Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/46

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EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Trinity, or was anything like a modern Unitarian. The Syriac-speaking Church, in common with the rest of Christendom, baptized in the Triple Name, as is commanded in Matt xxviii 19. "The Head of the man," says Aphraates (xxiii 63 = Wright 500), "is the Messiah. O thou that swearest by thy head and that falsely, if thou dost truly hold the three great and glorious Names that were invoked upon thy head, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, when thou didst receive the Seal of thy life,—do not swear by thy head!" Or again (xxiii 60 = Wright 496): "Above the heavens, what is there—who doth suffice to tell? Beneath the earth, what is laid?—there is none to say! The firmament—upon what is it stretched out, or the heavens—upon what are they hung? The earth—on what is it pillowed, or the deep—in what is it fixed? We are of Adam, and here with our senses we perceive little. Only this we know: that God is one, and His Messiah one, and one the Spirit, and one the Faith, and one Baptism. More than thus far it doth not help us to speak; and if we