Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/92

64 to the head any of the frailties of the Manhood. The impassibility of the Divinity is a truth acknowledged by all, nor does it appear to me that the Nestorians, by their theological system, make the mysterious fact one whit plainer, that the Word, Who is very of very, was born of Mary, suffered, died, was buried, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, from whence He shall come at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead. The Parsopa does indeed indicate the as distinct from the, that is, that it was the  and  of the Persons, because we say that the  is the Cause, and the  and  Caused; as also from our enumerating the  and  after the. But whoever thus thinks is in error; for when it is said of the that He is the Cause it is meant that He is the Cause of the proprieties of the Parsopas and not the Cause of the Persons, for otherwise co-equality would be destroyed. Moreover the numbering of the, , and does not beget priority or inferiority in the Persons, for it is the orderly enumeration of the proprieties of the Parsopas; and the Holy  is not a subject of numbers, for numbers we ascribe to things tangible, and everything that is the subject of numbers is subject also to place, time, and limit. But the Holy is without time or place. In numbering, the second follows the first, and the fourth the third; but in the Adorable the Second does not come after the First, nor the Third after the Second; but [we say] One, One , One , indivisible Three Persons, One Essence—One Essence, Three Persons." From the above it would seem that by the "Parsopa of Filiation," the Nestorians mean that Person of the Blessed , Who through the Infinite Essence is the , in His special office of , and for which our theology supplies no equivalent term. The nearest approach to it with us is when we ascribe, often in a very lax way, different offices to the Three Persons of the  in the universal Providence. As, e.g. when we say that Creation is the peculiar office of the , Redemption of the , and Sanctification of the . The Nestorians would not ascribe these distinctions to the Persons of the Godhead, which being infinite, may not be distinguished, but to the Parsopas of the Three Persons of Which the Self-Existent is the Cause, but which nevertheless are eternal, since the  is the Begotten from eternity: and the  is Proceeding from eternity; and infinite, also, through the proprieties of the Persons appertaining to each, and through which all partake of the same One Divine Essence, and are One in It.

These efforts to interpret the majestic declarations of Holy Writ, I hesitate to denounce as vain and curious, or to judge as rash and erroneous, since they bear the impress of deep reflection and devout reverence, and may eventually be found to be in accordance with Catholic truth; still the more one pursues such inquiries the more he finds cause of being thankful for the comparatively simple creed which the primitive Church has bequeathed unto us as a sacred deposit, and perpetual gift.