Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/415

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
APPENDIX.
387

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.

c c 2