19 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
vealing the deep things in him, not, however, in a speculative sense. The Spirit internalizes the selfrevelation of God revealed in Christ, imparting the new life of divine communion expressed again in moral fruits (Gal. v. 22-23). These operations of the Spirit are regarded as personal (Rom. viii. 16; Gal. iv. 6), and the Spirit himself is considered to be a person, who may be grieved by sinful acts (Eph. iv. 30). A similar concept underlies the Johannine terms “ teaching,” “‘ reproving,” and “‘ declaring,’ as applied to the personal Paraclete (John xiv. 26, xvi. 8, 13). Nevertheless, to interpret these passages as implying a person distinct from God and Christ, whose Spirit he is called, is not warranted. Of the more directly Trinitarian references, the Apostolic benediction (II Cor. xiii. 13) points to the threefold causality of the redemptive life, in which the unity of the purpose of salvation comes to view, historically brought about by the sending of the Son and the imparting of the Spirit (cf. Gal. iv. 4, 6). The distribution of gifts, administrations, and operations (I Cor. xii. 4-6) refers back again to one Spirit, one Lord, and one God. The baptismal command (Matt. xxviii. 19) distinctly points, beyond doubt, to the faith of the Christian community concerning God, revealed threefold as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The dogmatic assertion, however, that the singular “name” signifies the unitary divine being transcendent to revelation, and that the collocation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost represents their complete coordination, is not permissible. The creed elaborated from this formula mentions neither unity nor coordination, and the New Testament does not go further than a trinity of revelation. The essential emphasis in this connection is on the middle position of the Son; this is also substantiated by the circumstance that Acts and the epistles of Paul recognize baptism in Christ as the widely prevalent custom (Acts ii. 38, vill. 16, x. 48, xix. 5; ieCorsiat3s) Rom, vivo; Gale ii 27))
II. The Ontological Doctrine: There is no reason to seek for sources or types of the doctrine of the Trinity outside of Christianity or of the Bible, though in the eighteenth century efforts were made to derive the Christian dogma from Plato, and later
from Brahmanism and Parseeism, or,
1. The later still, from a Babylonian triad. Eastern Even were the resemblance between Church. the Christian Trinity and the pagan triads far greater than it is, there could
be no serious question of borrowing. The development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is historically clear, and its motives are equally well known, being almost exclusively due to Christological speculation. The formulation of the dogma was ruled by the necessity of establishing the absolute character of the Christian revelation, a process which required the closest association of the historic Christ with the life and essence of God. At the same time, Christian faith could tolerate neither any menace to monotheism nor any lowering of the person of the Redeemer to a mere function or transitory phenomenon of the Godhead. The Apostolic Fathers did not feel the relation of the Father and the Son to be a problem, since they either con-
Trinity, Doctrine of the
sidered the Son simply as an instrument of the Father, or identified him with the Father and the Holy Ghost. The apologetes, on the other hand, who adopted for their basis the concept of the Logos for the interpretation of the person of Jesus, were indeed able to assign the Logos to a place within the revealing activity of God without impairing their monotheism, but could not make sure the concentration of revelation in Christ or his specific relation to the Father. Tertullian, who first formulated the concept trinitas, conceived of a self-disclosing of the Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost for the purpose of revelation preceding revelation itself. Origen completed this phase of development by postulating the eternal independence of the Logos with God. While, however, Origen considers the generation of the Son (of the universe as well) an eternal act, thus making him a partaker of the same essence with the Father, he has no clear idea of the nature of the Holy Ghost. He has an idea that the spheres of the persons of the Trinity are concentric; the Father ruling the universe, the Son rational creatures, and the Holy Ghost the saints. The modalistic type of Monarchianism (q.v.) identified the persons of the Father and the Son; while Sabellius (q.v.) held Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be successive forms of revelation, or ‘‘ persons” (prosdpa) of the Godhead, to which correspond three cosmic periods; namely, of creation and law, redemption, and communion. The advantage of this view was the coordination of the Son with the Father; its disadvantage, the contraction of the religious interest in the permanent mediatorship of Christ, which forced the idea of the hypostasis. As Arius intensified the distinction between the Father and the Son into an antithesis between creator and created, and disputed the eternity of the Son, it became necessary to connect with the eternal personal independence of the Son the assertion of his perfect divinity in the sense of identity of substance with the Father (homoousios). The result was its authoritative statement in the Nicene Creed (see Con- STANTINOPOLITAN CREED) and its argument in the theology of Athanasius (q.v.), the essential of which is soteriological, to conserve the essential mediatorship of Christ. Even Athanasius did not unconditionally rank the Father and the Son equal; nor does he have a technical term for the persons of the Trinity. On the other hand, he prepared the way for the homoousion of the Holy Spirit; for the Spirit, who imparts to man fellowship in the divine nature, must himself share in that nature. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost as thus developed needed only the opposition of the Pneumatomachi (see MacrepDoNIUS AND THE MAcEDONIAN SEcT) to be crystallized into the teaching of the Church at the Council of Constantinople in 381. By their distinction between ‘‘ substance,” or “essence,” and “ hypostasis,” related to each other as ‘‘ common ”’ and “‘ peculiar,” the Cappadocians created a means of expressing the relation of the Trinity of persons to the unity of essence. According to Gregory Nazianzen (q.v.), the peculiar properties of the three persons were, respectively, ‘‘ the state of being not begotten,” “of being begotten,” and “ procession,” though
Trinity, Doctrine of the