Three in One and One in Three: The Trinity in the Rothschild Manuscript

“One is as much as the three together, nor are two anything more than one. And They are infinite in themselves. So both each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one.” (Aug. De Trin. VI.10.12) This text sits next to the image below in the 14th Century Rothschild Manuscript.

There is a reason why there are only a few ways artists have depicted the Trinity throughout the past two thousand years. God the Son became incarnate and can be depicted figuratively, as He is “the visible image of the invisible God,” but the Father and the Spirit can only be portrayed symbolically, as neither have been seen. The Trinity can only be depicted by analogy, and yet, all analogies for the Trinity fall woefully short. This Christian dogma, that God is three distinct Persons in one Divine Essence, defies human understanding.1

Moreover, the inner life of the Trinity is incomprehen…