² In broad outline, the extraordinary form tends to favour my first Trinitarian style, with some hints of the third (the great and beautifully phrased exception being the offertory prayers). The Roman Canon itself, for example, does not offer the Trinitarian resources of the newer Eucharistic prayers, but is there commonly introduced by a Trinitarian preface of great density, generally following my first and third patterns. Thus while I think there is much value and some real advance in clarity in the novus ordo's presentation of the Trinity, the extra‐ordinary form certainly teaches the same doctrine and in similar styles.

³ As a parallel case one can also note the lack of attention paid by post‐Conciliar Catholic theology to the ways in which the Council documents speak of Father, Son and Spirit. Even if one is not always convinced by the direct accounts of the Trinitarian communion offered elsewhere by those theologians influential at the Council (or by the particular historical narratives that some espoused), one can still see the texts which resulted as embodying fundamental Trinitarian principles that should be the object of far more extended reflection than has been the case.

⁴ Throughout I have felt no urge to speak of “economic” and “immanent” trinities. This language rarely does useful work.

⁵ In what follows I have learnt much from Mazza, Enrico, The Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 1989).Google Scholar One of the classic works underlying the Trinitarian emphases of the post Vatican II Eucharistic prayers is Cyprian Vaggagini's Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 1976).Google Scholar Even if we should not overemphasize Vaggagini's role in the actual composition of the new Eucharistic prayers, and even if his views on Hippolytus and the Roman Canon are not ours, his theology well represents the Trinitarian concerns of that key generation of liturgical reformers. For my own part I would also like to indicate that I do not share his fairly simplistic views of Trinitarian theology's history.

⁶ The analogical languages I deploy here are found in a variety of fourth and fifth century sources directed toward Nicene ends: my pneumatological language is mostly Augustinian, but my explanation of Word owes as much to Gregory of Nyssa as it does to Augustine. My speaking of the Spirit “giving character” is, of course, not intended to indicate a quasi‐temporal action subsequent to the generation of the Son nor a retro‐active formation of the Father. Rather, it is only intended to indicate that the Father generates the Son through doing so in the Spirit, in love, by giving the Son all that the Father is, his own Spirit.

⁷ But such a confession is not necessarily about a unity that we feel, but about the theological reality of our existence.

⁸ In what precise ways would such a procedure affect our reading of Scripture? It is difficult to say in the abstract, but such a reading would have to be one in which the whole of Christ's life, death and resurrection was seen with increasing clarity as a Trinitarian event. One might see also with increasing clarity the extent to which Christ's showing of love and attention are a revealing of the Trinitarian life.

⁹ Much of what I say here is true of the Apostles Creed, although in general that text offers a far simpler narrative of far less Trinitarian utility.

¹⁰ On the origins of this language – and on the ways in which it was not intended to fudge the issue of the Spirit's divinity – see Meredith, Anthony, “The Pneumatology of the Cappadocian Fathers and the Creed of Constantinople, Irish Theological Quarterly 48 (1981), 196–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar