Gregory Palamas: One God Is the Trinity

But, O God of all, Thou who alone art the Bestower and Preserver of genuine theology and of the dogmas and expressions related to it; Thou who art the Most Monarchial Trinity,¹⁹ not only because Thou alone reignest over all, but also because Thou hast one single origin in Thine own self, the origin prior to all origination, the only uncaused Monad, from whom originate and back to whom refer, timelessly and causelessly, the Son and the Spirit;

O Holy Spirit, Lord, Thou who hast being by procession from the Father,²⁰ and through the Son hast been given and sent²¹ and manifested to those who rightly believe in Thee;²² O Son, Only-Begotten, Thou who hast being by generation from the Father²³ and through the Holy Spirit art formed and indwelling²⁴ and seen invisibly in the hearts of those who believe in Thee;²⁵ O Father, Thou who alone art Unbegotten and Unproceeding and, to express the entirety, Uncaused, the only Father of Thine inseparable and equally honored Lights,²⁶ one dominion, one power, the Creator of the created lights under Thine hand;

Thou who art the Bestower of all knowledge, who broughtest forth diverse kinds of the cognitive and the knowable, and hast emplaced knowledge naturally and fittingly in those who know, thus in the noetic beings placing simple and passionless perceptions, although in the sensual beings emplacing many divided and passionate sensations, and to us, who are of a mixed composition, emplacing both;²⁷ Thou who by Thine ineffable goodness grantest only to Thy rational creatures, according to their capacity, the knowledge concerning Thee: grant unto us, also, as it is fitting, as it is well pleasing to Thee, to theologize harmoniously with those who, from the ages, in word and deed, have pleased Thee well: so that we may refute those who do not theologize Thee as befitteth Thee as God; so that we may firmly strengthen them in the truth, who in truth seek Thee;

so that we may all know Thee as the one and only Fount of Divinity, as the only Father and Originator, and Thy Son as One and Only Son but not also an Originator, and Thy One Holy Spirit as the only Procession but not made; and may we glorify One God, in one and simple yet bountiful – that I may say it thus – and unconstricted divinity, and may we be glorified in return by Thee in rich deification and threefold pouring-forth of light, now and unto the endless ages. Amen. (St. Gregory Palamas, Apodictic Treatises on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, Gregory Heers (Editor), Fr. Christopher C. Moody (Translator), Uncut Mountain Press, 2022) pp. 59-60)

Put otherwise, since this same origin signifies the creative capacity, someone could say, although unsoundly, that there are not only two but more origins. For, this same origin is tri-hypostatic; and, being by nature, it is common; and, it being common, how could the Spirit not also have this same origin? Note also: when Elioud was dialoguing with Job about the righteousness of God saying, “the Spirit of the Lord hath made me”,⁷⁷ did he not call the Spirit a creative origin?

Further, when the composer of odes, the divine David, chanted, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the might of them by the Spirit,”⁷⁸ was he not attributing the creative origin as belonging to the Spirit just as it belongs to the Son? Therefore if, according to you, because it has been written “the origin from the origin,” nothing prevents us from saying that there are two origins, then, because it has been written that the Spirit is also a creator, nothing prevents us from saying there are two creators.

Or, because of the phrase “by the word of God and by His Spirit the creation is established” (that is to say, constituted), it is not inconsistent to premise that there are three origins.

Yet nowhere did any of the theologians say that the origins were either two or three. For, just as we affirm that each of those three worshipful hypostases is God and the two are God from God, but do not say that thereby there are ever two or three gods, thus we also affirm an origin from the origin, but never at any time do we affirm two origins. For, we have never heard from someone revered about a second origin even to this day, just as we have not heard of a second god. But for us there is one God, and what is worshipped is a monarchy,⁷⁹ not from two gods nor from two origins coming together into one, since what is revered by us is not divisible in those same respects [in terms of “God” and “origin”].

And certainly, God is not both parted and joined together in respect to the same thing. For He is divided in respect to the hypostatic properties; yet according to the natural properties He is united. So, if nothing prevents us from saying there are two origins, it remains, then, that these origins refer to that in which God is divided. So again, it is not possible for these origins to be united. Therefore, the two are not one. (Ibid., p. 73)

Nevertheless, since the one God in three hypostases has been expressed to us thus, thus He is also glorified. And in this way, since there is one image and form of the only formless, worshipful Trinity—“For the Trinity, on the one hand, is joined without interval and, on the other hand, is eternally together and shines forth one and the same image,” as Athanasius the Great says¹⁵⁶— since, then, in this way there is one image of the revered Trinity, we call the Son the form and image of the Father while calling the Spirit an image of the Son. For, this is how it pleased Him to make Himself known to us.

And we say that the Spirit is in relation to the Son in the way in which the Son is in relation to the Father. For both are similarly related to the Father apart from the mode of existence, as has been demonstrated above in many ways.

Now, the Son has become known to us as immediately proximate to the Father, and through Him who is known as proximate the Holy Spirit has been manifested, proclaimed, and sent in His name, just as the Son came earlier in the name of the Father.

And we say that the Son has all things which are the Father’s apart from the cause, while the Spirit has all things of the Son apart from sonship. For the Son and the Spirit in a similar way have all that is the Father’s, except for the cause, which embraces both of the existential hypostatic differences.

Consequently, we sometimes also place the Spirit before the Son, although more rarely, while for the most part we place Him after the Son and after the Father, so that we may bear in mind a continual and ceaseless remembrance of the three greatest works and most providential and God-befitting economies wrought for our sakes, and render the briefest possible thanksgiving for all things. (Ibid., pp. 98-99)

For He did not create these things as Father but as God. Now the Son is one God with the Father. Therefore, created things are from the Father through the Son as from one God, and the origin of created things is one, that is, God. God begets and causes procession as Father of the lights coeternal with Him.

If, therefore, the Holy Spirit is from the Father through the Son as from one [as the Latins say], He will not be as from one God, from the Father and the Son, but as from one Father, namely, the Father and the Son. And what could be more absurd than this confusion? And so, fleeing this the Latins say, “as from one God,” which is totally impossible, as has become apparent, especially seeing that the Spirit is also one God, with the Father and the Son. (Ibid., p. 101)

For if He was also from the Son, then each would not be from one person immediately, nor would we have the boldness to say that we revere one origin of divinity and affirm that the three persons are one God.

If (as is the case with what is caused) that which causes were likewise in two persons, as it is seen in our case; if the Son also had the ability to cause procession, then the property of causing procession would not be only the Father’s. But now Gregory of the Nyssans himself assures us that it is attributed only to the Father, and he brings forward David, the ancestor of God, or better yet, the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets, as also affirming this. (Ibid., p. 211)