{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030659.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030659.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030659.htm","text":"Chapter XII.\u2014Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.\nIf the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, \u201cLet us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness;\u201d 7894 whereas He ought to have said, \u201cLet me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness,\u201d as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage, however, \u201cBehold the man is become as one of us,\u201d 7895 He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, \u201cLet us make;\u201d and, \u201cin our image;\u201d and, \u201cbecome as one of us.\u201d For with whom did He make man? and to whom did He make him like? (The answer must be), the Son on p. 607 the one hand, who was one day to put on human nature; and the Spirit on the other, who was to sanctify man. With these did He then speak, in the Unity of the Trinity, as with His ministers and witnesses. In the following text also He distinguishes among the Persons: \u201cSo God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him.\u201d 7896 Why say \u201cimage of God?\u201d Why not \u201cHis own image\u201d merely, if He was only one who was the Maker, and if there was not also One in whose image He made man? But there was One in whose image God was making man, that is to say, Christ\u2019s image, who, being one day about to become Man (more surely and more truly so), had already caused the man to be called His image, who was then going to be formed of clay\u2014the image and similitude of the true and perfect Man. But in respect of the previous works of the world what says the Scripture? Its first statement indeed is made, when the Son has not yet appeared: \u201cAnd God said, Let there be light, and there was light.\u201d 7897 Immediately there appears the Word, \u201cthat true light, which lighteth man on his coming into the world,\u201d 7898 and through Him also came light upon the world. 7899 From that moment God willed creation to be effected in the Word, Christ being present and ministering unto Him: and so God created. And God said, \u201cLet there be a firmament,\u2026and God made the firmament;\u201d 7900 and God also said, \u201cLet there be lights (in the firmament); and so God made a greater and a lesser light.\u201d 7901 But all the rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the former ones\u2014I mean the Word of God, \u201cthrough whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.\u201d 7902 Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says,) \u201cThe Word was God,\u201d 7903 then you have two Beings\u2014One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of Substance\u2014in the way of distinction, not of division. 7904 But although I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons), yet I am bound to acknowledge, from the necessity of the case, that He who issues a command is different from Him who executes it. For, indeed, He would not be issuing a command if He were all the while doing the work Himself, while ordering it to be done by the second. 7905 But still He did issue the command, although He would not have intended to command Himself if He were only one; or else He must have worked without any command, because He would not have waited to command Himself.\n[Kaye thinks the Athanasian hymn (so called) was composed by one who had this treatise always in mind. See p. 526.]\n607:7905","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Other ...","type":"page"}