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The Catholic doctrine on the Trinity is expressed in the
various creeds and definitions, such as the Apostles'
Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, and
many others of later date, and in Denzinger.[40]
Finally, the Catholic belief in the Trinity was summed
up by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) in that
famous chapter, "Firmiter": "Firmly we
believe and simply we confess that one alone is true God,
the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, three
persons, but one essence, one substance, and one nature
entirely simple. The Father is from no one, the Son
from the Father alone, and the Holy Ghost equally from
both... consubstantial, co-equal, co-omnipotent,
and co-eternal... . We confess and believe with
Peter Lombard that it is one supreme being,
incomprehensible and ineffable; this supreme being is
truly the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, three
persons together and each one singly; and therefore in
God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, because
each of the three persons is that thing, that substance,
that essence, that divine nature."[41]
Again, "No real distinction exists between the essence
and the persons, but a real distinction exists between the
persons among themselves."[42]
Again, the three persons are one principle of operation
without, because the divine operation without proceeds
from the divine omnipotence, which is common to the three
divine persons.[43]
This definition of the Fourth Lateran Council was
amplified by the Council of Florence (1439) in the
dogmatic decree of the union of the Greeks: "We define
that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and
the Son and that He has His essence and His subsisting
being simultaneously from the Father and the Son, and
that He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle
and by one spiration."[44] Other definitions about
each person in particular may be found here.
The mystery of the Trinity may be more briefly stated as
the mystery of one God in three divine persons. But in
opposition to the pseudo-synod of Pistoia it should be
said that it is not one God divided into three persons but
one God in three distinct persons, since there is no real
distinction in the Godhead Himself, as the Eleventh
Council of Toledo declared: "The Godhead is not
reduced to single persons and is not increased into three
persons."[45]
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