The Article declares ‘there is but one living and true God’.  The unity of God was affirmed in the Creed of the Jewish Church: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,’^[1] endorsed by Jesus,^[2] and proclaimed by the Apostolic Church.^[3]  It is more than numerical unity: it is essential unity.^[4]  There cannot be more than one First Cause.  The Bible repeatedly describes Him as the ‘Living God’^[5], and in the Article the use of vivus instead of vivens indicates that He is not merely ‘alive’, but is the Source of all life.^[6]  He is also described as ‘the living and true God’ in the Bible,^[7] and the use of the Greek word alethinos, paralleled by the Latin word verus in the Article, means that He is the only true, genuine, God^[8] as contrasted with false gods.  This belief that the Divine Nature is one and indivisible is quite an exceptional conception.  In fact, belief in ‘one living and true God . . . the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible’, Who freely wills the existence of all else that is, is reached and maintained only in the Hebrew-Christian revelation.  It is not found in ancient mythology, according to which the gods themselves are evolved in the course of Nature.  The idea of a Creator-God first appears among the most historically conscious people in the world, Israel; they were the only nation that believed their God had given them the promise of a glorious future, and that He was sufficiently powerful to control events for that purpose.  It is because He is the ‘living God’, the God of effective Providence who performs ‘mighty acts’ in pursuance of His intention in history, that He is also the ‘true’ God, whose Name has reality behind it.