TRINITÀ, SANTISSIMA

### THE HOLY TRINITY

The Trinitarian mystery, God’s revelation to humanity of His intimate constitution, is expressed in the following terms: “God is absolutely one and relatively three; that is, in one nature or essence, most simple and subsistent, there are three distinct Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—who equally possess all the essential divine attributes.”

#### I. HOLY SCRIPTURE

In the Old Testament, God did not openly reveal the mystery, perhaps to prevent the Jewish people, surrounded by idolaters, from falling into polytheism. Yet there are traces of a distinction of terms within the Godhead, especially in the Sapiential Books. Divine Wisdom is described there as assisting and cooperating with God (Prov 8:22); in Sir 24:5: “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High before all creatures,” and in Wis 7:25–26: “The brightness of eternal light... a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.” It is also noteworthy that in these same books mention is made of the Word—*Ação*—of God, acting divinely (Wis 9:1; Sir 42:15, etc.). Other hints are found in messianic texts (Ps 2 and 109; Isa 7:14; Dan 7:13, etc.) and in theophanies or divine appearances, called “the Angel of Yahweh” (e.g., the burning bush, Exod 3:2). The indications regarding the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament are even vaguer and more obscure. Yet all these hints, vague in themselves, gain meaning and substance in the light of Christian Revelation.

The Synoptic Gospels present the Trinity in concrete expressions accessible to popular understanding. Without in any way diminishing the unity of God, which is the heritage of ancient Revelation, the three Divine Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—are distinctly indicated, with real relations of existence and action among them. Jesus is the Son of God; upon Him the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove, while the voice of the Father is heard: “This is my beloved Son” (ἀγαπητός = only-begotten, according to the usage of the time). This occurs at the waters of the Jordan and on Mount Tabor (Mark 9:2; Matt 3:16–17; 17:5; Luke 3:21–22). Jesus acts as God: He forgives sins (Luke 5:20), perfects and completes the law of God (Matt 5:21), is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8; Mark 2:28), is the judge of all men, and promises eternal life to those who love Him above all things (Matt 7:22; 25:31; 8:21; 10:37; 19:21; Luke 9:59; 6:22; Mark 10:21). Only the Son knows the Father perfectly, as the Father knows the Son (Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22). Peter’s confession—“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—at Caesarea is a truth beyond human capacity, revealed to the Apostle directly by the heavenly Father (Matt 16:16–17), and Jesus Himself confirms it forcefully before the High Priest in the Sanhedrin, even to the point of being condemned to death for this declaration (Matt 26:63–65; Mark 14:61–64; Luke 22:70).

The Holy Spirit, although His personality is not indicated with unequivocal clarity in the Incarnation of the Word (Luke 1:35; Matt 1:18), is certainly attested in connection with John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), Simeon (Luke 2:25), the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:9–11), the blasphemy against Him (Matt 12:31–32), and in Jesus’ promise (Luke 24:49). The Synoptic testimonies culminate in the Trinitarian formula of Baptism: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). In the Greek text, the phrase reads: εἰς τὸ ὄνομα = “into the name,” and the conjunction καὶ = “and” is repeated with the article τοῦ = “of” before each term.

A Byzantine depiction of the Holy Trinity, expressing the Catholic doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit “from the Father through the Son.” Fresco from the church of Kovácsvárosa, 9th century—Kastoria (Greece).

The procession of the Holy Spirit is less clearly defined, but there are texts that undoubtedly affirm His divine personality, such as Rom 8:11: “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

#### II. TRADITION

From the earliest centuries of Christianity, the concreteness and simplicity of Trinitarian doctrine are evident in the symbols, in the liturgy (especially the baptismal rite), in prayers, and in art. The *Didachē* (second half of the 1st century) instructs that Baptism must be conferred “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In the 2nd century, St. Justin (1 Apol. 61:3–13), St. Irenaeus (Demonstratio, 3 and 7), and Tertullian (Adv. Prax. 26) all concur in presenting this baptismal liturgy as Trinitarian and Christological in character. It is worth quoting Tertullian (loc. cit.): *(Christus)... mandans ut tingerent in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum non in unum. Nam nec semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tingimur.* “(Christ)... commands that they be baptized into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into one. For it is not once, but three times, that we are baptized into each name for each person.”

Among Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and others, there are traces of a common profession of faith used in all the Churches, with a Trinitarian baptismal formula so clear as to leave no room for doubt or debate. Echoes of this profession appear in the doxology of St. Clement of Rome in his famous Letter to the Corinthians (58:2): “May God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the hope of the elect, live,” and in an ancient Greek evening hymn that greets Christ as “joyful Light of the holy glory of the immortal Father,” concluding: “We praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God.”

Around the year 265, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, in his *Expositio fidei*, anticipated in substance the Symbol later sanctioned at Nicaea, summarizing the Church’s faith in the mystery thus:

> “One God, Father of the living Word... perfect Begetter of the perfect (Son), Father of the Only-begotten. One Lord... God from God... true Son of the true God... And one Holy Spirit, who receives His substance from God... in whom are manifested God the Father and God the Son... perfect Trinity, undivided in glory, eternity, and kingdom... Nothing created or subordinate in the Trinity... The Son was never absent from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from the Son, but the same Trinity has always existed, unchanging.”

Sixty years later, the Council of Nicaea (325) would fix the fundamental expression of the mystery with the term ὁμοούσιος (*consubstantial*). To understand and evaluate the Nicene definition and the Arian heresy that provoked it, it is necessary to recall the genesis of Trinitarian theology, which laboriously developed from the 2nd to the 3rd century.

Christian preaching of the one and triune God encountered, from the very beginning, two adversaries: Judaism, which opposed the Trinity, and polytheism, which opposed divine unity. Philosophical currents with Stoic and Neoplatonic tendencies, aimed at rationalizing religion by reducing it to the metaphysical sphere, superimposed themselves upon more or less decadent religious practices, especially those of polytheism. Stoicism, having cleared the field of polytheism through a naturalistic interpretation of its mythological basis, constructed its religious world in the form of pantheism, whereby the universe is conceived as the living whole that embraces and unifies spirit and matter, God and cosmos. In this whole, the principal part is played by the λόγος or universal reason (sometimes identified with fire, πῦρ νοητῶν), which is the immanent vital force of matter and, in man, becomes thought and word (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος — προφορικός).

Neoplatonism, on the other hand, in religious terms and in opposition to Stoicism, asserted itself as transcendent monism, and on the cosmic-psychological plane as irreducible dualism. The Neoplatonic Divinity is inaccessible, entirely detached from the material world: between the eternal God and eternal matter are interposed infinite intermediate divine beings (gods and demiurges), which, by acting upon matter, transform it into our sensible world, imitating the Ideas—absolute, subsistent perfections that are closer to God. Among these intermediate beings, a λόγος also emerges here as the principal architect of the universe.

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**TRINITY, HOLY — Procession of the Holy Spirit (Ist. Bulleto)**
Christ stands in the tomb surrounded by the instruments of the Passion. To the left, St. Agricola of Avignon and a devotee. Avignonese school (mid-15th century) — Paris, Louvre Museum.

"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you..." and the other in 1 Cor 3:16: "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (cf. Eph 6:19). In Tit 3:5 it is said that the Spirit is sent to us by the Father through the Son. Moreover, the mutual relationship of the three divine Persons is clearly signified in such a way that the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son... so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, who calls out, 'Abba! Father'" (Gal 4:4 ff.). While St. Paul’s doctrine is eminently soteriological and Christocentric, it is neither permissible nor possible to erase from his doctrinal framework the concept of the one and triune God.

St. John, moreover, not only affirms the distinction of the three Persons but also indicates the paths of the divine processions and relations, setting forth in concrete language those relationships between nature and the Persons that the Fathers and theologians would later translate into philosophical language. The Fourth Gospel opens with the proclamation of the divinity of the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The eternal Word is the Only-begotten of the Father, μονογενής (ibid.). He cannot be confused with all creatures made through him, while he is not an instrument of the Father, though he is, by order of nature, after the Father: he is sent and given by the Father (Lk 3:16), receives from the Father (Jn 16:5), yet is one with the Father, who is immanent in him: "Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" (Jn 14:9). "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son (Jn 14:16 and 15:26); he is the Spirit who is to complete the sanctification, instruction, and confirmation of the Apostles in the truth already preached by the Lord (Jn 3:5 and 16:13-14). St. John, while preserving as predominant the concept of the intimate vital unity of God, at the same time vigorously affirms the three divine Persons as truly distinct terms operating within that unity. Thus, the main lines of the Trinitarian mystery, far from being merely outlined, are so deeply embedded in the consciousness of the Christian community that the Fathers and theologians could develop a rich and harmonious conceptual elaboration.

II. TRADITION

The formulations of the dogma of the Holy Trinity, which in the early tradition remain at the level of

Now, while Philo attempted in Alexandria to reconcile Neoplatonism with Jewish religion, Gnosticism sought a more universal synthesis on the basis of Persian dualism (Mazdeism), also accepting elements from various Eastern religions known as "mystery" religions. The aims of conquest by such a complicated "gnosis," steeped in mystical-rational hybridism, extended even to the new Christian religion and its mysteries. With regard to the Trinity, God the Father was identified with the transcendent deity; Jesus was regarded as a mere man in whom Christ, one of the aeons, descended to free the spirit, i.e., the soul, from the slavery of matter.

Valiant apologists, such as St. Irenaeus and Tertullian, rejected Gnostic distortions by appealing simply to tradition; others, however, such as St. Justin, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen—coming from philosophical schools not alien to Neoplatonism and Stoic elements—more boldly took upon themselves the task of demonstrating that the data of Revelation were in no way in conflict with human reason, and thus the first outlines emerged of translating the Trinitarian mystery into the categories and formulas of philosophical language.

The primary object of study was the mysterious relationship between Christ and the Father. The apologists did not doubt what Revelation suggested to reason, especially through the Fourth Gospel, which presents Jesus Christ as true God, distinct from the Father, and bound to the Father by a spiritual bond of generation, according to the process of divine knowledge, to which belongs the term λόγος = "Word." But the λόγος awakened in them memories of Stoicism and Neoplatonic longings, from which they borrowed certain modes of expression that seemed to lower the divine dignity of the Word to the level of the intermediate beings of Neoplatonism, which, however exalted, remain creatures. The consequence of this somewhat confused state of affairs was an exaggerated separation of the Son from the Father under the influence of Neoplatonic transcendence, and the tendency to reduce the eternal generation of the Word to a temporal generation, coinciding with the creation of the world, also in view of the important function attributed to the Word by the Prologue of St. John: "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Stoicism, with its emphasis on order, favored this tendency, leading to the understanding of the Word first as hidden in the bosom of the Father (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος), then as generated or manifested in the act of universal creation (λόγος προφορικός). Thus it was that Origen called the Father ὁ Θεός, God par excellence, and the Son simply ὁ Θεός without qualification, and even δεύτερος ὁ Θεός (God in the second degree). Equally unhappy expressions are found also in St. Justin, Athenagoras, and Tertullian.

III. ERRORS AND DEFINITIONS – The exaggerated “henotism” of the Stoic school, with its single God immanent in the world, of the Judaizing sects and the Eastern religions that were rapidly spreading through the Roman Empire, was rampant throughout the West under the name of “divine monarchianism” and closed the door to any truly Trinitarian conception, even compromising the divinity of Christ. Among the chief exponents of this current, over the centuries, were Noetus of Smyrna, Praxeas, Artemon, and especially Sabellius, from whom the name “Sabellianism” derives. This system is a nominalistic modalism that in fact nullifies the mystery of the Trinity, since the three Divine Persons are reduced to three aspects or modes of being of a single God (Father = God the Creator; Son = God the Redeemer; Holy Spirit = God the Sanctifier).

Alongside this modalism (q.v.), there also developed adoptionism (q.v.), especially through the efforts of Theodotus of Byzantium, who attempted to propagate this erroneous doctrine in Rome itself, though he was immediately expelled by Pope Victor (2nd century). The adoptionists, consistent with the modalist doctrines, unable to acknowledge in Christ a true God, the natural Son of the Father, taught that He was in reality only a man, and the Son of God only in an adoptive sense.

The champions of this error in the East took the name of “subordinationists” (q.v.) and denied the equality of the Son with the Father, making Christ an inferior being to the Father, however excellent in comparison with other creatures. Modalism, adoptionism, and subordinationism, closely connected with one another, are clearly reflected in the writings of Paul of Samosata (q.v.), bishop of Antioch, around the mid-3rd century. To him is linked a controversy that might seem at first glance purely verbal, yet it was the prelude to a long duel fought between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism, with the critical points of the 4th century, on the basis of the term ὁμοούσιος = consubstantial, which passed into the Antiochene school by derivation from the philosophy of Aristotle.

The Stagirite, in his philosophy, distinguished a first essence (or substance), οὐσία πρώτη, and a second essence, οὐσία δευτέρα. A first substance is being in its concrete, real, physical state, as found in the individual—for example, “man” in such-and-such a person; a second substance is the specific essence, abstract, in which many individuals of the same species share—for example, “humanity.” Ὁμοούσιος could therefore mean either a subject that shares the same specific nature with another (as, for instance, such-and-such a person and such-and-such another) or a subject that has the same numerically one substance as another. It is clear that the term ὁμοούσιος cannot be attributed to the Divine Persons in the first sense, but only in the second.

At Rome, as early as the 2nd century, ὁμοούσιος was used in the correct sense, as is shown by a letter of Pope Dionysius to Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, whereas Paul of Samosata, in the following century, misused the term in a modalist sense, confusing οὐσία πρώτη with οὐσία δευτέρα and thus reducing the Word not only to the same substance as the Father but also to the same Person. Yet the Samosatene’s interpretation remained isolated, for the Council of Antioch in 268 condemned the term ὁμοούσιος as he had abused it, without much concern for the fact that the term, rightly understood, was in use at Rome and elsewhere.

Even apart from the technicality of this term, it is certain that the concept it signified was already part of the pre-Nicene tradition, and the First Ecumenical Council merely confirmed it definitively against the Arian heresy (q.v.). The novelty was not in the definition of Nicaea, but in the Arian heresy, which may be summarized in these main points: 1) The true God is ἀγέννητος, that is, unbegotten, and cannot communicate Himself to anyone because of His transcendence; 2) God is not Father from eternity, for He created the Word, His Son, and through Him all other things, at a determined time; 3) The Word is not properly God, for He is heterogeneous to the Godhead, like any other creature, and cannot even be said to know God perfectly: both the Son and the Holy Spirit are clearly separated from God, being made of a substance not that of the Father; 4) The filiation of the Word cannot be said to be absolutely natural, but merely adoptive. Errors so deadly demolished the Trinity of God and the divinity of Christ.

The new heresy, despite the Apologia of Arius and his followers, was condemned and the doctrine of the faith was sealed in a Symbol, which, with slight revisions by the First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), has passed into the liturgy of the Mass. Here is the principal formula of the Symbol: “We believe... in Jesus Christ, our Lord, Son of God, only-begotten of the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father... born, not made, consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father.” The epigoni of Arianism (Anomeans, Acacians, Homoiousians) strove in vain for almost the entire 4th century to twist the meaning of ὁμοούσιος or to erase it altogether from the doctrine of the faith. St. Anastasius and many other Fathers steadfastly defended the Nicene definition until its complete triumph, thus preserving the foundation of Trinitarian theology, which, after the elaboration by the three Cappadocians and Hilary of Poitiers, found its definitive systematization in the fifteen books *De Trinitate* of St. Augustine. Some hypercritical moderns have attempted to argue that the Nicene definition was based on an equivocation, because the ὁμοούσιος would have been understood by the Latins in the sense of numerical unity of substance or nature, while the three great Cappadocians would have understood it only in the sense of specific unity. But the false interpretation of the pure doctrine of St. Basil, mediated through St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Gregory of Nyssa (proposed by Harnack, Loofs, and Turmel, who have erroneously called it “Neo-Nicene”), not only would mark a step backward or an involution of the Trinitarian mystery, but would imply a veritable Tritheism (v.). A thorough study of these Fathers, of the purest Catholic tradition, has demolished the foundations of this Protestant attempt to rehabilitate Arian heresy (cf. St. Basil, *Homilia contra Sabellium, Arium et Anomaeos*, 3: PG 31, 605; St. Gregory Nazianzen, cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, *Oratio Catech.*, 3).

In the year 381, the Council of Constantinople confirmed the Nicene definition and reaffirmed the concept of consubstantiality, applied to the Third Person in relation to the Son and the Father, against the heresy of the Macedonians or Pneumatomachians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The following year, a particular council held at Antioch compiled a profession of faith to be sent to Pope Damasus, in these terms: “We believe that the Divinity, the power, the essence (= οὐσία) is one in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; equal the glory, coeternal the dominion in three perfect Hypostases, that is, in three perfect Persons.”

It remained to explain how, given the numerical unity of the divine essence, a real distinction of Persons could be conceived. Facing the tradition of Constantinople, their doctrine passed directly into Scholasticism, which was able to present Trinitarian theology in an organic and systematic treatment. The Church does not, for this reason, dispense itself from vigilance and intervention when new opinions threaten the purity of the dogma fixed in conciliar definitions. Thus, in the 13th century, the Fourth Lateran Council intervened to clarify the terms and concepts of the mystery, against FIORE, IL (v.), who was connected with the father of nominalism (v.), Roscelin (v.), already energetically opposed by St. Anselm. In the 15th century, the Council of Florence clarified, with the decree *Pro facubitis*, the concept of the relation of origin and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (ab utroque), in the face of the positions of the Eastern schismatic Church, which rejected the *Filioque* inserted into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol, beginning in the 6th century (for the first time in Spain).

IV. THEOLOGY OF THE MYSTERY

Human reason, faced with the mystery of the Holy Trinity, can follow two paths: either to proceed from the Trinity of Persons to arrive at the unity of nature (substance), according to the itinerary of Greek thought, synthesized by St. John Damascene; or to move from the unity of substance (or nature) to arrive at the Trinity of Persons, according to the itinerary of Latin theology, expounded above all by St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1a, qq. 27-43). For the speculative Trinitarian theology of Scholasticism, it is necessary to begin, with regard to the Trinity, from the meaning of the two terms “nature-person” and their mutual relations. For all the heresies and Trinitarian and Christological errors have indeed arisen from the confusion of these terms.

But the precedents of Scholastic speculation are already found in the Fathers. St. Augustine had insisted on the analogies that the spiritual soul presents with the Trinity, based on the cognitive and volitive processes, while firmly maintaining the infinite distance between the created reality of the soul and the Divine Essence. Indeed, in the soul Augustine discerned and highlighted the following triadic states: “mens, notitia, amor” (= intellect, cognition, love); “memoria, intelligentia, voluntas” (memory, intelligence, will); “esse, nosse, velle” (= being, knowing, willing). St. Thomas fixed his attention on the two specific and immanent operations of the human soul: intellect and volition, which, even within the individuality of the human spirit, spiritual and simple, lead to a duality on the operative plane. Now when the soul proposes to its own knowledge not an external object but itself, and turns to itself with love, there is a thinking subject which, in the mental word or idea of itself, contemplates and loves itself with total self-adherence. The thinking subject thus becomes a thought object, and between the two terms a line of connection is established, which is love. Even in the supreme Spirit, which is God, by way of analogy, one can consider, as perfectly immanent, two operations, intellect and volition, which, without compromising essential simplicity, are identified with His very nature. To understand this immanent dynamism of God, the following diagram may be of some help:

| GOD | thinking thought | thought thought |
| love | | |

Thus one can more easily grasp the two divine immanent processions, explicitly contained in the Symbols of faith and in the definitions of ecclesiastical Magisterium, which necessarily imply distinct terms. For every operative procession cannot be understood without proceeding from a *terminus a quo* and arriving at a *terminus ad quem*; divine intellect and will, in themselves,

They will therefore require four terms, two for each operation. Now intellection has all the characteristics of a spiritual generation, as is evident from the very terminology used for human cognition (to conceive, concept, to reproduce, etc.). The first divine procession, understood according to intellection, will have as its terms a quo God, the subject and principle of thought (= the Father), who, by thinking, conceives and thus generates the Word (= the Son). The second procession, which must be understood according to volition, is more obscure and lacks the character of generation. God the Father contemplates Himself in the Son (the Word) and loves Himself: the ineffable love that unites the Father with the Son constitutes the third term, which we call the Holy Spirit. Thus the Son proceeds, through intellectual generation, from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds, according to the operation of the will, from the Father and the Son.

The mystery is barely glimpsed through the processions of origin, as theologians call them, and already serious difficulties arise. The real distinction of the terms, which would be the Persons, seems to clash with the absolute simplicity of God, in whom existence and nature, attributes and operations are one and the same thing in the most absolute manner, thus rendering any real distinction within the Godhead impossible. Theologians, however, rightly admit a distinction of reason, with a real foundation (distinctio rationis ratiocinata), among the various divine attributes, which are therefore not synonymous. In this way it becomes possible to speak distinctly of intellection and volition in God, with their respective terms, while always preserving the absolute unity and simplicity of the divine essence.

The difficulties are not yet overcome, for it is not clear how one can move from this distinction of reason, even if it be “rationis ratiocinata,” to the affirmation of three terms or Persons, really distinct and subsisting in the same unique nature or divine essence, as faith demands.

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church found another logical presupposition of the Trinitarian mystery in the doctrine of relations, which are already hinted at concretely in Holy Scripture, which presents a paternity and a filiation in God, now called Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit. Aristotle, grasping their inner meaning, defines relation as “το πάθος” (= ad aliquid), that is, a mutual reference of two things, as, for example, of father to son. It belongs to the category of accidents, but has quite special characteristics. While, for example, quantity and quality express a perfection that inheres in the subject and enriches it entitatively, relation essentially signifies reference to another, a dynamic order of reference from one term to another. Its consistency is not entitative, and, although it is a real relation or reference, it remains almost on the margins of reality, not bringing about any increase of perfection in the subject on the metaphysical plane. In it, therefore, it is customary to distinguish a twofold formal aspect, namely the *esse in*, by which it inheres in a given subject, and the *esse ad*, by which it refers to another subject. The true constitutive note of relation is, without doubt, the *esse ad*. From this it follows that relations, precisely because they do not bring about in the subject an entitative perfection but simply a state of reference to another, cannot be distinguished from one another except by way of opposition.

Transferring, always by way of analogy, this doctrine to the plane of the Godhead, the two divine processions give rise to four relations: paternity, which signifies the reference of the Father to the Son, and filiation, which signifies the reference in the Son to the Father; divine spiration, which refers the Father and the Son together to the Holy Spirit, and passive spiration (also simply called procession), which refers the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. The absolute simplicity of the divine essence certainly does not allow us to understand relations as accidents inhering in God Himself; rather, they are said to subsist, precisely by virtue of the one divine nature, with which they are identified according to the *esse in*. According to the *esse ad*, however, they cannot be identified with the divine essence, because the two formal concepts, being in itself and being towards another, cannot be reduced to identity.

There is therefore, between the nature of God and the relations, according to the formal aspect of the *esse ad*, a distinction of reason with a foundation much more substantial than that which obtains among simple divine attributes. From the distinction between the essence of God and the divine relations, theologians move to the real distinction among the subsistent relations themselves. Nor need one fear that, through this process, one might arrive at affirming four terms or Persons instead of three, because the relations, identified with the divine nature according to the *esse in*, are really distinct from one another only according to opposition. Since active spiration is not opposed to paternity and filiation, there are only three really distinct relations. Paternity, filiation, and passive spiration, and consequently only three Persons (really distinct): the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since in God the Persons are identified with the subsistent relations, the Father is the same as paternity, the Son is the same as filiation, and the Holy Spirit is the same as passive spiration.

In conclusion, it may be said that if the relations, according to the *esse in*, remain identified with the most simple and unique essence of God, according to the *esse ad* they are really distinct from one another and constitute the Persons. The itinerary followed by theology thus runs from procession to relation and from relation to person. The remainder of the treatise on the Trinity is a series of corollaries of the fundamental points that have been outlined.

Thus is understood the perfect equality of the Persons on the absolute metaphysical plane of the Godhead; for the Persons differ from one another not by an entitative perfection present in one and lacking in the others, but solely by a relation or order of origin, whereby the Son signifies derivation from the Father and the Holy Spirit signifies derivation from the Father and the Son. The Father, therefore, is neither more perfect nor more powerful nor prior to the Son, who He generates from eternity, and similarly the Holy Spirit, though proceeding from the Father and the Son, is not inferior to them; with them He shares the identical and unique nature, the indivisible foundation of all absolute perfections. Whatever is essential belongs equally to each of the three Persons; yet each Person possesses (or is) the divine essence with its respective attributes according to the modalities of its own relation. A useful example for understanding this is the triangle, in which each angle embraces the whole surface in a direction distinct from the other two, precisely because the surface itself is one and identical. As for what pertains to the divine relation as such, it remains incommunicably proper to each single Person, and we have the personal properties known under the name of notions and notional acts: thus innascibility, that is, not deriving from another Person, is exclusively proper to the Father, as is also the act of generating; spiration, on the other hand, is proper to the Father and the Son, and being spirated is proper to the Holy Spirit. Finally, circuminsession (q.v.), that is, the perfect immanence of one Person in the other two, without their being identified or absorbed into one another, is but a consequence of the absolute unity of nature and the real distinction of the subsistent relations in God.

TRANSCENDENCE OF THE MYSTERY

Catholic theology has certainly not claimed to resolve, and thus to annul within rationality, the lofty mystery, but has left it above any human conception. On the contrary, superficial and faithless scholars of modern times, driven by blind confidence in the power of reason, have attempted—though in vain—to eliminate the Christian mystery by classifying it among the inconsistent triads of various pagan religions and philosophies. More than Greek-Roman mythology, it is the rich literature of Eastern religions that offers material for comparison with Christian transcendence, particularly the religions of Babylon, India, Egypt, and Persia.

In the Babylonian pantheon, the prevailing triads are two: one cosmic, composed of Anu (= sky), Enlil (= earth), and Ea (= water), and the other astral, composed of Sin (= moon), Shamash (= sun), and Ishtar (= full Venus). Other triads consist of a man, a woman, and a child. These triads are nothing more than polytheistic groupings of three subjects endowed with their own nature and personality, united only accidentally. Moreover, it is proven that among the Babylonians, they never attained

the level of a true religious concept, nor did they influence the development of the Christian mystery (cf. A. Calderini, *La religione degli Egiziani*, in P. Tacchi-Venturi, op. cit., I, p. 289). Nor can the late Persian triads, linked to the cult of Mithras (= sun), be judged differently. These consist either of Ahura Mazda (= supreme and true God), Mithras (= sun), and Sraosha (= a hero), or of Mithras, Cautes (= rising sun), and Cautopates (= setting sun). The first is a heterogeneous grouping, and the second is the personification of the sun in its phases. One can confidently conclude with the following judgment of Fr. Lebreton, a specialist in Trinitarian matters: «Je ne pense pas qu'il soit utile de discuter toutes ces fantaisies : elles marquent une phase curieuse, mais bien dépassée maintenant, de l'histoire des religions. En réalité la mythologie n'a rien fourni par elle-même à la théologie trinitaire» (*Histoire du dogme de la Trinité*, I, Paris 1927, pp. 17-18).

Another point of comparison is found in Neoplatonism: the philosophical triad of Plotinus, the mystical philosopher who lived in the 3rd century AD, who taught that the transcendent Divinity, in the Platonic manner, is the *Hen* (= One), from which emanates the *Nous* (= Intellect), which in turn gives rise to the *Psyche* (= Soul). The Platonic triad, though not devoid of Christian influences, represents a pantheistic degradation of the deity, in perfect antithesis to the mystery of the one and triune God of Christianity, which, in its transcendence, is distinctly separate from the created world. Thus, any supposed similarities between the Christian Trinitarian mystery on one hand and the triads of polytheistic religions and various philosophical systems on the other extend no further than a verbal analogy and present no other affinity than that of the number three.

*La Ste Trin. dans les dmes justes*, Angers 1932; A. Maltha, *De process. Verbi div.*, in *Angelicum*, 11 (1934), pp. 23-55; R. Arnou, *De Deo Trino in fontibus Revelationis*, Rome 1938; A. Stolz, *De S.ma Trinitate*, Freiburg im Br. 1939; A. Maltha, *De divinarium relationum existentia, quidditate, distinctione*, in *Angelicum*, 17 (1940), pp. 3-31; M. T. L. Penido, *A propos de la procession d'amour*, in *Eph. theol. Lov.*, 15 (1938), pp. 338-44; F. Leotta, *La persona dello Spirito S. nella dottr. di s. Agostino*, Acireale 1943; S. Sottolana, *Un tratti, ined. su lo Spirito S. di Agostino Trionfi d'Ancora*, Rome 1943; F. Taymans d'Emperon, *Le mystère primordial. La Trin. dans sa vivante image*, Paris 1946; P. Parente, *De Deo Uno et Trino*, 3rd ed., Rome 1949; S. Vallaro, *Quaestionum de mysterio S.mae Trin.*, in *Angelicum*, 26 (1949), pp. 205-17; A. Krapice, *Inquisitio circa d. Thomae doctrinam de Spiritus S. prout Amore*, in *Divus Thomas Plac.*, 53 (1950), pp. 474-95; H. Paissac, *Théol. du Verbe. St Augustin et St Thomas*, Paris 1951.

VI. LITURGY

Since the Catholic liturgy aims to render to the One and Triune God the worship of latria or adoration, everything within it is ordered to this supreme end, from the Sacrifice of the Mass, to the Sacraments, to the Divine Office, to the cult of Mary and the Saints, and even to catechesis itself. It is therefore not surprising that Rome, until the fourteenth century, considered it superfluous to honor the Most Holy Trinity as such with a special feast. Moreover, the Eastern Church still has no feast for the Trinity, whose mystery, in the Byzantine rite, is particularly recalled on the day of Pentecost (cf. v.).

It is also well to bear in mind that the few Latin liturgical prayers addressed directly to the Trinity are not in keeping with the spirit of the ancient Roman liturgy, which, by principle, is directed to God the Father, and reveal a later epoch: such are, for example, the *Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas* and the *Placet, Sancta Trinitas* of Frankish origin, which begin to appear in the Ordines Missae of Sacramentaries and Missals between the ninth and eleventh centuries (cf. P. Battifol, *Leçons sur la Messe*, Paris 1927, pp. 20, 22). Even the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost (elevated by Pius X on July 24, 1911, to the rite of a double of the first class: *AAS*, 3 [1911], p. 351), is not of Roman origin: it arose from private devotion to the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which flourished in the Frankish lands during the evolution that received notable impetus from the *Admonitio generalis* (§ 32) of 789 and from the *Capitulare* XXVIII (§ 33) of 794, which prescribed the exposition of Catholic doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity (ed. A. Boretius, in *MGH, Capitularia regum Francorum*, I [1883], pp. 56, 77). The first centers of this devotion were the monasteries of Aniane and Tours: in the former, its founder, St. Benedict, dedicated the abbatial church to the Most Holy Trinity in 782 (cf. *Vita*, 5: *Acta SS. Februarii*, II, Antwerp 1658, p. 614; other examples of dedications in Browe, cited in bibliography), while in the latter, Alcuino lived as an ardent promoter of this devotion and author of the treatises: *De fide sancta et individua Trinitate* (PL 101, 11-58); *De Trinitate ad Fredegisum quaestiones XXVIII* (ibid., 58-64; the *Confessio fidei*, ibid., 1027-1028, has now been claimed for John of Fécamp [cf. v.]). It is well to bear in mind, in order fully to understand the purpose of the present solemnity, that from the very beginning this devotion had the distinctive character of a profession of faith in the august mystery: suffice it to recall, in this regard, the prayers to the Most Holy Trinity contained in the *Libelli precum* of that period, recently edited by A. Wilmart (*Precum libelli quattuor aevi Karolini*, Rome 1940, p. 188, index), of which at least three come from Tours.

1. The Mass

To Alcuino, in addition to the aforementioned treatises on the Trinity, is owed also the Mass of the Trinity still in use today, with the exception of the Epistle, the Gospel, and other minor modifications introduced by St. Pius V. Indeed, in a letter addressed between 796 and 804 to the monks of St-Waast, he states that he had extracted from a Sacramentary, doubtless from Tours, a series of votive Masses, the first of which is the Mass of the Trinity (Ep. 296: ed. E. Dümmler, in *MGH, Epistolae Karolini Aevi*, II [1895], p. 455). And to the monks of Fulda, between 801 and 803, he sent the *Cartula missalis*, that is, his *Liber sacramentorum*, containing the noted series of private votive Masses for the entire week, the first of which, for Sunday, is the Mass of the Trinity (text of the Mass in PL 109, 445-446; Ep. 250, ed. cit., pp. 405-406). Now, this Mass appears in first place among the votive Masses in various Frankish Sacramentaries from the first half of the ninth century onward (cf. Leroquais, *Sacramentaires*, cited in bibliography, I, pp. 13, 20; Ellard, cited in bibliography), in those of the Ambrosian rite from the ninth to twelfth centuries (cf. O. Heiming, cited in bibliography, pp. 322-324), and, from the eleventh century onward, in Missals. Moreover, from the second half of the ninth century, in which two Sacramentaries from St-Thierry and St-Amand (Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, 213; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. lat. 2291; Leroquais, op. cit., I, pp. 23, 57) already contain this Mass at the “dominica oct. Pentecoste,” that is, the first Sunday after Pentecost. This day then became traditional in the Latin Church, despite some exceptions; indeed, in some Churches the Trinity was celebrated on the last Sunday after Pentecost, and in others it was celebrated twice a year: the first and the last Sunday after Pentecost, which is therefore called “domina Sanctae Trinitatis heimalis” (cf. Leroquais, *Bréviaires*, V, p. 317 [index]; id., *Pontificaux*, II, pp. 57, 70). It is worth noting that Canon 10 of the Synod of Seligenstadt in 1023 reveals that the recitation of this votive Mass was regarded by some as superstitious (Hefele-Lecercq, IV, II, p. 921).

2. Diffusion of the Feast

In the tenth century, the feast of the Trinity, whose institution had already been unsuccessfully urged around 775 by Catulfo to Charlemagne (*Epistolae Karolini Aevi*, cited, II, p. 505), slowly began to take hold: it was indeed introduced at Liège on the traditional date by Bishop Stephen (903-920), who endowed it with a splendid Office (text and melody) that still appears, with some adjustments, in the Roman Breviary (cf. Auda, cited in bibliography, pp. 67-121); at Reichenau around 1030; at Cluny before 1091; at Canterbury by St. Thomas Becket in 1162; at Cîteaux in 1175; among the Carthusians around 1222; among the Dominicans around the middle of the thirteenth century; among the Franciscans in 1260 (Chapter of Narbonne), but at the Chapter of Assisi in 1279 this solemnity was suppressed because it was not celebrated by the Roman Church (Le Carrou, cited in bibliography, pp. 194-195). The Synod of Arles in 1263 prescribed its celebration on the first Sunday after Pentecost with an octave (Hefele-Lecercq, VI, II, p. 115), an octave already in use in other Churches, such as in

the time of Pope John XXII, with another ancient Office omitted by John Pecham (Leroquais, *Bréviaires*, III, p. 136). The rhythmic Office composed by Pecham, now critically edited (cf. W. Lampen, *Jean Pecham O.F.M. et son Office de la Sainte Trinité*, in *La France Franciscaine*, 2nd series, 11 [1928], pp. 211-229), was indeed adopted in many Breviaries until St. Pius V, who reintroduced into his reformed Breviary (1568) the splendid Office composed by Stephen of Liège, making some adjustments here and there. It is worth noting that the homily inserted at that time in the third Nocturn, previously attributed to St. Gregory of Nazianzus by St. Augustine, must instead belong to Gregory of Elvira (cf. G. Morin, *Études, textes et découvertes*, Maredsous-Paris 1913, p. 492). The magnificent Preface, which is recited not only on Trinity Sunday but on all Sundays after Pentecost, during Advent, and after Epiphany, already appears on the Sunday of the “Octave of Pentecost” in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary (cf. H. A. Wilson, Oxford 1894, p. 129), in the Gelasian Sacramentaries of the eighth century (cf. P. De Puniet, *Le sacramentaire romain de Gellone*, Rome [1938], pp. 102a-103a), and partly in the *inlatio* of the fourth daily Mass of the Mozarabic *Liber Sacramentorum*, codex 55.3 of Toledo from the ninth century (ed. M. Férotin, Paris 1912, cols. 519-520). The *Micrologus*, 60 (PL 151, 1020) then asserts that this Preface is one of the nine Prefaces prescribed by Pelagius II (579-590).

A. Pietro Frutaz

VII. Art

It seems that Paleo-Christian art did not represent the Most Holy Trinity; in any case, no surviving work depicts II. The figurative concept of the three Divine Persons was at first rigorously symbolic. The hand seen descending from Heaven signified the Eternal Father, the Lamb the Redeemer, and the dove the Holy Spirit. Thus did Paulinus of Nola describe the image of the Most Holy Trinity in the basilica of S. Felice (Ep. 32, 10: ed. G. Hartel, I, p. 286):

“Stat Christus agno, vox Patris caelo tonat
Et per columbam Spiritus Sanctus fluit.”

From the tenth century onward, the custom arose of depicting the three Divine Persons as three identical human figures seated side by side. Each, however, bore its own attributes: the Eternal Father, seated in the center, wore a crown on His head and held a golden orb in His hand; the Divine Son, seated to His right, bore a Cross or bore the wounds of the Passion in His hands and feet; and the Holy Spirit was indicated either by a dove or by a book. To emphasize the unity of the three Persons, they were sometimes covered by a single mantle. This iconography persisted until the early sixteenth century. A typical example is still to be seen in the parish church of Merano.

From the thirteenth century another figurative scheme of the Most Holy Trinity appears: a single human figure with one head but three faces, or only one such head. The Most Holy Trinity was represented in this way, for example, by Donatello (1495) in the tabernacle of S. Tommaso in Or San Michele (Florence; see fig. under the entry TOMMASO, APOSTOLO), by the Master of Villa d’Utta at the end of the fifteenth century (Novacella), and by Andrea del Sarto around 1520 in the frieze of his Cenacolo of S. Salvi in Florence. This seems to be the last example of this type. It should be noted, however, that the “vultus trifrons” is not always an emblem of the Trinity but also of the devil.

These two figurative schemes of the Most Holy Trinity were abandoned during the sixteenth century and subsequently expressly forbidden by the constitution of Benedict XIV of 1 October 1745. Meanwhile, a third iconographic scheme of the Most Holy Trinity developed in Gothic painting. This depicts Christ on the Cross supported in the arms of the Eternal Father, while the Holy Spirit is represented by its symbol, the dove (v.), seen above the Redeemer’s Cross. Many examples follow this scheme, among them the most typical being those by masters in the circle of Orcagna: in the fourteenth-century triptych by Jacopo di Cione in the National Gallery, London; in another triptych in the Accademia, Florence; and in a panel from the early fifteenth century by Mariotto di Nardo adorning the Pieve of S. Giovanni Valdarno. The same scheme is employed in the grand Adoration of the Most Holy Trinity, known as the “All-Saints Picture,” by Albrecht Dürer (1508, Museum of Vienna). Guido Reni still used it in his large altarpiece painted in 1624 for the church of the Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims in Rome. A painting by Guercino in the Vatican Pinacoteca derives from this manner of depicting the Most Holy Trinity.

In the meantime, a final scheme emerged in Baroque art, namely a horizontal arrangement, which became the usual figurative presentation of the Most Holy Trinity in modern art. This latest iconography consists in representing the Eternal Father and Christ seated on clouds, with the dove of the Holy Spirit rising between them. The Trinity representations by Raphael—his early fresco in the church of S. Severo in Perugia and the grand “Disputation of the Sacrament” in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican—prefigure this latter scheme and represent a kind of bridge between the vertical formula with Christ on the Cross and the modern horizontal one. Indeed, although they retain a vertical arrangement of the three Divine Persons, Christ is no longer shown on the Cross but seated on the clouds. Among the very numerous Baroque depictions of the Most Holy Trinity conceived according to this final horizontal figurative scheme, one may cite: the altarpiece by Pietro da Cortona in the Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament in S. Pietro in Vaticano and the grand canvas by Anthony van Dyck in the Museum of Budapest.

It should also be noted that Coronations of the Virgin, in which Mary is presented to Heaven by the Most Holy Trinity, often include various beautiful depictions of the Trinity, as in the magnificent painting by El Greco preserved in the Hospital of Charity at Illescas in Spain.

In the lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, churches and columns dedicated to the Trinity are frequently found. — See plate LIV.