I was just giving out the news about my baptism on another Christian site I will not name, and many started getting "triggered" when I said I was Pentecostal and it that the baptism was in Jesus name.
So many called Pentecostalism "a cult from the early 1900s" and they called speaking in tongues "mass hysteria". I had no choice but to get hostile as I felt this was a personal attack against me and my faith.
Why do people hate this specific denomination so much?
You personally is not hated, but the false doctrine of Oneness Pentecostalism who rejects the Trinity in favor of a old hearsay known as Modalism or Sabellianism. This false doctrine originated in the early 200's AD about 170 years after the Apostles.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10448a.htm http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10448a.htm
The doctrine of the Trinity is well known among the early church fathers.
In Didache, 90-110 AD
Chapter 7. Concerning Baptism. And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.
Ignatius of Antioch, AD 110
Our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Spirit. (
Letter to the Ephesians 18)Ignatius … to the church of God the Most High Father and his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, … I glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such wisdom … (
Letter to the Smyrneans intro-ch. 1)
Anonymous, Letter to Diognetus, AD 80 - 130
This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as if new, and was found old, and yet who is ever born afresh in the hearts of the saints. This is he who, being from everlasting, is today called the Son. (
Letter to Diognetus 11)
Justin Martyr, c. AD 150
"No one knows the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal him" [
Matt. 21:27]. The Jews, accordingly, being are throughout of the opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spoke to Moses [in the burning bush], though the One who spoke to him was the Son of God. … They are justly charged, both by the Spirit of Prophecy and by Christ himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. Those who affirm that the Son is the Father are proven neither to be acquainted with the Father nor to know that the Father has a Son. The Son, being the first-begotten Word of God, is God. Of old he appeared in the shape of and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and other prophets, but now in the time of your reign [i.e., during the Roman empire] … he became man by a virgin … for the salvation of those who believe in him. (
First Apology 63).There is then brought to the president of the brethren [
I think this refers to whoever is presiding at a meeting, but no one knows for certain] bread and a cup of wine mixed with water. He takes them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at his hands. (
First Apology 65)
Leningrad Codex of the Hebrew Scriptures
For all things with which we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. (
First Apology 67)But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, there is no name given. .. And His Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word who also was with him and was begotten before the works, when at first He created and arranged all things by Him, is called Christ, in reference to His being anointed and God’s ordering all things through him. (
Second Apology 6)Our Saviour Jesus Christ … being the Word of God, inseparable from Him in power, having assumed [the form of] man, who had been made in the image and likeness of God, restored to us the knowledge of the religion of our ancient forefathers. (
Hortatory Address to the Greeks38)Permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts and Jacob in parable by the Holy Spirit. (
Dialogue with Trypho 36)[
Trypho the Jew speaking to Justin about Christians in general] Trypho said, " … You utter many blasphemies. You're attempting to persuade us that this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron, spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud, became crucified, ascended up to heaven, will come again to earth, and ought to be worshiped!"
Then I answered, "I know that, as the word of God says, this great wisdom of God, the Maker of all things, and the Almighty, is hidden from you." (
Dialogue with Trypho 38)In the fourty-fourth Psalm [
LXX, in our Masoretic text, it's the 45th], these words are … referred to Christ: "My heart has brought forth a good Word" [v. 1,
considered by the early Christians to be a reference to the birth of the Son/Word in eternity past]. (
lDialogue with Trypho 38)Since we find it recorded in the memoirs of the apostles that he is the Son of God, and since we call him the Son, we have understood that he proceeded before all creatures from the Father by his power and his will ... and that he became man by the virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same way in which it derived its origin. (
Dialogue with Trypho 100)For I have already proved that he was the only-begotten of the Father in everything, being begotten, in a unique way,
Logos and Power by him, and afterwards become man through the virgin, as we have learned from the memoirs [
of the apostles]. (
Dialogue with Trypho 105)
Hermas, AD 161
The Son of God is older than all his creatures, so that he was a fellow councilor with the Father in his work of creation. (
Shepherd of HermasIII:9:12)
Tatian, c. AD 165
God was in the beginning, but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe … since no creature was yet in existence, was alone. But, since he is all power, himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with him were all things. With him, by Logos-power, the Logos Himself … subsists. By His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos … becomes the first-begotten work of the Father.
Him we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation, not by abscission [
cutting off]. For what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation … does not render him deficient from whom it is taken.
For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested [the Father] of the Logos-power.
I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear. Yet I certainly do not become destitute of speech by the transmission of speech, but by the utterance of my voice I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds. And as the Logos, begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being born again, and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself. (
Address to the Greeks 5)
Theophilus, AD 168
You will say ... to me: "You said that God cannot to be contained in one place; how do you now say that he walked in Paradise?"
Hear what I say: The God and Father of all truly cannot be contained, and is not found, in a place ... but his Word, through whom he made all things, being his power and his wisdom, assuming the person of the Father and Lord of all, went to the garden in the person of God and conversed with Adam.
For the divine writing itself teaches us that Adam said that he had heard the voice. What else is this voice but the Word of God, who is also his Son? [He is] not [a son] in the way the poets and writers of myths speak of sons of gods begotten from intercourse, but as truth expounds, the Word, who always exists, residing within the heart of God. For before anything came into being [God] had him as a counselor, being his own mind and thought.
But when God wished to make all that he determined, he begot this Word, uttered, the firstborn of all creation, not himself being emptied of the Word [
or Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with his Reason.
And this is what the holy writings teach us, as well as all the Spirit-bearing men, one of whom, John, says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God" [
Jn. 1:1], showing that at first God was alone, and the Word in him. Then he says, "The Word was God; all things came into existence through him, and apart from him not one thing came into existence."
The Word, then, being God, and being naturally produced from God, then whenever the Father of the universe wills, he sends him anywhere, and he is both heard and seen, being sent by Him, and is found in a place. (
To Autolycus II:22)
Hermas, c. AD 170
I wish to explain to you what the Holy Spirit that spoke with you in the form of the Church showed you, for that Spirit is the Son of God. (Shepherd of Hermas. Similitude 9th. Ch. 1.)
Athenagoras, c. AD 177
We acknowledge ... a Son of God. Don't let anyone think it ridiculous that God should have a Son. ... The Son of God is the Logos of the Father ... He is the first product of the Father, not as though he was being brought into existence, for from the beginning God, who is the eternal Mind, had the Logos in himself. (A Plea for the Christians 10)We acknowledge a God, and a Son, his
Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence—the Father, the Son, the Spirit—because the Son is the Intelligence, Reason, and Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence, as light from fire. (
A Plea for the Christians 24)
Irenaeus, AD 183 - 186
Learn then, foolish men [
i.e., the gnostics], that Jesus who suffered for us, and who dwelt among us, is himself the Word of God. … He, the only-begotten Son of the only God, who, according to the good pleasure of the Father, became flesh for the sake of men. (
Against Heresies I:9:3)[The Gospel] according to John relates [Jesus Christ's] original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [
John 1:1]. (
Against Heresies III:11:8)How is Christ the end of the Law if he is not also the final cause of it? For he who has brought in the end himself also made the beginning. And it is he who says to Moses, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have come down to deliver them" [
Ex. 3:7-8]. It was customary from the beginning for the Word of God to ascend and descend for the purpose of saving those who were in affliction. (
Against HeresiesIV:12:4)
Clement of Alexandria, c. AD 190
Though despised as to appearance, [Jesus] was in reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Savior, the clement, the Divine Word; he that is truly most apparently Deity. He is made equal to the Lord of the universe because he was his Son, and the Word was in God. (
Exhortation to the Heathen 10)The Lord is the hierophant [
interpreter of sacred mysteries] and seals while illuminating him who is initiated. He presents to the Father him who believes to be kept safe for ever. Such are the reveries of my mysteries. If it is your wish, be also initiated, and you shall join the choir along with angels around the unbegotten and indestructible and the only true God, the Word of God, raising the hymn with us. This Jesus, who is eternal, the one great High Priest of the one God, and of His Father, prays for and exhorts men. (
Exhortation to the Heathen 12)I call on the whole race of men, whose Creator I am, by the will of the Father. Come to Me, that you may be put in your due rank under the one God and the one Word of God … for to you of all mortals I grant the enjoyment of immortality. For I want to … confer on you both the Word and the knowledge of God, my complete self. This am I, this God wills … this [is] the harmony of the Father; this is the Son, this is Christ, this the Word of God, the arm of the Lord, the power of the universe, the will of the Father … I desire to restore you according to the original model, that you may become also like me. (
Exhortation to the Heathen 12)It cannot be said that the Lord is not willing to save humanity because of ignorance, as though he does not know how each on is to be cared for. Ignorance does nat apply to the God who, before the foundation of the world, was the Counselor of the Father. For he was the Wisdom in which the Sovereign God delighted [
Prov. 8:30]. The Son is the power of God. He is the Father's most ancient Word before the production of all things and his Wisdom. He is then properly called the Teacher of the beings he formed. Nor does he ever abandon the care of mankind by being distracted by pleasure, not the One who assumed flesh—which by nature is susceptible to suffering—and trained it to such an extent that it could not suffer. (
Miscellanies VII:2We are therefore to love him equally with God. And he loves Christ Jesus who does his will and keeps his commandments. (
Who Is the Rich Man Who Shall Be Saved 29)
Tertullian, c. AD 200
We ... believe that there is one only God—but under the following dispensation, or
oikonomia [
Tertullian quotes the Greek word for "order," "dispensation," or "arrangement" here], as it is called—that this one only God has also a Son, his Word, who proceeded from himself, by whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. ...
That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the Gospel ... will be apparent both from the lateness of date which marks all heresies and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. (
Against Praxeas 2)But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source
but from the substance of the Father ... how can I possibly be destroying the Monarchy from the faith [
i.e., removing the singular rule of God as modalists accused trinitarians of doing], when I preserve it in the Son just as it was committed to him by the Father. (
Against Praxeas 4, emphasis mine because of its importance to
the Nicene Creed)Before all things God was alone … He was alone because there was nothing external to him except himself. Yet even then he was not alone,for he had with him that which he possessed in himself, that is to say, his own Reason. [
Which is how Tertullian translates the Greek "Logos"] (
Against Praxeas 5)God is rational, and Reason was first in him … This Reason was his own thought, which the Greeks call
Logos, by which term we also designate Word [
Tertullian is writing in Latin and used the word "Sermo"], and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the simple translation of [
Logos] to say that the Word was in the beginning with God, even though it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient. God did not have Word from the beginning, but he had Reason even before the beginning. Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the first to exist as being its own substance. Not that this distinction is of any practical importance.
[
Are you looking for a meaning to all that? The basic premise is that the Logos existed in the beginning with God, and Tertullian has some philosophical reasons for wanting to translate that as Reason rather than Word, even though Word is more common] (
Against Praxeas 5)Although God had not sent out his Word, he still had him within himself … as he silently planned and arranged within himself everything which he was afterwards to utter through his Word. (Against Praxeas 5)Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought … Whatever you think, there is a word … You must speak it in your mind …
Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech … The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness you are? (
Against Praxeas 5)This power and disposition of the Divine Intelligence is also set forth in the Scriptures under the name of Wisdom; for what can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom than the Reason or the Word of God? Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a Second Person: "At the first the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways … " that is to say, he created and generated me in his own intelligence. Then, again, observe the distinction between them implied in the companionship of Wisdom with the Lord [
referencing the Father]. "When he prepared the heaven," says Wisdom, "I was present with him." (
Against Praxeas 6)Now, as soon as it pleased God to put forth into their respective substances and forms the things which he had planned and ordered within himself, in conjunction with his Wisdom’s Reason and Word, he first put forth the Word himself … in order that all things might be made through him through whom they had been planned and disposed. (
Against Praxeas 6)At that time the Word assumes his own form and glorious garb, his own sound and vocal utterance, when God says, "Let there be light." This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when he proceeds forth from God … "The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways;" then afterward begotten, to carry all into effect: "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him." In this way he makes him equal to him, for by proceeding from himself he became his first-begotten Son … and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to himself, from the womb of his own heart, just as the Father himself testifies: "My heart," says he, "has emitted my most excellent Word." (
Against Praxeas 7)He became the Son of God and was begotten when he proceeded forth from him. … But you [
Praxeas, a heretic who held to modalism ("Jesus only")] will not allow him to be really a substantive being, by having a substance of his own in such a way that he may be regarded as an objective thing and a person, and so be able to make two, the Father and the Son, God and the Word.
For you will say, what is a word but a voice and sound of the mouth … but for the rest a sort of void, empty, and incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, contend that nothing empty and void could have come forth from God … for all things which were made through him, he made. … How could he who is empty have made things which are solid, and he who is void have made things which are full, and he who is incorporeal have made things which have body? … Is that Word of God, then, a void and empty thing, which is called the Son, who is himself designated God? "The Word was with God, and the Word was God" [
Jn. 1:1] … This for certain is he "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God" [
Php. 2:6].
In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny that God is a body even though "God is Spirit" [
Jn. 4:24] For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form. … Whatever, therefore, was the substance of the Word that I designate a Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and while I recognize the Son, I assert his distinction as second to the Father. (
Against Praxeas 7)[
Written against modalism or "Jesus only"] If you want me to believe him to be both the Father and the Son, show me some other passage where it is declared, "The Lord said to himself, ‘I am my own Son, today have I begotten myself.’" … On your side, however, you must make Him out to be a liar, an impostor, and a tamperer with his word, if, when he was himself a Son to himself, he assigned the part of his Son to be played by another. All the Scriptures attest the clear existence of—and distinction [of persons] in—the Trinity, and indeed furnish us with our Rule of faith. He who speaks, and he of whom he speaks and to whom he speaks, cannot possibly seem to be one and the same. (
Against Praxeas 11)I shall follow the apostle [Paul], so that if the Father and the Son are alike to be invoked, I shall call the Father "God" and invoke Jesus Christ as "Lord."
But when Christ alone [is invoked], I shall be able to call him "God." As the same apostle says, "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever" [
Rom. 9:5].
For I should give the name of "sun" even to a sunbeam, considered by itself. But if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I would certainly withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I do not make two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to be as much two things—and two forms of one undivided substance—as God and his Word, as the Father and the Son. (
Against Praxeas 13)"No one has seen God at any time" [
1 Jn. 4:12]. What God does he mean? The Word? But he [
the Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures] has already said, "Him we have seen and heard, and our hands have handled, the Word of Life" [
1 Jn. 1:1-2]. Well, what God does he mean? It is of course the Father, with whom was the Word, the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has revealed him himself. ... Moreover, he expressly called Christ God, saying, "Of whom are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever" [
Rom. 9:5]. He shows us also that the Son of God, who is the Word of God, is visible, because he who became flesh was called Christ. Of the Father, however, he says to Timothy, "Whom none among men has seen, nor indeed can see," and he accumulates the description in still ampler terms, "Who alone has immortality and dwells in the light that no one can approach" [
1 Tim. 6:16]. It was of him, too, that he said in a previous passage, "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to the only God" [
1 Tim. 1:17], so that we might apply the contrary qualities to the Son himself—mortality, accessibility—of whom the apostle testifies that "He died according to the Scriptures" [
1 Cor. 15:3]and that "He was seen by himself last of all" [
1 Cor. 15:8]. This happened, of course, by means of the light that was accessible, although it was not without imperiling his sight that he experienced that light [
Acts 22:11] (
Against Praxeas 15)
Ignatius a.d. 30–107
Since, also, there is but one unbegotten Being, God, even the Father; and one only-begotten Son, God, the Word and man; and one Comforter, the Spirit of truth; and also one preaching, and one faith, and one baptism;
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians Chapter IV
But the Holy Spirit does not speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not from himself, but from the Lord; even as the Lord also announced to us the things that He received from the Father. For, says He, “the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s, who sent Me.” And says He of the Holy Spirit, “He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear from Me.” And He says of Himself to the Father, “I have,” says He, “glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which, Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name to men.” And of the Holy Ghost, “He shall glorify Me, for He receives of Mine.”
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians Chapter IX
For if there is one God of the universe, the Father of Christ, “of whom are all things;” and one Lord Jesus Christ, our [Lord], “by whom are all things;” and also one Holy Spirit, who wrought in Moses, and in the prophets and apostles;
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philippians Chapter I
Justin Martyr a.d. 110–165
For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water.
The First Apology Chapter LXI
Ireneaus a.d. 120–202
The Church, though dispersed through our 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, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” . . .
Against Heresies Book I Chapter X
The rule of truth which we hold, is, that there is one God Almighty, who made all things by His Word, and fashioned and formed, out of that which had no existence, all things which exist. Thus saith the Scripture, to that effect “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the might of them, by the spirit of His mouth.” And again, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” There is no exception or deduction stated; but the Father made all things by Him, whether visible or invisible, objects of sense or of intelligence, temporal, on account of a certain character given them, or eternal; and these eternal things He did not make by angels, or by any powers separated from His Ennœa.
For God needs none of all these things, but is He who, by His Word and Spirit, makes, and disposes, and governs all things, and commands all things into existence,—He who formed the world (for the world is of all),—He who fashioned man,—He [who] is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, above whom there is no other God, nor initial principle, nor power, nor pleroma,—He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall prove.
Book I Chapter XXII
Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son who has received dominion from His Father over all creation, as this passage has it: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” Here the [Scripture] represents to us the Father addressing the Son; He who gave Him the inheritance of the heathen, and subjected to Him all His enemies. Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord.
Against Heresies Book III Chapter VI
For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, “Let Us make man after Our image and likeness;” He taking from Himself the substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world.
Against Heresies Book IV Chapter XX
Clement of Alexandria a.d. 153–217
O mystic marvel! The universal Father is one, and one the universal Word; and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere, . . .
The Instructor. Book I Chapter VI
Tertullian a.d. 145–220
In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία , as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.
But keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination, and simply prejudged; especially in the case of this heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds.
Against Praxeas Chapter II
The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own οἰκονομία . The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth.
Against Praxeas Chapter III
But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source but from the substance of the Father, and (represent Him) as doing nothing without the Father’s will, and as having received all power from the Father, how can I be possibly destroying the Monarchy from the faith, when I preserve it in the Son just as it was committed to Him by the Father? The same remark (I wish also to be formally) made by me with respect to the third degree in the Godhead, because I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source than from the Father through the Son.
Against Praxeas Chapter IV
Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, 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 as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit.
I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another.
Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete (Holy Spirit), so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter…even the Spirit of truth,” thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that they have the distinct names of Father and Son amount to a declaration that they are distinct in personality? For, of course, all things will be what their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be, that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names does not at all admit of any confusion, because there is none in the things which they designate. “Yes is yes, and no is no; for what is more than these, cometh of evil.”
Against Praxeas Chapter IX
