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I grieve that a question that has long been dead and given way to faith is now being revived, however, the need lies with us, who have the Word and stand for the Spirit, to resist the clingy hunters of disputes and not to surrender defenselessly into captivity. They say: “If God, God and God, then why not three Gods? And is not that which you glorify multi-principal?” -Who says this? Are they those who have become perfect in wickedness, or those who occupy second place, that is, reason more prudently than others about the Son? Although I have a general word for both, however, I also have a special word for the latter, namely the following: what do you say to us, tritheists, who honor the Son, although you have apostatized from the Spirit; Aren't you also hypotheists? If you renounce the worship of the Only Begotten, then you will clearly take the side of the opponents. And then will it be necessary to show you humanity, as if you were not yet completely dead? And if you honor the Son and are still healthy in this regard, then we ask you, how will you defend your bigtheism if someone were to accuse you? If you have a clever word, answer, show us the way to the answer. The same arguments that you use to repel the accusation of bitheism will be sufficient for us against the accusation of tritheism. And in this way we will gain the upper hand, using you, the accusers, as our defenders. What is nobler than this? What is our common answer, what is the common word for both? We have one God, because there is one Godhead. And those who exist from God are raised to the One, although he believes in the Three, because just as One is not more, so the Other is not less is God, and One is not before, and the Other is not after: They are not separated by will, and are not divided by force, and all that does not take place that only happens in divisible things. On the contrary, to put it briefly, the Divinity in the Divided is indivisible, as in three suns, which are contained one in the other, one dissolution of light. Therefore, when we have in our thoughts the Divinity, the first cause and the unity of command, then what we imagine is one. And when we have in our thoughts those in whom the Divinity is, those who exist from the first Cause, and those who exist from It before time and equally, then the Worshiped Ones are three. They will say: “Well? Isn’t it the same Godhead among the pagans, as those of them who were more philosophic than others teach? And we have a whole race - one humanity. However, the pagans, like us people, have many gods, not just one.” – But there, although the community has unity, represented, however, mentally, there are still many indivisibles, and they are divided among themselves by time, passions and strength. For we are not only complex, but also opposite both to each other and to ourselves; not to mention our whole life, we are not even one day exactly the same, but we constantly flow and change both in body and soul. But I don’t know, they are almost the same, on the contrary, according to their own theologians, they are devoted to passions, rebellions, filled with evil and vicissitudes, they are in conflict not only with themselves, but also with the first causes, as they call the Oceans, Tithys, Fanetes 75 and I don’t know who else, and finally some kind of child-hater - a god who, out of lust and insatiability devours all others 76 to become the father of all men and gods, miserably devoured and vomited. - If, as they themselves say in order to avoid obscenity, these are all fables and some kind of allegories, what will they say to explain the fact that everything is divided into three parts and each part of beings is ruled by a separate god, different from the others both in substance and in dignity? But this is not our teaching. This is not Jacob’s lot (Jer. 51:19), says my Theologian. On the contrary, each of Them 77, by identity of essence and power, has the same unity with the United One as with Itself. This is the concept of this unity, as far as we comprehend it. And if this concept is firm, then thank God for the speculation! And if it’s not hard, we’ll look for something harder. And I don’t know what to call your arguments, with which you are ruining our unity, a joke, or something sensible? And what is your proof? You say: “those of the same essence are counted, but those who are not of the same essence are not counted (by counting you mean a collection into one number), and therefore the inevitable conclusion is that you, on this basis, have three Gods, while for us there is no such danger, because we do not call them consubstantial.” So, in a word, you saved yourself the trouble and won a bad victory. Your action is somewhat similar to when someone, out of fear of death, puts a noose on himself. In order not to bother, standing for unity of command, you renounced the Divinity and handed over to your enemies what they were looking for. But even if it takes some effort, I will not betray the Venerable One. But here I don’t even see any work. You say: those who are of the same essence are numbered, but those who do not have the same essence are imagined as units. Where did you get this? Which teachers and fabulists? Don't you know that every number shows the quantity of objects, and not the nature of things? But I am so simple, or rather, so ignorant, that three things, even if they were different in nature, in relation to number I call three. But one, one and one, although they are not conjugated in essence, I call the same number of units, looking not so much at things as at the number of things being counted. Since you very much adhere to the Scripture, although you oppose the Scripture, here is evidence for you from here. In Proverbs, three have an orderly gait, a lion, a goat and a rooster, the fourth is a king among his people (Proverbs 30:29-31), not to mention the other four numbers named there, while the things being counted are different in nature. And in Moses I find two Cherubim, numbered by one (see Exodus 25:19). According to your nomenclature, how can we call those three, when they are so dissimilar in nature, and count the latter by one, when they are so homogeneous and close to each other? And if I call God and Mammon, who are so far apart from each other, under one number, two masters (see Matt. 6:24), then perhaps you will laugh even more at such a number. But you say: “I call those objects countable and having the same essence, whose names are pronounced accordingly, for example, three people and three Gods, and not three some things, for what kind of correspondence is there?” - This means giving a rule about names, and not teaching the truth. Therefore, for me, Peter, Paul and John are not three and not one in essence, until they are called three Peters, three Pauls and as many Johns. For either what you observed in the discussion of the more generic names, we, following your invention, will demand in the reasoning the more specific names, or by not conceding to us what was conceded to yourself, you will act unfairly. What about John? When in the Council Epistles he says that three bear witness on earth: spirit, water and blood (1 John. 5, 8), is it really, in your opinion, expressed awkwardly, firstly, because he dared to count things that are not of the same essence, whereas this was assigned by you to one of the same essence (for who will say that the named things are of the same essence?), and secondly, because he did not compose the words accordingly, but, on the contrary, put the word three (τ ρείς) in the masculine gender, contrary to the rules and regulations, both yours and grammatical ones, gave three names of the neuter gender (τ ο πνέὐμ α, τ ό ὐΘωρ, τ ό α ἴμ α)? But what difference does it make whether you say the word “three” in the masculine gender and then imagine one, one and one, or, having said: one, one and one, call them three not in the masculine, but in the neuter gender - which do you find indecent for the Divine? What is your cancer - animal cancer, weapon cancer 78 and constellation cancer? What is your dog - a dog living on land, a dog of the sea or a dog of heaven 79? Don't you think that they can be called three crayfish and dogs? - Without a doubt, so. – Is that why they are the same? Which sane person would say this? Do you see how your proof, taken from calculations, collapsed, and how it collapsed repeatedly refuted? For if things of the same essence are not always counted, and things that are not of the same essence can be counted, and names are pronounced about both, then what are the gains of your teaching? But I also take into account the following, and perhaps not without reason. One and one, doesn't it add up to two? And two again, don’t they decompose into one and one? - Obviously so. - But if, according to your beginning, the components are of the same essence, and the divided ones are of a different essence, then what is the conclusion from this? The fact that the same objects are both of the same essence and of another essence. I also find it funny that you are number one and number less, about which you think so highly, as if the order of those named was in the order of names. For if the latter is true, then in the Divine Scripture the same people, according to the equality of their nature, are considered first and sometimes after. Does anything prevent the same person, on the same basis, from being both more honest and less honest than himself? I have the same reasoning about the words God and Lord, also about the prepositions: from, through and in, by which you so cleverly distinguish the Divinity, attributing the first preposition to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit. But what would you do if each of these prepositions were constantly assigned to one, when you prove with them such inequality in dignity and nature, whereas, as far as those who have practiced this know, all of them are used about everyone (1)? Ocean is a titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia. Fanet (Eros) is the god of love. – Approx. ed. This refers to the Titan Kronos, who swallowed his children as soon as his mother and wife Gaia gave birth to them. Zeus was the last to be born, but Gaia gave Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead. – Approx. ed. A crab-tool is a kind of scraper for cleaning a domain from burning. – Approx. ed. Canis celestial is the constellation Canes. – Approx. ed. You might be interested in: