From dawn till noon the dispute ran high, but with no results. Father Hierotheus always managed to avoid committing himself. Much as the monks tried they could not convict him.
At last, in the heat of the controversy, a disciple of Father Hierotheus, Brother Spiridon, a quick-eyed, dark little man with temples in curls, like Jewish ringlets, suddenly sprang forward and shouted at the top of his voice:—
“The Trinity sit together, the Son on the right, the Holy Spirit on the left of the Father. On separate thrones without confounding themselves, sit the three Heavenly Kings, while Christ sits on a fourth apart from them!”
“You split the Trinity into four,” cried the terrified monks.
“And you make one lump of it, one single Person! The Trinity is not one, but three! three! three!” roared Father Spiridon, thrusting up his hands as though he were felling with an axe. “Believe in the threefold Trinity! Without fear divide the Indivisible, the one into three; Christ makes a fourth.”
And he went on explaining the difference between essence and substance. The substance of the Son is within, the essence sits at the Father’s feet.
“God became Man not by His substance, but alone by His essence. Had he come down in His substance He would have scorched the universe, and the womb of the Pure Mother could not have borne the wholeness of God; it would have been consumed.”
“Oh, erring, worldly brother!” supplicated the fathers, “listen to your conscience, apprehend God. Cast out from yourself the root of heresy, go no further. Repent, beloved brother!” the monks implored him, “Who told you this thing, and where did you see whether the three Heavenly Kings sit separate and not confounding themselves? Neither the angels nor the archangels can see Him, yet you say, ‘They sit not confounding the persons.’ Why was your tongue not burnt for saying this?”
But Spiridon continued to shout:
“Three, three, three! I will die for my belief; even fire could not burn it from my soul.”