We must now briefly refer to those passages, by which Roman Catholic
writers have endeavoured to maintain that religious adoration was paid
to angels by the faithful sons of God. The two principal instances cited
are, first, the case of Abraham bowing down before three men, whom he
recognizes as messengers from heaven; and, secondly, the words of Jacob
when he gave his benediction to his grandsons.

With regard to the first instance, how very far the prostration of
Abraham was in itself from implying an act of religious worship, being
as it was the ordinary mode of paying respect to a fellow mortal, is
evident from the very words of Scripture. The Hebrew word, which we
translate by "bowed himself," and which the Vulgate unhappily renders
"adoravit" ("adored"), is, letter for letter, the same in the case of
Abraham saluting his three heavenly visitors, and in the case of Jacob
saluting his brother Esau. The parallelism of the two passages is very
striking.

GEN. xviii. 2. GEN. xxxiii. 1 and 3.

And he [Abraham] lift up his And Jacob lifted up his eyes,
eyes, and lo! three men stood and looked, and behold! Esau
by him; and when he saw them, came ... And he passed over, and
he ran to meet them from the _bowed himself to the ground_ seven
tent door; and _bowed himself_ times until he came near to his
_toward the ground_. brother. {39}

By rendering the Hebrew word[10], which means to "bow or bend oneself,"
by the word "adoravit," which is literally "to pray to," the Latin
Vulgate has laid the foundation for much unsound and misleading