New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-04-18

I =
I--..17 ADJ He wrote: seThe three
ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy give
Us an idea of the divine trinity About
the same time TheophIIus wrote. .SThe
three first days of Creation are typical of
the three persons of the trinity Both Of
these writer's use the Greek word TqiI+ S
The earliest and last writer will quote
is Clement of Rome fs5 95 A. D.1 He
was the third follower Of ST. Peter and
afterwards became Pope. He writes to
the Corinthians thus: s-Have We not =
God and a Christi Is there not also .
Spirit of OraceY' Here we have the
three persons of the TriniE mcntioned.
We are now back to the time Of the
Apostles and to the writing of the New
Testament. may add one more eviid-
ehce drawn from the Catholic creed in
vogue previous to the Council of Nice
the creed which Professor Harnack traces
back to the year $50 4. D. and which
the common tradition of that century
ascribes to the Apostles In that creed
we find the following: 81 believe In God
the Father, and In Jesus Christ, His on
y Son, and IN the Holy Ghost All
catholics learned that creed and repeated
| It then as they do to day. How In the
face of such overwhelming testimony can
your correspondent assert thot the doc
trlne OF the Trinity was imposed on the
Catholic world by the Cornell of Nice2
Evidently he has not read any anteni-
Gene history or he would not have made
SUCH an outrageous mistake
But he claims that the Bible is not re-
sponsible for this doctrine; so we will
give the Bible a chance to speak for it
self From the first epistles of st. John,
fifth chapter, seventh verse:
s1And there are three who give testi-
| mony in heaven: The Father, the Word
and the Holy Ghost and these three are
one" Is this text not explicit enough2
Can language be more explic1t2 Are
not both the Trinity and Unity of God
therein taughts Again, take Matthew
l(2S-19): ''go, therefore, teach all ma
tions, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the HOLY
Ghost Have we hot Trinity ex-
pressed in this texta 1t remains to give
scriptural proof that each one of these
three Trinity Persons is zdivine. For
| the Father or first Person no text need
be cited, as nearly every page of the
scriptures bears testimony thereto; to
prove that the sen is divine I quote St.
Johns Gospel (1-55-) aIn the begin
ming was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God 80
and the Word was made flesh and dweIt
amongst u.s. Again, from st. John
| (Gosp. 10 3O) Christ, speaking Of him
self, says: 81 and the Father are one.''
Once more, John SISSY, Christ says:
aBefore Abrsm was, l." In this text
Christ emphasizes his eternal origin or
his vicinity, for as man he began to be
long after Abram- Notice in this text
the force of Il am" Throughout the
Bible whenever God tells who he is, he
Invariably says. ssI am who am And
the Hebrew word, Jehovah, translated
iato english signifies 81 ann The pre-
sent tense is used to show that with God
there are no such time or space relations
as are designated br the past or future
OF the verb; In the life of God all time
is an Eternal now. So that when Christ
applied the words, Il ann to himself,
he confessed his vicinity in the strongest
possible manner to the Jews The last
text that viii quote for Christ's v1c1n1-
ty is Matthew rs -)ssAl power is given
II
me IN heaven and ON earth Unless
Christ was divine he could not haveused
these words with truth; only a divine
person has the power thus indicated. For
a confirmation of this argument I refer
your correspondent to the foIIowine
texts which space viii not permit to be
quoted Matthew, 16-16- Romans. s-s2s
GALL 4: Hebrews, Ia John a0-31. !.
Acts 90 -sa. Romans 9-5: Titus s13.
Philemon 29: Acts 412- Let Tim,
I2-s- 1st Peter, a3 2s. Hebrews, 412-
That the Holy Ghost is divine Per
SON may be learned from Acts, 5-3-
peter said to AnnInias. Why has Satan
tempted thy heart that thou shouldst
lie to the Holy Ghost; thou hast not he'd
to men but to God Here Peter evi-=
IDENTIFY recognizes the Holy Ghost IS d1-