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| Sundry Popular Fears and Prejudices. The Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity Rescued from These Misapprehensions.
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Chapter III.—Sundry Popular Fears and Prejudices. The
Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity Rescued from These
Misapprehensions.
The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and
unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled
at the dispensation7790
(of the Three in
One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from
the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not
understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be
believed in with His own οἰκονομία
. The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be
a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity
out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually
supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we
are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves
pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as
if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy,
and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth. We, say
they, maintain the Monarchy (or, sole government of
God).7791
| 7791 So Bp. Kaye,
On Tertullian, p. 499. | And so, as far as the sound goes, do even
Latins (and ignorant ones too) pronounce the word in such a way that
you would suppose their understanding of the μοναρχία
(or Monarchy) was as complete as
their pronunciation of the term. Well, then Latins take pains to
pronounce the μοναρχία
(or Monarchy), while Greeks actually refuse to understand
the οἰκονομία, or Dispensation (of the Three in One). As for myself,
however, if I have gleaned any knowledge of either language, I am sure
that μοναρχία
(or Monarchy) has no other meaning than single and
individual7792
rule; but for all
that, this monarchy does not, because it is the government of one,
preclude him whose government it is, either from having a son, or from
having made himself actually a son to himself,7793
| 7793 This was a notion of
Praxeas. See ch. x. | or
from ministering his own monarchy by whatever agents he will. Nay more,
I contend that no dominion so belongs to one only, as his own, or is in
such a sense singular, or is in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to
be administered through other persons most closely connected with it,
and whom it has itself provided as officials to itself. If, moreover,
there be a son belonging to him whose monarchy it is, it does not
forthwith become divided and cease to be a monarchy, if the son also be
taken as a sharer in it; but it is as to its origin equally his, by
whom it is communicated to the son; and being his, it is quite as much
a monarchy (or sole empire), since it is held together by two
who are so inseparable.7794
Therefore, inasmuch
as the Divine Monarchy also is administered by so many legions and
hosts of angels, according as it is written, “Thousand thousands
ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before
Him;”7795
and since it has
not from this circumstance ceased to be the rule of one (so as no
longer to be a monarchy), because it is administered by so many
thousands of powers; how comes it to pass that God should be thought to
suffer division and severance in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who
have the second and the third places assigned to them, and who are so
closely joined with the Father in His substance, when He suffers no
such (division and severance) in the multitude of so many angels? Do
you really suppose that Those, who are naturally members of the
Father’s own substance, pledges of His love,7796
| 7796
“Pignora” is often used of children and
dearest relations. | instruments of His might, nay, His power
itself and the entire system of His monarchy, are the overthrow and
destruction thereof? You are not right in so thinking. I prefer your
exercising yourself on the meaning of the thing rather than on the
sound of the word. Now you must understand the overthrow of a monarchy
to be this, when another dominion, which has a framework and a
state peculiar to itself (and is therefore a rival), is brought in over
and above it: when, e.g., some other god is introduced in
opposition to the Creator, as in the opinions of Marcion; or when many
gods are introduced, according to your Valentinuses and your
Prodicuses. Then it amounts to an overthrow of the Monarchy, since it
involves the destruction of the Creator.7797
| 7797 [The first sentence of
this chapter is famous for a controversy between Priestly and Bp.
Horsley, the latter having translated idiotæ by the word
idiots. See Kaye, p. 498.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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