is sent; one prays, another sends the third at his request; one proceeds, the other does not proceed. To beget and to be begotten, to send and to be sent, to proceed and not to proceed, imply a real distinction between him who begets and him who is begotten, between him who sends and him who is sent, between him who proceeds and him who does not proceed. (b) The three act as persons, i.e., by their own determination. For to ask, to send, to teach, etc., are actions which can be attributed only to persons.

Even in the Old Testament the mystery of the Trinity was revealed, albeit obscurely. Apart from certain allusions to a plurality of persons, we find mention of the Son (Ps. cix.) and of the Holy Ghost (Is. lxi. 1; Joel ii. 28). Hence we may conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity was known to the prophets, and others who were zealous readers of Scripture, though it may have been but imperfectly known to the mass of the people.

2. The Church confessed its faith in the Trinity from the earliest times.

a. Baptism was always administered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, as distinct persons in reality as well as in name. In the Apostles' Creed Christians always confessed their belief in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as three distinct persons. The ordinary forms of the doxology, used in public worship, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," etc., testifying the same belief, are of the greatest antiquity.

b. From the earliest times all those who denied the existence of three persons in God were treated as heretics by the Church. Thus, in the second century, Praxeas (Tertull. adv. Prax. c. 2), who asserted that the Father and Christ were one and the same person, and that, consequently, the Father had suffered on the cross; in the third century, Noetus, who taught that Christ was the same person as the Father and the Holy Ghost (S. Aug. de haeres. c. 36), and Sabellius, who taught that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost were only one person with three different names; and, in the fourth century, Photinus and Priscillian, were condemned as heretics.

c. The martyrs publicly and solemnly professed their faith in the Trinity. St. Polycarp, disciple of the apostles (mar tyred A.D. 166), exclaimed before the burning pyre: "I praise

Thee, O God, in all things with Thy eternal and divine Son Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Holy Ghost, be honor now and forever" (Mart. S. Polycarp. n. 14).

d. The same faith is expressed in the writings of the early fathers. St. Ignatius of Antioch (ad Magnes. n. 13) speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as persons tr whom we owe an equal reverence. St. Justin (Apol. I. 13) repudiates the charge of atheism brought by the pagans against the Christians, declaring that they adore the Father, the Creator of the world; Christ, His Son; and the prophetic Spirit. In like manner, the Christian philosopher Athenagoras (Legat. pro Christian. n. 10) expresses his surprise that they should be called atheists who say that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, acknowledg ing their unity (of essence) and distinction (of persons). The Christians were called atheists because they refused to adore the pagan deities. St. Theophilus of Antioch (ad Autol. ii. 5) calls the three divine persons by the name of the Triad, or Trinity.

e. It cannot be denied that in the fourth century, when the Church defined the dogma of the Holy Trinity against the Arians at Nice, the belief in this doctrine was universal— sufficient evidence that the Church received it from the apostles. For it is manifest that a doctrine which demands so great a sacrifice of human reason could not have been universally received, especially in times of persecution, if it were a mere human invention.

86. Each of the three persons is God.

1. The divinity of the Father is so often and so clearly set forth in Scripture as to leave no room for doubt. "I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God" (John xx. 17). "He [the Father] hath life in Himself, and giveth life to whom He will" (John v. 21, 26). "To Him [the Father] all things are possible" (Mark xiv. 36). It is plain that such assertions can be made only of God.

66

2. The divinity of the Son is no iess clearly expressed: "In

the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made" (John i. 1-3). This same divine Word is again called "the only-begotten of the Father” (Ib. 14), and "the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father" (Ib. 18). The Son was, therefore, in the beginning. before anything was created, consequently, from all eternity. He was not created, since all things were made by Him. He is expressly called God. All those evidences advanced above (25, 26) for the divinity of Jesus Christ are proofs of the divinity of the Son. For since Jesus Christ proves Himself to be not only God, but also the Son of God, it follows that the Son, the Second Person, is true God.

The Church has always professed its faith in the divinity of the Son as well as of the Father. This is manifest (1) from the form of baptism and from the Apostles' Creed. The divinity of the Father being beyond all doubt, we acknowledge the divinity of the Son by putting Him on the same level with the Father, and attributing to Him the same efficacy. (2) The writings of the earliest fathers testify the same belief. St. Clement of Rome (Ep. II. ad Cor. 1) insists that the faithful "believe Jesus Christ to be God and the Judge of the living and the dead." St. Ignatius of Antioch (ad Rom. n. 3) frequently calls Him God. In like manner, St. Irenæus (adv. hæres. III. c. 6, n. 1) says that the Father, the Holy Ghost, and the apostles would not have called Christ God and Lord if He were not God and Lord of the universe. (3) The acts of the martyrs, who, questioned by pagan judges as to their faith, openly confessed the divinity of Jesus Christ, are additional evidence of this dogma. St. Pionius, who suffered martyrdom at Smyrna A.D. 250, in answer to the question; What God dost thou adore? replied: “Him who made the heavens and adorned them with stars, and who founded the earth." Whereupon the judge said: "Meanest thou Him who was crucified?" Pionius: "I mean Him whom the Father sent for the salvation of the world." (4) The First Council of Nice defended the Catholic faith by defining against Arius, who denied the divinity of Christ, "tha' the Son is true God and consubstantial with the Father." Thi expression, St. Athanasius (Ep. ad Afr. Episc. n. 5) remarks, by its precision took from the Arians all possibility of concealing their unCatholic doctrine under ambiguous words. For though a man may be said (in a wider sense) to be a son of God, and though creatures also (by production, not by generation) proceed from God, yet we cannot say of any creature that it has the same substance as God the Father.

3. The divinity of the Holy Ghost follows from His equality

with the other two persons.

But Scripture and tradition are

equally explicit in their testimony to this truth.

Holy Scripture expressly calls the Holy Ghost God: “Why has Satan tempted thy heart that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost? . . . Thou hast not lied to men, but to God" (Acts v. 34). Divine attributes are frequently ascribed to Him: "There are diversities of operations, but the same God who worketh all in all. To one indeed by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom; and to another the word of knowl edge, according to the same Spirit. To another faith in the same Spirit; to another the grace of healing in one Spirit. To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy. To another the discerning of spirits; to another diverse kinds of tongues; to another interpretation of speeches. But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will" (1 Cor. xii. 6-11). Here God and the Holy Ghost are represented as the one giver of those divine gifts. He who performs such operations according as He wills is almighty, and, therefore, God. He is likewise God who foresees the future, who can bestow the gift of prophecy. Moreover, as the same Apostle tells us (1 Cor. ii. 10, 11), the Holy Ghost searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, and thus reveals the counsels of God-an attribute which is manifestly peculiar to God.

As for the belief of the Church from the very earliest times in the divinity of the Holy Ghost, we have the testimony of the Apostles' Creed and of the doxology, in which the same faith is professed in, and the same praise and glory are given to, the Holy Ghost as to the Father and the Son. The fathers, who speak of the three divine persons, represent the Holy Ghost as equal to the other two persons (85). In the earliest of them we find explicit testimony to the divin ity of the Third Person. Tertullian's words are brief and explicit "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and God is each of them" (adv. Prax. c. 13). The Church solemnly expressed its belief in the First Council of Constantinople, by condemning the heresy of Macedonius, who maintained that the Holy Ghost was created by the Son; and by adding to the Nicene Creed, in reference to the Holy Ghost, the words: "The Lord and Life. giver, who proceeds from the Father, who is adored and glorified equally with the Father and the Son, who hath spoken by the prophets."

87. Each of the three persons is God by one and the same divine nature.

The three divine persons possess the divine nature not in the same manner in which three distinct men possess human nature. Every human being possesses his human nature as something separate and numerically distinct from every other nature. When we say that in all men there is the same human nature, this is true only as far as all men possess a like, or similarly constituted nature. God the Son, on the other hand, possesses a nature not only similar or equal to that of the Father, but numerically the same. We speak of equality between the divine persons only inasmuch as identically the same nature or substance is in distinct persons. We can rightly say that the Son is equal to the Father, but not that the substance of the Son is equal to that of the Father. For there can be equality only between distinct persons or things; consequently, between the Father and the Son, who are really distinct, not between the nature of the Father and the nature of the Son, which are identical.

1. The Son says of Himself and the Father: "I and the Father are one (John x. 30). But that can be true only if the Father and the Son, though distinct in person, have one and the same nature. The same may be said of the unity of the three persons: "There are three who give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" (1 John v. 7).

2. If the divine persons had not the same nature or substance, there would be three gods; since the word God signifies one having a divine nature, just as the word man signifies one having a human nature. There would, therefore, be as many gods as divine natures or substances; just as there are as many men as there are distinct human natures. But the Christian faith admits but one God, one divinity, and, consequently, one divine nature in three persons.

3. The Church teaches us this truth in its creeds and definitions. The Athanasian Creed says: "We adore one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in unity without confusion of persons or distinction of substance." The Lateran Creed confesses "three persons, but one essence, substance, and absolutely simple nature." "There is one Supreme Being, who is truly Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three persons at the same time, and yet each of them distinct; and, therefore, in God there is a trinity, not a quaternity, because each of the