Chapter XII.—Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.

If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, “Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness;”127    Gen. i. 26. whereas He ought to have said, “Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness,” as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage, however, “Behold the man is become as one of us,”128    Gen. iii. 22. He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, “Let us make;” and, “in our image;” and, “become as one of us.” For with whom did He make man? and to whom did He make him like? (The answer must be), the Son on the one hand, who was one day to put on human nature; and the Spirit on the other, who was to sanctify man. With these did He then speak, in the Unity of the Trinity, as with His ministers and witnesses. In the following text also He distinguishes among the Persons: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him.”129    Gen. i. 27. Why say “image of God?” Why not “His own image” merely, if He was only one who was the Maker, and if there was not also One in whose image He made man? But there was One in whose image God was making man, that is to say, Christ’s image, who, being one day about to become Man (more surely and more truly so), had already caused the man to be called His image, who was then going to be formed of clay—the image and similitude of the true and perfect Man.  But in respect of the previous works of the world what says the Scripture? Its first statement indeed is made, when the Son has not yet appeared:  “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.”130    Gen. i. 3. Immediately there appears the Word, “that true light, which lighteth man on his coming into the world,”131    John i. 9. and through Him also came light upon the world.132    Mundialis lux. From that moment God willed creation to be effected in the Word, Christ being present and ministering unto Him: and so God created. And God said, “Let there be a firmament,…and God made the firmament;”133    Gen. i. 6, 7. and God also said, “Let there be lights (in the firmament); and so God made a greater and a lesser light.”134    Gen. i. 14, 16. But all the rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the former ones—I mean the Word of God, “through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.”135    John i. 3. Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says,) “The Word was God,”136    John i. 1. then you have two Beings—One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of Substance—in the way of distinction, not of division.137    [Kaye thinks the Athanasian hymn (so called) was composed by one who had this treatise always in mind. See p. 526.] But although I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons), yet I am bound to acknowledge, from the necessity of the case, that He who issues a command is different from Him who executes it. For, indeed, He would not be issuing a command if He were all the while doing the work Himself, while ordering it to be done by the second.138    Per eum. But still He did issue the command, although He would not have intended to command Himself if He were only one; or else He must have worked without any command, because He would not have waited to command Himself.

CAPUT XII.

Si te adhuc numerus scandalizat Trinitatis, quasi non connexae in unitate simplici, interrogo quomodo unicus et singularis pluraliter loquitur: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram (Gen. I, 26); cum debuerit dixisse, Faciam hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem meam: utpote unicus et 0167D singularis? Sed et in sequentibus: Ecce Adam factus est tanquam unus ex nobis, fallit aut ludit; ut cum unus, et solus, et singularis esset, numerose loqueretur: aut numquid angelis loquebatur, ut Judaei interpretantur, quia nec ipsi Filium agnoscunt? An quia ipse erat Pater, Filius, Spiritus, ideo pluralem se praestans , pluraliter sibi loquebatur? Imo quia jam adhaerebat illi Filius, secunda persona, 0168A Sermo ipsius; et tertia, Spiritus in Sermone, ideo pluraliter pronuntiavit, faciamus, et, nostram, et, nobis. Cum quibus enim faciebat hominem, et quibus faciebat similem? Cum Filio quidem, qui erat induturus hominem; Spiritu vero, qui erat sanctificaturus hominem, quasi cum ministris et arbitris, ex unitate Trinitatis loquebatur. Denique, sequens Scriptura distinguit inter personas: Et fecit Deus hominem, ad imaginem Dei fecit illum (Gen. I, 27). Cur non, suam, si unus qui faciebat, et non erat ad cujus faciebat? Erat autem ad cujus imaginem faciebat: ad Filii scilicet, qui homo futurus certior et verior, imaginem suam fecerat dici hominem qui tunc de limo formari habebat, imago veri et similitudo. Sed et in antecedentibus operibus mundi quomodo scriptum est? Primum quidem, 0168B nondum Filio apparente, Et dixit Deus: Fiat lux, et facta est: ipse statim Sermo lux vera, quae illuminat hominem venientem in hunc mundum, et per illum mundialis quoque lux. Exinde autem in Sermone Christo assistente et administrante Deus voluit fieri, et Deus fecit. Et dixit Deus: Fiat firmamentum, et fecit Deus firmamentum (Gen. I, 7-16); et dixit Deus: Fiant luminaria, et fecit Deus luminare majus et minus; sed et caetera utique idem fecit qui et priora, id est Sermo Dei, per quem omnia facta sunt, et sine quo factum est nihil. Qui ipse Deus est, secundum Joannem (I, 1), Deus erat Sermo. Habes duos, alium dicentem ut fiat, alium facientem. Alium autem quomodo accipere debeas, jam professus sum; personae, non substantiae nomine; ad distinctionem, non ad divisionem. Caeterum, etsi ubique teneo 0168C unam substantiam in tribus cohaerentibus, tamen alium dicam oportet ex necessitate sensus, eum qui jubet, et eum qui facit. Nam nec juberet, si ipse faceret, dum juberet fieri per eum. Tamen jubebat, haud sibi jussurus si unus esset; aut sine jussu facturus, quia non exspectasset ut sibi juberet.