# The Nestorians and their Rituals/Volume 2/Appendix B/Part 1

PART I.
OF GOD.
CHAPTER I.
That there is a God, and that the world is created, made, and temporal.
S. Paul the heavenly apostle, the treasury of the Holy Ghost, and the spiritual philosopher, has, through the Spirit, laid an admirable foundation for Theology, by his saying, that men "should seek God, and feel after Him, and find Him out from His creation." Inasmuch as the artificer is known by his work, and the maker through the thing made.
That the world is made, and created, and had a beginning in time we know from this:—This world is compounded, framed, and disposed, as a whole, and in all its parts; and every thing that is compounded, framed, and disposed, must have a compounder, framer, and disposer. That it is compound is proved from its whole being made up of many parts, and from all its bodies being made up of matter and kinds, and from the visible and invisible movers therein. But the most certain witness of its being framed is man, who is a small world in himself, and in whose formation all creation is brought together, as one of the sages has said: "Man is an epitome of the whole world, and of the whole frame of creation."
Now that the world is disposed is clear from the wonderful order of the heavens, the planets, the elements, with all their productive powers, generating plants, trees, mines, and the members of beasts and of men, the astonishing order of which surpasses the wisdom and knowledge of all created beings.
​In the same way the ancient philosophers concluded that every motion must have a mover, until they arrived at Him Who is not moved. Who is the Cause of all, and of Whom they predicated that He must be good, wise, and almighty. Good, inasmuch as He created the world without a cause [i.e. of His own motion]; wise, because of the admirable order and frame displayed in the universe; almighty, because He overcame the things which are naturally destructive of each other, and brought them together in one agreement.
Further, this world is made up of quality and quantity, as respects its bodies and spirits, and of different dimensions and extensions, of which the mind can inquire, why they were not less or more, higher or lower than they are. And when it would know a cause for the appropriated designs, resemblances, and dimensions, of all and of each, and for their existence and continuance as they are, it can find no other than the will and intelligence of the Creator, who created and disposed them after His own will, and as He knew would be best and most fit. The artificer must of necessity exist before the work, in order that it may be proved of him that he is really the maker of that which did not exist before, and that he made it. This truth, then, being confirmed, it results that the world is made, and had a beginning in time, and is not eternal. It also results that it has a Maker, Who is good, wise, eternal, strong, and possessed of a will.
CHAPTER II.
That God is one and not many.
That the Maker of this world is one and not many may be proved thus:—It is impossible that many can possess one, perfect, unchangeable, self-consentaneous will; because they must either be co-equal in substance, and in every thing appertaining thereto, which would destroy plurality by the non-existence of distinction, or anything distinguishing, just as it is inconsistent to conceive of the existence of two blacknesses, alike in every respect, and not distinguishable, and having but one and the same substance:—or they must be distinct from ​each other in substance, and in what appertains thereto; when they would be contrary the one to the other, and destructive the one of the other. But existence could not exist between two opposing makers, nor could a perfect work proceed from them.—Or they must be alike in substance, and distinct in what appertains thereto, each one having an appropriate quality by which he is distinguishable from his associates; when they would all be compounded of the things in which they are alike, and of those in which they are distinguishable. But every compound thing is made, and must have a maker and compounder; hence results the truth of that declaration: "The Lord our God is One God; and though there be gods many and lords many, to us there is but one God."
CHAPTER III.
That God is Eternal.
Everything that exists must be either eternal or temporal; and everything temporal has a cause and maker, and time and maker must be pre-existent to it. But that the cause of all things is without a cause, and that the Maker of all things has no maker, every right and unprejudiced mind is assured of, because it is natural to it so to judge. It results, then, that the Self-existent is the Creator, and the Eternal, anterior to time, because He Himself created time. For time is a reckoning of the motions of bodies, and as we have already proved that He is the Creator of these, therefore He is eternal, and without beginning. Now that which has no beginning, can be reachable by no end, and must possess of these two opposite extremes whatsoever is the most high and the most glorious, as truth, light, and life, and must be the Best, the Wisest, the Almighty.
CHAPTER IV.
That God is incomprehensible.
Every thing comprehensible is comprehended either by the senses, or by the mind; and that which is comprehended by ​the senses must be either a body or an accident. But the adorable God is not a body; for every body is compound, and every body occupies space, and every body has limits, all which is opposed to the Self-existent. Nor is He an accident; for an accident cannot exist alone, but requires a substance wherein to exist.
All that is comprehended by the mind, the mind must either stretch to the ends of its length and breadth, (which are parts of its limits distinguishing it from what it is not,) in order that it may in reality comprehend it; but hereby the thing is at once limited, and extension and dimension are foreign to the nature of the Self-existent:—or the mind does not stretch to its end, or to the boundaries which limit it; but this is not comprehension. Hence the Divine Nature is incomprehensible, it being impossible for the mind to comprehend aught of the knowledge of the Self-existent, except that He does exist.
It is said of a certain great philosopher, that he always used this prayer: "Thou cause of the motion of my soul, grant me to know that subtle essence which moves me, what it is, and what it is like. But not even that subtle essence wherewith I am endowed, and whereby I am capable of knowing, can comprehend what Thou art, and how Thou art. This only it can know, that Thou dost exist."
Now, when we say [of God] that He is invisible, incomprehensible, impassible, and immutable, we do not describe what He is, but what He is not.
CHAPTER V.
Of the Trinity.
Everything that exists must be either a material body whose existence is the subject of accidents and changes, and is acted upon by whatever is opposed to it; or not a body, and consequently not the subject of any of these things. Now, we have already proved, that God, (glory be to His incomprehensibility,) is not a body, and therefore is not subject to anything pertaining to materiality, from which He is infinitely removed.
Whatever is immaterial, and not subject to anything appertaining to matter, the traditions of the ancients call Mind. ​And whatever is exclusive of matter, and of what appertains thereto, must be knowing, and must know himself, because himself is ever present and known to him, and he is not dependent on anything but himself. And whatever knows himself must be living. Therefore God is Wise and Living.
Now, he who is wise is wise because of his wisdom; and he who is living is living because he has life. This is the mystery of the Trinity, which the Church confesses of the Adorable Essence: The Mind, Wisdom, and Life, Three co-essential proprieties in One, and One who is glorified in three proprieties. [The Church] has called the Mind, Father and Begetter, because He is the Cause of all, and First. [She] has called the Son, Wisdom and Begotten, because He is begotten of the Mind, and by Him everything was made and created. [She] has called Life the Holy Ghost, and Proceeding, because there is no other Holy Ghost but He. He who is Holy is unchangeable, according to the expositions of received expositors; and this is that which is declared by John the Divine, the son of Zebedee: "In the beginning was the Word;" and, "the Light is the life of man."
Now, as the reasonable soul has a three-fold energy, mind, word, and life, and is one and not three; even so should we conceive of the Three in One, and One in Three. The sun also, which is one in its disk, radiance, and heat, is another simile adduced by the second Theologus Paul, the chosen vessel:
"He is the brightness of His glory, and the Express Image of His Person;" and, again: "Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God."
Further, every thing that exists is either an accident or a substance. But the Self-existent can in no wise be susceptible of accidents. Therefore these three proprieties must be essential, and are on this account called persons, and not accidental powers, and do not cause any change or plurality in the essence of the Self-existent; for He is the Mind, the Same He is the Wisdom, the Same He is the Life, Who ever begat without cessation, and puts forth [makes to proceed] without distance [i.e. without removal from Himself.] These things [cessation and distance] are infinitely removed from Him, and appertain to bodies.
​Now, there is no real likeness between created natures and the Nature of the Self-existent, and a simile does not in every thing resemble that which is compared by it; for then the simile and that which is compared by it would be the thing itself, and we [who have just instituted several comparisons] should not be unlike the man who attempts to compare a thing by the self-same thing.
The mystery of the Trinity is expressed in the words of the Old Testament: "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness;" the occurrence of the letter noon three times in this sentence is an indication of the Trinity. The "Holy" thrice repeated in the seraphic hymn, as mentioned by Isaiah, joined with one "Lord," attests Three Persons in One Essence. The words of David, also, are of the same import: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth;" and many other like references. Let the heathen, then, and Jews who rail at the truth of the Catholic Church, on account of her faith in the Trinity, be confounded and put to shame. Here endeth the first part.