H.I.H. Princess Aster Sellassie

On Rastafarianism: Part VI
"Three Persons"
H.I.H. Princess Esther Sellassie Antohin,
The Imperial House of Sellassie of
The Solomonic Dynasty in
The African Diaspora
[Editor's Note: In the following series of articles by H.I.H.
Princess Esther Sellassie Antohin, of the Imperial House of
Sellassie, great granddaughter of H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I, we
continue to present her responses to some of the most frequently
asked questions on the Haile Sellassie Family Web:
www.sellassie@angelfire.com
:
Many questions were raised in my reply about the Rasta institution of
Nyabinghi and the historic, non-Chalcedonian position of our
Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church on the European dogma of "Three
Persons." I am constrained to further this discussion, for it
distinguishes among other beliefs and practices our authentically
African Christianity from the rest of Christendom.
1) We read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "John, Gospel and
Epistles of St."(1964, v. 13, p. 102): "The famous comma Johanneum (I
John V, 7) mentioning the three heavenly witnesses (Father, Word and
Spirit) appears in no Greek manuscripts before the 14th century and
no early Greek writer; first quoted by the Spanish heretic
Priscillian (d 385), the spurious words gradually made their way from
Spain into manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate generally."
2) Because of the influence of the Italian Colony in Eritrea and
elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, many Ethiopians, especially of the
older generation, know Italian quite well. Let me quote the comment
accompanying 1 John 5: 7 from the masterful, interdenominational
Italian version of the Bible, La Bibbia Concordata: Una lezione
detta "il comma giovanneo" sorta in Spagna nel IV secolo d.C. e che
ebbe molta risonanza sul dogma Trinitario è quella che si legge in
molti codici nel vv 7-8… Non v'è motivo per accogliere questa
lezione, mancante in tutti i manoscritti piú antichi. "A reading
styled the "Johannine comma" [that] appeared in Spain in the fourth
century A.D. and had a great impact on the trinitarian dogma is found
in verses 7-8… There is no justification to accept this reading
lacking in all the older manuscripts." [our translation, cf. La
Bibbia Concordata, 2nd ed., Ravenna: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1969,
p. 2023.] Certainly in our Ge'ez (Old Ethiopic) Bible, we do not have
the verse at all!
Ethiopianist Congregations of Jamaica, in their disinterest in
the "Three Persons" doctrine, at least from our Ethiopian
perspective, are by far more correct than the White missionaries who
would teach them otherwise. Donald H. Juel, in his article, "The
Trinity and the New Testament" (Theology Today, v. 54, no. 3, Oct.
1977, p. 313) states the facts openly and honestly: "The New
Testament contains no doctrine of the Trinity. The `three-foldness'
of God is not the subject of theological reflection. The New
Testament writers and the congregations for whom they wrote
understood themselves as monotheists –monotheists, that is, as Israel
understood God as one. The Shema with its emphatic statement of God's
exclusiveness, is actually cited in only one passage in the Synoptic
Gospels (Mark 12: 30, 33 and parallels); there are allusions to it,
as in 1 Corinthians 8: 4 and James 2: 19. The phrase "God is one" is
used scarcely more than a dozen passages. The reason, however, is
that the confession is something to be taken for granted rather than
something extraordinary." In the same issue, p. 301, Elizabeth A.
Johnson in her article, "Trinity: To Let the Symbol Sing Again,"
confirms our non-Chalcedonian position in African Christendom when
she observes of modern Western Christianity: "…the doctrine [of Three
Persons] has become unintelligible and religiously irrelevant on a
wide scale. Friedrich Schleiermacher relegated the Trinity to the
last few pages of his magisterial work, The Christian Faith,
convinced that the doctrine had little practical value and little
connection with the essence of faith. More recently Karl Rahner
observed that so weakly does the Trinity function in the piety and
faith of the Church that if it were announced a fourth person of the
Trinity had been discovered, it would cause little stir, certainly
less than usually greets a Vatican dictate on a matter of sexual
ethics."
We Ethiopians insist on tolerance and appreciation of diversity, and
our church scholars in Addis Ababa have made every effort for
reconciliation with European Christendom, and especially with the
Vatican. But there is now just such a drive to announce a "Fourth
Person," Mary, Co-Redemptrix with Christ." Under circumstances quite
similar to those that led to the dogmatization of the "Three
Persons," should the Pope indeed authorize this move, it will replace
the "Holy Trinity" with a "Holy Quartet." According to Kenneth L.
Woodward's article, "Hail, Mary," Newsweek, Aug 25, 1997, p. 49: "If
the drive succeeds, Catholics would be obliged as a matter of faith
to accept three extraordinary doctrines: that Mary participates in
the redemption achieved by her son, that all graces that flow from
the suffering and death of Jesus Christ are granted only through
Mary's intercession with her son, and that all prayers and petitions
from the faithful on earth must likewise flow through Mary, who then
brings them to the attention of Jesus. This is what theologians call
high Mariology, and it seems to contradict the basic New Testament
belief that `there is one God and one mediator between God and man,
Christ Jesus.' (1 Timothy 1: 5) In place of the Holy Trinity, it
would appear, there would be a kind of Holy Quartet, with Mary
playing the multiple roles of daughter of the Father, mother of the
Son and spouse of the Holy Spirit."
On what scriptural authority does this teaching of "Four Persons"
stand? None. Neither does the non-biblical doctrine of the "Three
Persons" which we non-Chalcedonian Ethiopians have never agreed with.
But the discerning reader may ask about Matthew 28: 19. Does it not
teach "Three Persons"? In Jerusalem, Hebrew University scholar David
Flusser, in a number of studies has made two points important in this
context: 1) All early manuscripts of Matthew do have the verse; 2) No
early Patristic author quotes it. This evidence is crucial because
biblical scholarship has two ways of gaining insight into the
earliest scriptures of Christianity: 1) The comparison of the oldest
remaining manuscripts, and 2) the analysis of scriptural citations
used by the Church Fathers. The Church Fathers do quote Matthew 28:
18 and 20, but verse 19 is never cited as if it were not there in the
earliest Gospel of Matthew that they themselves were using. In other
words, there is very important evidence that even verse 19 of Matthew
28 was added at a date later than the earliest Church Fathers and
cannot justify the later European Christian teaching of "Three
Persons in One Godhead." It's just not there. That this is not an
early Christian concept is evident. Its absence from authentic
African thought may also in part explain the tremendous popularity of
the One-Name Pentecostal movement among American Black believers. As
a cultural counterpart to the European concept of Three Persons we,
as all Africans, have our ever present ancestors who can be readily
called upon for help and guidance.
What has all of this to do with the beliefs and practices of the
Ethiopianist Congregations of Jamaica? Everything, for it brings the
highest levels of international theological scholarship together to
confirm the rightness of their exclusive worship of Jah, the Lord God
of Israel (not my great grandfather) without reference to the "Three
Persons" of White European Christendom.
The Ethiopianist Congregations of Jamaica join together with the
Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church in declaring: "Now therefore, fear
the Lord [Y/H/W/H] and serve Him in sincerity and in truth; and put
away the gods which your fathers served… and serve ye the Lord… And
if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom
ye will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
(Josh 24: 14-15) It is with the finest of Reggae music that our Rasta
brothers and sisters, in a most profound mysticism resonating with "I
& I vibrations," should celebrate this eternal truth in the
Nyabinghi.
To be Continued
Notes:
The interested reader may enter the Sellassie Community via:
http://members. linkopp.com/sellassie/list.html, "How to use the
Sellassie Website."
http://members.linkopp.com/sellassie/doc/secretar.html
http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/academics/orthodoxy.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ak/sellassie
http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/rasta/rastafi.html
www.RestorationFoundation.org
Princess Edjigaheu Sellassie-Antohin, Registrar
The Imperial House of Sellassie
115 Kelsan Way
Fairbanks, AK 99709