Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/184

 he is the Trinity, it is necessary to say what we understand by this appellation. What do these words mean in relation to God? So far there have been no explanations of these words, and the exposition is continued:

“So this is the reason why the heretics who have tried to explain the truths of religion with their own intellect have stumbled over the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity more than over any other dogma. So, if at all anywhere, we must here more especially stick closely to the positive doctrine of the church, which has guarded and defended this dogma against all heretical opinions, and which has expounded it for the guidance of the Orthodox with the greatest possible precision.” (pp. 157 and 158.)

It is precisely this exposition that I am in search of, that is, I want to know what is meant by God one and three. For, if I say that I believe, without understanding, and if any one else says that he believes that God is one and three, we are lying, for it is impossible to believe what we do not understand. It is possible to repeat with the tongue, but it is not possible to believe words which not merely have no meaning, but directly violate sound reason. Here is the way the Orthodox Church expounds this doctrine with precision:

“(1) In the symbol of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Bishop of Neocæsaria: There is one God, Father of the living Word, of wisdom and self-existing force, and of the eternal form: the perfect progenitor of the perfect, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one God, one from one, God from God, form and expression of the Deity, active word, wisdom, containing the composition of all, and force building the whole creation; true Son of the true Father, the unseen of the unseen, the incorruptible of the incorruptible, the immortal of the immortal, the eternal of the eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, issuing from God, having appeared through the Son, that is, to men; life, in which is the cause of the living; holy