Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« 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.