Bruno of Segni
PL 164, col. 157A
English
It is God, then, who speaks. Was it to the angels? God forbid! For man was not created by angels; otherwise there would be not one but many creators, whereas God alone is the Creator of all. For thus it is written: The Creator of all, terrible and strong (2 Macc 1:24). And again: You have made all things in wisdom (Ps 104:24 [Vg 103:24]). If therefore it is true, as cannot be denied, that God alone created all things, whom was he inviting to the making of man when he said, Let us make man? Let us hear, then, what is said at the head of this book: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. You have therefore God, that is, the Father; you have also a beginning, that is, the Son — for so he himself says: I am the beginning, who also speak to you (John 8:25). But what follows? And the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. You have therefore the Holy Spirit also. And that not the Father alone created heaven, but the Son and the Holy Spirit together with him, let the psalmist say: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth (Ps 33:6 [Vg 32:6]). Now the whole Trinity, that is, God and his Word and his Spirit, is one God; and it is he who says, Let us make man — not seeking help outside himself, but disposing all things within himself with his Son and the Holy Spirit.
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Deus ergo est qui loquitur. Nunquid ad angelos? Absit! Non enim ab angelis creatus est homo; alioquin non unus, sed multi creatores essent, ut solus Deus est omnium Creator. Sic enim scriptum est: « Creator omnium terribilis, et fortis (II Machab. I, 24) . » Itemque: « Omnia in sapientia fecisti (Psal. CIII, 24) . » Si igitur verum est, quod negari non potest, solus Deus creavit omnia; quos ad hominem creandum invitabat, dicens: « Faciamus hominem. » Audiamus igitur quid in capite libri hujus dicatur: « In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram. » Habes ergo Deum, id est Patrem; habes et principium, id est Filium; sic enim ipse ait: « Ego principium qui et loquor vobis (Joan. VIII, 25) . » Sed quid sequitur? « Et Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. » Habes igitur et Spiritum sanctum. Quod autem non solus Pater coelum creaverit, sed simul cum eo Filius quoque, et Spiritus sanctus, dicat Psalmista: « Verbo, inquit, Domini coeli firmati sunt, et Spiritu oris ejus omnis virtus eorum (Psal. XXXII, 6) . » Tota autem Trinitas, id est Deus, et Verbum ejus, et Spiritus ejus, unus Deus, et iste quidem dicit: « Faciamus hominem; » non extra se auxilium petens, sed in se cum Filio suo, et Spiritu sancto cuncta disponens.
PL 164, col. 157A · pd
Notes
The one Latin witness on this crux who states the negative half of the question, and he states it in the rabbinic bench's own terms. Whom was God inviting when he said 'let us make man'? Not the angels — for man was not created by angels, and otherwise there would be not one creator but many. That is R. Yitzḥak's 'no creature can say that two authorities created the world', with the angels in the place of the second authority and with the same horror of it. Having refused the answer, Bruno goes back to the head of the book for the right one, and lays the triad out in three short moves: you have God, that is the Father; you have a beginning, that is the Son; and what follows? — the Spirit of God borne over the waters, so you have the Holy Spirit too. Nothing in the argument is his own except its shape, which is a schoolman's: the wrong answer refuted first, from a premise both benches share.
Father, Beginning, SpiritNot spoken to the angels
Threads
- → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
Both refuse a plurality of creators in the same words and against different opponents. R. Yitzḥak: no creature can say that two authorities created the world. Bruno: was he speaking to the angels? God forbid — for otherwise there would be not one creator but many, whereas God alone is the creator of all. The premise is shared exactly; what Bruno does next with it, and the midrash cannot, is find the second and third persons in the same verses. - → echoes · Augustine
'Habes ergo Deum, id est Patrem; habes et principium, id est Filium … Habes igitur et Spiritum sanctum' is Augustine's three-term reading turned into a schoolroom enumeration, with the same John 8:25 for the Son and the same Spirit of v. 2 for the third. What Augustine reached at the end of a search and called a riddle, Bruno hands over in three sentences as something the reader can check. - → echoes · Remigius of Auxerre
The same identification of the Son with the principium of Gen 1:1 from the same verse of John — 'ego principium qui et loquor vobis' — in Auxerre about 890 and at Segni about 1090. It is the most stable single move on the Latin bench and it is what makes the three-term reading possible at all: without a person in the second word there is no triad to complete. - → contests · Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
Bruno's rhetorical question has a literal answer in a book he could not read. 'Quos ad hominem creandum invitabat, dicens: Faciamus hominem?' — whom was he inviting to create the human? — and his answer is that it cannot be the angels, since otherwise there would be not one creator but many. Pseudo-Jonathan names them: the angels who minister before him, created on the second day. The targum has already conceded Bruno's premise, that no creature may be a maker, and secured it by the date; Bruno takes the reading to be refuted by the premise alone.