Trinity
The Holy Trinity as the ultimate object of worship, study, and consecration of one's labors. Lapide consecrated all his labors and learning "to Your glory, O most holy Trinity and threefold Unity."
Preliminaries
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THE LIFE OF CORNELIUS A LAPIDE.
— Lapide consecrated all his labors, studies, and learning "to Your glory, O most holy Trinity and threefold Unity."
"These labours of mine, and their fruits, all my studies, all my learning, all my commentary, I have consecrated to Your glory, O most holy Trinity and threefold Unity"
Preface and Praise of Sacred Scripture
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Section One
— The book of nature dictates nothing of those things which transcend nature, by which we may be advanced toward the heaven of the Holy Trinity.
"it dictates nothing of those things which transcend the boundaries of nature, by which we may be advanced toward the heaven of the Holy Trinity and our eternal good"
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Chapter I: On the Excellence, Necessity, and Fruit of Sacred Scripture
— If Scripture had been silent about the Holy Trinity, there would be perpetual silence among the Scholastics about relations, origin, generation, spiration, notions, persons.
"If Scripture had been silent about the Holy Trinity — one and the same monad and essence — would there not be a deep and perpetual silence among the Scholastics in such a vast subject, about relations, origin, generation, spiration, notions, persons"
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Chapter I: On the Excellence, Necessity, and Fruit of Sacred Scripture
— Dionysius: the Father is the primordial and fontal deity, the Son and Holy Spirit are shoots planted divinely from the fruitful deity — received from the sacred Scriptures.
"the primordial and fontal deity is the Father, and that the Son and the Holy Spirit are, so to speak, shoots planted divinely from the fruitful deity, and as it were flowers and super-substantial lights — this we have received from the sacred Scriptures"
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
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God (Elohim): Thirteen Definitions
— The plural Elohim implies a plurality of persons in God, while the singular verb bara implies unity of essence.
"Third, the plural Elohim implies in God a plurality of persons, just as the unity of essence in God is implied by the singular verb bara, that is, "he created," as Lyranus, Burgensis, Galatinus, Eugubinus, Catharinus, the Master [Peter Lombard], and the Scholastics teach"
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In the Beginning: Nine Interpretations
— Second interpretation of "In the beginning": in the Son, for the Apostle teaches all things were created through the Son as the wisdom of the Father.
"Secondly, and better according to the letter, the same Augustine, Ambrose, and Basil in the same place, and the Lateran Council, chapter Firmiter, on the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith: "In the beginning," they say, that is, in the Son; for the Apostle teaches that all things were created through the Son as the idea and wisdom of the Father, Col. 1:16."
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Verse 26: Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness
— In "Let Us make man," God the Father addresses the Son and Holy Spirit as colleagues of the same nature, power, and operation; the Council of Sirmium pronounces anathema on those who explain this otherwise.
"by these words God the Father addresses not the angels, as though He were commanding them to fashion the human body and sensitive soul, reserving to Himself alone the making of the rational soul, as Plato wished in the Timaeus, and Philo in his book On the Creation of the Six Days, and the Jews. For St. Basil, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Cyril in Book I Against Julian, and Augustine in Book XVI of The City of God, chapter 6, denounce this as impious"
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Verse 3: And God said: Let there be light
— "God said" — by the essential Word common to the three Persons; the word "said" is appropriated to the Son as the Word and idea; power to the Father, goodness to the Holy Spirit.
""He said," therefore, means: He conceived in His mind, willed, decreed, commanded efficaciously, and by commanding actually made and produced -- God, that is, the most holy Trinity itself, produced light."
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Verse 26: Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness
— Man represents the Trinity: as God the Father produces the Word by knowing Himself and the Holy Spirit by loving, so man produces an intelligible word and from it proceeds love.
"just as God the Father, by knowing Himself through intellect, produces the Word, that is, the Son, and by loving Him produces the Holy Spirit: so man, by understanding himself, produces in his mind an intelligible word, expressive of himself and similar to himself, and from this proceeds love in his will: for thus man clearly represents the Most Holy Trinity."