The Trinity
St. Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the church at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestined before the beginning of time that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God:
Abundant happiness through Jesus Christ, and his undefiled grace [Letter to the Ephesians 1 (c. A.D. 110)].
For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb of Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Spirit. He was born and baptized, that by his passion he might purify the water [ibid., 18].
St. Justin Martyr
Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship him, as he is the Son of the true God himself, and holding him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed [First Apology 13 (c. A.D. 151)].
St. Theophilus of Antioch
It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. ... The three days before the stars were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom [To Autolycus 2:15 (c. A.D. 181)].
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit [Against Heresies 1:10:1 (c. A.D. 189)].
Tertullian of Carthage
We, as we always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who indeed leads men into all truth), believe that there is only one God, but under the following dispensation, or oikonomia, as it is called, that this one and only God has a Son, his Word, who proceeded from himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. We believe he was sent by the Father into the Virgin, and was born of her—being both man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and was called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe he suffered, died, and was buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after he was raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead; and that this one God also sent from heaven, according to his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. This rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics [Against Praxeas 2 (c. A.D. 218)].
And at the same time the mystery of the divine economy is safeguarded, for the unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in being, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one being, however, and one condition and one power, because he is one God of whom degrees and forms and kinds are taken into account in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [ibid.].
Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, so you will know in what sense this is said. My assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that they are distinct from each other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated and perversely disposed person, as if it meant a diversity, or implied a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit [ibid., 9].
Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent persons, who are yet distinct one from another. These three are one essence, not one person, as it is said, “I and my Father are one” [Jn 10:30], in respect of unity of being, not singularity of number [ibid., 25].
Origen of Alexandria
For we do not say, as the heretics suppose, that some part of the substance of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things nonexistent, or beyond his own substance, so that there once was a time when he did not exist [Fundamental Doctrines 4:28 (c. A.D. 225)].
Putting away all corporeal conceptions, we say that the Word and wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal without any corporeal feeling, as if it were an act of the will proceeding from understanding. Nor, seeing that he is called the Son of (his) love, will it appear absurd if he is also called the Son of (his) will. No, John also indicates that “God is Light,” and Paul also declares that the Son is the splendor of everlasting light. As light could not exist without splendor, neither can the Son exist without the Father; for he is called the “express image of his person,” and the Word and Wisdom. How, then, can it be asserted that there once was a time when he was not the Son? For that is to say that there was once a time when he was not the Truth, nor the wisdom, nor the life, although in all these he is judged to be the perfect essence of God the Father; for these things cannot be severed from him, or even separated from his essence. And although these qualities are many in understanding, yet in their nature and essence they are one, and in them is the fullness of divinity. This expression we employ—“that there never was a time when he did not exist”—is to be understood with a caveat. For these very words “when” or “never” have a meaning that relates to time, whereas statements regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all eternity [ibid.].
St. Hippolytus of Rome
The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing; therefore it is not God [Refutation of All Heresies 10:29 (c. A.D. 227)].
Novatian of Rome
For Scripture announces Christ as God, as it announces God himself as man. It has described Jesus Christ as man, as it has described Christ the Lord as God. It does not set him forth as the Son of God only, but also the Son of man; nor only as the Son of man, but it has been accustomed to speak of him as the Son of God. Being of both, he is both, lest if he should be only one, he could not be the other. For as nature has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so nature prescribes that he must be believed to be God who is of God; but if he should not also be God when he is of God, then he should not be man although he is of man. And thus both doctrines would be endangered in one or the other way, by one being convicted to have lost belief in the other. Let them, therefore—who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man—read also that this same Jesus is also called God and the Son of God [The Trinity 11 (c. A.D. 235)].
Pope St. Dionysius
Now truly it would be just to take issue with those who destroy the monarchy by dividing and rending it, the most august announcement of the Church of God, into three powers, and distinct substances, and three deities. For I have heard that some who preach and teach the word of God among you are teachers of this opinion, who indeed are diametrically opposed—so to speak—to the opinion of Sabellius. For he blasphemes in saying that the Son himself is the Father, and vice versa; but these in a certain manner announce three gods, in that they divide the holy unity into three different substances, absolutely separated from one another [Against the Sabellians 1 (A.D. 262)].
For it is essential that the divine Word should be united to the God of all, and that the Holy Spirit should abide and dwell in God; and thus that the divine Trinity should be gathered into one, as if into a certain head—that is, the omnipotent God of all. . . . It is not a trifling, but a very great impiety, to say that the Lord was in any way made with hands. For if the Son was made, there was a time when he was not; but he always was, if, as he himself declares, he is in the Father. . . . If the Son was made, there was a time when these were not in existence; and thus there was a time when God was without these things, which is utterly absurd [ibid., 1–2].
That admirable and divine unity must not be separated into three divinities, nor must the dignity and eminent greatness of the Lord be diminished by having the name of creation applied to it, but we must believe in God the Father omnipotent, and in Christ Jesus his Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that the Word is united to the God of all, because he says, “I and the Father are one” and “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” Thus the doctrine of the divine Trinity will be maintained in its integrity [ibid., 3].
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
There is one God. . . . There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Therefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; or anything added on, as if at some former period it was nonexistent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but the same Trinity abides ever without variation and without change [Declaration of Faith (c. A.D. 265)].
St. Augustine of Hippo
All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me about the Trinity, who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father has begotten the Son, so he who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, so he who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but rather the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. He is also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and he belongs to the unity of the Trinity [The Trinity 1:4:7 (c. A.D. 408)].
St. Sechnall of Ireland
Hymns, with Revelation and the Psalms of God [Patrick] sings, and expounds them to edify God’s people. This law he holds in the Trinity of the sacred name and teaches one being in three persons [Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 22 (c. A.D. 444)].
St. Patrick
I bind to myself today the strong power of an invocation of the Trinity—the faith of the Trinity in unity, the Creator of the universe [Breastplate of St. Patrick 1 (c. A.D. 447)].
[T]here is no other God, nor has there been before now, nor will there be hereafter, except God the Father unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is all beginning, upholding all things, and his Son Jesus Christ, whom we also confess to have been with the Father always—before the world’s beginning. . . . Jesus Christ is the Lord and God in whom we believe . . . and who has poured out the Holy Spirit on us abundantly . . . whom we confess and adore as one God in the Trinity of the sacred name [Confession of St. Patrick 4 (c. A.D. 452)].
