55. The Doctrine Contained in the Athanasian Creed Accords with the Truth, Provided One Interprets a Trinity of Persons to Mean the Trinity in a Person, Who Is the Lord

Christians have acknowledged three Divine persons, and so as it were three gods, because there is a trine in the Lord: one member called the Father, a second called the Son, and a third called the Holy Spirit. Moreover the members of this trine are distinguished in the Word by the terms used for them, just as the soul and body and what emanates from them are distinguished by the terms used for them, even though they are a unit.

The nature of the Word in its literal sense is also such that things that form a unit are distinguished as though they were not a unit. That is why it calls Jehovah, who is the Lord from eternity, sometimes Jehovah, sometimes Jehovah of Hosts, sometimes God, sometimes the Lord, and at the same time Creator, Savior, Redeemer and Maker, even Shaddai. And His humanity that He assumed in the world is called Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Son of God, Son of man, and, in the Old Testament, God, the Holy One of Israel, the Anointed of Jehovah, King, Prince, Counselor, Angel, and David.

[2] Now because the nature of the Word in its literal sense is such that it uses several names for those who are nevertheless one and the same, therefore Christians, who in the beginning were simple and interpreted everything in accordance with the words of the literal sense, distinguished the Godhead into three persons. This also was permitted because of their simplicity, but still with the provision that they believe regarding the Son that He was infinite, not created, omnipotent, God and Lord, altogether equal to the Father, and furthermore that they believe these to be in essence, majesty and glory, and so in Divinity, not two or three, but one.

[3] People who believe this in simplicity in accordance with their doctrine and do not confirm themselves in an idea of three gods, but of the three make one, are instructed after death by the Lord through angels that He is that one and embodies that trine. This, too, is accepted by all who enter heaven, for no one can be admitted into heaven who has a concept of three gods, however much he may say “one” with the lips. Indeed, the life of heaven as a whole and the wisdom of all the angels is founded on an acknowledgment and consequent confession of one God, on a belief that the one God is also human, and that He is the Lord, who is at once both God and man.

[4] It is apparent from this that by Divine permission it came about that Christians in the beginning accepted a doctrine of three persons, provided they accepted at the same time that the Lord is also an infinite God, omnipotent, and Jehovah. For unless they had also accepted this, the church would have been terminated, since the church is a church owing to the Lord, and everyone’s eternal life is received from the Lord, and not from any other.

[5] It can be seen that the church is a church owing to the Lord simply by considering that the entire Word from beginning to end has the Lord alone as its subject, as we have shown above, that one must believe in Him, and that people who do not believe Him do not have eternal life, indeed that the wrath of God abides on them (John 3:36).

[6] Now because everyone sees in himself that if there is one God, He is one in both person and essence — for no one thinks differently, nor can he, when he thinks that there is one God — I would like to present now the entire doctrine named after Athanasius, and to show afterward that everything said in it is true, provided one understands the trinity to be a trinity in the person instead of a trinity of persons.