Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/199

 analogy with the whole teaching of the Old Testament in reference to angels? Believing, as the Gospel teaches us, that the saints of God, when translated to paradise, are made "like unto the angels" (Luke xx. 36), how could the Catholic Church but conclude that she must believe them to be invested with the attributes of angels, and therefore with a similar power of mediation and active interference in the affairs of men?

I know that the force of this argument has been endeavoured to be eluded by affirming that whenever such power is attributed in Scripture to angels, it is Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, elsewhere termed in Scripture "the Angel of Great Counsel," that is intended, and not angels in the strict sense of the term. But, then, this interpretation is entirely gratuitous, contrary to the plain meaning of Holy Writ, and only adopted for the confessed and obvious purpose of meeting a difficulty. Such an interpretation is repugnant to the known interpretation of the synagogue of old, as may be seen at length in the learned writings of Rabbi Drack, while it contradicts that of the Primitive Church;and in the present passage we have just quoted