#trifacial trinity

Betty “Blue Eyes” Howard (American, Jun. 12, 1921 – Mar. 8, 1993). Mid-1940s.

Trifacial Trinity, circa 1750 - circa 1770. Cuzco School, unknown painter, probably Peruvian.

Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Peru.

“For there is ONE alone who hath no need of doctrine (or learning) that is to say, God, Who is over everything, for He existent of Himself, and there is no other being who existed before Him.

Now all rational beings are learners, because they are beings who have been made and created. The ranks of the celestial hosts who existed first of all, and the orders of beings who are the most exalted of all possess teachers in the Trinity, Who is exalted above everything. The orders of beings of the second group learn from the beings of the first group, and those which belong to the third group from those of the second group, which is above them, and in this manner each of the later groups learnt from that which is above it, even down to the lowest group of all; for those among them who are superior in respect of knowledge and excellence teach knowledge unto those who are inferior to them. Therefore those who imagine that they have no need of teachers, and who will not be convinced by those who teach them things of good, are sick with the want of the knowledge, which is the mother and producer of pride … It is meet that the soul which leads its life in God should either learn in faith what it knoweth not, or should learn wisely that of which it hath knowledge.”

— Epistle of Palladius, the Bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia, to Laos, the Chamberlain at the court of Theodosius II

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