Quadrinity?!

In his work on Quadratos (a made up word, signifying something fourfold) Alexander Shaia brings to our attention that it is no accident of history that the canon of the Scriptures includes four gospels. He notes that from ancient times the fourfoldness of creation and of the work of God was self-evident. Indeed, Irenaeus insisted that there must be four gospels, exactly, because this is how God works: the divine pattern is always fourfold.

Pondering this the other day I was thinking, how odd then, that Christians developed the doctrine of the Trinity! Why not a "quadrinity"? But no, the long tradition of the church insists on the one-in-threeness of the divine mystery.

Then I thought about Rublev's famous icon of the Trinity. Many have commented on how the figures in the icon are clearly in communication with one another, and yet the figures are arranged in a way that faces outward toward the viewer--an openness, an invitation, a sense of welcome. Thus the pray-ers of the icon are invited into communion with the Holy Three. The deep koinonia of the Trinity becomes a gift to us all.

If so, then those who pray the icon, i.e., the church, complete the Trinity. And thus the Trinity becomes "quadrinity", now and forever. Amen.