XV.

Argument:  Moses says, "The Lord your God is one God."  Therefore Christ

cannot be true God.

Response:  What Moses says, that God is one, in no way contradicts us.  For

we too say that there is one God, and not many, but that unity of substance

and essence has three distinct persons, as the nature[s] of Christ are united

in one person.  When therefore it is said that "the divinity died," then it

is implied that the Father too and the Holy Spirit have died.  But this is

not true, for only one person of the divinity, the Son, is born, dies, and

suffers, etc.  Therefore the divine nature, when it is take for a person, was

born, suffered, died, etc., and this is true.  We must therefore make a

distinction.  If you understand by "divine nature" the whole divinity or the

unity, then the assertion is false, because Christ alone is not the whole

Trinity, but only one person of the Trinity.  Therefore there is only one

God.  Here we preach, insofar as it is possible, that these three persons are

one God and one essence.  But we believe that these things are

incomprehensible; if they could be comprehended, there would be no need to

believe them.