Homily Two: The Holy Trinity "As we have learned from the Holy Gospels," begins Saint Kosmas, "it is meet and right Christian brothers to begin our teaching with God." Thus today, in the second of our series of homilies on the fundamentals of Orthodoxy, we will follow the advice of our guide and patron and turn our attention to God himself, speaking of him in those words revealed to us through the scriptures as these are understood by the Holy Fathers.

God is incomprehensible: he is beyond all comparison, beyond anything our intellects can grasp, beyond anything we can possibly imagine. From the darkness of unknowability, however, God has reached out to his creation, granting us glimpses of who he is. He has left trances of himself scattered across the created order, for who can look at the natural world surrounding us without being convinced of the wisdom and power of God. More clearly, however, has he revealed himself through holy people beginning in the Old Testament. From these sources - Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Holy Fathers - we have come to know God as one who is good, and who is love. We also know that he is eternal, unchanging, and bodiless and thus that he alone is able to be present in every place at the same time; to be, as we pray in the well-known prayer Heavenly King, "...everywhere present and filling all things". Saint Kosmas emphasizing this last characteristic, drawing out what having a God who is everywhere present means for our day-to-day lives as Christians and by means of this showing us that aspects of our faith which seem 'unimportant' and 'philosophical' deeply impact the way we live.

"Whenever we want to commit any sin," he says, "we devout Christians ought to bring to mind the fact that God is in our hearts, that he is present everywhere, and that he sees us". Remembering that God sees everything, that he is with us at all times, is helpful in our struggle to live the life of purity to which we are called. We are about to tell a lie; suddenly we remember God's presence and we stop ourselves. Our eyes fall on someone attractive to us; suddenly we remember God's presence and we stop ourselves before indulging in lustful thoughts which corrupt the purity of our hearts. We are about to go watch TV before bed instead of completing our prayer rule, but suddenly we remember God and go to stand in front of our icon corner to say our prayers. Such remembrance does not come easily, however; we must struggle to achieve it, first by not pushing God away on those occasions when he comes to us through our conscience because in doing this we become used to ignoring him, but primarily by labouring with the Jesus Prayer - "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me" - by repeating these word throughout the day, when we are doing tasks around the house, when we go for a walk at lunch, we bring God close to us, and continually remind ourselves of his presence.

While all these are these things are indeed true - for God is perfect goodness, perfect love, he is eternal, he is unchanging, he is bodiless and everywhere present - there are other qualities in God which seem more intimate, they seem to reveal more of his inner life. When I meet a person I can say he was wearing a blue coat, or I can say he seemed sad. The second seems to tell me a more central detail about the person while the first statement is in no way untrue, just less intimate. What, then, is this more intimate detail that we know about God: it is that he is Trinity. Our God is one in essence - "I believe in one God" as we confess at every liturgy in the Creed - who is at the same time three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The first signs of this great truth began to appear in the Old Testament from the very opening line of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The English translation hides something perhaps even unnoticed, and at the very least not understood, by the initial readers of the text: the Hebrew word for God - Elohim - is grammatically plural, foreshadowing the future worship of the Trinity. A few lines later something similar occurs. As God creates the world we hear him speak of himself in the plural: "let us make," he says. Perhaps the most well known indication of the Trinitarian nature of God found in the Old Testament is the peculiar occurrence at the Oak of Mamre where God appear to Abraham in the form of three angels. Despite the fact that three angels appear before him, Abraham continually refers to them as 'Lord' in the singular. This event is often referred to as the 'Hospitality of Abraham' and its depiction in icon form has been adopted by the Church as the sole dogmatically sound iconographic depictions of the Holy Trinity. That God is Trinity was fully revealed in the New Testament at the Lord's baptism: "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and there was the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." According to the Apolytikion of the Feast of the Theophany, here "...the worship of the Trinity was made manifest". It became clear for all to see: the Father spoke, testifying to the divinity of his Son who had emerged from the waters, while the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove.

Great is this mystery, brother and sisters, great is this mystery: "How, indeed," asks Saint Gregory the Wonderworker, "is it be possible for man who is limited on six sides - by east, west, south, north, deep, and sky – to understand a matter which is above the sky, which is beneath the deep, which stretches beyond the north and the south?" It is only possible for us to speak of this mystery in the words God himself has given us through the Holy Scriptures and through the Holy Fathers.

How is it that the Church expresses this great mystery? This is perhaps best summed up in those few words the choir sings immediately before the sanctification of the Holy Gifts at every Divine Liturgy: "It is meet and right to worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and undivided." The Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. These three are all God. When we say God is good we are saying all three are good; when we say God is love we are saying all three are love, when we say "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit" we are saying that all three are equally deserving of glory – this is what it means that the three persons share one essence.

While all three persons are equally God, each possesses one quality which distinguishes them from the other two persons: they differ in one thing only. The Father alone is unbegotten, meaning he comes from nothing else. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. This means that he emerges from the Father in a particular manner. He is begotten. This is not like normal generation, like birth, or like when we make something. When we make something there is a clear moment before the thing exists and then a moment when it is made and stands before us. With the Son - or Word as he is called in Saint John's Gospel – we are told he always was. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God". Though the Son is begotten, though he comes forth from the Father, there was never a moment when the Son was not with the Father. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand also comes out of the Father, but not in the manner called begetting, but in a manner called 'proceeding'. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. And just like the Son, there was also never a moment when the Spirit did not exist.

Summarizing this Saint John of Damascus writes: "...the Father alone is unbegotten, no other substance having given him being. And the Son alone is begotten, for he was begotten of the Father's essence without beginning and without time. And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father's essence not having been generated, but proceeding. For this is the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures." He then adds, "The nature of generation and procession is quite beyond comprehension...Although we have been taught that there is a distinction between begetting and procession, what this distinction consists of, and what is the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit – this we do not know." This is indeed difficult to grasp. Saint Kosmas himself confesses, "We have no example which approaches the Holy Trinity as there is nothing like it in the world," before adding, "Yet, in order that our mind might have some small aid, the Fathers of the Church provide us with some examples."

The first is the example of the Sun, its rays and its light. The Sun is one, but at the same time three things together. The Sun itself is likened to the Father, the rays are likened to the Son, and the light is likened to the Holy Spirit. Three different things, but yet all three are in some sense the Sun and it is impossible to imagine a moment when one of these things exists without the other. We cannot imagine a moment when there was a Sun, but no light, or a Sun but no heat.

A similar example is that of a fire, the light which it gives off, and the heat which it produces. Here we have the same thing. We have three distinct things, all of which are in essence fire, and none of which can be imagined without the other. Another Father uses the example of Adam, Seth, and Eve. All three are human beings - they share humanity in common. In this sense they are one. However, Adam is like the Father because he was not born (since he was created by God himself), Seth is like the Son because he is the natural child, born of Adam. Eve came out of the side of Adam, having been made from his rib. These three all came into being different ways, but share a common nature.

Perhaps the most well known example is found in the records of the first Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea in 325. The First Ecumenical Council was provoked by a heresy called Arianism, named for the priest Arius who taught that the second person of the Trinity was not God, but only the first and most important of God's creation. Of the 318 bishops present at the Council, one was Saint Syridon of Trimythuse, who was renowned for his simplicity. At one point during the council a group of Arians were deriding the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, trying through philosophy to persuade the bishops that God could not be both one and three at the same time. Saint Spyridon grew tired of their blasphemy and rose up saying, "I have no eloquent words to express myself, but I can show you how God is three and one." He took up a clay brick, prayed to God and - O what wonder! - the brick simultaneously became fire, water and earth in his hand. This stopped the mouth of the Arians, silenced by the Saint's miracle. On the one hand, we do not believe in three gods as do the pagans and the polytheists who believe in many gods. On the other hand, nor do we believe simply in one God as do the Jews and the Arians together with their modern successors the Jehova's Witness, nor in God who simply wears different masks at different times in such a way that he is at one time Father, at another Son, and at another Holy Spirit – for this would mean that the three persons were not eternal and ever-present in the Godhead – for this is

the belief of the Saballians. We Christian believe that in a God who is eternally Trinity and yet one in essence; at the same time both one in essence and three in persons.

As difficult as this is to take in, a more clear understanding of this truth than anything I can give you in words and examples lies within your grasp. Saint Kosmas asks: "There is another manner through which you might understand the Holy Trinity? How? Confess purely, receive Holy Communion with fear and devotion, and then the grace of the All-Holy Spirit will illumine you to better understand." It is by means of these things that the Holy Trinity will come to dwell in your hearts by grace. Then you will have no need for words of explanation for you will know him intimately, and it is this knowledge that I pray for all of us. Amen.

Rev Dr John Palmer 6 October, 2013