The Mystery of the Holy Trinity in Oldest Judaism

THE Doctors and Fathers of the Church agree in recognizing that the august mystery of the Blessed Trinity is not found explicitly revealed in any of the pages of the Old Testament. This mystery is the supreme manifestation of God's most intimate life. To it, the entire Christian revelation converges, and the Divine Master seems to have reserved to Himself the privilege of teaching it to men in person, when He dwel amongst them. With good reason, however, could St. Augustine say that "the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, if read with a true Christian spirit, testify that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one only God in the unity of essence and substance." In fact, from the earliest dawn of man's existence, the Divine Goodness has deigned to manifest something of the splendor of this supreme and adorable mystery. On casting a glance over the majestic pages of Genesis, it seems impossible to resist the impression that, beneath a fonn of elocution strange to us, but easy and altogether sublime, there is hidden something mysterious pertaining to the essence and personality of that God, who reveals Himself to our astonished sense in the pronouncing of a word, which, resounding through the fathomless abysses of nothingness, calls forth into existence the heavens and the earth, and the whole creation, of which they form part. By the side of- this sovereign God who utters a word so mysterious, so all-potent, there also appears the Spirit of God, moving over the chaos of the waters, and manifesting Himself in the production therein of that magnificence of endless varietyand all-pervading harmony in the immeasurable vastness of a Universe, which is still but a pale reflection of God's infinite power, wisdom and love. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church are also of one mind in seeing in the passage here referred to, and in others of the Old Testament, an intimation, an implicit revelation of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, which the Savior deigned to reveal to us with such precision in the Gospel. Purposely, we refrain from a critical study of these passages, as it would lead us too far, and, besides, we would be only redoing the work so well done by Dr. McGloin.