NEW TESTAMENT TESTIMONY ON THE THREE PERSONS

Presupposing a course in exegesis, our explanation of this doctrine of faith ought to point out the theological sources. As great rivers come down from the mountains, so sacred theology descends from the heights of doctrine as expressed in Sacred Scripture and in tradition, and then, in the end, theology should ascend to the heights and dispose us to a contemplation of divine things.[72]

We shall first consider the New Testament testimony on the three divine persons together as found: 1. in the Synoptic Gospels, the first expression of Christian preaching; 2. in the epistles of the apostles, the first of which were written about A.D. 53; 3. in the Gospel of St. John, written about A.D. 80 against those who denied the divinity of Christ. First we shall cite the clear texts and then point out the difficulties arising from the more obscure passages.

The Synoptic Gospels. The first text, sufficiently clear to show the mystery of the Trinity, is found in Luke 1:30-35, where the incarnation of the Word is announced to Mary by the archangel Gabriel, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."

The Trinity of persons is clearly enunciated in this text, for the angel is sent by God the Father, who is often referred to as the Most High, and the Holy Ghost and the Son of the most high God are distinguished from the Father. That which was to be born of the Virgin Mary was not the Father or the Holy Ghost, but the Son of God. The consubstantiality of the persons is also implied in the text especially since the term "Son of God" is not used in the broad sense but in the proper sense, inasmuch as farther on (Luke 1:43) Mary is called the mother of the Lord. Finally, the Holy Ghost, to whom the work of the Incarnation is attributed is not less than the Father and the Son. This is the first manifestation of the Trinity in the New Testament before the Incarnation.

The second text of the Synoptic Gospels is Matt. 3:16 and Luke 9:34 (cf. II Pet. 1:17), before the beginning of Christ's public ministry at the time of His baptism. In Matthew we read: "And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to Him: and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him. And behold a voice from heaven, saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." These words were spoken by God the Father in this solemn theophany.

More clearly than in the first text we see the distinction of the persons, since the Father speaks from heaven and the Son by this personal appellation is opposed to the person of the Father. The Holy Ghost is distinguished from both the Father and Son, for while the Father speaks from heaven the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove descends upon Christ, who is called the Son of God.

It is sufficiently clear that the Father is not the Son, for no one is ever called the father of himself, and that the Father and the Son are not the Holy Ghost. If the Father, antecedent to all consideration of our minds, is not the Son, then they are really distinct; and if the Father and the Son are not the Holy Ghost, they are really distinct from Him.

In this text, too, there is some manifestation of the divinity of the Son, since He is called "ho huios", with the article, that is, son not in the wide but proper sense, and the Father added, "In whom I am well pleased, " that is, beloved above all others. As Father Ceuppens remarks, "It should be noted that the three Synoptic Gospels use the same expression, "ho agapetos" (beloved), and this term is never used in the New Testament for an adoptive son and seems to have the meaning of "ho monogenes" ("only, or only-begotten").[73]

In this text the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of God (Matt.) and is therefore not any divine spirit, such as an angel, but a well defined Spirit, to pneuma. And lest there be any further doubt, St. Luke added "to pneuma to agion" (3:22), that divine person who throughout the New Testament is called the Holy Ghost and who together with the Father and the Son constitutes the Holy Trinity.[74]

The third text of the Synoptic Gospels is Matt. 28:19 and Mark 16:13, the formula of baptism, which Christ, before He ascended into heaven, transmitted to the apostles while He was commissioning them to preach the gospel. This is at the end of the whole Gospel, as the first manifestation was at the beginning prior to the Incarnation. In the text from St. Matthew we read: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The personal distinction is clearer in the Greek, where the conjunction kai and the article are repeated before the name of each person. This emphatic repetition of the article cannot be explained except by the real distinction between the persons. Moreover the Father is not the Son, since these are personal nouns and not impersonal nouns, like truth, goodness, wisdom, which indicate divine attributes pertaining to the divine nature. Thus Father and Son designate distinct persons, and if this is true then the third term ought also to designate a distinct person.

Lastly, the text implies that the divinity of these three persons, like the baptismal grace bestowed in their name, cannot be conferred except in the name of God, and thus in this formula the same worship of latria is given to the three persons. In the formula, then, the Son and the Holy Ghost are equal to the Father; if they are not God, they would be infinitely below the Father.

The rationalists and liberals, acknowledging the force of this text, have tried to impugn its genuineness because Eusebius gives the words of Christ as, "baptizing them in My name." The objection is futile, however, since all the codices give the received text, and almost all the Fathers before Eusebius, among them St. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Origen. Eusebius himself sometimes gives the received text and sometimes the short form.[75]

The Epistles. In the Epistles we find three witnesses to the three persons. The first is II Cor. 13:13 (according to Harnack, A.D. 53): "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all." Here St. Paul attributes to three persons the granting of sanctifying grace; but God alone is the author of grace, of the remission of sin, and of salvation. We refer the reader to Job 14:4: "Who can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not Thou who only art?"; and to Ps. 83:12: "The Lord will give grace and glory"; and Jas. 4:6: "God... giveth grace to the humble." The second testimony is Eph. 4:4 ff. (according to Harnack, A.D. 57-59), where the Apostle is speaking of the mystical body of Christ, "one body and one Spirit,... one Lord (namely, Christ), one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all." The equality of the persons is inferred from the fact that the three together confer grace, of which God alone is the author. This was St. Athanasius' great argument: God alone deifies.

The third testimony is I Pet. 1:1 f.: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied." As in the other texts, the three persons are presented as the highest source of grace.

The Gospel of St. John (according to Harnack and Zahn, written between 80 and 110) clearly affirms the Trinity of persons and their equality. We quote only the two principal texts referring to the three persons.

The first is John 14:16 and 26, concerning the promise of the Holy Ghost made by Christ at the Last Supper: "And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever,... but the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things." Here we see a clear distinction between the Father who sends the Spirit, and the Son who asks the Father to send the Spirit, and the Spirit who is sent by the Father in the name of the Son. Certainly the one who sends is distinct from him who is sent, antecedent to our thinking the sender is not the one who is sent, and thus the Father is not the Son, for the one who generates is not the one who is generated. If we rightly understand the meaning of the verb "is" and the negation "is not, " the real distinction between the persons will be clear, a distinction which is antecedent to our mind's consideration. Although those things which the Scripture speaks of here are intimately united, they are really distinct; the substance of bread is not its quantity, but they are intimately united. So, in this text and in the context the consubstantiality of the three persons emerges, for a little earlier (John 14:9-11) Christ said: "He that seeth Me seeth the Father also... . Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" Again John 10:30: "I and the Father are one"; John 15:26: "the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father"; John 16:13: "But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth."

The second text of St. John referring to the three persons together is the famous Johannine comma: "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one" (I John 5:7). A great controversy has arisen about the genuineness of this text. Those who attack the text argue from the fact that it is not found in any Greek codex of any authority, nor in many Latin codices and versions. From this they conclude that this "comma" was originally a marginal note which in the course of time was incorporated into the text. Consequently the text would enjoy only the force of tradition. The defenders of the text say that it was always in the Latin version, which is more ancient than the Greek codices, for it is found in many Latin codices and is cited by many of the Fathers, by Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine. The omission of this verse in the Greek codices is explained by the fact that the seventh and eighth verses begin and end in the same way and thus the scribes could easily have omitted the seventh verse. In the Latin version the seventh verse is: "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one." The eighth verse is: "And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one."

On this matter the Holy Office has issued two declarations.[76] In the first, dated January 13, 1927, we read: "The authenticity of this text of St. John cannot be safely denied or called into doubt." Later, on June 2, 1927, the Holy Office declared: "This decree has been issued to repress the temerity of those private teachers who have attributed to themselves the right of completely rejecting this 'comma' of St. John or at least by their final judgment of calling it into doubt... . It is in no way intended to deter Catholic writers from investigating the matter more fully,... or from adopting an opinion opposed to the genuineness of the text, as long as they profess to be willing to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom has been committed by Jesus Christ the duty not only of interpreting the Sacred Scriptures but also of guarding them faithfully."

We proceed now to the testimonies in the New Testament about the individual persons of the Trinity.