10-03-2008, 07:01 AM
This is from the Book of the Pearl, written by Mar Abd Yeshua of the Assyrian Church of the East:
Quote:CHAPTER V. -- Of the Trinity.
Everything that exists must be either a material body whose existence is the subject of accidents and changes, and is acted upon by whatever is opposed to it; or not a body, and consequently not the subject of any of these things. Now, we have already proved, that God, (glory be to His incomprehensibility,) is not a body, and therefore is not subject to anything pertaining to materiality, from which He is infinitely removed.
Whatever is immaterial, and not subject to anything appertaining to matter, the traditions of the ancients call Mind. |386 And whatever is exclusive of matter, and of what appertains thereto, must be knowing, and must know himself, because himself is ever present and known to him, and he is not dependent on anything but himself. And whatever knows himself must be living. Therefore God is Wise and Living.
Now, he who is wise is wise because of his wisdom; and he who is living is living because he has life. This is the mystery of the Trinity, which the Church confesses of the Adorable Essence: The Mind, Wisdom, and Life, Three co-essential proprieties in One, and One who is glorified in three proprieties. [The Church] has called the Mind, Father and Begetter, because He is the Cause of all, and First. [She] has called the Son, Wisdom and Begotten, because He is begotten of the Mind, and by Him everything was made and created. [She] has called Life the Holy Ghost, and Proceeding, because there is no other Holy Ghost but He. He who is Holy is unchangeable, according to the expositions of received expositors; and this is that which is declared by John the Divine, the son of Zebedee: "In the beginning was the Word;" and, "the Light is the life of man."
Now, as the reasonable soul has a three-fold energy, mind, word, and life, and is one and not three; even so should we conceive of the Three in One, and One in Three. The sun also, which is one in its disk, radiance, and heat, is another simile adduced by the second Theologus Paul, the chosen vessel: "He is the brightness of His glory, and the Express Image of His Person;" and, again: "Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God."
Further, every thing that exists is either an accident or a substance. But the Self-existent can in no wise be susceptible of accidents. Therefore these three proprieties must be essential, and are on this account called persons, and not accidental powers, and do not cause any change or plurality in the essence of the Self-existent; for He is the Mind, the Same He is the Wisdom, the Same He is the Life, Who ever begat without cessation, and puts forth [makes to proceed] without distance [i.e. without removal from Himself.] These things [cessation and distance] are infinitely removed from Him, and appertain to bodies. |387
Now, there is no real likeness between created natures and the Nature of the Self-existent, and a simile does not in every thing resemble that which is compared by it; for then the simile and that which is compared by it would be the thing itself, and we [who have just instituted several comparisons] should not be unlike the man who attempts to compare a thing by the self-same thing.
The mystery of the Trinity is expressed in the words of the Old Testament: "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; "the occurrence of the letter noon three times in this sentence is an indication of the Trinity. The "Holy" thrice repeated in the seraphic hymn, as mentioned by Isaiah, joined with one "Lord," attests Three Persons in One Essence. The words of David, also, are of the same import: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth;" and many other like references. Let the heathen, then, and Jews who rail at the truth of the Catholic Church, on account of her faith in the Trinity, be confounded and put to shame. Here endeth the first part.
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