§ 130. The Nicene Boctnfine of the Trinity. The Trinitarian Terminology.
The doctrine of the essential deity and the personality o\ the Holy Ghost completed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity : ftiid of this doctrine as a whole we can now take a closer view.
This fundamental and comprehensive dogma secured both the unity and the full life of the Christian conception of God ; and in this respect it represents, as no other dogma does, the whole of Christianity. It forms a bulwark against heathen
<j 130. THE NICENE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 671
[)oljtlieism on the one liand, and Jewish deism and abstract monotlieisni on the other. It avoids the errors and combines the truth of these two opposite conceptions. Against the pagans, says Gi-egory of Nyssa, we hold the unity of essence ; against the Jews, the distinction of hypostases. We do not reject all multiplicity, but only such as destroys the unity of the being, like the pagan polytheism ; no more do we reject all unity, but only such unity as denies diversity and full vital action. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, furthermore, formed the true mean between Sabellianism and tritheism, both of which taught a divine triad, but at the expense, in the one case, of the personal distinctions, in the other, of the essential unity. It exerted a wholesome regulative influence on the other dogmas. It overcame all theories of emanation, established the Christian conception of creation by a strict distinction of that which proceeds from the essence of God, and is one with him, like the Son and the Spirit, from that which arises out of nothing by the free will of God, and is of different substance. It provided for an activity and motion of knowledge and love in the divine essence, without the Origenistic hypothesis of an eternal creation. And by the assertion of the true deity of the Redeemer and the Sanctifier, it secured the divine character of the work of redemption and sanctificatiou.
The l^icene fathers did not pretend to have exhausted the mystery of the Trinity, and very well understood that all human knowledge, especially in this deepest, central dogma, proves itself but fragmentary. All speculation on divine things ends in a mystery, and reaches an inexplicable residue, before which the thinking mind must bow in humble devotion. "Man," says Athanasius, " can perceive only the hem of the garment of the triune God ; tlie cherubim cover the rest with their wings." In his letter to the Monks, written about 358, he confesses that the further he examines, the more the mystery eludes his understanding,' and he exclaims with the Pi>ahnist : " Such knowledge is loo wonderful for ine ; it
' Ep. ad Monachos (Opera, torn. L p. 343).
(>72 THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
is high, I cannot attain unto it." ' Augustine sajs ia one place : " If we Le asked to define the Trinity, Ave can only say, it is not tliis or that." ' But though we cannot exphiin the liow or why of our faith, still the Christian may know, and should know, M'liat he believes, and what he does not believe, and sliould be persuaded of the facts and truths which form tlie matter of his faith.
The essential points of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity are these :
1. There is only one divine essence or substance.^ Father, Son, and Spirit are one in essence, or consubstantial.^ They are in one another, inseparable, and cannot be conceived without each other. In this point the ISTicene doctrine is thoroughly monotheistic or monarchian, in distinction from tritheism, which is but a new form of the polytheism of the pagans.
The terms essence {ovaia) and nature {(f)uais:), in the philosophical sense, denote not an individual, a personality, but the (jenus or xj^ecies ; not unum in nurnero, but ens unum in multis. All men are of the same substance, partake of the same human nature, though as persons and individuals they are very difterent.' The term homoousion^ in its strict grammatical sense, differs from monoousion or toutoousion^ as well as from heterooiis'ion^ and signifies not numerical identity, but equality of essence or community of nature among several beings. It is clearly used thus in the Chalcedonian symbol, where it is said that Christ is " consubstantial {homoousioa) with the Father as touching the Godhead, and consubstantial
' Ps. cxxxix. 6.
'•' Enarrat. in Ps. xxvi. 8. John DaraasGenus (Expos, fidei) almost reaches the Socratic confession, when he says : All we can know concerning llie divine nature is, that it cannot be conceived. Of course, sucli concessions are to be understood cum (jrano salis.
' Oiicria, substantia, essentia, (pvirts, nntvra, rh ui', t^ viruKfi/xevoi', Comp. Petttviu3, De Trinitate, lib. iv. c. 1 (ed. Par. toni. ii. p. 311): "Christiani scriptores . . . ovaiav appellant non singularem individuanuiue, sed coiniimncni individuis substan* tiam." The word v-noKfifxivov, however, is sometimes taken as equivalent to ■np6a(» wov.
* 'Onouv(Tioi. On the import of this, comp. § 127, and in the text above.
* "We men," says Athanas/us, "consisting of body and soul, are all filai <p6«tti Kol oualas, but many pcraouB."