The Divine Trinity

The Divine Trinity

Whether the infinite personality of God must be conceived as simple or multiplex, is a matter which human reason cannot determine unaided. On the strength of the inductive axiom, “Quot sunt naturae, tot sunt personae,” we should rather be tempted to attribute but one personality to the one Divine Nature. Positive Revelation tells us, however, that there are in God three really distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This fundamental dogma, which essentially differentiates the Christian conception of God from that of the Pagans, the Jews, and the Mohammedans, is designated in the technical Latin of the Church as “Trinitas,” a term first used, so far as we know, by Theophilus of Antioch and Tertullian, and which later became current in ecclesiastical usage and was embodied in the Creeds. In the private symbolum of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus mention is made of a “perfect Triad”. Didymus the Blind, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine have written separate treatises “On the Trinity.”