8. The church terminology in the service of the Christian knowledge of God.

8. The church terminology in the service of the Christian knowledge of God.

We saw that the Christian knowledge of God has this content: The true God is only one, but this one true God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also saw that this knowledge of God alone, which does not come from God's revelation in the realm of nature, but only from God's revelation in His

1291) Opp. V. a. IV, 474; St. L. X, 178.<w:t>1292) Col. 2:9; Acts 5:4.

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Word, from the Holy Scriptures, is knowledge of salvation for us humans who have become sinful. For not only does the Scripture teach that the one eternal God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but the Scripture also adds the revelation that the Son of God became man in time in order to reconcile the whole human world to God through His intercession for mankind in His life and suffering. We also saw that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to proclaim and appropriate to men the salvation acquired from the Son of God in the Gospel. We also find that the Nicene-Constantinopolitanum includes in the confession of the Trinity also the confession of the saving work of the Son and the Holy Spirit. It does not merely say: Πιστενομεν εις ενα ϑεόν, πατέρα παντοκράτορα. — Και εις ενα κύριον Ίησονν Χριστόν. — Και εις τό πνεύμα τό άγιον. [“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty; and in one Lord Jesus Christ; and I believe in the Holy Ghost,”] — but with the faith in the consubstantial Son (όμοούσιον τφ πατρί)) is bound the faith in τόν δ ήμας κατελδόντα και σαρκωδέντα και ένανδρωπήσαντα, παϑόντα, and binding with faith in the Holy Spirit is faith in the saving work of the Holy Spirit, εις τό πνεύμα τό άγιον, τό κύριον, τό ζωοποιόν — τό λαλήσαν διά τών προφητών. Likewise we find it in Luther. After saying that the Holy Scriptures alone reveal to us the eternal triune God, the "inward being" of God, he continues: 1293) "Such revelation follows and breaks forth precisely from the supreme work of God, which is an indication of His divine counsel and will, which He decreed from eternity and according to the same also proclaimed in the promises, that His Son should become man and die. to reconcile the human generation to God, because we could not be saved from our horrible fall into sin and eternal death by any other means than by an eternal person who would have power over sin and death to erase them and give righteousness and eternal life instead; this could be neither angel nor creature, but had to be God Himself." In other words, the purpose of the revelation of the Holy Trinity in Scriptures is not a theoretical one, but an eminently practical one. The purpose is not to provide the human mind with material for human speculation as to how it is possible for the one God to be Father, Son, and

1293) St. L. XII, 632.

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Holy Spirit. The purpose is rather to convey to us men the knowledge that the eternal triune God has from eternity been intent on the deliverer (σωτηρία) of mankind that has become sinful.1294) But this self-revelation of God now also includes the revelation that the whole of mankind and each individual member of it must completely despair of all self-help and self-wisdom in regard to the attainment of salvation. And from here we understand the difficult struggle which the Christian Church has had to wage for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, from the very beginning to the present time. All men, by their natural nature, are self-righteous and self-smart, and in the interest of human self-help and human self-smartness, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity has been fought with great earnestness by all those who would not desist from their self-righteousness and self-smartness. Above all, the purpose of the enemies of the Christian church has been to deny the essential divinity of the Son of God, and thus to put out of the way the only Mediator between God and men, who gave himself for all for redemption (άντίλντρον). For it stands according to Scripture, as Luther puts it:1295) Such words, that the Son of God gave Himself for me, "are loud thunderbolts and fire from heaven against the righteousness of the law and the doctrine of works. So great wickedness, so great error, darkness and ignorance was in my will and mind that I could only be delivered by such an unspeakably great ransom. What then do we boast that our reason guides us rightly, that our natural powers are unharmed, that our reason is inclined to the best, that everyone must do as much as is in him...… while here I hear that there is so much evil in my nature that the world and all creation has not been sufficient to propitiate God, but God's Son Himself had to be offered for it?" On the other hand, however, the Christians also recognized the seriousness of the situation in the attacks on the essential divinity of the Son of God. They recognized that with the deity of Christ they would give up the God-man reconciling work of Christ and thus the object of saving faith. And God raised up men in his church, through whose

1294) Rom. 16:25 ff.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1295) On Gal. 2:20. St. L. IX, 236 f.

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public witness the Church was preserved in her faith in the deity of Christ and in the deity of the Holy Spirit (Nicea 325, Constantinople 381). The struggle of the Christian Church in our time is no less serious and difficult. Modern theology, it must be clearly recognized, in the interest of human self-righteousness (moral religion) and in the interest of self-wisdom (knowing conception and communication of the Christian religion), has renounced the Word of God as God's infallible Word, the Son of God's satisfactio vicaria, and the Trinitarian doctrine of Scripture. If we thus look at the hostility that the world outside and inside the Church has shown and still shows to the doctrine of the Trinity, it seems to be a miracle of divine grace that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and thus the Christian knowledge of God and thus the Christian Church itself have not completely disappeared from the world. Therefore, we heard Luther say,1296) he thanks his God who has done him the grace to believe the article of the Holy Trinity on the basis of the revelation in the Scriptures simple-mindedly. And in the same context, "We see in the Histories that God has held with power over it [the article of the Holy Trinity]." Even Augusti, who laboriously sought to steer his ship through the fog of rationalism, remarks already in the first edition of his Dogmatics (1809):1297) "History acquaints us partly with absolute opponents, partly with manifold attempts at explanation and modification. But it is a strange phenomenon that from the origin of Christianity to our times neither the enemies nor the modifiers, however certain they usually believed to be of their cause, have ever been able to displace this doctrine. Nor has the belief in the triune God ever been shown to be a harmful error, but rather has always proved to be a doctrine equally wholesome in theory and practice. These facts speak for it with better success than it can be harmed by all the declamations of its opponents about its incomprehensibility."

As for the necessity (necessitas) of the church termini, there is no absolute necessity to be ascribed to them. A detailed compilation of the church expressions

1296) St. L. XIII, 675.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1297) System der christl. Dogmatik, p. 128.

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used by the ancient church until the sixth century against the false teachers who denied the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and thus the Trinity, we have in the so-called Athanasian Creed.1298) But many Christians had and have the right belief of the Holy Trinity without being acquainted with the Athanasian Creed. They had and have the right Christian faith on the basis of the clear scriptural statements about the triune God. But if we examine those church expressions for their content, it turns out that they are a short summary (Luther: "Summarienwort") of what the Scripture sole clarius teaches about the Trinity. It should also be added that it does not harm Christians at all if they acquaint themselves with the church expressions not only above, but exactly. Therefore we have also (according to the procedure of the older church) included in our St. Louis hymnal not only the Apostolic, but also the Nicene and the Athanasian. As for Luther, he had no hesitation in including most of the church termini in his sermons to the people. With regard to the Athanasian Creed in particular, which modern Unitarianism virtually perhorresces, Luther says:1299) "I do not know if the New Testament Church has a more important writing after the time of the apostles." He quotes the Athanasian Creed in his sermons and proves the content of the same to be founded in Scripture.1300) — Among the ecclesiastical termini which the Church has placed at the service of the Christian knowledge of God are the following:

1. Trinitas, Trinity, Trinitarian. The word "trinitas" does not occur in Scripture itself, but1301) expresses in summary what God says of Himself in His Word, namely, that He is only one (ονδεις ϑεός εί μη εις, 1 Cor. 8:4, unus Deus) and yet is Father and Son and Holy Spirit (βαπτίζοντες αντονς εϊς τό όνομα τον πατρός και του νΐον καί τον άγιον πνεύματος, Matt. 28:19, Deus est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus). Augustana, art. 1: " First of all,

1298) On the Athanasianum and the ecumenical symbols in general, see Bente, Historical Introduction to the Symbolical Books, p. 9 sqq. First part of Concordia Triglotta. St. Louis, Mo. 1921 [see BookOfConcord here].

1299) To Joel 3:1, 2. St. L. VI, 1576.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1300) e.g. X, 1007.

1301) The first use of the word is usually attributed to Tertullian. Cf. Zöckler, Handbuch der theol. Wissenschaften III, 88.

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it is a unified doctrine, taught and held according to the Concilii Nicaeni, that there is one divine being, which is called and is God, and yet there are three persons in the same unified divine being, equally powerful, equally eternal, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three one divine being, eternal, without matters, without end, of immeasurable power, wisdom, and goodness, one Creator and Sustainer of all things visible and invisible." More recent theologians have also referred to Luther in their rejection of the church's doctrine of the Trinity. But this is as gross an abuse of Luther's reputation as if the same theologians also invoked Luther for their denial of verbal inspiration. To be sure, Luther says that neither the Latin word trinitas nor even the German "Dreifaltigkeit" "precious laute" [adequate terms]. But he immediately adds how he means it, namely that, like the human mind, human language is too poor to adequately grasp and express the high article of the Trinity. Luther further adds that these words express the Christian knowledge of God as well as it can be expressed at all. His words are:1302) "It is not a precious German, nor is it fine, to call God by the word 'Trinity', just as the Latin 'trinitas' is not precious, but because there is no better way, we must speak as we can. For, as I have said, this article is high above human understanding and speech, that God, as a Father, must give credit to his children that we stammer and slur as best we can, if only faith is pure and right. For so much is meant by this word, that it is to be believed that the divine majesty is three distinct persons, of one true essence. For this is the revelation and knowledge of God to Christians."

2. Persona, person, πρόσωπον, ύπόστασις. The word "Person" was and is used by the Christian Church to reject the erroneous notion of the old and newer Unitarians as if Father, Son, Holy Spirit were only three modes of revelation or three modes of operation or three powers or three attributes in God. Positively, we want to state with the word "person" that in the one God there are three "I" or "selves". Luther remarks on the expression "person":1303) "You may call such

1302) St. L. XII, 628 f. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1303) St. L. XIII, 669.

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things as you like; we call it a special Person. Although it is not addressed enough, but more stammered. But we cannot do it to him, we have no better word." Luther also points out what the Christian church wants to reject with the word Person. He says:1304) "We believe in one united God, and yet confess that the same united God is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Not as the heretics have fooled, as if such three names [Father, Son, Holy Spirit] should signify only one person, so according to time differently and but differently revealed." In this way the Unitarians of our time are also truly "fooling", who make three potencies, effects, powers, etc. out of the three persons. The description which the Augsburg Confession (Art. I) gives of "person" is perfectly sufficient: "And by the word persona is understood not a matter, not a quality in another, but that which itself exists (Latin: quod proprie subsistit), as the Fathers used this word in this matter." Other expressions of the dogmatists for person are: suppositum intelligens, substantia individua intelligens incommunicabile, etc. Now it is true that it is asserted by more recent theologians that the term "person" has changed in the course of time. Seeberg is particularly emphatic in asserting this:1305) "Person once — among the church fathers — denoted the individual being; now the word means the spiritual essence of the individual being." Even Ihmels says,1306) "that the term person, if it is to be applied to the intra-Trinitarian life of God, must not be understood in the sense of an individual personality." But the term person to designate the "intra-Trinitarian" or "inward being" of God has not changed over time and will never change because God and His Word do not change. The names Father and Son and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19) are designations of persons. Everyone who hears these names, we said above, does not think of three manifestations or effects or wills or powers etc., but of three persons or "I". Furthermore, when the Scripture says of both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that they "know," "will," "teach," "rebuke," "speak," etc., these are again designations of persons, because

1304) St. L. XIII, 674. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1305) Basic Truths 5, p. 115.

1306) Central Questions 2, p. 184. Cf. Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 492 ff.

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everyone admits: Actiones semper sunt personarum. What has changed in the course of time is not the concept of "person", but the concept of "theology". In our time there are "theologians" who have fallen into the very strange idea of wanting to know God not from His Word, but from the ego of the theologizing subject. According to this theological method, they transform "Father", "Son" and "Holy Spirit" into three powers, effects, wills, etc. As Seeberg says:1307) "This eternal energy of love [of God] filled the human soul of Jesus so that it became its content. This is the deity of Christ." And even with this, nothing has actually changed. We find the same reinterpretation of Father, Son and Spirit already in the dynamistic monarchians of the third century. Thus, by God's grace, the Christian Church of our time will also stick to the concept of Person that the Holy Scriptures teach so clearly. As Luther, after describing the struggle of the false teachers against the Holy Trinity, concludes with these words:1308) "So this article of the Holy Trinity has been preserved first with Scripture, then with the camps of the apostles and holy fathers, and lastly also with miraculous works against the devil and the world, and shall, if God wills, still be preserved, that we believe in one God, who is called God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit."

But however resolutely, according to the procedure of the ancient Church, Luther and the dogmatists hold to the expression "person" because they know of no better expression, they do not fail to point out that in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity this expression is at the same time used in a quite unique sense. When we address three human persons, each person has its particular nature, will, and works. Three human persons have three beings, three wills and three separate activities. It is not so with the three persons in the divine majesty. The three persons in God have one and the same divine essence according to number, one and the same divine attributes (attributa divina, mie omnipotentia, etc.) according to number, one and the same divine works opera ad extra) according to number, as we have already proved from Scripture. (p. 462 ff.) Three men have one being according to the kind (secundum speciem);

1307) Grundwahrheiten, op. cit. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1308) St. L. XIII, 679.

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the three persons in God have one essence according to the number (secundum numerum, eandem numero essentiam [“according to the number, the essence of the same number”]). Therefore, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Deus verissime unus et tamen tres personae verissime (non tantum notionaliter, sed realiter) distinctae [“God is very truly one and yet three persons very truly (not only conceptually, but really) distinct”] is a mystery quite unfathomable to human reason. Therefore we cannot explain to human reason how the Son of God alone could become man without the Father and the Holy Spirit becoming man at the same time. The fact stands firm from Scripture (Jn. 1:14; Gal. 4:4; Col. 2:9), but as far as the comprehensibility of this fact is concerned, Luther declares that he would want to be as wise as any heretic if he could comprehend it.1309) Chemnitz writes of the unique use of the word "person" in the Scriptural doctrine of the Holy Trinity:1310) Vocabulum νποστάσεως vel personae aliter usurpatur in ecclesia quam in vulgari consuetudine loquendi. In hominibus quid sit persona, scimus; quid sit in angelis, intelligimus. Petrus, Paulus, Iohannes sunt tres personae, quibus communis est una natura humana, sed differunt valde multum: 1. substantia, quia totus a toto distinctus est; 2. tempore, ut Iohannes est iunior Peter; 3. voluntate, ut Paulus contradicit Peter, Gal. 2:11; 4. potentia; sic Paulus prae caeteris laboravit, 1 Cor. 15:10; 5. operatione, ut Peter in circumcisione, Paulus in gentibus, Gal. 2:8. In Trinitate vero non ita distinguuntur personae, sicut angelus ab angelo, homo ab homine, inquit Cyrillus, ubi totus Petrus a toto Paulo localiter distinctus est; sed Ioh. 14:10 Christus inquit: [Google] "Ego in Patre et Pater in me est." Item in creaturis non sequitur: ubi una persona est, ibi etiam esse reliquas propter naturam communem; quia unus angelus est in Persia, alter in Graecia, Dan. 10:13; Filius vero dicit: "Pater non relinquit me solum, sed mecum est," Ioh. 8:29. Item in hominibus et angelis, ut dictum est, differunt personae tempore, voluntate, potentia, operatione; sed in personis Trinitatis est coaeternitas, una voluntas, una potentia, una operatio. Haec sunt Nazianzeni et Cyrilli. Et hoc discrimen necessario observandum est. Neque enim tantum est mysterium, ad quod etiam angeli obstupescunt, si ita esset una essentia, tres personae, sicut Michael, Gabriel, Raphael sunt tres personae, quibus unica angelica natura communis est et ex aequo convenit. Ex his fundamentis sumpta

1309) St. L. VII, 2161. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1310) Loci, p. 30 sq.

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est vulgaris regula: [Google] Personae Divinitatis non essentialiter differunt, ut in creaturis, ubi una quaevis suum proprium esse habet; nec tantum est ibi distinctio rationis, ut voluit Sabellius, sed realiter distinguuntur, modo tamen nobis incomprehensibili et incognito.... Quodsi quis cavillari voluerit, vocabula essentiae et personae non esse satis propria ad designandum arcanum illud mysterium Unitatis et Trinitatis, is sibi hoc responsum habeat, quod Augustinus dicit 1. 5, De Trin.: "Magna prorsus inopia humanum laborat eloquium. Dictum est tamen tres personae, non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur omnino." [Google]

3. Essentia, οϋοία, φύσις, essence. We understand by "essence" in the doctrine of the Trinity the one, that is, only once existing divine essence (eadem numero essentia), which belongs wholly and undividedly to each of the three persons of the divine majesty. Therefore, as the word "person," so also the word "essence," is used in a unique sense in the doctrine of the Trinity. For example, when we say of three men that they have one being, that which really (in concreto) exists is threefold or in three copies. The one being in three human persons is a mere thought thing, an abstractum, a nomen universale. On the other hand, the one divine essence of the three persons in God is a concreteness, something really existent, because it exists only once and belongs entirely and undividedly to each of the persons of the divine majesty or is the whole God himself. This is what our ancient teachers thoroughly hold on the basis of Scripture. Thus Chemnitz:1311) Essentia hominum est aliquid communicabile, sed est nomen universale, quod per se revera non existit, sed cognitione tantum colligitur et intellectu comprehenditur. Essentia vero in divinis non imaginarium quiddam est, ut genus vel species, sed revera existit, quamvis est communicabilis. Augustinus eleganter hoc expressit. "Essentia," inquit, "praedicatur de Patre, Filio et Spiritu Sancto non ut genus de speciebus, nec ut species de individuis, nec ut totum de partibus, sed alio quodam ineffabili et incomprehensibili modo." In toto enim hoc articulo illa regula Augustini diligenter est observanda: "Si non potes invenire, quid sit Deus, tamen caveas de eo sentire, quod non est." Intelligit ergo ecclesia nomine essentiae non nomen universale, ut philosophi

1311) Loci I, p. 38 sq.

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nominant essentiam humanam, sed naturam divinam revera existentem, quae communicabitis est et communis tribus personis, Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto, et est tota in singulis. Et haec tantum nominis definitio est, inquit Nazianzenus. Quid autem sit, quoad definitionem rei, hoc nesciri dico, nisi quod attributa in definitione Dei posita dicimus esse ipsam Dei essentiam. [Google]1312) That the numerical unity of the divine essence must be held with the tres realiter distinctae personae, Luther takes thus: 1313) Man, born of another, becomes not only a special person of his own from his Father, but also a special being of his own, and does not remain in his Father's being, nor the Father in his Son's being. But here [in the divine majesty] the Son is born in another person, and yet remains in his Father's being, and the Father in the Son's being; thus separating according to persons, but remaining in one unseparated and undivided being. So when one man goes out from another and is sent, not only do the persons separate, but also the essence, and one comes far from the other. But here the Holy Spirit goes out from the Father and the Son, just as he is sent from the Father and the Son, and separates into another person, but still remains in the essence of the Father and the Son, and the Father and the Son in the essence of the Holy Spirit, that is, all three persons in one eternal Godhead. That is why the theologians call such a birth an inward birth, which does not fall out of the Godhead, but comes from the Father alone and remains in the Godhead. Thus, the Holy Spirit's procession is called an immanent procession, which does not come from the Godhead, but only from the Father and the Son, and remains in the Godhead. How this comes about we are to believe; for it is not known even to the angels, who nevertheless see it with joy without cessation: and all who would have understood it have broken their necks over it."1314)

1312) Likewise Gerhard: Loci, L. De Nat. Dei, § 49: Essentia hominum est nomen universale, quod per se revera non existit, sed cogitatione tantum colligitur et intellectu comprehenditur. Essentia vero in divinis non est quiddam imaginarium, ut genus vel species, sed revera existit, quamvis sit communicabilis. [Google]

1313) St. L. X, 1008 f.

1314) As is well known, proceedings were necessary between the Greek and Latin Churches in order to reach an agreement on the expressions "essence" and "person".

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4. 'Ομοούσιος τώ ηατρί, Patri coessentialis or consubstantialis, of one being with the Father. This term of the Council of Nicea (325) expresses, against Arianism, which called the Son of God the first creature (κτίομα έξ ονκ δντων), the scriptural truth that the Son is of one being — and unius numero essentiae — with the Father. It should be recalled once again how firmly Luther emphasizes that the Council of Nicaea with the όμοούσιος taught nothing new, but rather

to reach an understanding. Baier (II, 57) summarizes the course and result of the proceedings thus: Quamvis Graeci et Latini aliquamdiu inter se contenderent, atque illi quidem putaverint, nomine personae apud Latinos designari officium aut habitum externum [persona in Latin is first of all the mask, the role played by the actor, the rank, etc.) ac propterea tres personas non importare aut exprimere realem distinctionem Patris, Filii et Spiritus Sancti, Latini vero putarent νπόστασιν denotare in casu recto ipsam essentiam, ut, admissis tribus νποστάσεσι, statuendae sint tres essentiae: postea tamen, cum se invicem rectius intellexissent, factum est, ut Graeci dicerent tria πρόσωπα et Latini tres hypostases.[Google] Augustine points (De Irin. VII, 4) to the different use of language: Aliter Graeci accipiunt substantiam quam Latini. Chemnitz notes (Loci 1, 38): Rixae ortae sunt de vocabulo νποστάσεως inter Graecos et Latinos,, and then praises the compliance of the Greeks: Graeci propter concordiam cesserunt Latinis et coeperunt ipsi quoque dicere τρία πρόσωπα, quod vocabulum personae esset antiquius. [Google] In support of his judgment, Chemnitz refers to Gregory of Nazianzus Orat. 31 in Laudem Athanasii, where Gregory says: Graeci confitentur unam ουσίαν et tres υποστάσεις. Itali, ob linguae angustiam et nominum inopiam, substantiam non possunt distinguere ab essentia, ac ideo Personas nominant. Athanasius hoc intelligens, utramque partem convocavit, et cum videret eos in rebus idem sentire, suasor et auctor fuit, ut propter concordiam in modis loquendi etiam convenirent. [Google] Chemnitz' dogma-historical treatise on the use of the expressions "essence" and "person" deserves attention even today. Also noteworthy is Chemnitz's counsel to refrain from proving that ουσία, πρόσωπον, and νπόστασις occur in Scripture in the same sense in which they were used by the Church in the struggle against the false teachers. He calls them peregrina vocabula, but justifies their use by pointing out a duality: 1. quamvis haec vocabula in Scriptura non inveniuntur in tali significatione, tamen res ipsas, quas ecclesia his vocabulis intelligit et significat, in Scriptura expresse esse positas et patefactas; 2. ecclesiam non aliqua petulanti novitatis studio discessisse a simplici proprietate verborum Scripturae, sed, ut eleganter et vere inquit Augustinus, loquendi necessitate a Graecis et Latinis parta esse haec vocabula propter errores et insidias haereticorum. [Google] Chemnitz, like Luther, refers to Athanasius' disputation with Arius before the pagan judge Probus. (L.c., p. 37.)

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only confessed the doctrines of Scripture to Arius' error.1315) "Homousius" — says Luther op. cit., 2211 — "means one and the same essence or nature, or one and not two, as the Fathers had put in the Concilio and is sung in Latin: consubstantialis, some called coexistentialis, coessentialis afterwards." Also it stands certain that Athanasius understood homousia from the numerical unity of the essence, because he rejects any division of the divine essence and says positively:1316) Εν είσιν αυτός [the Son] καί δ πατήρ τή ίδιότητι και οίκειότητι τής φνσεως και τή ταντότητι τής μιας ϑεότητος.

The cause of the Arian quarrel Gieseler1317) amazingly finds in Arius' "historical-exegetical education" in the school of the Antiochian Lucianus, while Luther judges very correctly: 1318) "In such beautifully peaceful paradise and happy time [the persecution of Christians on the part of the heathen had ceased] the old serpent comes and awakens Arium, a priest at Alexandria, against his bishop and wanted to raise something new against the old faith and also be a man. Arium, who was a bishop, accepted his bishop's doctrine that Christ was not God, and too many priests and great learned bishops fell to him, and misfortune increased greatly in many lands, until Arius was allowed to boast that he was a martyr and had to suffer for the truth from his bishop Alexandro, who did not allow him to do so well, writing shameful letters to all the countries against him." We call Gieseler's judgment on the origin of Arianism "strange" because it has never happened and can never happen that someone denies the deity of Christ or the Trinity or the satisfactio vicaria or the inspiration of Scripture, etc., as a result of "exegetical education." In this way, of course, modern theology would like to justify its denial of all the basic articles of the Christian religion. It is very familiar with the talk that it came to its position by way of "exegesis", "deeper understanding of the Scriptures", and so on.

1315) St. L. XVI, 2188 f.: "The Council did not reinvent or establish this article as if it had not existed before in the Church, but defended it against the new heresy of Arii. ... For where would have remained the Christians, who before this Council had believed for more than three hundred years, from the apostles onward, and had worshipped and called upon the dear Lord Jesus as a true God, and had died for it and allowed themselves to be miserably tortured?

1316) Contra Arianos III, 4. in Seeberg, Dogmengesch. 2 I, 166.

1317) Kirchengesch. I, 333.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1318) St. L. XVI, 2186.

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But the true "exegetical education" consists, as we know, in the fact that we "act with the Scriptures in such a way that we think as God Himself speaks" (Luther), and remain at Christ's Word in the face of all human thoughts. (Jn. 8:31-32.) The genesis of Arianism as of every other form of heterodox teaching, also of the heterodox teaching of our time, is exactly revealed in 1 Tim. 6:3 f. for all times. It is the turning away from the salutary words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the resulting typhosis, that is, the being puffed up in one's own wisdom, modernly expressed: the construction of the Christian doctrine out of the religious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject. The real reason why Luther and Melanchthon would not have dared to undertake a "new construction" in the early church doctrine of the Trinity is recently given by Horst Stephan with the words:1319) "They were far too accustomed to regard the Bible as a source of knowledge and the early Christian confessions as a summary of biblical doctrine." Stephan refers to Erl. A2 9, 33, where Luther — but not as by old habit — says: "This faith" ("that there is only one God and yet three distinct persons in one divine being, as the Holy Fathers have diligently gathered from Moses and from the writings of the prophets and apostles and have preserved it against all heretics") — this faith "has been bequeathed to us, and God has preserved it by power in His Church to this day against all the rabble and devils. Therefore we should also remain simple and not be clever".1320) As a warning, Luther adds that "our God saves those who do not want to be clever and believe the Word badly; the others, who want to follow reason in such matters and despise the Word, shall fall to the ground and perish because of their wisdom".

5 Filioque. This term expresses that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son. The filioque is now generally believed to have been inserted into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Council of Toledo (589). But here, too, the church formulation is later than the faith of the Christians.

Christians have always believed the filioque when they read or heard that the Scriptures call the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Father (Matt. 10:20) and

1319) Glaubenslehre 1921, p. 192.1320) St. L.. XII. 656

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the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6) and that the mission of the Spirit is ascribed to the Father (Joh. 14:16), so also to the Son (Joh. 15:26; 16:7), with the added explanation that the Holy Spirit does not speak from Himself but takes it from the Son (Jn. 16:13-14). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the lips of the Messiah (Is. 11:4), the Spirit of His mouth (2 Thess. 2:8). The words Jn. 20:22 also point to the going forth of the Holy Spirit from the Son: Ταύτα είπών ένεφνσησε και λέγει αύτοΐς' λάβετε πνεύμα άγιον. As is well known, the filioque later became the point of difference between the Oriental [Eastern] and Occidental [Western] Churches. Conf. Orthod. (1643), p. 142: Το πνεύμα το α\γιον εκπορεύεται έκ μόνου τού πατρός ώς πηγής κα'ι αρχής τής ϑεότητος. 1321)

6. Περιχώρηοις, ένύπαρξις, circumincessio. By these expressions the interpenetration of the divine persons is expressed, because to each of the three persons the numerically one divine essence belongs wholly and undividedly. It is the immanentia et inexistentia mutua, qua una persona propter essentiae unitatem est in alia. [“mutual immanence and non-existence, whereby one person is in another because of the unity of essence”]1322) This doctrine

1321) In Plitt, Grundriß der Symbolik 3, p. 40. Cf. on more recent deniers of the filioque M. Günther, Populäre Symbolik 4, St. Louis 1913, p. 131 f. That the filioque was also taught in public writings before the Council of Toledo (589) is generally admitted. Augustine taught the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son. (Seeberg, Dogmengesch.2 I, 195.) The same is stated in the Athanasian Creed: "The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, not born, but proceeding." Dogmatists prove that according to Scripture the Holy Spirit stands in the same relationship to the Son as to the Father. Thus Baier II, 69: Spiritus Sanctus non tantum Patris, Matt. 10:20, sed et Filii Spiritus dicitur, Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9; l Pet. 1:11, Dicitur enim Spiritus eius personae, a qua spiratur. [“The Holy Spirit not only the Father, Matt. 10:20, but it is also said of the Son of the Spirit, Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11, for it is called the Spirit of his person, from whom he breathes”] Baier then still refers to Jn. 20:22, Is. 11:4, compare with 2 Thess. 2:8. This proof should also be accepted by those among the newer theologians who admit that "pretemporal" or "ontological" relationships in God must correspond to the economic divine acts. As for the Greeks, they would hardly have denied the filioque so adamantly if they had not sought a reason for separation from the Western Church.

1322) Quenstedt 1, 470: Όμοονοίας consequentia sunt περιχώρηοις seu ένύπαρξις, circumincessio, immanentia et inexistentia mutua et singularissima, qua una persona propter essentiae unitatem est in alia, Ioh. 14:11; 17:21. [“Όμοονοίας consequentia sunt περιχώρηοις seu ένύπαρξις, circumincessio, immanentia et inexistentia mutua et singularissima, qua una persona propter essentiae unitatem est in alia, Ioh. 14:11; 17:21.”]

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is clear scriptural teaching. Jn. 14:11: Ιγώ έν τφ πατρϊ καί δ πατήρ έν έμοί Jn. 17:21: ον, πάτερ, εν έμοί κάγώ έν σοί. With this mutual being of the persons, which is clearly testified in the Scriptures, it is to be held at the same time on the basis of the Scriptures in faith that only the Son, not also the Father and the Holy Spirit, became man. Luther, as we heard above, probably wanted to be as smart as some heretic, if he could understand this.

The opera divina ad intra and the opera divina ad extra. These terms have been said before and especially in our time to be the climax of the sophistry, incomprehensibility, and meaninglessness of early church terminology in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity. But they are not based on human sophistry, but are contained in the substance of Scripture. And as far as their intelligibility is concerned, it has already been recalled and shown above that Luther, for example, excluded these terms without hesitation from his sermons to the people. By opera divina ad extra we understand those works of God which relate to the world or have their object in and on the world, such as the creation and preservation of the world and the gathering and preservation of the Church. We already established from Scripture that these works are common to the three Persons, because the three Persons have not three divine beings but one and the same divine being, and not three series of divine attributes and works but one and the same divine attributes and works. Hence the early church axiom: Opera divina ad extra sunt indivisa. Besides this, however, the Scriptures call divine works which have their object not in the world and within the world, but within the Godhead. Luther calls them "inwardly remaining divine works" or also works that do not "fall out of the Godhead." These works are the eternal begetting (generatio) of the Son and the eternal breathing (spiratio) of the Holy Spirit. When in Scripture the Son is called "the only begotten of the Father" (ο μονογενής παρά πατρός), a divine work within the eternal divine majesty is thus revealed to us, which, proceeding from the Father, relates to the Son. And when Scripture calls the Holy Spirit both the "Spirit of the Father" (τό πνεϋμα του πατρός) and the "Spirit of the Son" (τό πνεύμα του υιoυ), it thus reveals to us a divine work within the divine majesty, which, proceeding from the Father and the Son, refers to the

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Holy Spirit. Through the revelation of these "inward" divine works, the Holy Scriptures clearly reveal to us that in the one eternal divine Majesty there are three distinct divine Persons: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit; for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are personal names. This opera divina ad intra is not common to the three persons as is the opera ad extra. Rather, the begetting of the Son is ascribed to the Father alone, and thereby the Father and Son are revealed as distinct persons. And the breathing (spiratio) of the Holy Spirit is ascribed to the Father and the Son, and thereby the Holy Spirit is revealed as a distinct person from the Father and the Son. Thus, the opera divina ad intra, because they are divisa (axiom: opera ad intra divisa sunt), serve to distinguish three persons within the divine majesty. They are therefore also called "personal acts" (actus personales). In order to maintain this distinction of the persons against the Unitarian error and to reject any confusion of the persons, it was then added that to the Father as a personal quality belongs the being of the Father (paternitas), to the Son as a personal quality the being of the Son (filiatio), to the Holy Spirit as a personal quality the being of the Spirit or being breathed upon (spiratio passiva, processio). These are the so-called "personal properties" (proprietates personales, characteres hypostativi), which are given with the personal acts (actus personales). They have, as said, the purpose to fix the difference of the persons and to exclude the mixing of the persons. The same purpose has the further detailed descriptions of the persons in the Athanasian Creed: "The Father is of no one, neither made nor created nor born. The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but born. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, not made, not created, not born, but proceeding." These more detailed descriptions of the three persons have been called in summary proprietates et notiones personales.1323) These church expressions are especially in our

1323) Baier-Walther II, 64 [Trigl., p. 33: Athanasian Creed:] Distinguuntur personae divinae actibus personalibus, proprietatibus et notionibus personalibus. Added is a quotation from Löber, Ev.-Luth. Dogm., St. Louis and Leipzig 1872, p. 201 ff.: " The personal effects are those effects within the divine being (opera ad intra), by means of which a person of the most holy

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time called "artificial theory", "scholastic speculation" and "without content". We read, for example, in one of the latest efforts in the dogmatic field:1324) "To this were added the old speculations about the opera ad intra: the two actus personales, the begetting (generatio) proceeding from the father and the breathing (spiratio) proceeding from the father and son, yield the three proprietates personales (paternitas, filiatio, processio) and the similarly contentless notiones personales. Thus one had an exceedingly artificial theory."

To this dismissive criticism of the term opera ad intra, which has been used in the church against the antitrinitarians, it should first be said: One could well wish, however, that in the church there had never been any deniers of the Holy Trinity, and that therefore the church had never had cause to develop this terminology. One compares Chemnitz about this.1325) So also the apostle Paul desires, "Would to God that they also were cut off (άποκόψονται) who disturb you!" 1326) But the assertion that this terminology, as it now exists formed "propter errores et insidias haereticorum"1327) , is a human "speculation," an "artificial theory," and "devoid of content," can only be called an unseemly audacity. This audacity has a parallel in the modern-theological assertion, which even in the "conservative" camp

Godhead has the divine being from another person from eternity. Such effects are two: the one, since God the Father from eternity has begotten and given birth to His Son (generatio), and the other, since God the Father and the Son from eternity have let the Holy Spirit go forth from Himself (spiratio active talis). … On these two personal effects are based the personal attributes, namely that the first person is Father (paternitas), the other the Son (filiatio) and the third the Holy Spirit or the proceeding out (processio seu spiratio passive talis, termino 'passive' tantum grammatice intellecto). ... Finally, the difference between these highly holy persons also includes their personal knowledge, from which we can see their personal characteristics; namely, in the case of the first person, that he was neither born nor came forth from another (innascibilitas et improcessibilitas, quatenus non est ab alio vel genitus, vel procedens); in the case of the other person, that it is born of the first person (generatio passive talis); but in the case of the third, that it is not born, but proceeds from the father and son (spiratio passive in sensu grammatico talis)."

1324) Horst Stephan, Glaubenslehre 1921, p. 193.

1325) Loci, I, 36 sqq.<w:t>1326) Gal. 5:12.

1327) Chemnitz' expression loc. cit.

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themselves do not teach that they are inspired and cannot be broken. With regard to the church terms, which have to do with the opera divina ad intra, it actually stands in such a way that they are fully and completely covered by scriptural statements, as we have already proved in detail above. Modern theologians may freely confess their unbelief, namely, that they do not believe the Scriptures and therefore openly reproach Luther, for example, for having been "too accustomed" to consider the Bible as the Word of God, and therefore also for having stopped at considering the church terminology of the opera divina ad intra as a summary of the biblical doctrines. But it should be impossible for modern theologians to claim that these terms are not founded in Scripture, but are to be classified as human speculation and invention. In fact, these church expressions say no more than Christians, who are completely unfamiliar with church terminology, have completely excluded from their content on the basis of a few clear passages of Scripture. If the Christians believe simple-mindedly that the Son is the only begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, they believe thereby both the actus personales, namely the generatio and spiratio, and the proprietates personales, namely paternitas, filiatio, processio, together with the supposedly "contentless" notiones personales, such as the non-being born of the Father, etc. But why — so judge less determined opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity — why burden these basically self-evident things with a series of church terms? To this the proper answer is: For this we can thank the false teachers! The church has not invented these terms out of novelty addiction (Chemnitz says: non aliqua petulanti novitatis affectione), much less out of some kind of malice to torment the posterity. Rather, we owe this burden of ecclesiastical expressions — if it is a burden — to the enemies of the Christian church, who, under ever new misinterpretations of scriptural words and evasions, disputed God's self-revelation in his Word, namely the revelation that the divine Majesty from eternity is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. They did not want to let the Son and the Holy Spirit be persons, but to convert them in ever new twists into divine effects or wills or powers.

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Because now, as is well known, modern theology to a large part walks on the same evil ways, namely by allegedly "deeper grasping" of the concept "person" the persons are converted into "effects, forces, will" etc.,1328) so what the old-church theology says about the opera divina ad intra is not at all without value and "without content" also for the present. The Christian' church has been fought by Unitarians at all times, even at the time of the Reformation. Even in Luther's time there were people who were under the delusion that they could still be members of the Christian Church, despite the denial of the Trinity. This explains the fact that Luther so powerfully declares the Trinity in all his writings and also in sermons to the people. In doing so, he also considered it useful to use the terminology of the early church. This is especially true of the expressions opera, ad intra and opera ad extra, whose complete agreement with Scripture he proves. — The question has still been raised whether we could really expect from the Christian people an understanding of what it is about the eternal begetting (generatio) of the Son from the Father and about the eternal proceeding (processio) of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. We certainly cannot expect this. But also all understanding theologians, when they tried to penetrate into the mystery of opera ad intra, have confessed: Quid sit nasci, quid processus, me nescire sum professus. [“I professed not to know what it is to be born, what the process is.”] Very correctly, for example, Baier says:1329) Differre generationem Filii et spirationem Spiritus Sancti certum est; modum autem, quo differant, plenius definire non possumus. In other words, between the eternal generatio of the Son from the Father and the eternal spiratio of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, there is certainly a difference, not merely imagined, but real, because the words used in Scripture are different. But to want to make statements beyond that of the difference, also about the how of the difference, would be a reprehensible boldness and an attempt to penetrate independently, without God's self-revelation in his Word, into the divine majesty which dwells in a light where no man can come.1330) Luther also says, as we have already heard, with regard to the eternal generatio of the Son and with regard to the eternal processio of the Holy

1328) Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 490 ff. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1329) Compend. II, 69.

1330) 1 Tim. 6:16.

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Spirit:1331) "Theologians call such a birth of the Son an inward birth, which does not fall out of the Godhead, but comes only from the Father and remains in the Godhead. So they call the coming forth of the Holy Spirit an inward coming forth, which does not go out of the Godhead, but comes only from the Father and the Son and remains in the Godhead. How this comes about we are to believe, for it is not known even to the angels, who nevertheless see it with joy without cessation, and all who want to understand it have their necks broken over it."

The throwaway criticism and heartfelt hostility that modern theology has towards the church term opera divina ad intra is very explainable. If there are eternal opera ad intra or eternal actus personales within the divine majesty, that is, if the Son is born of the Father in eternity, and if the Holy Spirit proceeds from eternity from the Father and from the Son, and if there are therefore also proprietates and notiones personales, that is, the Father is not only in time, but from eternity Father, and the Son is not only in time, but from eternity Son from the essence of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not only in time, but from eternity Holy Spirit from the essence of the Father and the Son: then Unitarianism in every form, including Subordinatianism and the merely "economic" Trinity, is completely eliminated. Then it stands immovably, as the Augsburg Confession expresses it, "that there is one divine being, which is called and truly is God, and yet there are three persons in the same one divine being, equally powerful, equally eternal, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit". What a strange thing that here — just as in the case of the scriptural doctrine of inspiration — the verdict of a theology that has fallen away from Scripture is: artificial theory, human speculation, without content, harmful, etc. We consider it appropriate and useful to let Luther and Chemnitz have their say once again about the opera ad intra and extra.

In Luther's exposition of the last words of David (2 Sam. 23:1-7) we have a very detailed exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old and New Testaments.1332) Throughout, Luther warns against the attempt to reason in imagined wisdom from the human ego, according to "reason," about the doctrine of the

1331) The Three Symbola, St. L. X, 1009.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1332) St. L. III, 1884 ff.

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Holy Trinity to want to judge. He says, for example: "Here Dame sophistry, the reason, which is ten times wiser than God Himself, is at odds." "Such kind of highly intelligent people are also the Jews, Mahomet, Turks and Tatars, who can grasp the incomprehensible nature of God in the spoon or nutshell of their reason and say that God has no wife, therefore he can have no son. Fie, fie, fie you, devil, with Jews and Mahomet, and all those who are pupils of blind, foolish, miserable reason in these high things, which no one understands but God alone, and how much of it the Holy Spirit has revealed to us through the prophets." Throughout Luther's exposition runs the use of the early church term opera ad intra and opera ad extra. He says in connected exposition (loc. cit., pp. 1919 ff.): "Here it is well for a Christian to note that, as Athanasius sings in his Symbols,1333) he does not mix the persons into one person or divide or separate the one divine being into three persons. For if I give a special work to any person from outside, in the creature [ad extra], where the other two should not have anything to do with it, I have divided the one divinity and made three gods or creators; this is wrong. Again, where I do not give a special distinction to any person within the Godhead or apart from and above the creature [thus ad intra], which is not due to the other two, I have mixed the persons into one person; this is also wrong. Here belongs the rule of St. Augustine: Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa, the works, which God has made from within the Godhead, are not to be divided, that is, the persons are not to be divided into the works, nor is each person to be given his own different work from the outside, but the person is to be distinguished from within the Godhead [ad intra], and yet all three are to be given each work from within [ad extra] without distinction. So that I give an example: The Father is my God and your God and Creator, who made me and you. The same work that I and you are, the Son also made, is both my God and your God and Creator as the Father. So the Holy Spirit made the same work that I am and you are, and is my God and your God and Creator as well as

1333) Luther refers to the use that the Athanasian Creed was sung in the churches. Cf. Müller, Symb. Bücher, Historisch-theol. Einleitung, p..LIII..

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the Father and the Son. Still there are not three gods or creators, but one single God and creator of all of us. Here, with this faith, I guard against the heresy of Arii and his kind, that I do not separate the one divine being into three gods and creators, but keep in the right Christian faith no more than the one God and creator of all creatures. — Again, if then I go above and apart from the creation or creature into the intrinsic, incomprehensible essence of divine nature [that is, ad intra], I find, as the Scriptures teach me (for reason is nothing here), that the Father is another distinct person from the Son, in the one, undivided, eternal Godhead; his difference [proprietas personalis] is that he is Father, and has the Godhead not from the Son nor from anyone; the Son is a distinct person from the Father, in the same one paternal Godhead; his distinction [proprietas personalis] is that he is Son, and has the Godhead not of himself nor of anyone, but of the Father alone, as eternally born of the Father; the Holy Spirit is a distinct person from the Father and the Son in the same united Godhead; his distinction [proprietas personalis] is that he is the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son at the same time eternally, and having the Godhead not of himself nor of anyone, but both from the Father and the Son at the same time; and all this from everlasting to everlasting.1334) Here, with this faith, I refrain from the heresy of Sabellii and his ilk, of Jews, Mahomet, and whoever they are, who are wiser than God Himself, and do not mix the persons into one single person, but keep in the right Christian faith three distinct persons in the one, divine, eternal Being, who nevertheless is all three against us and the creatures [ad intra] one single God, Creator and Worker of all things. — All this is perhaps sharp or subtle to us Germans and should remain fair in the schools; but because the devil stirs his tail in these latter times,1335) as if he would like to bring back all kinds of heresies,

1334) Thus, Luther rejects the so-called "economic Trinity," which is just another name for Unitarianism.

1335) In our time, the devil does more than merely "stir the tail. As at one time during the Arian struggle it was said, "The world has become Arian," so at our time it can be said that through modern theology the so-called Protestant world has become Unitarian. Cf. in Nitzsch-Stephan the sections “The Present" and "Criticism and Result," pp. 490 ff.

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and the world without this has become lascivious and mad to hear new things, and weary of sound doctrine (as St. Paul prophesies 2 Tim. 4:3), so that the doors are opened to the devil to lead in what he wills, it is useful and necessary that some, both laymen and scholars, especially pastors, preachers and schoolmasters, learn to think and speak German about such necessary articles of our faith. But if it is too difficult, let him stay with the children in catechism and pray against the devil and his heresy, against Jews and Mahomet, so that he will not be led into temptation.

Chemnitz writes in his Loci under the section: De regulis in operibus Dei ad extra et ad intra among others the following: 1336) Traditae sunt in scholis duae regulae ex Augustino sumptae, quae si nullum alium haberent usum, tamen retinendae essent propterea, quia monstrant vera fundamenta solvendi Sabelliana argumenta. Prima: Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. Quando Deus extra suam essentiam in creaturis aliquid operatur, tunc tres personae sunt simul et simul operantur, quia unus est Factor et Conditor. Ideo unum etiam opus trium Personarum. Vide Martinum Lutherum de ultimis verbis Davidis, Tom. 8, Ien., p. 164, ubi dicit: [Google] "If I give a special work to each person from outside in the creatures, where the other two do not have to do with it, then I have separated the one Godhead and made three gods or creators. This is wrong. So the persons are not to be divided into the works, nor is each person to be assigned his own different work from the outside, but all three persons are to be assigned each work by heart without distinction."Sumitur autem haec regula ex illis fundamentis, quae antea posuimus. In creaturis enim ea, quae numero differunt, etiamsi in essentia conveniant, facultates tamen et operationes partiuntur, inquit Nazianzenus. In Deo vero tanta est unitas, tanta vis unius et eiusdem essentiae, ut non singulis personis singula et peculiaria opera, quae seorsim in creaturis operantur, assignari debeant. Quia Scriptura inquit: "Faciamus", Gen. 1:26, et Ioan. 5:16: "Quae Pater facit, haec similiter et Filius facit"; Ioan. 14:10: "Pater in me manens, ipse facit opera"; et rursus Ioan. 5:17: "Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor"; Ioan. 16:15: "Omnia, quaecunque habet Pater, mea sunt. Ideo Spiritus

1336) Loci I, 40 sq.

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Sanctus de meo accipiet et annuntiabit vobis." Haec testimonia pulchre explicant, quomodo opera ad extra sint communia. Hinc Nazianzenus dicit: [Google] "Illud, quod operatur, est una tribus personis communis essentia." Ergo sicut una et indistincta est essentia, ita unus est factor et operator: unum et indistinctum opus. Secunda: Opera Trinitatis ad intra sunt divisa. Opera, quae Deus facit extra omnem creaturam intra sese, non sunt communia tribus personis, sed unius tantum personae propria, ut Patris proprium est generare; Filii, genitum esse; et Spiritus Sancti, ab utroque procedere. Quando divinitas intra se describitur, discernuntur personae, et servatur cuique personae suus ordo et sua proprietas, ut prima persona sit Pater, secunda Filius, tertia Spiritus Sanctus; item, quid sit Pater, quid Filius, quid Spiritus Sanctus; item, quod discrimen, quae proprietas. Vide rursus nostrum Lutherum de ultimis verbis Davidis, Tom. 8, Ien., p. 165, ubi sic scripsit:[Google] "If I do not give a special distinction to each person within the Godhead or outside and above all creatures, which is not given to the other two, then I have mixed the persons into one person; this is wrong. Therefore one should distinguish the persons within the Godhead." Chemnitz adds with regard to the use of these old church terms: Nec existimandum est, observationes esse inanes subtilitates. Sed quia Deus vult ita agnosci, invocari et praedicari, sicut se patefecit, danda est opera, ut de illis tantis mysteriis pie sentiamus et reverenter sobrieque loquamur. Et hac in re veterum diligentiam, per quos veritas huius articuli contra haereticos propugnata et defensa est, imitari studeamus. Nam sicut inquit Jerome: "Ex verbis improprie prolatis oritur haeresis." [Google]

Against the terms opera ad intra sunt divisa and opera ad extra sunt indivisa an objection has been raised in former times and in our time, which has put some people in confusion. The objection is that already in the Apostolic Symbolum the opera divina ad extra is "distributed" among the three persons. Creation is ascribed to the Father, redemption to the Son, sanctification or the gathering and preservation of the Church to the Holy Spirit. Thus, the opera ad extra would not remain undivided, but would be "distributed" among the three persons, and through this "distribution" tritheism, the doctrine of three gods, would be promoted. Thus we read recently: "The actual distribution of the three opera to the three persons, as it is especially described in Luther's Small

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Catechism, had to work in this trend", namely to seduce to the "naive" tritheism, which often prevails in the Protestant church people.1337) First of all it has to be said: No "orthodox" teacher addresses a "distribution" of the opera ad extra from the three persons, unless it should happen here and there by mistake or as a result of a carelessness in expression. The Christian church speaks of "attribution" (attributio) or "appropriation" (appropriatio) of the opera ad extra to the individual persons, but not of a "distribution" of this opera to the three persons. And this is how the Christian Church addresses Scripture. The scripture assigns the creation of the world to the Father in particular. This already happens in the words that the Father created the world through the Son and through the Holy Spirit (Ps. 33:6; Col. 1:15. 16; Hebr. 1:2). Likewise, the Scriptures attribute redemption to the Son in particular. This happens in all the scriptures where it is said that the Son became man, gave Himself for redemption for all, redeemed us from the curse of the law when He became a curse for us (Jn. 1:14; 1 Tim. 2:16; Gal. 3:13). Likewise, Scripture ascribes sanctification or the appropriation of purchased salvation to the Holy Spirit in particular, when it says that the Holy Spirit punishes the world for sin, for righteousness, and for judgment, that He transfigures Christ in the hearts of men, that He is the Spirit of filial piety (πνεύμα νΐοϑεοίας), who bears witness to our spirit that we are God's children, that He guides into all truth (Jn. 16:8-11, 14; Rom. 8:15-16; Jn. 16:13). But Scripture teaches just as clearly that the works mentioned are at the same time common to the three persons (tribus personis communia). Creation is at the same time the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is taught both in the passages of Scripture in which it is said that the Father created the world through the Son and through the Spirit (Ps. 33:6; Col. 1:16; Jn. 1:3), and in the passages in which creation is said to be directly of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 1:10; Job 33:4). The redemption is at the same time the work of the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is taught when the Scripture says that God thus loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that God was in Christ and reconciled the world to himself, that Christ was conceived according to his humanity by

1337) Cf. Horst Stephan, Glaubenslehre 1921, p. 193.

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the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Lord was on Christ (Jn. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:19; Matt. 1:18. 20; Is. 61:1; Luke 4:18). The sanctification or the acquisition of salvation is at the same time the work of the Father and the Son, when the Scripture says of both that they send the Holy Spirit, and when it is said of the Father that He chose us from the beginning for salvation in the sanctification of the Spirit and in the faith of the truth, and the Son says of Himself: "I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified in the truth", and the Christians are called sanctified in Jesus Christ, because Christ Jesus was also made for them for sanctification (Jn. 14:16, 26; 16:7; 15:26; Acts 2:33; 2 Thess. 2:13; Jn. 17:19; 1 Cor. 1:2, 30). Thus we recognize from the Scriptures a twofold truth: 1. the Scriptures attribute the opera ad extra, the creation, the redemption and the sanctification, to the individual persons in particular (opera attributiva sive appropriativa); 2. the Scriptures attribute the same works at the same time to all three persons and thus let them remain opera tribus personis communia. But they remain common to the three persons, because according to the Scriptures the numerically one divine essence belongs to each of the three persons completely and undividedly, and therefore also to the three persons "outwardly" or "against the creatures" the same attributes and the same works belong to them numerically. Thus, in the fact that Scripture both specially assigns the opera ad extra to the individual persons and allows it to remain common (communia) to the three persons, we have another testimony or, as Luther likes to put it, another "revelation" of the ontological or essence Trinity.

Luther treats this point very thoroughly, although he admits that it is perhaps too sharp for the "simple-minded Christians" and gives the counsel that "they may stick to their simple-minded belief that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God.1338) But Luther, as we have already heard, wants both laymen and teachers of the church, who are able, to make such "somewhat sharp" things familiar to themselves for the service of the church. Thus he asks (op. cit.): "Why do we say [in the Symbol], or rather, why does Scripture teach us to say: I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, and not also call the Son Creator? Again: To Jesus Christ, who

1338) St. L. III, 1923.

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was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Again, that the Holy Spirit quickened and spoke through the prophets. Here, indeed, outwardly [ad extra] their particular different works are assigned to the persons, as they themselves [the persons ad intra] are distinguished." There may be room here for an excerpt from Luther's elaboration on this point. Luther distinguishes a twofold consideration of the creature, an "absolute" and a "relative" one. Absolutely considered, the creatures tell us nothing of the fact that in God there are three persons, "because they are all alike one work of the three persons as of the one God". But there is also a "relative" consideration of the creatures. This relative consideration consists in the fact that we pay attention to "how God uses the creatures against us", namely against us men, in order to reveal the Trinity to us also in the creatures. Luther goes on to say about this: "So God needs the dove to be an image or revelation in which the Holy Spirit reveals Himself, and is a different image, which does not show the Father nor the Son to us, but only the Holy Spirit, differently. For the Father, Son and Holy Spirit wants the dove to show and reveal to us differently the Person of the Holy Spirit alone, so that we may be certain that God's one Being is certainly three distinct Persons from eternity. This is why Luke ch. 3:22 says: 'The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove'. In the same way, we speak of the Son as being revealed to us in humanity, or, as St. Paul addresses Phil. 2:7, in the form of a servant, behaving like another man. And this form or humanity is not the image or revelation of the Father or the Holy Spirit, although it is the same creature of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but it is a different form and revelation of the Son alone. For so it pleased God, that is, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that the Son through this form or likeness of mankind should be revealed and known among men as a distinct person from the Father and Holy Spirit, in one eternal, unified being of divine nature. The same is to be said of the Father, that he is revealed to us in voice. This form or shape is not the Son's or Holy Spirit's form or revelation, but only the Father's, who in such a different form wanted to be known to us as a distinct person from the Son and Holy Spirit, in

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an unseparated divine being." To illustrate this further, Luther cites a "rough parable". He says: "To understand such a high thing, the Doctors, especially Bonaventure, give a rough parable. For example, if three virgins put on a garment for one of them, and all three of them took hold of the garment and put it on the third, and the third also took hold of it in the same way, then all three put on the garment of the third, and yet only the third is put on with the garment, and not the other two. Thus it is to be understood here that all three persons [in God], as one God, created the one humanity and united it with the Son in his person, that only the Son is man and not the Father nor Holy Spirit. Likewise also the dove, which takes the Person of the Holy Spirit, and the voice, which takes the Person of the Father; the fiery tongues on the day of Pentecost, wherein the Person of the Holy Spirit is manifested; the wind, and the rest of the things which are preached of the Holy Spirit, that He should work in Christendom, or in the Holy Scriptures. ... Now when we speak in childlike faith: I believe in God the Father, Almighty Creator of heaven and earth', is not the opinion that the Person of the Father alone should be Almighty, Creator and Father, but the Son is also Almighty, Creator and Father; the Holy Spirit also Almighty, Creator and Father; and yet not three Almighty, Creator, Fathers, but one Almighty, Creator, Father of heaven and earth and of us all, even as the Father is our Savior and Redeemer, the Son our Savior and Redeemer, the Holy Spirit our Savior and Redeemer, and yet not three Saviors and Redeemers, but one Savior and Redeemer. Just as the Father is our God, the Son our God, the Holy Spirit our God, yet not three Gods, but one God: so the Holy Spirit sanctifies Christendom, the Father also, the Son also, yet are not three Sanctifiers, but one Sanctifier, etc. Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. But it is spoken for this reason, that we believe and recognize differently three persons in the one Godhead and do not mix the persons nor separate the essence."1339)

1339) Chemnitz writes, Loci 1, 42 sq., on the same point, referring also to Luther's execution: Personae distinguuntur non tantum interioribus discriminibus, ut sunt gignere, genitum esse, procedere, verum etiam

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A few individual remarks may be added here.

1. The Εκπορεύεται, Jn. 16:26 said by the Holy Spirit: δ παρά τον πατρός Εκπορεύεται, is referred by Luther and the dogmatists "as almost self-evident" not only to the temporal (economic) procession, but to the eternal (ontological, inner-tinitarian) procession from the Father. This conception of the Εκπορεύεται has also passed into the symbols. Athanasian Creed: Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens. More recent theologians are divided. Only from the temporal or economic procession understand the εκπορεύεοϑαι by Hofmann, Meyer, Luthardt, Klostermann,

exterioribus, sumptis praecipue a patefactione et beneficiis erga ecclesiam, sicut in definitione cuiusque personae patet. In operibus enim ad extra tres personae sunt simul et simul operantur; sed tamen ordine quodam et servata cuiusque personae proprietate, sicut inquit Augustinus contra Felicianum. Vid, 1 Cor. 15:57: Deo gratia, qui dedit nobis victoriam per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christ. Patres saepe allegant illud Pauli Rom. 11:36: "Ex ipso, per ipsum, in ipso omnia; ipsi honor et gloria." Quia enim apostolus loquitur de operibus ad extra, mentionem facit unius aeternae essentiae: "ipsi honor", non ipsis. Et tamen sicut una est essentia, sine confusione personarum, ita facit opera ad extra communia tribus personis, sine confusione, sed insinuat discrimen personarum: "Ex ipso, in ipso, per ipsum." Considerantur ergo opera ad extra, sicut annotavit magnus noster Martinus Lutherus dupliciter. [Google] Primo absolute: et ita sine discrimine, sunt et dicuntur opera trium personarum communiter. Secundo, relative: quando considerantur, quo ordine agant personae, quae sit cuiusque personae proprietas, quae persona agat immediate. Et ita consideratur opus creationis, redemptionis et sanctificationis et absolute et relative. Et. aliquo modo inde considerari potest, cur aliquando una tantum persona exprimatur, vel duae, quando intelligitur tota Trinitas, sic scilicet: Pater, fons bonitatis, ut veteres loquuntur, dicitur solus potens etc., item Creator. Pater et Filius spirant Spiritum Sanctum in corda credentium, unde dicitur Ioh. 14:23: "Ego et Pater veniemus et mansionem apud eum faciemus." Et 1 Ioh. 3:24: "Ex Spiritu scimus, quod Pater et Filius sint in nobis." Summa: Sicut credimus essentiae unitatem et tamen non debemus admittere personarum confusionem. Ita intelligenda est et illa regula: opera ad extra esse communia tribus personis, ita tamen, ne confundantur discrimina et proprietates personarum. Et hac observatione tota vetustas in solutionibus saepe usa est. In invocatione vero omnino necessaria est illa observatio. Quamvis enim cultus divinus indivisus est, sicut opera ad extra, tamen invocatio ecclesiae hac potissimum ratione seiungitur ab invocatione et cultu reliquarum gentium omwium. Quia non confuse invocat tres personas, sed considerat discrimina et beneficia cuiusque personae propria. [Google]

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on the other hand from the eternal or inner-tinitarian procession Olshausen, Stier, Lange, Godet. Olshausen: "In this place alone is found the Εκπορεύεσϑαι, which has become symbolic, of the Holy Spirit . … Quite misleading and proceeding from a wrong view of the Trinity relation is de Wette's remark on this passage. He wills that the παρά τον πατρός Εκπορεύεται does not go to the essence but to the appearance of the Holy Spirit in His Christian efficacy. To this [the temporal efficacy] refers rather the πέμψω παρά τον πατρός, but in the subordinate clause (το πνενμα τής άληϑείας, δ παρά τού πατρός Εκπορεύεται) is just the eternal essential relationship of the Spirit to the Father expressed." Luthardt refutes himself especially clearly when he wants to refer παρά τον πατρός Εκπορεύεται to the economic or "historical" outcome. He notes, "This statement stands parallel to the other: ον εγώ πέμψω παρά τον πατρός; παρά τον πατρός is said both times." However, both times it is called παρά τον πατρός. But the tense changes very strikingly, which Godet also points out: πέμψω is a future tense, and Εκπορεύεται is a present tense. When the Savior says futurally, "Which I will send you (πέμψω) from the Father," He is clearly speaking of the temporal or economic efficacy of the Holy Spirit, which will occur after He has gone to the Father, John 16:7. Likewise, with respect to the Holy Spirit, the further futuric statement follows, "which will testify of Me" (μαρτνρήσει). This also refers to the temporal, economic efficacy of the Holy Spirit. But if now in the statement, which stands between the two futura, it is said in the present tense: "the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father" (Εκπορεύεται), the change of tense entails that we do not think of an act temporal to the faithful) and coordinated, but of an act pretemporal, eternal. If the statement referred only to the temporal efficacy of the Holy Spirit, it would read according to the future tenses πέμψω and μαρτνρήσει: εκπορεύσεται, which will proceed from the Father.1340)

1340) Cf. Quenstedt I, 577 in his polemic against the Socinians, who also claimed, to Jn. 15:26, verbum prooedere esse intelligendum non de processione aeterna, sed de temporaria, qua Spiritus Sanctus mittitur ad apostolos aliosque fideles. [“The word "proceeding" is to be understood not as an eternal procession, but as a temporary one, by which the Holy Spirit is sent to the apostles and other faithful.”] Quenstedt answers: Processionem hoc loco clare distinguit Dominus a missione, ον εγώ πέμψω, δ εκπορεύεται- Ergo his verbis: "Qui a Patre procedit", non temporalem missionem, sed

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2. Just as recent theologians appeal to Luther in denying the inspiration of Scripture, so they do in rejecting the terminology used by the early church and dogmatists in expounding the doctrine of the Trinity. On the one hand, Luther is reproached for not daring to build a new doctrine, but for adopting the early church confessions of the Trinity as well founded in Scripture. On the other hand, it is said that Luther's actual position on the doctrine of the Trinity does not coincide with the position of the ancient or "orthodox" church. Luther had disapproved of the word "Trinity" as well as of the Latin word "trinitas" and had also occasionally expressed that he would not let the όμοούσως be imposed on him. We already saw what the disapproval of the words "Trinity" and "trinitas" was all about. Luther, however, says of both words that they "do not sound precious," but immediately adds that we have no better words in this article, "which is high above all human understanding and language."1341) As for the όμοούσως, however, Luther says in 1521 in his writing against Latomus:1342) "Now if my soul hated the word homousios and I did not want to use it, I would not be a heretic. For who could force me to use [this word], if I only hold the thing which was established at the council from Scripture?" Latin: Quodsi odit, anima mea vocem homousion et nolim ea uti, non ero haereticus. Quis

aeternam processionem intelligit. ... Idem probat praesentis temporis forma expressa, εκπορεύεται, non εκπορεύσεται... . Illa [processio aeterna], ut generatio Filii Dei hodie, est semper praesens, nunquam in se vel praeterita, vel futura aut desitura, ast ista temporalis est, όταν ε'λΰβ, cum venerit, quem ego mittam in futuro, scii, in festo Pentecostes. [Google] Quenstedt also already deals with a justification that Luthardt contributes in Zöckler's commentary on this passage for his temporal version of εκπορεύεται. Namely, Luthardt remarks on παρά τον πατρός εκπορεύεται: "Understood by the ancient church and church dogmatics of the processio aeterna Spiritus Sancti and held up by the Greek church to the occidental Filioque. But according to the whole context (?) and because of παρά, 'from the environment,' from — her, not εκ, 'from within' (cf. Winer, § 47, b.), to be understood only in the historical sense." To this Quenstedt says: Excipiunt porro, namely, the Socinians, Christ non dicere 8 εκπορεύεται εκ τον πατρός, sed παρά τον πατρός. Respondeo: 1. Τό παρά non excludit τό εξ originationis; 2. etiam Filius dicitur μονογενής πατρός, Ioh. 1:14:scii, generatione. Ergo in hoc mysterio idem est εκ τον πατρός et παρά τον πατρός. [Google]

1341) St. L. XII. 629.<w:t xml:space="preserve">1342) St. L. XVIII, 1182. Opp. v. a. V, 506.

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enim me coget uti, modo rem teneam, quae in concilio per Scripturas definita est. “But if my soul hates the voice of homousion and I refuse to use it, I will not be a heretic. For who shall compel me to use it, so long as I hold the matter which was determined in the council by the Scriptures?”] Luther, as is evident from his address, speaks conditionally. He assumes the case that he would have a strong aversion against the expression homousios, but would still hold the thing denoted by the expression on the basis of Scripture, so he would not become a heretic. Putting the same case, we will speak in the same way today. Philippi rightly reminds us,1343) that even the Lutheran dogmatists always ascribed to themselves only a conditional, not an absolute, necessity to the church expressions. Luther himself still remarks in his later writings, including his exposition of the last words of David in 1543:1344) "But to whom it is too difficult [to find his way into the church expressions], let him stay with the children in catechismo and pray against the devil and his heresy, against Jews and Mahomet, so that he will not be deceived into temptation." How wholeheartedly Luther professed homousios to Arianism is clear from the debate, already partially quoted earlier, which is found in his writing "Von den Conciliis und Kirchen" (1539). After he has clearly and sharply explained which excuses the Arians sought by hiding their heresy behind scriptural words which they misinterpreted, he continues:1345) "Sixth, when it came to the heart that Christ was homousios with the Father, that is, that Christ was the same with the Father and had the same Godhead, the same power, they could no longer find any trick, hole, rank, or swindle. Homousios means one and the same being or nature or one and the same and not two beings, as the Fathers had set in the Concil and is sung in Latin, consubstantialis, some called coexistentialis, coessentialis afterwards. They (the Arians) had accepted this at Nicaea in the Concil and still accepted it when they had to address the emperor and the fathers. But in their own, they challenged it extremely hard, pretended that such a word did not stand in Scripture, held many councils, even in Constantine's time, so that they would weaken the Council at Nicaea, caused much misfortune, and afterwards made ours so anxious that even St. Jerome, upset by it, wrote a miserable letter to the bishop of Rome, Damason, and began to request that such a word homousius should be scratched out. For I do not know, he says, what

1343) Glaubenslehre 2 II, 156 f. <w:t xml:space="preserve">1344) St. L. III, 1920 f.

1345) St. L. XVI, 2211 f.

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what poison is in the letter, that the Arians make themselves so useless about it. And there is still a Dialog, in which Athanasius and Arius quarrel before a magistrate, Probus, about this word homousius. And when Arius insisted that such a word did not stand in the Scriptures, Athanasius caught Arium again with the same art and said: "Nor do these words stand in Scripture: innascibilis, ingenitus Deus, that is, God is unborn," which the Arians had used to prove that Christ could not be God because he was born, but God was unborn, etc. And the magistrate Probus judged against Arium. For it is true that one should not teach anything in doctrines apart from the Scriptures, as St. Hilarius writes in 1. De Trin. This does not mean otherwise, because one should not teach anything else. But that one should not need more or different words, neither in the Scriptures stand, that can not be kept, especially in the dispute, and when the heretics want to make things wrong with blind grips and turn the words of Scripture; It was necessary to put the opinion of Scripture, which was set forth in many sayings, into a short and summary word, and to ask whether they held Christ homousion, as the opinion of Scripture is in all words, which they had perverted with false glosses among their own, but had freely confessed before the emperor and in the Council. Just as if the Pelagians wanted to drive us with this word 'original sin' or 'Adam's plague', because such words do not stand in Scripture, yet Scripture teaches the same words opinion mightily, as: that we are conceived in sin, Ps. 51:5, all by nature children of wrath, Eph. 2:3, and all must be sinners for one sin's sake, Rom. 5:12."