I came out of the mouth of the most High, and covered the earth as a cloud.
Read Chapter 24
Ildefonsus of Toledo
AD 667
Malachi says, "The Lord whom you seek will come to his holy temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire." Similarly in Exodus, the Father says to the lawgiver, "See, I send my angel who goes before you, who guards you on your way and who brings you to the place I have prepared. Honor him, and listen to his voice, and do not disregard him, because he will not forgive you when you sin. My name is on him." Perhaps because you hear "angel" you do not believe it is God the creator but some created angel? Impossible! You are confused by a tremendous folly if you believe that God would have given his power and his very name to some angel, and therefore (contrary to your word and mine) that it was not the only God who did everything. Why do you say the angel is equal to him when this cannot be so? Indeed, who above the clouds is equal to the Lord? Or who among the children of God is like God? That is, among the good angels and among the holy people whom, in adoptive love, the divine mercy calls children. From where did Christ come? Well, from where did he come? Clearly, he came from nowhere else than from God. Listen to Christ speak by the mouth of Solomon: "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High." And to what the Father says of him in the Psalms: "From the womb before the dawn I begot you." Here and elsewhere, Christ says through Solomon, "Before the hills I was brought into the world." And Zechariah, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: after the glory he sent me to the peoples, to those who plundered you. Whoever strikes you strikes the apple of my eye, because, look, I will raise my hand over you, and they will be plunder for those who served them. And you will know that the Lord of hosts sent me." - "On Mary's Perpetual Virginity 5"
