sons
which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers:
since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we
believe on such grounds.

Therefore, we must not attempt to prove what is of faith, except by
authority alone, to those who receive the authority; while as regards
others it suffices to prove that what faith teaches is not impossible.
Hence it is said by Dionysius (Div. Nom. ii): "Whoever wholly resists
the word, is far off from our philosophy; whereas if he regards the
truth of the word"--i.e. "the sacred word, we too follow this rule."

Reply Obj. 1: The philosophers did not know the mystery of the
trinity of the divine persons by its proper attributes, such as
paternity, filiation, and procession, according to the Apostle's
words, "We speak the wisdom of God which none of the princes of the
world"--i.e. the philosophers--"knew" (1 Cor. 2:6). Nevertheless,
they knew some of the essential attributes appropriated to the
persons, as power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, goodness to the
Holy Ghost; as will later on appear. So, when Aristotle said, "By this
number," etc., we must not take it as if he affirmed a threefold
number in God, but that he wished to say that the ancients used the
threefold number in their sacrifices and prayers on account of some
perfection residing in the number three. In the Platonic books also
we find, "In the beginning was the word," not as meaning the Person
begotten in God, but as meaning the ideal type whereby God made all
things, and which is appropriated to the Son. And although they knew
these were appropriated to the three persons, yet they are said to
have failed in the third sign--that is, in the knowledge of the third
person, because they deviated from the goodness appropriated to the
Holy Ghost, in that knowing God "they did not glorify Him as God"
(Rom. 1); or, because the Platonists asserted the existence of one
Primal Being whom they also declared to be the father of the universe,
they consequently maintained the existence of another substance
beneath him, which they called "mind" or the "paternal intellect,"
containing the idea of all things, as Macrobius relates (Som. Scip.
iv). They did not, however, assert the existence of a third separate
substance which might correspond to the Holy Ghost. So also we do not
assert that the Father and the Son differ in substance, which was the
error of Origen and Arius, who in this followed the Platonis