But though difficult to explain, its meaning is tolerably clear. Take, for instance, though the analogy must not be pressed too far, the case of three men; each is a distinct human _person_, but they all have a common human _nature_. This human nature, which may also be called human substance (in its old sense), humanity, or manhood, has of course no existence apart from the men whose nature it is; it is merely _that_ which they each possess in common, and the possession of which makes each of them a man. And hence, any attribute belonging to human nature would belong to each of the three men, so that each would be mortal, each subject to growth, etc. Each would in fact possess the complete human nature, yet together there would not be three human natures, but only one. Bearing this in mind, let us now turn to the doctrine of the Trinity. This is expressed in vv. 3-6 of the Athanasian Creed as follows:-- 3. 'The Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. 4. 'Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. 5. 'For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. 6. 'But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.' Here, it will be noticed, vv. 5 and 6 give the _reasons_ for v. 4, so that the Godhead in v. 6 is, as we should have expected, the same as the Divine _Substance_ or Nature in v. 4. Thus the meaning is as follows:-- We must worship one God (as to Nature) in Trinity (of Persons) and Trinity (of Persons) in Unity (of Nature); neither confusing the Persons, for each is distinct; nor dividing the Nature, for it is all one. Thus far there is no intellectual difficulty in the statements of the Creed. We do not mean that there is no difficulty in believing them to be true, or in accurately defining the terms used; but that, as statements, their meaning is quite intelligible. We now pass on to the following verses which are deductions from this, and show that as each of the three Persons possesses the Divine Nature, all attributes of the Godhead (_i.e._, of this one Divine Nature) are possessed by each of the three. Each is therefore _eternal_, and yet there is only _one_ eternal Nature. But this is expressed in a peculiarly short and abrupt manner. No one, of course, supposes that God is Three _in the same sense_ in which He is One, but the Creed does not sufficiently guard against this, perhaps because it never occurred to its author that anyone would think it meant such an obvious absurdity. Moreover, even grammatically the verses are not very clear. For the various terms _uncreate_, _incomprehensible_ (_i.e._, boundless, or omnipresent), _eternal_, _almighty_, _God_, and _Lord_ are used as if they were adjectives in the first part of each sentence, and nouns in the latter part.