On the One and Triune God. I. Bearing the care of a most necessary instruction, it is permitted to say briefly, first and before all, that which it is first needful for all to know; I desire that what is the foundation of the salvation of all may be for us the threshold of our discourse; and that our teaching may begin from that whence all that is takes its origin, and that which was not has its beginning; and that the belief of the heart may open to us the door of our discourse—that belief which has opened the mouths of all rightly-believing Christians unto the salvation of confession. From the beginning, then, of human salvation, with Christ's help, let our words rightly take their starting-point. Let everyone, therefore, who wishes to be saved first believe in God the First and the Last, one and triune: one in subsistence, three in substance;
one in power, three in person; one in nature, three in name; one in deity, who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, wholly invisible, incomprehensible, ineffable, in whom there is being for ever, because eternal is the God who is Trinity—of whom you must seek no beginning, who has no end, and who ever was what He is and shall be; because in God there is no repetition, but ever the perfection of the Trinity. That the God who is Trinity is one, God Himself bears witness of Himself in the Law, saying: 'Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one' (Deut. 6:4). But that that one God is Trinity, the Saviour taught in the Gospel, saying: 'Go now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt.
28:19). By these two testimonies of the two Laws, as by certain most firm supports, the faith of believers is established, wherein you have in truth Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity. For the greatness of the matter, then, we have said briefly what we believe, and the faith of the heart has brought forth the confession of the mouth; and this must be firmly held against all heresies: that the one God cannot be divided or separated, because what He was wholly, He ever was as He is. Let the venomous and insane madness of all heretics, then, cease, since with God Himself as witness we hear and believe: 'Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one'; because He who is one ever was this which He is. But that you may know how great He is, He spoke in the plural at the founding of the world:
'Let us make man after our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26). But that you may not err in the number, Christ points out to you the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the name of which God, as of one God, all the human race is to be baptized. What more about the co-eternity of the Trinity? That He is One, He sufficiently teaches us. But concerning the truth of the persons of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the distinction made by Christ, by the authority of His precept, has abundantly instructed His hearers. By these testimonies, I say, all the perversity of errors is shut out; whereby, by the naming, the Trinity, and by the attesting, the Unity, is approved. II.
Since, then, the greatness of the matter forbids us to speak more of these things as of things ineffable, let us preserve with firm faith what has been said above. For to him to whom these few things about God the Trinity do not suffice, more things, even according to Scripture, will not profit. For we have spoken only of this: that He is One in Trinity, and Three in Unity. But of His essence who shall be able to speak? How He is everywhere present and invisible, or how He fills heaven and earth and every creature, according to that word: 'Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord' (Jer. 23:24). And elsewhere: 'The Spirit of God,' according to the prophet, 'hath filled the whole world' (Wisd. 1:7). And again: 'Heaven is my seat, and the earth my footstool' (Isa. 66:1).
God therefore is everywhere, wholly immeasurable, and everywhere near, according to His own witness concerning Himself: 'I am,' He says, 'a God at hand, and not a God afar off' (Jer. 23:23). We do not, then, seek a God dwelling far from us, whom we must receive within ourselves; for He dwells in us as the soul in the body, if indeed we are His sound members, if we are not dead in sins, if we are free from the corruption of a putrid will: then truly He dwells in us, who said: 'And I will dwell in them, and walk among them' (2 Cor. 6:16; Lev. 26:12). But if we are worthy that He should be in us, then in truth we are made alive by Him, as His living members: 'For in Him,' as the Apostle says, 'we live, and move, and are' (Acts
17:28). Who, I say, will search out this ineffable and incomprehensible essence of His, most high? Who shall scrutinize the depths of God? Who shall dare to treat of the eternal Beginning of the universe? Who shall glory in knowing the infinite God, who fills all things and surrounds all things, penetrates all things and surpasses all things, contains all things and escapes all things—'whom no man hath ever seen' (1 Tim. 6:16), as He is? Let no one, therefore, presume to search out the unsearchable things of God: what He was, how He was, where He was. These are things ineffable, inscrutable, unsearchable: only this simply, yet strongly, believe—that God is thus, and shall be thus as He was, because God is unchangeable. III.
Who, then, is God? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God is. Inquire no further about God; for to those who wish to know the high depth of things, nature must first be considered, before God. The knowledge of the Trinity is rightly compared to the depth of the sea, according to that word of the Wise Man: 'And the deep depth, who shall find it out?' (Eccl. 7:25). If anyone, then, wishes to know the most profound ocean of divine knowledge, let him first, if he can, survey this visible sea; and the less he knows himself to be able to understand of those things that lie hidden within the sea, the more let him understand that he can know less of the depth of the Author; and as he ought and as is fitting, let him presume to treat less of the Creator than of the creature thence created:
for he cannot be fit in greater matters who has not first investigated the lesser; and to whom credence is not given in lesser things, how shall he be believed in greater? For who, I ask, that is ignorant of earthly things, scrutinizes the heavenly? Alas for those who, according to the Apostle, speak vain things, understanding neither the things they say, nor those concerning which they affirm (1 Tim. 1:7).
For how many there are, to whom is woe, who—though on frail wing—striving to fly on high, and setting their mouth in heaven against the creature, even by parts, not to say all, with their reasoning not first collected, presume first to teach of the highest depth with unclean heart and impure mouth—not understanding that God the Trinity is recognized not by words but by faith, who is understood by the devout faith of a clean heart, and not by impure babblings. Devoutly, therefore, is the great Trinity to be believed, and not impiously discussed: for the one God, the Trinity, is a certain insuperable and unsearchable ocean. The heaven is on high, and the earth broad, and the sea deep, and the ages long (Job 8:9):
but higher and broader, and deeper and longer, is the knowledge of Him who fashioned nature, who created it out of nothing. IV. Understand the creature, if you wish to know the Creator: if you cannot understand even that, be silent about the Creator; but believe in the Creator: for better, and knowing more, is the piety that keeps silence than impious loquacity: for it is exceedingly foolish and impious to pass over from faith to empty words concerning the Lord who handles, who is invisible, inestimable, unseeable. For 'the deep depth,' as it is written, 'who shall find it out?' (Eccl. 7:25); because just as the depth of the sea is invisible to human sight, so likewise the divinity of the Trinity is found to be incomprehensible to human senses;
and therefore if anyone, I say, wishes to know what he ought to believe, let him not think he can understand more by speaking than by believing: for far rather will the wisdom of the divinity sought flee away than be drawn forth. Seek, therefore, the highest knowledge not by the disputation of words, but by the perfection of good conduct; not by the tongue, but by faith, which proceeds from the simplicity of the heart—not that which is gathered by the conjecture of a learned impiety. If, then, you seek the Ineffable by disquisitions, He will recede farther from you (ibid., 24) more than He was: if by faith, Wisdom will stand where she abides, in the gates (Prov. 1:21); and where she dwells, she will be seen, at least in part: but then in truth she is even somewhat attained, when the Invisible is incomprehensibly believed:
for God is to be believed invisible as He is, although in part He may be seen by a clean heart. Wherefore, dearest brethren, let us entreat that same everywhere-present, invisible God of ours, that either the fear of His faith, or the love which knows not how to fall, may persevere in us; which fear, joined to love, may make us wise in all things: and let piety persuade us to keep silence about that which is greater than can be told, because it is a certain inscrutable and unutterable thing, to know God who is. Who He is, and how great He is, is known only to Himself. But because He is our God, invisible though He be to us, yet He is to be knocked at by us, often to be knocked at, ever to be held fast—the deep God, the immeasurable, the secret, the exalted, the almighty God;
and through the merits and intercessions of His saints He is to be prayed to, that He may grant some little particle of His light to our darkness, which may shine for us, dull and ignorant as we are, on the dark way of this world, that it may lead us to Himself—our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit is glory unto the ages of ages.