De unitate sanctae Trinitatis
by Anonymous
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/42/de-unitate-sanctae-trinitatis/
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## On the Unity of the Holy Trinity

[1207]When a wakeful care for the faith had made me sleepless, I questioned myself with these interrogations, and with such zeal kindled the lamp of our school. But let the reader judge whether this be of use to him; yet if he neglects it, he takes nothing away from me. QUESTION. Is the Father, they say, God? ANSWER. Not even the profane man is ignorant of it. Q. Is the Son God? A. The Apostle is witness. Q. For what does he say? A. *Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever [n: (Rom. IX, 5)]*. Q. What do you affirm concerning the Holy Spirit? A. A great brevity supports me in teaching that he is God. Q. I long to know what that is. A. That he proceeds from the Father; let me prove this alone, that he also forgives sins. Q. Where do you read that? A. In John, when the Lord breathed upon the face of the disciples and said: *Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whose sins ye shall forgive, they shall be forgiven; and whose ye shall retain, they are retained [n: (Joan. XX, 22, 23)]*. Q. Nothing is stronger. A. Do you not know many other things? Q. What things? A. That he creates Christ in the womb; that he came upon Christ at the river; that he gives life to all things; that he consecrates Baptism; that he directs Christ; that he fills the world; that he is reckoned into the Trinity; that he knows, grasps, and governs all things, and not only earthly things but heavenly as well; that he chooses the Apostles and appoints them; that he imparts his gifts and his prophecies to whom he will — and more things which, set down in the Holy Scriptures, [1208] do not come to mind at the moment. And if you are not moved by these, yet for me this alone, that he is of the Father, would have sufficed as proof of his own deity. There are also particular sayings which stand as witnesses to this truth, such as those of Paul: *There are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all [n: (I Cor. XII, 5)]*. And, among other things, that of Peter: *In truth,* he says, *I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.* For when he was pondering and hesitating about the vision, the Holy Spirit had said to him, *Arise, and go with them, doubting nothing; I have sent them to thee [n: (Act. X, 20, 34)]*. For David repeatedly calls him a *right Spirit* in the fiftieth psalm. In the ninety-first he calls him Lord God: *For upright is the Lord our God,* he says, *and there is no iniquity in him;* and in the twenty-eighth psalm he brings forth *The Lord upon many waters* — over which, in its opening, Genesis declares the Spirit of God to be borne [n: (Gen. I, 2)]. And this too I plainly know: that the Holy Spirit could never have been numbered together with the Father, or even with the Son, when it was said, *Go ye, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [n: (Matth. XXVIII, 19)]*, unless he reigned in a shared deity. Q. What then? Are there three Gods? A. Far from it: *He that sacrificeth to gods shall be rooted out, save to the Lord alone.* Q. Are there then two? A. By no means, for no man can serve two masters [n: (Id. VI, 24)]. Q. May he be proved [1209] to be one? A. There is no God but one. Q. This I read; but I wish to know in what way it is true of the whole Trinity. A. You will know, if you fix your mind upon what is said. For Father is an appellative name, Son is an appellative name, and so likewise Holy Spirit is an appellative and a natural name. And since Father is said in relation to Son, and Son in relation to Father, these are called relative names. But God is a name proper to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it is written in the Psalm, *According to thy name, O God, so also is thy praise unto the ends of the earth [n: (Psal. XLVII, 11)]*. Therefore the appellative names are Father and Son and Holy Spirit; but the proper name is God, God, God. Q. Then there are three gods? A. I beg you, call to mind yet another passage: *Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God, the Lord is one [n: (Deut. VI, 4)]*. Do you see, I pray, in this saying a certain royal loftiness of sense? Q. Set it out briefly, and I will hear. A. *The Lord,* he says, *thy God, the Lord is one.* Unless I am mistaken, here he has made one a threefold designation of God: *the Lord,* he says, and *thy God,* and *the Lord.* You have what the Father is, what the Son is, what the Holy Spirit is. And at once he added, *is one.* O bright light of unity! Q. Where then is the Trinity? A. In the begetter, the begotten, and the proceeding one; that is, in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — namely, in the appellative or relative names. Q. What of the proper names, that is, God and God and God: is no tripling admitted? A. It is not. Q. Why? A. Because he is one; proper terms are not tripled. Q. Then the Trinity is received in the relative names. A. It is so. Q. In which? A. Namely, in the distinction of persons and of names — of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In short, Christ himself did not say, *Go ye, baptize the nations* in the name of gods, but *in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,* that he might teach the Trinity in the relative names of the persons, and might show the name of God, which is not tripled, in singularity. Q. Do the proper names then not run together with the appellative? A. They do run together. Q. Then are they also numbered together? A. Far from it: because if we triple them, we bring in a plurality of gods. Q. Then the Father is not God? A. He is plainly God. Q. Then the Son is not God? A. He is altogether God. Q. Then the Holy Spirit is not God? A. He is God beyond ambiguity. Q. You see three, then; do you dare to call them Gods? But, as I see, the Trinity is believed in relative terms. A. And plainly in natural terms too, and in persons, and in relative names. Q. Why God, and God, and God? A. They are natural names. God is natural to each singly, but it is a proper name. For we cannot say three gods; rather we speak of a Trinity in the relative [sic: *naturaei*] terms, and in persons — that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But we speak of unity in God, and God, and God. Q. Do you then not say three persons? A. We do say it. Q. And do you believe that in each single person there is God, and God, and God? A. This is plain to believe without groping. Q. Then, just as you say three persons, do you say also three Gods? A. Far from it. Q. Why? A. Because in the persons there is distinction, but in the deity there is none. Q. What is that distinction? A. That the Father is Father, the Son is Son, the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. Q. Do you assert that you worship the Trinity by way of diversity? A. Of persons and of names, not of nature, for nature is one. Q. Surely a while ago you said both that these names are natural and that they are appellative; repeat, then, which are the proper ones? A. God, and God, and God — these, then, tripled, make no distance. Q. Along with the appellative and natural names, then, the proper names are not tripled. A. In no way. Q. Then they are not joined to one another — Father and God, or Son and God, or Holy Spirit and God. A. They are plainly joined; and the same Father is God, and the same Son is God, and the same Holy Spirit is beyond doubt coupled to his own deity. Q. The deity will be tripled. A. That is the guilt of sacrilege, [1210] because number is under God, not within God. Q. Then neither is the Father called God, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit. A. We are so taught, and so we believe, that we may deprive neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit of his own deity. Q. As though indeed you did not do that very thing, when you say, Father God, and Son God, and Holy Spirit God — whom another concludes to be Gods all together. A. Shall human ears hear this, and not all of them smear it over with spittle? Nevertheless in appellative terms, that is, in the persons, I receive the Trinity; but I am confident that the deity can in no way be tripled, since I find no variety or division in the nature. Q. How many names, then, do you believe? A. Relative names in the persons, three. Q. How many proper? A. I have already borne with you often enough, inquiring in the plural about the proper name; but the proper name of the deity is one. Q. You have taken away a great wall; but I long to have you say — is this name a natural one? A. Certainly. Q. And the relative names which you rate as appellative, are they natural? A. Yes, but by the efficacy of generation and of procession, not by the property of the undivided deity. Q. Then the Son, unless he were the Son of God, could not be God? A. Why do you doubt it? Q. Because he is the Son of God, therefore he is God. A. I assent. Q. And unless there were the efficacy of generation, which confers the appellative name upon the Son, he would not have the proper name of the deity either, and would not be God. A. Certainly, from generation he is Son; and truly the proper name of the Son of God is God — which he took not afterwards, where it was not before, but timelessly, when he was begotten from the Timeless One. Q. What of the Holy Spirit? A. He too, unless he proceeded from the Father and had his substance, would not be God. Q. Then procession conferred deity upon him? A. In the Holy Spirit there is both a name and a nature; but because he proceeded from the Father, therefore he obtained the proper name of the deity. For nothing else could proceed from the Father than what the Father himself is; and yet the Father was neither drained nor divided. The appellative, natural, and personal term, then, is Holy Spirit; but the proper name is God. Q. That name which you call proper — what reason does it contain, that one and the same should run through three persons and yet not be tripled? Just as, merely so far as words go, we can name several: Statius, or Sallust, or Horace. A. Let me clear it up with such reasoning as I have, if you will attend. Q. I attend. A. We read Paul saying of Christ that he himself is our peace, who made both one [n: (Ephes. II, 14)]. But let this support of our most invincible cause avail for this: that it may be the more easily believed that Christ was designated under the name of peace because he can neither be cut apart nor drawn asunder, nor in any way doubled. And now, he who made both one is much more himself one with the Father and the Holy Spirit; and he is not one, if he be divided. Therefore he is both one thing with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and one person; for he who joins others together admits no division at all. Q. I accept this most firm weapon against the rebellious; but I desire to know where this proposition runs out. A. May God be our *Pax* — our peace — as we wish, and lead us on a prosperous course. Q. So be it; now proceed. A. This *Pax* itself, then — because it is written with three letters, does it admit the plural number? Q. It does not. A. Reckon, then, that *P* is called the Father, and *A* is named the Son — and do not think this said without a most subtle reason. For *A* is the beginning of the letters, and is known to have no element before it, so that you may hold it proved that before the Son there is nothing. Nor indeed shall I leave this without the evidence of divine testimony: for he himself declared to the Jews, when they questioned him, that he is the beginning [n: (Joan. VIII, 25)]. No other letter, then, precedes this one; and since every letter has a quantity of time, therefore time too was lacking. Yet this very syllable is both long and first: and that it is long intimates the eternity of the Son of God, not his temporality. That it is a syllable, because the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and this is one. And that [1211] it is first, because the Son is not second. For in the Apocalypse also John, setting down that very letter in its proper form, says, *I am* α *and* ω , *the first and the last, the beginning and the end [n: (Apoc. I, 8)]*. But understand "the last" in this sense, that he deigned at the end of the ages to be born humbly and to die, and himself to undergo the last judgment. But *X* is the third letter, at the end — where you should understand that the Holy Spirit does not tend toward an end, but ever proceeds in the majesty on high. And therefore Paul the Apostle says, *Mind the things that are above* [n: (Coloss. III, 2)], that we may have our hearts lifted up unto God; and assuredly *the Lord is a Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [n: (II Cor. III, 17)]*. And so I do not doubt that the Apostle, inviting us to this most excellent glory, spoke thus: *But one thing: forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth unto those that are before, I follow, according to my intent, toward the palm of the heavenly calling of God [n: (Philipp. III, 13, 14)]*. Therefore, that *Pax* may come to be, to *P* is joined *A,* a vowel letter, lest *P* remain mute: because God the Father is always bound to his own voice and Word. But that it may be *Pax,* there is added *X,* a letter which is set down as double in place of consonants — that here too you may see the consonance and the sharing of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, and may recognize his fellowship in the Trinity on high and perfect. These letters differ from one another in appellations and persons, since the one is called and written *P,* the next *A,* the third *X;* but nevertheless, that there may be *Pax,* these letters are bound to one another in turn. Now *P* is substantially a letter, and *A* is substantially a letter, and *X* is substantially a letter; just as the Father is naturally God, and the Son is naturally God, and the Holy Spirit is naturally God. But that difference of characters makes a difference of appellations and of persons, not of nature, since the whole of it is letter. Just as in these three letters, called by different appellations, *Pax* is written, which is not held in the plural number, so also the appellation of Father and Son and Holy Spirit is the evidence of the Trinity; but just as *Pax* does, so God holds the singular number of deity. In this coupling of the three letters, [1212] therefore, no division is admitted, so that *Pax* may be complete. For if you take away even one, there will be neither Trinity nor *Pax.* Q. Repeat these things, I pray, more clearly. A. Turn your mind to it. Both *P,* I say, is a letter, and *A* is a letter, and *X* is a letter; just as the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God: but the appellations and the persons are different, albeit of an incorporeal Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Yet what is *P* and *A* and *X?* Plainly *Pax,* which admits no plural number in itself. O the folly of unbelievers, which attends not to what is set before its own eyes! For the ungodly man, as I judge, understands these things not at all for this reason: that he does not seek God in simplicity of heart. Q. It is true — wholly true — what you say. For what is nearer than that example? What is found clearer than that reasoning? A. But I repeat these things for you, and will demonstrate them the more gladly. Therefore, just as by three persons and by the different terms of these letters *Pax* comes to be — but take this as concerning the concord and fellowship of the persons — it shows also that this is a letter, and that is a letter, and the other is a letter, but that *Pax* is singular. Here, then, behold one God shown forth in God and God and God. For although *P* has one name and one person, and *A* another name and another person, and *X* another name and another person — just as the Father has one name and one person, and the Son another name and another person, and the Holy Spirit another name and another person — nevertheless this is called a letter, and that is called a letter, and the other is called a letter; just as this is believed to be God, and that God, and the other God, beyond ambiguity, yet one God is acknowledged, because *Pax* is not held in the plural number. Unless you have something to say to this. Q. For my part I would not wish even others to hesitate here, so brightly has the light of this manifestation shone upon me. But it is better, as I understand it, to believe these things with more delight, and in no way to waver over them; so that what men blinded by carnal cares cannot see, they may at least obtain by the short path of faith.
