Did you know? Gregory of Nyssa, one of the so-called…

Did you know?

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the so-called “Church Fathers” and architects of the Trinity, argued that Christians can and *should *believe and confess in “three Gods”!

“Peter, James, and John, being in one human nature, are called three men: and there is no absurdity in describing those who are united in nature, if they are more than one, by the plural number of the name derived from their nature.

If, then, in the above case, custom admits this, and no one forbids us to speak of those who are two as two, or those who are more than two as three, how is it that in the case of our statements of the mysteries of the Faith, though confessing the Three Persons, and acknowledging no difference of nature between them, we are in some sense at variance with our confession, when we say that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men to say *there are three Gods*?

Even if it were granted that the name of “Godhead” is a common name of the nature, it would not be established that we should not speak of *Gods*.

On the contrary, we are compelled to speak of *Gods*: for we find in the custom of mankind that not only those who are partakers in the same nature, but even any who may be of the same business, are not, when they are many, spoken of in the singular; as we speak of “many orators,” or *surveyors*, or *farmers*, or *shoemakers*, and so in all other cases.

We ought therefore all the more to call those *three Gods* who are contemplated in the same operation, as they say that one would speak of *three philosophers* or *orators*, or any other name derived from a business when those who take part in the same business are more than one.

[But] even if our reasoning be found unequal to the problem, we must keep for ever, firm and unmoved, the tradition which we received by succession from the fathers, and seek from the Lord the reason which is the advocate of our faith.

(*On Not Three Gods *to Ablabius from Gregory of Nyssa)