Chapter VIII. That the Plurality of Persons in God is due to the Personal Properties or Relations, the Essence remaining One and Simple

Catholic faith obliges us to acknowledge that the Personal Properties are nothing distinct from the Persons, and that the Persons likewise are nothing distinct from the one God, the one Divine Substance, the one Divine Nature, the one Divine and Sovereign Majesty. Number, therefore, if thou canst, either the Persons without the Substance with Which They are identical, or the Personal Properties without the Persons from Whom They are not really distinct. But if thou attemptest to separate either the Persons from the Substance, or the Properties from the Persons, I know not how thou canst pretend to be a worshipper of the Trinity, seeing that thou art ready to admit in God so great a number of different things. Let us, therefore, confess that God is Three, but without prejudice to His' Unity of Nature : let us say that He is One, but without confounding His Trinity of Persons; for the words, one and three, unity and trinity, as applied to God, are not mere empty sounds, but have a true and definite signification. Some one may now inquire how this can be true which I declare to be an article of Catholic faith. I answer that he must be satisfied with believing firmly that it is so. It is not evident to natural reason, neither is it left to the ambiguity of opinion, but it is certified to us by faith. For it is a great mystery, which we are bound to accept with reverence, instead of attempting to fathom. How can there be plurality in unity and in so perfect a unity ? Or how can unity exist in plurality ? To scrutinise this mystery is rashness, to believe it is piety, to know it is life, yea, life eternal.

And now, Holy Father, if it seems good to thee, let thy consideration pass in review the various species of unity so that the supereminence of this singular and divine Unity may appear the more manifest. There is, then, the unity which may becalled collective, as when many stones are united in one heap. There is the constitutive unity, where many members constitute one body, or many parts any kind of whole. There is the conjugal unity by which two persons are no longer two but one flesh. There is the natural unity whereby soul and body combine to produce one man. There is the moral unity by which the man of virtue and character endeavours to guard against all instability and inconsistency so that he may be always found true to himself. There is also the unity of sentiment, as when a multitude of men, under the influence of charity, have but one heart and one soul. Another species of unity is that which I would call affective, whereby the soul, cleaving to God with all the force of her desires, is made one spirit with Him. Finally, there is the unity of condescension by which our common clay has been exalted and united to the Person of the Word.

But what are all these kinds of unity when compared with the sovereign and unique Unity — if the expression be permitted — which results from consubstantiality ? If thou wilt consider them as reflections of that, they shall appear to be unities, at least in some sense ; but when compared therewith they lose all resemblance to unity. Therefore amongst all the things that can rightly becalled one, the first place must be assigned to the Unity of the Trinity, by which three Persons are one Substance. Next to this in point of excellence comes the unity whereby, contrariwise, three substances are one Person in Christ. Yet this second unity, as well as every other that can be instanced, is entitled to becalled a unity, not by comparison with, but only in imitation of that which is first and supreme, as will appear evident if thou considerest the matter

L justly and prudently. Nor do we contradict our belief in that Unity by asserting the Trinity, because in the Trinity we allow no multiplicity, just as we allow no solitude in the Unity. Wherefore, when I say that God is One, I am not disconcerted by the thought of the Trinity, Which, as I know, does not multiply the Essence, or vary, or divide It. Again, when I speak of God as Three, I do not feel put out by the recollection of His Unity, for the Unity of His Nature neither excludes nor confounds the Personal Distinctions.