Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/75

 TRINITY

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TRINITY

Prat, Vie de 3. Jean 4e Matha (Paris, 1S46); Gmelix, Die LileraiuT z. Gesch. des Orden S. Trinitatis (Leipzig, 1870), vol. XXX of the Serapeum, very complete repertory up to date; Calixte de Providence, Corsaires et redempteurs (Bruges. 1884); Deslandres, L'ordre des trinitaires (Paris. 1903); Heimbucher. Die Ord. u. Congreg. der kalh. Kirche (Paderborn, 1896).

Ch. Moellbr.

Trinity, The Blessed. — This article is divided as follows: I. Dogma of the Trinity; II. Proof of the Doctrine fiom Scripture; III. Proof of the Doctrine from Tradition; IV. The Trinity as a Mystery; V. The Doctrine as Interpreted in Greek Theology; VI. The Doctrine as Interpreted in Latin Theology.

I. The Dogm.i of the Trinity. — The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion — the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to ori- gin, the Persons are co-etcrnal and co-equal : all alike are uncreated and omnipotent. This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system.

In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word rpiot (of which the liatin trinilas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A. D. 180. He speaks of "the Trinity of God [the Father], His Word and His Wisdom" ("Ad. Autol.", II, 15, P. G., VI, 1078). The term may, of course, have been in use before his time. Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinilas in Tertullian ("De pud.", c. xxi, P. G., II, 102G). In the next century the word is in general use. It is found in manv passages of Origen ("In Ps. xvii", 15, P. G., XII,"l229 etc., etc.). The first creed in which it appears is that of Origen's pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus. In his'Exffeffis r^s irio-TEus, composed between 260 and 270, he writes: "There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there aught that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered after- wards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinitv is immutable and unalterable forever" (P. G., X, 986).

It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious pre- supposes a Divine revelation. When the fact of revelation, understood in its full sense as the speech of God to man, is no longer admitted, the rejection of the doctrine follows as a necessary consequence. For this rea.son it has no place in the Liberal Protes- tantism of to-day. The wTiters of this school contend that the doctrine of the Trinity, as professed by the Church, is not contained in the New Testa- ment, but that it was first formulated in the .second centurj' and received final approliation in the fourth, as the result of the .\rian and Macedonian contro- versies (cf. e. g., Harnack. "Hist, of Dogma", tr., IV, i, appendix; Idem, "Constitution and I-aw of the Church", tr. 1910, appendix; J. Keville, "Divinity of Christ", c. vi; Menegoz, "Etude sur le dogme de la Trinity", Paris, 1898). In view of this assertion it is necessary to consider in some detail the evidence afforded by Holy Script urc. .Vt tempts have been made recently to apply the more extreme theories of compar- ative religion to the doctrine of the Trinity, and to account for it by an imaginary law of nature compel- ling men to group the objects of their worship in threes

(cf. Soderblom, "Vater, Sohn and Geist", Tubingen, 1909). It seems needless to give more than a reference to these extravagant views, which serious thinkers of every school reject as destitute of foundation.

II. Proof of Doctrine from Scripture. — A. New Teslamenl. — The evidence from the Gospels culminates in the baptismal commission of Matt., xxviii, 20. It is manifest from the narratives of the Evangelists that Christ only made the great truth know^l to the Twelve step by step. First He taught them to recognize in Himself the Eternal Son of God. When His ministry was drawing to a close. He promised that the Father would send another Divine Person, the Holy Spirit, in His place. Fi- nally, after His resurrection. He revealed the doctrine in exphcit terms, bidding them go and teach all nations, "bai)tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt., xxviii, 19). The force of this passage is decisive. That "the Father" and "the Son" are distinct Persons follows from the terms themselves, which are mutually exclusive. The mention of the Holy Spirit in the same series, the names being connected one with the other by the conjunctions "and . . . and", is evidence that we have here a Third Person co-ordinate with the Father and the Son, and excludes altogether the supposition that the Apostles under- stood the Holy Spirit not as a distinct Person, but as God viewed in His action on creatures. The phiase "in the name" {els ri 6voim) affirms alike the Godhead of the Persons .and their unity of nature. Among the Jews and in the Apostolic Church the Divine name was representative of God. He who had a right to use it was invested with vast authority: for he wielded the supernatural powers of Him whose name he employed. It is incredible that the phrase "in the name" should be here employed, were not all the Persons mentioned equally Divine. More- over, the use of the singular, "name", and not the plural, shows that these Three Per.sons are that One Omnipotent God in whom the Apostles believed. Indeed the unity of God is so fundamental a tenet alike of the Hebrew and of the Christian religion, and is affirmed in such countless passages of the Old and New Testaments, that any exjjlanation incon- sistent with this doctrine would be altogether inad- missible. The supernatural appearance at the baptism of Christ is often cited as an explicit revela- tion of Trinitarian doctrine, given at the very com- mencement of the Ministry. This, it seems to us, is a mistake. The Evangelists, it is true, see in it a manifestation of the Three Divine Persons. Yet, apart from Chri.st's subsequent teaching, the dog- matic meaning of the scene would h.irdly have been understood. Moreover, the Gospel narratives appear to signify that none but Christ and the Baptist were privileged to see the Mystic Dove, and hear the words attesting the Divine sonship cf the Messias.

Besides these passages there are many others in the Gospels which refer to one or other of the Three Persons in particular, and clearly express the separate personality and Divinity of each. In regard to the First Person it will not be necessary to give special citations: those which declare that Jesus Christ is God the Son, affirm thereby also the separate person- ahty of the Father. The Divinitj' of Christ is amply attested not merely by St. John, but by the Synop- tists. As this point is treated elsewhere (see Jesds Christ), it will be .sufficient here to enumerate a few of the more important passages from the Synoptists, in which Christ bears witness to His Divine Nature. (1) He declares that He will come to be the judge of all men (Matt., xxv, 31). In Jewi.sh theology the judgment of the world was a distinctively Divine, and not a Messianic, prerogative. (2) In the p.arable of the wicked husbandmen. He describes Himself as the son of the householder, while the Prophets, one