22. Theologians of all parties, I believe (fanatics alone excepted), agree at least that no article of faith must imply contradiction or contravene proofs as exact as those of mathematics, where the opposite of the conclusion can be reduced _ad absurdum_, that is, to contradiction. St. Athanasius with good reason made sport of the preposterous ideas of some writers of his time, who maintained that God had suffered without any suffering. _'Passus est impassibiliter. O ludicram doctrinam aedificantem simul et demolientem!'_ It follows thence that certain writers have been too ready to grant that the Holy Trinity is contrary to that great principle which states that two things which are the same as a third are also the same as each other: that is to say, if A is the same as B, and if C is the same as B, then A and C must also be the same as each other. For this principle is a direct consequence of that of contradiction, and forms the basis of all logic; and if it ceases, we can no longer reason with certainty. Thus when one says that the Father is God, that the Son is God and that the Holy Spirit is God, and that nevertheless there is only [88] one God, although these three Persons differ from one another, one must consider that this word _God_ has not the same sense at the beginning as at the end of this statement. Indeed it signifies now the Divine Substance and now a Person of the Godhead. In general, one must take care never to abandon the necessary and eternal truths for the sake of upholding Mysteries, lest the enemies of religion seize upon such an occasion for decrying both religion and Mysteries.