Section: Clarifying that their explanation of the Trinity is unfounded

The one reporting on their behalf said:

“So I said: They object to our saying ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,’ and to our statement that they are three aqānīm (hypostases). They also fault us for declaring that the Messiah is Lord, God, and Creator, and they ask us to explain how the creative Word of God could assume a bodily form in a created human being.

They answered, saying:

‘If they understood that by these words we merely intend to affirm that God is a living, speaking being, they would not censure us. We Christians, upon observing that things come into existence, knew that something other than them must have brought them into being, for it is impossible for them to arise from themselves on account of the oppositions and constant change within them.

Therefore we said: He is a reality unlike created realities, for He is the Creator of everything; we said this to negate non-existence of Him.

We also noted that created things divide into two classes—living and non-living—so we described Him with the more excellent of the two and said: He is a living being, in order to negate…’