etc. Well did the Holy Ghost speak to our fathers by Isaias the prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to them, etc." According to St. Paul, therefore, the Holy Ghost is identical with the Old Testament i, that is to say, with the one true God, to whom alone this name is attributable as a quasi nomen proprium.186 A similar substitution of names takes place whenever a prophecy is alternately ascribed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.187 If the Father is God, and the Son is God, the Holy Ghost, too, must be God.

b) In many passages of the New Testament the word "God" can be directly substituted for "Holy Ghost." Thus St. Peter addresses Ananias in these words: "Cur tentavit Satanas cor tuum, mentiri te Spiritui Sancto. . . . Non es mentitus hominibus, sed DeoWhy hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost. . . . Thou hast not lied to men, but to God." 188 By substitution we get the proposition: "The Holy Ghost is God." St. Paul, when he asks: 189 Nescitis quia templum Dei estis et Spiritus Dei habitat in vobis? - Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" plainly intimates that the Holy Ghost dwelling in "the temple of God" is identical with God Himself.190 A comparison of John I, 13: "Ex Deo nati They are born of God," with John III, 5: "Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto-Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost," shows that" Holy Ghost" "God." Finally St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Hebrews: "Multifariam

sunt

186 Compare Ps. XCIV, 8-11 with

Heb. III, 7-11.

187 Vide supra, pp. 29 sq.

188 Acts V, 3-4.

=

16.

189 I Cor. III, 16.

190 Cfr. I Cor. VI, 19; 2 Cor. VI,

multisque modis olim Deus loquens patribus in prophetis God . . . at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets," "191 and St. Peter assures us: "Non enim voluntate humana allata est aliquando prophetia, sed Spiritu Sancto inspirati locuti sunt sancti Dei homines — For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." 192

The synthesis of the Three Divine Persons in the complete concept of the Trinity is most perfectly consummated in the so-called ordo subsistendi,193 193 by virtue of which the Three ob

serve a constant order and follow one another in an immutable sequence. The members of this formula can not be transposed. The Father must be conceived strictly as the First, the Son as the Second, and the Holy Ghost as the Third Person of the Godhead. Yet this is not to be understood as implying a sequence of time or dignity, a before or after, a more or less; for in virtue of their absolute consubstantiality or homoousia all Three Divine Persons are coequal in rank, eternity, and power. The numerical sequence

191 Heb. I, 1.

194

192 2 Pet. I, 21. For a fuller elucidation of the topic of this paragraph, cfr. Heinrich, Dogmat. Theologie, IV, § 228; Kleutgen, De Ipso Deo, pp. 489-509.

193 Ακολουθία κατὰ τὴν τάξιν. 194 Cfr. the Athanasian Creed:

"Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus, sed totae tres personae coaeternae et coaequales - And in this Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another, but the whole Three Persons are COeternal together, and co-equal.”

SECTION I

THE ANTITRINITARIAN HERESIES AND THEIR CONDEMNATION BY THE CHURCH

There are two logical processes whereby the dogma of the Blessed Trinity can be essentially perverted; per defectum, i. e., by exaggerating the notion of unity and eliminating that of Trinity (Monarchianism); or per excessum, i. e., by exaggerating the concept of the Trinity, making it a Trinity of Divine Natures and thereby denying the unity of Persons (Tritheism). Tritheism will receive due consideration in the second part of this volume, in which we shall expound the doctrine of Unity in the Trinity (Unitas in Trinitate).

Monarchianism, or the doctrine of the Monarchia, as it is called by an assumption of exclusive orthodoxy like that which has led to the adoption of the term "Unitarianism" at the present day,1 denies the distinction of Persons in the Divine Nature. It is threefold: (1) crass Monarchianism, in its present-day form called Unitarianism, which denies all distinction of persons in God. (2) Modalism, so-called, which admits a Trinity of Persons, but holds that the difference between them

1 Cfr. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 117.

is not real, but merely nominal or modal; this heresy is called Sabellianism from its chief champion, Sabellius. (3) Subordinationism, which, while it readily grants that the three Divine Persons are really distinct, insists that they are not coequal, but subordinate one to the other (Arianism, Macedonianism). This logical division of Monarchianism substantially coincides with the successive phases of its historic development.

READINGS: The various text-books of Church History, especially Alzog (Pabisch-Byrne's translation), Vol. I, pp. 348 sqq., 5th ed., Cincinnati 1899; Funk-Cappadelta, A Manual of Church History, Vol. I, London 1910; *Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, Vols. I sqq.; *Oswald, Trinitätslehre, §§ 8-9, Paderborn 1888; H. Couget, La SS. Trinité et les Dogmes Antitrinitaires, Paris 1905; F. J. Hall, The Trinity, pp. 63 sqq., New York 1910.

ARTICLE I

CRASS MONARCHIANISM

1. THE HERESY OF MONARCHIANISM.-This is an ancient heresy, the beginnings of which can be traced to the second century of the Christian era. It is either Dynamistic or Patripassian. Dynamistic Monarchianism asserts that the Father alone is true God, and that the divine element in Christ was merely a power (dúvaμs) indwelling in Him as an impersonal divine spirit. Patripassian Monarchianism completely identifies the Son with the Father, asserting that the Person of the Father was made flesh and suffered on the Cross. The Patripassian is superior to the

Dynamistic form of Monarchianism in so far as it acknowledges Christ to be a manifestation of the Divine Essence.

a) Dynamistic Monarchianism was championed by the Ebionites, the Cerinthians, and the Carpocratians, who all held that Christ was a mere man, though endowed with divine powers or energies, after the manner of the Old Testament prophets or the pagan soothsayers. The chief representatives of this heresy were Theodotus of Byzantium (about A. D. 192), a tanner by trade, and his pupil Theodotus the Younger. The latter, surnamed the Money-Changer, asserted that a divine power had indeed descended upon the man Jesus at his baptism, but that the same Divine Power (λóyos, viós) had appeared in Melchisedech, who had been mediator and intercessor for the angels in the same sense in which Christ was for men, and whose followers were therefore called Melchisedechians. A somewhat later protagonist of this heresy was the notorious Paul of Samosata, an extremely clever man, who died as Bishop of Antioch, about A. D. 260. He taught that Christ, though supernaturally begotten and born of a virgin, was nevertheless a mere man, and that the Divine Logos (i. e., the impersonal wisdom of God) was not united to Him substantially, but simply as a quality or power; whence His deification was foreordained. Thus "the Logos was greater than Christ; the Logos was from above, Christ from below; Christ suffered in His nature and wrought miracles by grace." It was

2 Alzog, Universal Church History, English tr., Vol. I, 350; Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, etc., new impression, London 1903, pp. 304 sq. On Theodotus

the tanner, and his pupil the money-changer, cfr. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., V, 28; Theodoretus, Haeret. Fab., II, 5.