Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« That God is one, not by specific unity but by the unity of singularity or numerical unity, is manifest in the revelation of the Old and of the New Testament; whence those who, in the distinction of the divine persons, would also distinguish the nature, and under any doctrinal configuration would number gods, have always been judged to have fallen away from the fundamental dogma of all revelation. »

The doctrine of the unity of the divine nature, and in general of the absolute perfections of God, already laid out in the treatise on the One God, is here presupposed as a foundation. For the revelation concerning the distinction of persons includes this unity, and unless this is perpetually kept before one's eyes, the distinction itself cannot be understood, as it is contained in Scripture and in the explanation of the Fathers from apostolic times onward. Hence it is necessary to have a clear view of the manner in which Scripture, the professions of faith, and the holy Fathers — especially in that age in which the distinction of persons was chiefly and almost solely to be defended — presuppose this truth of unity and propose it as fundamental and, without controversy, most certain among all the faithful. For just as the doctrine of the distinction perfects the understanding of the unity, so in turn the common profession of the unity illustrates the preaching of the distinction, if at any time the Fathers spoke somewhat obscurely about the latter, as to how it is. On account of this intimate connection of the one doctrine with the other, the order of things demands that, even with the whole treatise on the One God presupposed, we here consider more distinctly the manner in which revelation and ecclesiastical preaching safeguard the unity of God as a supreme principle, to which accordingly the doctrine of the distinction of persons in revelation and in the Catholic profession could never have been contrary, but must be understood as necessarily coordinated and in a sense consonant with that same unity.

I. The revelation of the Old Testament indeed has the unity of God as its first article and principal foundation, expressed most frequently and in every form of speech. In the New Testament appeal is made to this very doctrine and to this revealed faith, and it is confirmed in exactly the same sense in which it is set forth in the Old Testament. Moreover, this unity of God is not only inculcated to exclude the fictitious gods who were worshipped by the Gentiles; but the unity is taught as absolute, to exclude any distinction and numbering of Gods.

In the Mosaic legislation the first article in order and dignity is contained in a solemn protestation: « Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord (יהוה) is one..... Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, and by his name thou shalt swear » Deut. VI. 4 sqq. This very thing Christ the Lord declares to be the « first commandment », and proves it by a paraphrase: « because God is one and there is no other besides him » Marc. XII. 29-34. In this same exclusive form the same is repeated in the last testament, as it were, of Moses to the people, where God is introduced confirming under oath: « see that I alone am, and there is no other God (אלהים) besides me » Deut. XXXII. 39. 40. cf. Io. XVII. 3; Eph. IV. 3-6. To confirm this faith God directs portents, theophanies, and special providence toward his people: « that thou mightest know that the Lord himself is God (יהוה הוא האלהים) and there is no other besides him.... Know therefore this day and consider in thy heart, that the Lord himself is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath, and there is no other » Deut. IV. 35. 39. cf. i Cor. VIII. 4. 5. So also frequently in the prophets and in the Psalms. « I am the Lord and there is no more: besides me there is no God. That they may know, who are from the rising of the sun and who from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other » (hebr. no more) Is. XLV. 5. 6 sq. cf. Rom. III. 29.30; i Tim. II. 5.

The unity of God and the exclusion of any number of gods is therefore revealed in such a way that every doctrine explicitly or implicitly handing down two or three gods ought, without further examination, to be judged contrary to revelation, which none of the faithful may be ignorant of. And therefore if in revelation there is speech about a real distinction and about plurality in things divine, it most certainly does not pertain to the Godhead and the divine nature Deut. XIII. Ps. LXXX. 9-11. Hence also in the prophecies of the Old Testament, with regard to this chapter of doctrine, no such progress is promised for the New Testament by which « rigorous monotheism » would be dissolved, as some are wont to speak not quite properly nowadays, but by which the revealed knowledge of the unity of God should become more universal and more distinct. « And it shall be in that day, living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the last sea; in summer and in winter they shall be. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one » Zach. XIV. 7.9; Ps. LXXXV; 8-10. For a tempering of the all-perfect unity and singularity of the divine nature would be not progress, but the negation of revealed truth. For not only by affirmation alone is it said that God is one, which indeed would itself be abundantly sufficient; but also by negation and exclusion it is repeated, that besides the one God no other God was revealed to the patriarchs, to Moses, to the prophets, to the people of Israel, that he alone is God; and to this one only God revealed in the Old Testament the entire revelation of the New Testament also appeals.

II. From this first principle and foundation it is established that this very numerical unity of God and of the divine substance is always presupposed in the books of the New Testament, and is signified in them whenever the unity is joined together with the distinction and co-numeration of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; when the Father and the Son are said to be one; the three one; the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are co-numbered under one name; the Son is said to be in the Father, the Father in the Son; all things which the Son and the Holy Spirit have are said to revert and be recapitulated to the Father as to the source, which relation of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son is most amply evident in the whole doctrine of Christ. But there will be occasion to speak of this conjunction of unity with distinction in what follows, for the explanation of this matter constitutes the argument of this whole present treatise.

In like manner this very foundation of substantial unity is presupposed in the profession and explanation of the Christian faith, in all the creeds, in the declarations and disputations of the Catholic Doctors against the various errors, even those opposed to one another among themselves.

In the creeds, which certainly express the profession both of the pastors and of the body of the faithful, namely in the Apostles' Creed, faith « in God » or more expressly « in one God »¹ is the first article, as the bond and containing link of the distinction which follows, by which one must believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This faith in the unity of God together with the distinction of the three who are God was taught, and all who were to be baptized were commanded to profess it as the badge of Christians even at the reception of the sacrament itself (cf. Constit. Apostol. l. VII. c. 41; Cassian. de Incarn. l. VI. c. 3, etc.). This the Fathers and Doctors repeat as the faith of the universal Church from the earliest age. « First of all believe that there is one God, who created all things ». Hermae Pastor l. II. mand. I. cf. Recognit. Clement. l. II. n. 43 sq. Irenaeus, against the emanations of the Gnostics from the pleroma of God, and against the fiction of one God of the Old, another of the New Testament, frequently inculcates this « rule of truth » l. I. c. 22; this « first and greatest chapter » l. II. c. 1, that there is one God, besides whom there is no other. « God alone is the one fabricator (δημιουργός)... who made all things through himself, i. e. through his Word and his Wisdom.... this God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob, God of the living, whom the law announces, whom the prophets foretell, whom Christ reveals, whom the Apostles hand down, whom the Church believes. This Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is manifested to all through his Word, who is his Son ». l. II. c. 30. n. 9. « The Church spread throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, from the Apostles and their disciples received faith in one God the Father almighty » etc. Then follows in the same handed-down faith the profession of the whole Church in one Jesus Christ the Son of God, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets preached the dispensations of God and the coming l. I. c. 10; l. III. c. 4. Origen, after he warned that « the ecclesiastical preaching handed down from the Apostles through the order of succession and remaining in the Churches up to the present » should be preserved, recounts some things from the profession of the universal and manifest Church. « But the species of those things which are manifestly handed down through the apostolic preaching are these. First that there is one God, who created all things.... the God of all the just, of Adam, Abel...., of the patriarchs, of Moses, of the prophets ». There is subjoined the manifest preaching « that Jesus Christ, born of the Father before all creation, was incarnate, and was made man while he was God, and remained what he was, God. Then next they handed down the Holy Spirit as associated with the Father and the Son in honor and dignity » Origen. de Princip. Praefat. n. 2. 4.

But most clearly the unity of God, such as the most ancient Fathers always understood it, appears from the disputations against the Monarchian heretics, against Praxeas, Noetus, the Sabellians, Paul of Samosata². For when these heretics asserted the unity of the divine substance in such a way that they at the same time denied the real distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the defenders of the Catholic dogma hold this same unity of substance as most certain and placed among Christians beyond doubt. « The devil has variously emulated the truth; he has striven at times to shake it by defending it. He vindicates the one almighty Lord, the creator of the world; that he may also make heresy out of the one, he says that the Father himself descended into the Virgin.... But we, both always and now more as instructed through the Paraclete (of Montanus), the guide namely of all truth, believe indeed in the one God, under this dispensation, however, which we call the economy, that the Son, his Word, is also of the one God... who from thence sent from the Father the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That this rule ran down from the beginning of the Gospel... the very posterity of all heretics will prove.... This perversity (of Praxeas) thinks itself to possess the pure truth, while it thinks the one God is to be believed in no other way than if it calls the same and identical one both Father and Son and Holy Spirit; as if in this way also all things were not one, since all things are from the one, namely through the unity of substance, and nonetheless the sacrament of the economy is preserved, which disposes the unity into Trinity, directing three: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three, however, not in status (dignity) but in degree (of origin), nor in substance but in form (personal character), nor in power but in species (distinguishing notions): but of one substance and one status and one power, because there is one God, from whom those degrees and forms and species are assigned in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit » Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 1. 2. cf. Praescript. c. 13. 14. In exactly the same manner the priests of Smyrna agree with Noetus with regard to the unity of the divine substance (apud Epiphan. haer. 57. T. I. p. 480), and s. Hippolytus (n. 3. 6. 11. 14. Galland. T. II. p. 455 sq.); the Council of Antioch (Collect. Mansi T. I. p. 1033) with Paul of Samosata; Zephyrinus, Callistus, Dionysius, Roman Pontiffs, with the Sabellians (Philosophumena p. 285. 389; Athanas. de decret. Nicaen. n. 26), while nevertheless they condemn in the same places the confusion of persons of Noetus and of Sabellius and of Samosata, and teach that the one God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, three distinct ones. But these things demand a more diligent consideration in the following theses.

Meanwhile, from the declared foundation these two things are established:

a) If in Scripture and in ecclesiastical preaching of any age there is speech about the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that they are co-numbered under the ratio of Godhead or of dignity or of the rendering of divine worship, or the unity is said to be according to substance, or they are said simply to be one, or any divine attribute is claimed for the Son and the Holy Spirit, and they are exempted from the condition of creatures: all these things must necessarily be understood of the numerical unity of the divine nature in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

b) In Scripture and among the Fathers of the Church, who claim the unity in some of these ways, the distinction between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit cannot be understood according to the divine nature and substance. If therefore at any time locutions occur which seem to indicate a subordination and an inferior dignity of one person before another, this subordination certainly was not understood by them, and cannot be understood, by reason of nature and substance. However much obscurity you may find in the manner of speaking and in the scientific conciliation of the unity of God with the distinction of the three among some ancient Fathers, where « not yet is the Trinity perfectly treated » (Aug. in Ps. 54. n. 22.), yet in no age can an ignorance of the fundamental dogma of the divine unity, expressed in the creed for all the faithful, from the highest pastors down to the catechumens, be admitted in such a way that this truth within the very boundaries of the Church could ever have been called into question with no one contradicting (cf. Tract. de Tradit. et de Incarnat.).

« By a certain general consideration of the doctrine of Christ and of the Apostles, « as it is set forth in the books of the New Testament, are shown to be the Father, « the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct, who are one God ».

• In the Gospels, in the apostolic epistles, and in the other books of the New Testament, mention is made very frequently and the doctrine is handed on of Christ Himself and of the Apostles concerning God the Father, who is the Father of His only-begotten Son; concerning the Son of God, who has God as His own Father; concerning the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of God. Here we are content with a still general and obvious consideration of those things which are taught about each one; about the Son, I say, and about the Holy Spirit, since from these very things are understood those things which pertain to the Father for the present question. We say, therefore, that as often as, whether as if in passing or deliberately, there is speech in the Scriptures of the New Testament about the Son of God according to His more sublime nature (for the human nature of the incarnate Son does not come into consideration here), and as often as there is speech about the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father or the Son or to both, all things absolutely conspire to this opinion: that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three really distinct from one another, i.e. not by our consideration alone, but in themselves the Father is one, the Son another, the Holy Spirit another; nevertheless, however, both the three together and each one singly are one God.

I. The Lord Christ Himself in all His life and teaching always exhibited, and the Apostles afterwards handed on, the relation of the Son of God to God the Father in this sense: that the Son of God is Son not by adoption, but Son by the nature which is one of the Father and of the Son.

1°. He is everywhere proclaimed by His own proper name Son of God, beloved Son. Matth. III. 17; Son of paternal love Col. I. 13; own Son Rom. VIII. 32; whose own Father is God Io. V. 18; true Son 1. Io. V. 20¹; Son over the house and family Heb. III. 6; who is not Son for this reason, because He is obedient to the Father, but was made obedient, although He was Son καίπερ ὢν υἱός Heb. V. 8; Son abiding forever Io. VIII. 35²; Son by generation and for that reason in the sense in which none of the angels can be called son Heb. I. 5; only-begotten Son of God Io. III. 16; only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father ib. I. 18³; Son, who gave to others the power to become sons of God ib. I. 12.

2°. By this very fact, that the Father is Father and the Son is Son of the Father, the Father is one and the Son another. « I and the Father are one »; « the Father is in me, and I in the Father »; « glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you, before the world was »; « the Father works and I work »; « I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me »; « whoever loves me will be loved by my Father » etc.

3°. But because He is the Son of God in the proper sense, therefore God the Father and the Son are simply one. « I and the Father are one ». Io. X. 30. The operation of the Father is the operation of the Son, and the relation of the Father and of the Son to their faithful is one. « My Father works until now, and I work.... Whatever He has done, these things the Son also does in like manner (ὁμοίως) » Io. V. 17. 21. « Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him.... and we will come to him, and we will make our abode with him » ib. XIV. 21. 23.

Those things which in the Old Testament were said of the one God of Israel (יהוה) were said of the Son of God. « But to the Son (the Scripture says): your throne, O God, is for ever and ever.... And (again the Scripture says): you, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth » Heb. I. 8 sq.

Therefore the nature of the Son is the nature of God, by which He is equal to God. « Who, when He was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God » Phil. II. 6. The essential life which the Father has in Himself, the Son also has, communicated by the Father, and therefore as the Father, so the Son is life itself. « As the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself ». Io. V. 26⁴. Therefore the Son is « the splendor of the glory of the Father (ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ) and the figure (χαρακτήρ) of His substance, upholding all things by the word of His power » Heb. I. 3⁵.

On account of these things the Son demands the same supreme worship which is owed to the Father. « That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father » Io. V. 23. (See Tract. de Incarnat. th. III. seq.).

II. In like manner the Holy Spirit, both in the life and doctrine of Christ Himself and in the subsequent preaching of the Apostles, is everywhere set forth as another from the Father and the Son, and nevertheless as one God.

1°. The distinction of the Holy Spirit as a third from the Father and the Son is clearly exhibited. While the Father bore testimony to the Son, the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily form, distinct from both Matth. III. 16. 17 (with the parallels). Christ Himself declared in many ways the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the discourse held at the Last Supper, where it is constantly said that the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of truth is another Paraclete, distinct from the Son, and distinct from the Father and the Son: who proceeds from the Father, who likewise receives from the Son, because all things which are the Father's are also the Son's; the Spirit of truth, whom the Father sends in the name of the Son; whom the Son sends from the Father. « I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever ». « But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things » τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, ὃ πέμψει ὁ Πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐκεῖνος ὑμᾶς διδάξει Io. XIV. 16. 26. Therefore, although spirit is said in many ways, and even God considered absolutely is spirit, it is nevertheless certain that this name Holy Spirit in revealed doctrine has been determined to the character of a proper hypostatic name, by which He is designated as distinct from the Father and from the Son (cf. Epiphan. haer. 74).

2°. The divinity of the Holy Spirit is declared so evidently in the whole revealed doctrine that, unless the distinction from the Father and the Son were equally expressed, no one would not hold for certain that God considered absolutely, or — what amounts to almost the same — a divine attribute, is designated in the Scriptures by this name. The very names Spirit of God, Spirit of the Father, Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, cannot signify anything other than God.

No less clearly is this very thing established from the descriptions of the attributes and operations of the Holy Spirit. He is « the Spirit of truth, who teaches all truth... another Paraclete, who may abide with the Apostles forever, the Spirit of truth ». Io. XIV. 16. 26⁶; XVI. 13. Who therefore is absolute truth. Hence God reveals all things through His Spirit; yet He who is said to reveal and he through whom He is said to reveal are distinct; for He is the Spirit of God and the Spirit from God, who searches the depths of God. « But God has revealed to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? so too the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God. But we.... have received the Spirit, who is from God » 1. Cor. II. 10-12. These things are to be compared with those which are said of the relation between God with whom the Word was, and the Word of God who was God. As to the distinction: « the Word was with God » — « God through His Spirit.... the Spirit, who is in Him, who is from God ». As to the unity: « and God was the Word » — « the Spirit searches even the depths of God... no one has known except the Spirit of God ».

Furthermore, just as the Father and the Son come to us and abide in us, so with the Father and the Son comes and abides the Holy Spirit Io. XIV. 17-23. The just are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and by this very fact the temple of God. « Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you » 1. Cor. III. 16; « your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own » ib. VI. 19. cf. 2. Cor. VI. 16.

The Holy Spirit Himself is in us the author and cause of supernatural regeneration. For just as we are said to be born of God (Io. I. 13), so it is said: « unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit » Io. III. 5. Just as it is said: « charity is from God; and everyone who loves has been born of God... God is charity; and he who abides in charity abides in God and God in him » 1. Io. IV. 7. 16; so it is said: « the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.... You have received the Spirit of adoption of sons.... for the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are sons of God » Rom. V. 5; VIII. 15. 16⁷; Gal. IV. 6.

Of all the charisms, whose author cannot be other than God, the Holy Spirit is the author. « It will be given to you in that hour what you are to speak; for you are not the ones who speak, but the Spirit of your Father, who speaks in you » Matth. X. 19. 20; « they began to speak in various tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to utter » Act. II. 4; « the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and tribulations await me at Jerusalem » ib. XX. 22; « they attempted (Paul with his companions) to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them » ib. XVI. 7. (compare as to the matter itself Act. XXII. 18); « prophecy was never brought by human will, but holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit (ὑπὸ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου φερόμενοι) » 2. Pet. I. 21; « the prophets searched.... into what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them signified (τὸ ἐν αὐτοῖς Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ προμαρτυρόμενον), foretelling those sufferings, which are in Christ, and the subsequent glories » 1. Pet. I. 10. In general, « no one can say (by faith, hope, and charity, as is fitting), Lord Jesus⁸, except in the Holy Spirit. But there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit.... To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom.... But all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one as He wills » 1. Cor. XII. 3 seqq.; Heb. II. 4.

What is called the voice of the Lord in the Old Testament, the same is called in the New Testament the prediction of the Holy Spirit. « I heard the voice of the Lord (אדני): go and say to this people: hearing hear, and do not understand » Is. VI. 8. 9. « Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah to our fathers, saying: go to this people and say to them: with the ear you will hear, and you will not understand » Act. XXVIII. 25. 26.

Moreover, Christ the Lord Himself, according to His humanity and in His humanity, is anointed, sanctified, sent by the Holy Spirit. « And as He unrolled the book (in the synagogue of Nazareth), He found the place where it was written: the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me, He sent me to evangelize the poor.... But He began to say to them, that today this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears » Luc. IV. 18 seqq. (On the matter and mode of this sanctification see Tract. de Incarnat.). Hence, just as it can be understood according to His humanity that Christ says: « the Father is greater than I » (Io. XIV. 28); so according as He is man, He exhibits the Holy Spirit as greater than Himself: « But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, therefore the kingdom of God has come upon you.... the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven.... And whoever has spoken a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever has spoken against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him » Matth. XII. 28 sqq. As in this place, before those Jews who thought Christ to be only a man, a comparison is made between sin against the Son of man and against the Holy Spirit (see Athanas. contra Arian. orat. I. n. 50), and the operations, which the Jews were bound to acknowledge as operations of God, are expressly attributed by Christ Himself to the Holy Spirit; thus s. Peter takes as synonyms: to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to lie to God Act. V. 3. 4. 9: and so much so that even by the very name he declares the Holy Spirit to be God. See Bellarmin. de Christo 1. I. c. 13.

III. The whole doctrine, therefore, of Christ and of the Apostles, although proposed on many and various occasions, under different aspects, and in other and other words, always conspires to the same opinion, and even at first glance and by an obvious consideration exhibits the revelation about unity and distinction in God most clearly in that sense in which it is understood and believed by all Catholics, and (no one denying it, for many centuries at least) has been understood and believed in all the creeds, in the definitions of the Councils, in the declarations of all the Catholic Doctors, finally in the profession of the whole universal Church. Namely, three are taught to be really distinct from one another: one the Father, another the Son, another the Holy Spirit, and these three — the Son and the Spirit equally as the Father — are true God. But since God is one with the unity of singularity and with multiplicity excluded, and so much so that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are taught to be the very true God, who revealed Himself as one, besides whom there is no other God; by this very fact the Godhead or absolute perfection is not distinct, but one in number, common to those three distinct from one another, by which they are one God.

But now, where there are several distinct from one another, who are constituted in the same essential perfection, by which there is answered the question of what a thing essentially is (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι), that common essential perfection is called by all learned and unlearned essence or (insofar as essence is the principle of operation) nature, while those distinct from one another, whose common nature it is, are called hypostases and (if the nature is intellectual) persons⁹. The Christian profession, therefore, by which we believe one nature and three divine persons, or God one in nature and trine in persons, contains nothing else than that which we have demonstrated to be proposed in the very doctrine of the Scriptures.

« In the special testimonies of the New Testament, in which the divine persons are numbered together, there is taught both their real distinction from one another, inasmuch as formally one is the Father, another the Son, another the Holy Spirit; and unity is preserved, inasmuch as there is one God, and the three are one in Godhead ».

I. As a compendium of the doctrine and of the faith to be professed concerning God, one in nature and triune in persons, Christ the Lord has embraced in the very form of baptism as the sacrament of faith, by which all who had embraced the faith were to be initiated and aggregated to the Church. « All power is given to me in heaven and in earth: going therefore, teach (μαθητεύσατε) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος) Matth. XXVIII. 19. In this solemn formula, prescribed to all Christians in the very sacrament of faith for sanctification and for the profession of faith at the same time, there is enunciated, as the symbol and token of the Christian faith, the distinction of the three from one another according to the formal reason of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and their unity inasmuch as they are one God.

1°. That the distinction of the Father and of the Son is enunciated here — that the Father is one, the Son another, and that it is not merely a twofold appellation of one person according to a diverse manifestation of oneself or operation ad extra, or according to a twofold absolute attribute — is altogether evident a) from the very names Father and Son. For these names are not said in relation to some other term but to each other, so that the Father is the Father of the Son himself, and the Son is the Son of the Father himself. Then indeed the Father is necessarily understood to be a person other than his Son, and conversely. b) Given the signification of the names expressing the origin of the one from the other, that relation of the two to each other is evident from the very connumeration, with the article interposed, τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ¹. Moreover c) setting aside these considerations of the immediate text, in the whole doctrine of Christ and of the Apostles concerning this real distinction — that the Father is one, the Father of the Son, and the Son another, the Son of the Father, and therefore that there are two distinct hypostases — there can be no doubt (th. II. n. 1.). But indeed d) if it is established that the connumeration is of distinct hypostases of the Father and of the Son, then also the third term, to which under the same altogether form the connumeration proceeds, cannot signify anything other than likewise a hypostasis distinct from the first and from the second: τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος. Concerning this personal distinction of the Holy Spirit, or his per se subsistence, moreover, it is sufficiently established by the arguments indicated in the preceding thesis II. n. II., which are almost the same as those by which the distinction of the two hypostases of the Father and of the Son is made known. There are therefore numbered together in this form of initiation and in this profession of the Christian faith, instituted by Christ the Lord himself, three distinct persons, or three hypostases: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

2°. It remains to be inquired — and this is the principal point — in what unity the three numbered hypostases are exhibited.

a) The unity of the Godhead of the three distinct persons is demonstrated from the initiation, that is, from the sanctification and consecration in the name of the three. It is asked what that "baptizing in the name" properly signifies. In baptism a twofold order can and must be regarded: that of God to men and that of men to God. In the former consideration, God is understood to regenerate us through baptism, to cleanse us from sins, and to sanctify us by his grace. « He saved us through the laver of regeneration and of renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, justified by his grace, we might be heirs according to the hope of eternal life » Tit. III. 5. By this very fact through baptism we are consecrated and devoted to God, and are given over to him as the object of faith, hope, charity, and in general of supernatural divine worship, which is the order of man to God. « That he might sanctify her (the Church), cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present to himself (αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ) a glorious Church » Eph. V. 26. 27; « for we have been buried together with him through baptism into death... so also you, consider yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus our Lord » Rom. VI. 3. 13; « for you are all children of God through the faith which is in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as have been baptized in Christ (εἰς Χριστόν) have put on Christ... you are all one in Christ Jesus. But if you are Christ's, then... heirs according to the promise »; « each one of you says: I indeed am of Paul, and I of Apollo... was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα Παύλου)?... lest anyone say that you were baptized in my name (εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα)... Who then is Apollo, and what is Paul: ministers of him in whom you believed... Let no one therefore glory in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollo... all things are yours, but you are Christ's, and Christ is God's » 1. Cor. I. 12 sq.; III. 21 sq. From these things it is evident that, both according to the former and according to the latter consideration, no one can without idolatry be consecrated by the baptism of Christ except in the name or into the name of him who is the true God. For we are sanctified only by God, nor are we devoted and consecrated through the sacrament except to God. From the very reason therefore of the sanctification and consecration in baptism it is concluded that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three distinct persons, in whose name or into whose name all nations are baptized, are the true God and consequently (th. I.) one in Godhead.

b) Further, this unity can be understood from the very form of the words. The Father, in whose name we are baptized, is without controversy God. Now the name of God, especially in the solemn formulas of Sacred Scripture, is put for the very reality of the name, for the divine numen itself, both inasmuch as God manifests himself through special efficacies, special help and protection, and inasmuch as on our part it is the object of the supreme worship of faith, hope, and charity, and to it itself « we owe that service by which God alone is to be served, which in Greek is called λατρεία » (Aug. Trin. I. n. 13 and often elsewhere). « May the name of the God of Jacob protect you... in the name of our God we shall be magnified... these in chariots and these in horses, but we shall invoke the name of the Lord our God » Ps. XIX. 2. 6. 8. « In my name his horn shall be exalted » Ps. LXXXVIII. 25. « The place which the Lord your God shall choose, to put his name there and to dwell in it » Deut. XII. 5. 11. « I have built a house to the name of the Lord God of Israel... let your eyes be open upon this house... of which you said: my name shall be there » 3. Reg. VIII. 20. 29. Of the Angel of the Lord sent, it is said by the Lord who sends: « my name is in him » Exod. XX. 21 (cf. Coloss. II. 9). Likewise « unless you fear his glorious and terrible name, that is, the Lord your God (hebr. this glorious and terrible name, the Lord your God) » Deut. XXVIII. 58. « Holy and terrible is his name » Ps. CX. 9; « to your name I shall sing a psalm » ib. XVII. 50. and often. « Who have known your name; in your name we shall confess; if we have forgotten the name of our God »; « to those fearing your name » Ps. IX. 11; XLIII. 9. 21; LX. 6. « In his holy name we have hoped »; « the name of the Lord is his hope » Ps. XXXII. 21; XXXIX. 5. « Who love your name » Ps. V. 12; LXVIII. 37; CXVIII. 132.

These things having been declared, the force of the argument is understood which, by the common opinion of the theologians and also of the holy Fathers, is drawn from the unity of the name in the formula of baptism to demonstrate the unity of the essence of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For whether that « in the name (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα) » is taken directly for the reality of the name, inasmuch as it is the divine authority and divine power, on which the efficacy and the sanctification of baptism depend, with the co-signification of the divine majesty to which we are devoted in baptism; or whether, in the inverse order, it directly signifies the transcription and consecration into the name of God under the invocation and through the power of the same name — both fall back into the same thing. For in the unity of the name, which is common to the three distinct persons, there is contained the one authority of the three, from which is the power and the sanctification of baptism, and the one majesty, to which, as to the true God and the object of faith, hope, charity, and the worship of latria, we are consecrated. « Of whom the divinity is one, the largess one, and the name of the Trinity is one God » s. Hieronym. in Matth. XXVIII. 19 (and in the addition to the commentary of s. Hilarius transcribed from Jerome). « In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He signified indeed three persons, but asserted one name of the Trinity: one God therefore, one name, one majesty » Ambros. de Inst. virg. c. 10. n. 67. 68. « In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is one God, because not in the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Where you hear one name, there is one God » Aug. in Io. tract. VI. n. 9. « This Trinity is one Lord God, of whom it is said: hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one; and: you shall adore the Lord your God and serve him alone (Deut. VI. 4). To this Lord also Isaias the prophet says: Lord, we have known no other besides you, we name your name (Is. XXVI. 13. iuxta LXX.). But this name the Savior shows, saying to his disciples: go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matth. XXVIII.). That is the name of the Lord, besides whom we have known no other.... In the Father therefore and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit we receive the unity of substance, we do not dare to confound the persons. For the blessed apostle John testifies saying: there are three who bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and the three are one (1. Io. V. 7) ». Fulgent. Respons. ad obiectiones Arian. obiect. X. See Athanas. ad Serapion. ep. I. n. 6 and elsewhere; Greg. Naz. or. XXXI. n. 28; Amphiloch. ep. syn. (Gallandi VI. p. 489); Gregor. Nys. ep. II. ad Sebasten (ib. p. 606. 607), Theodoret. haeret. fabul. l. V. § 3; Hilar. Trin. l. II. n. 1; Ambros. de Spiritu Sancto l. II. c. 8. n. 71². c) This unity is excellently confirmed by the fact that, where not the distinct profession of faith and the very form instituted by Christ was to be expressed, but only the matter of authority and divinity was to be designated, from which and into which we are consecrated, only one person, Jesus Christ, is named, in whose name the faithful are said to be baptized. « They were baptized in the name (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα) of the Lord Jesus » Act. XIX. 5; « they had been baptized in the name (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα) of the Lord Jesus » ib. VIII. 16; « let each one of you be baptized in the name (ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι) of Jesus Christ » ib. II. 38; « he commanded them to be baptized in the name (ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι) of the Lord Jesus Christ » ib. X. 48. See Tract. de Incarn. th. V.

II. That in the words of Christ the Lord Io. X. 30: « I and the Father are one », considered in themselves, the unity of nature and the real distinction of the Father and of the Son are signified — that the Father is one and the Son another — is demonstrated by the same arguments drawn from the consideration of the subject and of the predicate, which we used in the explanation of the formula of baptism. Moreover, indeed, the context supplies us with special demonstrations of the unity enunciated by the words « we are one », of what sort it is, both from the first discourse, which the Lord concludes with the very words: « I and the Father are one », and from the other discourse, in which he upholds the proper sense of the words understood by the Jews.

1°. In the former discourse a) Christ teaches that he himself is the one who gives eternal life to the sheep, h. e. to his faithful. b) He declares that no one can snatch the sheep from his hand, just as no one can snatch them from the hand of the Father. Where two things are said: in the first place, the sheep, or the faithful, are as proper to and claimed for the Son as for the Father; then the Son keeps the sheep by his power, just as the Father keeps them by his power. c) These three things — that the Son is the giver of eternal life, that the faithful are his people and his possession equally as the Father's, and that they are kept by his power as by the power of the Father — therefore belong to the Son, « because, he says, what my Father has given me is greater than all »³.

This very thing he says elsewhere in other words directed to the Father: « my things are yours, and your things are mine »; « all things whatsoever the Father has (πάντα ὅσα ἔχει ὁ Πατήρ) are mine » Io. XVI. 15; XVII. 10. Therefore the greater than all, which is the Father's, and by which surely the Father is God above all (cf. Eph. IV. 6), that very thing is also the Son's. This greater than all, and these all things whatsoever the Father has, are called by the Apostle the « form of God », by which the Son « did not think it robbery to be equal to God » (Phil. II. 6.); and therefore the Son is proclaimed « God blessed above all forever » (Rom. IX. 5. see on this place and on the predication of God the Tract. de Incarnatione). The distinction therefore between the two (« I and the Father ») is not in this, that the Father is of the divine nature and is God, while the Son is of an inferior nature, but solely in this, that the Father has the divine nature not communicated, the Son has the same communicated from the Father. Whence in this context the conclusion: « I and the Father are one », by which the proper ground of the antecedent propositions is enunciated, cannot be understood except according to the obvious sense of the words, of the unity of nature together with the distinction of the persons of the Father and of the Son.

2°. The accusation of the Jews gave occasion to the second part of the discourse, or rather to the second discourse, distinct from the first. For since they had understood the speech of Christ in the proper and obvious sense of which we spoke, they accused him of blasphemy: « because you, being a man, make yourself God ». Now what does the Savior answer concerning this understanding of the Jews? « If they had opined falsely, says Chrysostom l. c., he ought to have corrected them... Now on the contrary, with them raging, he confirms and approves that sentence ». We see in many places the divine Master correcting the perverse understandings of his words and explaining the true sense; on the contrary, where, the sense being rightly understood, faith is denied on account of the difficulty of the mystery, he is wont with the same or equivalent words to repeat and inculcate that very thing which was attacked (see Tract. de Eucharist. th. III.). When he had said: « I and the Father are one », and the Jews had interpreted this according to the obvious signification as equivalent to the affirmation: I am God, and for that reason had cried out blasphemy; the Lord responds not by softening the saying but by rebuking the unbelief of the Jews, and accordingly demands faith in that which he had said, and in the sense in which they themselves had understood it.

a) To the reproach of unbelief pertains what he says: « whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you say: you blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God ». But these had not been his words, but others: « I and the Father are one », and the Jews had not accused him because he had said: I am the Son of God, but because he had said: I am God. These three therefore: « I and the Father are one », « I am the Son of God », « I am God »⁴, the Lord accepts as equivalent propositions (cf. Io. V. 18), to which he immediately adds a fourth for declaring the same: « the Father is in me, and I in the Father ». Therefore he calls himself the Son of God in such a way that the Father and the Son are one, that the Son is God equally as the Father, that for that reason the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and that he who sees the Son sees also the Father (Io. XIV. 9-11).

b) The argument for this unity of nature of the Son with the Father Christ proposes, as often elsewhere, from the unity of the works, which in themselves indeed and in the first place show the truth of his doctrine, but in connection with the doctrine which he had here again most expressly declared, show the unity of nature and consequently also of operation of the Father and of the Son. « If I do not the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do..... believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father ». Chrysostom explains l. c. « Do you see how he proves that he is in nothing inferior to the Father but altogether equal? For because his essence could not be seen, from the equality and identity of the works (ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἔργων ἰσότητός τε καὶ ταὐτότητος) he brings the demonstration of equal power. And what, tell us, shall we believe: That I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; for I am nothing else than what the Father is, remaining the Son; he is nothing else than what I am, remaining the Father⁵; and he who knows me knows the Father and has learned the Son ».

From this identity of signification, and the substitution of the one for the other in the four indicated propositions, it is evident that the proper divine filiation must necessarily be understood — through the communication of the nature from the Father to the Son — when Christ says: I and the Father are one — I am God — I am the Son of God — I do the works of the Father, that you may believe that the Father is in me and I in the Father.

c) Hence it further appears what the sense is, or at least what is not and cannot be the sense, in the beginning of the second discourse, vv. 34-36.

α) When Christ in those words: « whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world », seems to give the reason of his divine filiation, in the second clause there is enunciated the pre-existence of the Son before his temporal nativity in the human nature, as he often declares elsewhere: « I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world » Io. XVI. 28; « I had glory, before the world was, with you » ib. XVII. 5; « before Abraham was made, I am » ib. VIII. 58; « the Son of man who descended from heaven, who is in heaven » ib. III. 13. In the first clause, « whom the Father sanctified », nothing can be understood except a sanctification such as befits God the Father in relation to God the Son. Since however the Son, through the assumed nature, is also a true man, the sense can be twofold: the Father sanctifies the Son considered according to divinity, by begetting him holy through the communication of the divine nature; he sanctifies the Son according to humanity by the same generation of the divine person, to whom the humanity has been hypostatically united in time, and by this very union the human nature is sanctified (see Tract. de Incarnat.). β) It is established that between the reason of the filiation enunciated in v. 36. and the antecedents of v. 35., « if he called them gods to whom the word of God was made », there is not a comparison of parity but of opposition. It is namely a refutation of the accusation of blasphemy by the argument from the lesser to the greater: if Scripture calls gods (though improperly) the men to whom the word of God was made, and what Scripture says cannot be refuted as blasphemous; how do you accuse me — who demonstrate in manifold ways that God in the proper sense is my Father — of blasphemy, because I said: I am the Son of God (surely in the proper sense, which Christ himself had declared a little before, and which the Jews had reproached)? They felt very well that Christ in his response had again affirmed that same thing which they themselves had called blasphemy, and demanded faith in this mystery; whence, just as after having heard the sentence of unity with God the Father, so now after this response of Christ they try to lay violent hands on him: « they sought therefore to apprehend him ». From the whole therefore course of the discourse it is certain that by Christ there is taught, of the Father and of the Son, just as the distinction according to the formal reason, by which the Father is one person and the Son another, so the unity according to essence and nature, by which the Father and the Son are one God. In this sense all the Fathers, in the disputation with the Arians, both singly and gathered in the Councils, understood that testimony of Christ, and always used it as the principal refutation of the heresy (see Maldonatum in h. l.).

III. The unity which is expressed in Io. X. 30: the Son and the Father are one, is declared in Io. I. 1 not by the word of unity, but by the very definition of the thing; so that you would not unreasonably say that in that former passage the thing defined is set down, and in this latter one the definition is contained. Hence if any doubt could still remain about the thing defined, namely what unity is to be believed

of the Father and of the Son, one ought to gather the true sense from the other passage, from the definition, I say, of the thing given by John in that very chapter of the book. « In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word ». Leaving aside the demonstration which we gave in the Tract. de Incarnat. th. IX., that by the particle « in the beginning » is enunciated the absolute principle in the order of duration and permanence, not however a principle or beginning of time, and hence the eternity of the Word is enunciated; now for the present purpose we consider only the two following clauses.

1°. In that clause « the Word was with God », that the real distinction of the Word from him with whom he is said to be is enunciated, is evident from this whole first chapter, and from the whole Gospel. For the Word, about whom we wish to be taught who he is and what he is, is « the only-begotten from the Father », « the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father » v. 14. 18. The Word made flesh (man) in time is Jesus Christ, who in the whole Gospel declares himself to be the Son of God the Father, most certainly distinct from his Father. « John knew one and the same Word of God, and that he is the only-begotten, and that he was incarnate for our salvation » Iren. III. c. 16. n. 2. The Word is the same, the Son of God the Father, who, as this one distinct from the Father and distinct from the Spirit, is numbered together with them, so that there are three: « in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ». When therefore it is said: « the Word was with God » πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, no absolute attribute (say of wisdom or omnipotence) of him with whom he is said to be is enunciated. For an attribute is not really distinguished from God, or from the divine person whose it is, so as to be one and another; but « the Word with God » is understood in the same sense as when it is said: « the only-begotten Son is in the bosom of the Father », and when the Son says: « I am in the Father and the Father is in me », « I had glory, before the world was, with thee » παρὰ σοί Io. XIV. 10; XVII. 5. The preposition therefore « with God » retains its significance of distinguishing one from the other. Moreover this Word, distinct from him with whom he was, is not a transient word but a substantial one, as is evident from all that has been said, and even from this alone, that the Word was God. But he who is God is by that very fact a hypostasis and a person; whence since he is one, with whom in the beginning was the Word and who likewise is God, and the Word is another, there are surely two distinct hypostases or divine persons. What therefore regards the Father and the Word of the Father, no mention yet being made of the Holy Spirit, the words of John indicate here the same distinction: « the Word was with God », which those other words of Matth. XXVIII express: « in the name of the Father and of the Son », and likewise Io. X: « I and the Father are one ».

2°. Now let us consider the declaration of unity, from which we shall also understand better what sort the distinction is. « The Word was with God, and God was the Word » καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος. In the second clause without doubt the Word (ὁ Λόγος) is the subject and God (Θεός) the predicate. This appears not only from the name Θεός without the article, but also from the flow of the discourse. For logically the subject which John wished to declare, and to teach what it is, is certainly the Word; this same therefore is the grammatical subject. The elegance of the discourse could have suggested the transposition of the words; for in these verses 1. 4. 5. 7. 10. 11 we see almost constantly the subsequent clause begin with that word in which the preceding ended. Nevertheless there was a much weightier reason for such a conjunction: « was with God, and God was », namely that the Father, with whom in the beginning was the Word, and the Word itself should be declared one and the same God.

a) Certainly in such a connection the name God evidently retains one and the same proper signification, nor can it be taken in the former clause in the proper sense and in the following one only in an analogous sense. Whence the meaning is: « The Word was with God, and God (not in another but in the same sense, and hence one true God) was the Word », i.e. the Word in the beginning was with the Father who is one true God, and the Word was also itself the same one true God. The unity of the Father and of the Word is therefore declared here in such a way that the Father and the Word are one true God, beside whom there is no other God. Hence what is said in Io. X. 30: « I and the Father are one », is defined in this sense: I and the Father are one true God. Since moreover God is the divine essence and every absolute perfection, the divine essence with all the absolute perfections, which we distinguish by reason, is said to be numerically one of the Father and of the Son; or more strictly the Father and the Son are said to be one divine Being, one divine essence. Although therefore the distinction, according to which the Word formally is, from him whose Word he is and with whom in the beginning was the Word, is clear both everywhere in other places and in this very text; nevertheless according to that by which both he with whom he was, and the Word itself is God, an absolute identity and unity is declared: « was with God, and God was ». Whence the real distinction is to be understood solely as it is expressed by the names themselves, according to the formal reason of the Father and the formal reason of the Son or Word. These, however, are not absolute but relative to each other. The Father formally as Father of the Son is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father; but this one is the other, the Father of the Son, and that one is the other, the Son of the Father. Insofar, however, as the Father is God and the Son is the same one God, they are not two but altogether one, just as the divine essence and nature is one. But of the relations by which the divine persons are constituted and distinguished, we shall have to speak elsewhere at length.

b) To guard against the difficulties which can arise against the declared one and same signification of the name God in both clauses, the signification and the supposition of the name must be distinguished, and moreover the mode of signifying of names of concrete form must be attended to, when they are placed in the predicate. A name is said to signify that for designating which it is established of itself. When however the signified notion is found in several distinct things, the name can be applied to one determined one of those several, and then the name is said to supposit for that determined one of the several. Thus in the proposition: man lives, the signification of the name man is not different, whether you utter it in common or of Peter; for it always signifies a rational animal, but in the second hypothesis it supposits for one singular person ⁶. Moreover names of concrete form designating a substance, e.g. animal, man, angel, God, signify directly the nature and co-signify the notion of hypostasis, not this or that hypostasis determinately but indeterminately. Therefore by an added predicate they can be determined so as to supposit for one determined hypostasis. Finally let it be noted that names of this kind, of nature in the concrete, when they are predicated of a subject, i.e. when by them in the manner of a predicate it is enunciated of the subject what it is, always stand formally, i.e. signify of what form and nature the subject is. The difference, however, here is between the case in which a nature is one only in species and multiplied in individuals, and the case in which a nature is numerically one and not multipliable. In the former hypothesis, if the nature is predicated of distinct subjects, the predicate also enunciates a nature numerically other of the one and other of the other subject; in the latter hypothesis, however, one numerically single nature is predicated of several distinct things. Caius is a man and Titius is a man, but Caius is one man and Titius another man. But the Father is God and the Son is God, not God one and another, but altogether one.

From these principles it is now clear how the name God in both clauses of which we are treating retains the same signification, although it does not supposit on both sides for the same person. In the former clause « the Word was with God », the name God has its signification of the subsisting divine nature, but is determined to supposit for the Father by the enunciated relation and distinction between him with whom the Word was, and the Word. In the other clause « and God was the Word », the predicate God signifies entirely the same and indeed the numerically same, namely the subsisting divine nature, which is not twofold but numerically one, nor are the Father and the Word one God and another but altogether one; nevertheless just as in the former clause it supposits for the person of the Father, so in this other clause it enunciates of the other person, namely of the Word (according to the mode of signifying proper to predicates), what it is essentially (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) ⁷.

Let it therefore stand firm, what we have said: that the unity of the Father and of the Son or Word, which is enunciated in Io. X. 30, is expressly defined in this beginning of the Gospel: « the Word was with God, and God was the Word », as a unity of Godhead, so that the Father and the Son are one God. Since moreover, both in the baptismal formula Matth. XXVIII. 19 and in other places, the Holy Spirit is evidently numbered together with the Father and the Son in the same way in distinction and unity, it is certain that the same definition of unity, Io. I. 1, just as it pertains to two, so in the same sense must be understood of all three persons of the most holy Trinity.

All that we have said of this divine predication: « the Word was with God, and God was the Word », holds in entirely the same way for the parallel testimony 1. Io. V. 20, where in place of the Word the other name Son is substituted, and the predicate God has the added determination true God: « that we may know the true God and may be in his true Son (the Word was with God): this one (the true Son) is the true God and eternal life » (and God was the Word). Of this testimony we treat in Tract. de Incarn. th. VI.

IV. These declarations of Christ and of the Apostles being presupposed, both the distinction of persons and the unity of nature are easily demonstrated in other testimonies, first of Christ the Lord himself, where the three persons are numbered together. « When he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all truth.... because he will receive of mine.... All things whatsoever the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he will receive of mine » Io. XVI. 13-15. In which place, besides the unity of all things whatsoever the Father has in three distinct persons, the origin of the persons of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is also expressly taught, of which we shall speak elsewhere. See Io. XIV. 6-11. 16. 17. 23. 26; XV. 26. cf. Luc. I.

32. 35; Matth. III. 16. 17; Marc. I. 10. 11; Luc. III. 22. There is then the same ground for the most frequent numbering together of the three persons in the preaching and writings of the Apostles, namely in those places in which baptism and initiation in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is presupposed. « But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God » 1. Cor. VI. 11. « Now he who confirms us with you in Christ (εἰς Χριστόν) and who has anointed us is God, who has also sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts » 2. Cor. I. 21. 22. « No one can say, Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who works all things in all » (τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ ὁ αὐτὸς Κύριος, ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς Θεός). Then are enumerated the graces, ministrations, operations. « But all these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one as he wills ». The body of the Church Christ makes and holds as one and as his own body out of many members according to these divisions of graces, ministrations, operations; and all these divisions of graces, ministrations, operations « God has placed in the Church » 1. Cor. XII. 3-12. 28. s. Athanasius explains the passage most briefly in ad Serap. ep. III. n. 5. « The Spirit is not outside the Word; but since he is in the Word, through him he is in God, so that gifts are bestowed in the Trinity. For in their division, as (Paul) writes to the Corinthians, the same Spirit is, and the same Lord, and the same God, who works all things in all. For the Father himself through the Son in the Spirit works and gives all things ». Cf. Act. II. 32-35; V. 31. 32; VIII. 37. 39; Rom. XV. 15. 16. 30; 2. Cor. XIII. 13; Gal. IV. 6; 2. Thess. II. 13. 14; Tit. III. 4-6; Heb. II. 3. 4; 1. Pet. I. 2.

Corollary 1. The numbering together or coordination of several must be carefully distinguished from the sub-numbering or subordination of one under another. Numbering together occurs when by force of the words and context two or more are comprehended in the same order under some notion of being, and hence identity or parity in that notion under which they are numbered together is signified. Whence since creatures at least in created being all agree among themselves, they can all be numbered together under some notion, but not under those notions under which they differ. But God, above all created things, excels and differs by the whole notion of being; and therefore just as a creature is ontologically of an entirely different order, so also it cannot be numbered together with God without fallacy. We call it sub-numbering when several are indeed named in some connection in which not the agreement and identity of the things, but only the dependence of one upon another or subordination is indicated. This sub-numbering of a creature under God can therefore rightly be made. In contexts where the propriety of speech must certainly be supposed to be preserved, numbering together is easily discerned from sub-numbering by the internal and external rules of interpretation. Certainly it is numbering together when several persons are joined under one and the same explicit notion of a divine attribute, as in the baptismal formula: « baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ». Hence we see a far different construction of words where the thing of the name is different: « I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God.... and my new name » ⁸ (the name given to him according to his humanity, which is above every name Phil. II. 9). Apoc. III. 12. Likewise numbering together in the same order and in the same dignity is understood to be expressed when several numbered persons, one of whom is certainly divine, are expressly said to be one simply, or are subsumed under a verb in the plural number: « I and the Father are one »; « the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one »; « I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me..... the testimony of two men is true: I am he who bears testimony of myself, and the Father who sent me bears testimony of me » Io. VIII. 16-18; « if anyone loves me... and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him » ib. XIV. 23; « Holy Father, keep them whom you have given me, that they may be one (among themselves) as we also are »; « you, Father, in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us » ib. XVII. 11. 21. 22.

In numberings together of this kind, where the Son evidently places himself with his Father God in the same grade and order, a most efficacious demonstration of unity is contained, when of himself and of God the Father he says: we are, they are in us, our testimony, we will come, we will make our abode. This efficacy of the demonstration is better felt if that conjunction of the two into one, when the Son speaks of himself and of God the Father, is compared with the division which he always preserves when he speaks of himself and of men in relation to God, although he deigned to become the brother of these according to his humanity and to call them his brothers. He taught us to pray: « our Father! » but never in the order to God did he include himself and us men under common pronouns of this kind. He said: « I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God » Io. XX. 12. ⁹ But Augustine excellently warns: « he did not say our Father; therefore differently mine, differently yours; mine by nature, yours by grace.... Nor did he say, our God; therefore here also differently mine, differently yours; my God, under whom I also am a man; your God, between whom and him I am mediator » Aug. in Io. tract. 121. n. 3.

Far different is sub-numbering. When the question is of the workings of God and of the relation of reason to a term outside God, nothing prevents a second ministerial or instrumental cause from being named together with God the first cause; a conjunction of this kind we call sub-numbering. But this will be evident either from the very nature of the thing, especially if what is numbered along is not a person but some thing: « unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit » Io. III. 5; or if the ministerial character is expressed even in express words, e.g.: « they believed the Lord and Moses his servant » Exod. XIV. 31. Hence 1. Io. V. 8: « there are three who give testimony on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood », since water and blood are not persons but some created things, by the name spirit the Holy Spirit could be understood, if in the last clause (as the Greek edition has it) the term of the testimony were indicated: « these three are in one or unto one ». Then it would be sub-numbering, and God the Holy Spirit would be said to bear testimony both by himself and through the water and the blood as subordinate causes. In this explanation, however, there always remains some impropriety of speech; and indeed the very manner of joining the three witnesses, and much more the last clause, if it is read simply with the Vulgate as « are one », persuades that it is a numbering together of three, and therefore that just as the water and the blood, so also the spirit is something created. Hence not the person of the Holy Spirit, but either his effect (of which sort is the testimony and preaching of the Apostles, or grace in the sacrament of baptism), or the spirit commended on the cross into the hands of the Father, i.e. the soul of Christ, is numbered together with water and blood in the unity of testimony. But of this testimony we shall soon speak at greater length. On numbering together and sub-numbering, s. Basilius cont. Eunom. V. p. 308. 309 is to be read and rightly understood for his purpose against the Arians, cf. de Spirit. S. n. 29. 31.

Corollary 2. What Christ says: « this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ » Io. XVII. 3, has no difficulty against the Trinity of persons, which both singly and all together are the only true God. The particle only is not joined to the pronoun you to exclude a plurality of persons who are one God, but is joined to the name true God to affirm the unity of God, just as elsewhere this foundation of revealed doctrine is frequently inculcated: « I am the Lord and there is no other » etc. (th. I). What we say is manifest a) from the whole demonstrated doctrine, by which three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are taught to be one God. b) The same appears from the very grammatical form of this place. For it is not said, that they may know you, who alone are the true God, but that they may know you, the true God, who as true God is the one and only God, ἵνα γινώσκωσι σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν Θεόν, not however ἵνα γινώσκωσι μόνον σε ἀληθινὸν Θεόν. This is what the Fathers Athanasius, Chrysostom and others say: that the opposition is not between the Father, who alone is the true God, and the Son, who is not the true God; but between the only true God and fictitious gods. c) Nay rather, the very numbering together of the Father and of the Son Jesus Christ under one and the same notion of the object of faith and of life-giving knowledge shows the one divinity of the Father and of the Son. « Although the Father is said to be the only true God, this was not said to repudiate him who says: I am the truth (Io. XIV. 6); but to reject those who are not true by nature, such as the Father and his Word are. For so the Lord himself immediately joined: and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. If he were a creature, he would not have joined and numbered himself together with his Creator. For what fellowship has the true with the not true? Now, however, that he joined himself with the Father, he shows that he is of the nature of the Father, and has taught us that he is the true begotten of the true Father. This also John had learned and taught, writing in his epistle (1. Io. V. 20): and we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life » ¹⁰.

Corollary 3. Nor does the comparison instituted by Christ the Lord in Io. XVII. 21 hinder what has been demonstrated in the thesis: « that all may be one:... I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one » (τετελειωμένοι εἰς ἕν). For a) the unity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is without doubt the supreme exemplar of the holy union of the faithful among themselves, which the Lord asks of the Father. But by comparisons of this kind of an analogous perfection in creatures with the perfection in God, identity or the same notion of divine perfection and created perfection is surely not expressed; unless perhaps you say that we are instructed unto equality with God, when Christ exhorts: « be you therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect » Matth. V. 48. cf. Lev. XXI. 8; Luc. VI. 36; Eph. V. 1. Athanasius disputes at length or. III. contr. Arian. n. 17-25. about this comparison of unity through the particle as, by which, he says, not identity but image and exemplar is declared. b) Although the unity which the Lord asks for the faithful is a unity not of nature but of charity, nevertheless this very unity presupposes a unity of nature, such as is among men, namely specific. « If they did not love one another, they would be one by nature, they would not be one by love; if however they were not one by nature, they could not be said to be one by love... Nor did he say, that they may be one with us, or that they and we may be one, but: that they may be one in us. Since men who are one by nature cannot be supremely and perfectly one according to their mode with the fullness of justice, unless they be perfected in God, so as to be one in the Father and the Son; that is, one in them, not one with them » Aug. contr. Maximin. l. II. c. 22. n. 1. Finally c) sometimes the Fathers turn these very testimonies back against the Arians. For the principle of the unity which the Lord requires for the faithful is in many distinct things numerically one, namely the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, and Christ who through our assumed nature is the head of the Church, « from whom the whole body, compacted and connected by every joint of subministration... makes the growth of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity » (Eph. IV. 16), and who by his body ¹¹ which is numerically one, is in the sacrament of the Eucharist the cause and uniting bond of the charity of the faithful. And so the supernatural unity of the faithful, considered with its principle, is an image of that exemplar, where the numerically one divine nature is the formal reason of the unity of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. « When the Savior said of us: as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, it is not signified that we shall have identity with him... but it is a petition to the Father, as John writes, that through Christ himself he impart the Spirit to the faithful, through whom we both appear to be in God, and according to this are conjoined in the Spirit himself. For because the Word is in the Father, and the Spirit is given from the Word (ἐκ τοῦ Λόγου δίδοται), he wills that we receive the Spirit, so that, having received this and holding the Spirit of the Word which is in the Father, we also may appear through the Spirit to be one in the Word and through the Word in the Father... Whence just as we are made sons and gods through the Word dwelling in us, so we shall be in the Son and in the Father, and shall be accounted made one in the Son and in the Father, because in us is the Spirit, who is in the Word, and the Word is in the Father » Athanas. l. c. n. 25. « I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one... It is certain that the Word has been made in us; for he assumed our body (our nature). And you in me, Father; for I am your Word: and if you are in me, because I am your Word, and I am in them through my body, and because through you the salvation of men has been perfected in me, I ask that they also may be one... that all, as it were carried by me, may be one body, one spirit, and may attain unto a perfect man (Eph. IV. 13). For all we who partake of his body are made one body, having one Lord in ourselves » Athanas. ib. n. 22. s. Hilarius most excellently turns the argument against the Arians in de Trinit. l. VIII. n. 13-17. « That they may be one, as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfect in one. Those now who thrust in a unity of will between the Father and the Son, I ask whether Christ is in us today through unity of nature or through concord of will? For if the Word was truly made flesh, and we truly receive the Word made flesh in the Lord's food, how is he not to be considered to remain in us naturally?..... If therefore Christ truly assumed the flesh of our body... and we truly under the mystery receive the flesh of his body, and through this we shall be one, because the Father is in him and he in us, how is a unity of will asserted? » (See Tract. de Eucharist.) ¹².

« According to the Catholic principles concerning the office of the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, both the authentic theological declaration and the apostolic origin of the text of 1 Io. V. 7 ought to be affirmed. As regards the manner of preservation, monuments are at hand which demonstrate the immemorial antiquity of the reading and are a sufficient historical safeguard, so that legitimate judges could decide in favor of the apostolic origin of the text. The contrary documents, however, that are objected do not demonstrate interpolation; although from them it is evident that the omission of the text in the transcription of codices was already propagated from antiquity more or less widely ».

I. Since many critics, even among Catholics — especially after the edition of the New Testament prepared by Augustinus Scholz — think it permissible to call into doubt the genuineness of the testimony with which we are dealing, and some even openly reject it as spurious; I have deemed it necessary to apply to the present question the Catholic principles set forth and demonstrated in the Treatises on Tradition and on Scripture, so that we may understand what is to be held. Protestants, who, having repudiated the authority of the Church as guardian and interpreter of the word of God, are carried about by every wind of doctrine, each according to his own talent and judgment, can neither understand the Catholic method required by the economy instituted by Christ for guarding the deposit of faith, nor be aided by it, as long as they remain in their fundamental error. But that some Catholics have not always followed the safest principles in questions of this kind, and that at times, attributing too much to deceptive erudition, they inverted the order of dependence between authority and science in theological matters — this certainly did not profit the defense of truth, and hence not science either.

In the present question, whether the genuineness of the text of 1 Io. V. 7 is established from theological principles, the solution depends on a principle of right and on a truth of fact.

The principle of right that no Catholic may call into controversy is that fundamental one: that it belongs to the office of the Church, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to have the infallible custody of the word of God in general, and likewise of the written word. This indeed is not to be understood as though the assistance of the Holy Spirit were promised lest some text or some part of a divine book, or even a whole book, should ever perish. For although a special providence of God must be acknowledged in the conservation in time of the divine books of both the Old and the New Testament, nevertheless the promise of the assistance of the Spirit of truth leading into all truth, and the infallibility of the Church in the custody of the deposit of faith depending on it, does not of itself include the indefectible conservation of all the books and their parts that are divinely inspired and so contain the written word of God. The reason is that the inspired books are not the sole nor an absolutely necessary instrument for the conservation of revelation (cf. Iren. l. III. c. 4); whence the Holy Spirit can, through the Church, preserve the integrity of the revealed truth, without its being necessary for Him for this end either to prevent, or His being unable to permit, the loss of an inspired book or of a part of a book.

But just as from the promise made of the Spirit of truth, abiding with the Apostles and their successors forever, error of the Church herself in proposing the doctrine of faith is excluded in general, so too from that same promised infallibility it can never come about that the Church, whether by formal definition or by equivalent consent and doctrine, should receive into use and propose to the faithful a book or a text of human origin as a book or a text divinely inspired. Hence from the office instituted by Christ the Lord of guarding the deposit of revelation, and from the promised charism for exercising this office, the Church is infallible not only in proposing the dogma concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures and concerning which are the inspired books, as it were in the abstract; but her infallible judgment also bears upon the concrete object, whether books existing under a certain form in a determined edition or version are and have remained inspired books. That is to say, the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit not only infallibly teaches that the Apostle John, e. g., was inspired to write the Gospel, the three epistles, and the Apocalypse; but with the same infallibility she defines that the books in this form or even in this version — e. g. the Latin — as they have been received into public use for many centuries already, are the very inspired books of John. In such a judgment is contained that the books, as they exist in public use, are uncorrupted and not interpolated, and in this recension, to which the judgment refers, conformable to the primitive text in which they were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Since in integrity and in conformity with the original text there can be degrees of greater or lesser perfection, and, as is evident of itself, the definition of the Church does not effect the inspiration and integrity of a book but authentically manifests what exists: therefore from the definition of the canonical book considered in general one cannot indeed yet infer the degree of integrity and conformity with the original; nevertheless, in that degree which the judgment of the Church defines, the integrity is infallibly certain.

Moreover, since the Church is ruled not by new revelations but by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, lest she ever fall into error in her definitions, humanly knowable reasons are indeed required for inquiring into and perceiving the truth about whose definition the matter is concerned; but if the definition is reached, its infallibility is owed not to these reasons but solely to the assistance of the Spirit of truth, and to «the Lord inhabiting the Church, lest the most studious speculation go into error» (Aug. in Ps. IX. n. 12). Hence, a definition being presupposed, it indeed pertains to theological science to show the manner in which the tradition of the truth stands; yet it is not necessary that reasons should always be at hand of such a kind that, of themselves alone, prescinding from the authentic judgment of the infallible Church, they would suffice for the full demonstration of the truth handed down.

Concerning these foundations, which we have called the principle of right, most amply demonstrated in both Treatises on Tradition and on Scripture, no Catholic may doubt. But those who from them call into doubt or wholly deny the genuineness and authenticity of some passage of the Scriptures as they now exist, thereby at the same time deny that the Church has ever declared such a text, whether by solemn decree or by sufficient consent, as a part of Sacred Scripture and hence as the written word of God, and proposed it to the faithful. The whole dispute therefore (as we now undertake it) is reduced to the question we have called that of the truth of fact, namely whether the definition and doctrine of the Church, by which she receives and proposes as sacred and canonical all the books and those «entire with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition», comprehends the text of 1 Io. V. 7 with which we are dealing. Whatever Catholics deny its genuineness, thereby, as I have said, also deny the truth of this fact; for they can neither call into doubt nor wish to call into doubt the principle of right itself, in the denial of which the foundation and proper reason of Protestantism is constituted. We affirm the truth of the fact, and thereby we deem it a crime to call the genuineness of the apostolic text into doubt. But here a great error in the method of inquiry must be carefully guarded against, into which Iohannes Iahn fell in a chapter of doctrine, if not identical, certainly most similar to our question. He inquired first critically and historically what should be thought about the authority of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. Since by these critical arguments the books seemed to him of a lower order and dignity than the protocanonical books, he concluded that the Tridentine decree had not defined an equal degree of authority with respect to the books of both orders. Let us not proceed, I beg, by this way, but by the contrary and safe way. As in all theological questions, so here too let the genuine sense of the doctrine and definition of the Church be first inquired into; only then shall we be solicitous about the historical and critical confirmation of the truth, from which, whether it comes to us fuller or less full, the certainty established from the higher theological principle does not depend. In order that we may grasp the sense of the Tridentine definition, sess. IV, and its extension — whether it pertains to declaring the authenticity of this passage about which we ask — we shall first consider the words themselves, the context, and in it the declared scope of the decree, or rather of the two synodal decrees; thence we shall deduce the norm or rule according to which judgment is to be made about the extension of the definition, to which parts of Scripture it pertains; lastly we shall apply this rule, in order to prove that the Johannine comma about which we ask is a part of Scripture comprehended in the decrees of the Council, and hence that its genuineness is to be held theologically. 1°. The decree on the canonical Scriptures contains four parts. a) The Council teaches that there is a twofold divine institution by which all salutary truth and the revealed discipline of morals have come down even to us, namely tradition and the written books. The divine traditions, therefore, and these «all books of both the Old and the New Testament», «since one God is the author of both», the synod receives with an equal affection of piety and reverence. Then b) the books of Sacred Scripture are enumerated one by one, which are received by the synod itself. c) It is distinctly defined that all the parts of these books are to be believed canonical, and at the same time the norm is handed down according to which the Council understood, and all the faithful ought to understand, the integrity and the canonical parts of these books. The norm is the custom of reading in the Catholic Church and the comprehension in the old Latin Vulgate edition: «if anyone, however, shall not have received these same books entire with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical... let him be anathema». Finally d) although the Council had without doubt the scope of condemning the errors of the Innovators concerning the books of Scripture, and of curbing the rashness of certain Catholics too, as is evident of itself and established from history (Pallav. VI. c. II. n. 8); nevertheless the Council itself declares the direct and immediate scope of the decree to be this, that the divine authority of the sources should be established, from which the holy synod would draw the testimonies in confirming dogmas and restoring morals. «Let all therefore understand (it says), by what order and way the synod itself, after having laid the foundation of the profession of faith, is to proceed, and by which especially testimonies and safeguards it is to use in confirming dogmas and restoring morals in the Church» ¹

There follows then the second decree, by which the authenticity of the Latin Vulgate edition of the sacred books is declared. This, however, as we have demonstrated elsewhere (Tract. de Script.), comes down finally to this, that the sacred books under this form of the Vulgate edition are declared conformable to the primitive text, as having once been written with God inspiring, although in another language and in another accidental form. And so we are commanded to acknowledge this Vulgate text as the inspired text, not indeed as regards the words but as regards the things and the senses. The reason by which this authenticity is manifested and from which it is concluded by the Council is the same already indicated in the definition of the divinity or original authenticity of these books, namely the ancient use in the Catholic Church. The scope also is the same dogmatic one that is declared in the former decree; in this second one is indicated the no small utility of the Church of God, and that it may be established concerning the sincerity of the divine books under this form of the Latin edition, which «in public readings, disputations, preachings, expositions» is ordered to be held as authentic. Indeed the Council itself was not to bring forward texts and testimonies of Scripture from anywhere else than from this Latin edition; whence this decree, like the preceding one, pertained to declaring the divine authority of the testimonies which the synod was to use in confirming dogmas and restoring morals ². 2°. In the very context described the norm is manifestly handed down according to which the extension of the definition is to be understood, and judgment made about the parts of the books to be received as sacred and canonical. a) It must indeed be conceded, and can be demonstrated from the very scope of both decrees and from other most manifest reasons, of which we have spoken in their place, that the conformity of the Vulgate edition was not declared as one of supreme perfection pertaining to each and every particular; and in like manner that by the name of «the parts of the books, as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition», not all the words or clauses, of whatsoever kind they may be, are to be understood. But on the other hand b) from the scope which the Council itself teaches it set before both decrees, it seems most manifest that all the parts are declared canonical, as they are contained in the old Vulgate edition, which of themselves and directly enunciate some dogma or rule of morals, and that consequently in the same sense the Vulgate edition is declared authentic. Unless this were so, the decree would in no way correspond to its scope. For if by the name of the parts which are declared canonical were understood, as the adversaries wish, only the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel, Esther, etc., and if the authenticity of the Vulgate were declared only in a confused way, without its being authentic in the special texts that are of themselves dogmatic; by force of this decree no security would have been established either for the Fathers of the Council themselves or for the faithful, that the testimonies which the synod professed it would use for confirming dogmas and for reforming morals in the Church, drawn from all the books and parts of books as they were contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are texts of inspired Scripture and not human texts introduced either from elsewhere or by the translator. But that the decree pertained especially to this security concerning the divinity of the instrument, from which the testimonies for confirming dogmas were to be sought, the synod itself professes. Therefore it must be said that the canonical authority of the books is declared in all their parts that are of themselves dogmatic, as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition. c) Those who measure the extension of the decree by the polemical scope of the Council against the Innovators, which we indeed admit (Pallavic. VI. c. II. n. 4. 8), must also confess that a dogmatic text, used most frequently in the Church for many centuries and most known to all, which however about the time of the Council began to be eliminated by some and especially by the Innovators, is necessarily understood to be comprehended in those words by which we are commanded to receive «the books entire with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church». d) Not without absurdity can it be asserted that the sense of both decrees is this, that the canonical authority of the books and the authenticity of the Vulgate is to be believed only in those parts in which the critical and historical examination can demonstrate the genuineness of the text. For in this way that would be sanctioned which the Council wanted to exclude by its decrees, namely that the Scriptures, at least in controverted places, should be permitted to the examination of individuals. But the canonical authority of the parts and the authenticity of the Vulgate is decreed in that state of the edition, as it has been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and was approved by the long use of so many centuries in the Church herself, and was used by the Council itself as a divine instrument in matters of faith and morals.

This last thing that we have said is clear from the very nature and character of a conciliar definition. The reason manifesting the authenticity, whether of the books and their parts that are of themselves dogmatic, or of the old Vulgate edition, was for the Council the dogmatic principle that the Holy Spirit assisting the Church would not have permitted a human text to be used in the universal Church, by common consent and public use through several centuries, as the written word of God ³. Whence it is not, after all, to be explored by a critical examination whether a dogmatic text of this kind existed either in the primitive original edition or at least in the primitive Latin version, so that from such an examination a decision might be made about its genuineness or supposititiousness. But if a text is of itself of such a character that the definition of the Church pertains to it, and if at the time of the Council it was accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church in the manner we have said and was contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, i. e. had been contained for a long time already, the text ought to be judged, as regards its sense, conformable to the primitive sentence written under divine inspiration. Indeed this would be true even if it were established by certain demonstration that the text had been received into the Latin edition as from a later return; for this alone would prove that the true reading had been preserved for us not indeed by the first author of the Latin version, but in another way. These things follow necessarily from the principle of the assistance of the Spirit of truth leading into all truth, and from the infallibility of the Church in the custody of the word of God, whether written or handed down, depending on it. Nor, however, is it on that account denied that those Catholic men merit very well and are most worthy of praise who spend their labor in exploring the various readings, whether of the original text or of the Vulgate edition; for since truth cannot contradict truth, studies of this kind contribute to confirming, or at least to illustrating, the reason of the genuine reading. For although this can be established in the parts that are of themselves dogmatic from a dogmatic principle, to which consequently criticism itself must be subservient; there are nevertheless many other things that can be established almost only by critical and historical safeguards, and in those very parts that are of themselves dogmatic at least the manner of conservation is illustrated by the same safeguards. When, therefore, the matter is not about a whole book or about larger parts, which could almost of themselves constitute a book, or without which the book to which they belong would already fail in its substantials and would in some way become another; but if the question is about single testimonies and clauses; from what has been said thus far two things are required and suffice, that they ought to be judged comprehended in the decrees of the Council, sess. IV, as canonical parts of the books of Scripture. First, namely, that the texts be certainly of themselves dogmatic, directly pertaining to confirming dogmas and to establishing the rule of Christian morals; then secondly, that those same texts have been received by the Church herself through the long use of centuries as the written word of God, and have been accustomed to be read in the old Latin Vulgate edition (which, at least for the Latin Church, which the Council in these decrees especially has before its eyes, almost coincides with the long use of centuries). This comprehension in the synodal definition will be the more certain if the matter is about texts which, although marked with that twofold character, were nevertheless at the time of the Council attacked or rejected by the Innovators as spurious. 3°. If we now apply these principles and this norm to that about which we ask, no one can deny that the text of 1 Io. V. 7 is comprehended by both Tridentine decrees, and is declared a canonical part of Sacred Scripture. a) Even without entering upon the critical and historical examination of the primitive state of the Latin version, certainly no one can deny that at the time of the Council, at least from several centuries already, in public and private use, from the persuasion of all the Pastors, Doctors, and faithful, this text was held as a part of Sacred Scripture in the Vulgate edition, which was proper to the whole Western Church. All confess that, at least from the IX century, this passage exists in the codices of the Vulgate edition with so constant a consensus, that if it is lacking in some codd., it is to be thought an exception from the rule and the common reading (vid. Apparat. Crit. Bengelii in h. l. § 19. 21). The text was recited from time immemorial in the sacred liturgy ⁴; used without any signification of doubt as a testimony of Sacred Scripture in the Fourth Lateran Council; in the same way in the decretals inserted in the body of the law it is used to prove dogmas ⁵; at the time of the compilation of the false decretals (IX century) cited as a most known part of Sacred Scripture in the letters supposititiously attributed to Hyginus and John II; commended, and its omission attributed to a dangerous error, in the Prologue to the catholic epistles, which under the name of s. Hieronymus was from the most ancient times prefixed in the codd. of the Bibles and here and there in the more ancient editions ⁶; commented upon in that same place without any trace of doubt about its genuineness by the interpreters, namely in the glossa ordinaria of Walafrid Strabo and the interlinear gloss of Anselm of Laon, whose authority was magisterial among all the Doctors (as they used to say); used as the written word of God with the same confidence as a testimony, and from it the proof of the faith derived, by all the theologians in all the schools, and by the Pastors in the instruction of the Christian people. There is no need to name Rupert, s. Bernard, Hugh of Saint Victor, the Master of the Sentences, s. Thomas, s. Bonaventure. Truly, therefore, it is evident that the passage about which we ask, from at least seven centuries up to the Council of Trent, constituted a part of the canonical epistle, as it was accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and was contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition. b) Moreover, that the text is concerned with things of the faith revealed of themselves and is dogmatic in an eminent manner, needs no proof. That some answer, that the dogma of the most holy Trinity is expressed in other places of Scripture; whence they say, even if the genuineness of the testimony in this context of 1 Io. V. 7 is denied, it is nevertheless not denied that the same thing and sense is contained in the Scriptures; this answer, I say, will satisfy no one. Without doubt the conservation and sufficient proposal of revelation, according to Catholic principles, depends on some particular text, indeed on Scripture itself in general, neither uniquely nor principally; it is also most true that the doctrine of the most holy Trinity is contained in other places of Scripture and can be demonstrated from them, as we saw in the preceding theses. But the text of 1 Io. V. 7 constitutes a part of a special context, and in this form and in these words, explicitly enunciating the profession of the Church and «the substance of the New Testament, in that thenceforth the Father, the Son and the Spirit, three, being believed, present one God» (Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 31), another place is not found in Scripture. The Catholics indeed with whom we deal ought to notice the manner of disputing of the Protestants, who, attacking the genuineness, contend that so explicit a proposition of this mystery is alien to all the Scriptures. The Socinians and Rationalists would not with so great contention and on any offered occasion cry out that this text is spurious, unless they abhorred the truth so plainly enunciated in it; others, who profess to believe the dogma of the most holy Trinity, nevertheless deny that it pertains to the fundamental articles, because they do not acknowledge as genuine this place, in which alone they say the mystery is explicitly proposed ⁷. c) Finally, just as the Innovators and some more audacious Catholics (among whom at the Council of Trent Cajetan was named) attacked the authority of the deuterocanonical books and of certain parts of the books, so at the same time, a little before the Council, not without the offense of Catholics, they rejected this very Johannine comma about the witnesses in heaven. Luther in a public disputation in the year 1522 attacked its genuineness, and in his German version of the Bible eliminated the passage (Michaëlis Introd. in N. Testam. l. c. sect. 7); «Bugenhagen, Luther's colleague, with a great adjuration deterred all from inserting the saying thereafter» (Bengel. Apparat. critic. in h. l. § 9), nor was it admitted into the Bibles of the Lutherans until after the death of Luther, first in the year 1574. Erasmus in his two first editions of the New Testament omitted the passage, and only in the third, in the year 1522, moved by the indignation of the Catholics, received it from the Britannic cod. «There was found, he himself says in the later annotations to h. l., among the English one Greek codex, in which ὅτι τρεῖς etc. is contained. From this Britannic codex, therefore, we restored what in ours was said to be lacking, lest anyone should have an occasion for calumniating» (vid. Michaëlis l. c. sect. 6). Cajetan in his commentaries on h. l. had also himself insinuated a doubt about the genuineness. Resuming, therefore, the proper reasons of this passage which we have set forth, it cannot be denied that by both decrees of the oecumenical Council concerning the canonical parts of the books and concerning the authenticity of the Vulgate this text is comprehended, which most certainly is a part of the canonical book, «as it was accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and is contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition»; which in an eminent manner pertains to the parts that are of themselves dogmatic, which the decree for its scope peculiarly regarded; which in a manner almost similar to the deuterocanonical books, having been at that time called into doubt by the Innovators not without the offense of Catholics, was to be held by the Council in the same census with the deuterocanonical books ⁸ by reason of the very ancient use in the Catholic Church, on which use the Tridentine Fathers, defining the canon of the sacred books with all their parts, leaned. II. Since the Church, as I have said, in the custody of the word of God and hence in her authentic judgments is not ruled by new revelations perpetually succeeding one another, but is fortified against error by the assistance of the Spirit of truth; therefore it is necessary that by humanly knowable indications the truth to be defined be manifested, and in the present matter the divine origin of the book or text to which the judgment of the Church refers. The reason to which the Fathers of the Council, in the definition to be published under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, looked as to a sufficient manifestation of the truth, is indicated in the decree itself to have been the public, long-lasting and constant use of the Church, by which, without further examination, it was established that these books with all their parts had been received, from at least many centuries already, as the written word of God. This reason, moreover, itself has for its foundation the principle that the Spirit of truth, assisting the Church and leading into all truth, could not permit that the universal Church, in her public acts, in the decrees of faith, in the liturgy, in the instruction of the Christian people, in the explanation and defense of the doctrine through many centuries, should have and venerate as the written word of God that which in reality, nevertheless, was not such. And so not only the assistance of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as it is regarded as present to the Council, is the active principle from which the infallibility of the definition is derived; but also the assistance of the same Spirit, inasmuch as it is regarded as perpetual in the Church, was for the Council the objective reason of that same definition (cf. Tractat. de Scripturis th. XVI. n. I. Although indeed the infallibility of the definition depends on the assistance of the Holy Spirit under which it is published, and on this promised assistance our certainty about the truth of the definition leans; nevertheless it pertains to the office of theology to inquire into and declare the very manner in which the preaching and conservation of the truth through the course of ages has stood. And so in the present question we can inquire into the use of this text of 1 Io. V. 7 in the Church in ancient times, and the manner in which it has been preserved down to us. That from at least the IX century the text with which we are dealing was held in public use in the whole Western Church as a part of s. Scripture, is certain from what was said a little before. But not only by the argument of prescription, since especially considering the constitution and principles of the Church, such a use can be explained only by derivation from antiquity; but directly also from the monuments still remaining it is established that the text was acknowledged as genuine in the Church even in the ancient age, as far as we can trace the vestiges of the Latin version. The text, I say, existed, and is shown to have been used by the Fathers in Africa, Italy, Gaul, Spain as a most known and most weighty part of Sacred Scripture, going back from the eighth to the third or second century. In the conference instituted by the order of King Huneric at Carthage in the month of February of the year 484, the Catholic bishops offered «not only of all Africa but also of many islands» (Victor Vit. de persec. Vandal. l. II. n. 18) a profession of faith, which they then on the XII Kalends of May sent through four bishops of the provinces of Numidia and Byzacena to King Huneric ⁹. From the testimonies of Scripture against the Arian bishops they prove in the first part, n. 1-8, the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, in the other part, n. 9-23, the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, and so the one nature of three distinct persons. In this second part of the profession, written in the name of all the Catholic bishops against the Arian bishops, the most powerful and implacable enemies, this very passage about the three witnesses in heaven is brought forward as a testimony no less known and certain than clear and irrefragable. «And that we may teach, still more clearly than light, that the Holy Spirit is of one divinity with the Father and the Son, it is proved by the testimony of John the Evangelist. For he says: three are they who bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one» (in libello fidei n. II, which is book III of the Historiae de persec. Vand. of Victor of Vita). Here some things are most worthy of observation. a) To whomsoever the composition of this libellus fidei was committed, whether to Eugenius of Carthage or to others or to several among the bishops, certainly no one would have dared in such a profession, to be approved by all the bishops and to be proposed in the common name to the Arians, to insert a text as of John the Evangelist, nor would all the others, more than four hundred and sixty bishops, with no one contradicting, have admitted the text, unless it had been accustomed to be read by common use in the Churches of Africa and of the islands. b) If the bishops had sensed that the Arians did not acknowledge this text as genuine, nor had it in their codices; much more, indeed, if the passage existed only in rare copies and was not most known and beyond controversy among the Catholics themselves, they would never, in the common name of the Catholics, have offered such a testimony, as a «clearer than light» confutation of the Arian heresy, to be read and examined by their most hostile enemies. Concerning this persuasion of the bishops, that not even the Arians could call the genuineness of the text into doubt, Vigilius of Thapsus, one of the bishops who had offered the profession (named in the last place among the bishops of the province of Byzacena), furnishes an argument besides. For Vigilius expressly appeals to the reading of this testimony among the Arians themselves: «why, since you read that John the Evangelist said that the three are one, do you take diverse natures in the persons?» Vigil. Taps. de Trin. l. VII. Bibl. Max. PP. T. VIII. p. 789. That therefore Michaëlis (Introd. in N. T. c. 31. sect. 3. T. IV) and others should wish to reduce the whole authority of this profession of faith almost to one Eugenius of Carthage, is absurd ¹⁰. c) Let it be observed that in the first part of the profession, as long as it stops at demonstrating the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, the most holy Confessors string together a very long series of testimonies from all the books, especially of the New Testament and also from 1 Io., yet they do not touch this passage of 1 Io. V. 7. In the same way the author of the book against Pintas the Arian in the first part of the treatise, and s. Fulgentius in the whole l. II. ad Trasimundum, among the innumerable testimonies of Scripture by which they demonstrate the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, do not use this text, which nevertheless they most certainly acknowledged and cited in other places, where they were dealing with the three divine persons together. Hence you may see how overhasty and fallacious is the conclusion which most of the adversaries constitute from the negative argument too generally. The Fathers (they say), disputing with the Arians, did not cite this most opportune passage; therefore they did not have it in their codices. In this way it was easy for Scholz, after the Rationalist critics, to cite a series of Fathers, all of whom he brings forward as undoubted witnesses of the interpolation, for no other reason than that they do not use John's testimony. As long as the attack of the heretics was directed against the person of the Son — whether by denying His distinction from the Father or His divinity — although all those heretics are convicted from their own principles of having erred also concerning the person of the Holy Spirit; we see nevertheless that even the defense of the Fathers in the earlier centuries for the most part kept itself within the limits of the dogma that was directly attacked ¹¹. In this disputation, however, about the person of the Son a citation from the epistle of John was not necessary, since most brilliant testimonies were at hand from the Gospel, by which the distinction and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son are enunciated. We do not, however, on that account deny that it can be shown from certain contexts of the Fathers that they either did not have our comma of v. 7 in their codices, or did not have it as certain and beyond controversy; this alone we say, that for the negative argument to have some force, the general assertion does not suffice by which the Critics are wont to decide too expeditiously that the Fathers did not know the text, because they do not use it where a citation seems to us to have been opportune.

If in the V century the testimony was received by the use of the whole African Church, it is not surprising that we see Vigilius of Thapsus and, not long after, Fulgentius and the author of the book against Pintas appealing to it in their disputations against the Arians without any suspicion that it might perhaps be rejected by anyone. «The united name of the Godhead is clearly declared, John the Evangelist saying in his epistle: three are they who bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Word and the Spirit, and they are one in Jesus Christ..... See, that in the deity and in the substance of the fullness they are one in all things, and in the names of the persons they are three» Vigil. Trin. l. I. Bibl. Max. PP. T. VIII. p. 775; l. X. p. 793. The same form of citing as in Vigilius is in the fragment of a dialogue between an orthodox and a heretic in Nova Bibl. PP. Card. Mai T. I. p. 496. Likewise s. Fulgentius expressly appeals to the text of John in the book of Responses to the objections of the Arians, in obiect. 10., and in the book de Trin. c. 4; likewise the author of the book adv. Pintam n. 8. (Opp. s. Fulgent. ed. Paris. 1684. p. 68. 331. 540). But in the former place (ad obiect. Io. Arian.) Fulgentius joins with his citation another one already used in the III century by s. Cyprian. The words of Fulgentius are: «In the Father therefore and the Son and the Holy Spirit we receive the unity of substance; we do not dare to confound the persons. For blessed John the Apostle testifies, saying: three are they who bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and the three are one. Which also blessed Martyr Cyprian confesses in the epistle on the unity of the Church... and immediately he inserted these testimonies from the Scriptures (Cyprian): the Lord says, I and the Father are one; and again of the Father and the Son and the Spirit it is written: and the three are one». For Fulgentius, therefore, together with the other African bishops, there was absolutely no doubt that in the Churches of Africa in the III century the passage about the three witnesses in heaven had been read and had been cited by Cyprian.

The critics, however, have wanted to weave quibbles about this citation of Cyprian, lest they should be disturbed in their confidence, with which, along with Scholz and others, they pronounce that Vigilius of Thapsus seems to be the first who appealed to this comma, and further that «with good reason the subdititious comma is rejected not only from the text but also from the margin». They say, namely, that Cyprian in this place (de unitate Ecclesiae ed. Baluz. Paris. 1726. p. 195), where s. Fulgentius thought appeal was made to the witnesses in heaven, does not appeal to v. 7, but to the spirit, water and blood of v. 8, according to the mystical interpretation by which these three were understood to signify the three persons, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, as is established from Augustine (contr. Maximin. Arian. l. II. c. 22. n. 3). But in truth a) before Augustine such an interpretation of the thing signified by the spirit, water and blood had never been heard ¹². b) Augustine had recourse to that mystical signification solely to uphold what he had affirmed universally, that in Scripture several things are never said to be one, except those which are consubstantial. Moreover Augustine himself did not propose that mystical interpretation as certain and to be held; but as if conjecturing he asked whether in this way the objection against that hermeneutical canon of his could not be solved. Certainly, therefore, neither would Augustine himself ever have used v. 8 as a convincing and of itself clear demonstration of the unity of nature in three distinct persons ¹³. Hence that interpretation, just as before Augustine it had come into no one's mind, so after him was adopted only by very few, moved by the authority of the holy Doctor ¹⁴; and indeed considered in itself it seems far-fetched and not probable (cf. de Rubeis in Dissertatione de tribus in coelo testibus c. I).

When therefore Cyprian and the other Fathers, especially those more ancient than Augustine, or even later ones who do not depend on his authority (like Pseudo-Athanasius in Disp. contr. Arium n. 44), for demonstrating the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity simply say: «of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: the three are one», it is altogether certain that they appeal not to the 8th but to our 7th comma.

Facundus of Hermiane, indeed, who, since he lived among the Greeks at Constantinople, wrote books for the three Chapters to the Emperor Justinian, transfers the cited passage of s. Cyprian (l. I. p. 7.) to v. 8. But in the first place Facundus seems to have confounded into one the Greek codices, in which v. 7 was lacking, and the Latin codices, in which, at least in the age of Facundus and in the Churches of Africa, the verse existed — after what we have said this could not be denied except impudently. This confusion appears from the very manner of citing; for on the one hand he speaks as if he were wholly ignorant of the 7th comma, on the other hand he retains from the Latin codices the words «on earth»: «three are they who give testimony on earth» etc.; but these require the corresponding testimony of the witnesses in heaven. Hence from the Greek codices, where the omission of v. 7 had already happened, also from v. 8 the words «on earth» were struck out. Moreover, since Facundus, writing among the Greeks and to the Emperor of the Greeks, either dissembled v. 7 or at that time did not admit it on account of the reading of the Greek codices — an African man, to whom the argumentation from 1 Io. V for the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, so often repeated by the bishops of his fatherland, must have been most known, preferred to follow and almost to transcribe the mystical interpretation of Augustine on the 8th comma, lest he should be wholly destitute of the argument so often inculcated in Africa against the Arians from the words «the three are one». And with this method adopted it was easy to transfer the citation of Cyprian too to that same v. 8. But the thing itself and the history of this mystical interpretation cry out against it; and if it is a question of authority, that authority is certainly stronger on the side of s. Fulgentius than on the side of Facundus.

Let it therefore remain settled that already in the III century the reading of v. 7 flourished in the African Church, which we have demonstrated to have been common in that same Church in the V century and afterwards. This being posited, there can be no doubt that even in the time of Tertullian the same passage was accustomed to be read in Africa; and unless one has hardened his mind by prejudice, anyone will readily concede the allegation in the book contra Prax. c. 25. In the preceding chapters Tertullian had demonstrated the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, where among many other things he used that testimony of Christ, Io. X: I and the Father are one: «blind, who do not see; first, that ego and Pater are the signification of two, then in the last word, sumus, not of one person, because it is said in the plural; then that it is unum sumus, not unus sumus», etc. ibid. c. 22. Now in c. 25 he proceeds to the demonstration of the whole Trinity, namely that not only, according to what Tertullian set down above, are the Father and the Son, but in an altogether equal manner there are three, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, of one substance. To prove this very thing pertain these words: «so the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, makes three coherent ones, one from the other; who are three as one, not one; as it was said: I and the Father are one, with respect to the unity of substance, not to the singularity of number» ibid. c. 25. That «I and the Father are one», brought forward above to prove the consubstantiality of the two, is adduced here only to persuade that the other saying must be understood in the same sense: «the three are one»; but this saying is set down to prove the consubstantiality of the three, which proof would be nothing unless the words were cited from the Scriptures. The disciple and the master agree, therefore, in altogether parallel citations:

Cyprian: «of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written, who are three, one».

Tertullian: «The connexion of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Paraclete, and the three are one».

From these things we could now conclude that our seventh verse existed in the most ancient Latin version, produced «in the earliest times of the faith» (Aug. Doctr. Christ. l. II. n. 16), and which by the beginning of the third century in Africa had already «come into use» (cf. Tertull. Monogam. c. II; contr. Marc. II. c. 9; contr. Prax. c. 5), contrary to what Millius judged, who improbably conjectured that the citation of Tertullian and Cyprian was derived not from the Latin version but from Greek codices alone.

This reading in the old version is confirmed from the Speculum of Augustine published by Card. Mai (Nov. Bibl. PP. T. I. P. II. p. 6. 10) and from the Pseudo-Athanasian Enarratio on the Creed published by Iosephus Blanchinius (p. 40). Blanchinius thinks that this Enarratio was written in Latin in Africa before the rise of the heresy of Pelagius. The reasons by which the most eminent Cardinals Besutius and Maius claimed that Speculum for Augustine in preference to the Maurist opinion can be read in the Preface of Card. Mai, l. c. It is certain that in both little works the old Latin version is employed, as it was before the version of the Old Testament and the emendation of the New by s. Hieronymus. Now, twice in the Speculum and once in the Enarratio of the Creed the passage about the three witnesses in heaven is expressly cited. In the Speculum under ch. II on the distinction of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: «Likewise there: since three are they who bear witness on earth, the spirit, the water and the blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus; and three are they who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one».

Again, under ch. III on the Holy Spirit the same citation recurs, with the witnesses on earth omitted. In the Enarratio of the Creed it is said most effectively: «Let John answer for us all, who, reclining familiarly on the breast of our Lord, was able to know the hidden mysteries of the whole teaching.... Three are they, he says, who bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one. After these things, is it not for us that to lose such a faith is death and to have kept it is salvation?» ib. p. 40.

As regards Augustine, even if it may be permitted to doubt whether this Speculum has him as its very author, it could certainly in no way have happened that the holy Father in Africa in the fifth century was ignorant of our verse. Indeed, whoever would persuade himself that in the year 430, in which Augustine died, this verse was still unknown, and that at the time of the profession of faith offered in the year 484 a text of such importance was already in the common reading of the African Churches, he would have to weigh no less all the principles than the constancy and vigilance by which the Church was always governed in guarding the Holy Scriptures. How could, within those fifty years, with no one noticing, a universal change of such importance have taken place in Africa, where on account of a change of the version in a matter far smaller a huge tumult arose, so that the Bishop was compelled to return to the old and customary reading, «unwilling after a great danger to remain without his people» (Aug. ep. 71. n. 5). Nevertheless, since at the time of Augustine the verse was already lacking in many Greek codices, and hence this sort of emendation had without doubt migrated also into Latin exemplars somewhere, Augustine could in his polemical writings, namely against Maximinus, dissemble this testimony in accordance with his economic principle, that things which are somewhere called into doubt «are not brought forward with so great firmness against contradictors» (vid. Tract. de ss. Script.). At least he nowhere expressly cites the passage in the works that survive; on the sufficiently clear allusions, see de Rubeis, dissertat. cit. c. 6. and Card. Mai. Praefat. ad Specul. Aug. p. VII. cf. Bengel. Apparat. crit. in h. l. § 20.

Now from the reading in the African Churches it would have to be concluded that the same reading was not lacking in the other Western Churches as well, even if we were destitute of express testimonies for proving that. Yet these testimonies are not lacking. To Spain belong the «Collectio testimoniorum Scripturae et Patrum», which F. A. Zaccarias judged to be older than s. Isidore, while Maffeius and Arevalus thought it could be attributed to Isidore himself (Opp. s. Isidori ed. Arevalo T. II. p. 27. seq.; Isidorian. c. 83); then the most celebrated codex of the Toletan Bibles, no more recent than the eighth century (cf. P. Vercellone Apparat. Bibl. T. I. Lect. variar. Vulg. p. 84); Etherius and Beatus against Elipandus; before these Idacius, if he is the author of the disputation against Varimadus (cf. Ruinart. Commentar. in Hist. persec. Vand. c. 4. n. 7. p. 442). In these monuments the express seventh verse about the witnesses in heaven is found together with the eighth about the witnesses on earth, as the genuine text of the epistle of John (Opp. s. Isidor. T. VII. p. 291; Lectiones var. ex cod. Tolet. in vindiciis. Vulg. Blanchinii p. CCIII; contra Elipand. l. I. n. 26. Galland. T. XIII. p. 296; contra Varimad. Bibl. Max. PP. T. V. p. 729).

In Gaul in the fourth century Phoebadius (otherwise Soebadius) Aginnensis cited the passage in almost the same way as Tertullian and Cyprian (l. contr. Arian. Bibl. Max. PP. T. IV. p. 305); in express words, before the middle of the fifth century, Eucherius Lugdunensis (unless another be the author) transcribes both verses in the book of Formulae spirituales c. 11, where he treats of numbers, «which the mystical reason of the exempla makes more celebrated among the sacred writings» (Bibl. Max. T. VI. p. 838). «To the Trinity (it is referred) in the epistle of John: three are they who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit; and three are they who give testimony on earth, the spirit, the water and the blood» ¹⁵.

In Italy Cassiodorus in the middle of the sixth century not only collected codices of the Scriptures, both Latin and Greek, or, as he says, the Greek Pandect, but in order that those which he left to his monastery of Vivarium might be most correct, he gave solicitous care, instituting a collation of the ancient Latin and Greek codices ¹⁶

Now indeed Cassiodorus adduces both verses, the seventh and the eighth, in his Complexiones (ed. Maffei post Histor. theolog. in opuscul. p. 145). On this passage of Cassiodorus, Maffeius rightly notes: «we learn now from our author that the Romans also had books of better note and more ancient speaking thus; for since with so great zeal he commanded his monks in Inst. div. lect. to use codices purged by the collation of the most excellent Greek text as well, and that in ambiguous places the authority of two or three ancient and corrected codices be sought, who would doubt that he himself first of all performed the same?» See the rest there. To this also belongs the codex of Cava, attributed by Card. Mai to the seventh or eighth century, and Ambrosius Ansbertus in the middle of the eighth century in Apoc. l. I. (Bibl. Max. T. XIII. p. 415), in both of which monuments our verse exists.

Therefore in the Church of the West we can show by positive documents not only that from the ninth century onward the common and public use of this testimony as canonical Scripture existed, but also its derivation from the earliest times of the faith, and its reading in the old Latin version¹⁷.

When a defender of the verse had asked I. D. Michaelis, one of the first assailants of verse 7, whence he himself knew that the Latin Fathers citing the verse had not had Greek codices, he replied with great haughtiness, «he had not thought that any beginner in theology was ignorant that the Latin Fathers, except Hieronymus, not knowing Greek, could not have used Greek codices» l. c. sect. 3. Therefore did not even that critical man know that most of the Latin Fathers who are cited as witnesses for this verse — Tertullian, Cyprian, Vigilius, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus — knew the Greek language very well? Whoever said that the other Fathers, Hilary, Ambrose, etc., did not know Greek has never compared their books with the writings of the Greek Fathers, Origen, Basil, etc. after s. Hieronymus, and much more as it was received before and after Alcuin's recension.

Since God constituted the visible head of His whole Church in the Latin Church, in it and through it He wished to preserve with special providence, just as the integrity of the faith universally, so also the integrity of the written word, as is openly evident from the history of the deuterocanonical books, whose authenticity, after many fluctuations had arisen among the Eastern Doctors, was vindicated from imminent obscuration into the open light chiefly by the constant tradition, use, vigilance, and definitions of the Latin Church. Hence to the Fathers of Trent, by the wonderful providence of the Holy Spirit, the use of the Latin Church in the old Vulgate edition shone before them and provided the safest norm for both decrees, both concerning the canonical books and concerning the authenticity of the Vulgate.

On the contrary, in the East, just as there was greater dissension concerning the deuterocanonical books in general, so a great obscurity occurs concerning this text of John. If one should wish to appeal to the passages of the Greek Fathers where they speak of the Trinity, of the three hypostases and the unity of essence (as I see has been done by a recent vindicator of genuineness, an Englishman, Carolus Forster), testimonies would of course be at hand without number. But surely the arguments do not reach the goal. Nor do those arguments seem more convincing which are usually brought forward from the dialogue «Philopatris», about which nevertheless see, if you have leisure, Cave Hist. Litter. T. I. p. 17. The valid positive documents are reduced almost to these.

Origen appeals to the words «three are one» as to an irrefragable authority, in order to demonstrate the unity of nature in three distinct persons (in Ps. 122. v. 2. Opp. T. II. p. 821). Likewise, to demonstrate the unity of the divine nature in three persons, «these three are one» is expressly cited as the words of John, in the disputation supposed to be of Athanasius against Arius n. 44 (Opp.

Athan. T. II. p. 229). Euthymius Zigabenus (Panoplia P. I. tit. VII. Bibl. Max. PP. T. XIX. p. 47) cites in this manner: «one is said of those things which are of the same essence, when the nature is the same and the persons distinct; whence that saying: and the three are one» ἓν λέγεται ἐπὶ τῶν ὁμοουσίων μέν, φύσεως ἑτερότης δὲ ὑποστάσεων· ὡς τὸ καὶ τὰ τρία ἕν εἰσι (restored from context; Euthymius Zigabenus Panoplia I. tit. VII) ¹⁸.

Furthermore, the whole verse was quoted and is extant in Greek and Latin in the acts of the Fourth Lateran Council, at which some Greek bishops also were present (Hard. VII. p. 18); afterwards it was cited by Emmanuel Calecas, a Greek writing for the Greeks in the fourteenth century (Combefis. Auctuar. II. P. II. p. 219), and by Joseph Bryennius, a schismatic Byzantine monk, at the beginning of the fifteenth century (Griesbach, dissert. cit. p. 11). The same verse is now found in the ecclesiastical lesson of the Greeks and Russians and in the modern Greek version (Bengel l. c. § 22) ¹⁹. For the existence in the old codices there can be adduced directly the testimony in the Prologue to the catholic epistles under the name of Jerome, indirectly the collation of codices undertaken by Cassiodorus. Of the Greek codices that survive, three are named in which the verse is found: the Dublin (Monfortianus), the Ottobonian (in the Vatican), the Neapolitan (11th century). The Complutensian edition and Erasmus's third likewise received it, and afterwards all the rest until Rationalism prevailed among the Protestants.

Finally, if we look at the context of the epistle of John, it certainly seems broken with this comma omitted, and with it admitted it is so well-joined and coherent with itself that, if the verse were found somewhere in suitable witnesses, one would have to congratulate oneself on the most opportune filling of the lacuna. Moved by this consideration of the context, the Protestant Bengel himself exclaims: «the adamantine coherence of the verses compensates for every poverty of the codices.... This saying (v. 7) can be recognized with more certainty than a part of a leaf lost from some book, sought here and there, found somewhere, and in the whole of its texture agreeing with the part not lost» (l. c. § 28). Certainly, with v. 7 cut off, the expression of v. 8 in the masculine gender is very strange: «because three are..... these three are one»; nor does any sufficiently apt explanation of it seem able to be given (cf. Gregor. Naz. or. 31. al. 37. n. 19), which appears most manifest from the coherence with verse 7. Moreover — and this is even more serious — in the following v. 9 that: «the testimony of God, because he has testified concerning his Son μαρτυρία τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἣν μεμαρτύρηκε), altogether demands verse 7, and with it lacking has nothing to which it may be referred. Finally, the congruence of this verse with the Gospel of John, both in respect of the matter and in respect of the manner of speaking, is most manifest, if you compare Io. V. 31-37; VIII. 14-18; XV. 26 ²⁰.

I do not now ask whether this whole demonstration would be sufficient, if the matter concerned a book abandoned to private industry or negligence. But if the talk were of a Code of the fundamental laws of the republic committed to the custody of public authority, certainly a public use of this kind reaching back to the very first beginnings would be a sufficient demonstration of authenticity, so that no legitimate doubt could be admitted; and if a suit were brought, the authenticity could and ought to be juridically declared. But here we are concerned with the integrity of Scripture in some part of it of the gravest importance, and so we are concerned with the Code of faith committed by divine institution not to private industry but to the public custody of the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Therefore such a public and constant use of the Church, such as we have shown, in a text that is dogmatic in itself is a sufficient demonstration that the text was legitimately admitted into the codex of the Scriptures; but it would not have been legitimately admitted unless it had first been written by the Apostle John. Whence, even setting aside the Tridentine decrees and looking only at the use in the Church in itself, no doubt about the genuineness could be admitted. The Church herself, moreover, had available reasons knowable in a human way, which would have been abundantly sufficient for passing judgment on the genuineness.

With this genuineness established, we see the manner of its preservation to be this: that the text certainly passed from the Greek exemplars into the version established in the first times of the faith and received by the Latin Church, and through this ecclesiastical version above all it has always been preserved in public use. Nor, however, is it therefore necessary to affirm that this use was equally universal at every time and in all regions; for after the lacuna introduced in many Greek codices, perhaps in the fourth century, and spread more widely, it could hardly happen that Latin books here and there would not be conformed to them, as even now certain Latin codices show, which however were written not before the sixth century, at which time it most clearly stands that our reading was acknowledged and used by the Latin Fathers. But with this variety introduced among the Easterns and from there some hesitation also arising in the West, as happened almost in regard to whole deuterocanonical books, it is no wonder if some Latin Fathers too (as Augustine) preferred rather to abstain from the use, especially the polemical use, of this testimony.

III. Since among the Protestants not only is the true Church of Christ not present, but from their fundamental principles neither is there any visible, lawful religious society which is contained and governed by authority, but there are only individual men, who are led by their own private judgment; hence also Scripture is not an instrument under the custody and authentic interpretation of public authority, destined for society itself, but is a book destined and permitted to the examination and knowledge of individuals. Therefore just as no authentic interpretation of the true sense, so no authentic declaration of genuineness is recognized, whether of a whole book or of individual texts; but the genuineness and hence the authenticity of the Scriptures is to be explored and known solely by individuals through historical and critical examination (see Tract. de Script.). From these principles, however, it follows that while the foundations of faith and religion are laid in human science and learning, at least for the greater part of men the authority of the Scriptures cannot stand, and by the learned themselves, to whose school the revealed doctrine of faith is reduced, according to the diversity of minds and the imperfection of science, sometimes more, sometimes fewer, sometimes all the sacred books are rejected as spurious or interpolated — not indeed rightly, but still without defection from the fundamental principles of the sect.

As to the clause therefore called into question, we do not now contend that critical and historical supports of such a kind are available that by them alone, even supposing the false principle of the Protestants, by which they use Scripture no differently than a profane and private book, the genuineness could be demonstrated as certain and placed beyond doubt²¹; but since from our catholic principles the genuineness is fully established, we at the same time affirm that the Protestants, from their principles and critical supports, cannot demonstrate the interpolation.

If you concede that our verse was lacking in Greek codices already from the fourth century onward more frequently, and somewhere perhaps even in the third century — whether that happened by the error of hasty scribes on account of the similarity of the words in both verses, as most suspect, and that it could have happened they confirm by an induction from examples of similar lacunae²²: or whether it was done deliberately for the observance of the disciplina arcani, as Bengel thought (l. c. § 25); or whether the propagation of the omission is to be referred to the work of Eusebius, to whom Constantine had committed the preparation of many codices for the Church of Constantinople (Euseb. Vita Constant. l. IV. c. 36), as the most recent author, the distinguished Le Hir, suggests (cf. Introd. in N. T. compiled by the distinguished H. Valroger T. II. p. 566); or whether you admit that the excision could have been done in many ways, but that you are ignorant of how it was done — if, I say, you concede this defect in many Greek codices of the fourth century and in some Latin ones afterwards conformed to their norm, the adversaries have nothing further that they could demonstrate as certain by critical supports. And yet from such a defect it can in no way be concluded that the dogmatic testimony which is shown by positive documents to have existed in the reading of the Latin Church from the remotest antiquity did not exist in the primitive edition of the epistle of John. Therefore they cannot demonstrate the interpolation by critical supports.

All the arguments which can be opposed against the genuineness and are wont to be brought upon the stage by the adversaries with no small apparatus are drawn from the codices of Scripture, from the writings of the Fathers, from the ancient versions.

1°. Greek codices older than the fifth century, or at the very most the fourth, they have none; of this supreme antiquity two or three are reckoned: the Vaticanus (B) with its twin, the Sinaiticus of Tischendorf, and the Alexandrinus (A), then one G. (Card. Passionei, now in the Bibliotheca Angelica) of the ninth or tenth century; all the rest are of more recent age, from the tenth to the fifteenth century. And so, except for three among the Greek codices that contain the catholic epistles, none survives older than the age of Charlemagne, but they were all written at that time when no one can deny that the reading of our comma 7 was common in the whole Latin Church. The codices are indeed derived from older ones, and the very considerable number of those in which the comma is lacking would already by itself demonstrate that the omission is older than the age in which the codices were written. But if you compare with one another this double series of documents, of which the one exhibits the clause from the ninth to the fifteenth century in the public and universal use of the whole Latin Church, while the other is constituted by Greek codices written almost by private work and authority, which in the same lapse of time commonly do not have it — certainly from a computation of codices of this kind you will never by any art derive a certain argument by which you demonstrate that the text written by John is in these private Greek exemplars²³, and that in the public use of the whole Western Church, with no one ever contradicting, a text interpolated in a matter of such importance was received, and that the same interpolation, with that authority of the codices of yours offering no obstacle, prevailed even among the schismatic Greeks!

2°. The scarcity of the older codices can be abundantly compensated by the writings of the Fathers, provided only that they are such that from the contexts it certainly stands that the Fathers did not read in their codices the text in question. For this, however, it does not suffice, a) that the Fathers do not cite our comma where they prove by testimonies of Scripture the divinity of the Word and the consubstantiality of the Father and of the Son, or where they prove the divinity of the Holy Spirit. What I say is most evident, as I showed above, from the manner of citing of those very Fathers who use our testimony. Tertullian adv. Praxeam, the African bishops in the Confession of Faith to Hunneric, s. Fulgentius l. II. ad Trasamundum and l. contra Fastidiosum (with the book de Trin. ad Felicem notarium compared), the same Fulgentius (or another author) against Pintas the Arian — for proving those heads of doctrine one by one they heap together many testimonies, among which however they do not place this one of ours; but where they treat of the Trinity in common, only then do they adduce also these words of John. b) It does not suffice to have shown that by certain Fathers verse 6 is joined immediately with our 8, so that you conclude from this that verse 7 was lacking. For Idacius (or another) contr. Varimadum, Cassiodorus, the Speculum of Augustine, the little book of Testimonies (among the works of s. Isidore), Etherius and Beatus, the Toletan codex and the Cavensis, as also very many other codices, join them in this way — all of whom, in inverted order, place our 8 after v. 6 and then 7. Finally c) it does not suffice that the Fathers cite the eighth comma without the seventh, if the scope is not the demonstration of the Holy Trinity but another, to which the 8th, not the 7th, verse is fitting.

Now with these conditions observed, without which nothing is established from the silence of the Fathers for the absence of the verse in their codices, it cannot be demonstrated that our comma was lacking to the Fathers of the third century. Mill diligently collected the passages of the Fathers in his annotations to this passage, who, although he thought that our testimony was unknown to all those Fathers, nay even that it was lacking in the Itala version, nevertheless sincerely defended its genuineness; from Mill afterwards Wetstein, Griesbach, Scholz and others transcribed the passages of the Fathers, and what he had set before himself as a difficulty to be solved, these took up as a certain argument of interpolation.

As to the Fathers therefore of the third century, Griesbach with his allies says: «Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria did not read the seventh comma, neither in the adumbrations rendered into Latin nor in the remaining works,

Hippolytus contra Noetum, Dionysius Alex. in ep. ad Paulum Samosatenum »: Further they add: «it is not cited by the Latin Fathers, where it would pertain to the matter most of all and could altogether be expected; to this belong the author de bapt. haeret. in Cyprian and Novatian».

Let us examine them individually. The place where Irenaeus ought to have cited comma 7, Mill judges to be l. III. c. 18 (which in the Massuet edition is the 16th). And yet in that chapter Irenaeus treats of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ is one person, not one Jesus and another Christ according to the ravings of the Gnostics; whence there neither Mt. XXVIII. 19: «baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit», nor Io. X. 30: «I and the Father are one», is cited; nor did 1. Io. V. 7. pertain more to this. Nay, Irenaeus in the works left to us never cites Io. X. 30, and the other place, Mt. XXVIII. 19, only once (III. 19. al. 17.), to show that the Holy Spirit, the same one who is given to the faithful, descended upon Jesus Christ when baptized. Where, then, was the greater necessity of adducing 1. Io. V. 7 than Io. X. 30? Perhaps Irenaeus also lacked the text of the Gospel?

Clement of Alexandria in his undoubted works nowhere cites either Mt. XXVIII. 19. or Io. X. 30.; what greater necessity, then, of the Johannine comma? Only in the Excerpts of Theodotus at the end of the works of Clement in the Potter edition n. 61. is Io. X. 30. adduced to demonstrate the divinity of the person assuming the flesh; but of the Trinity there is there no mention.

Furthermore, if Catholic theologians were to adduce, with such assurance, the Latin Adumbrationes under the name of Clement, and perhaps also the book of Hippolytus against Noetus, and the letter of Dionysius, in support of their cause, I do not doubt that those men, κριτικώτατοι as they are, would cry out that suspect merchandise was being imported. Meanwhile, from those Adumbrationes (Bibl. Max. PP. III. p. 233) we shall never know what the author or interpreter read in the letter of John; for they consist of a few sentences culled from the letter. Hippolytus does not himself treat of the Trinity of persons, but of the distinction of the Father and the Son and of the Incarnation of the Word. Of the Trinity he makes mention only in passing, n. 14, with no other text adduced besides the formula of baptism. But, they say: « Dionysius often cites the eighth verse, but not the seventh, although he treats of the divinity of Christ and of the Trinity through almost the whole letter ». We answer: not often, but only in question 4, where he declares that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, Dionysius cites the words of verse 8 twice in the same context: « and these three are one, the water and the blood and the spirit » (Opp. ed. de Magistris p. 230. 231). There, therefore, the discourse was not about the Trinity but about another matter, to which verse 7 had nothing to pertain, while verse 8 could be most aptly applied. But in this whole letter and in the other works published under his name neither Mt. XXVIII. 19 nor Io. X. 30 is ever cited; and what greater necessity (I ask again) can be shown for using this text of 1 Io. V. 7?

Two Latin writers of the third century remain. First, the author of the treatise on the baptism of heretics, they say, « joins verse 6 and verse 8, omitting the seventh ». But if we assume that the author, equally with the other Fathers, had in his codex the inverted order of clauses 7 and 8, they will be able to demonstrate by no argument that this is false. By this very fact, neither will it be demonstrated from that joining of the verses, and much less will it be suggested from the context, that clause 7 was lacking to the author. For he treats not of the Most Holy Trinity but of an entirely different matter. He distinguishes « three species of baptism: the baptism of the spirit, which is for the most part joined with the baptism of water », the baptism of water, and the baptism of blood. If, therefore, it is asked in what way baptism is one, « it is altogether manifest, he says, for that reason, because they are diverse species of one and the same baptism flowing forth from one wound into water and blood... And since we seem to have divided all spiritual baptism three ways, let us come also to the proof of the proposed narrative. For John says in his letter, teaching us about our Lord: this is he who came through water and blood, etc., v. 6. Because three bear testimony: the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are one, v. 8; so that from these we may gather that water is wont to supply the spirit, and that blood, proper to men (martyrdom), is wont to supply the spirit, and that the spirit itself (desire with charity) is wont to supply the spirit » (Opp. Cypr. ed. Baluz. p. 364). Now, I ask, what need was there of our clause 7 for declaring this distinction of baptisms? That the author had it in his codex not interposed between v. 6 and v. 8, as it now is, but after those cited verses, we assume not without reason, although we have no need even of this assumption. Moreover, we demonstrated above that in Africa, where this author was writing, the clause was wont to be read in the third century.

The other Latin writer who is objected is Novatian, « who, in l. de Trinitate, proves with many testimonies of Scripture that Christ, as also the Holy Spirit, is God, and yet passes over this place, certainly in the highest degree opportune ». The same answer returns. Novatian indeed treats at length of the divinity of Christ, of the distinction of the Father and the Son, and briefly also, c. 29, of the Holy Spirit; he does not, however, institute a proof from the Scriptures concerning the three persons in common; whence, although (c. 12) he adduces that saying of Christ, Mt. XXVIII. 20: « behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age », he nevertheless never uses the text of v. 19, expressing at once all three persons: « baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ». What is there, then, why you should wonder at the omission of this testimony of 1 Io. V. 7 as well?

From the Fathers of the third century, therefore, no witness can be brought forth for the absence of the verse in the codices already at that age; but witnesses can be cited for its existence: Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian.

Among the Fathers, then, of the fourth and fifth centuries there are indeed some, such as Cyril of Alexandria (Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 463), who in their contexts supply a positive argument that this verse was either lacking in their codices or was deliberately dissembled by them, because at that time it was already lacking in more or fewer codices. But contexts of this kind are quite rare, so that the long series of names which Griesbach described almost entirely from Mill, and from him Scholz (with many errors added), must be restricted to altogether few Fathers. Most certainly out of place are cited by them, among the witnesses of the omission: Alexander of Alexandria in the letter to Alexander of Constantinople, the Council of Sardica in the synodal letter to all the Churches (Hard. I. p. 295. 661), and (whether by manifest fraud or ignorance) the Council of Nicaea itself. For in those letters there is no treatment of the three persons in common, and therefore neither is Mt. XXVIII. 19 cited; nay, for the very divinity of the Son texts of Scripture are used most sparingly in the Sardican letter. But the disputations about the Holy Spirit, which Gelasius of Cyzicus, at the end of the fifth century, reported as held, as it were, in the Council of Nicaea with the philosophers of the Gentiles, are without doubt supposititious, whatever be the case with the omission of John's clause in these Gelasian disputations (Hard. I. 40. seqq.). Although, however, the individual Fathers, considered each by himself and separately, supply a positive argument for proving the absence of the clause only in very few cases; nevertheless I shall not deny what I conceded at the beginning: that from the common silence among

the Greek Fathers, for that time in which the dispute against heretics was carried on deliberately not only about the person of the Son but about the Holy Spirit and about the three divine persons, and from which time sufficiently ample demonstrations of the Catholic dogma survive, and therefore for the closing fourth century and thereafter, it can be concluded that the verse was already lacking in many Greek codices, and thence also in some Latin ones.

I do not wish to pass over in silence here what the adversaries boast concerning St. Leo the Great. « Leo the Great, says Griesbach (p. 13), transcribes the whole context, but skips over this verse in the celebrated letter to Flavian, translated into the Greek tongue and read out in the Council of Chalcedon ». If it were so, the Pontiff, writing to the Greeks, would have to be said to have deliberately passed over the verse; for the suspicion that the verse did not exist in the Latin codices in the middle of the fifth century would be absurd. Three decades after the letter to Flavian was written we see the text in the common reading of the Churches of Africa; the same testimony was read in Spain and in Gaul; two generations after Leo, in Italy, Cassiodorus²⁴ had it in codices certainly ancient and most carefully corrected; afterwards it appears in the common reading of the whole Latin Church: how, then, could the testimony have been unknown to Leo the Pontiff? But from the letter to Flavian you will conclude nothing else, except that the order of verses 7 and 8 in Leo's codices, as with the other Fathers, was inverted. For the Pontiff cites v. 6 and the v. 8 connected to it; but to v. 7, which followed after our v. 8, he did not proceed, because it pertained to nothing of his purpose. His purpose was, against the Eutychians, to demonstrate the truth of the human nature of Christ, which is declared by vv. 6 and 8 joined together, but not by the subsequent v. 7 (ep. Leonis 28. al. 24. ad Flav. c. 5).

3°. The adversaries profit no more from the ancient versions than from the Greek codices and from the authority of the Fathers. Let there be set aside, first of all, the Ethiopic, Armenian²⁵, Philoxenian Syriac and the other Syriac versions of the later recension, the Arabic, the Slavonic; for whatever be the case with their primitive reading, they were all made from the Greek text of the fourth to the ninth century, at which age we concede that our clause was already lacking in many Greek exemplars.

That the Copts already in the third century, or at the beginning of the fourth, had the Sacred Scriptures translated into their own language, the learned gather from certain facts of ecclesiastical history; but no one, I think, will arrogate to himself a certain judgment about its primitive state. If in one or another codex known to our Critics verse 7 is lacking, a lacuna of this kind could easily have been introduced afterwards from the Greek codices. The reasoning is similar with respect to the simple Syriac version. In its codices, which our learned men have known up to now, even the deuterocanonical books of the Old and New Testament (2 Pet. 2 and 3 Io. Iud. Apoc.) are wanting, which nevertheless it is certain still existed in it in the fourth century, at the time of St. Ephrem (cf. Tract. de Scriptur. th. XV.). Nothing, therefore, is to be wondered at if, even with respect to this reading of 1 Io. V. 7, some disturbance has permeated from the Greeks to the Syrians.

That these things are so, we cannot demonstrate; but neither have we undertaken that as our task; the adversaries promise the demonstration, and to it they are surely bound, who accuse of interpolation the reading of the whole Church — a reading which for a long time now has been common even to the schismatics and to the Protestants themselves — and would wish it to be eliminated from the editions of the sacred books. It is abundantly enough for us to have shown that, from Catholic principles, the genuineness is demonstrated, and that from all the critical resources, even if meanwhile the false theological principles of the Protestants be granted, the interpolation cannot be demonstrated.

The variation of the Protestants is indeed worthy of notice, as in other things so also in their judgment concerning this apostolic testimony. Nothing at all new has been found against the genuineness of the reading which was not fully known at the beginning of the eighteenth century to Mill, Bengel, and the rest, if you except a few Greek codices collated more recently, from which no new weight accrues to the contrary arguments. Nevertheless, as long as the dogma itself enunciated by the testimony was not called into doubt, those learned Protestants, although destitute of the Catholic principle of Tradition and of authority, led by I know not what obscure Christian sense, as by remnants derived from the Catholic Church, understood²⁶ the constant use of the ecclesiastical reading, so that its authority in favor of the genuineness of the dogmatic text could not be undermined by those arguments, for the most part purely negative. Hence, from the end of the sixteenth century up to the last decades of the past century, almost the Socinians alone rejected the testimony together with the thing enunciated; the other Protestants, still retaining the dogma of the Trinity, strenuously defended even the genuineness of the testimony by the authority of the Latin version, so that at times they called the deniers even into the crime of heresy; just as Michaelis complains happened to himself (l. c. sect. I). After, however, the dogma itself began first to be attacked by undermining, and then, with Rationalism prevailing, to be openly rejected by most of the Protestant doctors; then at last they set about exaggerating not new arguments — which, as I said, they have none at all — but those difficulties long since most well known, by which they might proclaim the testimony first doubtful, then wholly spurious. This history of the controversy indeed shows that they descended into this opinion much more by prejudices and dogmatic error than by critical arguments.

But this is more to be wondered at: that some even learned Catholics have either agreed with them in denying²⁷, or at least elsewhere scarcely dare openly to affirm and defend its genuineness.

« In the doctrine of s. John, when the connection has been set forth in I. Io. V. 6-9. between the testimony of the Spirit for Christ as God and as man v. 6, between the testimony of the three on earth for the true humanity of Christ v. 8, and between the testimony of the three in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, who are three one v. 7; from this very passage the unity of three really distinct persons according to the divine essence is demonstrated ».

I. We shall speak first of the connection of verse 6. with the clauses 7°. and 8°. For this, moreover, it is necessary to investigate the scope which John had set before himself in the epistle, and further to determine the sense both of the testimony and of the words water and blood and spirit, which are treated in that v. 6. From this, indeed, the signification of the witnesses of v. 8. is also to be understood, since there too three witnesses are named, the spirit, the water and the blood.

The principal scope of John the Apostle, just as in his Gospel so also in this epistle, as it were an introduction to the Gospel, is this, that he teach and preach, « that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God » Io. XX. 31, which he declares most openly immediately at the beginning of the epistle just as at the beginning of the Gospel, and repeats and inculcates everywhere in the progress of both writings (cf. cl. P. Patritii opus praestantissimum in Evangelia l. 1. c. 4. n. 46. seqq.). S. Irenaeus sets forth this scope of John more distinctly l. III. c. 11. The heretics, namely, the inventors of falsely so-called knowledge (I. Tim. VI. 20. cf. Coloss. II), from whom the sects of the Gnostics were propagated, having introduced a multitude of Aeons (so far as concerns the present), called one the Word, another the Christ, another the Savior, another the visible Jesus, whom some admitted to be a mere man, others not even a man truly born of the Virgin Mary. But all conspired in denying that Jesus himself is the Son of God, or is the Christ; but some in one way, others in another, fabled that the Aeon Christ or the Savior descended into Jesus at the baptism in the form of a dove, and at the time of the passion and death flew away again into the heavenly pleroma. « Announcing this faith, John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing through the announcement of the Gospel to take away the error which had been sown in men by Cerinthus and much earlier by those who are called Nicolaites, who are a shoot of that which is falsely named knowledge, in order to confound them, and to persuade them, that there is one God who made all things through his Word; and not as those say, one indeed the fabricator (δημιουργόν), another the Father of the Lord, and one indeed the son of the fabricator, another the Christ from above, whom they say also persevered impassible, descending into Jesus the son of the fabricator, and flew back again into his own pleroma... Therefore wishing to circumscribe all such things, the disciple of the Lord... began in the doctrine which is according to the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word... But according to them neither did the Word become flesh, nor the Christ, nor the Savior who was made of all (collected as it were by a contribution from all the Aeons). For they will neither that the Word and the Christ came into this world; but that the Savior, not incarnate and not having suffered, descended as a dove into that Jesus who had been made by the disposition, and when he had announced the unknown Father, ascended again into the pleroma... Others again say that Jesus indeed was born of Joseph and Mary, and that into him descended the Christ who is from above, existing without flesh and impassible. But according to no opinion of the heretics did the Word of God become flesh » Iren. l. c. n. 1-3. Although, however, it is not to be doubted that these monsters were variously arranged and cultivated in the about forty years which had flowed by from the writing of the Gospel and of the epistles of John up to Valentinus the Gnostic, that the principles and seeds of this falsely so-called knowledge had already been scattered in Asia minori in the very age of John the Apostle is both probable in itself, and is made certain both from the testimony of the most ancient Fathers and from the very form and manner of writing of the Apostle (cf. P. Patritium l. c. n. 11. sqq.).

Already from the obvious reading itself it is clear that this last chapter of the epistle too aims at this, v. 4-13. 20, that it be taught that that very Jesus who appeared visibly is both true man and the Christ and the true Son of God. « This is the victory which overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? » There follows the bringing forward of the real testimony and of the formal testimony concerning Jesus, true man and true Christ, Son of God. « This is he who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ; not in water only, but in water and blood. And the Spirit is he who testifies, that Christ is the truth ». The passage is obscure, in that it admits several senses, among which for us, to whom not all the circumstances of refuting the error are known, it is difficult to determine the uniquely true sense; the Fathers and the interpreters too go off into diverse opinions.

If it could be certainly proved that the Apostle had before his eyes the condemnation of that heresy which imagined that Christ descended into Jesus, baptized in the form of a dove, and, the ministry of preaching being completed, in the passion and death of Jesus flew back again impassible into his heavenly pleroma; in this hypothesis, I say, the passage would most conveniently be understood in this sense: he, as one person who is Jesus, true man, and Christ, the Son of God, came and was manifested both in the baptism, by which he wished to begin his public life and the completion of our redemption, and in his passion and death; not only did Christ the Son of God come at the baptism upon Jesus the man, about to depart from him at the time of death; but one person, Jesus Christ, came and was manifested not in water (baptism) only, but in water and blood (in the effusion of blood and in death). Tertullianus (de Baptismo c. 16), Beda, Oecumenius, Anselmus Laudunensis (glossa interlinearis) indicate this sense in h. l. Nevertheless another interpretation seems more probable and simpler, according to which not only the effusion of blood, but also of water, on the cross is understood by the name of water, not, however, baptism. Thus thought Athanasius (contr. Apollin. l. I. n. 18), Augustinus (contr. Maximin. Arian. l. II. c. 22. n. 3), Eucherius Lugdun. (qq. in V. et N. T. Bibl. Max. PP. T. VI. p. 853), Strabo (in glossa ordinaria), Innocentius III. (de celebr. Missarum cap. In quadam l. III. tit. 41. c. 8) and others. Certainly this very conjunction of water and blood seems altogether to agree with the testimony Io. XIX. 34. 35, especially if one attends to the fact that with equal care in both places, both of the epistle and of the Gospel, this matter is inculcated, that from the pierced side of Christ there came out blood and water: « immediately there came out blood and water; and he who saw it bore testimony, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he says what is true, that you also may believe ».

Moreover there is doubt about the sense of the last clause: « the spirit (τὸ πνεῦμα) is he who testifies, that Christ is the truth ». In the first place one may doubt about the true reading. For the Greek text as now edited has: « ὅτι τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια, that the Spirit is the truth ». But both in the Greek and Latin codices and among the Fathers the reading is varied: some have Χριστός, others πνεῦμα. In the Latin Vulgate reading the object of the testification is that Christ is the truth: not merely an apparent man, as the Docetae said, nor a mere man into whom Christ descended; but the same is true man and true Son of God. « Although he suffered according to the man, says Anselmus Laudunensis (glossa interlin.), nevertheless the Spirit seen upon him, baptized in the form of a dove, or the spirit, i. e. every spiritual teacher, testifies this, that Christ is the truth, the true Son of God, not a phantasm ».

Moreover, concerning the name of spirit, whose testimony is brought forward in this verse 6°. together with the water and the blood, what properly must be understood, the opinions again are various. Since the testimony is joined from these three, from the water, the blood and the spirit, it seems to be required that both the water and the blood and the spirit be taken in the same signification in which v. 8. says « three, who give testimony on earth; the spirit and the water and the blood ». There indeed Athanasius, Augustinus, Eucherius Lugdunensis, Walafridus Strabo, Innocentius III, in the places indicated a little before, understand the spirit which Christ sent forth on the cross. « Indeed I do not wish you to be deceived in the epistle of John the Apostle, where he says: three are the witnesses, the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are one... we know three things to have gone out of the body of the Lord, when he hung on the wood: first the spirit, whence it is written: and bowing his head he gave up the spirit; then, when his side was pierced with the lance, blood and water » Aug. cont. Maximin. l. II. c. 22. n. 3. Just as this interpretation of the water and blood poured out from the side of Christ, so also this one of the spirit sent forth on the cross can be recommended with Eucherius from this, that John in the Gospel (Io. XIX. 30. 34. 35) joins the poured-out water and blood with the sent-forth spirit as it were a real testimony of the humanity of Christ. For there, after it has been said: « bowing his head he gave up the spirit (παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα) », immediately in one series of discourse the history of the piercing of the side of Christ is connected: « and immediately there came out blood and water ».

But although these things are probable with respect to the spirit which is named in our epistle v. 8; the words nevertheless of verse 6, as they now are: « and the spirit is he who testifies, that Christ is the truth », with the greatest difficulty; in the other reading, however, « that the Spirit is the truth », in no way can they be understood of the soul of Christ, but altogether with the real testimony of the water and of the blood there seems to be joined the formal testimony of the Holy Spirit. In such a conjunction, indeed, with the water and the blood, the testifying Spirit can be understood as the Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostles and through testifying men¹. In this way John also in the Gospel joins with the real testimony of the blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Christ the testimony of the Spirit, namely his apostolic testimony, and inculcates the truth of this with special and unusual care: « immediately there came out blood and water; and he who saw it bore testimony, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he says what is true, that you also may believe ». Thus, therefore, by the name of spirit v. 6°. and perhaps also v. 8°. there can be understood the gift and effect of the Holy Spirit in the Apostles or generally in the Church, which elsewhere also is metonymically called Spirit. « The spirit, i. e. every spiritual teacher, testifies, that Christ is the truth » Glossa interlin.². Although, therefore, it might be conceded that the same Holy Spirit is named in all three verses 6. 7. 8; still he would not be understood to testify in the same way in v. 6. and 8. as in v. 7, and thus there would be distinguished the Holy Spirit testifying in heaven personally and per se immediately, and testifying on earth through his gifts in the Apostles and in the Church.

From these things it now appears that the connection of verses 7. and 8. with the preceding 5°. and 6°. is most close. For to that point, that Jesus is the Son of God and that he came in water and blood, and the Spirit testifies that Christ is the truth; there follows in v. 7°. and 8°. a further explanation of the testification. The object of the testification is indicated as twofold, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that he is true man. For each distinctly the testimony of three is brought forward; just as also Christ the Lord, speaking to the Jews, brought forward two testifying

the Father and himself, appealing to that: in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand (Deut. XIX. 15), and afterwards, in the further instruction of the disciples, added the Holy Spirit testifying Io. V. 31-39; VIII. 14-18; XV. 26. What, therefore, the Apostle had said a little more obscurely about the testifying ones v. 6: « this is he who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ... and the Spirit is he who testifies, that Christ (or the Spirit) is the truth »; this he distributes in v. 7°. and 8°. into the testimony in heaven for the divinity, and the testimony on earth for the humanity³, noting on both sides the ternary number. « John the Apostle speaks in his epistle saying: three are they who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one; intending through this to show that Christ is true God. And three are they who give testimony on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood; intending through this to show that Christ is true man » Innoc. III; Walafrid. Strabo ll. cc.

II. What we have said up to now pertains only to determining the context and sense of v. 6°. and 8°. Now at last we must come to the demonstration from v. 7°., about which we are at present concerned. The distinction of persons, which in the form of baptism is demonstrated by the signification of the names and by the connumeration of the three, is here expressly enunciated: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are three testifying ones. Likewise the unity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit according to the Godhead and absolute perfection, which we showed to be exhibited in the form of baptism, is here enunciated by the expressed name of unity:

Baptizing them in the name — And these three are one: of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit — three are they who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. Holy.

1°. The thing to be testified is enunciated in v. 5. 6, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The testimony is twofold; the first formal. For immediately there is subjoined in v. 9: « God (namely the Father, for the name God is determined by the added phrase concerning his Son, so that it stands for the hypostasis) has testified concerning his Son ». This testimony of the Father concerning his Son, and the testimony of the Son himself and of the Holy Spirit, has been given in many ways, and has been frequently appealed to by the Son, so that now two, now all three persons are named together in testifying. « And he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon him, and behold a voice from heaven saying: this is my beloved Son (ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός) Mt. III. 16. 17; « when the Paraclete will come, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear testimony of me » Io. XV. 26. cf. ib. XVI. 14. 15; « I am he who bears testimony of myself, and he who sent me, the Father, bears testimony of me » ib. VIII. 18. cf. ib. X. 25 seq.

In the other way, the real testimony concerning this truth, that « Jesus is the Son of God », is contained in this very fact, that the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are three one. This argument, or real testimony, moreover, holds itself in two ways. a) Through the unity of the three the formal testimony itself is demonstrated to be divine, not only inasmuch as it is from the Father, but also inasmuch as it is from the Son and from the Holy Spirit, because the Son and the Spirit are one with the Father: three are they who give testimony, and these three are one; whence immediately concerning this testimony of the three there is inferred: « the testimony of God is greater ». b) This unity of the three exhibits by itself, and thus not only in words but in reality testifies, the true and proper divine filiation of Jesus Christ. For the Word made flesh is itself Jesus Christ, as John demonstrated at the beginning of the Gospel to which the epistle adheres (the Word was made flesh, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father); but the Word is the proper Son of God through the unity of nature, which he has communicated from the Father, and which the Word himself, with the Father, communicates to the Holy Spirit. Therefore the unity of the three demonstrates and really testifies through itself, « that Jesus is the Son of God »; namely the proper Son and through nature one with the Father; « Jesus is the Son of God (the truth to be testified): for three are they who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit (the testifying persons); and these three are one (the formal reason through which they testify) ». Wherefore, just as the spirit, the water, and the blood on earth are by themselves a real testimony for the true humanity of Jesus Christ; so the three in heaven by themselves, inasmuch as they are one, or through their unity, are said to be a real testimony for the true divine filiation, i. e. for the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Therefore, when John enunciated as the formal reason of this real testification that « these three are one », he could not have understood any other unity of the three than that of nature. The doctrine, therefore, of John is reduced to this enthymeme. Three persons in heaven, the Father, the Word (the incarnation not yet considered), and the Holy Spirit are one in nature: therefore the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, is the true Son of God through a nature one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

2°. Although the words of the Apostle, who by excellence has the name of theologian, are in themselves most clear; nevertheless the Socinians and — what is certainly wonderful — also some Catholics (Placidus Stürmer, Dobmayr etc.) found a difficulty against the force of the proof from this text. The clause « three are one » v. 8, they say, indicates not a unity of nature but only a moral unity, namely the agreement of the testimony; therefore neither from v. 7 can any other unity be demonstrated. In the first place in the clause: « these three are one », between verse 7. and 8. neither is the verbal parallelism undoubted, certainly there is no real parallelism. For in the Greek editions (except the Complutensian) v. 7. is: ἕν εἰσι, they are one; v. 8. however: εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι, they are in one. In the Complutensian v. 7. is read: εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι; v. 8. this clause is altogether lacking. So also in many Latin codd. only concerning the witnesses in heaven is read: « and these three are one »; concerning the witnesses on earth, however, it is omitted. Of which variety, besides the codices themselves which exist, we have as witness the Council Later. IV. (Hard. VII. p. 18). So also s. Thomas (commentar. in II. decretal. de errore abb. Ioachim. ed. de Rubeis T. VIII. p. 94) says on v. 8.: « in certain books there is attached: and these three are one; but this is not had in the true exemplars, but in certain books it is said to have been added by the Arian heretics to overturn the sound understanding of the authority premised (v. 7) concerning the essential unity of the three persons ». Elsewhere v. 8. is read: « and these three are in us », as with the author of the book adversus Varimadum (Bibl. Max. T. V. p. 729); the author of the book de bapt. haeretic. of the III. century reads in Latin, as it is in the Greek: « and these three are in one »; elsewhere it is added by way of explanation: « these three are one in Christ Jesus », as in the Speculum of Augustinus (ed. Mai); cf. Cassiodorus or the interpreter of the commentary of Clemens Alex. in r. Io. (Bibl. Max. T. III. p. 234). Cassiodorus himself in the Complexiones ed. Maffei p. 145. omits the clause of v. 8., and for v. 7. gives the interpretation: « and these three are one God ». These things show that a great difference has always been recognized, at least in sense, concerning the words « are one » between v. 7. and v. 8. Moreover the reading of v. 8. εἰς τὸ ἕν, εἰσι, seems sufficiently certain both from the Greek Fathers and from the codices. In v. 7., however, according to the Fathers and the Latin codices, by which this text has been preserved for us, and from the comparison with Io. X. 30. (ἕν ἐσμεν), the reading ἕν εἰσι is to be judged true, as it is cited by the Council Later. IV. also in the Greek version (Hard. l. c.), and it stands in the Greek codex of Dublin Coll. SS. Trinitatis⁴ (which seems to be the same as the British codex of Erasmus), and also in the editions among the schismatic Greeks (see Professionem fidei orthodoxae probatam a quatuor Patriarchis aliisque Episcopis schismaticis ed. Lipsiae P. I. q. 9. p. 25).

This being posited, it is manifest in the words themselves that one unity of the Father, of the Word and of the Holy Spirit is enunciated, and another of the spirit, of the water and of the blood. The Father, the Word, the Holy Spirit are said to be three one simply; the spirit, the water and the blood are said to be in one, namely to pertain to one and the same truth to be demonstrated and testified, or to be one in testimony.

Let us indeed concede the verbal parallelism, such as certainly exists in our Vulgate, so that in both places it is said: «and these three are one»; yet the real parallelism must surely be denied. The subject in each verse is utterly different: in the former, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; in the other, the spirit, the water, and the blood. But in proportion to the diversity of the subjects the signification of the predicate is also modified, especially if the subject in one proposition is God and in the other something created; for who would say that the same thing is signified, e. g., by the predicate of wisdom in the two propositions: God is wise, — man is wise? Now the signification of the subject in verse 7° is evident at least to this extent, that the Father is true God, that the Word and the Holy Spirit are not divine attributes, but are really distinct both from the Father and from one another; for they are said to be «these three». They are therefore subsistent in themselves; and since from the very name Word and Holy Spirit (not to appeal now to the whole doctrine of the Scriptures) they are shown to be of intellectual nature, they are three persons. Three persons, therefore, of which one is certainly God, no one — not even a heretic — denying it, are predicated to be one; and this not by sub-numerating but by evidently co-numerating the three persons: these three are one (see Coroll. I. to th. III). But concerning such co-numeration of persons the principle of St. Augustine is most certain. Augustine affirms, after the manner of a hermeneutic and dogmatic principle, that in the Scriptures things whose substance is diverse are never predicated to be one simply⁵. St. Thomas restricts it to this sense: that God and a creature are never said to be one simply (S. Th. in Io. X. 30. lect. V.). To Bellarmine (de Christo l. I. c. 6) the principle seemed, even in this sense, less firm; for just as it is said: «he who adheres to the Lord is one spirit» 1. Cor. VI. 17; so, he says, it could also be said: he is one with God; «for one spirit is one thing, and one thing and one and the same are the same». But first of all (be it said with deference to so great a man) spirit there is not a substance, but is the supernatural gift of faith, hope, and charity derived from Christ, the Christian intellect, the Christian will, which Paul said elsewhere: «we have the mind of Christ», and again: «have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus» (1. Cor. II. 16; Phil. II. 5). In this sense, however, «one spirit» with Christ certainly does not mean the same as «one thing with Christ, and one simply». But if the Spirit were understood as a cause, then surely the Spirit of the Lord dwelling in the just, and the Lord — or the Spirit of the Son, and the Son — are one simply. Thus Pseudo-Ambrosius explained it in his commentary on this passage: in the just, he says, «the Spirit of God is common with God and men». With this interpretation can be compared all the places in which there is speech of the communication and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as that: «whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God» Rom. VIII. 14. Moreover, between "one" said simply and the determining locutions, in what several things are one, the great difference is this, that "one" said without addition, having the simplest notion, does not admit several significations; but if it has some addition, this can be of such a kind that it may be taken in a signification by which the species of unity is determined, not substantial but accidental, of which kind is also that name 1. Cor. VI. 17. one spirit. Read about these things St. Augustine against Maximin. l. II. c. 20. n. I.

Furthermore, although by a very improper locution a man could perhaps be said to be one with God, Augustine's principle would still remain most true where there is question of the biblical usage of speech and of the co-numeration of persons, of which one is God: namely, that in the Scriptures no person besides the Son of God and the Spirit of God is ever co-numerated with God the Father or with God in such a way that God and that person are said to be one. Indeed, even prescinding from the usage of speech of the Scriptures, it is universally evident that persons, of whom one is certainly true God, cannot be co-numerated in the same line of dignity without the predicate «they are one» being taken ontologically of the unity of being, or of the divine Esse; just as it is said in this place: there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.

What we say about the biblical usage of speech is established by induction and by consideration of the places of Scripture Io. XVII. 11. 20. 21. (cf. Aug. contr. Maximin. l. c.); I. Cor. VI. 17; I. Io. V. 8, which have been accustomed to be objected chiefly by the Arians and by the Unitarians in order to obscure this testimony of I. Io. V. 7.

The reason of the principle, in which sense we said it is universally evident, easily appears, because namely by such co-numeration itself the equality of the persons in some line of perfection or dignity is declared; but equality with God (for one of the co-numerated persons is supposed to be God) cannot be enunciated by the predicate, they are one, without this being taken in its proper sense, in which it signifies one being⁶. For no unity of equality with God can be conceived which is not really a unity of essence; but according to our distinctions of reason, the unity of essence is the first and fundamental one, which is supposed by every unity distinct by reason, and with which every other unity, e. g. of absolute attributes, of actions and relations ad extra, is identified. Whence he who to the sentence: «the Father, the Word, the Holy Spirit, three are one», adds the explanation: they are one in power, in will, in authority of testimony, either, intending to exclude the unity of essence, speaks absurdly of divine things, or really says the same thing that is the unity of essence, while he considers the unity in the attributes and actions ad extra, which are distinguished from the essence not otherwise than by our manner of thinking and by reason. Just as therefore in the proposition: «the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit give testimony in heaven», by the very names and by the very co-numeration in the plural number the distinction is already taught, which afterwards is explicitly enunciated by the particle «they are three»; so by the very co-numeration of the Word and of the Holy Spirit with God the Father in the same order of dignity the unity of the Godhead of the three distinct ones is already contained, and this unity is explicitly and expressly proclaimed by the declaration: «these three are one».

On the contrary, however, the subject of verse 8°, «the spirit, the water and the blood», is of an entirely different order. Water and blood certainly are not persons, much less divine persons, but are created things. Therefore, however the second subject, the spirit, is understood, the predicate «they are one» cannot have the same signification as in verse 7° in the co-numeration of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. If moreover the Greek text is consulted: «εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι, they are unto one», it appears that the unity is enunciated not so much among those three as toward the thing to be testified; whence even in the Latin text those three must be understood as one in testimony. But this unity of testimony, in divine things indeed, supposes the unity — and that a numerical unity — of nature; in created things, however, it requires neither numerical nor specific unity.

To the difficulty therefore proposed, in which it was said: by that «three are one» v. 8 a moral unity in testifying is indicated; therefore no other is indicated in v. 7 by the same words; it is answered a) by denying the consequence. For the subjects are utterly different in each verse, and therefore the signification of the predicate «they are one» is also different. b) Inasmuch as the three in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, exhibit a real testimony and demonstration that the incarnate Word is the true Son of God, they exhibit this testimony not otherwise than by the unity of nature, because namely the Word is God and of one nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Therefore by the words «three are one», by which is contained why and how the three persons exhibit testimony for the true divine filiation of Jesus Christ, nothing else can be signified than the unity of the three according to the divine nature. c) Inasmuch as the three persons in heaven give formal testimony for the divine filiation of Jesus Christ, the authority of this testimony is one, because the nature of the three is one. «My Father works until now, and I work... the Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he has seen the Father doing; for whatever he has done, these the Son also does in like manner» Io. V. 17-23. «The words that I speak to you, I do not speak of myself; but the Father abiding in me, he does the works» ibid. XIV. 10. «But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will teach you all truth, for he will not speak of himself, but whatever he will hear he will speak... He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and will announce it to you. All things whatsoever the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will receive of mine and will announce it to you» ib. XVI. 13-15. What is said therefore: «three are one», contains the reason why, just as every operation ad extra is one of the three, so the testimony is one by which the three testify, the Father, the Word of the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and of the Son; the reason namely is the one Esse, or the unity of essence⁷.

3°. The genuine sense vindicated thus far is confirmed by comparison with what follows.

For with verse 7° v. 9 is closely connected: «If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater (cf. Io. V. 32. seq.; VIII. 17. 18); because this is the testimony of God, which is greater⁸, because he has testified of his Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony of God in himself». For he had called the testimony of three distinct ones, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, about Jesus the true Son of God; but at the same time he had declared: «these three are one». Now that testimony of the three he calls the testimony of the one God; and so that: «these three are one», is equivalent to the other proposition: «these three are one God». Whence Cassiodorus, who in his Complexiones, together with many codices and Fathers, places verse 7 after our verse 8°, and thus even by the material collocation of the words preserves the connection, rightly circumscribes the clause «are one» by this other one: «and these three are one God». The Apostle himself therefore declares the reason by which the three are one: that the three distinct ones, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, are one God, and consequently are one by the unity of the divine nature, which admits no multiplication.

We have declared the testimony of God v. 9 as the testimony of the one God absolutely considered; against this explanation a difficulty could arise for someone from those things which John subjoins: «the testimony of God, because he has testified of his Son», where the testimony of God the Father is evidently understood. But the name God is of itself not a relative name (for it does not express a relation to another) but an absolute one, signifying the divine nature after the manner of a concrete thing and therefore after the manner of a hypostasis, but without the determination of this or that distinct person. Since therefore the three are one God, both singly and all together, the name God without an added determination does not supposit for one person distinct from the others, but signifies the Godhead subsisting in the three persons. Yet because the individual persons are God, by an added personal property the name God is determined, so that it supposits for one person whose property is expressed (see above p. 31. seq.). Thus in the proposition: God begets God, the subject is determined to supposit for the person of the Father alone by the added property of active generation, and the predicate supposits for the Son alone, because of the included property of passive generation (τὸ γεννητόν). Hence it is clear that, without any confusion or obscurity, in the same context the name of God can be taken now absolutely for God, who is one and triune, now with a determined supposition for one person; for neither is the signification of the name changed by this variety, which always remains the same, namely of the divine nature after the manner of subsisting: but there is only a transition from indeterminate supposition to a distinct supposition, which is clearly expressed by the added personal notion. Thus also in created things no one would say that this speech is obscure: man needs grace for the confession of faith; therefore the man confessing: you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, was illuminated and strengthened by grace; although the name man passes from confused supposition to a determined supposition for Peter. Which things being posited, no one will deny that in the former clause of v. 9: «the testimony of God is greater», the name God is taken absolutely, namely the testimony of God the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, who are three and are one; but in the other clause: «because (God) has testified of his Son», the subject God supposits for the person of the Father alone.

From these things it is clear, a) that the testimony, or the same act of testifying (ἡ μαρτυρία), is absolutely one and the same, whether it is said of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together; and consequently that the act ad extra is one and really common to the three persons, because they do not act inasmuch as they are persons distinct by relation to one another, but inasmuch as they are one God. b) Since the act or operation in God is the very divine nature itself with the connotation of a term ad extra; by this very fact, through the unity of the testimony, which is absolutely one and the same, whether it is said of one or of another or of the three persons, the unity of nature in the three persons is most manifestly expressed as a consequence. c) You will notice in passing again what we said in the preceding thesis: that the context can scarcely, or not even scarcely, hold together if verse 7, about the testimony of the three in heaven, is lacking. For when v. 9 says: the testimony of God (about the divine filiation of Jesus Christ) is greater, it is supposed that the narration of the existence of this testimony of God has preceded; but this narration exists nowhere except in verse 7°.

As a finishing touch it seems opportune to set before the eyes the parallelism of this place now explained, I. Io. V. 5-13, with the texts Io. I. 1-18; X. 25-38, declared in thesis III.

Io. I.	1. Io. V.	Io. X.
In the beginning was the Word... And the Word was made flesh, and we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father v. 1. 14.	Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God v. 5.	My Father, what he has given me, is greater than all things..... You make yourself God..... I said, I am the Son of God...... That you may believe, that the Father is in me and I in the Father v. 29. 33. 36. 38.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men v. 4.	And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his Son v. 11.	I give them eternal life v. 28.

Io. 1.11-12	1 Io. 5.12-13	Io. 10.26-28
He came to his own, and his own did not receive him; but as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name.	He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I write to you, that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God.	You do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will not perish forever.

No one has ever seen God: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him... I saw the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven and remaining upon him... He who sent me to baptize in water, he said to me: he upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit v. 18. 32. 33.

Io. 1.1	1 Io. 5.7	Io. 10.25, 37-38
(In the beginning was the Word), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God v. 1.	Because there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one v. 7.	The works that I do in the name of my Father, these bear testimony of me... If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, and if you do not want to believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in the Father v. 25. 37. 38.

And no one will snatch them out of my hand, and no one can snatch out of my Father's hand: I and the Father are one v. 28-30.

« The revelation of the unity of God in the Old Testament is so constituted that it not only does not exclude, but both in the modes of speaking about the one God and in the descriptions of the theophanies and in the promises of the future Messiah, manifoldly indicates and has regard to the distinction of the persons, who are one God ».

Quite different are the questions, whether the doctrine of the distinction of the divine persons is contained in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and whether that same doctrine was already sufficiently set forth in the Old Testament so that it pertained to the common faith of the people of Israel. This latter indeed must be denied; nevertheless it is no less certain that the doctrine of the distinction of the persons is found in the books of the Old Testament manifoldly, at one time more clearly expressed, at another more obscurely adumbrated. To deny this universally would not be lawful for any Christian, both because Christ the Lord himself and the Apostles in the New Testament confirm the doctrine preached by them concerning the Son of God, and indeed concerning the Father and the Son as distinct persons, who are one God, as well as the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit, from the books of the Old Testament (Matth. XXII. 44; Marc. I. 2. 3. coll. Malach. III. 1 sqq.; Heb. I. 5-13; Act. II. 17 sqq.), and because many passages of the Old Testament are in themselves so explicit that, at least after the manifest revelation of the New Testament, they cannot without distortion be understood in another sense, and because the catholic understanding and the fullest consensus of the Fathers has always acknowledged this doctrine in the books of the Old Testament (cf. Petavium de Trinit. l. II. c. 7).

I. The manner, in which God in the Old Testament speaks of the operations ad extra, expresses the connumeration of several who are one God. « God (אלהים) said: let us make man to our image and likeness... And God created man to his image » Gen. I. 26. 27. The word faciamus and the pronoun nostram manifestly include the designation of several in such a, as it were, communication of counsels; nor can these be reduced merely to the construction of the so-called plural of majesty ¹. Still less can the words be taken as an address of God to the angels, since the connumeration in the same creative operation, and in the same dignity of the exemplary cause, is most manifest (vid. supra p. 35). Furthermore, the exemplary cause or archetypal image, to which man is created, is said to be one in those several, and the efficient cause of creation is one God: « to our likeness and image.... And God created man etc. If these are compared with the passages of the New Testament, where both the distinction of the persons and, from the unity of the operation, the unity of the nature is declared, the parallelism will appear evident, so that even the testimony of the Old Testament cannot be understood in another sense.

Finally, the consentient interpretation of the Fathers and, as Epiphanius says (Haeres. XXIII. n. 5), « the common understanding of the faithful, proceeding from the truth » does not allow us to doubt the truth of the sense which the words present on their face. « Nor was it said without purpose: let us make man to your image, as if the Father were speaking to the Son; or to my image, but it was said: to our image. Which is most rightly taken as from the person of the Trinity itself » Aug. contr. sermon. Arianor. c. 16. Faustinus, the Roman presbyter, after he had demonstrated from the testimonies of the New Testament the consubstantiality of the Father and of the Son, teaches that the same doctrine can already be understood as revealed in the Old Testament. « But let us see whether Moses also taught this same thing which the Apostles announced, that is, that all things were made from God through the Son... And God said: let us make man to our image and likeness. It is not for one person to say: let us make to our image and likeness, but neither is it for a different godhead. For the plurality of these words, that is, faciamus and nostram, signifies the persons of the Father and of the Son. But that he says image in the singular, one godhead, one power of both persons is manifested. If Christ is a creature, how is he employed as a partner in the work of God? For to him himself it is said: let us make. If he is not the true Son, how is there one image for him with the Father?... For he did not say: let us make to our images, but to our image... For the present it suffices that in this one chapter Moses agreed with the Gospels and the Apostles..... No one said two gods, although he would say God and God; no one did not proclaim the one image of the Father and of the Son, and therefore the catholic faith knows how to say one God in confession; yet not so that, through the confession of one God, the Son be denied to be that which God is..... For if the Son is not God just as the Father is God, how is there one image for them according to Moses, or how, according to Paul (Phil. II. 6), is Christ in the form of God, existing as equal to God? » Faustin. l. de Trin. n. 5-7 (Galland. T. VII. p. 442). See the common interpretation of the Fathers in Petav. l. II. c. 7. n. 4 sqq.

II. In the theophanies of the Old Testament frequently the true God is exhibited as sent by the true God; and so there is one who is sent, another who sends, yet both are one true God. For he who appears, or who is manifested as present by sensible signs (human form, flame of fire, sensible voice, etc.) is called the Angel of the Lord (מלאך יהוה), namely the envoy of God; at the same time, however, that same one appearing and speaking is revealed as true God both by the express name and by the description of the attributes. Thus in the history of Agar: « when the Angel of the Lord had found her... and the Angel of the Lord said to her: return to your mistress... and again: multiplying, he said, I will multiply your seed... And (Agar) called the name of the Lord (יהוה), who spoke to her: you are the God who saw me » Gen. XVI. 7-14. cf. XXI. 17. 18. The Angel of God speaking to Iacob in dreams declares himself: « I am the God of Bethel » Gen. XXXI. 11. 13. But the God of Bethel is « the Lord (יהוה), the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac » ib. XXVIII. 12. 19. He who appeared to Moyses in the burning bush is called (in the Hebrew text) the Angel of the Lord, and the same one defines himself: « I am who I am... the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob » Exod. III. 2 sqq. The Angel of the Testament is the Lord (האדון) himself and God, whose was the temple of Jerusalem Mal. III. 1. (heb. III. 3). It is therefore God (יהוה) who sends the Angel, and the Angel sent by God is God himself (יהוה). This also is explicitly declared in the history of the overthrow of the Sodomites. « The Lord (יהוה) appeared to him (Abraham) in Mambre.... And the Lord said: can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do... The Lord therefore said: the cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied. I will descend and see.... And the Lord departed, after he had ceased to speak to Abraham. And the two Angels came to Sodom in the evening ²... Therefore the Lord (יהוה) rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha sulphur and fire from the Lord (יהוה) out of heaven » Gen. XVIII. 1-19. 24. Here clearly the Lord appearing on earth, who elsewhere is called the Angel of the Lord, is distinguished from the other, who is exhibited as the Lord in heaven; there are therefore two distinct, but each is the one Lord (יהוה), besides whom there is no God.

This doctrine concerning the Angel of God, who is himself God sent by God, extends very widely in the Old Testament, and has been set forth by the holy Fathers with great consensus as the clearest argument for demonstrating the distinction of the divine persons. Thus taught Iustinus, Irenaeus, Theophilus Antiochenus, Clemens Alex., Origenes, Tertullianus, Novatianus, the Antiochene Fathers against Samosatenus; Cyprianus, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyrillus Hieros., Basilius, Hilarius, Ambrosius, the bishops of Sirmium gathered together against Photinus, Chrysostomus, Cyrillus Alex., Theodoretus, Leo M., Cassianus, Isidorus. See Petavius l. VIII. c. 2. n. 3 sqq.; Hengstenberg Christolog. T. I. c. 3. p. 219 sqq.; the distinguished Fr. Patrizi, De Interpret. oraculor. ad Christum pertinentium p. 70 sqq.

Nor indeed does s. Augustinus oppose this common interpretation of the other Fathers; but rather he illustrates it, and excellently declares how the visible apparitions of God are to be understood.

a) The principal aim of Augustinus in l. II. III. IV. de Trinitate is to demonstrate against the Arians that the Son and the Holy Spirit are, in their own divine substance, equally invisible to corporeal eyes, just as the Father is invisible. b) But through a subject creature, i. e. through notable signs and visible species (so Augustinus teaches there), the Father can appear no less, i. e. be signified as present, than the Son or the Holy Spirit, so that there may be manifested either the individual persons distinctly, or the three persons together, or even God insofar as he is one, and without the signification of the distinct persons. In all these diverse ways Augustinus judges that the divine persons manifested themselves in the Old Testament; but which person in the individual theophanies is distinctly exhibited is to be gathered from the context of the narrative ³. c) The mode of manifestation is so declared by Augustinus: the sensible signs, whether they are certain species or sensible voices, are efficiently from the one and triune God, just as all the works ad extra are; for the divine persons do not operate ad extra insofar as they are distinct, but insofar as they are one God and one divine nature. But by signifying (δεικτικῶς) those sensible portents can be referred to distinctly exhibiting one or the other person ⁴. Furthermore, if those species and sensible voices were effected immediately by God himself, in those places where the Angel of the Lord and the same Lord is said to have appeared, the manifested person of the Son must be understood, who is called « the Angel of great counsel » (Is. IX. 6. iuxta LXX). But if those species and voices were formed by the ministry of the angels, then indeed Augustinus opines that the signification is referred to demonstrating God as present; but which person was distinctly demonstrated is to be gathered not from the appellation of Angel but from the other circumstances ⁵. That in reality portents of this kind in the Old Testament are shown to have been made also by the ministry of the angels, Augustinus thinks is to be gathered from Heb. I. 14; II. 2; Act. VII. 53; Gal. III. 19. (De Trin. l. II. n. 22 sqq.).

Augustinus therefore agrees with the more ancient Fathers in that which is chiefly sought: that in the theophanies of the Old Testament the distinction of the persons was frequently exhibited. But the difference is this, that some of the most ancient Fathers thought that the whole old economy was administered through the Son, as it were preluding the Incarnation, and therefore that all the apparitions of the Old Testament were to be referred to the Son; Augustinus, however, does not admit this exclusion of the apparition of the other persons. Moreover, what the other Fathers teach — that the Angel of the Lord is the Lord himself sent by the Lord, and consequently the Son — Augustinus holds as less certain, because he judges that a created angel can be understood, through whom God spoke; and therefore that the voices emitted: I am the God of Abraham etc., are referred indeed to God, but the appellation of Angel is not attributed to God himself but to the created spirit, of whose ministry God made use in his own manifestation. This same opinion is that of s. Hieronymus in Gal. III. 19. (Opp. T. VII. p. 441) and of s. Gregorius M. Moral. l. XXVIII. c. 1. « By the word Angels are expressed those who ministered outwardly, and by the appellation of the Lord is shown he who presided inwardly » Gregor. ib. n. 7. Indeed Gregorius thinks that even those sensible voices of the Father to the Son: « I have glorified and again I will glorify », « this is my beloved Son », were formed by the ministry of the angels; yet no one doubts that their signification is referred to the person of God the Father. Thus therefore also the visible species, e. g. of the burning bush, and the voices: I am the God of Abraham etc., although they are said to have been effected by the ministry of the angels, are nevertheless referred to signifying God as present. But in the contexts, as in those which we cited above from the Old Testament, for the most part not only the presence of the one God but also the distinction of the divine persons is signified.

It seemed well to expound this doctrine of Augustine at somewhat greater length, so that it may be understood how far he agrees with the more ancient Fathers. From this, moreover, it further appears what is to be thought of a certain singular theory of a recent theologian and of his attack upon the opinion of St. Augustine. « It cannot be understood, he says, that God (τὸν Θεόν), that is, God considered as one person (perhaps he meant to say, God considered absolutely), should appear, because in that case He would have to appear according to His essence and in His essence, which is repugnant. Nor can God the Father appear — not indeed on account of some attribute proper to Him alone, of which sort there is none; but because the Father is the principle in the Godhead, and because it would be necessary that with the Father all the persons, and consequently the divine person itself, should appear... When therefore Augustine expressly refers the theophany also to God the Father, and denies that a theophany referred exclusively to the Son or to the Holy Spirit can be admitted, affirming that it is rash to say that God the Father never appeared to the fathers through some visible forms (Aug. Trin. II. 17); this is tantamount to teaching that in those narratives of Scripture, taken generally, no proper personal apparition of God is to be understood, but a mere manifestation of God ». Hence what Augustine says — that it is not sufficiently clear whether one person or all three appeared to Abraham — the same theologian strikes out with this remarkable observation, that the apparition of « three persons » is the apparition of « no person ». He proceeds further: from Augustine's opinion it can even be said that the angels themselves do not appear personally on earth, but carry out their ministry among men through subject creatures. « In this opinion, however, he says, none of the holy Fathers of any name follows Augustine, as far as I at least know; by no one are the apparitions of angels narrated in the Old Testament called into doubt as true and personal apparitions of these heavenly spirits » Dr. Kuhn de Trin. sect. I. § 2.

I confess that all these things seem to me difficult and hardly to be reconciled with principles that are certain in theology. For a) what, I ask, is the meaning of the distinction between the manifestation of God, now of the Father, now of the Son, now of the Holy Spirit, now of the three persons, through sensible species, such as Augustine describes, and the personal apparition of God? Setting aside the hypostatic union, whereby the divine person makes a visible nature, namely the human nature, its own in such a way that the divine person through this nature is a man — whence follows that which the cited theologian brings forward not very opportunely from Irenaeus: « the Word was made naturally (in His divine nature) indeed invisible, but palpable and visible among men (in the assumed human nature) » Iren. IV. c. 24 (al. 41) cf. 1 Io. I. 1; with this hypostatic union, I say, set aside — which Augustine too distinguishes (l. IV. n. 30. 31) — a theophany, that is, a sensible apparition of God, who is immense and everywhere present, cannot otherwise be understood than through a manifestation in sensible species, as Augustine describes it (cf. S. Th. 1. q. 43. a. 7). Further b) what, I ask, does the theologian mean by saying that God considered absolutely cannot appear, that the individual persons can appear, but not however the person of the Father, because with the Father all three persons and consequently the divine nature would have to appear, and further that the apparition of three persons would be just the same as the apparition of no person? Indeed in itself the divine person can no more be perceived by the senses than the nature; but sensible species, as signs of God present, cannot be effected by one person as He is distinct from the others, but are effected by the one and triune God; by their signification, however, they can be referred either to God without indication of the distinction of persons, or to the Father, as He is distinguished from the Son and the Holy Spirit, or to another person, or at once to three persons distinct among themselves. « Although the whole Trinity worked those visible creatures, nevertheless they were made to demonstrate specially this or that person. For just as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are signified by different names, so also they could be signified by different things; although among them there is no separation or diversity » S. Th. I. c. ad 3. Moreover, from the very notion of the Most Holy Trinity it must be most certain that, just as with the Father, so with any other divine person, all three, and just as in three, so in each of the appearing persons, the nature appears in one sense and does not appear in another sense. How then the apparition of three persons — e.g. in the baptism of Christ, or if, as Augustine and very many others judge not without reason, the three divine persons appeared to Abraham (Gen. XVIII.) — should be called the apparition of no person, I leave to others to explain. Finally c) that the theologian thinks the explanation of the apparition of angels proposed by Augustine is proper to this holy Doctor alone, no one will concede. Augustine does not deny that angels become personally present on earth; for since they are not everywhere, they can certainly become present, and do become present, where they previously were not; but pure spirits cannot render their presence visible, except either less properly by an operation upon our senses, or more properly through a subject sensible creature or through formed sensible species, as Augustine teaches. In this explanation all ought to agree with the holy Doctor, since it is already certain that angels are pure spirits — a doctrine which Augustine had already discerned, although in his age the question was not yet fully clarified (cf. S. Th. 1. q. 51. a. 2). From this digression we return to the doctrine of the Old Testament on the distinction of persons.

III. The promised Messiah is taught in the Old Testament to be true God, but in such a way that He is the Son of God; which is indeed the doctrine exhibited more distinctly in the New Testament by the Messiah Himself, already sent, the Son of God, and by His Apostles, and confirmed also from the prophets of the Old Testament. He who is to be born of the Virgin is Emmanuel (God with us), whose peculiar possession in the Old Testament was already the land and the people of Israel Is. VII. 14; VIII. 8. cf. Matth. I. 23. This name, God with us, is explained. « God Himself will come and will save you; then shall the eyes of the blind be opened » etc. Is. XXXV. 4. cf. Matth. XI. 5. « The voice of one crying in the desert: prepare the way of the Lord (יהוה)... Say to the cities of Juda: behold your God, behold the Lord God shall come in strength, and His arm shall be named... as a shepherd He shall feed His flock » Is. XL. 3-11; XII. 2; XLV. 15, cf. Marc. I. 3. This is our God, and there shall be no other esteemed against Him; He found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved (which is the administration of the Old Testament): after these things (that same our God) He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men » Bar. III. 38. He who is born a little child and a son of man, « His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Father of the world to come (of eternity) ⁶, Prince of Peace » Is. IX. 6. Of the Ruler in Israel the going forth is twofold, that is, a twofold birth: one going forth in time out of Bethlehem Ephrata, the other « going forth from the beginning, from the days of eternity » Mich. V. 2. cf. Matth. II. 6. The Lord (יהוה) was valued at thirty pieces of silver by the wicked Jews Zach. XI. 13. cf. Matth. XXVII. 9. Likewise God, who will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayers, says of Himself: « and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him with mourning as over an only-begotten, and they shall grieve over Him, as grief is wont to be felt in the death of a firstborn » Zach. XII. 10. cf. Io. XIX. 37. God, therefore, is predicted as about to become man and to be afflicted with death. In these passages and in similar ones, immediately indeed only this is declared, that God Himself will be man and the Messiah; but because it is certain that the Messiah is announced beforehand as one to be sent by God, there is included along with the unity a distinction, inasmuch as God is called the one sending and God the one sent.

But frequently there is enunciated at the same time both the divinity and consequently the unity, and the distinction of persons. The Messiah is God, and the God of Him anointed Him, or « God made Him Christ » (Act. II. 36). « Beautiful in form above the sons of men.... Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.... therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee (אלהים) with the oil of gladness above thy fellows... the peoples shall confess thee for ever and ever » Ps. XLIV. (45). 7. 8. cf. Heb. I. 8. 9. « The Lord said to my Lord: sit at my right hand... from the womb before the day star I begot thee » ⁷ Ps. CIX. (110). 1. sq. cf. Matth. XXII. 42-45. « But I am appointed king by Him over Sion His holy mountain, preaching His commandment. The Lord said to me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee » Ps. II. 7. cf. Heb. I. 5. Just as the prophets at every time, in the greatest calamities of the people, expected and promised liberation from the coming Messiah, so most distinctly in the nearer age, amid public and private afflictions, Ecclesiasticus protests: « I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord (ἐπεκαλεσάμην Κύριον Πατέρα Κυρίου μου), that He would not leave me in the day of tribulation without help » Eccli. LI. 14.

IV. The second divine person, therefore, is without doubt revealed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. But the Holy Spirit too — the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the mouth of God — is commemorated in the Old Testament already very frequently; for the Holy Spirit is proclaimed creator, bestower of charisms, illuminator of the prophets; for the future New Testament the communication of the Holy Spirit with more abundant gifts is promised; the Holy Spirit is said to be the initiator of the coming Messiah Himself. « His Spirit hath adorned the heavens » Iob. XXVI. 13; « thou shalt send forth

thy Spirit and they shall be created » Ps. CIII. 30; « take not Thy Holy Spirit from me » Ps. L. 13; « who will grant that all the people prophesy, and that the Lord give them His Spirit » Num. XI. 29; « the words which the Lord of hosts sent in His Spirit by the hand of the prophets » Zach. VII. 12; « and it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy » Ioel. II. 28. 29; « the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding » Is. XI. 2. 3; LXI. 1. The point is not that from passages of this kind taken by themselves the Holy Spirit is hermeneutically demonstrated as a distinct person; but when in the New Testament the Holy Spirit is revealed with the Father and the Son as the third person, and that by appealing to the testimonies of the Old Testament, then it is shown that the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit, the hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity, is contained also there, so that the doctrine of the New Testament in this regard is to be held not simply as a new revelation of a truth never before spoken, but as the explanation and more distinct determination of an antecedent revelation.

Moreover, once some distinction of persons — either confused, or of the Father and the Word — is supposed as already sufficiently clear in the Old Testament, the personal distinction of the Holy Spirit too, though indicated more obscurely, could be understood, especially in those places where there is some connumeration of the three. To this can be referred the vision of Isaias VI. 1 sqq.; where the one Lord God of hosts is celebrated by the Seraphim « Holy, Holy, Holy ». This tripling of the name cannot signify only intensification, for which the same name is wont indeed to be repeated twice, but not thrice ⁸. Although, therefore, we do not say that from this passage considered by itself the Trinity of persons can be demonstrated, yet with the distinction supposed from other places, it is already rendered probable in itself that in so unusual a form of speech the same predication in its repetition is referred to one and another person. That this is really so is confirmed from the appeals of the Apostles to this vision of Isaias: « I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne », and « he heard the voice of the Lord saying: go, and thou shalt say to this people: hearing hear, and understand not. » But now, as John testifies (Io. XII. 41.) Isaias then saw the glory of the Son of God; as Paul testifies (Act. XXVIII. 25 sq.) those words were spoken by the Holy Spirit sending Isaias to the people of Israel; but from this distinction of persons the person of the Father as principle is understood by itself. « When the Seraphim glorify God, thrice saying: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth, they glorify the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore just as we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son, so also in the name of the Holy Spirit, and we are made sons of God, not of gods. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is the Lord of Sabaoth.... And therefore what the Father says in Isaias, John says the Son said; but in the Acts of the Apostles Paul says that the same things were spoken by the Holy Spirit » S. Athanas. de Incarnat. contr. Arian. n. 10. St. Gregory Nyssenus has altogether similar things. « When Isaias saw One sitting upon a high throne, the older tradition says that He who was seen is the Father, but the Evangelist John refers the prophecy to the Lord (Christ)...... but the great Paul testifies that the same discourse was of the Holy Spirit.... showing, as I think, through this sacred Scripture, that every divine vision and every apparition of God and every word spoken in the person of God is understood of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit » Nyss. contr. Eunom. 1. I. T. II. p. 60. (cf. Petav. 1. II. c. 7. n. 14; 1. VIII. c. 2. n. 13; Maranum de Divin. D. N. Iesu Christi 1. I. P. II. c. 17. n. 3). With this distinction posited it is evident how excellently the unity of the three is exhibited, as the holy Fathers observed — not only because the subject of the threefold predication is the one Lord God of hosts, but also by the very predicate, because the glory of holiness is one and the celebration is thrice repeated the same.

The distinction is indicated also in that connumeration: « By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of His mouth » Ps. XXXII. 6. which passage very many Fathers interpret of the Most Holy Trinity (vid. Petav. 1. II. c. 7. n. 14). More express is the prayer of the Wise Man. « God of my fathers and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things with Thy word (ἐν λόγῳ σου, in Thy Word or through Thy Word), and by Thy Wisdom hast appointed man..... give me Wisdom, the attendant at Thy throne... but who shall know Thy thought, unless Thou give wisdom, and send Thy Holy Spirit from the most high » (τὸ Ἅγιόν σου Πνεῦμα ἀπὸ ὑψίστων) Sap. IX. 1-17 cf. I. Cor. II. 10. 11).

Without doubt, therefore, the Israelites of the V. T., endowed with greater light for understanding the inner sense of the Scriptures, believed the Messiah to be true God, to be sent by God, and according to the diverse degree of illumination they had a more or less clear knowledge of the distinction of persons and of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity — which is to be judged much more of the holy patriarchs and of the prophets (cf. Matth. XIII. 17; Io. VIII. 56; I. Pet. I. 8-12) and of the other saints of the V. T. specially illumined by God. From what has been said it appears how, at the time of the advent of the Son of God, even before His own doctrine had explained this mystery more distinctly, even prescinding from extraordinary illuminations and considering only the revelation in the sacred Scriptures, the very words and deeds of the New Testament presuppose in some a clear knowledge, in others at least an obscure prenotion of the distinction of persons in God. To this can be referred both the words of the angel to the blessed Virgin Luc. I. 35; and the preaching of the Baptist Io. 1. 32-34; and the profession of Nathanaël Io. 1. 49 (cf. Tract. de Incarnat. th.III. n.III.); and the manner of understanding the name of the Son of God, as soon as it was heard Io. IX. 35-38.

«Granted the distinction which we have shown to be indicated in the Old Testament, and especially having instituted the comparison with the clearer revelation of the New Testament concerning the Word begotten by the Father, it cannot be denied that this mystery of the internal procession and of personal distinction is contained expressly in the descriptions of divine Wisdom, as they are set forth in the books of the Old Testament: Prov. VIII; Sap. VII seq.; Eccli. XXIV.»

In these indicated passages three things are to be distinguished. For a) there is speech there also of created wisdom, as a gift and effect and manifestation of uncreated wisdom — whether created wisdom is called metonymically the disposition, order, and beauty of all God's works, or whether it is called the wisdom of the divine law, or whether formally wisdom is a virtue of the created intellect and mind¹. b) There is described the creative and eternal Wisdom, which is God Himself under the formal aspect of substantial and absolute Wisdom. Truly c) that Wisdom cannot be understood solely under the aspect of an absolute attribute is shown by the personal distinction more than once expressed in these very passages. For although, when the clear revelation of the New Testament was not yet presupposed, it might perhaps not be sufficiently established in the cited passages concerning the distinction between the person of him whose Wisdom is said, and the person which is itself called Wisdom; nevertheless, with this mystery now known — that the Word and hypostatic Wisdom is begotten by the Father as a person distinct — no one will deny that the same truth is also enunciated there, who has weighed that not men, but the Holy Spirit, «who searches the depths of God», is the author of the sacred books. With these things premised, let us inspect the descriptions themselves of this creative, omnipotent, omniscient Wisdom, which therefore without doubt is God, so that we may understand to what extent the distinction of persons is indicated.

1. In the book of Proverbs Wisdom speaks thus: «The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. From eternity I was ordained (Hebr. I was anointed, i.e., as it were consecrated to rule, cf. Ps. II. 6) and of old, before the earth was made» Prov. VIII. 22. 23. The eternity and divinity of Wisdom are manifest; nevertheless, the distinction is already indicated. With the same word Eve, when she bore her firstborn Son, said: «I have possessed (I have acquired by generation, and I have my son) a man through God» Gen. IV. 1. If the signification could be doubtful, it is declared by what follows: «the abysses were not yet (תהום; the same name Gen. I. 2), and I was already conceived... before the hills I was brought forth». In Hebrew in both places the verb is the same, חוללתי, expressing generation in its proper signification. Lest the words possessed me, I was conceived, I was brought forth should seem able to be understood only of a distinction of reason, and Wisdom be said to be conceived in the divine mind as a divine counsel and an absolute attribute, a still more express declaration of distinct personality is added. «When (the Lord) prepared the heavens, I was present.... I was with him composing all things, and I was delighted day by day, playing before him at all times, playing in the orb of the earth, and my delights were to be with the sons of men» ibid. vv. 24-31. That «I was with him» is read in the Hebrew text: I was beside him (אצלו); so too the LXX: ἤμην παρ' αὐτῷ, and the old Latin Fathers: beside him or with him. «Composing all things» Hebr. אמון; the Chaldean Paraphrase has: I was nourished beside him; Aquila: τιθηνουμένη, nursed. The verb I was delighted can be taken actively, as elsewhere too to delight someone occurs (Forcellini); for in Hebrew it is: «and I was the delight (of him)»; the Greeks have: ἐγὼ ἤμην, ᾗ προσέχαιρεν; the old Latin Fathers: «I was, whom he rejoiced in» (see the Itala of Sabatier). It can therefore be rendered word for word: «I was beside him as artificer, or nursling, and I was the delight (of him) all days (always)». Now let these be compared with what is said in the N. T. of the Word: «in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, all things were made through him»; «the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father»; «to which of the angels did he at any time say: You are my Son, today I have begotten you»; «this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased». Truly all things agree in such a way that no other difference can be shown except that in the N. T., since the Word has now been made flesh and is visible in his human nature, the distinct hypostasis is exhibited still more clearly and is preached more insistently, while in the V. T. the transition from Wisdom considered absolutely to Wisdom subsisting in a hypostasis distinct from the Father is less expressed.

The truth of this interpretation is to be retained all the more certainly because the Fathers consented to it in great number; for the Doctors older than the Arian heresy understood it in this way, except that some, as Irenaeus (l. IV. c. 20) and perhaps Tertullian (contr. Hermogen. c. 18), thought that by the name of Wisdom the third hypostasis, the Holy Spirit, was signified; and in the disputation itself against the Arians it was admitted without controversy that Wisdom is here described as hypostatic and the Word as a person distinct from the Father². A more evident argument of how undoubted and common was the persuasion concerning this signification of distinct persons is this: while the Arians constituted this very passage, understood of the Son of God, as the summit of their heresy, the Fathers nevertheless constantly retained the reference of the words to the Son of God; but they refuted their interpretation concerning the creation of the Son. For the Arians read that «The Lord possessed me» as: Κύριος ἔκτισέ με, The Lord created me, as it still is now in the Greek version, and that it was so in the old Latin is established from the Fathers (see Sabatier), and they understood this of the creation properly so called of the Son. The Fathers readily conceded to them that here the speech is about the Son of God, but they denied that the Word is said to be created in the proper sense. For either they showed from other interpreters that for ἔκτισε one must read ἐκτήσατο, «possessed me» (cf. Basil. cont. Eunom. l. II. n. 20)³; or they said that to signify the generation of the Word from the Father the word created is employed, so that the suspicion of passion and imperfection in the Father may be excluded (s. Hilar. de Synod. anathem. 5; cf. S. Th. contr. gent. l. IV. c. 8); or also, more frequently, they answered that the Son is said to be created by reason of the assumed humanity. See the Fathers in Petavius l. II. c. i., although that most learned man afterwards proposes another interpretation of this whole passage, little suitable and not probable from what has been said.

II. When it is now established that Prov. VIII. describes the distinct hypostasis of begotten Wisdom, i.e., of the Word, the same doctrine must also be recognized in the parallel passages Sap. VII. 21. seq. and Ecclesi. XXIV. 5. seq. But let the distinction be observed here even more than in Prov., between when the hypostasis of Wisdom is described in itself and when it is considered as dwelling in the people of God, in Solomon, in the saints and prophets, through the law and through the wisdom and charisms which are effects of the hypostatic Wisdom, lest the descriptions of the effects seem to contradict those things which pertain to the hypostasis of the divine Wisdom in itself. It will help not a little toward the understanding of these passages to have kept before one's eyes the manner in which the Fathers, as Justin and others (cf. Tract. de Deo), proceed from the hypostatic Word, who is ὁ λόγος simply, to λόγον σπερματικόν, the seminal word, which is a certain participation of the Word himself — both natural and supernatural — in created minds, or even his effect in the wise disposition and magnificence of the whole created universe.

As for the hypostatic Wisdom in itself, it is described, as in Prov., so also in Sap. and Ecclesi., above all as eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, creatrix and governess of all things. «Being one, it can do all things, and remaining in itself it renews all things»; «it reaches mightily from end to end and disposes all things sweetly»; «of the things that are, it is the artificer» (τῶν ὄντων τεχνῖτις); «it knows all those things and understands»; the same guarded and governed all the patriarchs, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Moses; the same led the people of Israel out of Egypt, «and it was to them for a covering by day and for the light of stars by night, it carried them through the Red Sea, but their enemies it drowned in the sea» Sap. VII. 21. 27; VIII. 1. 6; IX. 11; X. 1-19. In this chapter X. Wisdom already coincides with the Angel of the Lord, i.e., with the Lord, who appeared and was sent in the V. T. distinct from the one sending. But, leaving this aside, the personal distinction is also indicated expressly and immediately.

Wisdom is said to stand by the throne of God, to have created the heavens with God: «(your holy tabernacle) you prepared from the beginning, and with you (μετὰ σοῦ) your Wisdom, which knows your works, which was present also then, when you made the orb of the earth (παροῦσα, ὅτε ἐποίεις τὸν κόσμον), and knew what was pleasing in your eyes» Sap. IX. 4. 8. 9. Then the same Wisdom, the artificer of all things, having all power, foreseeing all things, reaching everywhere, is declared more expressly as proceeding and begotten from God. «For it is a vapor of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the clarity of the almighty God... for it is the brightness of eternal light and the unspotted mirror of the majesty of God, and the image of his goodness. And being one, it can do all things, and remaining in itself it renews all things» Sap. VII. 25-27. All these predicates — «vapor of the power of God, emanation of clarity, brightness of light, mirror of majesty, image of goodness» — evidently signify the same thing under different analogies; but the signification, where these are said of eternal and omnipotent Wisdom, cannot be other than that of origin; and, this being posited, the distinction is understood through the opposition of relation between the principle and the one proceeding from the principle. The clearest argument for the truth of this explanation is sought from the fact that the unity of nature and the distinction of persons is declared in the N. T. in exactly the same way. The Son of God is «the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power» Heb. I. 3⁴. Hence also the Fathers, both before and after the Council of Nicaea, most frequently used this similitude of light and of the splendor from light to declare the distinction and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. Thus Athanasius, to confirm the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, cites the words of Theognostus, who had presided over the catechetical school of Alexandria from the year 250: «the substance of the Son was not devised from without nor drawn from non-existent things, but is from the substance of the Father, as the splendor of light, as the vapor of water (ὡς τοῦ φωτὸς τὸ ἀπαύγασμα, ὡς ὕδατος ἀτμίς); for neither is the splendor or the vapor the water itself or the sun itself, nor again is it something alien, but it is an emanation (ἀπόρροια) of the substance of the Father, in such a way, however, that the substance of the Father has suffered no division» Athan. de decret. Nic. n. 25. See s. Pamphilum, Apolog. c. 3. and 5. (Galland. IV. P. 16. 24), and the other Fathers in Petav. l. V. c. 8. n. 11. sq.

According to these things must also be understood what is read in Ecclesi. XXIV., if perhaps there the sense should seem in itself less expressed. Wisdom, through which the universe was created, from which all the wisdom of the nations, from which especially the Law and the Testament and the ceremonies and the wisdom of the people of God — this divine Wisdom says of itself: «I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, firstborn before every creature... from the beginning and before the ages I was created, and unto the future age I will not cease» Ecclesi. XXIV. 5. 14., which are manifestly parallel to the celebration of Wisdom Prov. VIII. 22: «The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways.... before the hills I was brought forth». In the same way, therefore, they are to be understood of the hypostatic and begotten Wisdom.