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The Mystery of the Trinity, the One Godhead will never be fully
understood here. But one thing we know for sure is that the Trinity is
a relationship of pure Love and we are to be included into this love
forever (John 17) We
may not ever be able to explain the Trinity, but we can come to know
the Trinity through a personal relationship with Jesus.
"Better to know the planner than the
plan"
Lord,
you are not pleased with someone simply because that person is
knowledgeable. In fact, it would be possible for one to know everything
there is to know in the whole wide world, except for knowing you, and
consequently know
nothing. Just as another person could live in blissful ignorance of the
great sum of human knowledge, but know you, and be both happy and
content.
After all, who is better placed - the person who owns a tree and gives
You
thanks for all the good things it provides; or the one who owns a
similar
tree and knows its weight and dimensions down to the least leaf, but
does
not realize that You are its Creator and that it is through You that he
or she has use of it? In essence, the latter person is ignorant, though
full of facts, and the former person wise, though bit short on details.
So
in
general we can say that the most important knowledge is knowledge of
You,
O Lord."
…….St. Augustine
In Scripture & the early Church Fathers own words
John 1:1-18
The
Word Became Flesh
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with
God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through
him
all things were made; (Cor
1: 15-20)
without
him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life
was
the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness
has
not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was
John.
He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through
him
all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a
witness
to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming
into
the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through
him,
the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but
his
own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who
believed
in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children
born
not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's
will,
but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We
have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the
Father,
full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out,
saying,
"This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me
because
he was before me. From the fullness of his grace we have all received
one
blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth
came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One
and
Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
The first apostles were Jewish, being Jewish they believed in One
God. Jesus began to show them God as Father, God as Son and God as Holy
Spirit.
All of John (14-17)
Acts 8:16; 19:5;
Romans
6:3; 1 Cor. 1:13; 10:2 and
Gal. 3:27
The Letter of Barnabas
"And further, my brethren, if the Lord [Jesus] endured to suffer for
our soul, he being the Lord of all the world, to whom God said at
the foundation of the world, ‘Let us make man after our image, and
after our likeness,’ understand how it was that he endured to suffer at
the hand of men" (Letter of Barnabas 5 [A.D. 74] emphasis
added).
Hermas
"The Son of God is older than all his creation, so that he became
the Father’s adviser in his creation. Therefore also he is ancient" (The
Shepherd 12 [A.D. 80]).
Ignatius
of Antioch
"Jesus Christ . . . was with the Father before the beginning
of time, and in the end was revealed. . . . Jesus Christ . . . came
forth from one Father and is with and has gone to one
Father. . .There is one God, who has manifested himself by Jesus Christ
his
Son, who is his eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and
who
in all things pleased him that sent him" (Letter to the Magnesians
6–8 [A.D. 110] emphasis added).
Justin
Martyr
"God speaks in the creation of man with the very same design, in the
following words: ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness.’ . . .
I shall quote again the words narrated by Moses himself, from which we
can indisputably learn that [God] conversed with someone numerically
distinct from himself and also a rational being. . . . But this
offspring who was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the
Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with him" (Dialogue
with Trypho the Jew 62 [A.D. 155]).
Polycarp
of Smyrna
"I praise you for all things, I bless you, I glorify you, along with
the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, with
whom, to you and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and
to all coming ages. Amen" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 14 [A.D. 155]
emphasis added).
Mathetes
"[The Father] sent the Word that he might be manifested to
the world. . . . This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as
if new, and was found old. . . . This is he who, being from
everlasting,
is today called the Son" (Letter to Diognetus 11 [A.D. 160]
emphasis
added).
Irenaeus
"It was not angels, therefore, who made us nor who formed us, neither
had angels power to make an image of God, nor anyone else. . . . For
God did not stand in need of these in order to accomplish what he had
himself determined with himself beforehand should be done, as if he did
not possess his own hands. For with him [the Father] were
always present the
Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom,
freely and spontaneously, he made all things, to whom also he speaks,
saying, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’ [Gen. 1:26]" (Against
Heresies 4:20:1 [A.D. 189] emphasis added).
Tertullian
"While keeping to this demurrer always, there must, nevertheless,
be place for reviewing for the sake of the instruction and protection
of
various persons. Otherwise it might seem that each perverse opinion is
not examined but simply prejudged and condemned. This is especially so
in the case of the present heresy [Sabellianism], which considers
itself
to have the pure truth when it supposes that one cannot believe in the
one only God in any way other than by saying that Father, Son, and
Spirit
are the selfsame person. As if one were not all . . . through the unity
of substance" (Against Praxeas 2:3–4 [A.D. 216]).
"Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I
bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable
from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it.
Observe, now, that I say the Father is other [distinct], and the Son is
other, and the Spirit is other.
. . . I say this, however, out of necessity, since they contend that
the Father and the Son and the Spirit are the selfsame person" (ibid.
9:1).
Hippolytus
"Thus, after the death of Zephyrinus, supposing that he had obtained
[the position] after which he so eagerly pursued, he [Pope Callistus]
excommunicated Sabellius, as not entertaining orthodox opinions" (Refutation
of All Heresies 9:7 [A.D. 228]).
Novatian
"[W]ho does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after
the Father, when he reads that it was said by the Father, consequently
to the Son, ‘Let us make man in our image and our likeness’ [Gen.
1:26]? Or when he reads [as having been said] to Christ: ‘Thou art my
Son, this day have I begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the
heathens for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your
possession’ [Ps. 2:7–8]? Or when also that beloved writer says: ‘The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I shall make
your enemies the stool of your feet’ [Ps. 110:1]? Or when, unfolding
the prophecies of Isaiah, he finds it written thus: ‘Thus says the Lord
to Christ my Lord’? Or when he reads: ‘I came not down from heaven to
do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me’
[John 6:38]? Or when he finds it written: ‘Because he who sent me is
greater
than I’ [cf. John 14:24, 28]? Or when he finds it placed side by side
with
others: ‘Moreover, in your law it is written that the witness of two is
true. I bear witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears
witness
of me’ [cf. John 8:17–18]?" (Treatise on the Trinity 26 [A.D.
235]).
"And I should have enough to do were I to endeavor to gather together
all the passages [of the kind in the previous quotation] . . . since
the divine Scripture, not so much of the Old as also of the New
Testament,
everywhere shows him to be born of the Father, by whom all things were
made, and without whom nothing was made, who always has obeyed and
obeys
the Father; that he always has power over all things, but as delivered,
as granted, as by the Father himself permitted to him. And what can be
so
evident proof that this is not the Father, but the Son; as that he is
set
forth as being obedient to God the Father, unless, if he be believed to
be the Father, Christ may be said to be subjected to another God the
Father?"
(ibid.)
Pope
Dionysius
"Next, then, I may properly turn to those who divide and cut apart and
destroy the monarchy, the most sacred proclamation of the Church of
God, making of it, as it were, three powers, distinct substances, and
three godheads. I have heard that some of your catechists and teachers
of the divine Word take the lead in this tenet. They are, so to speak,
diametrically opposed to the opinion of Sabellius. He, in his
blasphemy, says that the Son is the Father and vice versa" (Letters
of Pope Dionysius to Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria 1:1 [A.D.
262]).
Gregory
the Wonderworker
"But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they
confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the
idea of) a
person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of
Sabellius,
who says that the Father and the Son are the same [person]. . . . We
forswear
this, because we believe that three persons—namely, Father, Son, and
Holy
Spirit—are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity
showing
itself forth according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness
of the nature" (A Sectional Confession of Faith 8 [A.D. 262]).
"But if they say, ‘How can there be three persons, and how but one
divinity?’ we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three
persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of
the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; and yet that there is but
one divinity, inasmuch as . . . there is one substance in the Trinity"
(ibid., 14).
Methodius
"For the kingdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is
one, even as their substance is one and their dominion one. Whence
also, with one and the same adoration, we worship the one deity in
three persons, subsisting without beginning, uncreated, without end,
and to which there is no successor. For neither will the Father ever
cease to be the Father, nor again the Son to be the Son and King, nor
the Holy Ghost to be what in substance and personality he is. For
nothing of the Trinity will suffer diminution, either in respect of
eternity, or of communion, or of sovereignty" (Oration on the Psalms
5 [A.D. 305]).
Athanasius
"[The Trinity] is a Trinity not merely in name or in a figurative
manner of speaking; rather, it is a Trinity in truth and in actual
existence.
Just as the Father is he that is, so also his Word is one that is and
is
God over all. And neither is the Holy Spirit nonexistent but actually
exists and has true being. Less than these the Catholic Church does not
hold,
lest she sink to the level of the Jews of the present time, imitators
of
Caiaphas, or to the level of Sabellius" (Letters to Serapion
1:28
[A.D. 359]).
"They [the Father and the Son] are one, not as one thing now divided
into two, but really constituting only one, nor as one thing twice
named, so that the same becomes at one time the Father and at another
his own Son. This latter is what Sabellius held, and he was judged a
heretic. On the
contrary, they are two, because the Father is Father and is not his own
Son, and the Son is Son and not his own Father" (Discourses Against
the
Arians 3:4 [A.D. 360]).
Council
of Rome
"We anathematize those also who follow the error of Sabellius in saying
that the same one is both Father and Son" (Tome of Pope Damasus,
canon 2 [A.D. 382]).
Fulgentius
of Ruspe
"See, in short you have it that the Father is one, the Son another, and
the Holy Spirit another; in person, each is other, but in nature they
are not other. In this regard he [Christ] says, ‘The Father and I, we
are one’ [John 10:30]. He teaches us that ‘one’ refers to their nature
and ‘we are’ to their persons. In like manner it is said,
‘There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and
the Spirit, and these three are one’ [cf. 1 John 5:7]. Let Sabellius
hear
‘we are,’ let him hear ‘three,’ and let him believe that there
are
three persons" (The Trinity 4:1 [A.D. 513])
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