The Incomprehensibility of the Holy Trinity

The master, having handed over, says: 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt 28:19), because of the equal, equally-powerful, and consubstantial nature and the clarity of the hypostases. When what is now said concerning God and Father is remembered differently concerning the Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit, it is because of the reasons previously stated. When the hypostases teach differently that the same works perform the same energy, it is because of what is said before. When God and Father has pleased, each hypostasis being able to create and do all things, to sustain all things through the Son and God, and to sanctify through the Holy Spirit, it is because of the single will of the Trinity and the showing that all beautiful things are supplied from it, and because it sends to us thanksgiving and doxology common and equal to itself. When the same names are used for the blessed Trinity, such as 'God,' 'Lord,' 'Holy,' 'Just,' 'Good,' and others—except that 'the Father' is alone and always Father, and 'the true Son and God' is the Son and God without beginning, and 'the Holy Spirit' is the one and the same Spirit of God without beginning—it is because of the shared nature, authority, and all things. This, however, is upon it alone: when they discourse in secret, because the mystery of the faith is always kept to be revealed only to the faithful. When they say the Father God begat, the Son the Word being begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeding, it is because of the divine thinking from the hypostasis of the Father as being without beginning and without passion, and having already preceded and being unified, not as near to creatures.

When he says, 'the Father who sent me is greater than I' (John 14:28) and whatever has been thought to be small regarding divinity, it is because of his inexpressible and voluntary economy for our sake and on behalf of you. For upon divinity, neither the small nor the non-omnipresent has place. When the Son says, 'My Father has given me a commandment, what shall I say and what shall I speak, and from myself I have not spoken' (John 14:10), and concerning the Holy Spirit, 'he will not speak from himself' (John 16:13) and such things, it is because of the harmony of the divine hypostases and because the teachings and gifts of the blessed Trinity are common and not different...

Those striving to be a temple, however worthy of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the faithful, as having once received the inaccessible light shining in them, glorify equally—as the Master established in the mystery of baptism—the self-generated God and Father, and the beloved and only-begotten Word Son co-existing with Him, and the mentioned Holy Spirit proceeding from His only hypostasis unoriginally and without distinction.

They do not disbelieve in the consubstantiality of the Trinity, nor do they seek a way or difference of generation and procession; because even regarding the heavenly liturgical powers, He has established this as unknown, inexpressible, and fearsome to remember; and how the Holy Trinity, having itself existed unoriginally, always possesses likewise and in such ways; and how, being seated upon the eternal throne, it looks upon the abysses, and while silencing, hears, and while hearing, remains silent; and knowing the future before the actual; and by word, and even more than word, by the mere will to lead all things; and before one scratches in the heart, it immediately provides the vote upon the request; and it accords all things at all times for benefit; and to be slow for wrath, but ready for goodness; and to be angry through our deficiency, but to remit the punishment through its own philanthropy.

And moreover, it is still incomprehensible how it has one will, and speaks, and provides common things of itself; and it overshadows not so much for the well-being of bodies, but the crushed heart itself. And indeed also this, how it exists invisible and ungraspable by seraphic eyes, uncontainable by word and place, undivided in power, unsearchable, immeasurable, simple, and unyielding; all-seeing, all-hearing, and the hope of all; far more luminous than heavenly light, and higher than all height, as much as cannot be said, and more intellectual by an infinite word than every mind.

For how could the things of the Trinity not be incomprehensible to all, when it is the creator of all and higher than all noetic, and even more so than noetic creation, beyond which is absolutely nothing, and all things...