Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/201

 the East, and by showing that it was not used by the ancient fathers of the church, such as St. Gregory the Divine, Ambrose, Hilary, nor by the Councils of Nice and Sardis and others, which were against the Arians, though this verse might have served as an important tool against the heretics, and though some of the fathers have made use of verses 6 and 8 of the same chapter, which are much less strong and decisive. All these proofs of the assumed spuriousness of the verse under discussion are quite insufficient for their purpose and, besides, are refuted by positive proofs: (a) if in some Greek texts of the New Testament, which have been preserved until the present, this verse does not exist, it has been and still is in many others. Why then, arises the question, should we give preference to the first over the latter and conclude that it was added to the latter, and not omitted in the first? On the contrary, justice demands that preference be given to the latter.” (pp. 180, 181.)

Those are all the proofs from Holy Scripture of the Old and the New Testament. The only passage from the whole Scripture which presents a similitude of that assertion that God is one and three is spurious, and its reality is confirmed by the polemics of the composer of the Theology.

But there are also proofs from Holy Tradition:

“(28) Confirmation of the same truth from Holy Tradition. No matter how clear and numerous the passages are from Holy Scripture, especially from the New Testament, which contain the doctrine of the Trinity of the persons in one God, it is necessary for us here to turn to Holy Tradition which has been preserved in the church from its very beginning. It is necessary to do so because all these passages from Scripture have been subject to all kinds of interpretations and controversies, which cannot be permanently settled, at least not for a believer, but by the voice of the apostolic tradition and the ancient