Peter Abelard

English

It is to be noted that in this very opening of Genesis the prophet carefully expressed the foundation of our faith concerning the unity of God and the Trinity. For when he said 'the Spirit of the Lord', he plainly distinguished at once both the person of the Holy Spirit and that of the Father, from whom that Spirit principally proceeds, as blessed Augustine records. But in that he added 'God said', he openly expressed God's own saying, that is, his Word, which is the Son, together with the Father himself. For no one of sound head can be so foolish as to reckon this saying corporeal, since the Godhead is not corporeal, nor has it to speak in a bodily way, nor was there yet anyone present to whom it would have had to speak bodily. Now where we say 'God created', for what is 'God' the Hebrew has Eloim, which shows a plurality of divine persons. For El is singular, which is interpreted 'God'; but Eloim is plural, by which we understand the diversity of the persons, of which each one is God. But why is it said 'Eloim created' and not 'they created'? — namely, so that a singular verb should be referred to a plural noun; in order that it might be intimated that in those three persons not three creators but one only is to be understood. When therefore he said 'Eloim created', in which he taught that the divine persons work equally together, he assuredly laid down beforehand that the works of the Trinity are undivided. And when afterwards, as we have said, he distinguished the persons of the Father and the Spirit and the Word, he determined wherein that Trinity consists.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by

Latin

PL 178, col. 739B · pd

Notes

The star witness of this crux, and the only place on the Latin bench where the Hebrew word is brought to Gen 1:1 at all. Abelard knows that El is singular and Eloim plural, and he asks the exact question the midrash asks — why 'Eloim created' and not 'they created'? — and answers it by the concord: a singular verb referred to a plural noun, so that in those three persons one creator is understood and not three. From which he draws the technical doctrine, opera Trinitatis indivisa. Where he got the grammar is unknown: Jerome's note that the Hebrew word is common in number sits at Gen 6:2 and is about the sons of God, and no Latin before Abelard brings it forward to the first verse. What he does not have is the rest of the Hebrew: he reads the plural as a plurality of persons, which is the one thing the rabbinic bench never lets it mean, and Ibn Ezra will refute the reading twenty years later without ever having heard of him. Note also the first half of the passage, where the Trinity is got out of the sequence of the verses rather than the noun — Spirit and Father from 'the Spirit of the Lord', Word and Father from 'God said' — which is Augustine's method and needs no Hebrew at all.

Threads

• → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
  The star thread of the site. Both ask why the plural noun Elohim takes a singular verb, in the same words. R. Yitzḥak: 'bereshit bare'u Elohim is not written here, but bara Elohim' — and therefore no creature can say that two authorities created the world. Abelard: 'unde autem dictum est Eloim creavit, non creaverunt? ut videlicet ad plurale nomen singulare verbum referretur; quatenus insinuaretur in tribus illis personis non tres creatores, sed unum tantum debere intelligi.' One grammatical fact, seven hundred years apart, no contact, and the same conclusion drawn about the verb — one creator — from opposite conclusions about the noun.
• ← contests · Abraham ibn Ezra
  The same question and the opposite answer, twenty years apart and with no possible contact. Abelard: Eloim is plural, showing a plurality of divine persons, each of which is God, and the singular verb shows they are one creator. Ibn Ezra: Elohim is the plural of eloah, and the plural is how the Holy Tongue speaks of the great — as adonim and be'alim are plural for one master, and as a king in Arabic speaks of himself in the plural — 'and for this reason Scripture says bara and not bare'u.' Each has the whole of the other's evidence and takes the plural to mean the opposite thing.
• ← parallel · Moses ben Naḥman (Naḥmanides)
  The two witnesses on this daf who make the plurality of the noun a plurality in God, and they could not be further apart on what it is. Abelard: a diversity of persons, of which each one is God, and the doctrine is preachable and technical — opera Trinitatis indivisa. Ramban: the master of all the forces, and a secret that will be disclosed elsewhere. A century apart, in Paris and in Girona, with nothing between them but the same three consonants.
• ← parallel · Babylonian Talmud
  The baraita reports the elders removing from the Greek exactly the two features the Latin bench builds on, and neither removal reached the Church. The first item on their list is the word order of Gen 1:1; the second is the plural of Gen 1:26 turned singular. The Septuagint as transmitted has neither change. Abelard's argument needs the plural noun standing next to a singular verb in the first verse, which is what the elders are said to have rearranged, and Bruno's needs the 'let us make' of Gen 1:26, which is what they are said to have made singular.
• → cites · Augustine
  Abelard names Augustine for the procession — 'the person of the Holy Spirit and of the Father, from whom that Spirit principally proceeds, as blessed Augustine records' — and gets the first half of his Trinity the Augustinian way, out of the sequence of the verses: the Spirit from 'the Spirit of the Lord', the Word from 'God said'. Only then does he turn to the Hebrew noun, which Augustine did not have and could not have used.
• ← echoes · Peter Abelard
  One man, one argument, two verses, and the pair is the whole of this crux. At Gen 1:1 the evidence is a Hebrew noun plural in form beside a singular verb — 'unde autem dictum est Eloim creavit, non creaverunt?' At Gen 1:26 it is a Latin verb plural in form beside the singular of v. 27 — 'sed cur pluraliter dicitur: faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, si nulla prorsus pluralitas in Deo sit … et creavit Deus hominem'. The inference is identical both times, the plural for the persons and the singular for the one creator, and both times it is addressed to Jews by name: dicant Judaei si possunt.