Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/181



Of God trine in persons.

Before proceeding to the disclosure of the dogma itself, I involuntarily stop at the words “in persons,” “God’s person.” I have read and studied the exposition of the dogmas about the essence of God. There was not definition there of the word person, or hypostasis, which was used in the definition of the Trinity. Only in the passage where the anthropomorphists were refuted it said that under the divine person we must understand “the manifestation of God in his works.” But that apparently has no reference to the Trinity. Maybe the definition of this word, so necessary for the comprehension of the Trinity, will become clear from the exposition itself. proceed to read. Here is the introduction:

“The truths about God, one in essence, and about his essential attributes, so far expounded by us, do not embrace the whole Christian teaching about God. In acknowledging God to be one, we have not yet the right to call ourselves Christians: the one God is professed also by the Jews, who did not accept Christ the Saviour as the Messiah, and who reject Christianity; he is also professed by the Mohammedans and has been admitted by many old and new heretics in the lap of Christianity itself. The full teaching about God, which it is necessary to keep in the heart and profess with the lips, in order worthily to bear the name of Christian, consists in this, that God is one and trine, one in substance, trine in persons.” (p. 156.)