Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« God, revealing Himself as triune in persons, has also explicitly revealed that, besides the known of God, which is to be contemplated by the intellect through the things that have been made, there are depths of God which, since they are above the power of human understanding, the Spirit of God alone searches, and has revealed to us. That the internal processions and the Trinity of persons belong above all to these depths of God is demonstrated both from the written word of God and from the perpetual profession and catholic understanding; and it follows also from the very proper character of this dogma in comparison with our manner of understanding. The Most Holy Trinity is therefore a mystery in the proper sense, whose truth can neither be known by the light of human reason apart from revelation, nor, granted revelation, be demonstrated from merely rational principles. »

In order rightly to understand the sense of the proposition, one must have before one the notion of a mystery in the proper sense taken universally. 1°. It does not suffice to say that the notion of person, and consequently of the Trinity of persons in God, transcends our concept, so that whether before or after having received revelation we are able to apprehend it not by a proper but only by an analogical notion. For although this is indeed most true, yet it is common to the essence and to all the divine attributes; nor are the existence, omnipotence, wisdom of God, etc. for that reason simply superrational mysteries. For a mystery in the strict sense, in the truths of faith, includes two things: that neither is the existence of the truth (whether it is) understood by the light of reason alone, nor can its internal reason (what it is) be apprehended by us with a proper concept (as proper is distinguished from analogous) even granted faith. We shall say most briefly: in mysteries both the knowledge of apprehension and the cognition of assent — that is, both the idea of the quiddity and the judgment of truth — are above the powers of reason. In this matter the Güntherians deceived themselves not a little, who, claiming for the Most Holy Trinity an understanding acquired by the light of reason alone, that it is and what it is (as they said), nevertheless affirmed that the character of the superrational mystery was sufficiently preserved by confessing that we do not know God as He is, and as God Himself knows Himself. But if we only do not know properly how He is, the Trinity is no more above reason than the existence of the one God; and this very thing subverts the character of the mystery, such as we shall see it asserted in Scripture and by the Fathers. But that we do not know God as He Himself knows Himself — that pertains nothing to the notion of mystery; for such a manner of knowing is comprehension, which altogether repugnates to a creature even in any supernatural elevation to the beatific vision.

2°. Yet the mystery is not such that, granted revelation, we understand nothing about what it is. Indeed, unless we apprehended in some way, at least by analogical notions, what that is which is revealed and proposed for belief, explicit faith in such a truth could have no place; for not the words but the things or truths signified by the words are the (material) object of faith. With regard to the idea of the quiddity, therefore, that is, what we have called the knowledge of apprehension, the mystery seems to be on the same footing as the knowledge even of the absolute attributes of God. But although the difference lies chiefly in the judgment of truth, which with regard to the Most Holy Trinity is altogether superrational, but with regard to the existence of God and the absolute attributes is not so; nevertheless there still remains a great difference in the very knowledge of apprehension. For we attain to the analogical concept of the attributes of God from the adumbrations in creatures by the light of reason, through the way of affirmation, negation, and transcendence (τῆς ὑπεροχῆς), and so we ascend from the lower analogue to the concept of the archetype or (as they say) of the first analogue, in which operation of the mind one arrives not only at the analogical notion of the quiddity, but at the same time at the judgment of truth (Tract. de Deo th. XII.). On the contrary, the very notion of the persons, which are constituted by relations and which under the formal reason of persons, really distinct from one another, are at the same time one essence in number, we would never apprehend unless positive doctrine and revelation preceded. Finally, once revelation is proposed, we seek analogies in created things in order to form some concept; and so, although reason here does something by its own light, that is, from rational ideas, it nevertheless always leans on positive revelation, and thus from the object proposed by revelation reason as it were descends to investigate the adumbrations in creatures — not that the judgment of truth (whether it is) may be demonstrated, for this stands by faith alone; but that some concept analogous to the thing to be believed may be formed.

The root and foundation of this difference is that God, the creator and first cause operating ad extra by understanding and willing, and universally according to the absolute attributes, exhibits these very attributes, « everlasting power and divinity », « to be contemplated by the intellect through the things that have been made » (Rom. I. 19. seqq. see Tract. de Deo Sect. I.); on the contrary, the relative persons, mutually and among themselves really distinct, are immanent relations, nor are generation and procession referred ad extra; and so the persons operate inasmuch as they are one God, not inasmuch as they are referred to one another and distinguished by relations. Thus, then, God according to the absolutes is knowable from His works as cause from effect, that He is, and analogically what He is; but under the formal reason of the relations ad intra He is not the cause of the works ad extra, and therefore He is not knowable as cause from effect, whether He is and what He is.

After those internal processions and distinct persons have been revealed, we can indeed find in creatures, especially in the created spirit, analogies for forming some concept of the processions and divine persons, what they are. And this comes from the fact that the created spirit, as the image of God, exhibits immediately the analogy of divine intellection and volition (love); whence, after we have learned from revelation the processions in God according to intellection and love, we are able to arrive mediately, through the concept of intellection and love, at forming a concept of the processions. Properly, therefore, it should be said: from creatures we immediately apprehend analogically the absolute attributes, and (granted the revelation of the relative things) from the absolute attributes (and so from creatures mediately) we apprehend analogically the processions and internal relations (cf. S. Th. I. q. 32. a. 1. ad 1.). If therefore at times the Fathers, as Athanasius orat. I. contra Arian. n. 11. 12., seem to interpret of the distinct persons that saying of the Apostle Rom. I. 20.: « His invisible things, from the creation of the world, through the things that have been made, are seen understood, His everlasting power also and divinity »; this accommodation of the Fathers must be understood of the immediate knowledge of the absolute attributes from creatures, and of the concept of the persons mediately deduced, granted revelation. Thus St. Cyril, after he had indicated that the everlasting power in that text of Paul can be understood of the Son, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, immediately subjoins this commentary. « It is written: no one knows the Father but the Son, and him to whom the Son has willed to reveal Him. If, however, the Father is known to the Son alone, and through Him alone is revealed to others, then the Father is not contemplated through a creature nor from the understanding of the things that have been made; but the creature indeed proclaims its creator, God the Word (not as distinct from the Father but as creator); the Word, however (already known through revelation as a distinct person), shows the Father in Himself. Therefore to Philip saying: show us the Father, He does not bid him to understand Him by concluding from the beauty of creatures ¹, but He shows Himself, saying: he who has seen Me, has seen the Father also » Cyrill. Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 20. 21.

These things being premised, for the demonstration of the thesis we ask what revelation itself and the catholic understanding of revelation directly teach us about the superrationality of the mystery; then what is to be concluded about the same superrationality, when the dogma itself as revealed is examined, and a comparison is made with our rational manner of knowing.

I. We consider first the doctrine of Scripture on the superrational eminence of the mystery.

1°. That in general there are some supernatural truths, the knowledge of which is necessary to men and which nevertheless exceed reason, nor can they be known except through faith in the present life and through supernatural vision in the future life, is most fully attested in revelation itself. Paul declares this matter in the whole of I. Cor. II., deliberately.

The Apostle distinguishes a twofold objective wisdom, that is, a twofold series of things and truths to be known. The first is « the wisdom which the Apostles speak among the perfect », « the wisdom which none of the princes of this world knew », « the wisdom of God hidden in mystery »; to this there is then opposed « the wisdom of this world », « the wisdom which the Greeks seek » (ib.

I. 22.). To each objective wisdom there corresponds, of course, a twofold and most diverse formal or subjective wisdom: one is « the mind of Christ », through it men are « spiritual » (πνευματικοί); through the other a man is « wise (σοφός); but wise according to the flesh, a scribe (γραμματεύς, a man of letters, as Tertullian renders it, contra idololatr. c. 8), a disputer of this world » ² (ib. I. 20. 26.); by virtue of this wisdom a man still remains « animal » (ψυχικός) ³.

Hence, further, the efficient principle or immediate source of each wisdom differs. Of the wisdom which the Greeks seek, the proximate principle is, of course, human reason, or better, the principle is God through the light of reason and through the works of creation (Rom. I. 19. sqq.). But the principle of the other, higher wisdom is the Holy Spirit in a far different way; and that in two ways. For a) He internally affects the rational soul and renders men « spiritual ». This indeed can happen and does happen even with regard to truths knowable by the light of reason, so that the manner of cognition is not animal or natural but spiritual or supernatural. But b) here the Apostle treats of truths which are altogether unknowable by the light of reason. With regard to these truths he teaches that a twofold operation of the Holy Spirit is necessary, or rather an operation of the Holy Spirit for a twofold effect: first, that the mystery, in itself altogether hidden from and inaccessible to natural human reason, be rendered knowable, which is done by internal or external revelation; secondly, that it be known as it ought to be, which is done by internal grace, rendering men « spiritual ».

We are now concerned with that former way, because in it is contained the superrational eminence of the truths about which we are inquiring.

Thus the Apostle says: the wisdom which we speak among the perfect, that is, objective wisdom, the truth, the doctrine, that thing which is the object of subjective wisdom, is wisdom in mystery. This epithet, in mystery, he declares through another: it is hidden wisdom, and that from eternity; for from eternity God predestined that thing to be brought about (inasmuch as it is contingent, and comes to be in time; for Paul has before his eyes the Incarnation and the whole economy of redemption) and to be supernaturally revealed, ib. II. 6. 7. Whence none of the princes of this world knew this wisdom. The princes of this world are without doubt those who excel among men by the prerogatives of this world or natural gifts, and who, with respect to the subject matter, excel in the wisdom which he called in v. 6. « the wisdom of the princes of this world », who are « the wise γραμματεῖς, the inquirers of this world » (ib. I. 20. 26.) ⁴. This universality of the negative proposition « none of the princes of this world knew » is not restricted by what is added: « for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory »; but it is only shown that Pilate also, and Gentiles like him, and no less the wise Jews and scribes who rejected the revelation of Christ, are included among all those who did not know the hidden wisdom. Further, how that wisdom is in mystery, hidden, known to none of the princes of this world, Paul still declares in the words of Scripture (Is. LXIV. 4.): « but as it is written: what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what God has prepared (cf. v. 7. which God predestined) for those who love Him » v. 9. What God has prepared, from the context (with Chrysostom l. c. n. 3 and Theodoret on this passage also admonishing) are of course the same as what he earlier called the wisdom which God predestined before the ages for our glory; they are, namely, the mysteries of redemption, and of these above all the foundation, the Lord of glory, Christ, the incarnate Word; nor yet for that reason can or ought the goods of heavenly beatitude included in these be less rightly understood as the end and complement of redemption. The phrase, ascended into the heart of man, is most well known in the biblical manner of speaking, signifying the same as to come into the mind, into the thought, into the intellect. When therefore it is said: « it has not ascended into the heart of man », the universal expression designates that wisdom to be above the intellect of human nature. « He speaks of the whole of human nature... Whence it is manifest that, before they were heard, they had not ascended even into the heart of man; for after the Spirit had been given, the heart of the prophets was not the heart of man (by natural human powers), but a spiritual heart, just as he himself says: we have the mind (νοῦν) of Christ » Chrys. ibid. « Since he said that the mystery of the economy (of the Incarnation) was hidden, he necessarily added: which no one ever heard nor saw, nor did the most insatiable mind think » οὔτε ὁ ἀπληστότατος ἐνενοήθη νοῦς Theodoret. ibid.

In what has been said so far — wisdom in mystery, hidden, no one knew, nor did it ascend into the heart of man — there is indeed enunciated the fact of ignorance, but a fact which is from the very nature of the thing, from the nature, I say, of the mystery to be known and of the mind knowing. If you still doubt this, proceed to what follows.

The principle of the knowledge of the mystery is solely the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit: « but God has revealed to us through His Spirit ». Whence the animal man, because the principle of knowledge, namely the supernatural principle, is lacking to him, « does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined » ⁵. Therefore such an entire ignorance is not only a fact as it were per accidens, but from the nature of the thing, from the disproportion of the natural intellect and from the supereminent order of these truths. For the truths pertain to the depths of God, the knowledge of which is natural to God alone. For just as elsewhere creation (see Tract. de Incarn. th. IV.), so here the knowledge of these depths of God is exhibited as an attribute and mark of divinity. « For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who of men knows the things that are of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? so also the things that are of God no one has known except the Spirit of God » v. 10. 11. This is the apostolic commentary on the passage of Isaiah which he cites. What the Apostle says: « no one has known except

the Spirit of God », the same the prophet says in other words: « from of old they have not heard, nor have they perceived with ears, eye has not seen, O God, besides You » ⁶; that is, no one has known except God. In almost the same way the same prophet speaks of creation and of the supreme governance proper to God alone: « I am the Lord making all things, stretching out the heavens, etc., and there is no one with Me ». Is. XLIV. 24. XXXVII. 16. XLV. 5. sqq.

Wherefore the mysteries are said to be not only above human reason, but simply above the natural knowledge of any created intellect. « What he (the Apostle) says is of this sort: before we enjoyed the Spirit and learned the ineffable things, neither from ourselves nor from the prophets did anyone think them. For how, when not even the angels knew them? For what, he says, is to be said of the princes of this world, when no man, nor the supernal powers, knew them:... Wherefore we had need of that teacher, who knew these things clearly. For the Spirit, he says, searches all things, even the depths of God ». Chrysost. l. c. n. 3. 4.

It is established, therefore, that there are not only infinitely many truths above the finite intellect, and expressly above the human intellect considered in its whole natural perfection; but that there are some superrational truths of this sort revealed by the Holy Spirit, who alone knows them naturally.

2°. These things and truths, which are called by the Apostle « the depths of God », τὰ βάθη τοῦ Θεοῦ, in opposition to « the known of God », τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ (Rom. I. 19.), are in the context directly and explicitly called the mysteries of redemption; among these, however, in the first place Christ Himself, « the power of God and the wisdom of God » (ib. I. 24), as we have already sufficiently declared. Therefore the depths of God which the Spirit alone searches are not only the free counsels and works of sanctification ad extra; but in the inmost root of these sanctifying counsels, the depths of God which « have not ascended into the heart of man », which « from of old they have not heard nor perceived, O God, besides You », which « no one has known, except the Spirit of God », are also and indeed in the first place the internal relations themselves, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This so explicit doctrine of the Apostle on the disproportion of the created intellect to the mysteries must be kept before the eyes, so that the superrational order may be better understood in those places where there is direct speech about the divine relations and persons:

Matth. XI. 25-27. cf. Luc. X. 21-22.

« I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent (ἀπὸ σοφῶν καὶ συνετῶν) (I. Cor. I. 19. 22. 26; II. 8. 14.), and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, since such was your good pleasure before you (οὕτως εὐδοκία ἐγένετο ἔμπροσθέν σου) (I. Cor. I. 18. 24. 27. 30; II. 4. 5.). All things have been delivered to me by my Father. And no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son shall will to reveal him (I. Cor. II. 9. 11.). »

In the same sense St. John I. 18. concludes his doctrine concerning God the Word: « No one has ever seen God (I. Cor. II. 9. 11); the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him » ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (I. Cor. II. 10). It is clear that, through the clause « no one knows, except him to whom the Son shall will to reveal », just as with Paul through the other parallel « no one has known except the Spirit of God; but God has revealed to us through his Spirit », knowability through the powers of human reason is indeed excluded from the immediate scope; yet from the indication of a natural knowledge which belongs to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alone, and from the universality of the negation and of the opposition of the divine persons to the whole of creation, the natural knowledge of any created intellect is manifestly excluded. That in the phrase « no one except the Father », « no one except the Son », « no one except the Spirit of God » God is opposed to creatures, not the persons to one another, is evident of itself from the unity of the divine essence in the persons. « If he had said simply "no one," many of the hearers would have thought that this was said only of our nature; but now, since after having said "no one" he adds "except the Son," by this addition of the Only-begotten he excluded every creature... That "no one" is always set for the separation of creatures only; nor, if it is said of the Father, does it remove the Son, nor, if of the Son, does it exclude the Holy Spirit » Chrysost. hom. V. n. 1 de Incomprehens. T. I. p. 481.

II. « That the profound reality of God and the revealed truth of the distinct persons who are one God is above the natural faculty of any created intellect, and specifically above natural human reason, the holy Fathers in every age either presupposed or expressly vindicated as most certain.

1°. The holy Doctors, defenders of the truth against the heretics, and all the heretics themselves agreed that the doctrine of the Trinity, as the catholic Church proposes it, cannot be understood by human reason. But just as the Fathers insisted on revelation, and said that it must be learned from God alone speaking of himself, and that the mystery which is above our reason must be believed by faith, so conversely the heretics denounced what could not be understood by reason as contrary to reason, and for that reason accommodated the sense of revelation to the norm of merely rational notions. The Fathers agreed that human reason and philosophy must be subjected to revelation confirmed, handed on, and declared by authority, according to the doctrine of the Apostle: « destroying reasonings (λογισμούς) and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every understanding into the obedience of Christ » (αἰχμαλωτίζοντες πᾶν νόημα εἰς ὑπακοὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ) II. Cor. X. 5. The heretics, if not in words certainly in deeds, contended with inverted order that revelation and faith must be subjected to reason and to philosophy as the supreme norm of interpretation, not only in the negative sense of a demanded non-repugnance, but also in the positive sense of a perceived congruence.

Already in the II. and III. century the cause of the Monarchians for denying three distinct persons was none other than that the unity of God together with the Trinity of persons cannot be understood by reason. But the Fathers demonstrated — not by reason, but solely by appealing to revelation manifest in Scripture, in the creed handed down by the Apostles, in the profession and consensus of the whole Church — that both truths are equally to be believed, because both are equally revealed by God. They conceded, however, that this truth is known to us only with God teaching, and that, even with revelation supposed, it cannot be understood in itself. Thus e. g. the Fathers of the synod of Antioch taught against Paul of Samosata. « We have decreed to set forth in writing the faith which we received from the beginning and have handed down and kept in the catholic holy Church up to the present day according to the succession from the Apostles... Since God is unbegotten, one... whom no man has seen nor can see; whose glory or greatness, as it is, to think or to narrate worthily of the truth is impossible for human nature (ἀνθρωπίνῃ φύσει ἀνέφικτον); but it must suffice for us to have some notion of him, however mediocre, with the Son revealing, as he himself says: no one knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son shall have revealed. But this Son, begotten... God not by foreknowledge but by essence and hypostasis, since we have known him in the Old and New Testament, we confess and proclaim. But whoever contradicts, saying that he does not believe and confess that the Son of God is God before the constitution of the world, and says that two Gods are proclaimed if the Son of God is proclaimed God, him we judge alien from the ecclesiastical rule » ep. ad Paul. Samos. (Opp. Dionysii Alex. pag. 281).

But especially in the long war of the whole Church against the Arians and specifically against the Eunomians, the super-rationality of the mystery was handed down and vindicated by the holy Fathers as the foundation for the defense and the genuine explanation of the revealed doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. We have seen in the Tractatus de Deo (th. X.) how sharply the Eunomians claimed for themselves a full knowledge and comprehension of the divine essence, and how carefully all the Fathers demonstrated against this error, from the very nature of the thing, that what God is can be conceived by us only to some extent through analogical notions. It could seem that this dispute pertains in nothing to what we now treat. But in truth the direct aim of the heretics was the exclusion of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The heretics themselves, no less than the catholic Fathers, perceived that the divine essence cannot be understood by us in such a way that we understand by reason the three persons together, distinct from one another and identified with the same most simple essence. Hence, if we perfectly understood by reason the divine essence as it is in itself, as they asserted, by that very fact nothing else would belong to the divine essence except what we understood in it. But since we in no way understand by reason the one most simple essence in three persons really distinct from one another, the consequence was that not only was the Trinity denied, but the heretics also, from that same principle of the perfect comprehension of the divine nature, drew their arguments to demonstrate that the Trinity of persons such as the catholic Church professes neither is nor can be.

Hence all the Fathers — St. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa in the books against Eunomius, Gregory of Nazianzus in the orations on Theology (specifically in the 1st theological, which is or. 28. al. 34.), Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechesis VI., Epiphanius in haer. LXXVI., Chrysostom in the five homilies on the incomprehensible nature of God, Cyril of Alexandria in the Thesaurus — convince that that assertion about the comprehension of the divine nature is absurd both from the documents of Christian doctrine and from reason itself, in order to smooth the way for the explanation of the revealed doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. For the Fathers agree, as we have said, with the heretics to this extent, that they confess and indeed earnestly contend that the Trinity of persons of one essence cannot be understood by the light of reason. Just as therefore the heretics, from their perfect intellection of the divine essence according to the whole ratio of the divine Being, denied the truth of the Trinity as not comprehended in that rational intellection, and reduced the whole disputation no longer to the doctrine contained in the Scriptures and unfolded in the perpetual tradition and profession of the Church but, as the Fathers complain, « to syllogisms » and to philosophy; so the holy Doctors, with that foundation overthrown, and with the imperfection of our knowledge relative to the divine nature and essence itself demonstrated, brought it about that the super-rationality of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity could no longer be adduced as a cause of denial, nor could the heretics any longer conclude from that which is above intellection that it is against reason. Thus the demonstration that the divine essence is not intelligible to us as it is in itself was at the same time a demonstration that, not from philosophy and merely rational notions with the heretics, but solely from the revelation of God himself, with the Church and from the Church, must be learned what concerning the divine persons is to be believed by faith rather than understood by reason. For the Fathers, therefore, the super-rationality of the mystery is not only certain, but they hold it as a necessary presupposition, without which the integrity of the faith and the sincere explanation of the dogma cannot stand.

2°. For abundance I set down a few special testimonies, so that the opinion of the Fathers, already most certain from what has been said, may appear more distinctly. « Because no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son shall have revealed, therefore the Saints, to whom the Son revealed, handed down to us a certain image from visible things, when they say: the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance; and again: with you is the fountain of life, in your light we shall see light.... But these examples, although they be slight and quite obscure for expressing what we desire, yet from them something can be known that is above human nature, and that the generation of the Son is not like ours.... Since Scripture has these images, it is absurd and very impious to wish to seek from other things knowledge of the Lord, which are neither written nor have any order to piety » Athan. de decret. Nic. n. 12. « This truth is the sacrament of God, this is the name of the inscrutable nature in the Father. God invisible, ineffable, infinite, at whose uttering speech is silent, at whose investigating the mind grows dull, and at whose comprehending the understanding is constrained... Known to the Son alone, because no one knows the Father except the Son... And because no one knows the Father except the Son, let us think about the Father together with the revealing Son, who alone is a faithful witness » Hilar. de Trin. l. II. n. 6. cf. l. 9. 10. « God unbegotten, and from him the begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeding.... He has nothing in common with all things, nor does anyone communicate with him in dignity; for all things fly past and yield (if reason wishes to gather intellection from them), and instead of reasonings they leave the whole cause to the doctrinal word in the divine Scripture, by which it is said: no one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son, and him to whom he shall have revealed. But he reveals through the Holy Spirit not to those who wish to understand him by syllogisms, but to those who believe in him sincerely and perfectly » ⁷ Epiphan. haeres. LXXVI. ad cap. VII. Aëtii (T. I. p. 943.). « As often as the infirmity of the human condition, about to know itself forthwith, attempts to exceed somewhat the limits of its smallness, and, pregnant with the concept of heavenly illumination (i. e. with revelation and grace supposed), begins to give birth to the inquiry of its creator and redeemer, that immutable sempiternity of the Trinity alone (not of course alone simply, but in comparison with God considered absolutely), as I think, will be found worthy of the miracle of incomprehensibility, which so exceeds everything that we can think or know, as it surpasses everything that we are » Fulgent. ad Trasimund. l. II. c. 1. « But the Trinity alone can reveal itself, because the Trinity alone can fully know itself, and as much as it gives itself to be known, so much it bestows itself to be revealed » ib. c. 10. In sum, if the question is about proper understanding, the sense of the Fathers comes back to this: « concerning the mystery of the Trinity the right confession is the ignorance of knowledge » s. Hieronym. Prooem. ad l. XVIII. in Is.

Cf. Athanas. on that text: all things have been delivered to me n. 5.6. (T. I. p. 107.); Basil. contr. Eunom. l. I. n. 14.; Gregor. Naz. or. 20. (al. 29.) n. 10-12.; or. 29. (al. 35.) n. 8.; or. 31. (al. 37.) n. 33.; Cyrill. Hier. Catech. VI. n. 6.; Chrysost. de Incompreh. hom. V. n. 1.

Moreover, lest we twist the testimonies of Scripture and of the Fathers into another sense, there comes the consensus of the older theologians, who all, with the Master I. dist. 3.; and S. Th. I. q. 32. a. 1., defend the eminence of this mystery above reason — not by opining, but as a certain and constant principle. See on this matter Suarez l. I. c. 11. 12; Vasquez in 1. P. disp. 133. and the theologians cited there.

III. With the theological foundation laid beforehand, we can now show the super-rationality of the mystery from the very mode of our cognition and from the nature of the thing to be known.

We cannot know the divine perfections, or what God is, by the light of reason, except either by concluding a posteriori from the imperfections and perfections of creatures previously known (both material and spiritual) to God as from effect to cause, or in a certain way a priori ⁸ i. e. by proceeding from the absolute perfection of God previously known in a confused way to the perfections to be known explicitly and distinctly, or (which comes back to almost the same) by proceeding from one previously known perfection to the knowing of another (distinct in our reason or cognition): « whatever natural reason shows about God is had either from the ratio of principle (i. e. insofar as he is the supreme cause), or from the ratio of supreme perfection » (i. e. from the supreme perfection of God pre-understood in a confused way, proceeding to the understanding of the individual perfections) Pallavic. Curs. theol. de Deo c. 1. n. 3. This principle is altogether evident for any mediate cognition of God to be acquired by the light of reason, and hence it holds with regard to the rational cognition of the Trinity in every opinion, whichever you follow concerning the natural cognition of God, unless perhaps the immediate intuition of God, as he is trine in persons, were absurdly said to be natural to our intellect. For, this being set aside, even those who have persuaded themselves of an idea of God innate to our intellect, or of an immediate intuition of the divine Being ⁹ must all confess that by one or the other of the two indicated ways — from creatures previously known, I say, or from the previously known absolute perfections of God — one must arrive at the cognition of the Trinity of persons, if it can be arrived at by the light of reason alone. Indeed the same principle is universal, and is equally evident not only before the human intellect but before any intellect, to which an immediate intuition of the internal relations of God is not natural. But since such an intuition is natural to the divine intellect alone, while it does not belong by its nature to a created intellect — at least to every intellect now existing (angelic and human), as is theologically certain — indeed it seems to be above the nature of any possible creature, as can be deduced from certain principles (Tract. de Deo th. XIV. cf. s. Th. I. q. 12. a. 4.; verit. q. 8. a. 4.; contr. gent. III. c. 52.); it follows that universally, by the natural light of a created intellect, the cognition of the Trinity of the divine persons is to be attained either in no way, or in one or the other of the indicated ways.

But 1°. the internal processions in God and the three distinct persons cannot be known and demonstrated by the light of reason from creatures previously known, or by concluding a posteriori from effect to cause. From the previously known contingent existence of creatures, from their perfections and their order and direction to an end, reason understands the existence of a being necessary in its existence, intelligent and wise, willing and good, omnipotent, etc., because the existence of contingent creatures without such a necessary being existing is understood to be repugnant. Hence, to understand God — one in nature and trine in persons — in this way from the consideration of creatures, it would be necessary to perceive in creatures, whether spiritual or material, whether considered singly one by one or all together, something which would be understood to be repugnant unless three persons are one God. But it is evident that nothing of this kind is or can be in creatures. For creatures exist in act in whatever way and manner omnipotent God, infinitely wise, infinitely good, wills them to exist; nor can anything beyond the absolute attributes be understood by the light of reason as necessary in God, so that he be the cause of creatures. But the absolute attributes are of God insofar as he is one, equally full whether one person is considered, or whether three distinct persons are supposed and considered. In other words the same can be said: God operates ad extra insofar as he is one in essence, not however as ad intra there are processions and mutual relations of the begetter, the begotten, and the one proceeding. But by this very fact it is repugnant to understand from creatures as from an effect that the cause is three persons distinct from one another and not one, just as the essence is one. « Everything that has causality in the divine realities belongs to the essence, since God is the cause of things through his essence. But the proper things of the persons are the relations, by which the persons are referred not to creatures but to one another. Hence by natural cognition we cannot arrive at what is proper to the persons » S. Th. de verit. q. 10. a. 13.; 1. q. 32. a. 1.; 1. dist. 3. q. 1. a. 4.; in Boet. Trin. Prooem. q. 1. a. 4.

2°. It would therefore remain that, from the consideration of the absolute attributes, which « are perceived as understood through the things that have been made », and hence in a certain way a priori, reason would arrive at the intellection and demonstration of the Trinity of persons. In this way the necessary being is for reason the foundation of understanding and demonstrating the fullness of absolute perfection, and thence further is inferred the unity of God and the repugnance of the multiplication of the divine nature, and so on other attributes can be deduced from others pre-understood and be distinctly understood. But as long as we understand the divine essence only by analogical notions derived from the previously known perfections of creatures, i. e. by abstractive cognition, and not as it is in itself, it is repugnant that from the one most simple essence of God and from the absolute attributes, which are that same essence apprehended under one and another of our analogical concepts, one should arrive at knowing and demonstrating three really distinct persons of one essence. Hence it is, as we said above, that the holy Fathers judged that by the same argument by which, against the Eunomians, the divine essence is shown to be not intelligible by the light of reason as it is in itself, the super-rationality of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is at the same time demonstrated. For these two things are mutually inferred: the divine essence is known immediately in itself, and therefore as it is in itself; therefore the Trinity of the persons is known, who really are the divine essence itself. Conversely: the divine essence is not known as it is in itself, but by analogical notions derived from pre-understood created perfections; therefore by the light of reason it is neither understood nor can it be understood that one absolute essence is at the same time three relative persons really distinct among themselves.

Certainly, for the intellection of the three distinct persons, the principle and foundation of cognition would have to be the divine essence previously known either under the formal ratio of the infinite, or under the formal ratio of one or several attributes (say wisdom, goodness, etc.), or under the formal ratio of the acts of the internal life (intellection and dilection), or (lest a defect of full induction be able to be alleged) under any formality whatsoever intelligible by the light of reason. But it is repugnant that the essence under some or under all of these ratios be the principle of cognition demonstrating the distinct persons, as long as the essence is known not as it is in itself, but from the analogy of creatures.

For we understand the infinite Being and whatever absolute attributes, or the formal ratios under which that same Being can be conceived by the light of reason, as one not multiplicable, most simple, and indistinct; but that that same Being, from its internal ratio, requires a trine and indeed relative subsistence, i. e. that the same infinite essence be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, distinct among themselves by relations alone, and three relative subsistents — this can in no way be deduced from infinity or from any absolute perfection, insofar as it is knowable by the light of reason from creatures. The cause is that there is given, or can be understood by us, no created or creatable perfection exhibiting an analogy of the absolute perfection, which, being one in itself, requires a relative subsistence and a multiplication of subsistents.

What we say about the infinity of the essence and about the attributes holds equally also for the acts, or rather for the act of intellection and dilection, which indeed is a divine attribute and consequently, as we have said, is nothing other than the divine substance itself, or the absolute essence apprehended by us under the formal concept of intellect or will. In created things actual intellection and volition is indeed necessarily something produced by the very spirit that understands and wills; yet from this, by the light of reason alone, we could in no way conjecture, let alone demonstrate, in God the Word and the love produced with a real distinction of three, who are one God. For that intellection and volition in created things is produced by the spirit follows from the limitation of perfection, because the substance of the spirit is not the very understanding and the very loving; but the spirit is in potency to act, and the act is not the substance of the spirit itself, but a perfecting modification of the substance. But where the infinite essence, altogether simple by force of infinity, is the very intellection and volition without any real distinction of act and essence, there indeed we cannot understand by the light of reason that the Word and love are both one supreme absolute thing, i. e. really the essence itself, and under the formal ratio, insofar as they are terms of intellection and dilection, the begotten Word and the love proceeding with a real procession, so that the distinction of the begetter, the begotten, and the one proceeding is real.

3°. Indeed, precisely because the whole created order, from which we ascend to the analogical understanding of the divine perfections, offers no foundation, no analogy (with revelation not supposed) for forming the concept of one absolute substance subsisting in three relations in such a way that there are three distinct ones of one numerically single essence; for this reason, I say, not only is the existence of the thing and its objective truth indemonstrable by natural reason, but we could not even form the concept of the thing as possible.

Hence follows a great difference in the way in which we conceive the absolute attributes and in the way in which, even with revelation supposed, we conceive the persons of one essence, relative to one another and distinct among themselves. God as wise, good, etc. we can conceive by analogical notions from the previously known perfections of creatures, and therefore in the mode of our concept there is indeed an imperfection and as it were a certain composition of the divine essence and of the attribute affecting it; but this imperfection adhering to the concept we easily correct by a judgment from certain principles known also by the light of reason. But when we wish to conceive the divine person by the light of reason alone from previously known created perfections, the concept will always be as of an absolute person, and therefore as of one no less than the essence is one, nor does any merely rational principle present itself by which this mode of conceiving might be corrected by a judgment from the light of reason.

But when from revelation we know that there are three really distinct persons of one absolute essence, and therefore that the persons are relative, distinct of course by relation alone and not by something absolute, we conceive the relative person never under a single but necessarily under a double notion, both of the absolute and of the relative. Hence this imperfect mode of conceiving indeed needs correction by a judgment, by which we judge that the absolute itself is at the same time relative, i. e. that the essence itself is really the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But just as we have the notion of the relative person from revelation alone, so also this judgment is not from merely rational principles, but is a judgment of faith from those things which become known to us by revelation alone.

From all these things it sufficiently appears that the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, as it has been revealed by God, is above reason both with regard to the truth of existence (that it is), and with regard to the very analogical concept (what it is). But both of these remain true not only before revelation, but also with the revelation of the mystery supposed, as it is conceded in the present life. « Since the ray of divine revelation reaches us according to our mode, hence although through revelation we are elevated to know something which otherwise would be unknown to us, not however to this, that we know in another way except through sensible things » (or more generally, according to our mode). S. Th. in Boet. lect. II. q. 2. a. 3.

« From the demonstrated property of the mystery it follows that in all reasonings which are vaunted as purely philosophical demonstrations of the mystery, at least the demonstrative force is lacking, or moreover the revealed dogma itself is perverted and twisted into an alien sense; both of which defects are proved to be present in the speculations of certain more recent writers ».

From those things which we demonstrated in the preceding thesis, it is certain that the revealed truth of the Most Holy Trinity is above the power of human understanding, so that neither the knowledge of the truth that it is, nor the concept of the thing what it is, can be drawn from reason alone and from rational principles, but both the concept of apprehension and the judgment of assent rest upon the revelation of the Spirit of God, who searches the deep things of God.

Hence it is easily evident what follows, if men, having denied or neglected this methodological principle (if one may so speak), namely, having denied the eminence of the mystery above the power of understanding, presume themselves to search the deep things of God by their own reason. Either this is undertaken in such a way that, the true concept of the thing to be demonstrated being supposed from revelation, only a demonstration of existence is pretended; or in such a way that both the concept of the thing and the truth of existence are deduced from principles alone perceived by reason. In the first hypothesis, necessarily either the foundations of the demonstration will be revealed truths known from revelation alone, or the consequence will at least be illegitimate, because there are no truths, whether about God or about creatures, knowable by the light of reason alone, from which it may be legitimately inferred that God is one and threefold. In the other hypothesis, necessarily the very notion of the Trinity, as it has been revealed by God, is perverted, because to the concept of persons who are really distinct from one another only by relations and are identified with one numerically single absolute essence, one cannot arrive by the light of reason alone. This, however, comes from the fact that not only in all things which we perceive with our intellect essences are multiplied, at least distinct in number, according to the number of persons or supposits; but also because there is no rational principle from which we might positively understand as possible the multiplication of persons in one numerically single essence.

Therefore that which is pretended to be a demonstration either is not merely rational and philosophical, but is a theological demonstration from revealed principles, of which we shall speak below; or it is no demonstration at all; or moreover (as always necessarily happens, if a merely rational demonstration is presumed, i. e. both as regards the concept of what it is and as regards the truth that it is) the revealed dogma itself is perverted and twisted into an alien sense. It seemed useful to subject both of these to the very eyes by adducing some attempts of more recent writers, so that what is universally established from doctrine and from theoretical principles may also be exhibited more conspicuously in facts, albeit only in particular ones.

I. The lesser defect, therefore, but one inseparable from the nature of the thing in experiments of this kind, is the emptiness of the demonstration. From this, however, follows that which St. Thomas says: « He who strives to prove the Trinity of persons by natural reason derogates from the faith in two ways. First, indeed, as regards the dignity of the faith itself, which is (in mysteries properly so called) to be about invisible things that exceed human reason; whence the Apostle says... 1. Cor. II. 7. we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden. Second, as regards the usefulness of drawing others to the faith. For when someone adduces in proof of the faith reasons which are not cogent, it turns into the derision of the unbelievers » 1. q. 32. a. 1.

Truly it is a wonder how men, even accustomed to metaphysical meditations, could have persuaded themselves, and sold to others as a « speculative demonstration » of the Most Holy Trinity, the reasons which they adduced. Concerning Raymond Lull one can read Vasquez in 1. P. disp. 33. and Suarez l. I. c. 11. n. 7. seqq. The demonstration which he himself thought evident, Lull found in the immanent act of God. God is most perfect goodness. Most perfect goodness necessarily has a most perfect internal vital act; this Lull calls « bonificativum » in God. The most perfect « bonificativum » necessarily has a most perfect produced term; this term he calls « bonificabile » in God. The most perfect « bonificativum » produces « bonificabile » in the most perfect manner; the most perfect manner of production is generation; therefore « bonificativum » is the Father, « bonificabile » is the Son. Moreover, where there is « bonificativum et bonificabile », both most perfect, there is necessarily the most perfect « bonificare. » This « bonificare », taken actively, must be the common act of the « bonificativo » and « bonificabili, » and such an act must have as its term the « bonificare » objective, that is, terminative, that is, proceeding. Because the most perfect « bonificare » is « amare », this proceeding « bonificare » is proceeding love, i. e. the Holy Spirit. (At least so Lull would have to say in order to avoid a more serious error, if, as seemed to Vasquez, « bonificare » were taken for the production of the « bonificabilis » or of the Son, and the same bonificare were at the same time said to be the Holy Spirit). There are therefore necessarily three persons: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Nor can there be more, because the infinite « bonificativum » cannot be but one, and the same holds of the infinite « bonificabili » and of that which is called the infinite « bonificare ». So far he.

Abstracting from the inept Lullian phraseology, everyone perceives for himself what is to be judged of such a demonstration. That the divine act which is absolute intellection and dilection and the divine essence itself, under which respect it certainly has no term intrinsically produced and distinct, should at the same time be the relative intellection by which the distinct Word is produced, can in no way be understood and demonstrated by the light of reason, but is known only by revelation. The same holds of dilection. But if Lull's argument is not kindly modified and reduced to these terms, that which he himself calls « bonificativum, bonificabile et bonificare, » will not even be the Trinity as it has been revealed to us; and so one would fall into more serious errors.

In more recent times (at the end of the last and the beginning of this century) Marcus Mastrofinius in his Work on the Trinity, which he entitled The Sublimer Metaphysics, exhibited not one only, but altogether three, which he himself called demonstrations of the Most Holy Trinity, in entire books III. IV. V. The first is drawn from the necessary existence of God in the following manner. Whatever exists must have a sufficient reason, that is, a principle, external or internal, of its existence. Therefore in God, a necessary being, there must be a principle, not external but internal, whence the existence of God is. This principle of existence must itself also exist; but whatever exists, exists in a determinate manner; therefore the principle of existence in God has its own manner of existing distinct from every other, that is, the principle of the existence of God is subsistent and a hypostasis. The existence flowing forth from the principle is something distinct from its principle, and for that reason also has its own determinate manner of existing, that is, it itself subsists and is a hypostasis. There are therefore necessarily two hypostases: one a principle (the Father), the other a principiate (the Son).

Moreover, in every substance, and especially in a spiritual substance, and much more in an infinitely perfect substance, there must be a principle of action; « whence it will follow that a certain principle of action must also be admitted in God himself, considered now as having his own existence, namely in that first interior and existing principle, considered together with the second manner of existing, which has the character of existence or of the principiate in relation to that first principle. » And so this principle of action is common to the Father and the Son. Moreover, the principle of action demands for itself a proportionate term; therefore the infinite principle of action demands an infinite term. This term, as a principiate, is distinguished from the first and second hypostasis as from its principle; therefore it is itself the third divine hypostasis, proceeding from the first and second as from one principle, namely it is the Holy Spirit. Therefore the existing principle of existence, the existence flowing forth from it, the term of internal action are understood by the light of reason to be the three divine hypostases. Which was to be demonstrated. Thus l. III. of The Sublimer Metaphysics.

If this argument is viewed logically, apart from its artificial form it seems to have nothing similar to a demonstration. I do not wish to ask how these things cohere with one another: that every existence postulates a distinct principle, and that nevertheless the principle of existence exists without another principle distinct from itself; and how such a foundation without foundation, i. e. one leading to a process to infinity, is not absurd, when it is a question of a being that is necessary from its inmost reason and essence. The obvious consideration of the matter suffices for one to understand that the principle of existence and the existence of God are not distinguished even by reason (a reasoned distinction, i. e. one with a foundation in the thing), much less really, but are absolutely nothing other than the divine essence intrinsically necessary. Whence if the demonstration is viewed theologically, certainly the principle of the existence of God, which cannot be anything but absolute existence and essence, is not the Father; nor is that existence something flowing forth or resulting from another, whether distinct in reality or even by reason alone, and consequently it is not the Son. Concerning the « principle of action » those things suffice which we have already said and demonstrated above: that the production ad intra cannot be understood by the light of reason. Many other absurdities in this whole manner of demonstration will easily appear to anyone who considers it.

To the second demonstration, as the author does not blush to call it, book IV is devoted. He says he deduces it from the « quantity of creative power, which God contains in himself »; but in reality the foundation on which the whole argument rests is an equivocation, by which the infinite of absolute perfection, that is, the fullness of absolute Being (cf. Tract. de Deo Sect. III. c. 2.) is inverted into the infinite of mathematical quantity. The disputation, of marvelous absurdity, is reduced to this sum. There is in God a power of creating substance; this creative power is infinite. Further, there is in God a power of creating an infinite series of species; therefore the creative power is not only simply infinite but infinitely infinite, that is, it is an « infinite of the second order ». Moreover, there is a power of creating in each of the species individuals infinite in number; therefore the creative power, infinitely infinite, is further multiplied by infinity; therefore the creative power is an « infinite of the third order » ¹. The creative power is the very substance of God. Therefore « the divine substance is in itself an infinite of the third order ».

There is no need for us to pursue the sick man's dreams in the manner of declaring how from this foundation the Trinity of persons is to be understood, since the foundation itself is absurd on every side. For absolute Being, that is, the fullness of absolute perfection, admits no degrees, not even distinct in consideration, much less in reality; and the formal reason of omnipotence is one absolute and most simple essence, whatever be the external term to which it is referred. Nor are the divine persons different degrees of infinity, but really they are, both singly and all together, one and the same most simple essence, distinct from one another not as some degrees of quantity or other, but as three relatives, as principle and as proceeding from the principle. And so in that mathematical declaration of the Trinity not only is the demonstration null, but neither do I see how the whole concept proposed in revelation could be preserved, if all the consequences are logically deduced from it.

The third and last demonstration, in book V., is drawn « from the manifestation of divine glory ». The manifestation of divine glory is a good; therefore the infinite manifestation of glory is an infinite good; therefore, lest the infinite good be lacking to God, there necessarily exists an infinite manifestation of glory. The infinite manifestation cannot be ad extra through creatures, but only ad intra. Therefore in the divine substance there must be something which perfectly manifests the glory of God. God, inasmuch as his glory is manifested, « is subsistent, before we consider that which manifests the accumulated glory of God himself in the divine substance ». Therefore that which manifests the glory is the second divine person, distinct from the first, and proceeding from the first as its image. There subsist therefore the Father, and the Son, who is the splendor of the glory of the Father. Moreover, the manifestation of glory requires a third, to whom the glory may be manifested, « otherwise the manifestation would not be a manifestation at all, since there would be lacking one to whom it might be manifested ». A third distinct person is required; for the Son, as the manifestation of glory, « is a means to an end », which end is the knowledge of glory; but a means is distinguished from the end, and the manifestation must be conceived as prior in order than the knowledge; « therefore the Son must differ from him through whom such knowledge is primarily effected, or toward the obtaining of which the expression of divine glory is directed ». The third, therefore, through whom the knowledge of glory primarily is, is distinct from the Son as from the expression of glory, and is distinct also from the Father. « For the Son by natural order precedes him through whom the knowledge of divine glory exactly represented is primarily effected; but the Father is preceded by the Son himself in natural order; much more, therefore, does the Father by natural order antecede him through whom such knowledge is primarily effected ». Therefore this distinct third is the third person primarily cognizing the manifestation of glory made in the second person. This third person proceeds from the first and second; for « this third person arises from the exigency and natural necessity that there be in God a certain third, who is referred to recognizing what the Father is, and how much he accomplished in his subsistent glory, i. e. in producing the Son », therefore the first and second person are the principle « why there is a third person ». This third person is therefore the Holy Spirit, who searches all things, even the deep things of God. These, and several like them, are there in l. V.

Of the demonstration there is not a shadow; the things which are said concerning the person, especially the third, are theologically false. The internal glory of God is the infinite, self-sufficient excellence of the divine essence itself; the manifestation of this glory ad intra (at least inasmuch as it is knowable by reason) is the infinite comprehension of this infinite excellence through the divine intellect, and in this comprehension consists the infinite blessedness of God (Tract. de Deo th. XXVIII. XXIX.). That the Word is produced through the intellect from its inmost reason, and so there is the Father and there is the Word, the figure, the consubstantial image and splendor of the glory of the Father, and so the Son can rightly be called the expression of the paternal glory, i. e. one glory in the Father and the Son, but communicated to the Son by the Father through generation — these things are indeed most true, but in no way knowable by the light of reason. The things, therefore, which I have adduced from the author concerning the first and second person can indeed have a sound sense, but in this sense they are known and believed from revelation alone, not truly demonstrated by reason. But whatever is said by the author about the third person proceeding, lest there be lacking one to whom the glory of God may be manifested — that not only cannot be demonstrated, but, revelation being at least supposed, is demonstrated to be false.

Finally, I shall still mention the « speculative knowledge » of the Most Holy Trinity, which in our age the Güntherians boasted of having discovered from the principles of their philosophy. The Güntherians teach universally that all revealed truths, at least those which are necessary in themselves, are demonstrable by the light of reason, both that they are and what they are ². They affirm this expressly concerning the Most Holy Trinity. The term from which one must proceed, and from which the « cogent argument », as they themselves say, i. e. the evident demonstration for the existence of the three divine persons, is recovered, is for them the philosophically known human spirit. Since these things pertain to the very principles and to the marrow of their doctrine, the same recur everywhere, set forth in many places in their books. Thus, e. g., Günther in the philosophical annals entitled Lydia 1852. p. 411. 442. first expounds his « speculative » concept of the Trinity, namely that « the process of life in the absolute being (in God) and the manifestation of God ad intra are so accomplished, that the Being of God, as the absolute principle, is duplicated »; then further, he says, « from the two members of the opposition (the Father and the Son) breaks forth Being, which is equal to both, unequal to neither in any way » (the Holy Spirit). The source is then indicated from which the demonstration of this matter is derived: « the cogent argument for admitting these three moments (the three persons) in the manifestation of God ad intra is placed in the thought of one's own Ego, that is, in the personality of our spirit ».

Without doubt in the created spirit some analogy can be found, according to which, revelation being supposed and proposed, we understand to some extent what is to be believed by us. The Scriptures themselves indicate it; the holy Fathers, above all St. Augustine, and after him St. Anselm, Hugh and Richard Victorinus, Lombard, St. Thomas and all the other theologians, illustrated this analogy. But so far is it from being able to be a means of demonstration, that the analogy itself can be found and understood only from revelation; and that, revelation being also supposed, serves not for the demonstration of the existence of the Trinity, but only for forming some slightly more distinct concept of the believed truth. The Güntherians wished to demonstrate both — that the Trinity of persons is, and what it is — independently of revelation, from rational ideas alone, and therefore they fell in both. Their « speculative demonstration » of the existence of the Trinity is of no value, and in their concept of what the Trinity is, the errors are much more serious. As regards the demonstration, in it there is almost nothing other than the effort of clearly conceiving (as they thought) the Trinity of persons and the analogy of created personality, and this clarity of concept they sold as a demonstration of existence, in much the same way, but far more absurdly, in which others gave the concept of necessary being for a demonstration of its existence.

«A compelling argument» drawn «from the thought of one's own Ego or of the personality of our spirit», and thus the whole Güntherian demonstration is reduced to this sum. The created spirit is the image of God; from the image, however, the archetype can be known. Therefore from the personality of the created spirit there can be known what and of what kind the divine personality is. The form of personality, i.e. that which formally constitutes substance a person in act, is self-consciousness (the thought of one's own Ego). Therefore in the first place, if the elements of self-consciousness in the created spirit are rightly understood, the elements of self-consciousness in the absolute spirit can also be understood, by excluding of course the imperfections that follow from the notion of a finite being and by applying the perfections according to the exigency and nature of the absolute being. By this very fact, then, it is understood what and of what kind the divine personality is. With these things presupposed, the procedure is as follows: the created spirit, because it is not from itself, cannot even by itself advance to the thought of itself, but only insofar as it is excited by another. For this reason the same spirit immediately perceives only phenomena in itself, i.e. the impression it receives and the action it elicits; but it cannot immediately intuit its own substance itself; rather, it becomes conscious of this its substance only mediately, as of the subject of those phenomena. Because this is from the limitation of the created spirit, this imperfection must be denied in the absolute spirit. Whence the absolute spirit, because it is Being from itself and for that reason also absolute knowledge from itself and about itself, not excited by another but by itself, makes not phenomena but immediately its own substance itself the object of its intuition for itself.

All these things contain nothing that has not long since been most well known and conceded and handed down by all the older theologians (except that Günther thinks the created spirit cannot go into act unless it is excited by another spirit already conscious of itself; but this axiom derived from the traditionalists in the present matter neither helps nor hinders the argumentation, and so can safely be passed over). But now let it be heard how, from the most well-known and evident truth that God intuits his own substance itself, Günther, with a huge speculative leap, derives «a compelling argument» for demonstrating that not one but necessarily in the first place two divine persons are understood by the light of reason. Thus he proceeds. «That in the absolute Being the excitation by another is excluded, this nevertheless does not prevent the absolute Being itself from opposing itself to itself, and in this opposition entering into a relation with itself. Whence it follows that God, while he comprehends himself immediately in his substance, i.e. becomes conscious of himself, opposes his own Being to himself, i.e. posits it again. In other words: we can conceive that God makes himself in his essence the object of immediate intuition only in this way, that he opposes himself in himself as a real substance, or duplicates himself through emanation.» To this wonderful «compelling argument» he adds a confirmation from analogy: «so also the human mind can make its (direct) thought the object of reflection, not without a (new) thought, but through a second equally living thought. Here too the (reflex) thought about the (direct) thought is not merely a certain adumbration, but light from light, life from life.»

If this argumentation were accepted with closed eyes, and it were even conceded that two divine persons are demonstrated by the light of reason, it would seem obvious that a deduction of exactly the same form should be set up from the will, by which God wills and loves himself, and so a third person would be demonstrated. Günther, however, in his «speculative theology» seemed to himself to see that for completing in God the self-consciousness, i.e. the intellection of his substance, a third person proceeding from the first and the second necessarily follows and is understood. Whence it does not appear why, after self-consciousness completed in this way — which he himself calls «a single composite out of three moments or elements», i.e. out of the self-consciousnesses of the individual persons (Propaed. II. p. 292.; 537.; Euryst. et Herac. p. 450.; Lydia 1849. p. 240.) — it does not appear, I say, why God, conscious of himself in this way, by now willing himself, or in Güntherian phraseology by making himself the object of volition, should not again oppose himself to himself; and so we shall have not only a «triplicated substance», but at least a quadruplicated one, and we shall at minimum «speculatively» understand still another, a fourth person, proceeding from the three. But evidently, although the author pretends that his «speculation» is from reason alone and not from a presupposed revelation, he nevertheless wanted to find only the three persons whom he knows by revelation; without revelation he would most certainly find neither two nor three. Meanwhile, setting these things aside, let us see how from the divine self-consciousness one arrives at understanding the third person.

In every intellection (so Günther teaches) three things are distinct: the understanding subject, the understood object, and the intellection as the unity or equation of the understanding and the understood. Whence also in the intellection of self the first «moment» is that the spirit makes itself the object of intellection, i.e. it places before itself, or opposes to itself as something to be understood, itself understanding, and discerns itself understanding from itself understood. According to the analogy of this first moment in self-consciousness, the first and second person of the Trinity are demonstrated in the manner described a little before. But through this opposition self-consciousness is not yet complete; for its completion an estimation of the identity between the understanding subject and the understood object is required: I am I. This is the second «moment», by which self-consciousness is completed. Hence also in self-consciousness, as it is that of the absolute spirit, i.e. of God, to the first «moment», by which the subject opposes to itself the object through «emanation» and «duplication of substance», there must be added the second «moment», by which subject and object affirm and exhibit their equality. This affirmation of equality (while the subject affirms itself equal to the object, and the object to the subject) «posits, besides the subject and the object, still a third element in the absolute self-consciousness, which, equally with the two former, is absolute substance, and, proceeding from the subject and the object, exhibits the equality of the two members of the opposition. Thus therefore self-consciousness in God as in the creature is the essential form — there of absolute, here of finite Being — with this only difference according to the diverse quality of the Being itself, that in the consciousness of the absolute the elements of the form, i.e. the moments of the acts of the absolute principle, are not mere phenomena (as the intellections of a creature are), but real moments, i.e. νοούμενα or substances». Propaedeutica I. p. 104. sqq. You have the whole «compelling demonstration» of the Most Holy Trinity from the light of reason alone, which was repeated by Günther in almost all his works, as to the substance of the matter everywhere the same, and was approved by his disciples and commended with wonderful praises (Günther Propaed. I. p. 119. sqq.; Propaed. II. p. 291. sqq. 535-539. 553. sq.; Symposion Peregrini p. 149. 565; Euryst. et Heracles p. 449. sq. 508. sq. 512. sqq.; Thomas a Scrupulis p. 177-181; Viae mediae in philosophia germanica p. 358. 599.; Lydia 1849, p. 245. sq.; Lyd. 1851. p. 166. sqq.; Lyd. 1852. p. 260. sq. etc.).

But in truth not only is it not an evident demonstration; rather, it is evident on every side that it is no demonstration at all. Already in the deduction of the distinction between the first and the second person, things are assumed as certain which either are not understood by reason or are manifestly false. a) From the fact that opposition is not excluded in the absolute Being, i.e. that the repugnance of the opposition (he should have said: of the relation) is not understood, it is absurdly inferred: therefore such opposition exists. b) It is utterly false that the intuition by which God comprehends his essence is understood by us, by the light of reason, as some real distinction. This comprehension, insofar as it is understood by reason, is an infinite intellection, which really is the divine substance itself without any real distinction; but by no means is a distinction or multiplication of the divine substance or essence introduced, which is both certain by faith and evident by reason. Hence c) what is said — «the absolute Being enters into a relation with itself, and the divine substance is duplicated through emanation» — is both certain by faith to be false and understood by reason to be absurd. There is no opposition or relation between the absolute Being, i.e. between essence and essence, absolute substance and substance; for this is one most simple, non-multipliable «supreme thing, which neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds», insofar as it is the absolute essence or substance; the same, however, has the notion of a relative, and thus that one supreme thing «is the Father who begets, and the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds: three persons at once, and each one of them». This neither we nor the Güntherians understand by reason; but we, by seeking the notions in revelation itself and by accommodating to them the analogous concepts previously known by reason, know what is to be believed; they are deceived in this very point, as long as they do not see that in revelation the distinction, and consequently the formal notion of the divine person as one is distinguished from another, is constituted not in something absolute but in something relative. But once they have seen this, they will no longer think about a «compelling demonstration» from the light of reason.

If that whole demonstration of the «opposition between subject and object» is deceitful and false, then there can no longer be any question of a rational deduction of the third person or of the «third element», as he speaks, because this second deduction is wholly founded on the former and presupposes it as a necessary foundation. But let us suppose that the distinction of the two persons has been demonstrated; let us also grant without examination what the author says about the «second moment in self-consciousness», and thus let us inspect the deduction of the third person in itself. What is that «affirmation or objective exhibition of equality», which he also calls the «aequiposition of the two opposed members»? Equality is contained in the distinction of the persons and in the numerical unity of the essence or nature; and so if that «affirmation of equality» or aequiposition of the two persons is taken in a genetic or real-active sense, aequiposition is nothing else than the generation of the Son through the communication of one and the same nature, not however the production of a third person. If that «affirmation» is taken in an ideal sense, for the intellection of an equality already posited, this is the absolute intellection, i.e. the one divine essence in two distinct persons understanding the equality; but in no way can it be conceived as the production of some third person. Günther says: «in the opposition as such perfect identity is not yet contained, because the emanation could be only partial, i.e. it is not necessarily total; and therefore the opposition still remains to be exhibited or affirmed as aequiposition; and this is accomplished solely by this, that both factors through emanation posit a product, in which each one of them finds again himself whole, and neither in producing it is postponed to the other» (Propaed. II. 536.); and «the Holy Spirit is to that extent the objective testimony of the paternal generation (as a total emanation), insofar as the opposition between the Father and the Son becomes in the Holy Spirit an objective real aequiposition» (Thom. a Scrup. p. 177.). But these are empty and absurd words. Of what, I ask, opposition and emanation is there talk, where the divine persons are concerned? The Son cannot proceed from God the Father except through the communication of the whole essence; for the divine essence can neither be produced nor divided. Whence the relation of opposition — that the Father who begets is one, and the Son who is begotten another, yet not another thing — includes consubstantiality and most perfect equality; nor can it be said except most absurdly that by generation equality, or (as Günther speaks) aequiposition, is not yet constituted, but that in the relation of opposition arising from divine generation there is still an inequality, which is to be supplied and raised to equality through the production of a third person ³. And such inventions are hawked as perceived truths demonstrated by «compelling arguments»!

Consubstantiality, i.e. the essential equality of the Father and the Son, does not finally follow from the procession of the Holy Spirit; rather, in the inverse order, from the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father it follows that if a third person proceeds from the Father, the same one also proceeds from the Son — not that equality may be introduced, but because the Son is equal to the Father, i.e. because by generation he receives all things that are the Father's (the formal notion of Paternity alone excepted).

Just as therefore the very foundation itself, I mean the rational demonstration of the generation of the Son from the Father, does not hold together, so this second demonstration of the procession of the third person, even considered in itself, is utterly null. Who now, indeed, looking face to face at this «speculative theology», which wanted to convert into its opposite the principle of the holy Fathers and theologians: «I believe in order to understand», «faith seeks understanding», namely into: «I understand the truth, in order to believe the historical fact of revelation» (Lydia 1852. p. 348-350.; Iani Capita P. II. p. 272-279.), who, I say, taught by experience itself, would not feel the truth of that judgment of St. Thomas: «he who strives to prove the Trinity by natural reason derogates from the faith...... For when someone brings forward for proving the faith reasons that are not compelling (much more, if absurd ones are given as compelling), he falls into the derision of the unbelievers» I. q. 32. a. 1.

II. The second derogation from the faith, commemorated by us at the beginning, is even graver: if the very concept of the thing is constituted by the light of reason alone, independently of revelation, the truth itself and the genuine sense of the dogma is necessarily perverted, because the very concept of the persons — that they are three relative subsistents, distinct among themselves, and at the same time both each singly and all together one absolute essence — is superrational, and can be derived only from revelation. Hence we have seen that in all attempts at demonstration the departure from the genuine sense of the dogma is in direct ratio with the abstraction from positive revelation; for one is deflected from the true concept the more, the more strictly what is pretended is preserved, namely the independence of the demonstration from positive revelation. This ill-fated independence is greater in Günther than in the others of whom we have treated; therefore also his concept or explanation of what the Trinity is, is by an equal degree more remote from the truth.

I°. He affirms that the divine person, insofar as the persons are formally distinct, must be conceived not as a relative but as an absolute. Hence he teaches that «the unity of the divine nature is by no means to be understood in a real numerical sense, but only in a formal sense, i.e. as the absolute relation to one another of three real principles» Propaed. II. 298. For certainly he who posits that the person in God, as in creatures, is an absolute, by admitting three distinct persons admits «three absolute principles» (l. c. 299.). Likewise, he who with a concept partly false, partly inadequate (see Tract. de Incarnat.) posits that the form by which an integral, singular substance is constituted a person is «self-consciousness», in such a way that, as many as the persons are, that many distinct absolute substances and distinct «self-consciousnesses» (i.e. intelligences and wills) are introduced; he, by admitting three divine persons, by that very fact admits three absolute substances, and in each a distinct intellect and a distinct will. But of three «real principles» of this sort, with the numerical unity of nature excluded, a formal unity is affirmed, insofar as through the form of personality, i.e. through self-consciousness, the individual persons are referred to one another. Through this mutual relation, moreover, it is said that «from three self-consciousnesses, as so many individual moments, one absolute self-consciousness is composed» (Propaed. II. 292.; Lyd. 1849. p. 240.), and the individual divine persons are called «individual moments of one absolute personality» (Propaed. II. 537.). You have what «the absolute relation to one another of three real principles» is, and what the «formal unity» arising from it is, opposed to «the real numerical unity» of the divine nature.

That such a concept of unity is most false has been proved in our whole treatise from the documents of revelation; Günther, however, after the light of «speculative theology» had risen, professes that it is most dear to him. «Let it be recalled to memory, he says, the passage from the theological system of Leibniz: there are therefore three singular substances, one absolute relation which embraces them. This passage, if I had once come upon it, I confess, would have created a difficulty for me; now, however, it is most dear and most acceptable to me, because it illustrates a certain passage of Augustine, de Trin. VII. c. 4., where he asks why we do not say three Gods just as we say three divine persons, and he finds the cause in the pedagogical reason of the Church, which, compelled by necessity, introduced and retains this manner of speaking» Propaed. I. p. 119.

Certainly, if that were the concept of the Trinity, that there are three divine substances whose unity consists in mutual relation, no reason would appear why they should not be called three Gods just as much as three such persons. But according to the revealed doctrine the concept is plainly the reverse: the divine relations are the whole reason of distinction, not however of unity; the unity of the persons is in the one and really singular absolute substance itself. And so what Günther says is distinct is altogether one singular thing; but that in which he himself places unity, in that very thing the real distinction is constituted. If Leibniz had said what is adduced, he would have erred before Günther; in very truth, however, he never said it ⁴ nor could he have said it without madness; for according to the manner of speaking of the older theologians, which Leibniz uses expressly in the «theological system», an absolute relation would be a contradiction in terms.

As for Augustine, nothing can be said more false and more contrary to the sense of the holy Doctor than that he judged, as Günther indicates, that by itself and from the very truth of the matter three Gods could be said, unless usage stood in the way, usage introduced and retained for a pedagogical and external reason. Rather, in that passage, which to be understood must be read in its entirety, Trin. l. VII. n. 7. up to 12. (in which number 12. the true solution of the difficulty is contained), he expressly teaches that what is absolute in God is altogether one, and therefore in no way can there be or be said three Gods or three essences, but one God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Whence it follows, and is taught by Augustine, that these three are distinct among themselves not insofar as they are one absolute and one God, but insofar as they are relatives. The whole difficulty for Augustine is only about the name person and hypostasis. The final solution, however, comes down to this: if the name person were taken as in creatures, as an absolute, it could not be said in the plural in divine matters; but by a certain necessity, that there might be at hand one common name by which the three distinct ones might be named, the Latins employed person, the Greeks hypostasis, to designate that which in God is relative; and thus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are called three persons or hypostases ⁵.

2°. Because the real numerical unity of the divine nature was not acknowledged by Günther together with the Trinity of persons, nor could it be known from a merely rational concept, hence beyond that mutual relation of the three absolute substances to one another, of which we have spoken, he could admit no other foundation of unity than the identity of reason and the equality in three distinct essences, which is at length specific unity. This Günther calls the identity of essence, and he opposes it to unity, affirming identity and expressly denying the (numerical) unity of the essence. For he says that there is to be affirmed of the three persons «parity, not unity, in the essence or in the divine Being (sameness, identity, not unity, in the essence, being)» Propaed. II. 537.

To this sense the words of the liturgical Preface are absurdly accommodated: «not in the singularity of one person but in the Trinity of one substance», where, according to Günther, «the word "of one" in the second place is not to be taken in the same sense as in the first place, but for the sake of euphony "of one substance" is said for "of the same substance"; for here there is talk of a ternary or triplicated substance» ib. p. 539. A commentary is added by Günther's disciple Dr. Knoodt (in the published letters T. I. p. 145): «in the Preface it is not said "in the singularity of one substance", but "in the Trinity of one substance", by which words the singularity of the essence is denied, because a Trinity and hence a plurality (of substance) is affirmed». But when substance is not taken for person but for absolute substance, just as in this liturgical profession of faith substance is opposed to persons, and it is not one person but one substance that is predicated, it is most certain from the Catholic faith that the divine substance is one, singular, and not multipliable (see th. I. VII. IX. X.); and so in this very opposition it is altogether evident that in the same real numerical sense in which the unity of the person is denied, the unity of the substance is affirmed. Accordingly the name Trinity does not number substances, as the Güntherians thought, but persons. One God, one Lord, not in the singularity of one person but in the Trinity of one substance is the same as if it were said: there is one God — not in the Sabellian sense, that there is only one person; nor in the Arian sense, that the Father alone is the supreme God, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are inferior substances; nor in the sense of the tritheists, that just as there is not one person, so neither is there one substance, but three equal substances; rather, to exclude all these heresies there is predicated «one God, not in the singularity of one person, but in the Trinity of persons, who are of one substance».

What we have brought forward is enough that it be understood what the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX declared in the letter to Card. de Geissel, Archbishop of Cologne (15 June 1857): «we know that in the same (Güntherian) books not a few things are read which deviate not a little from the Catholic faith and from the sincere explanation of the unity of the divine substance in three distinct and eternal persons» (Acta Pii IX. P. I. T. II. p. 587). At the same time, however, from all that has been said there is set before the eyes that which in this whole exposition we have chiefly regarded, namely that the sincerity of the dogma itself cannot be preserved if, the superrationality intrinsic to it being denied, there is undertaken a conforming of the concept and a demonstration of the truth from the notions and principles of reason alone, independently of revelation. And from this it further appears why it is of so great importance that the superrational character of the mysteries be sincerely and practically acknowledged by Christian philosophers and by theologians.

Scholion. It is customary to ask concerning Plato and the Platonists whether they attained in their philosophy some species of the Trinity, and of what kind and from what source. But in the first place the doctrine of Plato himself must here be distinguished from the commentaries of the later Platonists; and likewise, in judging the doctrine of Plato himself, we shall set aside the books attributed to him by the Neoplatonists or at least suspected, of which sort Plato's epistles are commonly judged by recent critics, namely the second to Dionysius and the sixth to Coriscus.

Now, as regards the master himself, the interpretation of his theology depends on the interpretation of the doctrine of ideas. But his opinion concerning the ideas, and by this very fact concerning God, in many things perhaps not clear to Plato himself, certainly how obscure it is and always has been to all other learned men, can be established even from the mere immense diversity of interpretations, both among the ancients, whether Peripatetics or the Platonists themselves, and among the more recent commentators down to our own age. What things in Plato pertain to the present matter are roughly these. Any immutable truth which is the object of the intellect is called and is an idea or intelligible essence (ἰδέα, νοητὴ οὐσία), in opposition to existing sensible, mutable things, and even to the souls and minds themselves, which are mutable. Wherefore all sensible or material things, and also the spiritual substances which are contained in this universe, have their own ideas and intelligible essences. The whole complex of ideas, or the whole metaphysical order of essences, is that which is called the intelligible world (κόσμος νοητός), in opposition to this concrete world, which is the sensible world (κόσμος αἰσθητός). In that metaphysical order of truths and in the intelligible world there is assuredly a mutual nexus, harmony, and unity, by which a certain supreme beauty and goodness is constituted. The intelligible essences and ideas, the more universal and higher they are, the more orders of inferior ideas they comprehend under themselves and join together into unity. Just as in this sensible world minds alone are what understand and comprehend ideas, so in the intelligible world the mind itself (ὁ νοῦς), of which the minds in the sensible world are participations, comprehends all ideas and unites them in itself, and therefore that mind is the summit of the whole intelligible world, the father and cause of all ideas. Yet, higher still than the mind itself and the supreme of all, is the idea of the good (ἰδέα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, τἀγαθόν), in which both the idea of mind and consequently all the others are comprehended. The Good is God; the mind is also God; the intelligible world is also God.

Further, as regards the sensible world, in it itself one must distinguish that which is intelligible by the mind from that which is matter. All intelligible things are ideas and intelligible and immutable essences. When all these have been abstracted, there remains the principle of mutability, which has neither form nor quality, nor is intelligible in itself, and this is called matter (ἄμορφον καὶ ἄτυπον). Therefore, with the ideas acceding and joined with matter, this sensible world arises. Therefore this world, considered both in its complex, inasmuch as it comprehends all singular things, is a participation and express image of the intelligible world, and all singular things are a participation of the special ideas or essences; individual men, e. g., are a participation of the ideal man, who is ὁ ἄνθρωπος. Whence the sensible world is also God, and the son of God and only-begotten (ἔκγονος, μονογενής).

This whole Platonic theory is without doubt sufficiently doubtful and obscure that it admits manifold interpretations; yet it appears most clearly that it has absolutely nothing in common with the doctrine of the Christian revelation concerning the Most Holy Trinity. Several recent scholars, even preeminently Catholic ones, incline to an interpretation in the pantheistic sense. That many elements of pantheism are present can scarcely be denied; nor, however, must it for that reason be conceded that for Plato the Good and the Mind, like the whole intelligible world, were mere abstract ideas, which outside the sensible world have no concrete consistency and actual existence. But if the supreme Good is understood in the theistic sense (in opposition to pantheism) as God, a substantial spirit that understands and wills, which sense even the holy Fathers, as often as they made mention of Plato, seem to have admitted, then room still remains for a twofold or even threefold interpretation.

For first, the supreme mind (ὁ νοῦς) can be understood as the divine mind, so that the Good, without real distinction, is an attribute of God, so that the ideas of things are understood as ideas in the divine mind, and therefore there is only a distinction of reason and of consideration concerning the one God, the supreme exemplar and efficient and final cause, in which sense most of the Fathers, and before all others the famous Dionysius, interpreted or corrected Plato. With this sense admitted, surely there is no trace of the distinction of persons, except that, with revelation already supposed and known, one may proceed from a consideration of the divine mind to some analogical illustration of the paternal Word, as it is known from revelation, in the manner in which we have already said above, th. XVII., and will say more distinctly below in thesis XXVII.

This holds equally still, even if, according to Aristotle's explanation, whether true or false, it be supposed that the ideas, or the ideal and universal essences of things, were held by Plato as, as it were, exemplars of things subsisting per se outside the mind of God, provided that the Good and the Mind (τἀγαθὸν καὶ ὁ νοῦς) are distinguished not really but by consideration alone.

The other interpretation of the Platonic sense can be that in which, just as the ideas in general are supposed to subsist per se, so the Mind, as the supreme idea, is taken as subsisting per se and distinct from the Good or the supreme God. If this is the true sense of Plato, without any doubt he had the Good and the Mind as two essences, one supreme and the other inferior, and his doctrine will be a paradigm of the Arian error, as some Fathers have indicated. Cf. Cyrill. Al. contr. Iul. l. I. p. 34. T. VI. But thus it would differ much more from the revealed truth concerning the distinction of persons in one and undivided essence. In truth, if Plato held the ideal essences of things as so many objectively real exemplars subsisting per se, it can scarcely be doubted that by the same reasoning he posited the supreme ideal mind, and so that distinction of essences which we have mentioned will emerge. But this certainly is not some rational knowledge of the Trinity or at least of a duality of persons, as they are revealed in the Christian dogma, but it would be a new error deduced from an erroneous principle.

S. Thomas I. q. 32. a. 1. ad 1. leaves the option between either interpretation, the monotheistic or the Arian; Maranus (Praefat. ad Opp. s. Iustini P. II. c. 1.) with many recent authors understood it in the former sense, Petavius (de Trin. l. I. c. 1.) with others in the other sense. In actual fact, however, these latter in their judgment had more before their eyes the commentaries of the Platonists than the doctrine of Plato himself.

If, setting Plato aside, we look at the Neoplatonic doctrine of Philo the Jew and of the others who are wont to be called Neoplatonists, they did not constitute their philosophy concerning God and divine things by the guidance and light of reason alone. Concerning Philo the matter is most fully known: the foundation of his philosophical speculation is always the things and the facts and the doctrine, as they lie open in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. In the distinction with which we are dealing, Philo had before his eyes the theophanies, the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, of the begotten Son of God, of the begotten Wisdom (vid. th. VI.); and these are the things from which he arrived at understanding τὸν λόγον, i.e., the reason proceeding from God, as a distinct person, if indeed he arrived at that. He who appeared to Abraham, to Hagar, to Jacob, to Moses in the bush, to the people of Israel on Sinai, in the cloud, etc., is for Philo ὁ θεῖος Λόγος. The same is called Archangel, supreme Angel, interpreter and minister of God, supreme priest in this universe, firstborn of God, image of God, another God, mediator between the unbegotten God and creatures⁶, idea of ideas, place of the intelligible world, archetypal idea, etc.

From all of Philo's theories this is most clear: that he found in the Scriptures indeed the distinction between God, whose Word it is, and the Word, but, undertaking to explain its reason and mode from the principles of Greek philosophy and especially from the Platonic ideas, he conformed a theology which could be a paradigm for the Gnostics and then for the Arians for their φιλοσοφοῦντα. The following judgment of Grossmann in his « Quaestiones Philoneis » (Lipsiae 1829) seems certainly to be proved by weighty arguments: « That the θεῖον λόγον of Philo is a nature not corporeal, and diverse from God although nearest to Him, but nevertheless inferior to God, sprung from God and dependent on God, which, since it holds the primacy of those things which Philo is wont to call τὰ ἀκόλουθα καὶ μετὰ Θεόν, occupies a certain middle place between God, as the mind of the totality of things (τὸν τῶν ὅλων νοῦν, causally), and the world, just as in the individual nature of man, the little world (τοῦ βραχέος κόσμου), the λόγος is interposed between νοῦν and αἴσθησιν, this I think most fully established. But just as Philo's theology itself is fused together from diverse elements, so the notion τοῦ θείου λόγου which he exhibited, according to the variety of the authors whom he follows, from time to time took on various colors »⁷. For in the divine books the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord offered itself to him; in the philosophy of Plato, the idea of ideas, the exemplar of all things; in the opinion of the Stoics, the soul of the world, κοσμικὸς λόγος ὁ διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος (although these two he could have corrected and reduced to a sound sense from the divine books themselves, if as a Jew he had preferred to follow the handed-down faith rather than to pursue interpretations from the Academy and the Porch); finally, from the decrees of the Cabbala of the Jews, the λόγος seemed to him to be « the prince of those three or seven or ten Sephiras (δυνάμεων)⁸, which, as the report was, emanate from God in a perpetual stream and serve God in the creation or administration of all things » Grossman l. c. p. 68.

The Neoplatonists succeeded one another from the beginning of the third century up to the sixth: Numenius, called a Pythagorean by the ancients, Ammonius Saccas, who is wont to be held the author of this Neoplatonic school, Plotinus, Porphyry, Amelius, Iamblichus, Aedesius, Maximus of Ephesus, Julian the Apostate, Proclus, Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius, under the last of whom the schools of philosophers, opposing the Christian religion, were at length proscribed by the edict of Justinian in the year 529. But now to all these Platonists not only the meletemata of Philo but the Scriptures and doctrine of the Christians were well known; some of them had even been Christians, as is handed down concerning Ammonius himself. There is therefore no doubt that they took up into their eclectic philosophy something more or less distorted from the Christian doctrine. Whence it is no wonder if with these men something occurs concerning the procession of the Word a little more akin to the Christian doctrine than with Plato himself. The Fathers also noticed this matter. Thus Theodoret, when he recalls that certain things analogous to the Christian dogma were said by Plutarch, Numenius, Plotinus, Amelius « who was the prince of the school of Porphyry », and « by others of the same sect », adds the declaration: « for these, since they existed after the advent of our Redeemer, mingled many things of Christian theology with their discourses » (Theodoret. de graec. affect. curat. Serm. II. T. IV. p. 500.)

Besides, the Fathers, dealing with the gentiles by a certain oeconomical manner of disputing and as it were arguing ad hominem, willingly assumed those things which are found said, whether in Plato or among the Platonists, concerning the Mind and the Word according to some likeness to the revealed dogma. But then they warn of two things, a) that the whole truth is found among Christians, because they have been taught by God Himself, but among the philosophers there is some particle of truth mixed with many errors. b) Having made a distinction between those things which are per se accessible to reason and the superrational truths, concerning these latter they concede indeed, in the way in which we have said, that something indicated is found among the Platonists and Plato himself, whose doctrine, however, the Fathers of the IVth and Vth centuries are wont to estimate almost from the commentaries of the Neoplatonists; but at the same time they affirm that this knowledge, of whatever kind it is, has been drawn from revelation, which came from the Hebrews to the Egyptians, and thence to Pythagoras and Plato, so that what there is of truth in their books concerning mysteries of this kind is to be referred back to revelation as to its source, while the errors mixed in are those of the philosophers themselves. Cf. Iustin. Cohortat. ad Graec. p. 8-13. 29; Clem. Alex. Strom. VI. p. 768. (ed. Potter); Euseb. Praep. Evang. l. XI. p. 551. et passim; Theodoret. de affect. graec. curat. Serm. II. p. 498. 505; Cyrill. Alex. contr. Iulian. l. I. T. VI. p. 35. et alibi; Augustin. Doctr. Christ. l. II. n. 43. (cf. Civ. Dei l. VIII. c. 11. et alibi). Those things which Augustine celebrates in Confess. VII. n. 13. sqq. concerning the Word are referred not to Plato but to the Platonists; with the sayings of Augustine are to be compared those which Theodoret has concerning Amelius, the disciple of Plotinus or Porphyry, l. c. p. 500.

Those ancient ecclesiastical writers attribute much to the opinion of Numenius the Pythagorean (at the beginning of the third century): τί γὰρ ἔστι Πλάτων ἢ Μωυσῆς ἀττικίζων; Theodoret, speaking to the gentiles about the Trinity: « These things, he says, cannot be exactly perceived except by him who has been versed in the sacred letters and has received the light of knowledge from divine grace. He who has seen the concord of the theology of the Old and New Testaments... will detect and praise those things of Plato and of those like Plato which they stole from the divine Scriptures; but what they mixed in as false he will scrape off and reject like filth. And, the hiding-places of the furies having been detected, he will believe the Pythagorean Numenius as he says: for what else is Plato than a certain Atticizing Moses? For by these words Numenius openly shows that whatever Plato piously said, he stole it from the theology of Moses... Thus it befits you, when you have heard the discourses of Anaxagoras and of Pythagoras and of Plato and thereafter of Numenius and of Plutarch and of Plotinus and of the rest, to seek out the source from which they, drawing a few drops of the divine streams, adorned their books, and, having spurned their poverty, to embrace the abyss of wisdom » Theodoret. l. c. p. 505. cf. Euseb. Praepar. Ev. l. XI. p. 527.

From all that has been said it is altogether certain that Plato's doctrine of ideas and of the divine mind pertains in nothing to the mystery of God, who is one in essence and three in persons. But if any things concerning the distinction of persons occur in Philo and, after the Gospel was already propagated far and wide, among the Neoplatonists⁹, they came to these philosophers from revelation, and were still by them, by an interpretation from merely philosophical principles, distorted into a false sense.

Here too it may be noted in passing what is to be thought of the so-called Platonism of the Fathers. The Fathers indeed, as we have often shown elsewhere, did not subject the revealed word to philosophy, nor ever brought themselves to accommodate it to the theories of the philosophers, but in the inverse order subjected philosophy to the truths of revelation understood according to tradition and the universal faith, and judged philosophy from them; and not rarely, especially when dealing with the gentiles, from the previously known revealed truth they bent certain theories of the philosophers to some true or more tolerable sense.