The Trinity: An Illustration

Just as one flame contains three realities in a single fire, so there is one God in three persons. How? The flame is made of a shining brightness, a purple energy, and glowing heat. It has a shining brightness so that it can give light, a purple energy so that it can be active and alive, and a glowing heat sot that it can burn. The shining brightness represents the Father, who reveals His brightness to believers in His fatherly care. The purple energy contained with the brightness (by which the same flame manifests its power) represents the Son, who from the Virgin took a body in which the divine nature demonstrated its miraculous powers. The glowing heat represents the Holy Spirit, who pours Himself glowingly into the minds of believers. But where there is no shining brightness, no purple energy, and no glowing heat, there is no flame to be seen. Likewise, where neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit is honoured, God receives no worthy worship. And so, just as we see these three realities in the one flame, so we must understand three persons in the unity of the divine nature.

Hildegard of Bignen

Scivias, Book 2, chapter 2, section 6[1]

[1] Cited by Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power: Volume 2: The Middle Ages, 7^th to 15^th Century (Scotland, UK: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2016), 194.