For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple as itself, and the same as itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both together with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy is in Scripture, as it were, appropriated. And He is another than the Father and the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son. […]
Read moreTag: Doctrine of the Trinity
Clement Of Alexandria: Trinity
The Word and the Immortality of the Soul Before the foundation of the world were we, who, because destined to be in Him, pre-existed in the eye of God before,—we the rational creatures of the Word of God, on whose account we date from the beginning; for “in the beginning was the Word.” Well, inasmuch as the Word was from the first, He was and is the divine source of […]
Read moreOrigen: On First Principles
The Nature of Mind The mind requires magnitude of an intellectual kind. It is not enlarged by means of corporal additions, but is sharpened by exercises of learning. The powers implanted within it are called forth, and it is rendered capable of greater intellectual efforts, being polished by learned exercises. But these it cannot receive immediately from birth, because the framework of limbs which the mind employs as organs for […]
Read moreClement Of Alexandria: Wisdom
May God grant me to speak with judgment, and to have thoughts worthy of what I have received; for he is the guide even of wisdom and the corrector of the wise. For both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts. … For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things. For […]
Read moreAthenagoras: On the Trinity
We acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassable, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended by the understanding only and the reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is kept in being… The Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern […]
Read moreIrenaeus: The Nature of Thought
When refuting the Gnostics, who pride themselves on knowledge of the divine, and make a pantheon out of such knowledge, Irenaeus expounds on the relation between a rational being and his knowledge, by way of proving that Christ, the Wisdom of God, is one with the Father, though distinct from the Father. This is the Doctrine of the Trinity, although Irenaeus doesn’t use the term explicitly. The Unfolding of the […]
Read moreJustin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho
Circumcision The command of circumcision, bidding always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the […]
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