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TIIE HOLY TRINITY

THE HOLY TRINITY

(On the point, see Kuhn, Dreieinlgheit p. 428 ff.)lhe council of Alexandria (a.d. 302 ; Hardouin’sConcilia , i. 731 ff.) pointed out the purely verbalnature of some of these disputes, but the con-tention did not cease. Basil adhered to hisexpressions, and in the Greek Church generallythe expression rpefs o7ro<rTda*€is became prevalent.The Latins, however, continued to speak of oneSubstantia {vTr6<rra(Tis) and Tres Personae , andto reject the expression “ Tres Hypostases ”(Jerome, Ejjist. 57 ad Damasum; Augustine,De Trinitate v. 8, 9). Subsequently, when theMeletian schism was composed, these distinc-tions came to be looked upon as unimportant,or at any rate ceased to be prominent incontroversy.

18. The Pneumatomachi .—During the disputesabout the Second Person of the Holy Trinity,the nature of the Holy Spirit was comparativelyseldom brought prominently into discussion. Itis evident, however, that the discussion about theSon could not but affect the doctrine of the HolySpirit. Some, who were otherwise orthodox,held the Holy Spirit to be a creature, the servantand minister of God [Holy Ghost, Vol. III. 121],and from about the year 360, discussions on thesubject of the Holy Spirit became manifest evenamong some who held Catholic views as to theDivinity of the Son. Athanasius, Basil, Gregoryof Nazianzus, and Didvmus came forward aschampions of the Faith against those whoimpugned the substantiality of the Holy Spirit,and the opinion, that the Holy Spirit is acreature, disappeared from among the Catholics.As the Son is 44 begotten,’’ so the Holy Ghost(they insisted) “proceeds” from the Fatherfrom all eternity (tt apa rov Tlarpbs 4ktto-peverat, St. John xv. 26). The special character-istics of the three Persons are, that the Fatheris begotten of none, the Son is begotten, theHoly Spirit proceedeth; 4KTr6p€V(ris became akind of technical term for the relation of theHoly Spirit to the Father, or to the Father andthe Son. If the Holy Ghost were a creature, itwould be blasphemous to place His name bythose of the Father and of the Son in thebaptismal formula (Basil, c. Eunom. iii. p. 752).Those who held the erroneous opinion, that theHoly Ghost is a creature, received in Constanti-nople the name of Macedonians, from a formerSemi-Arian bishop, Macedonius, of that city(deposed a.d. 360); and as this view of thecreaturely nature of the Holy Spirit was almostentirely confined to the Scmi-Arians, the namesPneumatomachi, Macedonians, and Semi-Arianscame to be used as synonymous.

These various opinions concerning the HolyTrinity came before the Council of Constantinople(the second General) in the year 381 (Dict.Cur. Antiq. i. 436 ft]. At this council theKicene Creed was modified in regard to itsdeclaration of the Divinity of the Second Personof the Holy Trinity, and a considerable additionmade to that clause which treats of the HolySpirit (Mansi’s Concilia , iii. 565; Hardouin, i.814). Belief in the Son of God was now professedin these terms: TharevofLev . . eis era tcvpiovTijiroib' Xpicrrhy, t bv vihv t ov deov rhv fxovoyevrprhv in rov Tlarphs yevvpQzvra irpb iravru>v r&vattiovcw, (j>cos 4k (pccros, debv aXydivov 4k 6eovdX t)6ivov yevvt]d4vra ov Troirjdwra, d/xoovcrtov rwTlaroi hi oh ra itavra 4yevzro. And belief in

the Holy Spirit as follows:—Kal us rh irvevjuarh aytov rb Kvptov rh faoxoiovv, rh 4 k rovUarpos 4Krrop€v6fi€VOv, rh crhv Tlarpl Kai Tt<£O’vfxirpoo’Kvvovfj.evov Ka\ (rvvdo^a^Sfievov, rh XaX?)-crav hia rS>v Trpotprjrwp . In the Latin translationof Dionysius Exiguus, these clauses stand—“ Credimus . . in unum Dominum Jesum Chris-tum, Filium Dei, natum ex Patre ante omniasaecula, Deum verum de Deo veto, natum nonfactum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omniafacta sunt ... Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominumet vivifieantem ex Patre procedentem, cum Patreet Filio adorandum et conglorificandum, quilocutus est per sanctos prophetas.”

19. St. Augustine. —In the West, St. Augus-tine formulated the doctrine of the Holy Trinitywith precision greater than had yet been givento it. He saw more clearly than his predecessorshad done that no subordination could be admittedinto the conception of the Divine Tri-unity. Noone of three Persons, who are of the sameessence or substance, could be subordinate to anyother of those Persons. There had been atendency to regard the Father as absolutely in-visible, and consequently to refer the Theo-phanies of the Old Testament to the Son alone.He contends that this was an error, infringingthe complete equality of the Father and theSon; we are not to attribute invisibility moreto one Person than to another ( De Trin. ii. 9-18).When we say that we believe in one God, wesay in effect, that we believe in the Holy Trinity,not in the Father alone {De Trin. v. 12; Epist.238, c. 3). And this unity is not merely iden-tity of kind: it is absolute unity in one“ essentia,” in which are (to use the Greekexpression) “tres substantiae,” i.e. virocrdreis ,or (to use the Latin) “ tres personae ” {De Trin.vii. 7). The Latins cannot (St. Augustine holds)adopt the Greek expression, because with them“ essentia ” and “ substantia ” are synonymous.The Three Persons are so absolutely one, that ineverything which God works, the Holy Trinity■works (De Trin. i. 8, 12 ; ii. 18).

20. The Fdioque. —With regard to the HolySpirit, differences, or apparent differences, be-tween East and West manifested themselves inthe fourth century. The Orientals, desiring toassert strongly the unity of the source of lifeagainst the Allans, whose teaching tended tomake two principles or origins, clung stedfastlyto the definition of the Second General Council,which teaches that the Holy Spirit proceedsfrom the Father. In the West, the greatinfluence of Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, andAugustine gave weight to the proposition, thatthe Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and theSon [Holy Ghost, Vol. III. 126 f.]. They, havingregard to another aspect of Arianism, favoureda form of expression which could not be twistedinto disparagement of the Son. The differenceon this point between East and West was lessthan at first sight appears ; for the Orientalsalso, though shrinking from an expression whichthey regarded as un-Scriptural, used expressions—such as “too T iov Xa/xfiavov ” (Epiphanius,Ilaeres. Ixix. c. 52)—which are nearly equivalentto the Latin “ proceeding from the ... Son ”(Pearson, On the Creed , p. 324).

It was in Spain that the Western form ofexpression was first found in a publicly acknow-ledged Creed. In a council at Toledo, generally