Matthew then quotes from Isaiah 8:23-9:1, which is the beginning of the same oracle that contains Isaiah 9:6. Moreover, there is a possible allusion to Isaiah 9:7 in Luke 1:32-33, although this Lucan prophecy about Jesus is probably based mainly on 2 Samuel 7:8-16.¹³

Early Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah 9:6

As the Septuagint was much more widely used than the Hebrew Bible in the early Church (at least, outside Jewish Christian communities in Judaea and surrounds), extant early Christian interpretations of Isaiah 9:5(6) relies on the LXX version, with its distinctive phrase "angelos of Great Counsel."¹⁴

 Justin Martyr

The earliest extant Christian interpreter of our text is Justin Martyr. In his first Apology (c. 153 A.D.),¹⁵ Justin writes,     

1 And how Christ, after his birth, was going to escape the attention of other human beings until he grew to manhood, which in fact happened—hear the things that were said in advance with reference to this. 2 They are these: 'A child was born for us, and a young man was given for us, whose rule is on his shoulders,' signifying the power of the cross, on which he placed his shoulders when he was crucified, as will be shown more clearly as the discourse proceeds. (1 Apol. 35.1-2)¹⁶

Justin also cites our text twice in his Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160 A.D., but with some material possibly dating back to c. 135):¹⁷

And, in calling him angel of great counsel, did not Isaiah predict that Christ would be a teacher of those truths which he expounded when he came upon this earth? For he alone openly taught the great counsels that the Father intended for those who either were, or shall be, pleasing to him, as well as for those men or angels who withdrew from his will. (Dial. 76.3)¹⁸

if you had known who he is who at one time is called angel of great counsel, and Man by Ezekiel, and Son of Man by Daniel, and a child by Isaiah, and Christ and God [and] who is to be adored by David, and Christ and Stone by many prophets… you would not have blasphemed him who has come, and assumed human nature, and suffered, and ascended into heaven. (Dial. 126.1)

Justin understands angelos to mean "angel" in Isaiah 9:5 LXX. This is clear, not only from his distinction between "men or angels" in the immediate context, but also from Justin's repeated statements elsewhere that Christ is God, and man, and angel.¹⁹ Justin explains his use of this term for Christ in terms of Christ's function as the Father's agent in revelation:

I shall attempt to prove my assertion, namely, that there exists and is mentioned in Scripture another God and Lord under the Creator of all things, who is also called an Angel, because he proclaims to man whatever the Creator of the world—above whom there is no other God—wishes to reveal to them. (Dial. 56.4)

Justin later mentions that the one who appeared to Moses at the burning bush "is termed an angel and is God" (kai angelos kaloumenos kai theos huparchōn, Dial. 60.4).²⁰ This is a case in point of what Charles A. Gieschen has famously called "angelomorphic Christology." Explaining his preference for this term over "angel Christology," Gieschen writes:

'angel' terminology also raises the ontological question that has moved some interpreters to dismiss a priori the impact of such concepts on early Christology. It is crucial to understand that distinctions which early Christian documents make between Christ and the 'created' angels do not preclude the use of angel-morphic traditions in expressing Christology. Angelic forms and functions do not of necessity imply a nature that is less than divine. This conclusion is evident from OT texts which equate God and his angel.²¹

Justin makes just such a distinction, by saying that the pre-existent Christ is called an angel because he brings God's revelations to man (functional), but is God (ontological).

 Irenaeus

The next writer to cite Isaiah 9:5 is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, who wrote c. 180 A.D. What is fascinating about Irenaeus' use of this text is that, while he is aware of and interprets the LXX title "Angel of Great Counsel," he is also aware—uniquely, among ante-Nicene Christian writers—that the title El Gibbor appears in the Hebrew text, and makes full Christological use of this:

Thus, then, does the Word of God in all things hold the primacy, for He is true man and Wonderful Counsellor and God the Mighty, calling man back again into communion with God, that by communion with Him we may have part in incorruptibility. (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 40)²²

54 And again the same prophet says: A son is born to us and a child is given to us, and His name has been called, Wonderful Counsellor, God the Mighty. 55. And he calls Him ‘Wonderful Counsellor,’ even of the Father, whereby it is pointed out that it is with Him that the Father works all things whatsoever as we have in the first of the Mosaic books, which is entitled ‘Genesis’: And God said: let us make man according to our image and likeness. For He is here seen clearly, the Father addressing the Son, as Wonderful Counsellor of the Father. Now He is also our Counsellor, giving counsel—not constraining, as God, and nonetheless being ‘God the Mighty,’ he says—and giving counsel to leave off our ignorance and receive knowledge, and to go forth from error and come to truth, and to cast forth corruptibility and receive incorruptibility. (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 54-55)

Interestingly, Irenaeus quotes the LXX version of the text almost as if it were a separate prophecy from Isaiah:

And again Isaias says: And they shall wish that they had been burnt with fire; for a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is set upon His shoulders; and His name is called Messenger of Great Counsel. For I will bring peace upon the princes, again peace and health to Him. Great is His empire, and of His peace there is no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to guide and to uphold with justice and right, from henceforth and for ever. For thereby it is proclaimed that the Son of God both is to be born and is to be everlasting king... But the words whose government is set upon His shoulders mean allegorically the Cross, on which He held His back when He was crucified; for what was and is an ignominy for Him, and because of Him, for us, the Cross, that, he says, is His government, that is, a sign of His empire. And he says Messenger of Great Counsel: messenger of the Father, whom he announced to us. (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 56)

Irenaeus follows Justin in interpreting the reference to "shoulders" as a prophecy of the cross of Christ, and in interpreting "Messenger/Angel of Great Counsel" functionally.²³ However, in commenting on the title "God the Mighty," he shows that he has access to a Jewish tradition of interpretation that was unknown to Justin.²⁴

 Tertullian

Tertullian cites our text in three of his works, two of which are discussed here.²⁵ In Against Marcion, Tertullian echoes the view found in Justin and Irenaeus that "whose government is placed upon his shoulder" refers to the cross:

For although death reigned from Adam until Christ, why should not Christ be said to have reigned from the tree, ever since by dying on the tree of the Cross he drove out the kingdom of death? In the same sense also Isaiah says, Because to us a child is born: what is new in this, unless he is speaking of the Son of God? And, Unto us one is given, whose government is placed upon his shoulder: which of the kings ever displays the sign of his dominion upon his shoulder, and not rather a crown upon his head or a sceptre in his hand, or some mark of appropriate apparel? No, only the new king of the new ages, Christ Jesus, <the king> of new glory, has lifted up upon his shoulder his own dominion and majesty, which is the Cross, so that from thenceforth, as our previous prophecy stated, he did as Lord reign from the tree. (Against Marcion 3.19.2)²⁶

In another work, Tertullian explains—like Justin before him—that Christ is called an angel in this text in a functional, not ontological, sense:

Certainly he is described as the angel of great counsel, 'angel' meaning 'messenger', by a term of office, not of nature: for he was to announce to the world the Father's great project, that concerned with the restitution of man. Yet he is not on that account to be understood as an angel, in the sense of a sort of Gabriel or Michael. For the son also is sent by the lord of the vineyard to the husbandmen, as the servants too had been, to fetch of the fruits of it: but the son must not be reckoned one of the servants just because he succeeded to the servants' task. So I shall find it easier to say, if I have to, that the Son himself was the angel (that is, the messenger) of the Father, than that there was an angel in the Son. (On the Flesh of Christ 14.3).²⁷

 Origen

Tertullian's line of interpretation is found again in Origen.²⁸ Origen also seems to think that the Son "became" an angel, for the sake of making angelic appearances.²⁹

 Novatian

While our text is cited in other ante-Nicene writings,³⁰ for sake of brevity we will only consider one more author: Origen's third-century contemporary Novatian, a Roman presbyter.

In his work On the Trinity (more appropriately titled "The Rule of Truth"),³¹ Novatian argues at length that the angel who appeared to Hagar in Genesis 16 could not either have been God the Father nor an ontological angel, but rather one who is ontologically God but functionally God's angel or herald. Novatian uses Isaiah 9:5 as a proof text for the notion that Christ can be called "angel":

(7) Now Scripture portrays this angel as both Lord and God, for He would not have promised the blessing of progeny if He had not been both angel and God. Let the heretics try to explain away this passage. (8) Was it the Father who was seen by Hagar, or not? For it was stated that He was God. Far be it from us to call God the Father an angel, lest He be subject to another, whose angel He would be. (9) But they will say that He was an angel. If He was an angel, how could He possibly be God since this name has never been given to angels? However, if we examine both sides of the question, truth itself drives us to this conclusion: we must acknowledge that He was the Son of God. Because He is of God, He is rightly called God, since He is the Son of God; and because He is subject to the Father and herald of the Father’s will, he is proclaimed ‘Angel of Great Counsel.’ (10) Therefore, if this passage is not appropriate to the person of the Father, lest He be called an angel, nor to the person of an angel, lest He be called God, it does, however, suit the person of Christ, since He is not only God, inasmuch as He is the Son of God, but also an angel, inasmuch as He is the herald of the Father’s dispensation. Heretics must realize that they are acting contrary to the Scriptures when they say they believe that Christ was also an angel, but do not want to admit that He is also the God who they read came frequently to visit the human race in the Old Testament...It is quite evident, then, that it was not the Father who spoke to Hagar in the present passage but rather Christ, because He is God. The title of angel is also appropriate to Christ because He was made ‘the Angel of Great Counsel.’ He is an angel because He lays bare the heart of the Father, as John declares." (de Trinitate 18.7-10, 22)³² 

Conclusion

Christian writers of the second and third centuries are united in interpreting Isaiah 9:6-7(5-6)—which, apart from Irenaeus, they appear to have known only via the LXX translation³³—as a prophecy concerning Christ. The common themes that emerge from their exegesis include that (i) the reference to his rule being upon his shoulder foretells the power of Christ's cross and (ii) Christ is called Angel of Great Counsel, not because he is ontologically an angel, but because he, although God by nature, has the function of declaring the counsel of God the Father to God's creatures.

Addendum on Eusebius' Commentary on Isaiah

I was able to access Eusebius' Commentary on Isaiah only after completing this article, and thus here reproduce most of his lengthy and insightful interpretation on this text, without any comment.

What this is about he states next when he says: Because a child was born for us, and a son also given to us, whose sovereignty is on his shoulder: and he is named messenger of great counsel. And he was the one who was called son and child and Emmanuel. This is the third time in the same prophecy where the son is also called child... For this very reason the child is this son, who was given as a gift from God to those who have believed in him and who has many more names than those stated above. And he has been named messenger of great counsel. And although this name may seem rather ordinary, it points to something beyond mortal nature, even angelic. For he addressed him not simply as messenger, but as messenger of great counsel. And what else could the great counsel be except the counsel of the great God concerning the calling and salvation of all nations, which the messenger himself, our Savior, would minister in the benevolent counsel of the Father? According to the Hebrew Scriptures he has been honored with greater forms of address than messenger, for it is said that he bears the government on his shoulder. For the government of the prophesied child (that is, the glory and the honor and the kingdom) is the government that is on his shoulder and over all (clearly, the government should be understood as the arm of the divinity in him). He has been called messenger of great counsel because of his divinity, for he alone understands the secret things of the fatherly counsel, and he is the messenger to the worthy. We said that he has been deemed worthy of an even greater title than messenger, for the Hebrew text reads, as translated by Symmachus: And his name will be called marvelous, able to advise, strong and powerful, eternal father, ruler of peace; and Aquila says: His name is called wonderful, counselor, strong, powerful, father still, ruler of peace; and according to Theodotion's translation: And she called his name wonderful, counselor, strong, master, eternal father, ruler of peace.

But instead of strong, the Hebrew text has El, which means God. For there are many passages in Scripture where El stands for God, and the text at hand should likewise be counted among them, for through the wording of the Hebrew God is proclaimed to be the child born for us. Accordingly, in the above prophecy concerning the child born for us and the son given to us, along with the other names and El, according to the Hebrew text, it is clear that the prophecy makes him known to be God. And so he is called El Gibbor in the Hebrew tongue. But Aquila translates this phrase as strong, powerful, and  Symmachus does as well. Theodotion translated this phrase as strong, master, protector—among which titles it is probable that he included the name of God as the child born for us. And we would not miss the mark to translate the phrase powerful God, since it has been pointed out to us that the word El translates to 'God.' And so we have boldness to call him so. The phrase El Gibbor in the Hebrew tongue is translated strong, powerful in the Greek, and the name Emmanuel includes El in it and additionally takes on the phrase God with us. And such names of the revealed child present his nature as superior to that of a mere man. Now I suppose that there are those who distrust the Septuagint because it is silent concerning the true recipient of the portentous and surpassing greatness of these names, but in another way this is stated summarily in the literal meaning: And he is named messenger of great counsel. And how has he said father of the coming age, for we will understand that it is our father Adam who is being handed down who is of 'the present age' and of the mortal race of people. But 'just as in Adam we will all die,' according to the apostle, 'so we will all be made alive in Christ.' (Commentary on Isaiah 65-66)³⁴

• 1 "Messianic Texts in Isaiah 1-39," in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, ed. John Day (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 257.
• 2 The One Who Is to Come (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 38).
• 3 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," in Scripture and Tradition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 205. Collins, for his part, avers that whether the passage is messianic is a question of definition. If by "Messiah" one means a figure who would restore the monarchy after it was broken by the Babylonian exile, or certainly a figure who would literally usher in endless peace, then this text is not messianic. However, it is nonetheless "a reaffirmation of the mythology of kingship in the historical context," due to its idealised picture of what kingship could offer (ibid., 212).
• 4 I am making a subtle dig at unitarian apologists who argue, for instance, that since Genesis 1:26 ("Let us make man in our image") is agreed by biblical scholars not to be a statement spoken by the Father to the Son, it thus cannot be interpreted as such. These apologists are conflating the grammatical-historical sense with the spiritual sense.
• 5 The versification differs in the LXX and MT from the English, so Isaiah 9:5-6 LXX/MT correspond to 9:6-7 English.
• 6 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 211.
• 7 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 215.
• 8 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 216.
• 9 See my article, When is an angelos not an angel? A critique of Christadelphian lexical semantics.
• 10 "and his name will be called before Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, existing forever, 'The messiah in whose days peace will increase upon us'" (trans. Collins, "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 213).
• 11 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 217.
• 12 "Isaiah 8:23-9:6 and Its Greek Translation," 217.
• 13 So David W. Pao and Eckhard J. Schnabel, "Luke," in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 260. Pao and Schnabel also comment on the "parallels" between Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:8-14, without claiming any direct literary dependence.
• 14 It should be borne in mind that patristic references to this text do not always indicate whether the patristic author understood angelos in the sense of "Angel" or "Messenger." In some of the modern translations we will quote, the translation "angel" or "messenger" is just an educated guess by the modern scholar.
• 15 So Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 44.
• 16 Trans. Minns and Parvis, Justin, 177. They note the likelihood of a lacuna here (ibid., 177 n. 1), since Isaiah 9:5 has nothing to do with the hiddenness of Christ in his childhood, and Justin interprets it with reference to his death.
• 17 c. 160 is the usual date for the Dialogue, but Timothy J. Horner argues that the Dialogue was a redacted version of an earlier "Trypho Text," an account of a real dialogue with Trypho, which he dates to c. 135 A.D. (Listening to Trypho: Justin Martyr's Dialogue Reconsidered [Leuven: Peeters, 2001]).
• 18 Michael Slusser (ed.), St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls, rev. Thomas P. Halton (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 118. All subsequent translations of the Dialogue are from the same.
• 19 "I prove from all the Scriptures that Christ is spoken of as a King, and a Priest, and God, and Lord, and an Angel, and a Man, and a Leader, and a Stone, and a Begotten Son..." (Dial. 34.2); cf. Dial. 56.4, 10; 59.1; 60.1; 61.1; etc.
• 20 Text in Philippe Bobichon, Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon: Introduction, Édition Critique, Traduction, Notes, 2 vols. (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2003), 1:346.
• 21 Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 4.
• 22 Trans. Joseph P. Smith, St. Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (Westminster: Newman Press, 1952), 73. Other translations of this work below are from the same source.
• 23 Irenaeus also makes a passing reference to this LXX title in his better-known work, Against Heresies (3.16.3).
• 24 Given the prominence of "God" as a Christological title in Justin's writings, it is difficult to believe that he would not have mentioned the title "Mighty God" in the Hebrew of Isaiah 9:5, had he been aware of it—particularly when trying to win over Trypho the Jew.
• 25 The third, in Against the Jews 10.11, is nearly identical to that from Against Marcion.
• 26 Trans. Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 229.
• 27 Trans. Ernest Evans, Tertullian's Treatise on the Incarnation (London: SPCK, 1956), 51.
• 28 "'For no one has known the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him.' And to the extent that he is the Word, he is the 'messenger of great counsel' 'upon whose shoulder the authority' has come to rest, for he has become king because he suffered the cross." (Commentary on John 1.278, trans. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1-10 [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989], 91).
• 29 "217 The Savior, therefore, in a way much more divine than Paul, has become 'all things to all,' that he might either 'gain' or perfect 'all things.' He has clearly become a man to men, and an angel to angels. 218 No believer will have any doubt that he became a man; and we may be convinced that he became an angel if we observe the appearances and the words of angels when [some angel appears with authority] in certain passages of Scripture when the angels speak. For example, 'An angel of the Lord appeared in the fire of a burning bush. And he said, I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.' But also Isaias says, 'His name shall be called angel of great counsel.'" (Commentary on John 1.217-18, trans. Heine, Origen, 77). Elsewhere, Origen objects the notion that Christ was "some angel," which the pagan apologist Celsus was willing to concede for the sake of argument. Origen responds, "Next, as he supposes that he can say of the Saviour by way of a concession Let us assume that he really was some angel, we say that we do not accept this from Celsus as a concession. But we consider the work of him who visited the whole human race by his word and teaching, according as each one of those who believe him was able to receive him. This was not the work merely of an angel but, as the prophecy about him says, 'of the angel of the great counsel'. For he proclaimed to men the great counsel of the God and Father of the universe concerning them..." (Contra Celsum 5.53, trans. Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 305-306.
• 30 Cf. Hippolytus, De benedictionibus Isaaci et Iacobi et Moysis 1-2; In Danielem 2.32.6; Traditio apostolica 4, 8; Gregory Thaumaturgus, In Origenem oratio panegyrica 4.42; Cyprian, Ad Quirinum 2.21; Victorinus, Commentarii in Apocalypsim Ioannis 10.1; Peter of Alexandria, Epistula canonica 5; Eusebius, Generalis elementaria introductio 1.17, 3.30, 4.7; Eusebius, Demonstratio evangelica 1.1.2, 4.10.17, 5.10.6, 7.1.135-153, 7.2.2-23, 9.8.1, 9.8.16, 10.3; Eusebius, Commentary on Isaiah at 9:6; Lactantius, Diuinae Institutiones 4.11.7, 4.12.10, 5.7.1.
• 31 The work never uses the word "Trinity," so this title has probably been imposed on it retrospectively. It is basically a commentary on the Roman creed, focusing on those parts which were controversial at the time—above all, matters of Christology.
• 32 Trans. Russell J. deSimone, Novatian: The Trinity, The Spectacles, Jewish Foods, In Praise of Purity, Letters (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1974), 68-69, 72. The phrase "Angel of Great Counsel" is quoted again in de Trinitate 21.3, 28.8, 31.16-18.
• 33 Tertullian and Novatian wrote in Latin, and so presumably followed the Old Latin, which is close to the LXX.
• 34 Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on Isaiah, trans. Jonathan J. Armstrong, ed. Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2013), 49-50.