Annotatio CXXX

”The Lord our God is one God.” — Deuteronomy 6:4

Anselm of Laon, author of the interlinear Gloss, hints that Moses therefore called the one God by three names,¹ that he might signify that God is one in majesty, and three in persons — having neither division, nor admitting solitude. This exposition seems taken either from Augustine, who expounds this passage concerning the unity of the Trinity in the third book against Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, chapter 23; or from the first epistle of Alexander, Pope and martyr, who — from a divine sentence similar to this one, showing the mystery of the Trinity in unity — argues in this manner: “If there is no Trinity, why in Deuteronomy did he say, ‘The Lord our God, this is God’? If there is no unity, why did he say ‘This is,’ and not ‘These are,’ designating [it] by the plural number? If there is no Trinity, why in the same book is it said, ‘The Lord thy God is a great and mighty God’? If there is no Unity, why is he not named ‘great and mighty’ in the plural?” These things Alexander. I pass over — for brevity’s sake — Idacius Clarus, an ancient author, repeating these same words of Alexander in the book which he wrote against Varimandus. But Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, too, in the book On the Knowledge of God, against the Jews, adducing this same testimony for the unity of the Trinity, says: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God.” That [word] “LORD, and GOD, and GOD,” shows three persons; but that [word] “is one,” [shows] one divinity and one nature. Theodoret, in the second book On the Cure of Greek Affections, expounding to the same effect, says: “Moses, when he says, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one,’ both teaches unity and signifies trinity. For, the Lord being once set forth, and twice repeated with ‘Lord,’ he intimates the Trinity; and when he added, ‘is one,’ he brought forward a doctrine congruent to the Jews, and taught that there is one and the same divinity and substance in three.”

Augustine, Bishop of Kissamos — perhaps ignorant that this is the explanation of the great fathers of the Church — reproves it in his Annotations as insipid. His words are these: “It is not to be passed over in silence in this place, that Rabbi Moses the Egyptian, the foremost writer of the Hebrews, carps at the Christians and derides them with a long mockery. ‘The Christians,’ he says, ‘gather the Trinity from this passage: for first three persons are expressed, when it is said, “Lord, God, God” — for there the divine name is thrice repeated; afterwards the Trinity is intimated, when it is said, “is one.”’ Having produced these words, he inveighs against us with many reproaches. It could indeed be that someone more insipid than [certain] of ours — of whom very many are found — said this to that Jew. Now many, unskilled in the divine letters, gather the Trinity from these passages, from which it cannot be gathered; and again, where that divine matter is most clearly expressed, nothing of it penetrates into their minds. This happens chiefly from the preachers, who often wrest the divine letters, while they will have this [word] to be a figure of one thing, and that of another; and it has come to pass that we are made a laughing-stock to the sharp-eyed Jews. A middle [course] must at all events be held: that those things which bear a figure be interpreted figuratively; but those which look to no other [meaning] be not wrested thereto; and it must be diligently searched out, so that where [Scripture] speaks of the Messiah we may attentively recognize [it], but where nothing of this kind is foretold we may not violently drag [it]. For it comes about, from this cause, that we infect the divine letters with most foul fables — a thing which Gregory Nazianzen greatly censures. For there was among the Greeks a race of men, such as [there is] among ours, and which flourished many days before, who [a race of men, such as there is among ours,] who heaped up a certain infinite pile of figures, and use it to show that all things — not so much the greatest as the least — were foreshown by figures. I certainly would say that this is not only most foolish, but also most impious. For neither do we say this, imitating the impudence of certain Germans, who have usurped to themselves the license of maligning all things — both gods and men, both human and divine matters — but [we speak so] that we may censure the things worthy of censure, and praise the things worthy of praise. For as he is a Christian who follows neither the Arian division nor the Sabellian conjunction, so [he is] truly a Christian who neither follows the impudence of those men, nor yet fails to reprehend the things which are worthy of reprehension. It could therefore be that some Christian said those things to Rabbi Moses. But this too is not to be ignored: that the Hebrews are wont, for the most part, to fabricate false charges against us, and to accommodate our affairs to [their] vituperation; and we find many things among them which they falsely assert to be ours; and by that nation this has been done throughout — that they might contaminate our dogmas with most impious lies, and [so] are the slower to take up the faith of Christ: for they have their own writers, to whom they give credence, and they find among them our [teachings] mangled with the utmost vituperations, and corrupted with most wicked lies. It is said, therefore, in this passage, ‘The Lord God,’ because in the divine letters God is wont to be named by these two names joined together at once — namely ELOHIM and IHVH [YHWH] — of which the second is the Tetragrammaton name, that is, signifying the divine essence; but the first is that divine name by which his might is signified, for I think EL and ELOHA to be almost the same. But where it is said, ‘God is one,’ it is plain that a repetition of [the name] God is made, [and] that [this ‘God’] is not co-numbered with those two.” But others also may interpret [this] better than we.