"There are not Three, but one God" - "We are forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say that there are Three Gods or Three Lords."

   God, in substance, in His divine nature, is One, says the Catholic Church. But God manifests in three distinct Persons, as the Father, He - the One God - is the Creator. As the Son, He - the One God - is the Redeemer. As the Holy Spirit, He - the same God - is the sanctifier. This is something that we cannot understand because it is a mystery, that is, something the nature of which is hidden from our finite minds. Yet do not dismiss it from consideration because it is a mystery. Nature is filled with mysteries. What do we know of light, save its manifestation? What do we know about how a single human voice, broadcasted, can be heard in its entirety, by millions of persons, all over the world, save that it so manifests? Look at a kettle of water boiling over a flame. Can you tell how a cold match, cold charcoals, and cold water, develop light, fire, heat and steam in the course of a dozen minutes? St. John asks the question, "The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its sound, but dost thou know where it comes from or where it goes?" (3:8)  What was said of the stars and the wind, can be said of the knowledge of the Father, Whose creation we see; of the Son, of Whose redeeming qualities the world is conscious; of the Holy Spirit, Whose sanctifying grace has transformed sinners into saints:

"I may not know the compass plan
By which the stars shine in the heavens at night,
But I may know as well as any man
That stars are shining, and may share their light.

I may not know how blows the summer wind,
And whence? and wither? still unanswered be,
But I may feel its soothing touch, and find
Rest and refreshment in the breeze for me."

   While the Trinity in Unity will ever be a mystery, it is not contrary to right-reasoning to believe that a thing may be one and three at the same time, provided it is looked at from two different aspects. This simple principle became a working factor with me long before I passed from the Synagogue to the Church. It removed from my mind the obstacle that might otherwise have caused me to hesitate to accept the doctrine of the Holy Trinity upon the authority of the Catholic Church. The simple lesson that aided me was the study of an object, that is a thing, anything within the cognizance of the senses. The object is one, be it a toothpick or the universe. Yet it is three in those aspects which make it an object, its length, breadth and thickness. Without that triunity in unity, the object could not be sensed or seen as an entity. What reason compels us to reject, is that an object can be one and three at the same time, in the same sense.
   We may talk about an object, as we talk about God, but to encompass the object, or to know God to the fullest degree within the compass of the human mind, the object, and God, must be looked at from a triune aspect -, the length, breadth and thickness of the object; and God through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
   I fully realize how difficult it is for Jews to accept the doctrine of the triunity of God. It is no doubt due in part to their hostility towards anything that might suggest a plurality of Gods, as belief in three Gods is a denial of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then there lurks in the Jewish breast an ingrained hostility towards the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, involved in the Holy Trinity, which means the assumption of a human nature by the Second Person, Jesus, the Messiah.
   Long centuries before the Christian era, our fathers of old in Israel battled for monotheism, the principle of one God, against polytheism, the principle of many Gods that was uphela by the peoples who surrounded them. It was the divine mission of our forebears to teach monotheism, the principle to which they adhered strenuously. In Old Testament days, the advocacy of belief in the division of God into persons would have created intellectual confusion. It would have been universally held to be a denial of the oneness of God, and thus encouraged the very thing that Jews were battling against, polytheism.
   In studying the doctrine of the Trinity, in fact in studying any phase of revealed religion, one must realize that the fuller understanding of it had to await the coming of the Messiah, in whom all things are fulfilled. That which appeared in shadow in the Old Testament was revealed in a fuller light in the New Testament. Besides, the world would have been unable to get a proper appreciation of the Holy Trinity until the Second Person appeared upon earth and demonstrated, by His life and works, that He is true God as well as true man. God seems to have willed that His unity be stressed to the utmost by the Jews while they were the keepers of His Law; and that His triunity be stressed by the followers of His Son when they became the keepers of the New Revelation.
   Yet the learned in Israel realized the hidden suggestion of the plurality of persons in God, in the Old Testament. We see it ourselves in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis (5:26), wherein God said, "Let us make man in OUR Own image." Then in the third chapter (5:.22) we read, "Behold Adam is become one of us, knowing good and evil." In foretelling the obstinacy of the Jews, so apparent today when they are confronted with things related to the glorious Son of David, who "Hearing, hear, and understand not," Isaiah says, "Whom shall I (the Lord) send? and who shall go for us" (6:8). A study of the Sh'ma - "Hear, 0 Israel, our Lord is One" (always said in Hebrew)-shows a suggestion of a plurality of persons in God. The noun Elohenu (Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai ELOHENU, Adonai Ehod) is the plural of Eloah (God), which, translated literally, means Gods.
   Just one more point, for I will leave your declaration that Jesus never called Himself God for my next letter. Jesus, who ever spoke of God in the singular, as do Catholics, proclaimed to the world the existence of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This was unmistakenly apparent on the occasion when Jesus commissioned His disciples to convert the world: