Column: Illuminations
An Easter Trinity
by Anthony Esolen
We Christians believe in a communion that makes many another monotheistic system seem cold and distant, even desolate. In the order of human causes, were it not for the fiery Athanasius, we might be bowing before the lonely god of Omar, as Chesterton put it; or the more philosophical among us might be joining the gentle soul of Plotinus, seeking a mystical flight of the alone to the Alone. But we believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; which is another way of saying that God is love. The divine Persons are really Persons, not personifications; they are not aspects of God, or modes or portions of his being. They are three, and they are One.
(Ye Sons and Daughters),
by Jean Tisserand,
1494.
I'm not enough of a theologian to turn the first leaf of this mystery. I'm wary of the good St. Patrick's shamrock, which might have served to illustrate the truth to a rude Irishman, but might not do for even ruder Americans now. I do know that our forefathers in the faith intuited that everything would fall apart if we got wrong either the person of Christ or the nature of the Trinity. Lose or muddle the Trinity, lose or muddle the divinity of Christ, and soon you will be peddling dilute deistic nostrums according to the taste of the day, your faith having decayed into humanitarianism, preached in an inoffensive little old white building with a spire, next door to a strip joint or an abortuary.
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Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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