8. § 27. The Personal Names of God.

8. § 27. The Personal Names of God.

§ 27. The Personal Names of God.

. Higher still than in the essential names does God's revelation rise in the nomina personalia, which make known to us the distinctions that exist in the unity of his being. This revelation already begins in the O. Test.

To be sure, it does not yet occur there in full, as the church fathers and later theologians have often taught with disregard of the historical character of revelation; but it is just as incorrect that it would not yet be found there at all, as after the Socinians and the Remonstrants, [228] was taught by Semler, Herder, Doederlein, Bretschneider, Dogm. I4 565 f. Hofmann,

Schriftbeweis I2 90 f., and others, cf. Walch, Bibl. theol. sel. II 687. The O.

T. makes the trinitarian existence of God known only indistinctly; it is the charter of the becoming doctrine of the Trinity, Petavius, de trin. II c. 7.

Lange, Dogm. II 124 f. 148 f. But it nevertheless contains, not only in a few texts standing by themselves but especially in the organism of its revelation, moments that are of the highest significance for the doctrine of the Trinity.

First of all, the name Elohim comes into consideration. That this in its plural form is no proof for the Trinity was already remarked earlier, p. 104.

But it is nevertheless remarkable that this name, among the advocates of monotheism, has never met with objection on account of its form. This is to be explained only from the fact that it contains no reminiscence of polytheism, but designates the Godhead in its fullness and richness of life.

The God of revelation is no abstract unity, but the living, true God, who in the infinite fullness of his life includes the highest diversity. Already immediately at the creation that comes out. Elohim creates by speaking and by sending out his Spirit. The word that God speaks is no sound, but a power, so great that by it he creates and sustains the world; he speaks and it is there, Gen. 1:3, Ps. 33:6, 9, 147:18, 148:8, Joël 2:11. That word spoken by God, proceeding from him and thus distinguished from him, is later hypostatized as wisdom in Job 28:23-27, Spr. 8:22 v. cf. Spr. 3:19, Jer.

10:12, 51:15. That wisdom is from eternity possessed by God, prepared, appointed, searched out, as his nursling and craftswoman, through whom he created and sustains all things. But not only through the word and wisdom, also through the Spirit of God does the work of creation and of preservation come to pass, Gen. 1:2, Ps. 33:6, 104:33, 139:7, Job 26:13, 27:3, 32:8, 33:4.

Jes. 40:7, 13, 59:19. While the word is the mediator through which God calls all things into being, it is his Spirit through which he is immanent in all that is created, and makes it all living and adorns it. Thus, already according to the doctrine of the O. T., it comes out in creation that all things owe their origin and continuance to a threefold causa. Elohim and cosmos do not stand dualistically alongside one another, but the world, created by God, has his Word as objective, his Spirit as subjective principle. The world is first thought by God and therefore comes into being through his almighty speaking, and when it has received reality, it does not stand outside and over against him but continues to rest in his Spirit. Still more clearly in the

O. T. this threefold cause comes out on the terrain of special revelation, in the work of re-creation. Then it is no longer Elohim alone, but Jahveh, who reveals himself, who makes himself known as the God of the covenant and of the oath, of revelation and of history. But also as such he does not reveal himself directly and immediately, Ex. 33:20. It is again through his Word that he makes himself known and saves and preserves his people, Ps.

107:20. And bearer of that word of saving revelation is the Malak Ihvh, the Messenger of the Covenant. Not always, where the expression Angel of God or Angel of the Lord occurs in the O. T., is one to think of the angelus increatus, as Hengstenberg thought. In 2 Sam. 24:16v., 1 Kon. 19:5-7, 2

Kon. 19:35, Dan. 3:25, 28, 6:23, 10:13, we have to think of an ordinary angel, just as also in Mt. 1:20, 28, Luk. 1:11, 2:9, Hd. 5:19, 8:26, 10:3, 12:7,

23, 27:23, Jud. 9, Op. 12:7. About other places there can be doubt, such as Num. 22:22v., Jos. 5:13, 14, Richt. 2:1-14, 6:11-24, 13:2-23. But in the places named in part I 250, the subject that speaks and acts in the angel of the Lord rises far above a created angel. The church fathers before Augustine unanimously saw in this Angel of the Lord a theophany of the Logos, cf. the quotations in Trip, Die Theophanien in den Geschichtsbüchern des A. T. Leiden 1858 S. 20-41. Often, however, this view was connected with the opinion that the Father is actually invisible, unapproachable, ineffable, but that the Son can reveal himself and is the principle of all revelation; thus with Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus,

Tertullian. But this separation and opposition between the Father and the Son was rightly contested by the later church fathers, Athanasius, the three

Cappadocians, etc. The Son was true God and thus just as invisible as the Father. Thus the view of Augustine was prepared, who also always thought the theophanies of God in the O. T. to be mediated by created angels, de

trin. III 11, de civ. XVI c. 29. The scholastic and Roman theologians usually adopted this exegesis of Augustine, Thomas, S. Theol. [230] I qu. 51 art. 2 and 3 ad 5. I 2 qu. 98 art. 3. Sent. II dist. 8 qu. 1 art. 6. Petavius, de trin.

VIII c. 2. Scheeben, Kath. Dogm. I 784 f. C. Pesch, Prael. dogm. II 245 etc.

Luther and Calvin thought now of a created, then of the uncreated angel, Trip, 49-58; but the later Protest. interpreters understood those places mostly of the Logos, especially also in opposition to the Socinians,

Remonstrants and Rationalists, who saw in them nothing but angelophanies.

While Hofmann, Baumgarten, Delitzsch align themselves with the latter view, the old view has again been defended by Stier, Hengstenberg, Keil,

Kurtz, Ebrard etc., also Philippi, Kirchl. Glaub. II3 191-196. The difference between these two interpretations is not so great as it seems. The advocates of the old-church view must, after all, acknowledge that the Logos assumed a human form; and Augustine and his must concede that in that created angel the Logos revealed himself in an altogether special way, Rivetus in Trip 65. And in addition comes the fact that the places where the angel of the Lord is spoken of cannot all be understood in the same sense. So much then also stands firm, that in the Malak Ihvh, who preeminently bears that name, God and then specifically the Logos was present in an altogether unique way. That appears clearly from the fact that he, though distinguished from Jehovah, is nevertheless also one with him in name, in power, in redemption and blessing, in worship and honor, part I 250. Trip, t. a. p. 100 f. This exegesis is moreover recommended by the whole O. and N. T.

Scripture, Job 33:23, Ps. 34:8, 35:5, Spr. 8:22v., 30:4, Jes. 9:5, Hos. 12:5, 6,

Mich. 5:6, Zach. 1:8-14, 3:1v., 12:8, Mal. 3:1, Joh. 8:56, 58, cf. Joh. 1:1-5, 1 Cor. 10:4, 9; and Hd. 7:30, 35, 38, Gal. 3:19, Hebr. 2:2 are not in conflict with this. And just as Jahveh now in re-creation reveals himself objectively

through his word, in the Malak Ihvh; so he does this subjectively in and through his Spirit. The Spirit of God is the principle of all life and salvation, of all gifts and powers within the terrain of revelation; of courage, Richt.

3:10, 6:34, 11:29, 13:25, 1 Sam. 11:6, of bodily strength, Richt. 14:6, 15:14, of artistic skill, Ex. 28:3, 31:3-5, 35:31-35, 1 Chr. 28:12, of governmental policy, Num. 11:17, 25, 1 Sam. 16:13, of understanding and wisdom, Job

32:8, Jes. 11:2, of holiness and renewal, Ps. 51:13, Jes. 63:10, cf. Gen. 6:3, [231] Neh. 9:20, 1 Sam. 10:6, 9, of prophecy and prediction, Num. 11:25,

29, 24:2, 3, Mich. 3:8 etc. In a special measure he will rest upon the Messiah, Jes. 11:2, 42:1, 61:1, but thereafter also be poured out over all flesh, Joel 3:1, 2, Jes. 32:15, 44:3, Ezech. 36:26, 27, 39:29, Zach. 12:10 and give all a new heart and a new spirit, Ezech. 36:26, 27. On the H. Spirit in the O. T.: Kleinert, zur altt. Lehre vom Geiste Gottes, Jahrb. f. d. Th. 1867

S. 3-60. Oehler, Theol. des A. T.2 178 f. 214 f. Smend, Altt. Religionsgesch.

459 f. Warfield, The Spirit of God in the Old Test., Presb. and Ref. Rev.

Oct. 1895 p. 665-687. This threefold divine principle, which underlies creation and re-creation, and bears the whole economy of O. T. revelation, is now a few times also mentioned together. The threefold repetitions in Dan. 9:19, Zach. 1:3, Jes. 6:3, 33:22 do not come into consideration for this; only the high-priestly prayer of blessing, Num. 6:24-26, in the threefold character of its blessing points back to a threefold revelation of God and is thus the O. T. example of the apostolic blessing, 2 Cor. 13:13. The plural forms in Gen. 1:26, 27, 3:22, Jes. 6:8 etc. lack sufficient force, because they are to be explained in the same way as the pluralis Elohim, cf. above p. 104.

Of more significance are places such as Gen. 19:24, Ps. 45:8, 110:1, Hos.

1:7, because they point to a self-distinction in the divine being. And most clearly a threefold self-distinction in the divine being is indicated in Ps.

33:6, Jes. 61:1, 63:9-12, Hagg. 2:5, 6. Many formerly also saw in the three men who appeared to Abraham, Gen. 18, a revelation of the Trinity, e.g.

Witsius, Oec. foed. IV 3 § 3-8. Others thought that one of the three was the Logos and the other two were ordinary angels, e.g. Calvin, Kantt.

Statenvert., Moor I 807. Much more plausible, however, is the exegesis of Augustine, de civ. XVI 29, according to whom the three men were three created angels, in whom Jahveh, however, revealed himself and was present in a special way. Literature on the Trinity in the O. T. in M. Vitringa I 213 sq. 218 sq.

2. These thoughts of the O. T. have been fruitful in many directions. In the first place they were taken over and further elaborated in the apocryphal literature. In the Proverbs of Jesus Sirach [232] wisdom occupies a broad place. She is from God and before all things created by Him, and she remains with Him unto eternity. She is spread out over all God's works, but nevertheless has her resting-place especially in Zion and is to be found in the law, c. 1:1-40 and cap. 24, cf. also Baruch, c. 3:9-4:4. But the book of Wisdom goes further, 6:22-9. Here wisdom is so hypostatized that her

Divine attributes and works are ascribed to her. She is clearly distinguished from God, for she is the breath of his power, an effluence of his glory, a radiance of his light, 7:25, 26. But she is also most intimately connected with God, lives together with Him, is initiated into his knowledge and selects those ideas which will be carried out, 8:3, 4. She is the παρεδρος on his throne, knows all his works and was present at the creation of the world,

9:4, 9. Yes, she is herself the one who creates and governs and renews all things, 7:27, 8:1, 5. She is identical with God's Word, 9:1, 2, cf. 16:12,

18:15, 16 and with his Spirit, 1:4-7, 9:17, 12:1. Already in this book of Wisdom the influence of Greek philosophy is noticeable, especially 7:22v.,

but much stronger is this the case with Philo. The relation of God to the world had already been investigated by Plato. From the distinction and opposition of δοξα and ἐπιστημη Plato inferred that, just as the former must have a sensible object in reality, so the latter must have as its object an eternal and unchangeable being, i.e. an idea. These ideas, although actually nothing other than general concepts, were by Plato elevated to metaphysical principia, to proper substances, to a kind of intermediate beings, according to which the δημιουργος formed the cosmos and which therefore are the παραδειγματα and the αἰτιαι of things. Although Aristotle subjected this doctrine of ideas to a sharp criticism, yet the thought that an intelligent, spiritual principle lay at the basis of all things has no longer been lost from Greek philosophy. The Stoa in particular laid emphasis on the fact that a Divine reason was the ground of all phenomena. For that it employed the name λογος σπερματικος, because all being and life germinates from that logos as from a seed, and it also sometimes spoke in the plural of λογοι σπερματικοι, in order thereby, alongside the unity, also to indicate the diversity of the all-creating natural force, Zeller, Philos. d. Gr. IV3 159,

160, cf. 140 note. Even the later so very significant [233] distinction of λογος ενδιαθετος and προφορικος is borrowed from the Stoa, ib. 67 note.

This Greek doctrine of the idea, the νους and the λογος had now already before Philo been brought into connection with the doctrine of the O. T. concerning the word and wisdom, Zeller, ib. V 266. But nevertheless it was especially Philo who fused all these different elements, Platonic doctrine of ideas, Stoic doctrine of the logos, O. T. wisdom-doctrine etc. into one system. In doing so he proceeds from the dualism of God and world. God is αποιος, indescribable; we can only say that He is, not what He is. Therefore

He also cannot stand in immediate contact with matter. Before God created

the sensible world, He made a plan and in his thinking formed the κοσμος νοητος, the ideas, as παραδειγματα and δυναμεις of all things. These ideas are now represented by Philo as the powers by which God can work in the world, and now more than less figuratively, now more than less personally described as servants, governors, envoys, mediators, as λογοι and powers, as bonds and pillars, which by Moses were called angels and by the Greeks daemonen, as thoughts which are found in the Divine thinking and are uncreated and infinite as God himself. These ideas are now also many in number, but they find their unity in the logos, the idea that is all ideas, the power that is all powers, the book that contains all thoughts within itself, the κοσμος νοητος itself. And in the same way as the Divine ideas, so also this logos is described, now once more as an attribute of God and one with his wisdom and then more as a being, distinguished from God. He stands, as it were, between God and world and has part in both; he is not uncreated as God and yet also not created as the finite things; he is substitute, envoy, interpreter, governor, angel, instrument, image, shadow of God, indeed his firstborn son, his oldest son in distinction from the world which is his youngest son; Philo even calls him God, but δευτερος θεος. Zeller brings clearly to light that the logos in Philo, like the Divine ideas, bears and must bear this double character. He is an intermediate and therefore a double being, an attribute of God and yet a person, neither identical with God nor also a creature like the world, an idea in the thinking of God and a power in the world, hovering back and forth between an impersonal attribute [234] and a personal subsistence, but for that very reason deemed suitable as mediator between God and the world, cf. Zeller, Philos. d. Gr. V3 370-386, and litt. on Philo there 338, in addition also Max Heinze, Die Lehre v.

Logos in der gr. Philos. 1872. Schürer, Neut. Zeitgesch. 653 f. Meijer-

Weiss, Ev. Joh. 6e Aufl. S. 52 f. Jean Réville, La doctrine du Logos, Paris 1881. Kuenen, Volksgodsd. en wereldgodsd. 163 v. Weiszäcker, Das apost.

Zeitalter der chr. Kirche 1890 S. 549 f. Hatch, Griechentum and Christentum 1892 S. 129 f. Schultz, Altt. Theol.4 S. 552 f. Kaftan, Das

Verhältniss des evang. Glaubens zur Logoslehre (Gottschick, Zeits. f. Th. u.

K. VII 1897 1es Heft S. 1-27) Anathon Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee in der griech. Philosophie. Leipzig Reisland 1896. Theol. Stud. v. Dr.

Danbanton, XI 1893 2e aflev. In Jewish theology this doctrine of intermediate beings has been developed still further. As completely transcendent God cannot enter into immediate connection with the creatures. For that He has need of all kinds of intermediate beings. If He wishes to do nothing other than guide the powers present in nature and humanity, then He makes use of angels. But if He wishes to work creatively or re-creatively in the world, hypostases appear which, although being creatures, nevertheless bear Divine attributes, because they are representatives of God. Such hypostases are Metraton, the μεταθρονος of God; Memra, the word of God; Schechina, the presence of God's glory;

Bath Kol, the voice of God, which gives revelations and proclaims oracles; Ruach hakkodesch, the spirit that proceeds from God and communicates higher knowledge, Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, I 265 f. II 393 f. etc. Weber, System der altsyn. paläst. Theol. 172-189. Herzog2 2, 230 f.,

13, 458 f.

3. Although the Proverbs of Jesus Sirach still fairly closely connect with the canonical literature, in the book of Wisdom, in Philo, and in Jewish theology an influence of philosophy is to be perceived, which causes the thoughts of the O. T. to stray farther and farther away. In the first place there is a difference in principle. The doctrine of intermediate beings in

Philo and the later Jewish theology was born out of the Platonic antithesis of God and world, of which in the O. Test. books not a trace is yet to be observed. The word and the wisdom are in the O. T. [235] not mediating intermediate beings between God and world, but they stand wholly and entirely on the side of God, belong to Him, and are the principia of the created world. In Philo, however, the intermediate beings take an impossible place: are neither God nor creature, neither person nor attribute, neither substance nor power, but partake of both; they erase the boundary line, which in the O. T. always separates the creature from the Creator and prepare the philosophy of Gnosticism and the Kabbalah. In the second place there is a no less great difference in the character, which the doctrine of the word and the wisdom in Scripture and that the doctrine of the intermediate beings in Philo bears. In Philo the logos in its first meaning is equal to reason, thinking, the thought in God and thus as such immanent in God, nothing but an attribute. Only in its second meaning does that logos become word, which proceeds from God and occupies a mediating place between God and world. In the O. Test., however, the word is not first reason and thought of God, much less an ideal world-image, a κοσμος νοητος, but the spoken word, by which He creates and sustains all things. And also the wisdom in Job and Proverbs is presented not as an attribute of God, but personally as possessed and ordained by God from eternity and, at the creation of all things, consulted and searched out. Third, the intermediate beings in Philo and the Jewish theologians have no soteriological significance. Indeed they serve for illumination and for communication of knowledge, but of a connection between those intermediate beings and the Messiah there is no mention. They even push the doctrine of the Messiah as revelation of the truth and as acquirer of salvation into the background. And

now it is indeed true, that also in the O. T. the connection between word and wisdom, servant of God and Messiah, Malak Ihvh and Davidide, is not yet clearly effected. The lines still run alongside one another. But they nevertheless approach each other. Elohim and Jahveh is the same God. He, who as Elohim by Word and Spirit creates and sustains the world, is also He who as Jahveh by his Malak has led Israel, by the servant of Jahveh will save his people and by the Messiah from David's house will reign over them eternally and will renew and sanctify them all by his Spirit. And these lines, which in the O. T. more and more approach one another [236] run out upon Him, who is the Logos, the prophet, priest and king, in whom God comes to his people and dwells among them eternally. For Philo an incarnation of the logos would have been an absurd thought. In the N. Test. this is precisely the highest revelation of God. Finally it can still be added here, that the doctrine of intermediate beings in Philo etc. is not worked out and has no boundary. Philo does indeed bring some unity into the Divine ideas by summarizing them in the logos, but the same that he says of this one, he also repeatedly says of all Divine ideas. In Jewish theology the number of intermediate beings increases more and more. It is an emanation, as with the aeons in Gnosticism. The dualism avenges itself to the very end.

The intermediate beings bring no communion between God and world into being, because they in fact are neither of the two. The world nevertheless always again remains outside and over against God. The significance of the Spirit of God is not seen. In the O. T. this doctrine of the Spirit occupies a great place. In the apocryphal literature, in Philo and in Jewish theology it is almost wholly neglected. The Spirit is at most only still a Spirit of prediction, bestowed on a few, Zeller, V 384, Weber, 184 f., but no longer the Spirit of the O. Test., who concludes and completes creation and re-

creation. For all these reasons there is a principial distinction between the development, which the trinitarian thoughts of the O. T. have found in the apocryphal literature, in Philo and the Jews, and that which has been given to them in the N. Test. The N. Test. may have some words in common with Philo etc. and also speak of Christ as λογος, εικων, απαυγασμα, υἱος, θεος etc.; the agreement does not go further. The N. T. is written in Greek, in the κοινη διαλεκτος, in the language that existed and was spoken everywhere. It created no new language. The thoughts of God have assumed the σαρξ of human language. But into those words God has placed a new content. There is agreement in form, the content differs. Philo and John have no more than the name of Logos in common. More and more this is seen and acknowledged, Harnack, Dogmengesch. I2 85, 99. Trip, Die Theophanien des A. T. 126-129. Dorner, Entw. der Lehre v. d. Person Christi I2 30 f.

Godet, Comm. sur l'Evang. de Saint Jean I2 p. 212-221. Meijer-Weiss, Komm. über das Ev. [237] des Joh. 6e Aufl. S. 50 f. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. des

N. T. 3te Aufl. S. 624. Orr, Christian View of God and the world 510-512.

Cremer, Wörterbuch der neut. Gräcität s. v. λογος. Cf. also Max Müller, Theosophie oder Psychol. Religion, Leipzig Engelmann 1895, 12te

Vorlesung.

4. The N. Test. contains the pure development of the trinitarian thoughts of the O. T. But now these come to stand in a much clearer light, not through abstract reasonings about the essence of God, but through the selfrevelation of God in appearance, word, and deed. Just as strongly as in the O., the unity of God is expressed in the N. Test. There is only one being that can be called God, θεος, Elohim, Joh. 17:3, 1 Cor. 8:4, but this one, true

God reveals himself in the economy of the N. T., specifically in the facts of incarnation and outpouring, as Father, Son, and Spirit. In those facts no

absolutely new principia emerge. They are the same ones that were also active in creation and in the economy of the O. T. The Father, who bears this name mostly in relation to the Son and to his children, is the same one who can also be called Father as Creator of all things, Mt. 7:11, Luk. 3:38,

Joh. 4:21, Hd. 17:28, 1 Cor. 8:6, Hebr. 12:9; all things are from him, 1 Cor.

8:6. The Son, who is thus named especially in his wholly unique relation to God, is the same one who as Logos with the Father created all things, Joh.

1:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:15-17, Hebr. 1:3. And the Holy Spirit, who has received his name especially with a view to his work in the church, is the same one who with Father and Spirit in creation adorns and completes all things, Mt. 1:18, 4:1, Mr. 1:12, Luk. 1:35, 4:1, 14, Rom. 1:4. Further, it is the general doctrine of the N. T. writers that these three, Father, Son, and Spirit, are no others than those who also in the economy of the O. T. have revealed themselves to the fathers in word and deed, in prophecy and miracle. The Oldtest. name Jahveh, inadequately rendered by κυριος, unfolds its content fully in the N. T. name πατηρ, above bl. 113. In the incarnate Son of God the fulfillment is seen of all O. T. prophecy and shadow, of prophet and king, of priest and offering, of servant of God and Davidide, of Malak Ihvh and wisdom. And in the outpouring of the H.

Spirit there has come to [238] pass what the O. T. had promised, Hand.

2:16v. But the N. T., although connecting itself with the O. T., does not stop there; it goes far above it. Much more clearly than in the O. T. it now comes to light that the God of the Covenant is and must be a triune God, that a threefold principle appears in the work of salvation. Not a few texts, but the whole N. Test. is trinitarian in this sense. All salvation and blessing and blessedness has its threefold cause in God, Father, Son, and Spirit. We see these three immediately appear at the birth of Jesus, Mt. 1:18v., Luk. 1:35

and at his baptism, Mt. 3:16, 17, Mk. 1:10, 11, Luk. 3:21, 22. Jesus' instruction is wholly trinitarian. He declares the Father to us and describes him as Spirit, who has life from himself, Joh. 4:24, 5:26, and in a wholly unique sense is his Father, Mt. 11:27, Joh. 2:16, 5:17. He distinguishes himself from the Father, but is nevertheless his only-begotten, own, beloved

Son, Mt. 11:27, 21:37-39, Joh. 3:16 etc., one with him in life, glory, power, Joh. 1:14, 5:26, 10:30. And he speaks of the H. Spirit, who himself leads and equips him, Mk. 1:12, Luk. 4:1, 14, Joh. 3:34, as of another Paraclete, whom he will send from the Father, Joh. 15:26 and who will convict, teach, lead into the truth, comfort, and remain forever, Joh. 14:16. And before he departs, Jesus draws all this together in το ὀνομα του πατρος και του υἱου και του ἁγιου πνευματος, i.e. in the one Divine name, το ὀνομα in sing., in which nevertheless three distinct subjects, ὁ πατηρ, ὁ υἱος and το πνευμα, all intentionally named with the article, reveal themselves. This instruction is continued and expanded by the apostles; all know and extol a threefold,

Divine cause of salvation. The good pleasure, the foreknowledge, the election, the power, the love, the kingdom is the Father's, Mt. 6:13, 11:26,

Joh. 3:16, Rom. 8:29, Ef. 1:9, 1 Petr. 1:2 etc. The mediatorship, the reconciliation, the salvation, the grace, the wisdom, the righteousness is the Son's, Mt. 1:21, 1 Cor. 1:30, Ef. 1:10, 1 Tim. 2:5, 1 Petr. 1:2, 1 Joh. 2:2 etc.

And the regeneration, renewal, sanctification, communion is the H. Spirit's, Joh. 3:5, Joh. 14-16, Rom. 5:5, 8:15, 14:17, 2 Cor. 1:21, 22, 1 Petr. 1:2, 1

Joh. 5:6 etc. And just as Jesus finally sums up his instruction in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the H. Spirit, so also the apostles repeatedly place these three alongside [239] one another and on one line, 1 Cor. 8:6,

12:4-6, 2 Cor. 13:13, 1 Petr. 1:2, 1 Joh. 5:4-6, Openb. 1:4-6. Cf. on the Trinity in the N. T. Baur, Dreiein. u. Menschw. Gottes I 80 f. Hahn, Theol.

des N. T. I 106 f. Philippi, kirchl. Gl. II 200 f. Dorner, Chr. Gl. I 331 f.

Sartorius, Christi Person u. Werk I3 44 f. Beck, Chr. Gl. II 40 f. etc. Also Biedermann, Chr. Dogm. II 37 acknowledges that the trinitarian doctrine of God is rooted in Scripture, cf. Strauss I 409-425. Lipsius, Dogm. § 241,

242. F. A. B. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm. 426. The text 1 Joh. 5:7 has not been mentioned above because of its doubtful authenticity. It is lacking in all

Greek codices, except in a couple from the 16th century; in all Latin codices before the 8th century; in almost all translations. Further, it is never cited by the Greek fathers, not even in the Arian struggle, and likewise not by the Lat. fathers, Hilar. Ambros. Hieron. August, etc. If it is cited or presupposed in Tert., then it existed ± 190. If in Cyprian, then it was known

± 220. If it occurred in the Afra, according to an H. S. from the 5th and one from the 7th century, then one can still ascend somewhat higher. The Afra arose ± 160 in Africa and came ± 250 to Italy. Certainly the text occurs in Vigilius, end of the 5th century. In the 16th century it was included in the Compl. edition, Erasmus 3rd ed., Stephanus, Beza, textus receptus. In the context it is not required. Explanation of the omission and disappearance is very difficult. The authenticity, however, is still defended by some, e.g. W.

Koelling, Die Echtheit von 1 Joh. 5:7. Breslau 1893.

5. Holy Scripture, however, does not stop with these data; it offers still more and also makes us acquainted with something of the relations in which these three distinct subjects, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, stand to one another. For that, the name Father first of all comes into consideration.

This name, in the most general sense, denotes God as Creator of all his works, in particular of man, Num. 16:22, Mt. 7:11, Luk. 3:28, Joh. 4:21,

Hd. 17:28, 1 Cor. 8:6, Ef. 3:15, Hebr. 12:9. In the O. Test. this name acquires a theocratic significance; God is the Father of Israel, because He

created and preserved it by his wondrous power, Deut. 32:6, Jes. 63:16, 64:8, Mal. 1:6, 2:10, Jer. 3:19, 31:9, Ps. 103:13, Rom. 9:4; in the N. T. this significance [240] passes over into the ethical, in which God is the Father of his children, Mt. 6:4, 8, 9, Rom. 8:15 etc. But in an altogether unique, metaphysical sense God is Father of the Son. Jesus always makes an essential distinction between the relation in which He himself and in which others, the Jews, the disciples, stand to the Father, Mt, 11:25-27, Luk.

22:29, Joh. 2:16, 5:17, 20:17 etc. He called God his own Father, πατερα ἰδιον, Joh. 5:18. And Scripture clearly indicates that the name Father does not in the first place apply to God in relation to Israel and the believers, but on the contrary originally to the relation of the Father to the Son, Joh. 14:613, 17:26. God is, in the proper, original sense, Father of the Son, He loves the Son, Joh. 5:19v., 10:17, 17:24, 26, and this love passes from the Father through the Son over to others, Joh. 16:27, 17:26. This relation of the Father to the Son did not come to be in time but it is from eternity, Joh. 1:14, 8:38,

17:5, 24. And therefore God is by the apostles repeatedly in a special sense called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Rom. 15:6, 1 Cor. 15:24, 2 Cor.

1:3, Gal. 1:1, Ef. 1:3 etc. The fatherhood of the Son is his special, personal property. He alone is from himself, the first in the order of existence, Joh.

5:26, and therefore also the Father both in creation and re-creation, from whom all things are, 1 Cor. 8:6. Thus in Old as in New Testament it is the Father who occupies the first place. His is the counsel, Hd. 4:28, Ef. 1:11, the good pleasure, Mt. 11:26, Ef. 1:9, the initiative in creation and redemption, Ps. 33:6, Joh. 3:16, the ἐξουσια and the δυναμις, Mt. 6:13,

Rom. 1:20, Ef. 1:19, the righteousness, Gen. 18:25, Deut. 32:4, Joh. 17:25, Rom. 3:26, 2 Tim. 4:8, the goodness, the wisdom, the immortality, the inaccessible light, Mt. 19:17, Rom. 16:27, 1 Tim. 6:16. Therefore he also

repeatedly bears the name of God in a special sense. He is Elohim, Jahveh Elohim, El Eljon, El Schaddai, μονος ἀληθινος θεος, Joh. 17:3, εἱς θεος, 1

Cor. 8:6, 1 Tim. 2:5, who is named as God and Father alongside the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, 1 Cor. 12:6, 2 Cor. 13:13, 1 Thess.f 1:3,

Op. 1:6. Indeed Christ calls Him not only his Father but also his God, Mt.

27:46, Joh. 20:17, Hebr. 1:9, 2:17, 5:1, 10:7, 9, and He himself is called the Christ of God, Luk. 9:20, 1 Cor. 3:23, Op. 12:10. Yet from this it has wrongly been inferred by [241] the Arians of earlier and later time, that only the Father is God, and that Son and Spirit, though related to God, nevertheless stand outside the divine essence. For, in the first place,

Scripture, as will appear more fully presently, ascribes to Son and Spirit divine names, attributes, works, and honor just as well as to the Father. And, further, it deserves notice that Scripture nowhere says that the Father alone is the true God, but indeed that the Father is the only true God, something which is fully acknowledged in the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity.

Next, all those passages make no contrast between the Father on the one hand and the Son and the Spirit on the other, but between the Father, as the only God, and the gods of the heathen. Then from the statements that the Father is the only true God, only wise, only good, only immortal, it by no means follows that the Son and the Spirit are not also of the same divine essence and partake of that same unity, wisdom, goodness, and immortality, any more than from 1 Cor. 8:6 it follows that only Christ and not God is our

Lord, through whom all things are and we through Him. And finally the Father can therefore be called only wise, only good, etc., because He possesses everything from himself, is πηγη θεοτητος, whereas Son and Spirit possess the same essence and the same attributes by communication.

The name of God, ascribed to the Father in particular, indicates that He is

the first in the divine economy; it is, as it were, an official name, indication of his rank and place, just as among men, who all partake of the same nature, there is nevertheless also distinction of station and of honor, August, de trin. I c. 6. VI c. 9. Petavius, de trin. II c. 4. III c 1. 2. Mastricht, Theol. theor. pract. II c. 25.

6. Further, light is also shed for us on the immanent relations of God by the names which the Son bears in Scripture. These names are very many in number, refer mostly to his historical appearance, and therefore come up later in the locus de Christo. But there are also among them those which belong to Him prior to and abstracted from his incarnation. First of all, the name Logos comes into consideration. Various reasons have been given why Christ bears this name. The word has been translated by ratio, sermo, verbum, and then again understood as verbum [242] interius or exterius,

Petavius, de trin. VI c. 1. The point of departure for the designation, however, undoubtedly lies in the continuous doctrine of Scripture, that God reveals himself in creation and re-creation through the word. Through the word God creates, sustains, and governs all things, and through the word He also renews and re-creates the world. The gospel is therefore also called the word of God, λογος του θεου. John calls Christ the Logos, because He is the one in and through whom God reveals himself, both in creation and in re-creation, Joh. 1:3, 14. In the Old Testament, however, the word through which God reveals himself first appears at the creation. The hypostasis and the eternal existence of that word is not expressed. In Proverbs 8 wisdom is indeed presented as personal and eternal, but also brought into close connection with the creation; with a view to this it is prepared, appointed, searched out by God, vs. 22, 23. The Arians inferred from the ‎‏‏ָקָנִני‎ of vs. 22,

LXX εκτισε με, Syr. Trg. ‎‏‏ְּבָראִני‎, cf. Sirach 1:4, 9, 24:8, that the Son was not

eternally generated but was created before all things. And the church fathers maintained over against that that ‎‏‏ָקָנִני‎ had to be rendered by ἐκτησατο, Aq.

Symm., or possedit, Hieron., or that this word did not refer to the essence of the Son but to his office and dignity in creation and re-creation. Without doubt the latter is the case. There is here no question of an eternal generation, but it is only said that God prepared wisdom, ‎‏‏ָקָנִני‎, and appointed it, ‎‏‏ִנַּסְכִּתי‎, that it was born, ‎‏‏ִחַּלְלִּתי‎, before and with a view to the creation,

Petavius, de trin. II c. 1. But the N. Testament goes far above this. John says not only that He, in and through whom God reveals himself, is a person, but he declares expressly that this Logos was in the beginning, ἐν ἀρχῃ ἠν ὁ

Λογος. He did not become Logos, He was not first prepared and appointed to it at the creation; He was as person and by nature Logos, Logos from eternity. And further, He himself was θεος, He stood in communion with God, ἠν ἐν ἀρχη προς τον θεον vs. 2, είς τον κολπον του πατρος, vs. 18, object of his eternal love and self-communication, 5:26, 17:24. Therefore

He could also reveal the Father perfectly, because He partook of his Divine nature, his Divine life, his Divine love, etc., from eternity and was by nature

Logos. God communicated himself to Him, therefore He can communicate God to us. The Logos is the absolute [243] revelation of God, for God has communicated himself with all his fullness to Him eternally.

Another name is that of Son of God. In the O. Test. this name usually has theocratic significance. Israel is so called, because it has been chosen, called, adopted by God, Ex. 4:22, 19:5, Deut. 1:31, 8:5, 14:1, 32:6, 18, Jes.

63:8, Jer. 31:9, 20, Hos. 11:1, Mal. 1:6, 2:10. In the N. Test. the church takes its place, which consists of υἱοι θεου by adoption or τεκνα θεου by birth. Specifically, the title Son of God is also very often an official name, for the judges Ps. 82:6, for the angels, Job 38:7, and especially also for the

king, 2 Sam. 7:11-14, Ps. 89:27, 28. In Psalm 2:7 Jahveh says to the King anointed over Zion: ‎‏ָ‏ֲאִני ַהּיֹום ְיִלְדִּתי‎, ‎‏‏ְּבִני ַאָּתה‎, LXX γεγεννηκα σε, Vulg. genui te; on the day when the Lord anointed Him and appointed Him as king, He generated Him as Son and gave Him the right to world dominion. With respect to David this refers back to the decree of God in 2 Sam. 7, and with respect to the Messiah prefigured by David it is in Hebr. 1:5, 5:5 explained of eternity, cf. vs. 2, 3, in which Christ as the Son has been generated by the Father, i.e. in which He has been brought forth as the radiance of God's glory and the expressed image of his substance. And that He was this has now, according to Hd. 13:33, Rom. 1:3, been powerfully proved in the resurrection. In Micah 5:1 a related thought is expressed. The Ruler over Israel, who will once come forth out of the small Bethlehem, already exists from of old. His goings forth as Ruler, from God, are already from the days of eternity. He was Ruler from eternity, He has shown this in the history of Israel and thus He will once appear visibly out of Bethlehem. The designation Son of God, applied to the Messiah, undoubtedly proceeds from the theocratic significance of this expression in the O. Testament. It is not probable that the demoniacs, Mt. 8:29, cf. 4:3, the Jews, Mt. 27:40, the High Priest, Mt. 26:63, or even the disciples at least in the first period, Joh.

1:50, 11:27, Mt. 16:16, have understood the full content of this designation.

But in Christ this name nevertheless receives a much deeper significance.

To be sure, He is now and then called, as mediator and king, God's Son in the theocratic sense, Luk. 1:35, although even then the [244] adoptionist conception, that he according to his Divine nature is Son by generation and according to his human nature by adoption, as was asserted by the Socinians, Remonstr. Conf. art. 3. Apol. Conf. art. 3. Limborch, Theol.

Christ. II 17, 10. B. S. Cremer, cf. Archief v. Kerk. Gesch. v. Ned. VIII 419-

428, Calv. Inst. II 14. 6. Moor, I 755 sq. etc., finds no support in Scripture.

But Christ was not first adopted as Son of God as a king under Israel in time. He is not called God's Son on account of his supernatural birth, as the Socinians taught and Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I 116 f. still tries to argue.

Nor does He bear that name in an ethical sense, as many think, Weiss, Bibl.

Theol. § 17. Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. II2 97. Scholten, L. H. K. II 206 e. a.

Nor did He first become it through his mediatorship and his resurrection, for which one appeals to Joh. 10:34-36, Hand. 13:32, 33, Rom. 1:4. But He is Son of God in the metaphysical sense, by nature and from eternity. He is highly exalted above angels and prophets, Mt. 13:32, 21:27, 22:2, and stands in an entirely unique relation to God, Mt. 11:27. He is the beloved

Son, in whom the Father has his good pleasure, Mt. 3:17, 17:5, Mark. 1:11, 9:7, Luk. 3:22, 9:35, the only-begotten Son, Joh. 1:18, 3:16, 1 Joh. 4:9 v., the own Son, Rom. 8:32, the eternal Son, Joh. 17:5, 24, Hebr. 1:5, 5:5, to whom the Father gave ζωην ἐχειν ἐν ἑαυτῳ, Joh. 5:26, who is like the Father in knowledge, Mt. 11:27, in honor, Joh. 5:23, in power in creation and re-creation, Joh. 1:3, 5:21, 27, in activity, Joh. 10:30, in dominion, Mt.

11:27, Luk. 10:22, 22:29, Joh. 16:15, 17:10, and precisely on account of this his Sonship has been condemned to death, Joh. 10:33, Mt. 26:63 v.

In the third place, the name Image of God is also discussed here. The human being can indeed be so called by analogy, but Christ is so in the absolute sense. He was, before his incarnation, as Logos, as Son, Rom. 1:3,

4, 8:3, Gal. 4:4, εν μορφη θεου, Phil. 2:6, rich, 2 Cor. 8:9, clothed with glory, Joh. 17:5, and has now returned into that through his resurrection and ascension. Thus He was and is still εἰκων του θεου του ἀορατου, Col. 1:15,

2 Cor. 4:4, ἀπαυγασμα της δοξης και χαρακτηρ της ὑποστασεως αὐτου, Hebr. 1:3, i.e. not the radiance itself, ἀπαυγασμος, but the image effected or

arisen through radiance, [245] reflection, ἀπαυγασμα, of God's glory and the expression, the imprint of the self-subsistence, of the being of the Father. As such He is πρωτοτοκος πασης κτισεως, Col. 1:15, Op. 1:14, the firstborn in comparison with all creature and thus existing before all creature and not, like the creatures, made or created, πρωτοκτιστος, πρωτοπλαστος, but begotten, πρωτοτοκος, in whom all things were created, ἐκτισθη; and He is at the same time ἀρχη, πρωτοτοκος ἐκ των νεκρων, ἐν πασιν πρωτευων, Col. 1:18, πρωτοτοκος ἐν πολλοις ἀδελφοις, Rom. 8:29, after whose image the believers are renewed, 2 Cor. 3:18, Phil. 3:21. The expression πρωτοτοκος does not include Christ among the creatures but precisely excludes Him from them. He stood, as onlyand firstborn, as Son and Logos, as adequate image of God, to the Father from eternity in an entirely unique relation. And indeed Christ is now presented as Mediator as dependent on the Father and standing under the Father, so that He is one sent, a servant, a fulfiller of the work of the Father, obedient unto death and once handing over his kingdom to the Father, but never is his unity of essence thereby impaired. In Joh. 14:28 Jesus says that his going to the Father is for the disciples a cause of joy, ὁτι ὁ πατηρ μειζων μου ἐστιν.

Thereby He does not express that the Father is greater in power, which is expressly contradicted by Joh. 10:28-30; but He thinks of the relation in which He now, in his humiliation, stands to the Father. Now this one is greater. But this lesser greatness of Jesus will precisely cease when He goes to the Father, and therefore his disciples can rejoice over his going; He is precisely in essence and nature equal to the Father, although now in office and station less than the Father. He is no creature, but was and is and remains God, above all to be praised unto eternity, Joh. 1:1, 20:28, Rom.

9:5, Hebr. 1:8, 9, 2 Petr. 3:18, 1 Joh. 5:20, Openb. 1:8, 11, cf. also perhaps 2

Thess. 1:12, Tit. 2:13, 2 Petr. 1:1. The attempt, already formerly employed by the Socinians and now by Ritschl, Schultz, Kaftan, Pfleiderer et al., to construe the name θεος, used of Christ, not as a name of essence but as a name of office, requires later, in the doctrine concerning Christ, broader discussion. For the present let it only be remarked that this designation in the case of Christ is untrue if He [246] is not really also partaker of the Divine nature, Lipsius, Theol. Jahresbericht X 378.

7. Finally, Holy Scripture also gives us some insight into the immanent relations of God through the name of the Holy Spirit. In advance it deserves remark, that the doctrine of the H. Spirit is the same through all the Scriptures of Old and New Covenant. Although revealed much more clearly in the N. Test., it is in principle also present in the O. T. The N. T. is conscious of giving no other doctrine of the Spirit than that which was found in the O. T.; it was the same H. Spirit, who formerly spoke through the prophets, Mt. 22:43, Mk. 12:36, Hd. 1:16, 28:25, Hebr. 3:7, 10:15, 1

Petr. 1:11, 2 Petr. 1:21, testified in Noah's days, 1 Petr. 3:19, was resisted by Israel, Hd. 7:51, worked faith, 2 Cor. 4:13, who would descend upon the Messiah and dwell in the church, Mt. 12:18, Luk. 4:18, 19, Hd. 2:16.

Although now the Divine being is Spirit, Joh. 4:24, and is holy, Jes. 6:3, yet the Holy Spirit in Scripture is a designation of a particular person in the Divine being, distinct from Father and Son. He bears this name on account of his particular modus subsistendi. Spirit properly means wind, breath. The H. Spirit is the breath of the Almighty, Job 33:4, the Spirit of his mouth, Ps.

33:6, who is compared by Jesus with the wind, Joh. 3:8 and is breathed upon his disciples, Joh. 20:22, cf. 2 Thess. 2:18. The Spirit is God as the immanent principle of life in all that is created. And he is called holy, because he himself stands in a particular relation to God and places all

things in a particular relation to God. He is not the spirit of a man, of a creature, but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, Ps. 51:13, Jes. 63:10, 11. As the breath from our mouth, so the Spirit proceeds from God and keeps every creature alive. Therefore he is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of the Father, Gen. 1:2, Jes. 11:2, Mt. 10:20, and also the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Son, Rom. 8:2, 9, 1 Cor. 2:6, 2 Cor.

3:17, 18, Phil. 1:19, Gal. 3:2, 4:6, 1 Petr. 1:11, standing before the throne of God and of the Lamb, Op. 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6. This procession of the Spirit is indicated in Scripture by different names. Most often it is expressed thus, that the Spirit is given by God or by Christ, Num. 11:29, [247] Neh. 9:20,

Jes. 42:1, Ezech. 36:27, Joh. 3:34, 1 Joh. 3:24, 4:13, sent or sent forth, Ps.

104:30, Joh. 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, Gal. 4:6, Op. 5:6, poured out or poured forth, Jes. 32:15, 44:3, Joel 2:28, Zach. 12:10, Hd. 2:17, 18, descended from God, Mt. 3:16, placed in the midst of Israel, Jes. 63:11, Hagg. 2:6, laid upon someone, Mt. 12:18, breathed upon someone, Joh. 20:22 etc. But it is also said that the Spirit proceeds, ἐκπορευεται παρα του πατρος, Joh. 15:26.

This took place specifically on the day of Pentecost. Therefore the personality of the H. Spirit also now first clearly comes forward. In the O.

Test. there is indeed a distinction between God and his Spirit. But the nature of that distinction remains obscure. Οἰπω γαρ ἠν πνευμα, ὁτι Ιησους οὐδεπω ἐδοξασθη, Joh. 7:39. But now he is spoken of as of a person. He is designated as εκεινος, Joh. 15:26, 16:13, 14, παρακλητος, Joh. 15:26, cf. 1

Joh. 2:1, ἀλλος παρακλητος, Joh. 14:16, who speaks of himself in the first person, Hd. 13:2, to whom all kinds of personal faculties and activities are ascribed, such as searching, 1 Cor. 2:10, 11, judging, Hd. 15:28, hearing,

Joh. 16:13, speaking, Hd. 13:2, Op. 2:7 etc. 14:13, 22:17, willing, 1 Cor.

12:11, teaching, Joh. 14:26, praying, Rom. 8:27, testifying, Joh. 15:26, etc.

and who is coordinated with Father and Son and is placed on one line, Mt.

28:19, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, 2 Cor. 13:13, Op. 1:4. This now cannot be, unless he is also true God. As his personality, so also the deity of the H. Spirit first clearly comes to light in the N. T. It appears first of all from this, that in spite of the distinction which exists between God and his Spirit, it is nevertheless completely the same, whether God or his Spirit says something, dwells in us, is despised by us, Jes. 6:9 and Hd. 28:25, Jer. 31:31 and Hebr. 10:15, Ps. 95:7, 8 and Hebr. 3:7-9, Hd. 5:3 and 4, Rom. 8:9 and 10, 1 Cor. 3:16 and 6:19, Ef. 3:22. This then only comes fully into its own, when with the personal distinction the unity of essence goes together.

Further, all kinds of Divine attributes are ascribed just as well to God's Spirit as to God himself: e.g. eternity, Hebr. 9:14, omnipresence, Ps. 139:7, omniscience, 1 Cor. 2:10, 11, omnipotence, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, and again this presupposes that the Spirit is one in essence with God himself. The same is the [248] case with the Divine works of creation, Gen. 1:2, Ps. 33:6, Job.

33:4, Ps. 104:30, and of re-creation. Yes, in this his deity especially comes out clearly. He is the one who has qualified Christ for his office by his anointing, Jes. 11:2, 61:1 and Luk. 4:18, Jes. 42:1 and Mt. 12:18, Luk. 1:35,

Mt. 3:16, 4:1, Joh. 3:34, Mt. 12:28, Hebr. 9:14, Rom. 1:4, who equips the apostles for their particular task, Mt. 10:20, Luk. 12:12, 21:15, 24:49, Joh.

14:16 v., 15:26, 16:13 v., etc. who distributes to believers all kinds of gifts and powers, 1 Cor. 12:4-11, and who above all causes the fullness of Christ to dwell in the church. The H. Spirit stands to Christ in the same relation as Christ to the Father. As the Son has nothing and does nothing and speaks nothing of himself but receives everything from the Father, Joh. 5:26,

16:15, so the H. Spirit takes everything from Christ, Joh. 16:13, 14. As the Son testifies of the Father and glorifies the Father, Joh. 1:18, 17:4, 6, so in

his turn the H. Spirit the Son, 15:26, 16:14. As no one comes to the Father except through the Son, Mt. 11:27, Joh. 14:6, so no one can say Jesus to be the Lord except through the H. Spirit, 1 Cor. 12:3. There is no fellowship with God except through the Spirit. But that Spirit then also bestows all the benefits which Christ has acquired, regeneration, Joh. 3:3, the conviction of sin, Joh. 16:8-11, adoption, Rom. 8:15, renewal, Tit. 3:5, the love of God,

Rom. 5:5, all kinds of spiritual fruits, Gal. 5:22, the sealing, Rom. 8:23, 2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5, Ef. 1:13, 4:30, the resurrection, Rom. 8:10. Yes, through the Spirit we have with no one less than with the Son and the Father himself direct, immediate fellowship. The H. Spirit is God himself in us, Joh. 14:23 v., 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19, 2 Cor. 6:16, Gal. 2:20, Col. 3:11, Ef. 3:17, Phil. 1:8,

21. Who can grant us all that, who can cause God himself to dwell in our hearts, except one who is himself God? Therefore Divine honor is also due to him. He stands alongside Father and Son as cause of all salvation, Mt.

28:19, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, 2 Cor. 13:13, Op. 1:4. In his name we are baptized, Mt. 28:19. From him is all life and power. He is the author of our prayers,

Zach. 12:10, Rom. 8:15, 16. And over against that the church is warned not to grieve him, Jes. 63:10, Ef. 4:30; indeed the blasphemy against the [249]

H. Spirit is unforgivable, Mt. 12:31, 32. Older literature on the H. Spirit is given by Walch, Bibl. theol. sel. I 75 sq. 241, among which especially

Owen, Discourse on the Holy Spirit 1674, holl. 1746, deserves attention, and by Dr. Kuyper, Het werk van den H. Geest, 1888 in the preface; newer literature especially with M. Beversluis, de H. Geest en zijne werkingen volgens de Schriften des N. V. 1896 bl. VII, among which especially come into consideration J. Gloël, Der H. Geist in der Heilsverkündigung des

Paulus 1888. H. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des H. Geistes u.s.w. Gött. 1888.

Further still Synopsis der dogm. moraltheol. Lehre von der Wirksamkeit des

H. Geistes zunächst nach dem h. Thomas von Aquin, von Dr. i.e. Pruner, Lycealprogramm für das Jahr 1891 Eichstätt. W. Koelling, Preumatologie oder die Lehre von der Person des H. Geistes, Gütersloh 1894. Dr. G.

Smeaton, The doctrine of the Holy Spirit 1882.

8. In all these moments of revelation, Holy Scripture of course does not yet offer us a fully developed dogma of the Trinity. But it nevertheless teaches that the one name of God unfolds itself fully only in that of Father,

Son, and Spirit. It states clearly and distinctly that all God's works outwardly, both in creation and re-creation, have a threefold divine causa. It leaves no doubt that this threefold causa consists of three distinct subjects, who stand in personal relation to one another. And it thereby contains all the data from which theology has constructed the dogma of the Trinity.

Philosophy had nothing essential to add to it; even the doctrine of the Logos is New Testament. Only everything awaited the time when the ratio christiana would have developed sufficiently to conceive the holy mystery that lay here. Among the apostolic fathers there is as yet no mention of this.

They repeat Holy Scripture, without yet understanding the deep sense and the mutual connection of the truths, and they employ expressions that in a later time would no longer be defensible. Yet they are also of the highest importance for the dogma of the Trinity, insofar as they combat both the Ebionite and the Docetic direction and, in stronger or weaker terms, express the lofty nature of the Christ, exalted above the angels. The dogma of the Trinity, as is already evident at the beginning, was not born from a [250] philosophical reasoning about the being of God, but from reflection on the facts of revelation, on the person and the work of Christ. In the dogma of the Trinity, from the beginning it was a matter of the deity of Christ, of the absolute character of Christianity, of the truth of God's revelation, of the

true reconciliation of sins, of the absolute certainty of salvation. Among the apost. fathers, now, Christ occupies an entirely unique place; predicates are ascribed to Him that belong to no creature. He is called Son, proper, only, only-begotten Son of God, Clemens, 1 Cor. 36. Ignat., Rom. 1. Eph. 20.

Smyrn. 1. Diogn. 9. 10. Barn. 7. 12., radiance of God's majesty, scepter of His majesty, Clemens, 1 Cor. 16. 36. Lord of the earth, to whom all is subjected, Creator of all things, Judge of the living and the dead, Barn. 7.

12. Diogn. 7. Did. Apost. 16. Polyc. Phil. 1. 2. 6. 12, holy, incomprehensible Logos, who as a God, ὡς θεος, has been sent to earth,

Diogn. 7. and may be called θεος, Clemens, 2 Cor. 1. Ign., Rom. 3. Smyrn.

1. 10. Eph. 1. 18. 19. And Father (God), Son (Christ), and Spirit are mentioned together, Clemens, 1 Cor. 46. Ign. Eph. 9. Magn. 13. Of the Holy

Spirit there is little mention among the apost. fathers, but He is nevertheless distinguished from Father and Son and placed alongside them; only with respect to the Pastor of Hermas, Sim. V 5. 6. there is disagreement as to whether he identifies the Holy Spirit with the Son or distinguishes Him from that, Baur, Dreiein. u. Menschw. I 134 and against that Dorner,

Entwicklungsgesch. I 191-205. When in the second century the gnosis appears, Christian thinking also awakens. The deity of Christ acquires dogmatic importance and is therefore also expressed much more clearly.

Justin Martyr gives Christ repeatedly the name of God, even of ὁ θεος, c.

Tryph. 34. 56. 58. 113. 126 etc. and ascribes to Him all kinds of exalted predicates. He is the firstborn of creation, the beginning of another race, equipped not with a single charisma but with all the powers of the Spirit, in possession not of a σπερμα of the logos, but of the whole logos, λογικου το ὁλον, mighty to deify the human race and therefore Himself God, c. Tr. 87.

138. Apol. II 10. 12. He further clearly teaches the pre-existence of Christ,

not as power only but as person, c. Tr. 128. Because the Father is hidden, inexpressible, exalted above time and space, c. Tr. [251] 127. Apol. II 6., all revelations under the O. T. and also in the heathen world are revelations of the Logos, c. Tr. 127. Apol. I 46. 61. 63. Apol. II 10. 13. He even existed at the creation; the word Gen. 1:26 is spoken to Him, c. Tr. 62. But the immanent relation between Father and Son is not yet clear in Justin. It seems that the Logos, who is indeed another than the Father ἀριθμῳ ἀλλ' οὐ γνωμῃ, was first generated by the Father before and for the sake of creation, and indeed did not arise by division, but was nevertheless brought forth δοναμει και βουλῃ of the Father, just as one light is kindled from another and just as the word goes forth from our mouth, Apol. II 6. c. Tr. 61.

100. 128. Therefore he is called πρωτογονος, πρωτοτοκος του θεου, Apol. I 46. 58. The generation is called προβαλλειν, but mostly γενναν, c. Tr. 62.

76. 129. Apol. I 23. 2. 6, and the Logos is insofar called a γεννημα or ἐργασια, c. Tr. 62. 114. 129. Justin seeks to maintain the unity of God by the fact that the Son is indeed another than the Father ἀριθμῳ ἀλλ' ού γνωμη, c. Tr. 56 and is subordinate to the Father. The Son is ἡ πρωτη δυναμις μετα τον πατερα, Apol. I 32; He takes the second place, δευτερα χωρα, Apol. I 13; He has received everything from the Father, c. Tr. 86, is

God and Lord, because the Father has willed it, c. Tr. 127, and is ὑπο τῳ πατρι και κυριῳ τεταγμενος, c. Tr. 126. Justin thus still has a deficient conception on various points. The hidden being of the Father in contrast with the Son, the generation of the Son by the will of the Father and for the sake of creation, the subordination of the Son to the Father were later rejected by the church. Some have therefore called Justin an Arian, but wrongly. For, first, this question did not yet exist in Justin's time; and, further, there are in him various elements that run directly counter to the

view of Arius; he teaches decisively and clearly the deity of the Son, he says that the Son is not created but generated and elucidates this with the later very common images of word and light; he clearly perceives the importance of the deity of Christ for the whole work of salvation, for the truth of Christianity. Therefore he also repeatedly names the Father, the Son, and the Spirit together as the object of our worship, Apol. I 6. 13. 60.

61. 65. 67; and although it is the case that he assigns to the Son the δευτερα χωρα and to the Spirit the τριτη ταξις, Justin expresses clearly in these places the personality of the Holy Spirit and His distinctness from the Son.

To be sure, one has appealed against this to Apol. I 33, but this passage teaches nothing other than that Justin understood by το πνευμα in Luk. 1:35 not the person of the H. S. but the Logos, an exegesis that also occurs with others. Further, it is also established that Justin does not count the Spirit among the angels or in general among the creatures. But about the divine nature of the Holy Spirit and about His ontological relation to Father and Son we find in Justin as good as nothing. The religious importance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was not yet felt. The Spirit is still understood only as Spirit of prophecy, who inspired the prophets and apostles and qualified Christ. But of a continual necessary working of the Holy Spirit in the church Justin has no awareness. The objective revelation of God in the Logos seems sufficient; the subjective illumination is not seen through in its necessity, cf. Semisch, II 305-333. Schwane, Dogmengesch. I2 79 f. Finally, in Justin Martyr it emerges very clearly what kind the influence of Greek philosophy in Christian theology has been. That such an influence has been exercised, and not least in Justin, is denied by no one. But that influence is precisely most noticeable in those elements of Justin's doctrine which were later banished by the church, namely, in his distinction between the λογος

ἐνδιαθετος and προφορικος, in his conception of the Son as δευτερος θεος, in his doctrine of the hidden God, in his placing of the Son outside the divine being. All other elements, the Logos-nature of Christ, the praeexistence, the generation, the creation of all things through the Logos, the sonship, the deity of Christ, have been derived by Justin with consciousness from Scripture and argued from Scripture, cf. Semisch, Justin der Martyrer

II 295 f. The defects that adhere to the doctrine of the Trinity in Justin are not avoided by the following apologists, Theophilus, Tatian, Athenagoras.

Tatian, Or. c. Gr. 5, does say that, insofar as all things have their ground in God, they all exist ideally, as Logos, in Him, but this Logos is brought forth by the will of God and is ἐργον πρωτοτοκον του πατρος; κατα μερισμον,

[253] οὐ κατα ἀποκοπην. With Theophilus the Logos does indeed exist before the creation as λογος ἐνδιαθετος, because He is θεου νους και φρονησις, but He is nevertheless generated by the Father as λογος προφορικος for the sake of creation, ad Autol. II 10. 22. Athenagoras, Leg. pro Chr. c. 10, likewise teaches that the Logos did indeed exist eternally, because God is the eternal νους, but He is nevertheless the first γεννημα of the Father, because He went forth from God as the idea and the energy of things. Just as Theophilus was the first to speak of a τριας in God, ad Autol.

II 26, so Athenagoras also connects God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who was active in the prophets and is an effluence of God, goes forth from God and returns into Him, like the ray from the sun, and calls them the object of Christian veneration, ib. c. 10. 12. But with the distinction of the three persons their unity is not sufficiently maintained.

The Father is the one, unbegotten, eternal, invisible God, and Son and Spirit are one with Him not in essence, but in spirit and power, ib. c. 24.

The next development of the doctrine of the Trinity, consisting chiefly in the banishment of the philosophical elements, is due to three men, each of whom contributed his own share to the construction of Christian dogma.

Irenaeus is the powerful opponent of the gnostic concept of God and of the conception of the Logos as world-idea. Now and then he too shows that he has not wholly overcome the old representation; he still calls the Father the invisible, hidden God in contrast with the Son, adv. haer. IV 20, 10. But nevertheless he combats as sharply as possible the conception of God as βυθος and the emanation of the aeons, and maintains the scriptural distinction of Creator and creature. The Logos is, as it were, stripped of his twofold nature and transferred wholly to the side of God. The Logos is not a creature, but a hypostatic word, III 8, praeëxistent, II 6. IV 12, true God, IV 10. 14 etc. Also the distinction of λογος ἐνδιαθετος and προφορικος is to be rejected II 17. 18. For apart from the fact that this distinction detracts from the personality of the Logos and connects his generation with the creation, the Logos must not be represented as the understanding and the reason of God. For God is simple, wholly spirit, wholly understanding, wholly thought, wholly logos, II 16. 48, so that both the Son and the Father are true

God. The unity of Father, Son, and Spirit is [254] very clearly expressed by Irenaeus, their divine nature is expressly maintained, they are repeatedly named together, IV 6. 20, 33. The generation of the Son did not take place in time, the Son had no beginning, He existed eternally with God II 18. III 22. IV 37. But Irenaeus falls short in indicating how, within the unity, the threeness nevertheless exists and how Father, Son, and Spirit, although partaking of one divine nature, are nevertheless distinct. Here he is supplemented and corrected by Tertullian. To be sure, in the overcoming of gnostic dualism he stands behind Irenaeus. He distinguishes between Father

and Son as between a Deus invisibilis et invisus and a Deus visibilis et visus, adv. Prax. 14. 15. In all manner of ways and with all manner of arguments he demonstrates that distinction, with the name Logos, with the incarnation, with the theophanies, etc. Indeed, with Tertullian the Logos first attains full sonship and independent personality through the three moments of the speaking of God, the generation, and the incarnation, adv.

Pr. 6. 7, so that there was a time in which the Son was not, adv. Hermog. 3.

But even if, against patripassianism, he goes too far in the distinction of the persons, on the other side he therefore strives all the more to hold fast the unity in the threeness and the threeness in the unity. The three persons are unius substantiae, unius status, unius potestatis, unus Deus. They are distinct as regards the ordo and the oeconomia, Oeconomiae sacramentum unitatem in trinitatem disponit. They are three non statu, sed gradu, and yet the one God, ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species in nomine Patris,

Filii et Spiritus Sancti deputantur. Just as a ray of the sun is also sun, so there are different species, formae, effigies, moduli in the one and undivided substantia. The three persons are therefore unum, not unus. The Son is another than the Father and the Spirit is again another, but the name

God and Lord is common to them. They are unus Deus, they are not to be separated. As trunk and branch, spring and stream, sun and ray cannot be separated, so neither can the Father and the Son. The trinitas therefore does not abolish the monarchia. The Son is indeed another than the Father but not divisus, separatus. There is distinctio, distributio, no diversitas and divisio. It is a unitas ex semetipsa derivans trinitatem, adv. Prax. 2 sq. Thus

Tertullian kneads the stiff Latin language, in order to maintain equally both the unitas [255] and the trinitas in God; both formally and materially he has been of the greatest significance for the dogma of the Trinity. In spite of the

fact that he does not always rise above subordinatianism and distinguishes too little the ontological, cosmological, and soteriological in the doctrine of the Trinity, he has provided the concepts and the words which the dogma of the Trinity needed in order to express its true meaning. He replaced the Logos-speculation with the filiatio and thereby definitively detached the ontological Trinity from cosmological speculation. And he was the first who attempted to derive the Trinity of the persons not from the person of the Father, but from the being of God. While, however, Tertullian does not yet free the ontological Trinity from the cosmological and soteriological process, it is Origen who conceives it wholly and entirely as an eternal process in the being of God himself. The generation is an αἰωνιος γεννησις, de princ. I 2, 4. The light cannot be without shining; so the Father cannot be without the Son, ib. I 2. 2. 4. 7. 10. There was no time in which the Son was not, ib. I 2. 2. 4. c. Cels. VIII 12. The Father is not Father before the Son but per filium, de princ. I 2. 10. There is no separation, ἀχωριστος ἐστι του υἱου ὁ πατηρ, c. Cels. IV 14. 16. All divine attributes are common to Father and Son; the Son is one with the Father; not alongside but in God do we venerate the Son, c. Cels. VIII 12. 13. The Son has the same wisdom, truth, reason as the Father, He is αὐτοσοφια, αὐτοαληθεια, αὐτολογος, c. Cels. V 41. But now, in order to maintain the distinction within this unity and equality, Origen calls subordinatianism to his aid and goes back behind

Tertullian in deriving the Trinity not from the being of God but from the person of the Father. And thus Origen came to represent the Father as ὀ θεος, αὐτοθεος, πηγη or ριζα θεοτητος, μεγιστος ἐπι πασι θεος, as κρειττων than the Son, as the one entire Godhead, exalted above all being, invisible, incomprehensible; and the Son as θεος without article, as ἑτερος του πατρος κατ' οὐσιαν, so much less than the Father as the world is less than

the Son, cf. Dorner, Entw. I 652 f. Compare, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity before Nicaea, besides the dogmengesch. v. Münscher, Harnack,

Schwane, Thomasius, also Dr. C. P. Caspari, Der Glaube an die Trinität Gottes in der [256] Kirche der 3 ersten Jahrh. nachtgewiesen, Leipzig Faber

1894. Scheeben I 796 f. Petavius, de trinitate, appendix 1. Forbesius a Corse, Instit. hist. theol. 1645 Lib I c. 1-5. G. Bull, Defensio fidei Nicaenae,

1703.

9. The church, however, did not follow Origen. It rejected his subordinatianism and at Nicaea pronounced the true, full Godhead of the Son. This confession bore entirely a religious character. It maintained the soteriological principle of Christianity. But from now on the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity changed. Nicaea pronounced the distinction in God, and taught that Father, Son (and Spirit) were God; it now further came down to maintaining the unity in this distinction. Before Nicaea one had difficulty in getting from the unity of God to a threeness; now it is the reverse. From now on the trinitarian dogma acquires a proper, independent value, a theological significance. Athanasius with the three Cappadocians and Augustine are the ones who in this way elaborate and complete the dogma. Athanasius understood better than anyone in his time that with the Godhead of Christ and the Trinity Christianity stood or fell. To the defense of this truth he devoted his whole life and all his powers. He fought for no philosophical problem but for the Christian religion itself, for the revelation of God, the doctrine of the apostles, the faith of the church. The Trinity is the heart of Christianity. Thereby it is in principle distinguished from Judaism, which denies the distinction in God, and from Heathendom, which denies the unity of God, Athan. ad Serap. I 28. With Athanasius, accordingly, the philosophical mixing of ontology and cosmology is wholly

banished. He rejects the gnostic dualism between God and the world, which was taken over by Arius, and every kind of intermediate beings, c. Ar. II 26.

The Trinity, he says, has mixed nothing foreign with itself, it does not consist of the Creator and something that has become, but it is wholly and perfectly divine, ibid. Therefore the Trinity is also an eternal one. There is in God nothing accidental; He becomes nothing, He is everything eternally.

Just as the Trinity always was, so it is and remains, and in it the Father, the Son and the Spirit, ad Serap. III 7. c. Ar. I 18. The Father was always

Father; it belongs, otherwise than with us, to his nature to be Father, de decr. nic. syn. 12. Just as the [257] sun is not to be conceived without light and the spring not without water, so the Father is not to be conceived without Son; God is not ἀγονος; He always speaks, c. Ar. II 2. ad Serap. II 2. Whoever denies the Trinity makes God into a lifeless principle or comes to the doctrine of the eternity of the world, c. Ar. I 14. And therefore eternal also is the generation and the existence of the Son. There was neither for the Father nor for the Son a time that He was not, c. Ar. I in its entirety. This

Son cannot be a creature and is not brought forth by the will of God but is generated out of his being, c. Ar. I 25. And the same is said, although less often and at less length, of the H. Spirit, ad Serap. I 20, 21 etc. These three persons are truly distinct; they are not three parts of one whole, not three names for one thing. The Father is only Father and the Son is only Son and the Spirit is only Spirit, c. Ar. III 4. IV 1. ad Serap. IV 4, 6, 7. But at the same time he maintains the unity in such a way that they are all three ὁμοουσιοι and one ὑποστασις (with Athanasius still as much as οὐσια) and have the same properties, c. Ar. III 3, 4, de decr. nic. syn. 19-25; that the Father is the ἀρχη and the πηγη θεοτητος, c. Ar. IV 1.; that the three persons exist in one another, ad Serap. I 14 III 6, c. Ar. III 6, and are one in their

operation, ad Serap. I 28. Cf. Fr. Lauchert, Die Lehre des h. Athan. d. Gr.

Leipzig 1895 S. 10-65. Schwane, Dogmengesch. II2 83-108. This doctrine of the Trinity of Athanasius we also find in the main, only further elucidated by names, images, comparisons, with Basil in his Libri V against Eunomius, in his writing de Spiritu Sancto and in many of his letters and homilies, with Gregory Nyss. in his Libri XII c. Eunomium and in his oratio catechetica, and with Gregory Naz. in his 5 Orationes theologicae. John

Damasc. summarizes the result and aligns himself especially with Greg.

Naz., de fide orthod. I c. 8. The whole Greek church has accepted this doctrine at the councils, of which it recognizes the first seven, and differs from the West only in the filioque.

10. In the West, after Tertullian and Cyprian, the doctrine of the Trinity was above all vigorously defended and proved from Scripture by Hilary in his 12 books de trinitate, which, however, contain very little about the H.

Spirit and therefore probably earlier bore the title: de fide contra Arianos; and then [258] more speculatively and profoundly by Augustine. His 15 books de trinitate are the profoundest that has been written on this dogma.

In them he not only summarizes what earlier patres have said on this subject, but he also treats it independently and introduces important modifications into it. In the first place Augustine proceeds, not from the person of the Father but from the one simple being (essentia) of God, excluding all composition, and therefore expresses the absolute unity of the three persons more strongly than had ever happened before him. Each person is as great as the whole Trinity, de trin. VIII 1. 2. In each person is the whole, same, divine being, so that there are not three Gods, three almighties etc. but only one God, one almighty etc. V 8. The distinction of the persons therefore also cannot lie in attributes or accidents, which the

one person would have and the other not, but only in the relations among themselves. Father is and is called the first person, because He stands in a particular relation to Son and Spirit etc. V 5. just as also the designation

Lord, Creator etc. indicates the relation of God to creatures but brings about no change in Him, ib. 16. 17. In the second place Augustine now had to reject every antithesis that had earlier been made between the Father and the Son. The Son, as true God, is no less hidden and invisible than the Father and is completely equal to the Father. Every subordinatianism is banished. Augustine goes still further than Athanasius. The latter still allowed some subordination to be valid, c. Ar. I 59, but Augustine has overcome every thought as if the Father were the proper, original God. He proceeds from the essentia Dei, which dwells equally in all three. Although he still uses the expression fons or principium deitatis for the Father, de trin.

IV 20, it nevertheless has with him another sense. It does not indicate that the Godhead logically first existed in the Father and was communicated by Him to the Son and the Spirit, but the Father can only be so called because

He, not as God but as person, is Father of the Son. And in this sense the formula of Nicaea Deus de Deo is also explained by him, de trin. VII 2. 3.

Therefore Augustine also arrived at another conception of the theophanies in the O. Test. Formerly one had always and exclusively seen in them revelations of the Logos, because the Father [259] was hidden, but Augustine also ascribes them to the Father and the Spirit, who just as well as the Son can reveal themselves and indeed are not to be separated from that of the Son, de trin. II and III. And finally Augustine, more than any church father before him, sought images, likenesses of the Trinity, vestigia trinitatis, and thus brought to light the connection of the doctrine of God with that of the whole cosmos, de trin. IX-XV. Cf. Schwane, II 173-194.

Gangauf, Des h. Augustinus specul. Lehre v. Gott dem Dreieinigen, Augsburg 1883 S. 209 f. Münscherv. Coelln, Dogmengesch. I 245 f.

Harnack, D. G. II 294 f. etc. Thus Augustine completed what Tertullian had begun. There is in the West another conception of the Trinity than in the East and therefore later one could not come to agreement in the filioque.

The West aligned itself with Augustine and has adopted his doctrine of the Trinity and on various points, often in a subtle way, worked it out. The symbolum, which wrongly is called after Athanasius, is largely in his spirit and never accepted by the East, Harnack, D. G. II 298 f. Karl Müller,

Symbolik, Erl. Deichert 1896 S. 51 f. The doctrine of the Trinity was later in the West. Church especially still treated by Dionysius, de div. nom. c. 2.

Erigena, de div. nat. I 62. II 32. 35. Alcuin, de fide sanctae et individuae trinitatis, Migne CI col. 9-64, and further by the scholastics, Anselm,

Monol., de incarnatione verbi and de processione Sp. S. Hugo Vict. de Sacramentis, lib. I pars 3. Lombardus, Sent. lib. I and the commentaries on that work, Richard Vict., Libri 6 de trinitate. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 27-43. c. Gent. IV c. 2-26. Bonaventura, Brevil. I c. 2-6 etc. And on the same

Augustinian foundation rests the doctrine of the Trinity in the Roman, Petavius, de trinitate, libri VIII; in the Lutheran, Gerhard, Loci Loc. III etc.,

Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. S. 87 f.; and in the Reformed theology, Calv. Inst. I 13. Zanchius, de tribus Elohim, Op. I 1-564. Polanus, Synt. theol. lib. 3. Heppe, Dogm. der ev. ref. K. 80-98. In more recent times the doctrine of the Trinity has indeed mostly been very much simplified but in an ecclesiastical sense taught and defended by Philippi, Kirchl. Gl. II 117224. Ebrard, Chr. Dogm. § 95-154, Böhl, Dogm. 113-123. Hodge, Syst.

Theol. I 462. Shedd, Dogm. Theol. I 249. Aug. Hopkins Strong, System.

Theology, 3 ed. New-York Armstrong 1890 p. 144-170 etc. [260]

11. This dogma, however, has at all times encountered serious opposition.

Not only from without, on the part of the Jews, Weber, System der altsyn. pal. Theol. 147 f., and of the Mohammedans, e. g. Averroes, Stöckl, Philos. d. M. A. II 89, against whom the Christians then acted in defense, litt. in Walch, Bibl. theol. sel. I 881 sq. 896 sq. But also within the boundaries of Christendom this dogma, both before and after its establishment, was resisted by many. In the confession of the Trinity the heart of the Christian religion beats; every error is derived from, or upon deeper reflection to be traced back to, a deviation in the doctrine of the Trinity. It is such an essential constituent of the Christian faith, that it still exerts an influence in the confession of the Unitarians. All who are attached to the name of Christians continue to speak of Father, Son, and Spirit, Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm.

425. All the more, however, has the doctrine of the Trinity in its ecclesiastical form been contested and repeatedly presented differently. But the history of this dogma clearly shows that the ecclesiastical form, in which this truth is contained, alone is able to maintain unadulterated the matter at issue. Now the great problem with this dogma consists in this, that the unity of the essence should not nullify the threeness of the persons, nor conversely should the threeness of the persons abolish the unity of the essence. And therefore there always threatens danger of straying either to the right or to the left and thus falling into Sabellianism or into Arianism.

Arianism was prepared in the 2nd and 3rd century by the Ebionites, the Alogi, Theodotus, Artemon, Paul of Samosata, who indeed saw in Christ a man, born in a supernatural manner and at baptism anointed with the Holy

Spirit, made fit for his work and exalted to Lord, but who decisively denied his pre-existence and Godhead. They were adherents of an adoptionist

Christology, Harnack D. G. I 160. 616 f. In the fourth century this doctrine

is advocated by Lucian and his pupil Arius and then further by Aëtius and Eunomius. Arius taught, as appears from a writing Θαλεια, of which Athanasius c. Ar. I has preserved fragments for us, that God, because ἀγεννητος and without beginning, is absolutely one. He is inexpressible, incomprehensible, cannot have direct communion with the finite, cannot communicate his essence, which precisely consists in ἀγεννησια.

Everything outside him is therefore created, come to be by his will. He is not Father from [261] eternity, but Father through and of the creatures. But before God proceeded to the creation of the world, he brought forth for mediation, as a kind of intermediate being, an independent ὑποστασις or οὐσια, which in Scripture bears the name of wisdom, son, logos, image of God, etc., and through whom God has created all things, and likewise also yet a third, lower ὑποστασις namely the Holy Spirit. This Logos is not generated out of the essence of God and does not have the essence in common with the Father, for then there were two Gods, but is created or born εξ ουκ οντων, is a κτισμα or ποιημα of God, brought forth θεληματι και βουλη. There was therefore a time that he was not, ἠν ποτε, ὁτε οὐκ ἠν, even though he is also created προ χρονων και προ α)ἰωνων, i.e. before the world. This Logos was therefore not ὁμοουσιος with the Father, but wholly separated from him, changeable, able to choose both evil and good. But he was nevertheless a κτισμα τελειον, he chose the good, thereby became unchangeable, and has, as it were, become a God. This Logos also became man, proclaimed the truth, accomplished our redemption and is now our honor, but not worthy of our worship, Harnack, D. G. I 194 f. Arianism was strong and found many adherents, not least among those who after the conversion of emperor Constantine had passed over to Christianity for all kinds of considerations. Moreover, the writings of Athanasius teach us what

formidable weapons they brought with them in the struggle. They appealed first of all to a series of Scripture passages, which express the unity of God,

Deut. 6:4, 32:39, Joh. 17:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, the birth or becoming of the Son, Spr. 8:22, Col. 1:15, his subordination to the Father, Joh. 14:28, 1 Cor.

15:28, Hebr. 3:2, his ignorance, Mark. 13:32, Joh. 11:34, his limited power, Mt. 28:18 and goodness, Luk. 18:19, his increase in wisdom, Luk. 2:52, his suffering, Joh. 12:27, 13:21, Mt. 26:39, 27:46, his exaltation to Lord and Christ, Hd. 2:36, Phil. 2:9, Hebr. 1:4 etc. Further, they argued with many quotations that they had many earlier church fathers on their side. Then they derived various arguments from the Aristotelian, nominalistically conceived, philosophy, and by means of these argued the unity and the ἀγεννησια of God. And finally they pointed out the weaknesses and the contradictions that adhered to the Christology of Nicaea; in which especially this argument occupied a great place [262] that, if the Son was generated, he was thereby essentially distinguished from God as the unbegotten, ἀγεννητος, and thus had arisen in time.

Sabellianism was prepared in the second and third century by Noëtus, Praxeas, Epigonus, Cleomenes, who taught that in Christ the Father himself had been born, had suffered and had died, that Father and Son therefore were names for the same person in different relations, before and in the incarnation, an sich and in his historical appearance, or also that the divine nature in Christ was the Father, and the human nature, the σαρξ, was the Son. This monarchianism, patripassianism or modalism was advocated and further developed in the third century by Sabellius. Father, Son and Spirit are the same God; they are three names for one and the same being, which he called υἱοπατωρ, yet not simultaneously, but in three successive energies or stages. God existed first in the prosopon, the appearance, the modus of

the Father namely as Creator and Lawgiver; thereafter in the prosopon of the Son as Redeemer from incarnation to ascension into heaven; and finally in the prosopon of the H. Spirit as Life-giver. Sabellius appealed in this especially to Deut. 6:4, Ex. 20:3, Jes. 44:6, Joh. 10:38. Sabellius thus also included the H. Spirit in the being of God, placed Son and Spirit on an equal line with the Father, and furthermore taught a historical succession in the revelations of God, a becoming in God himself, Hippolytus, Philos. IX.

Epiphanius, Haeres. 62. Orig. de princ. I 2. Athanas. c. Ar. IV. Harnack D.

G. I 674 f.

12. Both directions have continued to exist in the Christian church, to the right and left of the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity, throughout all centuries. The essence of Arianism lies in the denial of the homoousia of Father and Son, in the assertion that the Father alone and in the absolute sense is the only true God. Naturally the Son is then a lesser and lower being, standing outside the nature of God; but about the place that accrues to the Son between God and the world of creatures there can then be difference; Arianism allows all kinds of latitude. The distance between God and world is endless and at every point of that distance a place can be assigned to the Son, from the place next to God on his throne down to that next to the creatures, angels or men. Thus [263] Arianism has also appeared in different forms. First of all in the form of subordinatianism: the Son is then indeed eternal, generated from the essence of the Father, no creature and not brought forth out of nothing, but He is nevertheless less than and subordinate to the Father. The Father alone is ὁ θεος, πηγη θεοτητος, the son is θεος, received his nature by communication from the Father. Thus it was taught by Justin, Tertull., Clement, Origen etc., also by the SemiArians, Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia, who placed the

Son ἐκτος του πατρος and called Him ὁμοιοοσιος to the Father, later by the Remonstrants, Conf. art. 3. Arminius, Op. theol. 1629 p. 232 sq. Episc.

Instit. theol. IV sect. 2 c. 32. Limborch, Theol. Christ. II c. 17 § 25; by the supranaturalists, Bretschneider, Dogm. I4 612 f. Knapp, Gl. I 260.

Muntinghe, Theol. Christ. pars theor. § 134 sq. etc., and by very many theologians in more recent times, Frank, Syst. d. chr. Wahrh. I 207 f. Beck,

Chr. Gl. II 123 f. 134 f. Twesten, II 254. Kahnis, I 353, 398. van Oosterzee II § 52. Doedes, Ned. Gel. 71 v. Subsequently it has, in its old guise, which it had with Arius, again appeared among many theologians after the Reformation, especially in England. Milton e.g. taught that Son and Spirit were created by the free will of the Father before the creation, and bore only the name of God on account of their office, just like the judges and authorities in the O. T., de doctr. christ. ed. Summer 1827 lib. I c. 5. 6, and likewise with slight modifications W. Whiston, whose Arianism called forth many counter-writings, Walch Bibl. theol. sel. I 957 f., S. Clarke, The scripture doctrine of the trinity 1712, P. Maty, Lettre d'un théologien à un autre théologien sur le mystère de la Trinité 1729, Dan. Whitby, Harwood, many Remonstrants in this country, and in this time the Groningen theologians, Hofstede de Groot, De Gron. Godg. 160v. A third form of Arianism arose in Socinianism. The Father is the only, true God. The Son is a holy man created by God immediately, by supernatural conception, who did not exist before his conception and was brought forth by God with this purpose, to preach to men a new law. After fulfilling this charge He was exalted in heaven and became partaker of Divine grace. The Spirit is nothing other than a power of God, Cat. Racov. qu. 94-190, cf. F. Socinus, in Bibl. patr. Polon. I 789 sq., Crell, de uno Deo Patre libri [264] duo, e. a., in Trechsel, Protest. Antitrinitarier II 221 f. 233 f. This Socinianism spread

from Poland to Germany, the Netherlands, England and America, found in these latter two countries spokesmen in John Biddle, Nathanael Lardner,

Theoph. Lindsey, Joseph Priestley, founder of the Unitarian Society etc., and passed over into Unitarianism. Socinianism could not in the long run maintain the supernaturalism, which it at first still accepted; Jesus became an ordinary man, even if also an example of piety and morality, Christianity became entirely detached from his person. Thus it was also taught by rationalism, Wegscheider, Instit. theol. § 91. Modern theology stands on the same standpoint. And Ritschl has in substance done nothing other than renew Socinianism. Jesus was a man made capable by God to found the kingdom of heaven on earth and was thereafter exalted to the rank of God and Lord of the congregation. In this whole rationalistic view of the doctrine of the Trinity there is naturally even much less need of Divine grace, and therefore the H. Spirit is herewith scarcely mentioned; his

Godhead and for the most part also his personality is denied.

13. Sabellianism, too, can occur in different forms. It has in common with Arianism the denial of the triunity in the Divine being, but now seeks to obtain the unity of God, not by placing Son and Spirit outside God's being, but by taking both up into it in such a way that all distinction between the three persons disappears. The distinction between the persons, according to the church's doctrine of the Trinity, lies in the personal properties, specifically in the eternal generation. If these are denied, then the persons come to stand detached alongside one another, and tritheism arises. Of that, in antiquity, the monophysites John Askusnages and John Philoponus were accused, Baur, II 13 f., and in the Middle Ages Roscellinus, cf. Anselmus, de fide trinitatis et de incarnatione verbi. Later a similar accusation arose against Th. Sherlock, because he assumed in the Divine being three infinite

spirits, Walch Bibl. theol. sel. I 972; further against Roell, because he opposed the generation, Examen v. h. Ontw. v. Toler. VIIIe Sam. bl. 10v.

Moor, I 735. 761-771; subsequently also against Lampe and Sibelius, because they [265] had objections to the formula per communicationem essentiae, Moor, I 744-755. Ypey and Dermout, Gesch. der N. H. Kerk III 202 en aant. 84v. Archief v. Kerk. Gesch. door Kist en Royaards VIII 419v.

If, in addition, the being of God is still conceived in a Platonic-realist sense, then tritheism passes over into tetradism, which was charged against Damianus of Alexandria, Baur, II 29 f. But since such a triad of individual, separated beings, μερικαι οὐσιαι, ἰδικαι φυσεις, cannot be reconciled with the unity of God, this can also be maintained in such a way that Father, Son, and Spirit are the same person and the same being; this patripassianism was taught in the second century by Praxeas. Or one can also, with Marcellus of Ancyra and Photinus of Sirmium, regard Son and Spirit as properties in God, which proceeded from God only for the sake of creation and recreation and became independent, personal. The Logos was indeed eternal as λογος ἐνδιαθετος; the Father was never without Logos, he was λογοπατωρ; but this Logos becomes Son, προφορικος, only in time; God extends himself in time into Son and Spirit and then returns again into himself, Schwane, D. G. II 135-150. From that, modalistic monarchianism is then naturally born, which in the three persons sees only three modes of revelation of the one Divine being. This was the actual doctrine of Sabellius, and later this conception of the dogma of the Trinity repeatedly returns. The speculation about the Trinity in Erigena, de div. nat. I 13, and in Abaelard, Introd. ad theol. I 7, is not free of modalism either. But this comes to light more clearly in the pantheistic sects in the Middle Ages, in Joachim of Floris, Amalric of Bena, David of Dinant, who distinguished an

age of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit and considered the last to be near, Reuter, Gesch. der relig. Aufkl. im M. A. II 183-249. In the century of the Reformation, anabaptism came into opposition against the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. The true God is the God in us; this is the essential

Christ, and the Word, the Spirit in us is the true God, e.g. Camillo in Trechsel II 95 f. David Joris taught that God was one and revealed himself successively as Father, Son, and Spirit in three periods of faith, hope, and love, which had begun with Moses, Christ, and himself, Trechsel I 44 f.

Cramer in Ned. Archief v. Kerk. Gesch. V 1-145. VI [266] 289-368. But above all Servetus devoted to this dogma all the power of his thinking; in three writings he subjected it in its ecclesiastical form to a sharp criticism and also attempted to build it up positively anew, de trinitatis erroribus libri septem 1531, dialogorum de trinitate libri duo 1532, and Christianismi restitutio 1553. Servetus has no words sharp enough to condemn the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. In his eyes it is tritheistic, atheistic, a tricipex monstrum, tricipex cerberus, tripartitus Deus. Over against that he proceeds from the proposition that the Divine being cannot be divided, and that therefore, for the maintenance of the deity of Christ and of the H.

Spirit, no persons but only dispositions, apparitions, modes of God may be assumed. The Father is the whole being of God, the only God. But he makes use of the Logos, which already existed before Christ, yet not as person but as word, reason, thought, in order to reveal himself in creation and under the O. Test. and to become man in Christ. The Logos did not assume the human nature in Christ but became flesh in him. The man Christ is therefore the true Son of God; God dwells fully in him. And likewise the H. Spirit, who is not really distinguished from the Logos but is included in him, is the mode of God's self-communication. Through him God dwells in

all creatures and communicates his life to all. At the end of the process the Trinity ceases again, Trechsel I 65 f. 103 f. 120 f. The gnostic and theosophical elements that here again came to light in the doctrine of the Trinity soon increased still further in Böhme, Zinzendorf, and Swedenborg.

In Böhme the Trinity is the result of a process, of which the dark nature, the light of the idea, and the will in the Godhead are the foundations and the factors, Claassen, Jakob Böhme II 25 f. Zinzendorf did indeed call himself trinitariissimus but nevertheless actually proceeded from a gnostic concept of God. God an sich was unattainable, hidden, unfathomable, but he reveals himself in Christ. This is the actual Creator of all things, the Jehovah of the O. Test., who has become flesh and is the object of our worship. In him the Trinity also becomes manifest, however not with immanent relations of generation, spiration, etc., but as a holy family. The first person is the Father, the H. Spirit is the mother, Christ is the Son, and into that family the [267] individual believer and the congregation are now taken up as the bride of the Son, who, just as Eve from Adam's side, is created in an entirely realistic way from the side and the blood of Christ, Plitt,

Zinzendorffs Theol. I 211 f. II 24. 133 f. III 14 f. Swedenborg opposed the doctrine of the Trinity even more strongly. Like Servetus, he saw in it nothing but tritheism. God is one, but he has become manifest in Christ as Father, Son, and Spirit, who relate as soul, body, and the activity proceeding from both, Swedenborg, Die ware christl. Religion, 2te Aufl. Stuttgart 1873

S. 241 f. This theosophy prepared the doctrine of the Trinity of the new philosophy. In the system of Spinoza with his one unchangeable substance there was as yet no place for it. In Kant the three persons are replaced by three qualities; true religion consists in faith in God as holy lawgiver, good ruler, and righteous judge, Rel. innerhalb u. s. w. 168 f. Schleiermacher

exercised a strict criticism on the dogma of the Trinity, and acknowledged in it only this as true, that God is united with humanity, both in the person of Christ and in the Gemeingeist der Kirche, Gl. § 170-172, cf. also Lipsius,

Dogm. § 368, Schweizer, Chr. Gl. § 103 f. Scholten, L. H. K. II 238.

According to Schelling and Hegel the dogma contained a deep philosophical thought, which they interpreted thus: God is spirit, thinking, idea, and it therefore belongs to his nature to represent himself, to think, to objectify himself. The content of that thinking, however, cannot be a thought as in the case of man, but must be reality. God therefore, thinking, brings forth himself, objectifies himself, and indeed in the world, which is the actual Son of God, and then from that Selbstentäusserung, through the consciousness of humanity, returns in the Spirit again to himself, Schelling,

Werke I 5 S. 294. I 6 S. 28 f. I 7 S. 56 f. Hegel, Werke XI 120 f. 129 f. XII 181 f. The great difference between this speculation and the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity was indeed recognized by Strauss, Gl. I 492 f. But nevertheless many still take pleasure in such a philosophical construction,

Biedermann, § 159. Pfleiderer, Grundriss § 122. Others content themselves with distinguishing in the one personality of God three potencies, moments, powers, Schelling in his later period, Rothe, Ethik § 23 f. Nitzsch, Ev.

Dogm. 438-446. And finally many do not get beyond [268] an "revelation Trinity" of God in nature (creation), history (Christ), and conscience

(congregation), Hase, Hutt. Rediv. § 70. de Wette, Dogm.3 71. Kaftan, Das Wesen der chr. Rel. 388.

14. The doctrine of the Trinity is in the Christian religion the dogma and thus also the mystery par excellence. As soon as the data which Holy

Scripture offers for it became the object of theological thought, the need awoke for all kinds of names and expressions which did not occur in Holy

Scripture, and which nevertheless proved indispensable, in order to represent the truth to some extent, even if imperfectly, and to maintain it against misunderstanding and opposition. The Arians and many tendencies in later times, such as the Socinians, the Anabaptists, the Remonstrants, the Biblical theologians, etc., disapprove the use of such unscriptural names.

But Christian theology always defended their right and their value, August., de trin. VI 10. Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 29 art. 3. Calvin, Inst. I 13, 5. Moor I 710-712. M. Vitringa I 191-195. Gerhard, Loc. III c. 2. Philippi, Kirchl. Gl.

II3 149 f. Scripture, after all, is not given to us in order to be simply repeated, but to be reflected upon and rendered in our own language; Jesus and the apostles used it thus and by reasoning derived further inferences from it; Scripture is not a lawbook and also not a dogmatics but the principium of theology; as the word of God it binds not only in its literal words but also in that which is lawfully derived from it, cf. part I 528.

Furthermore, no reflection on the truth of Scripture and thus no single theological activity is possible, without making use of such words which do not occur in Scripture. Not only in the doctrine of the Trinity, but also with every other dogma and in the whole of theology, expressions and terms are employed which are not to be found in Scripture. With these names, therefore, the independence of the Christian, the right of theology, is at stake. And finally these do not serve to introduce new dogmas apart from Scripture or in conflict with it, but precisely to maintain the truth of Scripture against heresy. They have much more negative than positive significance. They indicate the lines within which Christian thinking has to move, in order not to lose the truth of revelation from its hands. Under the appearance [269] of scripturalness, Biblical theology has always strayed further away from Scripture; and with its non-biblical terms, ecclesiastical

orthodoxy has always again been justified in its scriptural character. Thus there also gradually arose in the doctrine of the Trinity all kinds of unusual names, such as ὁμοουσιος, οὐσια, ὑπαρξις, ὑποστασις, προσωπον, γενναν, τριας, unitas, trinitas, substantia, personae, nomina, gradus, species, formae, proprietates etc. The meaning of these terms, however, was at first by no means fixed for a long time. The word οὐσια was indeed usually used of the one being of God, but still served with Origen, Athanasius, Gregorius Nyss. often, to designate the three persons in that one being. Athanasius expressly defended himself against Sabellianism by this, that he calls the Son not μονοουσιος but ὁμοουσιος with the Father, Expos. fid. c. 2. Likewise the word ὑποστασις was used now of the being, then again of the three persons; and one therefore said now that there was only one and then again, that there were three ὑποστασεις in God. But Sabellianism saw in the persons only forms of revelation of the one being. Over against that, the church had to lay emphasis on the fact that those persons were really existing selfsubsistences in the divine being. And for that the name ὑποστασις was used.

Basilius in his letter περι οὐσιας και ὑποσταεως brought more uniformity into this, by designating the being of God with οὐσια and the three persons with ὑποστασις or προσωπον; each ὑποστασις thus has its own existence, ἰδια ὑπαρξις, is ὑφεστωσα, and is distinguished from the other by ἰδιοτητες, ἰδιωματα, ἰδιαζοντα, σημεια, ἰδια γνωρισματα, χαρακτηρες, μορφαι. And to this the usage of the two Gregories and further of Joh. Damascenus and of Greek theology and church attaches itself. Petavius, de trin. V c. 1 sq.

Schwane, Dogmengesch. II2 99. 151 f. Dorner, Entw. I2 914 f. Harnack, II2 252. Hatch, Griech. u. Christ., deutsch von Preuschen 1892 S. 200 f. In the West the confusion was not so great. By Tertullian the term essentia or substantia for the being and the name persona or subsistentia for the persons

had been established. Later church teachers and symbols adopted this usage. Hilarius in his work de trinitate speaks constantly of una essentia, substantia, natura, genus and of tres personae, which are distinguished from one another by proprietates. Augustine disapproved of rendering the Greek

[270] ὑποστασις by substantia. Substantia and essentia could not in Latin be distinguished as ὑποστασις and οὐσια in Greek. One could not in Latin speak of una essentia and tres substantiae. Rather, substantia was like the Greek ουσια, and essentia always still sounded strange and unusual to Latin ears. Latin therefore retained the expression una substantia and tres personae. Yet the word substantia was by Augustine preferably avoided altogether, both for the being and for the persons. For substantia in Latin, in distinction from accidens, indicated the bearer of the properties as existing in itself. Because that opposition cannot apply in God, since being and properties in him are one, Augustine considered it better to designate the divine being as essentia, de trin. V 8. VII 4. And just as in the East it was necessary, over against Sabellianism, to lay emphasis on the subsistence, the ὑποστασις, of the three persons, so the Latins, over against Arianism, held fast that the three persons were not three substantiae, but three personae. Scholasticism further expanded this terminology and gave a fixed schema, which later was generally adopted, also in the theology of the Reformation. In God there is one being, una essentia, unitas naturae, and three persons, tres personae, trinitas personarum. These three persons are one in that being, ὁμοουσιοι, coessentiales, and mutually exist in one another, ἐμπεριχωρησις, circumincessio personarum. But they are distinct.

For there are in God duae emanationes: per modum naturae and per modum voluntatis; tres hypostases: Pater, Filius, Spiritus S.; quatuor relationes: paternitas, filiatio, spiratio activa and passiva; quinque notiones:

innascibilitas, paternitas, filiatio, spiratio activa and passiva; tres proprietates personales: Pater, qui est ingenitus, Filius, qui est genitus,

Spiritus Sanctus, qui est spiratus, Bonaventura, Brevil. I c. 3. 4 cf.

Anselmus, Monol. c. 29 sq. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 22 sq. Thomas, S.

Theol. I qu. 27-32 etc.

15. In order to understand the doctrine of the Trinity well, three questions must be answered: what does the word essence signify? what is indicated by the word person? And what is the relation between essence and person and between the persons mutually? As far as the concept essence is concerned, Aristotle defined [271] οἰσια as a substance, ἡ μητε καθ' ὑποκειμενον τινος λεγεται μητε ἐν ὑποκειμενω τινι ἐστιν, oἱον ὁ τις ἀνθρωπος και ὁ τις ἱππος. And thus the word was at first also used in theology and applied to the three persons as well as to the one essence. But gradually οὐσια was employed in another sense and it became the designation of the essence, the nature, the essentia of a thing, what Aristotle had called το τι ἠν εἰναι. Thus it became synonymous with φυσις. Some considered this word, because derived from φυναι, just as natura from nasci, less suitable to designate the essence of God, Greg. Naz. ad Evagr., Dionys. de div. nom. c. 2. But this word nevertheless became established in theology just like the word nature, and found support in 2 Petr. 1:4. Οὐσια, φυσις, substantia, essentia, natura became the constant name for the one essence of God, the Godhead in general, abstracted from its ὑπαρξις, subsistentia and from its τροποι ὑπαρξεως, modi subsistendi, thus for the divine nature, as it is common to all three persons. This essence of God is one and simple, essentially distinct from all creatures and in possession of all those attributes which have been treated earlier. The distinction between this essence and the three persons in God finds its analogy in the creatures.

In these we distinguish between the essence and the individuals. Paul, John, Peter all partake of the same human nature but as persons are distinct from the essence and from one another, Basilius, Epist. 43. But here at once a double danger threatens. Nominalism conceives the essence, the universal, only as a name, a concept and thus in the doctrine of the Trinity arrives at tritheism; excessive realism thinks, with respect to the essence, of a selfsubsistence standing behind and above the persons and thus arrives at tetradism or sabellianism. Even Gregory of Nyssa did not wholly overcome this exaggerated realism. In order to prove that the Godhead is one and that one ought not to speak of three Gods, he denied the applicability of number also to finite creatures. It was according to him an abuse, to speak in the plural of those who partake of one nature and thus to speak of many men, ad Ablabium, cf. Petavius, de trin. IV c. 9. Schwane II 156 f. Dorner, Entw.

I 916 f. Thus, however, the distinction between the essence in God and in the creatures is overlooked. There is without doubt analogy, and because of that [272] analogy we may also speak of his essence with respect to God.

But that analogy nevertheless at the same time presupposes a very important difference. The concept of the essence of man is a speciesconcept; human nature indeed has real existence and is no flatus vocis, it is present not indeed outside and above men, but yet in each man. But it exists in each man in its own, finite manner; men, like the gods in polytheism, are indeed ὁμοι-] but not ὁμο-] or μονοουσιοι. Human nature is in the different men not tota and not numero eadem; and men are therefore not only distincti but also divisi. In God all that is different. The divine nature is not to be conceived as an abstract species-concept and just as little as a substantia outside, above, behind the persons; it exists in the persons and in each of these tota and numero eadem. The persons are therefore indeed

distincti but not divisi. They are ὁμο-, μονο-, ταυτοουσιοι. They are separated by no place or time or anything else. All of them partake of the same divine nature and perfections. It is one and the same Godhead, which exists in the three persons, in all and in each in particular, so that in God there is only one Eternal, one Almighty, one Omniscient, one God with one understanding, one will, one power, Symb. Athan. n. 9-18. The word essence thus maintains the truth which in Scripture is always placed in the foreground, is enclosed in monotheism and is also defended by unitarianism. Whatever distinctions may exist in the divine essence, they may and can not detract from the unity of the nature. For in God the unity is not defective and limited but perfect and absolute. Among creatures all diversity by its nature also includes more or less separation and division.

Everything that is creature necessarily exists in the forms of space and time and thus alongside and after one another. But eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence, goodness, etc. by virtue of their nature exclude all separation and division. God is absolute unity and simplicity, without composition or division, and that unity is itself not ethical, not contractual in nature, as among men, but absolute, and thus no accidens to the essence, but one with the essence of God itself. [273] 16. But now the glory of the confession of the Trinity lies precisely in this, that this unity, however absolute, does not exclude but includes diversity. The being of God is no abstract unity, no abstract concept, but a fullness of being, an infinite richness of life, which in the diversity unfolds precisely the highest unity. Those self-distinctions, which Holy Scripture now makes known to us in the Divine being under the name of Father, Son, and Spirit, are designated in theology with the word person. In the East one first used for that προσωπον, corresponding to the Hebrew ‎‏‏ָּפִנים‎, face,

outward appearance, role.

But this word was susceptible to misunderstanding; Sabellius said that the one Divine οὐσια or ὑποστασις assumed different προσωπα. Over against this the church fathers maintained that the three προσωπα in the Divine being were not merely appearances, forms of revelation, but that they were προσωπα ἐνυποστατα, that they existed ἐν ὑποστασει. Thus the word προσωπον was replaced by ὑποστασις, which word first means foundation, substructure, firmness, and then denotes that which really exists and not merely in appearance, or also that which exists in itself in distinction from accidentia, which inhaere in something else, cf. also 2 Cor. 9:4, 11:17, Hebr. 1:3, 3:14, 11:1 and Cremer s. v. In Latin one used the word persona, which first denoted the mask, then the role of an actor, thereafter the conditio, qualitas, status, in which someone appears and thus in legal language made known the jus standi in judicio. This concept was thus also freely floating, and in Tertullian it still alternates with all kinds of other words, nomen, species, forma, gradus, res.

Yet this word was retained in Latin, even when in the East προσωπον had already been replaced by ὑποστασις; for the word ὑποστασις could not be rendered in Latin by any suitable word; substantia one could not use, because this was already in use for the essence. But this difference in expression repeatedly gave occasion for misunderstanding between the East and the West. The Greeks thought, with the Latin persona, of their word προσωπον, and the Latins understood the Greek ὑποστασις in the sense of their substantia. Back and forth one reproached one another with the poverty of language. Yet in substance one taught entirely the same, namely that the three persons were not modi but self-subsistences. Thus the word προσωπον, [274] persona in ecclesiastical language received as essential characteristic the self-subsistence, ὑποστασις, subsistentia, subsistens,

suppositum. This sense the word ὑποστασις still has in Athanasius and the Cappadocians. But later the word persona acquired yet another trait. For if persona indicated nothing other than ὑποστασις, that which exists in itself, over against accidens, then it could also well be used of things. In the christological struggle one was driven, over against Nestorianism and Monophysitism, to an even sharper determination of nature and person; and thus there then arose, in the work ascribed to Boethius de duabus naturis et una persona Christi, the definition of persona as naturae rationabilis individua substantia. The word now expressed a twofold thing: selfsubsistence and rationality or self-consciousness. This meaning it has in scholasticism, Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 23 cf. 25, 26. Thomas, S. Th. I qu.

29. Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 23 qu. 1 and dist. 25, and furthermore also in the older Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed dogmatics, Petavius, de trin. IV c. 9. Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. S. 90 f. Beza, Tract. theol. I 646. Zanchius, Op. I 13. Maresius, Syst. theol. III 7. Synopsis pur. theol.

VII 8 etc. Only since the previous century did the determination arise that the essence of personality lies, not in existing in itself, but in selfconsciousness and self-determination. This definition may now be correct for human personality, although even then it is still open to objection, but in any case it is no correct description of the word person in the doctrine of the Trinity. Applied here, it would lead to tritheism, i.e. to three personalities, each with a separate self-consciousness and self-determination. Even the definition of Boethius fits much more in the doctrine of Christ than in that of the Trinity. And that has also been felt time and again. Richard of St.

Victor opposed it, because it spoke of individua substantia and therefore described person as divinae naturae incommunicabilis existentia, de trin. IV 21. Calvin spoke only of subsistentia in Dei essentia, Inst. I 13, 6, cf. Alting,

Theol. probl. nova III qu. 31. And all acknowledged the truth of the word of Augustine: we speak of persons, non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur, de trin. V 9. VI 10, cf. Anselmus, Monol. c. 37, 38. Calvin, Inst. I 13, 2-4, and furthermore Braun, Der Begriff Person in seiner Anwendung auf Trinität und Incarnation, Mainz 1896. Person [275] in the dogma of the Trinity denotes nothing other than that the three persons in the Divine being are not modi but each exists in its own way. Even on the rational and self-conscious in this concept the emphasis does not fall at all; for this follows of itself from the fact that they partake of the same essence and all virtues, thus also of knowledge and wisdom. What, however, is expressed in the word person is that the unity of the Divine essence unfolds in a threefold existence. It is a unitas, ex semetipsa derivans trinitatem. The persons are not three modes of revelation of the one Divine personality, but the Divine essence exists in no other way than as three-personal, precisely because it is absolute, Divine personality. In man we have of that only a weak analogy. Personality in human beings comes into being only in that there is a subject that sets itself over against itself as object and again comprehends itself with itself; three moments constitute the essence of human personality, but with us these are only moments; in God they are, because in Him there is no time or space, no extension and no division, three ὑποστασεις, three modes of existence of the one and the same essence. This analogy of human personality must, however, still be supplemented in another way. Human nature is too rich to be embodied in one single human being or person; it therefore extends itself in many human beings and comes only in humanity to its full unfolding. So also the Divine essence unfolds its fullness in three persons; but these are not three individuals alongside and separated from one another, but in and within the Divine essence the threefold self-distinction, which takes up the

unfolding of the essence in personality and thus makes it three-personal.

The unfolding of human nature is of a twofold kind: in the individual human being to personality and in humanity to many individuals, who together also again form a unity, a personality, as Christ with the church is one perfect man, 1 Cor. 12:12, Ef. 4:13. This double unfolding, which in humanity can be no other, is in God one; the unfolding of his essence to personality coincides with that of his essence to persons. The three persons are the one Divine personality brought to perfect self-unfolding in and out of and through and within the essence. [276]

17. From this it can be inferred in what sense the third above-mentioned question concerning the relation of essence and person and of the persons among themselves must be answered. With Tertullian the three persons are unius substantiae, unius status, unius potestatis sed unus Deus; they are three non statu sed gradu, unum, not unus; they are unus Deus, ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species in nomine Patris, Filii et Spiritus Sancti deputantur. There is distinctio, distributio, no diversitas and divisio.

Athanasius and the Cappadocians defined the ὑποστασεις as τροποι ὑπαρξεως, and thereby indicated that they, one in essence, nevertheless each had their own existentia and differed in mode of existence. The distinction between essence and person and the persons among themselves thus lay in the mutual relation, ἡ προς ἀλληλα σχεσις, in being Father, Son, and Spirit, in the properties of πατροτης (ἀγεννησια), υἱοτης (γεννησις) and ἁγιασμος (ἐκπορευσις). This was worked out more broadly by Augustine.

He does not derive the trinitas from the Father but from the unity, from the deitas, and regards it not as accidental but as essentially proper to God. It belongs to his essence to be triune. Insofar, being-person is identical with the essence itself. Non enim aliud est Deo esse, aliud personam esse sed

omnino idem, de trin. VII 6. For if being belonged to God in an absolute sense and being-person in a relative sense, then the three persons could not be one essence. Each person is therefore equal to the whole essence and as much as the two others or as all three together. With creatures this is not so.

One man is not as much as three men. At in Deo non ita est; non enim major essentia est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus simul quam solus Pater aut solus Filius, sed tres simul illae substantiae sive personae, si ita dicendae sunt, aequales sunt singulis, de trin. VII 6. In summa trinitate tantum est una quantum tres simul sunt nec plus aliquid sunt duae quam una, et in se infinita sunt. Ita et singula sunt in singulis et omnia in singulis et singula in omnibus et omnia in omnibus et unum omnia, ib. VI 10. Ipsa trinitas tam magnum est, quam unaquaeque ibi persona, ib. VIII 1.

Therefore the distinction between essence and person and persons among themselves cannot lie in any substance, but only in the mutual relations.

Quidquid ergo ad seipsum dicitur Deus, et de singulis personis singulariter dicitur, id est, de Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto, et simul de ipsa trinitate non pluraliter sed [277] singulariter dicitur, de trin. V 8. Quidquid autem proprie singula in eadem trinitate dicuntur, nullo modo ad seipsa sed ad invicem, aut ad creaturam dicuntur et ideo relative, non substantialiter ea dici manifestum est, ib. c. 11. And accordingly the later theology said that essence and person differed not re but ratione, yet not ratione ratiocinante, i.e. rationaliter, nominaliter, as Sabellius thought, but ratione ratiocinata.

The distinction consisted not in any substance but only in relation, but this distinction was nevertheless real, objective, grounded in God's revelation.

Essence and person differ not re but yet realiter; the difference consists in a modus subsistendi but is nevertheless a real difference. The person is a mode of existence of the essence; and the persons among themselves

therefore differ, as the one mode of existence differs from the other, or according to the common example, as the open differs from the closed hand, Thomas, S. Th. I qu. 28 sq. Petavius, de trin. IV c. 10. 11. Kleutgen,

Theol. der Vorz. I2 350 f. Calvin, Inst. I 13, 6. 16-20. Zanchius, Op. I 21 sq.

Moor I 713 sq. Turretinus, Th. El. III qu. 27 etc. If this distinction of essence and person and of persons among themselves must be indicated in a single word, there is indeed not much more to be said about it. But this distinction nevertheless becomes clearer if we conceive the relations themselves through which it comes about in the divine essence. Although

Holy Scripture is strictly monotheistic, it nevertheless ascribes divine nature and perfections to Son and Spirit and places them on one line with the Father. Father, Son, and Spirit are thus distinct subjects in the one and the same divine essence. And as such they also bear different names, have special personal properties, and always appear in a certain fixed order, both ad intra and ad extra. The distinction of the persons thus lies wholly and entirely in the so-called ἰδιωματα, ἰδιοτητες, proprietates, personal properties, namely paternitas (ἀγεννησια, innascibilitas), generatio activa, spiratio activa, filiatio (generatio passiva and spiratio activa), processio

(spiratio passiva). These now by their nature add nothing new, no new substance, to the essence. A man who becomes a father does not change in essence but only enters into a relation hitherto foreign to him. The essence of God is distinguished from being-Father, being-Son, and being-Spirit not in a thing-like, substantial way but only ratione, relatione. The one [278] and the same essence is and is called Father when it is conceived in its relation to that same essence in the relation of the Son. And the persons among themselves therefore differ only in this, that the one is Father, the other Son, and the third Spirit. Among men we find only a weak likeness of

this, but one that can nevertheless serve for clarification. Among men fatherhood and sonship are indeed nothing but a relation, but that relation presupposes a personal, individual subject that is the bearer of that relation, but otherwise still exists in all sorts of ways outside that fatherhood and sonship. Fatherhood is only an accidental property of being-human; some men never become fathers; whoever becomes one has not been one for a long time and gradually ceases again to be one, etc. Being-human therefore by no means is exhausted in fatherhood or sonship. But it is not so in the divine essence. Being-God coincides completely with being-person.

Quemadmodum hoc illi est esse, quod Deum esse, quod magnum, quod bonum esse, ita hoc illi est esse, quod personam esse, Aug. de trin. VII 6.

The divine essence therefore, so to speak, is completely exhausted in each of the three persons in being-Father, being-Son, and being-Spirit. The paternitas, filiatio, and processio are not additional properties alongside the essence, but the eternal forms of existence of, the eternal, immanent relations in the essence. With men the unfolding of the one human nature falls apart; it takes place partly in the individual man, in that he becomes personality; it further takes place in humanity, whose members all represent human nature in a special way; it finally also comes about in the relations of sex and kinship, which also each time make a side of human nature known to us. In men this threefold unfolding of nature falls apart in space and time; it is essentially extension. In God, however, there is no separation or division. The unfolding of his essence into personality includes at once, immediately, absolutely, completely within itself that of his essence into persons and at the same time that of his essence into the immanent relations which are expressed by the names Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus God is the archetype of man; what in humanity falls apart, lies alongside one another,

is spread out in the forms of space and time, that is eternally and simply present in God. The processiones in his essence simultaneously bring about in [279] God his absolute personality, his triunity, and his immanent relations. They are the absolute archetypes of all those processiones through which in the individual man, in the family, and in humanity human nature comes to its full unfolding. Therefore the three persons are indeed each another, alius, but not aliud; the threeness is from and in and unto the unity; the unfolding of the essence takes place within the essence and therefore does not detract from the unity and simplicity of the essence. Furthermore, the three persons, though not aliud, are nevertheless alii, distinct subjects, ὑποστασεις, subsistentiae, who precisely thereby bring the essence of God to absolute unfolding within the essence itself. And finally those three persons are mutually related to one another in an absolute way through generation and spiration; their distinctness as subjects coincides completely with their immanent kinship relations. The Father is solely and eternally

Father, the Son is solely and eternally Son, the Spirit is solely and eternally Spirit. And because each of them is himself in a simple, eternal, absolute way, therefore the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is

God. The Father is so as Father, the Son as Son, the Holy Spirit as Holy Spirit. And because all three are God, they partake of one divine nature, and there is therefore one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is to be praised unto eternity.

18. After the doctrine of the Trinity in general has thus been set forth, the three persons must now be discussed separately. The first person is the Father and his personal property is the paternitas or also the ἀγεννησια. In the Arian struggle this word played a great role. It was taken over from common Greek. Plato called the ideas ἀγεννητους; Aristotle so called

matter; the Gnostics spoke of God as βυθος ἀγεννητος, ingenitum, Iren. adv. haer. I 1. From them Paul of Samosata and the Arians, Aëtius and Eunomius, took over this usage, in order thereby to combat the homoousia of the Son and the Spirit with the Father. The ἀγεννησια expressed, in contrast with every creature, God's proper essence. The Son, however, is not ἀγεννητος; He is called in Scripture μονογενης and orthodoxy also calls

Him generated; thus He cannot be God, but must be a creature; we may not assume δυο [280] ἀγεννητα, i.e. δυο θεους, Athanasius, c. Ar. I 31 sq. de decr. nic. syn. 28 sq. Basilius, adv. Eunom. II 25 sq. etc. Now, however, there exist in Greek two words: γεννητος from γενναν, gignere, generare and γενητος from γιγνεσθαι, fieri; the latter is much broader than the former and denotes everything that is produced and has a beginning of existence, whether by creation, generation, or propagation. These two words at first were not always clearly distinguished; one only pointed out that the word ἀγεννητος or ἀγενητος could be used in different senses and in the one sense could not and in the other sense could be applied to the Son. But gradually the practice arose of making a distinction between the two words.

All three persons could then, in contrast with every creature, be called ἀγενητος; none of them was produced in the manner of creatures; none of them had a beginning of existence. The agenesia was a property of the divine essence and common to all three persons. But from that the ἀγεννησια had to be distinguished. This was a property of the Father alone.

The Son could be called γεννητος, not because He, as a creature, was produced in time, but because He from eternity was generated out of the essence of the Father, cf. Athan., Basil. Gregor. t. a. p. Damascenus, de fide orthod. I c. 8. Augustinus, de trin. V c. 3. Petavius, de trin. V c. 1-3.

Suicerus, s. v. But the church fathers at the same time remarked that this

property, viz. the ἀγεννησια, belonged specifically to the person and not to the essence. The essence is in the three persons one and the same, but the agennesia is a relation in the essence. Just as Adam and Eve and Abel partake of the same essence, although they received it in different ways, so also in God the essence is one, although this exists in the three persons in different ways, Athan. de decr. nic. Syn. 8. Gregor. Naz. Orat. theol. V. In addition, there is also the fact that the name ἀγεννησια is negative and only says that the Father is exalted above generation, but it says nothing positive concerning God's nature; properly speaking, therefore, it is also no designation of the person of the Father, for the ἀγεννητον esse and beingFather is absolutely not the same, Basilius, adv. Eun. I 9. 15. Greg. Naz.

Orat. theol. III. August. de trin. V 5. Therefore the name Father is to be preferred above that of ἀγεννητος, Basilius, adv. Eun. I 5. The scriptural name of Father indicates much [281] better than that of ἀγεννητος the personal property of the first person. In the paternitas a positive relation to the second person is enclosed. The name Father is even more proper to God than the name God, for the latter is a general name, a nomen dignitatis, but the Father-name in the N. T. is, just like that of Ihvh in the O. T., a nomen proprium, designation of a personal property of God. He who denies God the Father-name does Him an even greater dishonor than he who denies his creation. This Father-name is then also not a figurative manner of speaking transferred from men to God. Rather the relation is reversed. Fatherhood on earth is a far, weak likeness of the Fatherhood of God, Ef. 3:15. God is

Father in a true and perfect sense. Among men a father is again son of another and a son in his turn again father; among men a father alone is not able to bring forth a son; among men fatherhood is temporal and in a certain sense accidental, not essentially connected with being human; it begins only

late and it soon, in any case at death, ceases again. But in God that is wholly different. He is simple and pure and wholly Father; He is only Father, He is

Father by nature; He is Father eternally, without beginning and end, and therefore the generation must also be an eternal one and the Son as eternal as the Father, for if the Son were not eternal, the Father also could not be eternal. The eternity of the Fatherhood brings with it the eternity of the Sonship; he who names the Father, thereby of himself also names the Son,

Athanasius, c. Ar. I 23. 28. Greg. Naz. Orat. theol. III 5. 17. Damascenus, de fide orthod. I 8. Hilarius, de trin. XII 24. For this relation of the Father to the Son and at the same time to the H. Spirit, the Father was often called αὐτογενης, αὐτογενητος, αὐτοφυης, ἀποιητος, ἀναρχος, principii expers, sui ipse origo, suae causa substantiae, sui principium; and further ἀρχη, αἰτια, ριζα, πηγη, principium, causa, radix, fons, origo, caput etc. of the Son and the Spirit or of the whole Godhead, Petavius, de trin. V 5. Suicerus, s. v.

19. The special property of the second person in the Trinity is the filiatio.

In Scripture He bears various names, which indicate His relation to the Father, such as [282] word, wisdom, logos, son, firstborn, only-begotten, only son, image of God, εἰκων, ὑποστασις, χαρακτηρ. On these names and on some texts cited above, the doctrine of the eternal generation, first so named by Origen, αἰωνιος γεννησις, was built. Naturally we speak of this in a human and therefore imperfect and defective way; and the thought of it admonishes to modesty, Iren. adv. haer. II 28, 6, Athan., c. Ar. II 36.

Basilius, adv. Eun. II 22, 24. Greg. Naz. Orat. XX etc. But nevertheless we may speak thus. For just as by way of comparison mouth and ear and eye are ascribed to God, so human generation is an analogy and image of that divine act, by which the Father gives to the Son the life in Himself. But then all the imperfect and sensible elements of it must also be thought away. The

generation of a human being is imperfect and defective; a man needs a woman in order to bring forth a son; a man can never communicate his full image, his whole being, in one child and not even in many children; a father becomes a father only in the course of time and also ceases to be so, and the child soon becomes wholly independent of and autonomous over against the father. But it is not so with God. There is generation also in the divine being. It is a beautiful thought, repeatedly recurring among the church fathers, that God is fruitful. He is not an abstract, rigid unity, not μοναδικος, solitarius. He is a fullness of life; his nature is a γεννητικη, καρπογονος οὐσια; it is capable of extension, unfolding, communication. Whoever denies this and denies all production in the divine being, does not take seriously that God is infinite, supremely blessed life. He retains nothing but an abstract, deistic concept of God, or by way of compensation takes up, in a pantheistic manner, the life of the world into the divine being. Without the Trinity, creation also is not to be understood; if God cannot communicate

Himself, then He is a dark light, a dry spring, and how would He be able to communicate Himself ad extra, to creatures? Athan., c. Ar. II 2. Damasc. de fide orth. I 8. But nevertheless that generation is to be conceived in a divine manner. Therefore it is in the first place spiritual. The Arians raised against it especially the objection that all generation necessarily brings with it separation, division, τομη, διαιρεσις and also παθος, ἀπορροια. That would be so if it were [283] bodily, sensible, creaturely. But it is spiritual and divine, and therefore simple, without division or separation; it takes place ἀρρευστως και ἀδιαιρετως, Athan., Expos. fidei 2. It brings distinctio and distributio, but no diversitas and divisio into the divine being. Ὁ δε θεος ἀμερης ὠν ἀμεριστος ἐστι και ἀπαθης του υἱου πατηρ, οὐτε γαρ ἀπορροη του ἀσωματου ἐστιν, οὐτ' ἐπιρροη τις εἰς αὐτον γινεται, ὡς ἐπ'

ἀνθρωπων, Athan. de decr. nic. syn. 11. c. Ar. I 16. 28 sq. The generation in God therefore has its most striking analogy in thinking and speaking; and Scripture itself points to that, when it calls the Son the Logos. Just as the spirit of man objectifies itself in the word, so God communicates His whole being in the Logos. But here too there is again a difference. Man needs many words in order to express his thought; those words are sounds and thus sensible and material; they are non-self-subsistent and have no subsistence in themselves. But when God speaks, then in the one Logos He speaks out His whole being and gives Him life in Himself. In the second place, therefore, generation implies that the Father generates the Son ἐκ της οὐσιας του πατρος, θεον ἐκ θεου, φως ἐκ φωτος, θεον ἀληθινον ἐκ θεου ἀληθινου, γεννηθεντα οἰ ποιηθεντα, ὁμοουσιον τῳ πατρι, as was established at Nicaea. The Arians taught that the Son had been brought forth by the will of the Father out of nothing. But this was not generation but creation. To create is το ἐξωθεν και οὐκ ἐκ της οὐσιας του κτιζοντος και ποιουντος γινεσθαι το κτιζομενον και ποιουμενον ἀνομοιον παντελως κατ' οὐσιαν; but generation is το ἐκ της οὐσιας του γεννωντος προαγεσθαι το γεννωμενον ὁμοιον κατ' οὐσιαν, Damasc. de fide orthod. I 8, cf. Athan., de decr. nic. syn. 13. 26. c. Ar. I 5. 6. The Son is not a creature, but God to be praised unto all eternity, Rom. 9:5. And therefore He was not brought forth by the will of the Father, out of nothing and in time. But He is generated out of the being of the Father, in eternity. Generation is therefore not a proper work, no ἐνεργεια of the Father, but to the Father there belongs a φυσις γεννητικη. That of course does not mean that generation is an unconscious, unwilled emanation, that it proceeds outside the will and the power of the Father. It is not an act of a preceding, deciding will, of a βουλησις προηγουμενη, like creation; but it is so naturally proper to the Father that

His [284] will, as voluntas concomitans, has in it His whole good pleasure.

It is revelation of zijne φυσεως γνησιοτης και οὐσιας ἰδιοτης and thus also of His knowledge, will and power and of all His virtues, Athan. c. Ar. III 59-67. Greg. Naz. Or. III 6 sq. Cyrillus Alex. de trin. II. Hilarius, de trin. III 4. Augustinus, de trin. XV 20. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 6. 7. Thomas, S. Th.

I qu. 41 art. 2. In the third place, therefore, generation is also confessed by the Christian church as an eternal one. The Arians said that the Son at first was not, ἠν ποτε ὁτε οὐκ ἠν, appealed especially to the ἐκτισε, creavit of Spr. 8:22, cf. above p. 242. and pointed to the antinomy that exists between the concepts αἰωνιος and γεννησις. But if Father and Son bear these their name in a metaphysical sense, as Scripture indisputably teaches, then thereby generation is also proved as an eternal one. If the Son is not eternal, then God too is surely not eternal Father; He was then God before He was

Father and only later in time became Father. The denial of eternal generation therefore not only does injustice to the deity of the Son but also to that of the Father; it makes Him changeable, deprives Him of His divine nature, takes from Him the eternity of the Fatherhood, and leaves it unexplained how God can truly and with right be called Father in time, if the foundation for that does not lie eternally in His nature, Athan., de decr. nic. syn. 26 sq. de sent. Dionysii 14 sq. c. Ar. I 12 sq. Basilius, adv. Eun. II 14 sq. de Spir. S. 14 sq. Greg. Naz. Or. theol. III 3 sq. But that generation is then also to be understood in the true sense as an eternal one. It is not once in eternity completed and accomplished, but it is an eternal, unchangeable, and thus at the same time eternally completed and eternally continuing act of God. Just as the sun radiates light, and the spring lets water flow out, so generation is proper to the nature of the Father. The Father never was and is never without generation. He always generates. Οὐχι ἐγεννησεν ὁ πατηρ

τον υἱον και ἀπελυσεν αὐτον ὁ πατηρ ἀπο της γενεσεως αὐτου, ἀλλ' ἀει γεννᾳ αὐτον, Orig. in Jerem. hom. IX 4, de princ. I 2, 2. God's generating is speaking and His speaking is eternal, Θεου αιδιον το γεννημα. Athan. c. Ar.

I 14. 20. IV 12. de sent. Dion. 15. 16. Damascenus, de fide orth. I 8. Aug. de trin. VI 1. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 42 art. 2. Polanus, Synt. theol. III c. 4.

Voetius, Disp. V 632. Synopsis pur. theol. VIII 11. Scholten, L. H. K. II 207. [285] 20. The third person in the Trinity bears the name of the H. Spirit, and his personal property is the ἐκπορευσις, πνοη, processio, spiratio. The doctrine of the H. Spirit has in Christian theology always been treated only as a consequence of the doctrine of the Son. With the second person the struggle ran almost exclusively over his Godhead; his personality was generally established. But with the H. Spirit the struggle was conducted chiefly over his personality; if this was acknowledged, his Godhead followed of itself; with the Godhead of the Son that of the H. Spirit also had to be assumed.

The Pneumatomachi of earlier and later times, however, raised all kinds of objections against the personality and Godhead of the H. Spirit. They appealed to the fact that the name God is never ascribed to the H. Spirit in Scripture, that nowhere is there any mention of his worship, and that he is repeatedly represented as a power and a gift of God; the few passages that speak of him as a person had to be understood as personifications. Now

Gregory of Nazianzus explained the great difference of opinion that in his time existed concerning the H. Spirit from the fact that the O. Test. had clearly revealed the Father but less clearly the Son, and that the N. Test. had indeed set the divine nature of the Son in clear light, but had still only darkly indicated the Godhead of the H. Spirit. But now the H. Spirit dwells among us and makes himself clearly known to us, Orat. V. In this lies an

unmistakable truth. The personality and the Godhead of the H. Spirit do not stand so objectively outside of us and over against us as those of the Father and the Son. The name that he bears does not express that personality, as that of Father and Son does. The economy of the H. Spirit, namely sanctification, does not stand out so clearly to our consciousness as that of creation, incarnation, and satisfaction. We ourselves live in that economy, the H. Spirit dwells in us and among us, and therefore prayer is directed less to him than to the Father and to the Mediator. He is much more the author than the object of prayer. Therefore the personality or at least the Godhead of the H. Spirit was for a long time in dispute in the church. The religious interest of this doctrine was not felt in the first period. The Spirit was usually indeed acknowledged in his personality but was only regarded as Spirit who in the past had performed his work, had illuminated the prophets and apostles [286] and had equipped and qualified Christ for his office. The necessity of the gratia interna was not yet seen; there was as yet no conscious, living need for an almighty, divine operation of grace in the heart; the unio mystica, the communion between God and man, was not yet sounded in its depth; the objective revelation of God in Christ seemed sufficient, and a subjective illumination was not yet deemed necessary, cf. above 251v. As soon as the congregation more deeply reflected upon its own life and sought to give account not only of the objective but also of the subjective principia of salvation, it confessed with joy the personality and the Godhead of the H. Spirit. And so it has gone on through all centuries.

The denial of the personal existence and the divine nature of the H. Spirit always proceeds consciously or unconsciously from a rationalistic,

Pelagian, deistic principle; it belongs in the circle of the Arians, Socinians, Remonstrants, etc. From this it also immediately appears that the confession

of the personality and Godhead of the H. Spirit has not arisen from philosophy but from the heart of the Christian religion itself, from the faith of the congregation. There is, with it as with the Godhead of the Son, a deep religious interest; with it the Christian religion itself is at stake. For this stands indubitably firm on the ground of Scripture, that the H. Spirit is the subjective principle of all salvation, of regeneration, faith, conversion, sanctification, etc., that, in other words, there is no communion with Father and Son except in and through the H. Spirit. And now one of the two: the H.

Spirit is a creature, whether then a power, a gift, a person, or true God. If he is a creature, then he cannot indeed and in truth make us partakers of God himself, the Father and the Son with all their benefits; then he cannot be the principium of the new life in the Christian and in the whole congregation; then there is no true communion of God and man, then God remains above and outside us, and he does not dwell in humanity as in his temple. But the H. Spirit is not a creature and cannot be. For he stands in the same relation to the Son as this one to the Father, and makes us partakers of the Son and the Father, cf. above 248. He is as closely bound to the Son as this one to the Father. He is in the Son, and this one is in him. He is ἰδιον κατ' οἰσιαν του υἱου. [287] He is the Spirit of wisdom and of truth, of power and of glory, the Spirit through whom Christ sanctifies the congregation and in whom he makes her partaker of himself and of all his benefits, the θεια φυσις, the υἱοθεσια, the unio mystica with God. He who gives us God himself must himself be true God. To this soteriological interest there is then added the theological significance of the personality and Godhead of the H. Spirit. Without this it does not come to a true unity of Father and Son; whoever denies the Godhead of the H. Spirit cannot maintain that of the Son; only in the divine person of the H. Spirit does the Trinity close,

does the unity of the essence in the threeness of the persons and the threeness of the persons in the unity of the essence come to pass. With the Godhead of the H. Spirit the whole dogma of the Trinity stands and falls, the mystery of Christianity, the heart of religion, the true, essential communion of our souls with God. This was understood by the church fathers and therefore they defended with the Godhead of the Son also that of the Spirit, cf. Athanasius in his letters to Serapion, Gregory Naz. in his oratio theol. de Spiritu Sancto, Basil in his third book against Eunomius and in his Liber de Spiritu Sancto, Gregory of Nyssa, especially in his writing to Ablabius, Hilary, de trinitate libri XII etc. The Symbolum Constant. I expressed the faith εἰς το πνευμα το ἁγιον, το κυριον, το ζωοποιον, το ἐκ του πατρος ἐκπορευομενον, το συν πατρι και υἱῳ συμπροσκυνουμενον και συνδοξαμενον, το λαλησαν δια των προφητων. And since then all

Christendom confesses its faith εἰς τριαδα ὁμοουσιον, Basil in Hahn, Bibl. der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche3 1897 S. 270.

21. The relation in which the Holy Spirit stands to Father and Son is made known to some extent by his name το πνευμα ἁγιον and also by many verba: given, sent, poured out, breathed, proceeding, descending, etc., p.

246. Christian theology designated it as προβολη, ἐκπορευσις, ἐκφοιτησις, πνοη, προιεναι, προκυπτειν, προχεισθαι, processio, spiratio, etc. Preferably it was conceived as a πνοη, spiratio. Scripture provided grounds for that, when it called the Holy Spirit ‎‏ַ‏רּו‎, πνευμα and repeatedly compared him with breath and wind, Ps. 33:6, Job 33:4, [288] John 3:8, 20:22, Acts 2:2, etc. But otherwise theology observed modesty here in the description of the spiratio. Like generation, it had to be conceived as eternal communication of the same essence; it also had to be distinguished from generation, because generation gave to the Son and spiratio to the Holy Spirit life in

himself, Athan. ad Serap. I 15 sq. Greg. Naz. Or. theol. V 7 sq. Basilius, de Spir. S. 46 sq. Damascenus, de fide orthod. I 8; but one felt the difficulty of more precise determinations. Augustine said: quid autem inter nasci et procedere intersit de illa excellentissima natura loquens, explicare quis potest? Non omne quod procedit, nascitur; quamvis omne procedat quod nascitur. Sicut non omne quod bipes est homo est, quamvis bipes sit omnis qui homo est. Haec scio. Distinguere autem inter illam generationem et hanc processionem nescio, non valeo, non sufficio, c. Maxim. III 14. de trin. XV 17. 20. Tract. 99 in Joann. etc. Yet some distinction was indeed sought. And this was then found in this, that the Son proceeded from the Father alone, but the Holy Spirit from both, August, de trin. XV 26, or in this, that he proceeded from Father and Son ut datus, non ut natus, August. de trin. V 14 Petavius, de trin. VIII c. 13. Above all, however, it was pointed out that the Holy Spirit therefore could not be the Son of the Son, because then the trias would become a πληθος ἀπειρον and there would be no end to the movement of life in the being of God, Basilius, adv. Eunom. V. The Holy Spirit is δι' ἑαυτου συμπληρουν την πολυυμνητον και μακαριαν τριαδα, Basilius, de Sp. S. 45. The Trinity is susceptible neither of increase nor of decrease; it is τελεια, Athan. c. Ar. I 18. To be sure, Augustine once answers the objection of the Arians, that the Father was more powerful than the Son, if only the former could generate a Son through whom all things were created: absit autem ut, quomodo putas, ideo sit Pater potentior Filio, quia creatorem genuit Pater, Filius autem non genuit creatorem. Neque enim non potuit sed non oportuit. But how this is to be understood is clarified in what immediately follows. Immoderata enim esset divina generatio, si genitus Filius nepotem gigneret Patri.... nec impleretur generationis series, si semper alter ex altero nasceretur, nec eam perficeret

ullus, si non sufficeret unus, c. Maxim. Arian. III 12. In illa vero essentia trinitatis nullo modo alia [289] quaelibet persona ex eadem essentia potest exsistere, de trin. VII 6. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 27 art. 5. Finally, especially through Thomas and his followers, the distinction between generation and spiratio was indicated in such a way that generation took place per modum intellectus, spiratio per modum voluntatis. This distinction had long been prepared by the fact that generation was compared with thinking and speaking, and the Holy Spirit was represented as the love that binds Father and Son to one another. In medieval and Roman theology this distinction became almost general, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 27. c. Gent. IV 13. 15 sq.

Bonaventura, Brevil. I c. 3. Thomas, Bonav. et al. in Sent. I dist. 13.

Petavius, de trin. VII c. 13 etc. The Protestant theologians all did assume a certain distinction between generation and spiratio, as also between Son and Spirit; they also partly acknowledged the correctness of the abovementioned distinctions, Melanchton, Loci Comm., de Filio. Alsted, Theol. schol. p. 137. 145. Maresius, Syst. Theol. III 28; but many nevertheless did not dare to speak so confidently here and considered this distinction not scriptural and not modest enough, Quenstedt, Theol. did. polem. I 387 sq.

Hollaz, Examen theol. p. 341. Zanchius, Op. I 255. Voetius, Disp. V 139.

Synopsis pur. theol. IX 14. Moor I 791.

22. Yet gradually a considerable difference developed in the doctrine of the Trinity between the East and the West. The ontological procession of the Son from the Father was conceived in the second century as an eternal generation; and thus for the Holy Spirit also, who nevertheless could not remain standing separately alongside Father and Son, a similar procession had to be assumed. The relation of the Spirit to Father and Son had to be determined. Athanasius taught in that regard, that the Holy Spirit is called

both Spirit of the Father and of the Son or of Christ, that He possesses that same ἰδιοτης, ταξις, φυσις, in relation to the Son as the Son to the Father,

Ep. ad Serap. I 21. III 1. He is said to proceed from the Father, ἐκπορευεσθαι, because He is sent and given by the Logos, παρα του λογου, who is from the Father, ib. I 20. As ἐκπορευμα of the Father, the Holy Spirit is always in the hands of the Father, who sends Him, and of the Son who bears Him, and cannot be separated from Them, Expos. fidei 4. de sent.

Dionys. 17. He is not the brother or son of the Son, but is [290] the Spirit of the Father, just as the Son is Son of the Father, Ep. ad Serap. I 16. IV 3. But although He is not called Son, He is nevertheless not ἐκτος του υἱου, for He is called the Spirit of wisdom and of sonship; if we have the Spirit, we have the Son and conversely. Why, however, the one is called Son and the other

Spirit, is incomprehensible, but thus Scripture teaches, ib. IV 4. 5. He is εἰκων του υἱου, ib. I 24. 26. IV 3, united with the Son, ἡνωμενον, just as the Son with the Father, ib. I 31. Athanasius thus teaches very clearly a dependence of the Spirit on the Son but nevertheless does not state that He proceeds from the Father and the Son. The three Cappadocians speak in the same spirit; they teach clearly that the Holy Spirit stands to the Son as the Son to the Father, that He follows the Son in order, that the Spirit grants us the Son and the Father, that He proceeds from the Father and is thought after and with the Son, that He is from the Father through the Son, δια υἱου, and that only ἡ προς ἀλληλα σχεσις grants each of the three persons a proper name, Greg. Naz. Or. theol. V 9. Basilius, adv. Eun. III 1. sq. de Sp.

S. V. etc.; but the procession of the Spirit from the Son is expressed by none of them. Nor can one say that this was denied or contested by them, for this question had not yet come onto the agenda then. Hence, in Greg. Nyss.,

Epiphanius, Dydimus, Cyrillus and others, expressions also occur that seem

to teach the procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son. They use the prepositions παρα and ἐκ; say that the Holy Spirit takes everything from Christ, and that Christ is the source of the Holy Spirit, Joh. 7:38; they state that He is from the essence of the Father and of the Son and that He is ἰδιον της οὐσιας υἱου, the image, the mouth, the breath of the Son; they acknowledge that He is the third person, existing after the Son and receiving everything from the Father through the Son, etc., Petavius, de trin.

VII c. 3-7. But the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the East nevertheless took a different direction than in the West. Cyrillus taught against Nestorius, who made Christ dependent on the Holy Spirit and thus reversed the order of the persons, entirely in agreement with the Greek fathers, that the Spirit proceeded from the Father through the Son, δια του υἱου, in Schwane, D. G. II 204. Damascenus likewise says that the Spirit is also Spirit of the Son, because He has been revealed and communicated through Him; that He proceeds from, ἐκ, [291] the Father δια του υἱου; but he expressly rejects that He is from the Son and has His existence from Him; Son and Spirit are referred back to one cause, εἰς μιαν αἰτιαν ἀναφερονται, de fide orthod. I 8. 12. And this has remained the doctrine of the Greek church, Conf. orthod. qu. 9. 71. Schaff, Creeds of Christ. II 282.

350. The East remained with the theology of the fathers. The West, however, went further. Tertullian had already begun to derive the Trinity not from the Father but from the essence of God, and he already said: spiritum non aliunde puto quam a Patre per filium, adv. Prax. c. 4. 25. Hilarius places the Spirit in the same relation to the Son as the Son to the Father, and says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent and distributed by the Son, indeed has the Son as auctor, de trin. II 4. VIII 20. But above all

Augustine went beyond the Greek fathers. He conceives the three persons

as relations in the one, simple Godhead and therefore had to place the Spirit in relation not only to the Father but also to the Son. Clearly Augustine therefore teaches that the Holy Spirit stands in relation, refertur, to Father and to Son, that He is ineffabilis quaedam patris filiique communio. In the names Father and Son, to be sure, only the mutual relation is expressed and not that to the Spirit; our language is too poor for it. But the Spirit is nevertheless called a gift of the Father and of the Son. He has both as principium; fatendum est patrem et filium principium esse spiritus sancti.

But these then are not two principia, any more than Father, Son, and Spirit are three principia of creation. No, Father and Son are unum principium of the Spirit. The Son also has this, that He causes the Spirit to proceed also from Himself, received from the Father; for the Son can in nothing be distinguished from the Father except by the fact that He is Son, de trin. V 11-15. XV 17. 26. de Symb. II 9. This doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit is then found after Augustine in the symbol of the synod of Toledo ± 400, in the letter of Leo I to Turribius, in the Athanasianum n. 22, and in the symbol of the third synod of Toledo 589, which inserted the filioque into the text of the Constantinopolitanum, Denzinger n. 98. 113.

136. The church and theology in the West followed Augustine, and repeatedly defended the filioque against the East, Denzinger, n. 224. 242.

294. 355. 382. 385. 586. 598. 868. 873. Alcuinus, de processione Sp. S.

[292] Anselmus, de processione Sp. S. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 11. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 36. Petavius, de trin. VII; and the Reformation joined in with this. But the East, in spite of all attempts at agreement, remained at the old standpoint, even up to the conference of the Old Catholics at Bonn in 1875,

Harnack, D. G. II 275 f. 285 f. Schwane, Dogm. II 198 f. III 146 f. Schaff, Creeds of Christ. II 545 sq. The fruitlessness of all these attempts is the

more remarkable because the difference seems to be so slight. The Greeks do not teach subordinatianly and acknowledge the full homoousie of the three persons; they also indeed place the Holy Spirit in a certain relation to Christ, who sends and distributes Him; they also have no objection to saying that He proceeds from the Father through the Son, δια του υἱου, per filium. Conversely, the Western church has stated that the procession from Father and Son was not to be understood as proceeding from two principia and consisting in two spirationes but as ex uno principio and unica spiratione, Denzinger n. 382. 586. Pope Leo acknowledged that the inclusion of the expression filioque in the old symbol was formally incorrect, Schwane II 209; even the formula ex patre per filium as such found no objection in the West, Denzinger, 586. 868. Schaff, Creeds II 552.

And yet no agreement has been obtained. The Greeks always retained the one great objection, that, if the Holy Spirit also proceeded from the Son, there would come in the Godhead two principia, two αἰτιαι. That points back to a different doctrine of God and to a different practice of piety. The combating of the filioque in the Greek church is still the last remnant of subordinatianism. However much the three persons are also thought perfectly one and equal, that unity and equality accrue to Son and Spirit only from the Father. This one is πηγη και ἀρχη της θεοτητος. If the Holy

Spirit therefore also proceeds from the Son, this one comes to stand alongside the Father, and the principle of unity is broken and a kind of ditheism is professed. For the Greeks the unity of the essence and the root of the Trinity lie not in the divine nature as such but in the person of the Father. He is the only αἰτια. The three persons are not three relations in the essence, no self-unfolding of the Godhead, but it is the Father who communicates His essence to Son and Spirit. But from that it follows that

Son and [293] Spirit now also come to stand alongside one another and both in equal manner have their αἰτια, their principium in the Father. In both the Father reveals Himself. The Son makes Him known, the Spirit makes Him enjoyed. The Son does not reveal the Father in and through the Spirit, the Spirit does not lead to the Father through the Son. But both are to a certain extent independent; both open a way to the Father. Orthodoxy and mysticism, understanding and will stand dualistically alongside each other.

And this peculiar relation of orthodoxy and mysticism is the characteristic of Greek piety. The doctrine stands outside, above life; it serves only for the head; it is a suitable object for theological speculation. Alongside that there is another source for life in the mysticism of the Spirit; this does not well up from knowledge but has its own origin, and nourishes the mind. Head and heart do not stand in the right relation; representation and emotion are totally separated; the ethical connection is lacking. Cf. deel I 70. Harnack

D. G. II 285 f. Kattenbusch, Vergl. Confessionskunde I 318 f. Schmid, Symbolik S. 30 f. K. Müller, Symbolik 220.

23. These immanent relations of the three persons in the Divine being also come forth outwardly in their revelations and works. Indeed, all opera ad extra are common to the three persons. Opera Deitatis ad extra sunt indivisa, servato ordine et discrimine personarum. It is always the one and the same God who appears in creation and re-creation. But in that unity the order of the three persons is preserved. The ontological Trinity is also reflected in the economic. And therefore particular properties and works are ascribed to each of the three persons, not with exclusion of the other two persons, as Abaelard thought, Introd. ad theol. I c. 7-14, but in such a way that therein the order comes to expression which also exists between the persons in the ontological Trinity. These properties are therefore not

propriae but appropriatae to them, and Holy Scripture takes the lead in this, above pp. 238. 240. With appeal to Mt. 28:19 and 1 Cor. 8:6 Hilary says that the Father is the auctor, from whom all things are; the Son, the Onlybegotten, through whom all things are; and that the Holy Spirit is a gift in all. There is therefore one power, one son, one gift. Nothing is lacking to this perfection. In the Father is the aeternitas, in the Son is the species in imagine, in the [294] Spirit is the usus in munere, de trin. II 1. Hilary ascribes these properties to the three persons, because the Father is the ἀρχη and without principium; the Son the image of the Father, who reveals Him in his glory; the Holy Spirit a gift of Father and Son, who makes us partake of communion with God. Augustine raised some objection to this, de trin.

VI 10 and indicated the distinction differently: in Patre unitas, in Filio aequalitas, in Spiritu Sancto unitatis aequalitatisque concordia; et tria haec unum omnia propter Patrem, aequalia omnia propter Filium, connexa omnia propter Spiritum Sanctum, de doctr. christ. I 5. In his work de trinitate he developed this distinction still more broadly. Here he ascribes to the Father power, to the Son wisdom, to the Holy Spirit goodness or love. This, however, must not be understood in such a way that the Father first became wise and good through the wisdom of the Son and the goodness of the Holy

Spirit. For Father, Son, and Spirit all partake of the same Divine nature and the same Divine attributes. But nevertheless it is permitted, in an economic sense, to ascribe the named properties to the three persons, de trin. VII 1 sq.

XV 7. Later theologians adopted this distinction, Erigena, de div. nat. I 13.

Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 39 art. 7. 8. Bonaventura, Brevil. I c. 6. Sent. I dist.

31 art. 1 qu. 3 and art. 2 qu. 3. Hugo Vict. de Sacr. I pars 3 c. 27.

To this also corresponds an economic distinction in the opera ad extra.

These are indeed all works of essence, but each of the three persons

nevertheless therein takes that place which corresponds to the order of his existence in the Divine being. The Father works from himself through the Son in the Spirit. Holy Scripture clearly indicates this distinction in the socalled praepositiones distinctionales ἐκ, δια and ἐν, 1 Cor. 8:6, Joh. 1:3, 14; the text often adduced for this, Rom. 11:36, is not to be divided trinitarianly, and Col. 1:16 is only apparently in conflict with this use of the praepositions. This distinction, which Scripture makes between the three persons, was already perceived early and was emphatically pointed out,

Iren. adv. haer. V 18. Athanasius appeals repeatedly to Ef. 4:6 and says that God as Father is above all, and as Son through all and as Spirit in all, and that the Father creates and recreates all things through the Son in the Spirit,

Ep. ad Serap. I 14. 28. II 6. 7. Basil was accused, [295] because in his prayer he now once thanked the Father μετα του υἱου συν τῳ πνευματι τῳ ἁγιῳ and then again δια του υἱου ἐν τῳ ἁγιῳ πνευματι. He defends in his writing de Spiritu Sancto the first expression, because Son and Spirit are of one essence with the Father and therefore must receive the same honour, and speaks at length about the distinction of the praepositions, de Sp. S. 3 sq. Against the Arians he argues that the unequal praepositions do not prove the inequality of the persons, but indicate a definite order in their existence and activity. The Father is the αἰτια προκαταρκτικη, the Son the αἰτια δημιουργικη, the Spirit the αἰτια τελειωτικη, de Spir. S. n. 21. 22. 38. This same distinction recurs with all later theologians, cf. also Schelling, Werke

II 3 S. 341 f. All works of God outwardly have one principium, viz. God, but they come about through the cooperation of the three persons, who both in the works of creation and in those of redemption and of sanctification occupy a proper place and fulfil a proper task. Everything proceeds from the Father, is accomplished by the Son, and is completed in the Holy Spirit.

Yes, to a certain extent the works outwardly are also distributed among the three persons. Gregory of Nazianzus explained, as has already been said above, the great difference of opinion about the Holy Spirit in his time from the fact that this one first made himself clearly known through his indwelling in the church, Orat. theol. V 26. Much misuse has been made, by pantheism in its various forms, of the truth expressed by Gregory. Time and again, from Montanus down to Hegel, the opinion has arisen that the three persons represented three successive periods in the history of the church.

Thereby the economic trinity was detached from its metaphysical foundation, the being of God was dragged down into the stream of becoming, and the cosmogony was transformed into a theogony. It has precisely been the struggle of the patres, to banish this paganistic, pantheistic element from Christian theology, to detach God as the Being from the evolution of becoming, and thus to conceive the trinity as an eternal movement of life in the Divine being itself. Gregory of Nazianzus also does not teach in the above-mentioned words that the Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Spirit only later came to be; he seeks to prove both as decisively as possible from Scripture. But God has indeed, in his selfrevelation, taken counsel with the [296] receptivity of men. It was dangerous, so says Gregory t. a. p., so long as the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, to teach that of the Son, and to impose upon us, as it were, the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, so long as that of the Son was not yet confessed. He did not wish to overload us with food and not at once to blind our eyes by the full light of the sun. All works outwardly, creation, preservation, government, incarnation, satisfaction, renewal, sanctification etc. are works of the whole trinity. But nevertheless, in an economic sense, creation is more particularly ascribed to the Father, redemption to the Son,

sanctification to the Holy Spirit. As in the ontological trinity the Father is in order the first, and the Son the second and the Holy Spirit the third; so also in the history of revelation the Father has gone before the Son and this one again before the Holy Spirit. The economy of the Father was in particular that of the O. Testament, Hebr. 1:1; the economy of the Son began with the incarnation; and the economy of the Holy Spirit entered in with the day of Pentecost, Joh. 7:39, 14:15. The Father comes from himself, but the Son does not come except sent by the Father, Mt. 10:40, Mk. 9:37, Luk. 9:48,

Joh. 3:16, 5:23, 30, 37, 6:38v. etc., and again the Holy Spirit does not come, except sent by both, Joh. 14:26, 16:7, August. tract. VI in Joann., de trin. II 5. IV 20. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 14-17. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 43.

Petavius, de trin. VIII c. 1. But this sending in time is a reflection of the immanent relation of the three persons in the being of God, and has its foundation in generation and spiration. The incarnation of the Word has its eternal archetype in the generation of the Son, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a weak analogy of the procession from Father and Son.

Therefore the church fathers concluded from the relations which, between the three persons in time, presented themselves before the eyes of men, to their eternal immanent relations. And this entirely rightly. For, says

Augustine, the Son cannot be called sent for that reason because he became flesh, but He is and is called sent, in order that He might become flesh.

There was not in time a word spoken by the Father, that the eternal Son would be sent. Sed utique in ipso Dei verbo quod erat in principio apud

Deum et Deus erat, in ipsa scilicet sapientia Dei sine tempore erat, [297] quo tempore illam in carne apparere oporteret. Itaque cum sine ullo initio temporis in principio esset verbum, et verbum esset apud Deum et Deus esset verbum; sine ullo tempore in ipso verbo erat, quo tempore verbum

caro fieret et habitaret in nobis. Quae plenitudo temporis cum venisset, misit Deus filium suum, factum ex muliere, id est, factum in tempore, ut incarnatum verbum hominibus appareret, quod in ipso verbo sine tempore erat, in quo tempore fieret. Ordo quippe temporum in aeterna Dei sapientia sine tempore est. Cum itaque hoc a patre et filio factum esset, ut in carne filius appareret, congruenter dictus est missus ille qui in ea carne apparuit, misisse autem ille qui in ea non apparuit. Quoniam illa quae coram corporeis oculis foris geruntur, ab interiore apparatu naturae spiritalis existunt; propterea convenienter missa dicuntur. And this same holds for the sending of the Holy Spirit. Facta est enim quaedam creaturae species ex tempore in qua visibiliter ostenderetur spiritus sanctus.... Haec operatio visibiliter expressa et oculis oblata mortalibus missio Spiritus Sancti dicta est, non ut ita appareret ejus ipsa substantia, qua et ipse invisibilis et incommutabilis est sicut pater et filius, sed ut exterioribus visis hominum corda commota a temporali manifestatione venientis ad occultam aeternitatem semper praesentis converterentur, de trin. II c. 5 cf. Petavius, de trin. VIII c. 1 § 7-12. The Holy Spirit was already gift, before he was bestowed on anyone. Quia sic procedebat ut esset donabile, jam donum erat et antequam esset cui daretur. Aliter enim intelligitur cum dicitur donum, aliter cum dicitur donatum. Nam donum potest esse et antequam detur, donatum autem nisi datum fuerit, nullo modo dici potest, ib. V c. 15. The sending in time thus stands in the closest connection with the eternal procession in the Divine being. And while now Son and Spirit in incarnation and outpouring have appeared under visible form, this their sending is completed in their invisible coming into the hearts of all believers, in the church of the Son, in the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Spirit have eternally proceeded from the Father, in order that He

himself through and in Them would come to his people and God at last would be all in all.

24. The doctrine of the Trinity so far surpasses the understanding of man, that from the beginning one applied oneself to elucidating it by images or proving it by reasoning. In the first place it was already remarkable that the number three in Scripture had such a rich and deep significance. There is mention there of three parts of creation, heaven, earth and what is under the earth; three groups of peoples according to the three sons of Noah; three dispensations of the covenant of grace, before, under and after the law; three patriarchs; three parts of the tabernacle; three principal feasts; three parts of the O. Testament; three years of Jesus' public activity; three offices; three days of Jesus' burial until the resurrection; three crosses on Golgotha; three languages in the inscription above Jesus' cross; three beloved disciples; three witnesses, 1 Joh. 5:8; three Christian principal virtues; three kinds of lust, 1 Joh. 2:16; three woes, Op. 8:13 etc., a threefold blessing; a threefold act in bowing, blessing; a three-day fast, three times of prayer per day etc., Zöckler. Theol. Nat. 682 f. 696 f. Bähr, Symb. des mos. Cultus, 2e

Aufl. 1874. Herzog2 17, 410 f. Yet not only in Scripture does the number three occupy such a broad place, but outside it too this number is of great significance. For the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, analogy was sought not only in the intermediate beings, which gradually arose in Jewish theology, Weber, Syst. der altsyn. pal. Theol. 172 f., and the three Sephiroth,

‎‏‏כתר‎, ‎‏‏חכמה‎ and ‎‏‏בינה‎, of which the Kabbalah spoke, Ad. Franck, La Kabbale

1843. Agrippa of Nettesheim in Stöckl, Gesch. d. Philos. des M. A. III 413 cf. II 236. But traces and indications of the Trinity were also found in the Trimurti of the Indians, Brahma, Vishnu and Ciwa; in the three forms of the Chinese Tao; in the three Germanic principal gods, Odin, Thor and Loki;

and in other Chaldean, Egyptian and Greek representations of the gods. In particular one pointed with a certain predilection to a saying of Hermes

Trismegistus and to the three principia which Plato assumed for the explanation of the world, the highest νους (being, the good), the world of ideas and the ὑλη, Pfanner, Syst. theol. gentilis purioris, Basil. 1679 cap. 3.

Moor, Comm. in Marck I 885-890. Tholuck, Die specul. Trinitätslehre des späteren Orients 1826. Lange, Chr. Dogmatik II 143 f. Kahnis, Luth. Dogm.

I2 352. Baur, Chr. Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit I 10 f. 18 f. 33 f. Delitzsch, Apol. 286. Zöckler, Theol. Nat. 689, cf. also Schelling, Werke II 2 S. 78. II 3 S. 312 f. But all these analogies are polytheistic and [299] therefore can hardly be compared with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Of more value still are the physical analogies which have been sought in nature.

Justin Martyr, following Philo, made use of the image of fire, which, kindling another, nevertheless remains the same. Tertullian said that God brought forth the Logos, sicut radix fruticem et fons fluvium et sol radium, and spoke of source, flood and stream, of root, trunk and crown etc. These images repeatedly returned among the later church fathers and theologians and were expanded and multiplied. The more one thought everything through, the more it appeared that all things consisted in threes. Space with its three dimensions; time with its three moments; nature with its three kingdoms; the world of matter, of spirit and of the connection of both in man; bodies in their solid, liquid and gaseous state; the forces of attraction, of repulsion, and of the equilibrium of both; the three functions of the human soul, το λογικον, το θυμικον and το ἐπιθυμητικον or the three faculties, head, heart and hand; the three factors of the family, man, woman and child, cf. however Augustine, de trin. XII 5 sq.; the three estates in society, Lehr-, Wehrand Nährstand; the three ideal goods of the true, good

and beautiful; the triad in music, consisting of the fundamental tone with its third and fifth; the rainbow and its many colors; the sun with its vigor, splendor, calor, its life-giving, illuminating and warming power; the three primary colors, yellow, red and blue etc. have in earlier and later times been used as analogies of the Christian Trinity, Delitzsch, Syst. d. christl. Apol.

1870 S. 282 f. Zöckler, Theol. Naturalis 1860 S. 672 f. Higher stand the logical analogies which have been traced. Augustine repeatedly points out that everything must in the first place have a being, a unity, a measure, esse, unitas, mensura, modus; in the second place a certain form, species, in order to be something determinate and distinct from other things; and finally between that general and this particular it must possess a certain relation and agreement, ordo. Matter, form or beauty and harmony between both or love are the basic forms and the moments of all being, de trin. VI 10. de vera relig. c. 7. de vita beata 34. cf. Gangauf, Des h. Augustinus specul.

Lehre v. Gott d. Dreieinigen 1883 S. 209 f. Omne quod est, aliud est quo constat, aliud quo discernitur, aliud quo congruit, 83 quaest. qu. [300] 18.

Medieval theology worked this out in all kinds of ways and sought to trace a trias everywhere. It found analogy of the Trinity in the trivium of grammatica, dialectica, rhetorica; in the three philosophical disciplines, logica, physica, ethica; in the three persons of grammar; in the activum, passivum and medium; in the singularis, dualis and pluralis; in the three basic vowels and in the radices trilitterales of the Hebr. language; in the dispositio, elocutio and actio of rhetoric; in the definitio, divisio and argumentatio of dialectic; in the three forms of poetry, epic, lyric and drama; in the three stages of mysticism, cogitatio, meditatio, comtemplatio or fides, ratio, contemplatio, or via purgativa, illuminativa, unitiva etc.

Dionysius Areopagita divided his heavenly hierarchy, and Dante his divina

Comoedia, according to the triad. In more recent philosophy, threeness has come to formal dominion. Kant, according to Hegel, Werke II 37, found triplicity again as if by instinct and then schematized accordingly the organs of knowledge, the faculties of the soul, the categories, the ideas of reason etc. But only in the idealistic philosophy derived from Kant, of Fichte,

Schelling and Hegel, did this triplicity become a dialectical method.

Idealism wants to understand things as a product of consciousness, as an unfolding of the idea. That idea must therefore be thought as living, moving and producing. That is possible only if it is always in a contradiction between what it is and what it does, and then resolves and reconciles this contradiction in a third. The law of contradiction is the essence of spirit.

Thus the idea advances in all its unfoldings and developments through the moments of position, negation, limitation; thesis, antithesis, synthesis; ansich, für-sich, an-und-für-sich. The whole world develops in the "Schema der Dreieinigkeiten." Logic with its doctrine of being, essence and concept, considers den Geist an sich; philosophy of nature in the three forms of mechanics, physics and organics has to do with den Geist für sich, spirit in its other-being, in its self-alienation; philosophy of spirit with its subjective, objective and absolute spirit treats den Geist an und für sich, spirit in its return to itself, in its becoming conscious of itself, Windelband, Gesch. der

Philos. 1892 S. 464 f. 481 f. Rümelin, Reden und Aufsätze 1888 S. 47 f.

Through the influence of this philosophy, triplicity was laid as a foundation under numerous philosophical and [301] theological systems. Not enough, however, that in all kinds of ways analogies for the Trinity were traced; attempts were also made to prove it itself positively, and then either to derive it as necessary from the essence of thinking or from that of love. The doctrine of the Logos both in Scripture and in Greek philosophy

involuntarily and of itself caused one to see in human thinking and speaking an image of the trinitarian process in the divine being. Justin Martyr, c. Tr. c. 61, Tatian, Or. c. Gr. c. 5, Tertullian, c. Prax. c. 5 sq., Lactantius, Inst. IV 29 etc. already make use of this comparison. Athanasius and the Cappadocians have repeatedly represented generation as a knowing of God of himself in his image, as an eternal speaking of a word; Father and Son related as νους and λογος, e.g. Athan. c. Ar. II 35 sq. Greg. Naz. Or. theol.

IV 20, and especially Gregory of Nyssa, Or. catech. c. 1-3. But in particular Augustine found in the inner, rational man clear traces of the Trinity. And he found them in different ways and in different direction. First he found them in the triad of esse, nosse and velle; essentia, scientia, amor; mens, notitia, amor, Conf. XIII 11, de civ. XI 26-28, de trin. IX 4. 5. Next he discovered traces of it in the faculties of the soul, specifically in sense perception, which comes about through an object, ipsa res, through an image of it in the eye, visio, and the intentio animi, which directs the sense to the object, de trin. XI c. 1. 2; and this trinitas remains, even when the object disappears, for then an image of it is preserved in the memoria, the external viewing gives way to the interna visio, and it remains the will that binds both, ib. c. 4 sq. Augustine, however, finds the greatest likeness of the Trinity in the self-knowledge of the human spirit, de trin. IX 4 sq. X 9 sq.

XIV 6 sq. XV 6 sq. He usually names the trinitas which he finds here with the names mens, notitia, amor (dilectio), or memoria, intelligentia, voluntas.

First the spirit is memoria, i.e. consciousness both of other things and of itself; for there is a consciousness, a scientia that is not yet actual knowledge; in the spirit as memoria many notitiae lie hidden, also of itself; someone can know something even if at the moment he is not thinking of it, de trin. XIV c. 6. 7. But from that spirit as memoria, from the scientia which

is preserved in the memoria, there is now produced by the cogitatio, by thinking, knowing, the intelligentia. In that intelligentia the spirit forms an adequate image of itself, understands and knows and beholds itself. Mens igitur quando cogitatione se conspicit, intelligit se et recognoscit. And this self-knowledge and self-beholding is a producing: gignit ergo intellectum hunc et cognitionem suam. And these two now are united by the will or love. Haec autem duo gignens et genitum dilectione tertia copulantur, quae nihil est aliud quam voluntas fruendum aliquid appetens vel tenens, de trin.

XIV 6. Thus Augustine is deeply convinced that all creatures, as works of God Triune, also display in greater or lesser degree vestigia or indicia trinitatis, de trin. VI 10. XV 2. Above all he seeks an imago trinitatis in man, who was created after the image of God Triune, ib. de civ. XI 26. The whole creation was for Augustine a mirror of God. In all kinds of ways he therefore also tries to show the correspondence between the trinitas which he discovers in creatures, especially in man, and the trinitas in the divine being. The trias consists in both in this, that all three are one and equal, that each of the three is in the other two and these again in the one and thus omnia in omnibus are, de trin. IX 5. X 11. But in doing so he does not conceal from himself that all these comparisons are only analogies and images, and that alongside the correspondence there is also very great difference. Thus the trinitas in man is not man himself but something in or about man, whereas in God the Trinity is himself and the three persons are the one God. The memoria, intelligentia and amor are in man only powers, but the three persons are in the divine being three subjects. In man those three powers are often unequal and serve to supplement one another, but in the divine being there is complete unity and equality of the persons, de trin.

XV 7. 17. 20 sq. Augustine also did not intend, with these analogies and

images, to prove the Trinity a priori; he proceeded from faith, he accepted it on the ground of God's word; only he attempted to point it out a posteriori in the whole of nature and to elucidate it by thinking, de vera relig. 7. de trin. I 1. V 1. IX 1. The first seven books of his work de trinitate are therefore chiefly devoted to proofs from Scripture; and only in the last eight books does he seek to [303] confirm it from nature and man. And finally he added that this trinitas in the human spirit could indeed be noticed by everyone but nevertheless could be recognized as an image of the threefold being of God only by the believer. It is indeed essentially proper to the spirit of man and has not been eradicated by sin; but it is nevertheless darkened and is renewed by faith, when man again learns to meminisse, intelligere et amare God. And we become his image completely only when we shall see him face to face, de trin. XIV 12 sq. Ibi esse nostrum non habebit mortem, ibi nosse nostrum non habebit errorem, ibi amare nostrum non habebit offensionem, de civ. XI 28. This proof for the Trinity from thinking has been adopted by many, e.g. Erigena, de div. nat. II 32. Anselm, Monol. c.

29-67. Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 3, 6-23. Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 45 art. 7. S. c. Gent. IV 26. Sent. I dist. 3 qu. 2 art. 3. Bonaventura, Brevil. II c. 12.

Itiner. mentis c. 2-4. Sent. I dist. 3 art. 1 and 2. Duns Scotus, Sent. I dist. 3 qu. 9. Hugo Vict. de Sacr. I pars 3 c. 21 sq. Luther, in Köstlin, Luthers

Theol. I2 99 f. Melanchthon, Loci Comm. loc. 3. Enarratio symb. Nic., Corpus Ref. XXIII col. 235, Explicatio Symb. Nic. ib. col. 359 sq. Examen

Ordinandorum, ib. col. 3. Jak. Schegk, Contra Antitrinitarios in Trechsel, Die protest. Antitrin. II 380 f. Polanus, Synt. Theol. p. 202. Zanchius, Op. I col. 356 sq. Keckermann, Syst. Theol. 1603 p. 20 sq. Poiret, Cogitationum rationalium de Deo, anima et malo libri quatuor 1677, in Baur, Chr. Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit III 315 f. Mornaeus, de verit. relig. christ. c. 5. Leibniz,

Syst. Theol. Mainz, 1825 p. 30. Lessing, Erziehung des Mensch. § 73.

Schelling, Werke II 3 S. 315. Twesten, Dogm. II 194-216. Lange, Dogm. II 141. Bilderdijk, Opst. v. godg. en zedek. inhoud I 24v. Kuyper, De Schrift, het woord Gods 1870. Shedd, Dogm. Theol. I 183 etc. But in connection with this proof for the Trinity from thinking Augustine also makes use of another, namely from love. He proceeds from the statement of Scripture:

God is love, and shows that in love there is always a triad, amans et quod amatur et amor. In love there is always a subject and an object and a bond between both. Immo vero vides trinitatem, si caritatem vides, de trin. VIII 8. IX 1. 2. This speculation too has been followed by many, especially by Richard Vict. de [304] trinitate III c. 2 sq. The fullness of divine love, as also that of divine goodness, blessedness and glory, will require a plurality of persons in the divine being, for love demands an object, and indeed one that is equal to the lover. But this love is then perfect only when both, he who loves and he who is loved, take up a third into their mutual love and are reciprocally loved by him. And likewise we find this reasoning in Bonaventura, Sent. I dist. 2 art. 1. qu. 2., and in more recent times in J.

Müller, Die christl. Lehre v. d. Sünde II5 181 f. Sartorius, Lehre v. d. heiligen Liebe I3 S. 11 f. Liebner, Christ, Dogm. I 69 f. Schöberlein,

Grundlehren des Heils 1848 S. 22 f. Peip, art. Trinität, Herzog2 16, 465 f.

Dorner, Chr. Glaub. I 415 f. Ges. Schriften 345 f. etc. Alongside these more general speculations from the understanding and the will of God, other constructions of the Trinity have also been attempted. The most remarkable is that of theosophy, which under the influence of Neoplatonism,

Gnosticism and the Kabbalah again shortly before the Reformation appeared in Pico of Mirandola, Reuchlin, Nettesheim, Paracelsus; then found its actual philosopher in Jakob Böhme and in this century was again

advocated by Schelling and Baader. Schelling proceeds from the fact that real being cannot be explained from a pure thinking. The what of things may be derived from reason; the that of things is impossible to explain from it. The essence and the existence of things point back to different principia,

Philos. der Offenb., Werke, II 3 S. 57 f. Therefore both deism and pantheism are to be rejected, II 2 S. 68 f. God must not be conceived eleatically as an abstract unity. He is an All-einheit, a plurality, which connects the unity of deism and the allness of pantheism with one another, ib. 73. Already in the concept of God three moments are to be distinguished; first that of being-able, the subject, the will, next that of purebeing, the object, the idea, and finally the identity of both, the subjectobject, II 2 S. 24 f. II 3 S. 205 f. In these three the concept of the absolute is completed; it is thereby spirit, perfect spirit, II 3 S. 238 f., personal and selfconscious, II 2 S. 73 f., an Einzelwesen, II 3 S. 174. But even if it is the case that we, thinking, first come through these three to the perfect Spirit, he has therefore not come forth from these. On the contrary, the Spirit [305] is the first and bears these three moments as immanent Bestimmungen in himself, II 3 S. 240 f. The perfect, absolute Spirit is thus the an sich, für sich and bei sich seiende Geist, ib. 251 f. But in that Spirit there also lies hidden what shall be. He is free Spirit and can reveal himself outside himself, ib. 261. The three Bestimmungen which the Spirit has in himself become the Potenzen of an extra-divine being, ib. 272. Schelling derives the whole creation, mythology and revelation from the separation and union of the three Potenzen; they are the forms of all possibilities, the principia, the ἀρχαι, of all being, II 2 S. 61, 112, II 3 S. 267 f. This cosmogony in Schelling is, however, at the same time a theogony. In the development of the world the Potenzen in God raise themselves to ever higher level; in the

revelation of God to his creatures he at the same time reveals himself to himself. The three Bestimmungen in the absolute spirit, the three Potenzen in the creation of the world and mythology, pave the way to understand the one and the same Godhead as three persons, II 3 S. 316. The absolute Spirit becomes Father, Son and Spirit in the historical course of revelation. God, namely not a particular form but the whole God, the absolute personality, can be called Father, not only as Urheber of all things, but also insofar as he by the first Potenz of his being compels the second to realize itself, II 3 S.

311, 322, but he is not actually Father at the beginning and the progress of the process, but only at the end, ib. 335 f. 339. The second form is the Son, whose generation is not eternal but relates to the being of the Son outside the Father and therefore begins in the moment of creation; the Son is therefore only fully Son at the end of the process, ib. 312, 318, 321 f. 330 f.

And the same holds for the third Potenz, 333 f. At the end the whole Godhead is realized in three persons distinct from one another, who are neither three distinct Gods nor also merely three distinct names, 335, 337.

Through this speculation, more recent philosophy again brought the trinitarian dogma into honor. There was no lack of attempts to construct the Trinity by thinking, especially from the essence of spirit, of selfconsciousness, of personality, Weisse, Philos. Dogm. I 444 f. Dorner, Chr.

Gl. I 405 f. J. H. Fichte, Deutinger, Rosenkrantz and others, cf. Drews, Die deutsche Spekul. seit Kant I 285-531. Günther even went so far that he, like

Raymundus de Sabunde, Raymundus Lullus and some other rationalists, rejected the distinction between articuli puri and mixti, also counted the Trinity among the truths of reason and considered it provable from the nature of self-consciousness, Drews I 447 f. Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit I2

399-451.

25. Church and theology generally adopted a very reserved attitude toward these philosophical constructions of the doctrine of the Trinity. At most they want to know something a posteriori only of proofs for the Trinity, in order to elucidate the dogma; but even then many still warned against the attempt to seek support for this doctrine in reason. More than any other, the dogma of the Trinity was a mystery that far transcended nature and reason and could be known only from the special revelation.

Like Augustine, Thomas did indeed assume vestigia trinitatis in creation and also attempted to elucidate them a posteriori by reasoning. But he expressly declared that the Trinity was not knowable by reason, for creation is a work of the whole Trinity and thus indeed shows the unity of the essence but not the distinction of the persons. Qui autem probare nititur trinitatem personarum naturali ratione, fidei dupliciter derogat; first, by falling short with respect to the dignity of faith, which has only invisible things as its object, and second, by keeping others away from the faith, when they come to think that our faith rests on such weak grounds, S.

Theol. I qu. 32 art. 1, cf. also Lombardus, Sent. I dist. 3 n. 6 and the commentaries on that place. Calvin saw little use in the analogies and proofs that were adduced from nature and man for the Trinity, Inst. I 13, 18.

I 15, 4. Comm. in Gen. 1:26. And many Reformed and Lutheran theologians judged in the same way, Hyperius, Meth. theol. p. 111.

Zanchius, Op. I 356 sq. Walaeus, Op. I 236. Synopsis pur. theol. VII 14.

Mastricht, Theol. theor. pract. II 24, 21. Gerhard, Loci theol. III § 23-32.

Quenstedt, Theol. I p. 265 sq. Hollaz, Examen theol. p. 344 etc., cf. in more recent times Böhl, Dogm. 80. Beck, Glaub. II 129.

Without doubt it is now, over against all who wish to make the doctrine of the Trinity rest on rational grounds, to be maintained that the knowledge

[307] of this doctrine is due only to God's special revelation. Scripture is the only and final ground for the doctrine of the Trinity; reason can at most a posteriori elucidate this doctrine to some extent by thinking. But nevertheless the reasonings adduced in elucidation of the Trinitarian dogma are not devoid of all value. In the first place Scripture itself grants us freedom for it, when it says that the whole creation and especially man is a work of the triune God. Very certainly all works of God outwardly are undivided and proper to all three persons: in these works, therefore, much more the unity of God than the distinction of the persons stands in the foreground. But in that unity the diversity nevertheless cannot be lacking.

And Scripture itself indicates thereby that all creatures will display vestigia, and man the imago trinitatis. However much, then, sin has objectively veiled God's revelation in his works and subjectively darkened our eye, it cannot be denied a priori that the understanding illumined by revelation can discover in nature traces of that God whom it learned to know in Scripture as triune in his mode of existence and working. To that is added that all these reasonings undoubtedly are not able to prove the dogma of the Trinity.

None of them can or may be the ground of our faith. We would give the truth over to the mockery of our opponents if we accepted it on such weak grounds as our reason is able to adduce, Thomas S. Theol. I qu. 32 art. 1, qu. 46 art. 2. S. c. Gent. I c. 9. But these reasonings are nevertheless indeed able to refute various objections that are raised against the dogma, ib. c.

Gent. I c. 9; they indeed have the power to show that it is neither impossible nor absurd what revelation teaches us, ib. S. Theol. II 2 qu 1 art. 5 ad 2; and they are capable of demonstrating that the faith of the opponents is insufficient and in conflict with reason itself, ib. S. Theol. I qu. 1 art. 8.

Voetius, Disp. I p. 1 sq. So absurd is the doctrine of the Trinity nevertheless

not, as it appeared to a superficial rationalism of earlier and later time. With a calculation that one cannot be three and three cannot be one, it is not overthrown. Rather philosophy time and again, and again also in this century, has returned to the doctrine of the Trinity and has at least to some extent seen its rich sense and its deep significance. [308] To that finally is added still that these reasonings trace out and preserve the coherence between nature and grace, between creation and re-creation. It is one and the same God who creates and sustains us and who re-creates us according to his image. Grace indeed rises above nature, but is not in conflict with it.

Restoring what has been corrupted in it by sin, it also clarifies and perfects what of God's revelation has still remained in it. The thinking understanding places the doctrine of the Trinity in the midst of the rich life of nature and humanity. The confession of the Christian is no island in the ocean, but a high mountain peak, from which the whole creation is surveyed. And it is the task of the Christian theologian, to set God's revelation clearly in the light in its connection with and significance for the whole of life. Christian thinking remains unsatisfied, so long as not all being is led back to God triune and the confession of the Trinity of God is not placed in the midst of the center of our thinking and life. The analogies and proofs, adduced for the Trinity, therefore do not serve to demonstrate the dogma, but they serve especially to show the manifold usefulness and the rich significance that is enclosed in this confession for the life and the knowing of the creatures. They are in the end born not out of a desire for idle speculation and inappropriate curiosity, but out of a deep religious interest. If God is triune, then that must be of the highest significance, for it is only out of and through and unto God that all things are.

To begin with, the Trinity makes God known to us as the true Living One.

Already by the Church Fathers it was observed that the error of deism and pantheism, of monism and polytheism, is avoided by the Trinity, and that the truth which lay hidden in all those ideas about God was taken up in the Trinity. Deism digs a chasm between God and his creature, abolishes the kinship of both, and leaves for God nothing but an abstract unity, a pure being, a monotonous and uniform existence; it satisfies neither the head nor the heart; it is the death of religion. Pantheism indeed brings God nearer to us but makes Him like the creature, wipes out the boundary line between creator and creatura, robs Him of a being and life of His own, and undermines religion. But the Christian doctrine of the Trinity makes God known as essentially distinct from the world and [309] yet as partaking of a proper, blessed life. God is a fullness of being, πελαγος οὐσιας. He is not unfruitful, ἀγονος. He is the absolute being, the Eternal, who is and was and is to come, but in that being the eternally living, the eternally bringing forth.

People have attempted to derive the Trinity from the thinking and willing of God, from his love, goodness, perfection, etc. Intended as philosophical constructions of the doctrine of the Trinity, they all leave much to be desired. The construction from thinking arrives at no distinction of persons, does not make clear the procession of the third person, and with a view to this one must pass over to and supplement itself with the construction from the will of God. The derivation of the Trinity from love runs up against the same objections and does not know how to set the procession of the H.

Spirit in the light. But yet it is true that these and all other attributes first obtain life and reality through the Trinity. Outside of and without it they are names, sounds, empty concepts. As attributes of a triune God they begin to live for head and for heart. Only through it do we understand that God in

himself, even abstracted from the world, is the independent One, the eternal, the all-knowing, the all-good, the love, the holiness, and the glory.

The Trinity makes God known to us as the fullness of being, the true life, the eternal beauty. Also in God there is unity in diversity, diversity in unity.

Indeed this order and harmony is present in Him in an absolute way. In creatures there is only a weak analogy of this. Either the unity or the diversity does not come into its own. Creatures exist in space and time, stand next to one another and do not penetrate one another. There is unity only through attraction, through will and affection, a moral unity, which is breakable and unstable. And where more deep-going, physical unity exists, e.g. between the powers of the one substance, there is lack of independence, and the unity takes the distinction back into itself. But in God both is present: absolute unity and absolute diversity. It is one and the same essence that is borne by three supposita. Here there is the highest communion, communion of the same essence, and at the same time the highest diversity, diversity of persons. Therefore, if God is triune, the three persons cannot be thought otherwise than as ὁμοουσιοι. Arianism in its manifold forms does not think through the essence of God and therefore [310] does not satisfy thought. If there are distinctions, not outside but in and within the divine essence, then these distinctions, i.e. these persons, must all be of the same essence. In God nothing can exist that would be something other or something less than God. There is no transition between Creator and creature. Father, Son, and Spirit all partake of the same essence and are true

God, or they sink down to the creature. There is, from a Christian standpoint, no third possibility. But likewise Sabellianism in its different modi is hereby condemned. For the homoousia of the three persons then has meaning and significance only if these are truly and realiter distinguished

from one another, as distinct bearers of one and the same substance. The diversity of the subjects, which in the revelation of God, in creation and recreation, appear alongside one another, arises from the diversity which in the essence of God itself exists between the three persons. There could be no distinction in the unity outwardly, if it did not exist inwardly, ad intra.

In the second place, the Trinity is of the highest importance for creation.

This can be maintained only with the confession of a triune God. By that alone is it possible, on the one hand against deism to maintain the connection and on the other hand against pantheism to maintain the distinction of God and world. Creation is not to be conceived as a pure accident and just as little as a self-development of the Divine being. It must have its foundation in God and yet form no moment in his inner lifeprocess. How would it be possible to maintain both otherwise than through the triunity of God? The life of God is divinely rich; it is fruitful; there is action, production in it. And the doctrine of the Trinity therefore also speaks of the generation of the Son and the procession of the H. Spirit. Both these acts are essentially distinct from creation; the former are immanent relations, the latter is an opus ad extra; the former are sufficient in themselves, God does not need creation, He is life, blessedness, glory in himself. But nevertheless creation stands in the closest connection with this fruitfulness of God. For, in the first place, Athanasius rightly remarked that if the Divine being is unfruitful and cannot communicate itself, then there can also be no question of any revelation of God outwardly, i.e. of any communication of God in and to his creature. The doctrine of the incommunicability [311] of the Divine being through generation and procession to Son and Spirit entails that the world stands detached alongside, outside, over against God. God is then absolutely hidden, βυθος,

σιγη, the unconscious, Ungrund; the world does not reveal Him; no knowledge of God is possible. In contrast, the dogma of the Trinity teaches that God can communicate himself, absolutely to Son and Spirit, relatively therefore also to the world. For the communication that takes place in the Divine being is, according to the thought of Augustine, the example, the archetype of the work of God in creation. Scripture repeatedly points to the close connection that exists between Son and Spirit on the one hand, and creation on the other. The designations Father, Son (word, wisdom), Spirit certainly indicate immanent relations, but nevertheless are also reflected in the relations that are present in the works of God outwardly between the three persons. From the Father are all things; in the Son lie the ideas of all being; in the Spirit are the principia of all life. The generation and procession in the Divine being are the immanent acts of God, which make a creation and revelation of God outwardly possible. From that, finally, it is to be explained that all works of God outwardly are then first sufficiently known when their trinitarian existence is seen. The examples, mentioned above, are in part very far-fetched and in any case nothing more than analogies. But philosophy from Plato down to von Hartmann has always again, consciously or unconsciously, returned to a triad of principia or ἀρχαι, from which creation in its whole and in its parts could be explained.

There lies a great truth in it, that creation everywhere shows us vestigia trinitatis. And because these vestigia show themselves most clearly in man and he may even be called imago trinitatis, therefore he, as it were, traces out everywhere these vestigia by an immanent impulse. In the triad there first comes forth the perfection of the creature, the completeness of the system, the harmony of beauty. The higher something stands in the realm of creatures, the more it strives toward the triad. And even in the aberrations of

man in the religious sphere there is still something of this working to be perceived. Schelling's attempt to interpret mythology also trinitarianly has nevertheless been something more than a genial fantasy.

In the third place, the Trinity is of the highest importance for [312] the Christian religion. With the confession of God's triunity the whole of Christianity stands or falls, the entire special revelation. It is the core of the Christian faith, the root of all dogmas, the substance of the new covenant.

From this religious, Christian interest the development of the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity has therefore also taken its beginning. In it, it truly was not a matter of a metaphysical doctrine or philosophical speculation, but of the heart and the essence of the Christian religion itself. This is felt to such an extent that all who still set store by the name of Christian acknowledge and honor a certain Trinity. In every Christian confession and dogmatics the deepest question is this, how God can be one and yet again threefold. And according as this question is answered, in all parts of doctrine the Christian truth comes to its right more or less. In the doctrine of the Trinity the heart of the whole revelation of God for the redemption of humanity beats. Prepared in the Old Covenant, it therefore first comes clearly to light in Christ. Religion can make do with nothing less than God himself. Now in Christ God himself comes to us, and in the H. Spirit he communicates himself to us. The work of re-creation is through and through trinitarian. Out of and through and in God are all things. It is one divine work from the beginning to the end, and yet threefold distinguished; it is concluded by the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the communion of the H. Spirit. And correspondingly the life of faith of the Christian refers back to three principia, as the Ned. Gel. art. 9 says, that we know the doctrine of the Trinity as well from the testimonies of Holy

Scripture as from the workings of the three persons, especially from those which we feel in ourselves. We know ourselves to be children of the Father, redeemed by the Son and in communion with both through the H. Spirit. All salvation and blessing comes to us from God triune. In that name we are baptized; that name is the sum of our confession; from that name all blessing descends upon us; to that name we bring eternal thanks and honor; in that name we find rest for the heart, peace for our conscience. The Christian has a God above and before and in himself. To the doctrine of the Trinity, therefore, salvation in this and the life to come is bound, even though it is also the case that we cannot determine the measure of knowledge that is required also of this mystery for a sincere faith. [313]

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