[Footnote 37:  Le Nourry (Apparatus ad Bibliothecam Maximam Veterum Patrum.  Paris, 1697. vol. ii. p. 305), himself a Benedictine, rejects Bellarmin’s and his brother Benedictine Maran’s interpretation, and conceives Justin to mean, that the Son of God not only taught us those truths to which he was referring, with regard to the being and attributes of God, but also taught us that there were hosts of spiritual beings, called Angels; good beings, opposed to the demons of paganism.  Bishop Kaye, in his excellent work on Justin Martyr, which the reader will do well to consult (p. 53), tells us he was sometimes inclined to think that Justin referred to the host of good angels who should surround the Son of God when he should come to judge the world.  The view adopted by myself here was recommended by Grabe and by Langus, called The Interpreter of Justin; whilst Petavius, a Jesuit, though he does not adopt it, yet acknowledges that the Greek admits of our interpretation.  Any one who would pursue the subject further may with advantage consult the preface to the Benedictine edition referred to in this work.  Lumper Hist.  Part ii. p. 225.  Augustae Vindelicorum, 1784.  Petavius, Theologicorum Dogmatum tom. vi. p. 298. lib. xv. c. v. s. 5.  Antwerp, 1700.

The whole passage is thus rendered by Langus (as read in Lumper), “Verum hunc ipsum, et qui ab eo venit, atque ista nos et aliorum obsequentium exaequatorumque ad ejus voluntatem bonorum Angelorum exercitura docuit, Filium, et Spiritum ejus propheticum, colimus et adoramus.”]

This interpretation is strongly confirmed by the professed sentiments both of Justin and of his contemporaries, {112} with regard to the Son of God and the holy angels.

It was a principle generally received among the early Christians, that whatever the Almighty did, either by creation or by the communication of his will, on earth or in heaven, was done by the Eternal Word.  It was God the Son, the Logos, who created the angels[38], as well as ourselves; it was He who spoke to Moses, to Abraham, and to Lot; and it was He who conveyed the Supreme will, and the knowledge of the only true God, to the inhabitants of the world of spirits.  Agreeably to this principle, in the passage under consideration, Justin affirms (not that Christians revered and worshipped the angels, but), that God the Son, whom Christians worshipped as the eternal Prophet, Angel, and Apostle, of the Most High, instructed not only us men on earth, but also the host of heavenly angels[39], in these eternal verities, {113} which embrace God’s nature and the duty of his creatures. [Trypho, Sec. 141. p. 231.]

    [Footnote 38:  Thus Tatian (p. 249 in the same edition of
    Justin), “Before men were prepared, the Word was the Maker of
    angels.”]