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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.
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