The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of participated, social life--the mystery of I and thou. "Unum Deum esse confitemur. Non sic unum Deum, quasi solitarium, nec eundem, qui ipse sibi pater, sit ipse filius, sed patrem verum, qui genuit filium verum, i.e. Deum ex Deo ... non creatum, sed genitum."--Concil. Chalced. (Carranza Summa, 1559. p. 139). "Si quis quod scriptum est: Faciamus hominem, non patrem ad filium dicere, sed ipsum ad semetipsum asserit dixisse Deum, anathema sit."--Concil. Syrmiense (ibid. p. 68). "Jubet autem his verbis: Faciamus hominem, prodeat herba. Ex quibus apparet, Deum cum aliquo sibi proximo sermones his de rebus conserere. Necesse est igitur aliquem ei adfuisse, cum quo universa condens, colloquium miscebat."--Athanasius (Contra Gentes Orat. Ath. Opp. Parisiis, 1627, Th. i. p. 51). "Professio enim consortii sustulit intelligentiam singularitatis, quod consortium aliquid nec potest esse sibi ipsi solitario, neque rursum solitudo solitarii recipit: faciamus.... Non solitario convenit dicere: faciamus et nostram."--Petrus Lomb. (l. i. dist. 2, c. 3, e.). The Protestants explain the passage in the same way. "Quod profecto aliter intelligi nequit, quam inter ipsas trinitatis personas quandam de creando homine institutam fuisse consultationem."--Buddeus (comp. Inst. Theol. dog. cur. J. G. Walch. l. ii. c. i. § 45). "'Let us make' is the word of a deliberative council. And from these words it necessarily follows again, that in the Godhead there must be more than one person.... For the little word 'us' indicates that he who there speaks is not alone, though the Jews make the text ridiculous by saying that there is a way of speaking thus, even where there is only one person."--Luther (Th. i. p. 19). Not only consultations, but compacts take place between the chief persons in the Trinity, precisely as in human society. "Nihil aliud superest, quam ut consensum quemdam patris ac filii adeoque quoddam velut pactum (in relation, namely, to the redemption of men) inde concludamus."--Buddeus (Comp. l. iv. c. i. § 4, note 2). And as the essential bond of the Divine Persons is love, the Trinity is the heavenly type of the closest bond of love--marriage. "Nunc Filium Dei ... precemur, ut spiritu sancto suo, qui nexus est et vinculum mutui amoris inter aeternum patrem ac filium, sponsi et sponsæ pectora conglutinet."--Or. de Conjugio (Declam. Melancth. Th. iii. p. 453).