The Greek runs
thus:—καὶ
τὴν ἐν
ἀλλήλαις
περιχώρησιν
ἔχουσι δίχα
πάσης
συναλοιφῆς
καὶ
συμφύρσεως.
The term περιχώρησις, circumincessio, immanentia, was meant to express the
peculiarity of the relations of the Three Divine Persons or
Subsistences—their Indwelling in each other, the fact that, while
they are distinct they yet are in one another, the Coinherence which
implies their equal and identical Godhead. “In the
Trinity,” says Bishop Bull (Defence of the Nicene Creed,
bk. iv. ch. iv., secs. 13, 14), “the circumincession is most
proper and perfect, forasmuch as the Persons mutually contain Each
Other, and all the three have an immeasureable whereabouts (immensum
ubi, as the Schoolmen express it), so that wherever one Person is
there the other two exist; in other words They are all
everywhere.…This outcome of the circumincession of the Persons in
the Trinity is so far from introducing Sabellianism, that it is of
great use, as Petavius has also observed, for (establishing) the
diversity of the Persons, and for confuting that heresy. For, in
order to that mutual existence (in each other) which is discerned in
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, it is absolutely necessary
that there should be some distinction between these who are thus joined
together—that is, that those that exist mutually in each other
should be different in reality, and not in mode of conception only; for
that which is simply one is not said to exist in itself, or to
interpenetrate itself.…Lastly, this is to be especially
considered—that this circumincession of the Divine Persons is
indeed a very great mystery, which we ought rather religiously to adore
than curiously to pry into. No similitude can be devised which
shall be in every respect apt to illustrate it; no language avails
worthily to set it forth, seeing that it is an union which far
transcends all other unions.”