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The Holy Trinity in the Old Testament
by Constance Woods, Ph.D.
PART II
In connection with the question of visibility, God’s manifestation to Moses in Exodus 33:18-23 presents special problems which the early Fathers touch upon and which Augustine deals with at length. In this passage Moses asks to see God’s glory.
And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33: 19-23).
Tertullian asks how God’s declaration that “man shall not see me and live” can be reconciled with the fact that just a short while earlier we read that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11).
Whenever Moses would go to the tent of meeting, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance to the tent. When the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, they would all worship at the door of their own tents, while Moses spoke to God face to face. There is another reference to the privileged way in which Moses spoke to God face to face in Numbers 12:6-8. The Lord calls Moses, Aaron and Miriam into the tent of meeting. The pillar of cloud descends, and the Lord tells Aaron and Miriam: “If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the Lord.” Tertullian notes that Jacob also described his encounter with the Lord as a face-to-face meeting (Genesis 32:30). In light of the statement that no one can see God’s face and live, Tertullian concludes that these references to face-to-face meetings cannot be taken literally: “It was not as a man that he could behold his face, unless indeed it was in a glass, (as it were) and an enigma” (Against Praxeas 14). So what is this “face of God” that Moses and Jacob saw? There are two uses of the word face, one in the sense of the face which no one can see and live, and one in the sense of the way in which God converses with Moses as a friend. Tertullian concludes that the face which Moses conversed with was the Son.
But God said in Numbers 12:6-8 that He appeared in dreams and visions to other prophets, while to Moses he appeared clearly, not as a riddle or a dream. Perhaps we can take this to mean that God’s message was given clearly to Moses, rather than being given through symbolic images as in the visions of the prophets, while His physical presence remained “a glass and enigma.” Or perhaps Moses did see the Lord face to face, just as Abraham did, in the form of a man. In that case Moses would be seeing a representation of God, but not His divinity or His glory. For the “glory” of God that Moses asks to see is the sense of God’s “face” that no one can see and live. Tertullian says that this vision of God was reserved for and fulfilled in the Transfiguration, when Moses appeared speaking with Jesus (Against Praxeas 14).
Irenaeus also notes the seeming contradiction between Numbers 12:8 and Exodus 33:20 and reasons that the Transfiguration is the fulfillment of God’s promise to show Moses His back:
Two facts are thus signified: that it is impossible for man to see God, and that, through the wisdom of God, man shall see Him in the last times, in the depth of a rock, that is, in His coming as a man. And for this reason did He confer with him face to face on the top of a mountain, Elias being also present, as the Gospel relates, He thus making good in the end the ancient promise (Against Heresies 4.20.9).
In the introduction to his translation of The Trinity, Edmund Hill, O. P. summarizes the weaknesses that Augustine found in the arguments of Justin, Tertullian, and the other apologists, who tended to look at the one sent as being somehow less than or subordinate to the Father. Augustine’s great contribution was to distinguish between the mission and procession of the Divine Persons and to show that “the temporal missions of the Son and the Spirit into the world reveal to men the eternal processions of these persons within the godhead, but do not constitute them.”11 He asserted that there could be no inequality between the Sender and the One Sent. The One Sent begins to be among us in a new way when He is sent, that is, the Son at the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus and at Pentecost. Justin and Irenaeus attributed previous manifestations to the Son because He is the visible member and the revealing member of the Trinity. “Were they missions of the Son and sometimes of the Spirit? If so, does this not deprive the New Testament of all its definitive distinction, its proper newness?” Hill believes that is the ultimate consequence of such an approach.12
The other problem in the approach of the earlier writers is that they tended to divide up the functions of the Divine Persons, ascribing invisibility exclusively to the Father and visibility to the Son. If all theophanies are identified with the Son because the Father is believed to dwell “always in the supercelestial places,” there is a danger of dividing the one Divine substance. It is a little too neat, identifying immanence completely with the Son and transcendence completely with the Father. (There is also no good place for the Holy Spirit in this dichotomy). Since each Person of the Trinity is God whole and entire, not just a part of God, the Father is both transcendent and immanent, and the Son is both transcendent and immanent, and the Holy Spirit is both transcendent and immanent.
Augustine takes up the problem of visible manifestations of God in the missions. He differentiates between the permanent Incarnation of the Son and the temporary manifestation of the Spirit as tongues of fire. The human nature taken on by the Second Person at the Incarnation is from then on inseparably joined to the Son, who does not stop having a human nature after the Ascension. But the sending of the Spirit did not result in the Spirit being joined forever with the form of fire or, earlier, with the form of a dove.
Not thus, therefore, was a creature taken by the Holy Spirit to appear under, in the way that flesh, that human form, was taken of the virgin Mary. The Spirit did not make the dove blessed, or the violent gust, or the fire; he did not join them to himself and his person to be held in an everlasting union. . . . But these phenomena appeared, as and when they were required to, creation serving the creator (Wis. 16:24), and being changed and transmuted at the bidding of him who abides unchanging in himself, in order to signify and show him as it was proper for him to be signified and shown to mortal men (The Trinity 2.2.11).
The Spirit, in His coming at Pentecost, did not appear in His own proper substance but was manifested by “modulations of creation,” as Augustine so beautifully puts it elsewhere. Therefore there is not a qualitative difference between the mission at Pentecost and earlier manifestations, such as the dove at Jesus’ baptism. There is no clear line of demarcation between the dove and the tongues of fire.
Likewise the Old Testament theophanies, according to Augustine, are not the appearance of God in His own substance, but temporal re-arrangements of created material, or perhaps ad hoc creations. In either case, these forms come into being and then cease to be when their purpose is served. Therefore Augustine does not believe we can definitively assert that it was the Word manifesting Himself in the Old Testament theophanies. We cannot know for certain:
. . . whether it was the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit who appeared to the fathers in those various created forms; or whether it was sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit; or whether it was simply the one and only God, that is the Trinity, without any distinction of Persons. Therefore we should not be dogmatic in deciding which person of the three appeared in any bodily form or likeness to this or that patriarch or prophet, unless the whole context of the narrative provides us with probable indications (2.7.35).
Since it is not God in His proper substance appearing, the question of visibility is irrelevant. God the Father could have appeared in visible guise just as easily as the Son or the Holy Spirit:
This does not mean that God the Father never appeared to the fathers in this sort of guise. In those days there were many such manifestations. . . . [It is] impossible without rashness to say that God the Father never appeared to the patriarchs or prophets under visible forms. . . . (2.7.32).
The scriptural passages such as 1 Timothy 1:17 that talk about the invisibility of God, Augustine says, do not refer to the Father specifically, but to the Divine substance itself, the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (2.3.16 and 2.7.35).
What was seen by the patriarchs was some physical representation of God. These representations are angels, either pre-existing bodies or bodies created for a particular communication and then dissolved again when their purpose is served. Augustine provides many examples from Scripture in which an angel of the Lord speaks for the Lord. It may first be introduced as an angel, then subsequently called the Lord. Like the prophets, it is a mouthpiece of God, and not God’s actual presence. It speaks for the Lord as a clerk of court speaks for the judge. Therefore whether the text refers to the speaker as the Lord or as an angel of the Lord, it is the same thing, and the text can easily move back and forth from one designation to the other. Along these lines Augustine concludes that even though Genesis 18:2 states that the Lord appeared to Abraham, it can still be said that three angels appeared, not the Lord Himself (3.4.25). He rules out the Father as the member of the Trinity represented by the two angels with Lot. Those two angels say that they have been sent, and Augustine notes that nowhere in scripture is it ever said that the Father is sent (2.4.22).
In the case of the burning bush, he notes that the Lord is first called an angel of the Lord. If this actually means that an already created angel is representing the Lord in these phenomena (the flame and the voice), then it is impossible to say which member of the Trinity, or whether it is the Trinity as a whole, that the angel represents:
If it was one of the angels, how can anyone easily tell whether the task imposed on him was to represent the person of the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or of God the Father, or simply of the trinity itself who is the one and only God, in saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?” (2.5.23).
If, however, “angel” in this case means that some created thing has been requisitioned to produce the given effects, then Augustine would conclude that it was the Son or the Holy Spirit being represented. Both are God in themselves but can be called angels by virtue of their being announcers or messengers, which is the meaning of the Greek word. (2.5.23). But the intricacy of Augustine’s thought here precludes any certainty: one cannot determine which Person is represented unless one first knows whether an already existing angel was used or whether created matter was requisitioned for this specific task, and that is something we can never know.
The pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, Augustine reminds us, is not God in His proper substance, but created matter. And it is not at all clear to Augustine which Person of the Trinity is represented by the pillar. Nor does he see any method of distinguishing which Person is represented in Exodus 16:10, when the majesty of the Lord appeared to Moses in a cloud and the Lord spoke to Moses. Augustine disputes with those who think that Exodus 33:11 means that Moses saw God in His own substance. If he did see God, then how could Moses later plead for God to show Himself to him?
Surely the answer is that he knew what he had seen was only physical, and he was demanding a true spiritual vision of God. . . . On the other hand, what does Show yourself to me openly that I may see you (Ex 33:13) mean, if not “Show me your substance”? If Moses had not said this, then somehow or other we would have had to tolerate the fools who think that God’s substance had been set visibly before his eyes in all that had happened previously (2.5.27).
Augustine interprets Exodus 33:20-23 allegorically, with the rock representing the Catholic Church. The Lord’s back which Moses was permitted to see is analogized to the human nature of Christ. God’s promises to take His hand away so that Moses can see His back is taken by Augustine to mean Christ’s resurrection and ascension. The hand covering Moses’ eyes was taken away, that is, the inability to recognize Christ was removed. Moses is the allegorical representation of the many Jews who did come to believe in the Lord.
The face of God, which Moses was not permitted to see, is a metaphorical way of referring to the beatific vision. Augustine cites 1 Corinthians 13:12 to show that we will see Him face to face, that is, behold His divinity, His essence, only after this life (2.6.28-31). Augustine demonstrates that even after the Incarnation there was a sense in which Christ could not be seen, in other words, we see only His “back.”
Why, otherwise, should he say to Philip, who of course saw him in the flesh just as those who crucified him did, Am I with you all this time and you do not know me? (John 14:9). Does this not mean that he both could and could not be seen? He could be seen as made and sent; he could not be seen as the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3). . . . The Word itself . . . was being kept for the contemplation in eternity of minds now purified through faith (4.5.26).
Nevertheless, it seems that the way Moses does not see God is very different from the way Philip does not see God. Philip in John 14:9 is just being obtuse. He sees nothing of the Father’s glory in Jesus. He is speaking as if to an ordinary man. But when the promise to Moses is fulfilled, it will hardly be an ordinary sight. Even though he will see only God’s “back”, that is, have an incomplete vision of God, this “back” has to be something more numinous than all the other manifestations of God that Moses has seen. Knowing that even this vision of God was but a protected glimpse, for which God had to hide him in the cleft of the rock and cover his eyes while he passed by, would not Moses be even more aware of how utterly transcendent and unbearable God’s “face” is to a mortal? It seems to be a far cry from Philip, who just does not understand who he is with. Moses sees the “back” of God, while Philip does not see God at all.
When God promised to let Moses see His “back,” He was obviously promising Moses something different from the burning bush, the trumpets and thunder and smoke, the pillar of cloud and fire, for Moses had seen these, and still asked to see God. Spectacular as these manifestations of God had been, they must be, as Augustine says, created matter serving its creator. But then the “back” of God that Moses would be allowed to see would perhaps not be not created matter, but a true, if partial vision of God. Augustine does not consider the possibility of a literal meaning of this passage, although it seems that Moses’ promised vision is a perfect case where we could admit multiple fulfillments of the prophecy. It may well be that God fulfilled His promise to Moses immediately, then again at the Transfiguration, then again, in Augustine’s allegorical sense, at the Resurrection and Ascension. If this was a true theophany granted to Moses, it would not contradict Scripture that speaks of God’s invisibility, since Moses did not see the face, but only the back, i.e., only a facet of God’s glory, but not in its entirety.
To sum up, the early Church Fathers and Augustine bring out two major problems in interpreting these manifestations. First, is it God’s proper substance being made manifest, or is it created material which God commands in order to communicate his message, in other words, angels? Augustine calls them angels because God in His essence is invisible. However, angels are pure spirits and are also invisible. So why can we say that an apparition consisting of some material form can be called an angel but cannot be God?
The second problem raised by these theophanies is how to determine which Person of the Trinity is appearing or is being represented through the material of creation. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Theophilus of Antioch, and Irenaeus ascribe all visible and audible communications to the Son, because the Son is the revelation of God. But Augustine disputes the assumption that the Son could be visible before the Incarnation. He points out cases where audible manifestations are known to be from the Father, such as the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism and at the Transfiguration, and also before Jesus’ Passion, when Jesus asks the Father to glorify His name and a voice comes from heaven saying “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (John 12:28-30).
Nonetheless, it seems there is still a strong case for ascribing many of the Old Testament theophanies to the Second Person of the Trinity. The unanimous interpretation of the earlier apologists cannot be without some weight. The Gospel illuminated the Old Testament for them in a very consistent and very fruitful way. It is precisely because they saw evidence of the Word in the Old Testament that they were able to prove the pre-existence and Divinity of the Word and the distinction of the Divine Persons. Although the early Fathers were perhaps guilty of making too neat a distinction between the invisible Father and the visible Son, part of the problem is that they lacked the precise terminology of the processions and missions. Many times it is evident that they are trying to explain what Augustine would finally articulate clearly. They are in agreement that the patriarchs did not behold the actual face of God, but “dispensations and mysteries through which man should afterward see God,” as Irenaeus puts it, or “mystery and enigma,” in Tertullian’s phraseology. Thus they do not contradict Augustine, who describes these manifestations as angels, or “creation serving the creator.”
Finally, the wisdom literature itself supports the view that the Old Testament theophanies are manifestations of the Second Person. Since there is no debate at all about which Person of the Trinity is signified by wisdom as the pre-existent agent of creation, wisdom’s role in salvation history as described in the wisdom literature can shed light on the Old Testament theophanies, as well.
In addition to telling of wisdom’s work in creation, which we have already summarized, the book of Wisdom describes the part played by wisdom in Israel’s history, seeming to confirm the insights of Justin, Tertullian and the others that it was the Second Person who intervened in the lives of the patriarchs to instruct and guide them. All the same types of manifestations which the apologists ascribe to the Son are ascribed to wisdom in the book of Wisdom. In the following passage we see that it is wisdom who directed Adam and rescued Noah:
Wisdom protected the first-formed father of the world, when he alone had been created; she delivered him from his transgression, and gave him strength to rule all things. But when an unrighteous man departed from her in his anger, he perished because in rage he slew his brother. When the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood (Wisdom 10:1-4).
Wisdom kept Abraham blameless in God’s sight and rescued Lot from the fiery end of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is consistent with the interpretation of Justin that Abraham’s mysterious visitor was in fact the Second Person of the Trinity:
Wisdom also, when the nations in wicked agreement had been confounded, recognized the righteous man and preserved him blameless before God, and kept him strong in the face of his compassion for his child. Wisdom regarded a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing; he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities (Wisdom 10:5-6).
Seeming to support Tertullian’s reasoning that all judgment, regardless of time, has been given to the Son, the same passage depicts the punishment of those who depart from wisdom:
Evidence of their wickedness still remains: a continually smoking wasteland, plants bearing fruit that does not ripen, and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul. For because they passed wisdom by, they not only were hindered from recognizing the good, but also left for mankind a reminder of their folly, so that their failures could never go unnoticed (Wisdom 10:1-8).
The book of Wisdom goes on to describe two incidents in the life of Jacob:
When a righteous man fled from his brother’s wrath, she guided him on the straight paths; she showed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of angels (Wisdom 10:10).
This verse refers to Jacob’s vision at Bethel of a ladder reaching to heaven (Genesis 28:10-13). The one who speaks to Jacob in the book of Genesis calls himself the Lord, the God of Abraham and Isaac. The inspired author of Wisdom thereby identifies wisdom with the divinity itself. Similarly wisdom is named as the one who wrestled with Jacob, letting Jacob prevail. This person, as we already saw, is recognized by Jacob as God Himself.
She prospered him in his labors, and increased the fruit of his toil. When his oppressors were covetous, she stood by him and made him rich. She protected him from his enemies, and kept him safe from those who lay in wait for him; in his arduous contest she gave him the victory, so that he might learn that godliness is more powerful than anything (Wisdom 10:10-12).
After telling how wisdom guided Joseph in Egypt (vss. 13-14), this same passage goes on to describe wisdom’s relationship with Moses. This segment is especially interesting because of its reference to the “starry flame” that wisdom became in order to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
She entered the soul of a servant of the Lord, and withstood dread kings with wonders and signs. She gave to holy people the reward of their labors; she guided them along a marvelous way, and became a shelter to them by day, and a starry flame through the night. She brought them over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters; but she drowned their enemies, and cast them up from the depth of the sea (Wisdom 10:16-19).
Similarly, in the book of Sirach, wisdom speaks in the first person: “I dwelt in high places, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud” (Sirach 24:4).
In other words, it is wisdom who was the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day which led the Israelites through the desert. The pillar of fire and pillar of cloud is exactly the type of visible presence that the early Fathers identified with Christ. If the wisdom who is coeternal with God and who is the agent of creation is identified with the Second Person of the Trinity, then it must also be the Second Person who spoke to the patriarchs and spoke to Moses, because it is the same wisdom being described by the sacred author.
Augustine’s more precise terminology and his development of the idea that relations of origin are the only means of distinguishing the Divine Persons can help to clarify the interpretations of Justin, Tertullian, and others but does not, ultimately, overturn their understanding of the theophanies. Even so, as the problems discussed above show, interpretation of the Old Testament manifestations is far from obvious. Are Abraham’s three visitors the Son and two angels? An image of the entire Trinity? Is elohim a reference to the Trinity or is it a grammatical quirk? In the end, all we can say is that Old Testament references to the Trinity must remain cryptic, almost by definition. The whole of Scripture testifies to the Trinity, but this testimony must remain veiled until the Incarnation and Pentecost.
The originators of the Old Testament narratives and psalms, namely Abraham (the Abraham stories had to originate with him, regardless of who eventually committed them to writing), Moses, and David, could not have known of the Trinity. Yet on some level they must have dimly perceived numerically distinct persons, for that is how the sacred texts were passed on: the Lord rained down fire from the Lord in heaven; the Lord said to my Lord, and so on. If only on the level of verbal inspiration, regardless of the fact that they could not have understood it as we do, the sacred writers of the Old Testament transmitted the truth of the triuneness of God. They were in some way given these oblique glimpses of the Trinity in order that the subsequent missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit could be shown not to be contrary to previous revelation and not to be contrary to Israel’s creed that the Lord our God is one God.
Constance Woods has a Ph.D. in Russian Literature and is currently a full-time mom
and a part-time student at Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College.
End Notes
11 Edmund Hill, O. P., trans. and ed., introduction to The Trinity by
Saint Augustine, The Works of Saint Augustine Series (Brooklyn, New York: New City Press),
48. All quotations from The Trinity are taken from this translation.
12 Ibid., 48.