Sect. 96The Ante-Nicene Tradition on the Divine Trinity and UnityThe Ante-Nicene Tradition on the Divine Trinity and Unity

I. Sufficient proof for the primitive profession of the dogma of the Trinity is afforded by the formula of Baptism, by the Doxologies in universal use, and by the confessions of the martyrs. The Doxology, “Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to (or with) the Holy Ghost,” is an act of worship giving Divine honour to all and each of the three Persons. The “Acts of the Martyrs” contain, in very great number, professions of faith either in the Three Persons together or in each one of Them.

II. The Faith of the Church in the mystery of the Trinity manifested itself especially in the conflict with the ante-Nicene heresies. Not only did the Church assert the distinction of the Persons, but she also defended the absolute unity and indivisibility of the Divine Substance, from which the Sabellians and their allies took the chief argument in favour of their heresy. The whole conflict turned on this point: that the unity of God ought not to destroy the distinction of the Persons, and that the distinction of the Persons ought not to destroy the unity of God. The position taken up by the Church sufficiently shows how far she was from admitting a distinction in the Substance of the Persons. Whenever, as in the case of Denis of Alexandria, a writer used expressions that might imply such substantial distinction, protests were heard on all sides, and Denis himself retracted his unguarded expressions by order of Pope Dionysius. The ecclesiastical literature anterior to the Council of Nicæa contains many expositions of the Catholic dogma on the Trinity, sometimes with considerable development. The principal ones are to be found in the writings against the Sabellians and against the Gnostics of various forms, and in the Apologies against the heathen. See Card. Newman, Arians, ch. ii.

III. Although the substance of the dogma was well known to the faithful, and better still to the Catholic Fathers and Doctors, who lived before the Council of Nicæa, it is none the less to be expected that their writings did not treat the subject with the same definiteness and accuracy of expression as later writers. It would, however, be going too far to admit that the Fathers had, in general, an obscure or a wrong conception of the unity of Substance in the Divine Persons; in such a fundamental dogma, such an error in such quarters would be incompatible with the infallibility of the Church. Among schismatic writers it is, of course, quite possible to find wrong conceptions of the dogma. As a matter of fact, from the time of Tatian, who afterwards became a formal heretic, certain writers so misunderstood the dogma that their utterances did prepare the way for the Arian heresy. Nevertheless, if we except the Philosophumena of Hippolytus and several utterances of Origen (which are, however, annulled by opposite utterances of the same author), we have no greater fault to find, even with uncatholic writers, than a superficial knowledge and inadequate exposition of the unity of Essence in the Three Persons. All the expressions which were seized upon by later opponents of the dogma, and were most harshly judged by Catholic theologians, occur in the writings of the most orthodox of the Fathers, and admit of an orthodox interpretation.

The special difficulties met with in the ante-Nicene writings, even the orthodox, lie in the following points:—

1. The authors often lay so much stress upon the character of the Father as source and principle of the other two Persons, that they almost seem to conceive the Father alone as God pure and simple, and God above all (Deus super omnia), and to attribute Divinity to the other Persons in a less perfect degree. Holy Scripture itself, however, generally uses the term God, the God (ὁ Θεός, etc.) for the Father alone.

2. Instead of stating the identity of Substance, they often speak merely of a substantial connection, or simply of a community of power and authority, of activity and love, or of the unity of origin. They do so in order to refute Ditheism, a system which admits two Gods, the one independent of the other. But here, also, Holy Scripture had set the example, especially John 5 and 10.

3. The generation of the Son is sometimes described as voluntary, in order to exclude from it a blind and imperative necessity. This, however, admits of a correct interpretation, and is found likewise in post-Nicene writers.

4. Following up Prov. 8, they represent the generation of the Son as intended in connection with the creation of the world by and through Him. But some (e.g. Tertullian, C. Prax., cc. v.–vii.) speak with more precision of a double generation, or rather of a conception and a generation of the Logos. The conception is explained as the eternal origin from the Father (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος); the generation as His temporal mission ad extra, and His manifestation in the creation of the world (λογός προφορικός verbum prolatitium): hence Hippolytus and Tertullian sometimes seem only to apply the name of Son to the Logos after His external manifestation in creating the world, or after the Incarnation, which, as a birth, they oppose to the eternal conception.

5. Lastly, the Fathers point out that the Son and the Holy Ghost are visible, whilst the Father is invisible. This visibility, however, is only intended to prove the distinction of the Persons, and not a difference in the Essence. In fact, the Son and the Holy Ghost both appeared under sensible forms or symbols, whereas the Father never so manifested Himself, it being unbecoming to His character, as principle of the Son and the Spirit, to be sent by another. The personal characters of the Second and Third Persons make it right for Them to be sent as manifesting the Father.

“We need not by an officious piety arbitrarily force the language of separate Fathers into a sense which it cannot bear; nor by an unjust and narrow criticism accuse them of error; nor impose upon an early age a distinction of terms belonging to a later. The words usia and hypostasis were naturally and intelligibly, for three or four centuries, practically synonymous, and were used indiscriminately for two ideas which were afterwards respectively denoted by the one and the other.” Card. Newman, Arians, p. 444; cf. Franzelin, th. xi.