95. [95.] There were some Muslims who, like the rest, acknowledged the Father only, and the Lord as a very great prophet, saying that they could not understand a distinction of the Divine into three persons, thus into three gods. They said that the Holy Spirit was God speaking through spirits and angels. A certain Christian known to me went over to them, asking why they do not acknowledge the Son of God as God. They said that One is God, and if they acknowledged the Son of God as God, too, there would be two gods. They inquired of him, therefore, how many gods he worshiped. "One," he replied, "because there is one God." However, when they examined the ideas in his thought (which is easily done in the other life), they found that he did not think of one God but three. They said that they saw him say "one God" with his mouth, while in heart and faith believing in three. And yet a Christian ought to speak as he thinks, they said, and not separate his mind from his speech as sycophants and liars do. Then, as he was unable to deny this, they said that Christians ought to be ashamed of thinking of three gods when no gentile having any intelligence thinks like that-having an idea of three while naming one. The Christian tried to say that the three are a one through unanimity, but it was impossible for him to mention even unanimity without an idea of three beings conversing with each other and concurring. (Besides, there cannot exist three essences which form one being unless they are a one as to person. One and the same essence belonging to three beings is not possible, still less in God who is indivisible. Furthermore, what person can be thought of by ordinary people on the basis of his essence, as the term is used in metaphysical philosophy, when he cannot be so thought of by one who is learned?) Consequently the Christian was filled with shame, saying he would never return to them, and that he was going to ask someone about God's being triune. Later some angels spoke with the Muslims, teaching them that God is one both as to person and as to essence, in whom is the Trinity, and that the Son of God, whom they regard as a very great prophet, having been sent by the Father, cannot but be God, because He was conceived of God Himself as the Father. Thus the Divine itself was in Him from conception, and the Divine is indivisible.