Sherlock struggles in vain, in my opinion at least, to clear these Fathers of egregious logomachy, whatever may have been the soundness of their faith, spite of the quibbles by which they endeavoured to evince its rationality.  The very change of the terms is suspicious.  “Yes! we might say three Gods” (it would be answered,) “as we say and ought to say three men:  for man and humanity, [Greek:  anthropos] and [Greek:  anthropotaes] are not the same terms;—­so if the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, there would be three Gods, though not [Greek:  treis theotaetes],—­that is, three Godheads.”

Ib. p. 115-16.

Gregory Nyssen tells us that [Greek:  theos] is [Greek:  theataes] and [Greek:  ephoros], the inspector and governor of the world, that is, it is a name of energy, operation and power; and if this virtue, energy, and operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but one power and energy. * * * The Father does nothing by himself, nor the Son by himself, nor the Holy Ghost by himself; but the whole energy and operation of the Deity relating to creatures begins with the Father, passes to the Son, and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit does not act anything separately; there are not three distinct operations, as there are three Persons, [Greek:  alla mia tis ginetai agathou Boulaematos kinaesis kai diakosmaesis];—­but one motion and disposition of the good will, which passes through the whole Trinity from Father to Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and this is done [Greek:  achronos kai adiaretos], without any distance of time, or propagating the motion from one to the other, but by one thought, as it is in one numerical mind and spirit, and therefore, though they are three Persons, they are but one numerical power and energy.

But this is either Tritheism or Sabellianism; it is hard to say which.  Either the [Greek:  Boulaema] subsists in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and not merely passes through them, and then there would be three numerical [Greek:  Boulaemata], as well as three numerical Persons:  ‘ergo’, [Greek:  treis theoi ae theatai] (according to Gregory Nyssen’s shallow and disprovable etymology), which would be Tritheism:  or [Greek:  hen ti ginetai Boulaema], and then the Son and Holy Ghost are but terms of relation, which is Sabellianism.  But in fact this Gregory and the others were Tritheists in the mode of their conception, though they did not wish to be so, and refused even to believe themselves such.

Gregory Nyssen, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus and Damascen were charged with “a kind of Tritheism” by Petavius and Dr. Cudworth, who, according to Sherlock, have “mistaken their meaning.”  See pp. 106-9, of this “Vindication.”

Ib. p. 117.