Trinity in the Old Testament
Passages from the Septuagint where the early church fathers discerned the revelation of the Holy Trinity — the plural divine speech in Genesis, the visitation at Mamre, the Spirit moving over the waters, and the worship of the thrice-holy God in Isaiah.
- Gen 1:1-5Genesis · Moses · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹ In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. ² But the earth was unsightly and unfurnished, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the water. ³ And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. ⁴ And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness. ⁵ And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, and there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
The Spirit of God moves over the waters at the very moment of creation. St Basil reads this together with Ps 32:6 (LXX) to see Father, Word, and Spirit cooperating in the work of making the world.
St Basil the Great, Hexaemeron, Homily 2
- Gen 1:26-31Genesis · Moses · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
²⁶ And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth. ²⁷ And God made man, according to the image of God he made him, male and female he made them. ²⁸ And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth. ²⁹ And God said, Behold I have given to you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that is sown, to you it shall be for food. ³⁰ And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the flying creatures of heaven, and to every reptile creeping on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life, even every green plant for food; and it was so. ³¹ And God saw all the things that he had made, and, behold, they were very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
"Let us make man according to our image and likeness." The plural is not a royal we nor an address to angels but the eternal counsel of the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit. St Irenaeus uses this verse to argue that the Father always made the world through his two hands — the Son and the Spirit.
St Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.20.1; St Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians III.29
- Gen 3:22-24Genesis · Moses · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
²² And God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and eat, and [so] he shall live forever— ²³ So the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken. ²⁴ And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the tree of life.
After the fall: "the man has become like one of us." Again the plural divine speech, taken by the fathers as Trinitarian rather than as a plural of majesty.
St Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 62
- Gen 11:1-9Genesis · Moses · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹ And all the earth was one lip, and there was one language to all. ² And it came to pass as they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. ³ And a man said to his neighbor, Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And the brick was to them for stone, and their mortar was bitumen. ⁴ And they said, Come, let us build to ourselves a city and tower, whose top shall be to heaven, and let us make to ourselves a name, before we are scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth. ⁵ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. ⁶ And the Lord said, Behold, [there is] one race, and one lip of all, and they have begun to do this, and now nothing shall fail from them of all that they may have undertaken to do. ⁷ Come, and having gone down let us there confound their tongue, that they may not understand each the voice of his neighbor. ⁸ And the Lord scattered them thence over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower. ⁹ On this account its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the languages of all the earth, and thence the Lord scattered them upon the face of all the earth.
At Babel: "Come, let us go down and confound their tongue." A third instance of the plural divine speech, this time in judgement.
St Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians III.29
- Gen 18:1-8Genesis · Moses · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹ And God appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat by the door of his tent at noon. ² And he lifted up his eyes and beheld, and lo! three men stood before him; and having seen them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and did obeisance to the ground. ³ And he said, Lord, if indeed I have found grace in thy sight, pass not by thy servant. ⁴ Let water now be brought, and let them wash your feet, and do ye refresh [yourselves] under the tree. ⁵ And I will bring bread, and ye shall eat, and after this ye shall depart on your journey, on account of which [refreshment] ye have turned aside to your servant. And he said, So do, as thou hast said. ⁶ And Abraham hastened to the tent to Sarah, and said to her, Hasten, and knead three measures of fine flour, and make cakes. ⁷ And Abraham ran to the kine, and took a young calf, tender and good, and gave it to his servant, and he hastened to dress it. ⁸ And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed; and he set them before them, and they did eat, and he stood by them under the tree.
The three visitors at the Oak of Mamre. Abraham greets the three as one Lord. The Orthodox tradition — most familiarly in the Rublev icon — reads the three as a revelation of the Holy Trinity. (St Justin and several earlier fathers identify the central figure as the pre-incarnate Word with two angels; the iconographic Trinitarian reading is later but well attested.)
St Augustine, City of God XVI.29; Rublev's icon as visual exegesis of the passage
- Ps 32:6Psalms · King David · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
⁶ By the word of the Lord the heavens were established;
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the host of them by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth." The fathers read this as the Father working through his Word and Spirit at creation — a Trinitarian reading echoed in the Nicene Creed.
St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit XVI.38
- Isa 6:1-3Isaiah · Prophet Isaiah · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹ And it came to pass in the year in which King Uzziah died, [that] I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the house was full of his glory. ² And seraphs stood round about him: each one had six wings: and with two they covered [their] face, and with two they covered [their] feet, and with two they flew. ³ And one cried to the other, and they said, Holy, holy, holy, [is the] Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
The Trisagion — "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts" — the seraphic hymn. The threefold acclamation is read by the fathers as a vision of the Holy Trinity, and is preserved in the liturgical Trisagion.
St Gregory the Theologian, Oration 31 (Fifth Theological); liturgical use in the Trisagion
- Isa 48:16-19Isaiah · Prophet Isaiah · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹⁶ Draw nigh to me, and hear ye these words; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning: when it took place, there was I, and now the Lord, [even] the Lord, and his Spirit, hath sent me. ¹⁷ Thus saith the Lord that delivered thee, the Holy One of Israel; I am thy God, I have shown thee how thou shouldest find the way wherein thou shouldest walk. ¹⁸ And if thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, [then] would thy peace have been like a river, and thy righteousness as a wave of the sea. ¹⁹ Thy seed also would have been as the sand, and the offspring of thy belly as the dust of the ground: neither now shalt thou by any means be utterly destroyed, neither shall thy name perish before me.
"And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit." Three persons are distinguished in a single sentence: the one who sends (the Father), the one who is sent (the Son), and the Spirit.
St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit XIX.49
- Isa 61:1-3Isaiah · Prophet Isaiah · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
¹ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; ² to declare the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of recompense; to comfort all that mourn; ³ that there should be given to them that mourn in Zion glory instead of ashes, the oil of joy to the mourners, the garment of glory for the spirit of heaviness: and they shall be called generations of righteousness, the planting of the Lord for glory.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me." The Son speaks of the Father's anointing him with the Spirit — the very passage Christ reads in the synagogue at Nazareth (Lk 4:18) and applies to himself.
St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah