h whom also God delivers whom he will. For he used
the expression, knowing him who is called the Messenger of the great
counsel of the Father to be no other than the very one who blessed and
delivered from evil. For surely he did not aspire to be blessed himself
by God, and was willing for his descendants to be blessed by an angel.
But the same whom he addressed, saying, I will not let Thee go, except
thou bless me (and this was God, as he says, 'I saw God face to face'),
Him he prayed to bless the sons of Joseph. The peculiar office of an
angel is to minister at the appointment of God; and often he went
onwards to cast out the Amorite, and is sent to guard the people in the
way; but these are not the doings of him, but of God, who appointed him
and sent him,--whose also it is to deliver whom he will." [Vol i. p.
561.]

"For this cause David addressed no other on the subject of deliverance
but God Himself. But if it belongs to no other than God to bless and
deliver, and it was no other who delivered Jacob than the Lord Himself,
and the patriarch invoked for his descendants Him who delivered him, it
is evident that he connected no one in his prayer except His Word, whom
for this reason he called an angel, because he alone reveals the
Father." {189}

"But this no one would say of beings produced and created; for neither
when the Father worketh does any one of the angels, or any other of
created beings, work the things; for no one of such beings is an
effective cause, but they themselves belong to things produced. The
angels then, as it is written, are ministering spirits sent to minister;
and the gifts given by Him through the Word they announce to those who
receive them."

Now if the invocation of angels had been practised by the Church at that
time, can it be for a moment believed, that a man of such a mind as was
the mind of Athanasius, a mind strong, clear, logical, cultivated with
ardent zeal for the doctrines of the Church, and fervent piety, would
have suffered such passages as these to fall from him, without one
saving clause in favour of the invocation of angels? He tells us in the
most unqualified manner, that they act merely as ministers; ready
indeed, and rejoicing to be employed on errands of mercy, but not going
one step without the commands of the Lord, or doing one thing beyond his
word. Had the idea been familiar to the mind of Athanasius, of the
lawfulness, the duty, the privilege, the benefit of invo