THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.
The author of "Supernatural Religion" asserts:--
"The Fourth Gospel proclaims the doctrine of an hypostatic Trinity
in a more advanced form than any other writing of the New
Testament." [85:1]
This is hardly true if we consider what is meant by the proclamation of
the doctrine of a Trinity.
Such a doctrine can be set forth by inference, or it can be distinctly
and broadly stated, as it is, for instance, in the First Article of the
Church of England, or in the Creed of St. Athanasius.
The doctrine of the Trinity is set forth by implication in every place
in Scripture where the attributes or works of God are ascribed to two
other Persons besides The Father. But it is still more directly set
forth in those places where the Three Persons are mentioned together
as acting conjointly in some Divine Work, or receiving conjointly
some divine honour. In this sense the most explicit declarations of
the doctrine of the Trinity are the Baptismal formula at the end of
St. Matthew's Gospel, and the "grace," as it is called, at the end of
St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
St. John, by asserting in different places the Godhead of the Word, and
the Divine Works of the Holy Ghost, implicitly proves the doctrine of
the Trinity, but, as far as I can remember, he but twice mentions the
Three adorable Persons together: Once in the words, "I will pray the
Father and He shall give you another Comforter." And again, "But the
Paraclete, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall send in My
name, He shall teach you all things."
Now, in respect of the explicit declaration of the doctrine of the
Trinity, the statements of Justin are the necessary [86:1] developments
not only of St. John's statements, but of those of the rest of the New
Testament writers.
I have given two passages in page 10.
One of these is in the First Apology, and reads thus:--
"Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, Who also was born for
this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, Procurator of
Judea in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably
worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God
Himself, and holding Him in the Second place, and the Prophetic
Spirit in the Third, we will prove." (Apol. I. ch. xiii.)
Again, he endeavours to show that Plato held the doctrine of a Trinity.
He is proving that Plato had read the books of Moses:--
"And, as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as
we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, 'that the Spirit of
God moved over the waters.' For he gives the second place to the
Logos which is with God, who he (Plato) said, was placed crosswise
in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to
be borne upon the water, saying, 'and the third around the third.'"
(Apol. I. ch. lx.)
Now unquestionably, so far as expression of doctrine is concerned, these
passages from Justin are the developments of the Johannean statements.
The statements in St. John contain, in germ, the whole of what Justin
develops; but it is absurd to assert that, after Justin had written the
above, it was necessary, in order to bolster up a later, and
consequently, in the eyes of Rationalists, a mere human development, to
forge a now Gospel, containing nothing like so explicit a declaration of
the Trinity as we find in writings which are supposed to precede it, and
weighting its doctrinal statements with a large amount of historical
matter very difficult, in many cases, to reconcile perfectly with the
history in the older Synoptics.