Trinity is One God Not Three Gods

Boethius

Translated by H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand

7 chapters · about 18 min

Get it in Sphinx

Coming soon to iPhone and Android. Join the waitlist to hear when Sphinx opens.

Join the waitlist
Your phone

We'll only email you about Sphinx; you can ask us to remove you any time.

The opening

I.

There are many who claim as theirs the dignity of the Christian religion; but that form of faith is valid and only valid which, both on account of the universal character of the rules and doctrines affirming its authority, and because the worship in which they are expressed has spread throughout the world, is called catholic or universal. The belief of this religion concerning the Unity of the Trinity is as follows: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Therefore Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, not three Gods. The cause of this union is absence of difference: difference cannot be avoided by those who add to or take from the Unity, as for instance the Arians, who, by graduating the Trinity according to merit, break it up and convert it to Plurality. For the essence of plurality is otherness; apart from otherness plurality is unintelligible. In fact, the difference between three or more things lies in genus or species or number. Difference is the necessary correlative of sameness. Sameness is predicated in three ways: By genus; e.g. a man and a horse, because of their common genus, animal. By species; e.g. Cato and Cicero, because of their common species, man. By number; e.g. Tully and Cicero, because they are one and the same man. Similarly, difference is expressed by genus, species, and number. Now numerical difference is caused by variety of accidents; three men differ neither by genus nor species but by their accidents, for if we mentally remove from them all other accidents, still each one occupies a different place which cannot possibly be regarded as the same for each, since two bodies cannot occupy the same place, and place is an accident. Wherefore it is because men are plural by their accidents that they are plural in number.

The whole book is in the Sphinx app.

About this edition

The words
H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand's English translation, copied word for word.
Left out
  • The title page and opening pages before chapter 1
  • A preface, foreword or afterword
  • Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers
  • The index

More like this