Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 37

We must now discourse concerning wisdom: not that wisdom of God which is beyond all doubt God himself (for the wisdom of God is called his only-begotten Son), but we shall speak of the wisdom of man, yet a true wisdom, which is according to God and is his true and chief worship, which by a single name is called in Greek 'theosebeia.'

This name, as we have already noted, our own writers, wishing likewise to render it by a single word, called 'piety,' although among the Greeks piety is more usually named 'eusebeia'; but 'theosebeia,' since it cannot be perfectly rendered by one word, is better translated by two, so that it may rather be called 'the worship of God.' That this is the wisdom of man—which we have already set down in the twelfth volume of this work—is shown by the authority of Holy Scripture in the book of Job, the servant of God, where we read that the wisdom of God said to man: 'Behold, piety is wisdom; but to abstain from evils is knowledge' (or, as some have translated from the Greek 'episteme,' 'instruction'—which indeed takes its name from learning, whence it can also be called knowledge;

for a thing is learned to this end, that it may be known—though under another meaning 'instruction' is wont to be used for the evils which each one suffers on account of his sins, that he may be corrected. Hence that saying in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'For what son is there whom his father does not instruct?'; and that yet more plainly in the same epistle: 'Now all instruction for the present seems to be not of joy but of sorrow; but afterward it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.') God, then, is himself the highest wisdom; but the worship of God is the wisdom of man of which we now speak. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. According to this wisdom, then, which is the worship of God, the Holy Scripture says: 'A multitude of the wise is the health of the world.'

But if to discourse of wisdom belongs to the wise, what shall we do? Shall we dare to profess wisdom, lest our discourse concerning it be presumptuous? Shall we not be deterred by the example of Pythagoras, who, when he did not dare to profess himself wise, answered rather that he was a philosopher, that is, a lover of wisdom—from whom that name so arose and thenceforth so pleased posterity, that however much anyone might seem, either to himself or to others, to excel in doctrine touching things pertaining to wisdom, he was called nothing but a philosopher? Or was it for this reason that none of such men dared to profess himself wise, because they thought that the wise man was without any sin? This our Scripture does not say, which says: 'Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you';

for assuredly it judges him to have sin whom it deems fit to be rebuked. But not even so do I dare to profess myself wise. It is enough for me—what not even they themselves can deny—that it belongs also to a philosopher, that is, a lover of wisdom, to discourse of wisdom. For they did not cease to do this who professed themselves lovers of wisdom rather than wise. And discoursing of wisdom, they defined it, saying: 'Wisdom is the knowledge of things human and divine.' Whence I too, in the preceding book, did not keep silent that the knowledge of both kinds of things—that is, of things divine and human—can be called both wisdom and knowledge. But according to that distinction by which the Apostle said:

'To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge,' this definition is to be divided, so that the knowledge of divine things be properly named wisdom, while the knowledge of human things properly obtains the name of knowledge—concerning which I discoursed in the thirteenth volume, not indeed attributing to this knowledge whatsoever can be known by man in human affairs (wherein there is very much superfluous vanity and harmful curiosity), but only that by which the most wholesome faith, which leads to true blessedness, is begotten, nourished, defended, and strengthened. In which knowledge very many of the faithful are not strong, although they are very strong in the faith itself.

For it is one thing merely to know what a man ought to believe in order to attain the blessed life, which is none other than the eternal one; but it is another thing to know how this very faith may both aid the pious and be defended against the impious—which the Apostle seems to call by the proper term 'knowledge.' Of this, when I earlier spoke, I took care especially to commend faith itself, briefly first distinguishing eternal things from temporal, and there discoursing of temporal things, but deferring eternal things to this book; and even concerning eternal things I showed that faith is indeed temporal and dwells temporally in the hearts of believers, yet is necessary for attaining those very eternal things.

I also discoursed that faith concerning temporal things—which the Eternal One did and suffered for us in the man whom he temporally bore and carried through to the eternal—profits toward the attainment of those same eternal things; and that the very virtues by which one lives prudently, bravely, temperately, and justly in this temporal mortality are not true virtues unless they be referred to that same faith, temporal though it be, which nevertheless leads to eternal things. [II 4] Wherefore, since, as it is written: 'As long as we are in the body we are absent from the Lord';

for we walk by faith, not by sight—assuredly, as long as the just man lives by faith, although he lives according to the inner man, and although through that same temporal faith he strives and tends toward eternal truth, yet in the retention, contemplation, and love of that same temporal faith he is not yet such a trinity as ought already to be called the image of God, lest that which ought to be established in things eternal seem to be established in things temporal. For the human mind, when it sees its own faith, by which it believes what it does not see, sees nothing everlasting.

For this will not always be, seeing that it certainly will not be when, this pilgrimage ended—the pilgrimage by which we are absent from the Lord, so that it is necessary to walk by faith—there shall succeed that sight by which we shall see face to face; just as now, though not seeing, yet because we believe, we shall deserve to see, and shall rejoice that through faith we have been led on to sight. For there will then no longer be faith by which are believed the things that are not seen, but sight by which shall be seen the things that were believed.

Then, therefore, even if we remember this mortal life once passed through, and recall by memory that we once believed things we did not see, that faith will be reckoned among things past and finished, not among things present and ever-abiding; and thereby also this very trinity, which now consists in the memory, contemplation, and love of that same present and abiding faith, will then be found to be past and finished, not permanent. From which it follows that, if this trinity is already the image of God, it too is to be held not among the things that always are, but among things that pass away.

[III] But far be it that, since the soul's nature is immortal and from the beginning of its creation never thereafter ceases to be, that in it than which it has nothing better should not endure together with its immortality. And what better has been created in its nature than that it was made to the image of its Creator? Not, therefore, in the retention, contemplation, and love of faith, which will not be forever, but in that which will be forever, is to be found what ought to be called the image of God. Or shall we still, somewhat more diligently and more deeply, search out whether the matter stands thus?

For it can be said that this trinity does not perish even when faith itself has passed away, because just as now we both hold it by memory, discern it by thought, and love it by will, so also then, when we shall hold by memory that we had it and shall recall it, and shall join both these by a third, the will, the same trinity will abide. (For if it left behind in us no trace, as it were, of its passing, assuredly we shall have nothing of it in our memory to which we might recur in recollecting it as past, and joining both these by a third act of attention—namely, that which was in the memory while we were not thinking thereof, and that which is formed from thence by thought.)

But he who says this does not distinguish that it is one trinity now, when we hold, see, and love the present faith in us, and another trinity to come then, when we shall behold in recollection, not the faith itself, but as it were its imaginary trace stored up in the memory, and shall join these two—that is, what was in the memory of the one retaining it, and what is thence imprinted upon the gaze of the one recollecting—by a third, the will.

That this may be understood, let us take an example from corporeal things, of which we have spoken sufficiently in the eleventh book. Namely, ascending from lower things to higher, or entering from outer things to inner, we find a first trinity in the body which is seen, and in the gaze of the one seeing, which is formed thence when it sees, and in the intention of the will which joins both.

Let us set up something similar to this trinity, when the faith which is now within us has been established in our memory just as that body was in place, and from it the thought of the one recollecting is informed, as the gaze of the one beholding was from that body; to which two, that a trinity may be completed, there is reckoned a third, the will, which connects and joins the faith established in the memory and a certain effigy of it imprinted upon the sight of recollection, just as in that corporeal trinity of vision the intention of the will joins the form of the body which is seen and the conformation which comes to be in the gaze of the beholder. Let us therefore suppose that body which was beheld to have perished, dissolved, and that nothing of it has remained in any place to which the sight may recur to see it.

Is it then, because the image of a corporeal thing now past and gone remains in the memory, whence the gaze of the one thinking may be informed, and both are joined by a third, the will—is the same trinity to be called that which had existed when the appearance of the body set in place was being seen? Not at all, but wholly another. For besides that the former was without, this within, the former was assuredly produced by the appearance of the present body, this by the image of the past. So also in this matter of which we now treat, and for the sake of which we thought that example should be applied: the faith which is now in our mind, like that body in place, while it is held, beheld, and loved, effects a certain trinity;

but it will not be the same when this faith will no longer be in the soul, as that body no longer in place. And that which will then exist, when we shall recollect that it was in us and is not, will assuredly be another. For the one which now exists is made by the present thing itself, fixed in the mind of the believer; but that which will then exist will be made by the imagination of the past thing left behind in the memory of the one recollecting. Therefore neither will that trinity, which now is not, be the image of God, nor is this the image of God which will then not be; but that image of the Creator is to be found in the soul of man—that is, in the rational or intellectual soul—which is immortally implanted in his immortality.

[IV] For just as the soul's very immortality is spoken of according to a certain manner (for the soul too has its death, when it lacks the blessed life, which is to be called the true life of the soul; yet it is called immortal because, with whatever kind of life, even when it is most wretched, it never ceases to live), so, although reason or intellect may now be dormant in it, now appear small, now great, the human soul is never anything but rational and intellectual;

and hence, if it was made to the image of God according to this—that it can use reason and intellect to understand and behold God—then assuredly, from the beginning when this so great and wonderful nature began to be, whether this image be so worn away as to be almost nothing, or be obscure and deformed, or be clear and beautiful, it always is. Finally, the divine Scripture, pitying the deformity of its dignity, says: 'Although man walks in an image, yet he is vainly disquieted; he heaps up treasure and knows not for whom he shall gather it.' It would not therefore attribute vanity to the image of God unless it discerned that it had been made deformed. And that this deformity does not so prevail as to take away the fact that it is an image, it sufficiently shows by saying: 'Although man walks in an image.'

Wherefore from either side this sentence can be truly pronounced, so that, just as it was said, 'Although man walks in an image, yet he is vainly disquieted,' so it may be said: 'Although man is vainly disquieted, yet he walks in an image.' For although it is a great nature, yet it could be vitiated, because it is not the highest; and although it could be vitiated because it is not the highest, yet because it is capable of the highest nature and can be a partaker of it, it is a great nature. Let us therefore seek in this image of God a certain trinity of its own kind, with the help of him who made us to his image.

For we cannot otherwise wholesomely investigate these things and, according to the wisdom which is from him, find anything; but if those things which we said in the earlier books, and especially in the tenth, concerning the human soul or mind, be either held and recalled by the reader's memory, or reviewed with diligence in the very places in which they were written, he will not here require a more prolix discourse on the inquiry into so great a matter. Among other things, then, we said in the tenth book that the mind of man knows itself. For nothing is so present to the mind as that which is present to itself, and nothing is more present to the mind than the mind is to itself. And we adduced other proofs, as far as seemed sufficient, by which this might most certainly be established.

[V] What then is to be said of the mind of an infant, still so small and sunk in so great an ignorance of things that the mind of a man which knows something shudders at the darkness of that mind? Is it too to be believed to know itself, but, being too intent upon those things which it has begun to perceive through the senses of the body with a delight all the greater for being newer, is unable to be ignorant of itself, and yet unable to think of itself?

Moreover, with how great an intentness it is borne toward those sensible things which are without, may be conjectured even from this alone: that it is so avid of drinking in this light that, if anyone less cautious, or not knowing what harm might come thereof, has placed a night-lamp where the infant lies, on that side to which the eyes of the lying child may be turned back and the neck cannot be bent, its gaze is so not removed from it that we know some have even become squint-eyed from this, their eyes retaining that form which habit in a manner fixed in them while tender and soft. So also into the other senses of the body, as far as that age allows, the souls of little ones so contract themselves, as it were, with intentness, that they vehemently shrink from or crave only whatever offends or allures through the flesh;

but they do not think of their own inner things, nor can they be admonished to do this, because they do not yet know the signs of the one admonishing, among which words hold the chief place, which, like all else, they utterly do not know. But that it is one thing not to know oneself, another not to think of oneself, we have already shown in the same volume. But let us pass over this age, which cannot be questioned what is being done within it, and of which we ourselves are utterly forgetful. Let it suffice that from this alone we are made certain: that when a man has been able to think of the nature of his own mind and to find what is true, he will not find it elsewhere than within his own self. But he will find, not what he did not know, but that of which he was not thinking.

For what do we know, if we do not know that which is in our own mind, since all that we know we can know only by the mind? [VI] Yet so great is the power of thought that not even the mind itself in a manner sets itself in its own sight except when it thinks of itself; and thereby nothing is in the sight of the mind except that which is being thought of, so that not even the mind itself, by which is thought whatever is thought, can be in its own sight otherwise than by thinking of itself. But how, when it does not think of itself, it should not be in its own sight—since it can never be without itself—as though it were one thing itself, and another the sight of it, I cannot find out. For this is not absurdly said of the eye of the body. For the eye itself is fixed in its own place in the body;

but its gaze is stretched forth toward those things which are without, and is extended even to the stars. Nor is the eye in its own sight, seeing that it does not behold itself except by a mirror set before it, of which we have already spoken. But this certainly does not happen when the mind sets itself in its own sight by thought. Does the mind then, with one part of itself, see another part of itself, when it beholds itself by thinking, just as with our other members which are the eyes we behold our other members which can be in our sight? What more absurd can be said or thought? Whence, then, is the mind taken away, except from itself; and where is it set in its own sight, except before itself? It will not therefore be there where it was when it was not in its own sight, because being here placed, it was thence taken away?

But if it has migrated in order to be beheld, where will it remain in order to behold? Or is it, as it were, doubled, so as to be both there and here—that is, both where it can behold and where it can be beheld—so that in itself it is beholding, before itself the thing beheld? Truth, when consulted, answers us none of these things, since when we think in this manner we think only of the feigned images of bodies, which the mind is not, is most certain to the few minds by which truth can be consulted on this matter. It remains, therefore, that something pertaining to its nature is the sight of it, and that it is recalled into that sight, when it thinks of itself, not as if through spatial extent, but by an incorporeal turning.

But when it does not think of itself, it is indeed not in its own sight, nor is its gaze formed from it; yet it knows itself as though it were itself a memory of itself. Just as one skilled in many disciplines—the things which he knows are contained in his memory, nor is any of them in the sight of his mind except that of which he thinks; the rest are stored away in a certain hidden knowledge which is called memory. Therefore we so commended the trinity, that we placed in the memory that from which the gaze of the one thinking is formed; the conformation itself, as it were, the image which is imprinted thence; and that by which both are joined, love or will. The mind, therefore, when by thought it beholds itself, understands and recognizes itself:

it begets, therefore, this understanding and knowledge of itself. For an incorporeal thing is beheld when it is understood, and by understanding is known. Nor indeed does the mind so beget this knowledge of itself, when it beholds itself understood by thinking, as though it had before been unknown to itself; but it was so known to itself as those things are known which are contained in the memory even if they are not being thought of (since we say that a man knows letters even when he is thinking of other things, not of letters). But these two, the begetter and the begotten, are coupled by love as a third, which is nothing else than the will seeking or holding something to be enjoyed. And therefore we thought the trinity of the mind should be intimated by those three names also: memory, understanding, will.

But since we said, toward the end of that same tenth book, that the mind always remembers itself and always understands and loves itself, although it does not always think of itself as distinct from those things which are not what it is, it must be asked in what manner understanding pertains to thought, while the knowledge of anything that is in the mind—even when it is not being thought of—is said to pertain to memory alone. For if this be so, the mind did not have these three, so as both to remember itself and to understand itself and to love itself, but only remembered itself; and afterward, when it began to think of itself, then it understood and loved itself.

[VII] Wherefore let us consider more diligently that example which we adduced, where it was shown that it is one thing not to know a given thing, another not to think of it, and that it can happen that a man knows something of which he does not think, when he thinks of something else, not of it. One skilled, then, in two or more disciplines, when he thinks of one, yet knows the other, or others, even though he does not think of them. But can we rightly say: 'This musician indeed knows music, but does not now understand it, because he does not think of it; he understands, however, geometry now, for this he now thinks of'? That sentence is absurd, as far as appears. What too of that, if we should say: 'This musician indeed knows music, but does not now love it when he does not think of it;

but he now loves geometry, since he now thinks of it'? Is not this likewise absurd? But most rightly do we say: 'This man whom you observe disputing about geometry is also an accomplished musician. For he both remembers that discipline and understands and loves it; but although he knows and loves it, he does not now think of it, since he thinks of geometry, about which he disputes.' Hence we are admonished that there are in the hidden depth of our mind certain items of knowledge of certain things, and that these then in a manner come forth into the open and are set, as it were, more manifestly in the sight of the mind, when they are thought of; for then the mind finds that it both remembers and understands and loves even that of which it was not thinking when it was thinking of something else.

But that of which we have long not thought, and of which we are unable to think unless reminded—this, in some strange and marvelous manner (if it can be said), we know that we do not know. Finally, it is rightly said by him who reminds, to him whom he reminds: 'You know this, but you do not know that you know it; I will remind you, and you will find yourself knowing what you had supposed you did not know.' This too the writings accomplish which are composed concerning such matters, the truth of which things the reader, with reason as guide, finds to be true—not the things which he believes to be true to the one who wrote, as history is read, but the things which he too himself finds to be true, whether within himself or in the very truth that guides the mind.

But he who, even when reminded, is unable to behold these things, is sunk more deeply into the darkness of ignorance by the great blindness of his heart, and needs a more wonderful divine aid that he may be able to attain to true wisdom. On this account, therefore, I wished to adduce, concerning thought, some proof of a kind by which it might be shown how, from those things which are contained in the memory, the gaze of the one recollecting is informed, and something of such a kind is begotten, when a man thinks, as was in him where, before thought, he remembered; because that which comes to be in time, and where the parent precedes the offspring by an interval of time, is more easily discerned.

For if we refer ourselves to the inner memory of the mind by which it remembers itself, and the inner understanding by which it understands itself, and the inner will by which it loves itself—where these three are together and have always been together from the time they began to be, whether they were thought of or not thought of—the image of that Trinity will indeed seem to pertain to memory alone. But because there a word cannot be without thought (for we think all that we say, even by that inner word which pertains to the tongue of no nation), this image is rather recognized in those three, namely, memory, understanding, will.

But I now call understanding that by which we understand in thinking—that is, when, on discovering those things which were present to the memory but were not being thought of, our thought is formed—and that will, or love, or affection, which joins this offspring and parent, and is in a manner common to both. Hence it came about that even through outer sensible things, which are seen by the eyes of the flesh, I led on the slowness of readers—namely, in the eleventh book—and thence, together with them, I entered into that power of the inner man by which it reasons concerning temporal things, distinguishing it from that principally dominant power by which it contemplates eternal things.

And this I did in two volumes: in the twelfth distinguishing the two, of which one is higher, the other lower, which ought to be subject to the higher; but in the thirteenth I discoursed, with what truth and brevity I could, concerning the office of the lower part, in which is contained the wholesome knowledge of human affairs, so that in this temporal life we may do that whereby we may attain the eternal—since I enclosed in one strictly compact volume a matter so manifold and copious, celebrated by the many and great disputations of many and great men, showing even in it a trinity, but not yet one that is to be called the image of God.

[VIII 11] But now we have already come to that discussion in which we have undertaken to consider the principal part of the human mind, by which it knows or is able to know God, that in it we may find the image of God. For although the human mind is not of that nature of which God is, yet the image of that nature than which no nature is better is to be sought and found in us in that whereby our nature too has nothing better. But the mind must first be considered in itself, before it becomes a partaker of God, and in it his image is to be found. For we have said that, even with the participation of God lost, worn away and deformed, it nevertheless remains the image of God.

For by this very fact it is his image, that it is capable of him and can be a partaker of him—which so great a good it cannot be except through this, that it is his image. Behold, then, the mind remembers itself, understands itself, loves itself. If we discern this, we discern a trinity—not yet indeed God, but already the image of God. The memory did not receive from without what it should hold, nor did the understanding find without what it should behold, as does the eye of the body; nor did the will join these two from without, as it joins the form of the body which is seen and that which is thence made in the gaze of the beholder.

Nor does thought, when it is turned toward it, discover an image of a thing seen without which has been in a certain manner snatched up and stored away in the memory, from which the gaze of the one remembering is given its form, a third thing, the will, joining both together — as we were showing to happen in those trinities which were found in bodily things, or which were in a certain manner drawn inward from bodies through the sense of the body, concerning all of which we treated in the eleventh book.

Nor is it as it happened or appeared when we were treating of that knowledge already established in the resources of the inner man — knowledge which had to be distinguished from wisdom — whereby the things that are known are, as it were, adventitious in the mind: either brought in by historical cognition, as are deeds and words which are accomplished in time and pass away, or things set in their own places and regions in the nature of things; or those which, not having been in the man himself, arise there, whether from others teaching or from his own thoughts, such as faith, which we commended chiefly in the thirteenth book, and such as the virtues by which, if they be true, one lives well in this mortal state to the end that one may live blessedly in that immortality which is divinely promised.

These and things of this kind have their own order in time, in which the trinity of memory, vision, and love more easily appeared to us. For some of them precede the cognition of those who learn; for they are knowable even before they are known, and beget in the learners the knowledge of themselves. But they exist either in their own places, or as things that have passed away in time — though the things that have passed away are not themselves present, but rather certain signs of those past things, by whose being seen or heard it is known that they were and have passed.

These signs are either set in places, such as the monuments of the dead and whatever is like them; or in trustworthy writings, such as is every history of grave and approvable authority; or in the minds of those who already know these things — for to them indeed these things are already known, and to others they are certainly knowable, being things whose knowledge they have anticipated, and who are able, when they teach, to make them known to those to whom they are known. And all these things, when they are learned, make a certain trinity: of their own species, which was knowable even before it was known; joined to it the cognition of the learner, which then begins to be when it is learned; and a third, the will, which joins both together.

And when they have been known, another trinity comes to be, now inwardly within the mind itself, while they are recalled — a trinity out of those images which were impressed on the memory when they were learned, and out of the informing of the thought when the gaze of the one remembering is turned toward them, and out of the will which as a third thing joins these two together. But those things which arise in the mind where they had not been — such as faith and the rest of this kind — even though they seem adventitious when they are introduced by teaching, are yet not placed without nor accomplished without, like the things that are believed, but have altogether begun to be within, in the mind itself. For faith is not that which is believed, but that by which it is believed; and the former is believed, the latter is beheld.

Yet because it began to be in a mind which was already a mind before these things began to be in it, it seems to be something adventitious, and it will be held among things past when, upon another species succeeding, it will have ceased to be. Now it makes one trinity by its presence — retained, beheld, loved; then it will make another by a certain trace of itself, which, in passing away, it will have left behind in the memory, as has already been said above. [Chapter 9, 12] But whether the virtues too, by which one lives well in this mortal state, since they themselves also begin to be in a mind which, though it was previously without them, was nevertheless a mind — whether they cease to be when they have led us to eternal things, is no small question.

For to some it has seemed that they will cease to be; and concerning three of them indeed — prudence, fortitude, temperance — when this is said, something not without meaning seems to be said. But justice is immortal, and will then be perfected in us rather than cease to be. Yet concerning all four, Tullius, that great master of eloquence, disputing in the dialogue Hortensius, says: 'If it were permitted us, when we have departed from this life, to pass an immortal age in the isles of the blessed, as the fables tell, what need would there be of eloquence, since no judgments would be held; or even of the virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude, with no toil or danger set before us; nor justice, since there would be nothing of another's to be coveted;'

'nor temperance, which should govern those lusts that would be none; nor indeed should we need prudence, with no choice of goods and evils set before us. We should therefore be blessed by one thing alone: the knowledge and science of nature, by which alone even the life of the gods is to be praised. From which it can be understood that the other things belong to necessity, this one alone to the will.'

Thus that so great orator, when he was extolling philosophy — recalling the things he had received from the philosophers and expounding them splendidly and pleasantly — said that all four virtues are necessary only in this life which we see, full of hardships and errors; but that none of them will be needed when we shall have departed from this life, if it be permitted to live there where one lives blessedly; rather, that good souls are blessed by knowledge and science alone, that is, by the contemplation of that nature than which nothing is better and more lovable — the nature which created and established all the other natures. To be subject to its rule, if this belongs to justice, then justice is altogether immortal, nor will it cease to be in that blessedness, but will be such and so great that it could not be more perfect or greater.

Perhaps the other three virtues also — prudence without any danger of error, fortitude without the distress of enduring evils, temperance without the resistance of lusts — will be present in that felicity: so that it belongs to prudence to prefer or equate no good to God; to fortitude to cleave to Him most firmly; to temperance to delight in no harmful defect. But now what justice does in succoring the wretched, what prudence does in guarding against snares, what fortitude does in enduring hardships, what temperance does in restraining depraved delights — these will not be there where there will be no evil at all.

And through this, these works of the virtues which are necessary for this mortal life, like faith to which they are to be referred, will be held among things past, and now they make one trinity while we hold them present, behold them, and love them; then they will make another when we shall find that they are not, but were, through certain traces of them which in passing away they will leave behind in the memory. For then too there will be a trinity, when both that trace, of whatever kind, will be retained by memory and truly recognized, and both of these will be joined by the will as a third thing.

[Chapter 10, 13] In all knowledge of those temporal things which we have recalled, certain knowable things precede cognition by an interval of time, such as those sensible things which already were in reality before they were known, or all those things which are known through history. But others begin to be at the same time — as, for instance, if something visible which did not exist at all should arise before our eyes, it certainly does not precede our cognition; or if something should sound where a hearer is present, assuredly the sound and the hearing of it begin at the same moment and cease at the same moment. Nevertheless, whether preceding in time or beginning at the same time, knowable things beget cognition, and are not begotten by cognition.

But once cognition has been made, when the things we have come to know, placed in the memory, are revisited by recollection, who does not see that the retention in the memory is prior in time to the vision in recollection, and that the joining of both of these by the will as a third thing is later still? But in the mind it is not so;

for the mind is not adventitious to its own self, as though that very same mind, which already was, had come to itself from elsewhere — the very self which was not; nor as though it had not come from elsewhere, but that very self which was not had been born within itself, which already was, as within the mind, which already was, there arises faith, which was not; nor does it, after the cognition of itself, in remembering see itself as though set up in its own memory, as if it had not been there before it came to know itself — since assuredly, from the time it began to be, it has never ceased to remember itself, never to understand itself, never to love itself, as we have already shown. And through this, when it is turned toward itself by thought, there comes to be a trinity in which now the word too can be understood. For it is formed out of the thought itself, the will joining both.

There, therefore, the image which we seek is rather to be recognized. [Chapter 11, 14] But someone will say: 'That is not memory, by which the mind is said to remember itself, since it is always present to itself; for memory is of things past, not of things present.' For certain persons — among whom is also Tullius — when they were treating of the virtues, divided prudence into these three parts: memory, understanding, foresight; assigning namely memory to things past, understanding to things present, foresight to things future — which foresight they do not have as certain unless they be foreknowers of the future, which is not a gift of men unless it be given from above, as to the prophets. Whence the Scripture of Wisdom, treating of men, says: 'The thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresights uncertain.'

But memory is of things past, and understanding of things present is certain (yet of present things that are incorporeal; for corporeal things are present to the sight of the eyes). But let him who says that memory is not of present things attend to how it was said even in secular literature — where the integrity of words was of greater concern than the truth of things: 'Nor did Ulysses endure such things, nor did the Ithacan forget himself in so great a peril.' For Virgil, when he said that Ulysses did not forget himself, what else did he wish to be understood but that he remembered himself? Since therefore he was present to himself, in no way could he have remembered himself unless memory pertained also to present things.

Wherefore, just as in things past that is called memory by which it comes about that they can be recalled and remembered, so in a present thing — namely, what the mind is to itself — that may without absurdity be called memory by which it is present to itself, so that by its own thought it can be understood, and both can be joined by love of itself. [Chapter 12, 15] This trinity of the mind, therefore, is the image of God not because the mind remembers itself and understands and loves itself, but because it is able also to remember and understand and love Him by whom it was made. And when it does this, it becomes wise. But if it does not do this, then even when it remembers itself and understands and loves itself, it is foolish. Let it therefore remember its God, to whose image it was made, and understand and love Him.

That I may say this more briefly: let it worship the uncreated God, of whom it was made capable by Him, and of whom it can be a partaker; for which reason it is written: 'Behold, the worship of God is wisdom.' And it will be wise not by its own light, but by participation in that supreme Light; and where it will reign eternal, there it will reign blessed. For this wisdom of man is so called that it may also be God's. For then it is true; but if it is human, it is vain. Yet not so is God's wisdom, whereby God is wise; for He is not wise by participation in Himself, as the mind is wise by participation in God. But just as there is said to be a justice of God — not only that whereby He Himself is just, but that which He gives to man when He justifies the ungodly — which justice the Apostle, commending it, says concerning certain persons:

'For being ignorant of the justice of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to the justice of God' — so too it can be said of certain persons: 'Being ignorant of the wisdom of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to the wisdom of God.' There is therefore an uncreated nature which made all the other natures, great and small, and is without doubt more excellent than those it made; and through this, more excellent also than this of which we speak — the rational and intellectual nature which is the mind of man, made to the image of Him who made it. But that nature which is more excellent than the rest is God, and indeed not placed far from any one of us, as the Apostle says, adding: 'For in Him we live and move and are.'

But if he had said this according to the body, it could be understood even of this bodily world. For in it too, according to the body, we live and move and are. Whence, according to the mind, which was made to His image, this ought to be taken in a certain more excellent, and yet not visible but intelligible, manner. For what is there that is not in Him, of whom it is divinely written: 'Since from Him and through Him and in Him are all things'? Accordingly, if all things are in Him, in what at last can those things live that live, and those things move that move, save in Him in whom they are? Yet not all are with Him in the manner in which it was said to Him: 'I am always with You'; nor is He with all in the manner in which we say:

'The Lord be with you.' Great therefore is the misery of man, not to be with Him without whom he cannot be. For without doubt he is not without Him in whom he is; and yet, if he does not remember Him and does not understand nor love Him, he is not with Him. But that which anyone utterly forgets, he certainly cannot even be reminded of. [Chapter 13, 17] Let us take an example for this matter from visible things. Someone whom you do not recognize says to you: 'You know me'; and, to remind you, he tells where, when, and how he became known to you.

And when all the signs by which you might be recalled to memory have been applied, if you still do not recognize him, then you have so forgotten that all that knowledge has been utterly wiped from the mind, and nothing else remains except either to believe him who tells you this — that you once knew him — or not even that, if the one who speaks does not seem to you worthy of trust. But if you remember, then assuredly you return into your own memory and find in it what had not been utterly wiped out by oblivion. Let us return to that for the sake of which we brought forward the example of human intercourse. Among other things, the ninth Psalm says: 'Let sinners be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God.' And again, the twenty-first:

'They shall be reminded,' it says, 'and shall be turned to the Lord, all the ends of the earth.' Therefore these nations had not so forgotten God that, even when reminded, they would not recall Him. But by forgetting God, as though by forgetting their own life, they were turned toward death, that is, toward hell. But when reminded, they are turned to the Lord, as though coming to life again by remembering the life which their oblivion had held from them. Likewise it is read in the ninety-third: 'Understand now, you who are foolish among the people; and you fools, at length be wise. He who planted the ear, shall He not hear?' and the rest. For it was said to those who, by not understanding God, spoke vain things concerning Him. [Chapter 14, 18] But concerning the love of God, more testimonies are found in the divine words.

For there those other two things are consequently understood, since no one loves what he does not remember and what he utterly does not know. Whence comes that most well-known and chief commandment: 'You shall love the Lord your God.' Thus therefore was the human mind founded, that it never fails to remember itself, never fails to understand itself, never fails to love itself. But since he who hates someone strives to harm him, not without reason is the mind of man too said to hate itself when it harms itself. For unknowingly it wills evil to itself while it does not think that what it wills is harmful to it; yet nevertheless it wills evil to itself when it wills that which is harmful to itself, whence is that which is written: 'He who loves iniquity hates his own soul.' He therefore who has learned to love himself, loves God;

but he who does not love God, even if he loves himself — which is naturally implanted in him — is nevertheless not inappropriately said to hate himself, since he does that which is contrary to himself and pursues his own self as though he were his own enemy. And this is assuredly a horrible error: that whereas all wish to do themselves good, many do nothing except what is most pernicious to them. When the poet was describing a similar disease of the dumb animals, he said: 'The gods grant better things to the pious, and that error to our enemies!' — 'With bared teeth they tore their sundered limbs.' Since that was a disease of the body, why did he call it error, unless because — every animal being by nature reconciled to itself so that it may guard itself as much as it can — such was that disease that they tore the very limbs whose welfare they sought?

But when the mind loves God and, as has been said, consequently remembers Him and understands Him, then rightly is it commanded concerning its neighbor to love him as itself. For now it loves itself not perversely but rightly, when it loves God, by participation in whom that image not only is, but is even renewed from its oldness, reformed from its deformity, made blessed from its unhappiness. For although it so loves itself that, if one or the other were set before it, it would rather lose all the things it loves beneath itself than perish, yet by forsaking Him who is above it — to whom alone it could preserve its own strength and enjoy Him as its own light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm: 'My strength, I will keep it toward You,' and in another:

'Draw near to Him and be enlightened' — thus it became so weak and darkened that it slipped, even from its own self, more unhappily into those things that are not what it is and above which it is, through loves which it cannot conquer and errors from which it does not see how to return. Whence, now by God's mercy repenting, it cries out in the Psalms: 'My strength has forsaken me, and the light of my eyes is not with me.' Yet even amid these so great evils of infirmity and error it could not lose the natural memory, understanding, and love of itself. For which reason it could rightly be said, as I recalled above: 'Though man walks in an image, yet he is disquieted in vain. He heaps up treasure, and knows not for whom he shall gather it.'

For why does he heap up treasure, unless because his strength has forsaken him — the strength by which, having God, he would need nothing? And why does he know not for whom he shall gather it, unless because the light of his eyes is not with him? And therefore he does not see what the Truth says: 'Fool, this night they require your soul of you. These things which you have prepared, whose shall they be?' Nevertheless, because even such a man walks in an image, and the mind of man has memory and understanding and love of himself — if it were made manifest to him that he could not have both, and he were permitted to choose one of the two, about to lose the other, either the treasures which he has gathered or his mind — who is so far without a mind that he would rather have the treasures than the mind?

For treasures can for the most part overturn the mind, whereas a mind which is not overturned by treasures can live more easily and unencumbered without any treasures. But who could possess any treasures except through the mind? For if an infant child, however wealthy, born lord of all that is rightfully his, possesses nothing while its mind lies dormant, in what manner at last shall anyone possess anything with his mind lost? But why do I speak of treasures, when any man whatever, if such a choice be set before him, prefers to be without them rather than without his mind, since no one prefers them to, nor compares them with, the eyes of the body, by which not gold — which few men possess — but every man possesses the heavens? For through the eyes of the body each man possesses whatever he gladly sees.

Who therefore, if he cannot keep both and is compelled to lose one or the other, would not rather lose the treasures than the eyes? And yet, if under a like condition it be asked of him whether he would rather lose his eyes or his mind, who would not see with his mind that he would rather lose his eyes than his mind? For a mind without the eyes of the flesh is human; but the eyes of the flesh without a mind are those of a beast. Who, moreover, would not rather be a man even blind in the flesh than a seeing beast? I have said these things so that even the slower — into whose eyes or ears these writings shall come — might, though briefly, be admonished by me how greatly the mind loves itself, even weak and erring, by loving amiss and pursuing the things that are beneath itself.

But it could not love itself if it were utterly ignorant of itself, that is, if it did not remember itself nor understand itself. And by this image of God within itself it is so powerful that it can cleave to Him whose image it is. For it is so set in order — in the order of natures, not of places — that above it there is none but He. Finally, when it shall have cleaved wholly to Him, it will be one spirit; to which thing the Apostle bears witness, saying: 'But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit' — the mind indeed acceding to participation in His nature, truth, and blessedness, while yet He does not increase in His own nature, truth, and blessedness. In that nature, therefore, when it shall have happily cleaved to it, it will see as unchangeable everything that it sees.

Then, as the divine Scripture promises it, its desire shall be satisfied in good things — in unchangeable good things, in that very Trinity, its God, whose image it is; and lest henceforth it be anywhere violated, it shall be in the hiding place of His countenance, filled with such abundance of Him that it shall never delight to sin. But its own self, now when it sees it, it does not see as something unchangeable. [Chapter 15, 21] And of this it certainly does not doubt for this reason: that it is wretched and desires to be blessed, nor does it hope that this can come to pass for any other reason than that it is mutable. For if it were not mutable, then just as it could not become wretched from blessed, so it could not become blessed from wretched. And what would have made it wretched under an almighty and good Lord, save its own sin and the justice of its Lord?

And what will make it blessed, save its own merit and the reward of its Lord? But even its merit is the grace of Him whose reward will be its blessedness. For it cannot give itself the justice which, once lost, it does not have. For this it received when man was created, and by sinning it certainly lost. It receives justice, therefore, on account of which it may deserve to receive blessedness. Whence it is truly said to it by the Apostle, as though it were beginning to be proud as of its own good: 'For what have you that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?'

But when it rightly remembers its Lord, having received His Spirit, it feels altogether — because this it learns by an inward teaching — that it could not rise except by His gratuitous working, nor could it have fallen except by its own voluntary defection. It does not indeed recall its own blessedness. For that was, and is not, and this it has utterly forgotten, and therefore it cannot even be reminded of it. But it believes concerning that blessedness the trustworthy writings of its God, written by His prophets, which recount the felicity of paradise and, by historical tradition, disclose that first good and evil of man. But of the Lord its God it is reminded. For He indeed always is, neither was and is not, nor is and was not, but just as He will never not be, so He never was not.

And He is everywhere wholly present, for which reason this soul both lives and moves and is in Him, and therefore can be reminded of Him — not because it recalls this: that it knew Him in Adam, or somewhere else before the life of this body, or when it was first made to be inserted into this body; for it recalls none of these things at all; whatever there is of these has been wiped out by oblivion. But it is reminded, so that it may be turned to the Lord, as to that Light by which it was in some manner touched even when it was turned away from Him. For hence it is that even the ungodly think about eternity, and rightly reprove and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. By what rules, then, do they judge these things, save by those in which they see how each man ought to live, even if they themselves do not live in the same way?

Where do they see these rules? For not in their own nature — since without doubt they are seen by the mind, and it is agreed that their minds are mutable, whereas whoever has been able to see these rules also sees them to be immutable; nor in the disposition of their own mind, since those rules are rules of justice, whereas it is agreed that their minds are unjust. Where, then, are these rules written, where he who is unjust recognizes what is just, where he discerns that he ought to have what he himself does not have? Where, then, are they written, save in the book of that Light which is called Truth, whence every just law is copied, and is transferred into the heart of the man who works justice — not by migrating, but as though by being impressed, just as an image passes from a ring even into wax, and yet does not leave the ring?

But he who does not work, and yet sees what ought to be worked, is the very one who is turned away from that Light, by which nevertheless he is touched. But he who does not even see how he ought to live, sins indeed more excusably, because he is not a transgressor of a law unknown to him; yet even he too is sometimes reached by the splendor of the Truth which is everywhere present, when, being admonished, he confesses. [Chapter 16, 22] But those who, being reminded, are turned to the Lord, are reformed from that deformity by which, through worldly desires, they were being conformed to this world — hearing from Him the Apostle saying: 'Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind,' so that that image may begin to be reformed by Him by whom it was formed;

for it cannot reform itself, as it was able to deform itself. He says also elsewhere: 'Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.' What he says, 'created according to God,' is said in another place, 'to the image of God.' But by sinning it lost the justice and holiness of truth, for which reason this image became deformed and discolored; this it receives back when it is reformed and renewed. But when he says, 'in the spirit of your mind,' he did not wish two things to be understood there, as though the mind were one thing and the spirit of the mind another, but because every mind is spirit, though not every spirit is mind. For God too is spirit, who cannot be renewed because He cannot grow old.

There is also said to be a spirit in man which is not the mind, to which belong imaginations similar to bodies — of which he speaks to the Corinthians, where he says: 'But if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.' For he says this when what is spoken is not understood, since it cannot even be spoken unless images of bodily voices precede, in the thought of the spirit, the sound of the mouth. The soul of man too is called spirit, whence it is in the Gospel: 'And bowing His head, He gave up the spirit,' by which was signified the death of the body, the soul departing. The spirit even of a beast is spoken of, which is most plainly written in the book of Ecclesiastes of Solomon, where he says:

'Who knows the spirit of the sons of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goes downward into the earth?' It is written also in Genesis, where he says that in the flood there died all flesh which had in it the spirit of life. The wind too is called spirit — a thing most plainly corporeal — whence is that in the Psalms: 'Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm.' Since therefore in so many ways 'spirit' is spoken of, by 'the spirit of the mind' he wished to designate that spirit which is called mind. As the same Apostle also says: 'In the putting off of the body of the flesh.'

He certainly did not intend two things to be understood, as though flesh were one thing and the body of the flesh another; but because 'body' is a name for many things of which none is flesh (for there are many bodies apart from flesh, heavenly bodies and earthly bodies), he said 'the body of the flesh,' that is, the body which is flesh. So likewise he called it 'the spirit of the mind,' that is, the spirit which is mind. Elsewhere too he named it, even more openly, an 'image,' commending indeed the very same thing in other words: 'Stripping off,' he says, 'the old man with his deeds, put on the new man, who is renewed unto the knowledge of God according to the image of him that created him.' What therefore is read in one place, 'Put on the new man, who is created according to God,' is in this place:

'Put on the new man, who is renewed according to the image of him that created him.' There, however, he says 'according to God'; here, on the other hand, 'according to the image of him that created him.' And in place of what he set down there, 'in righteousness and holiness of truth,' here he has put 'in the knowledge of God.' This renewal and reformation of the mind, therefore, takes place according to God, or according to the image of God. But it is said to be 'according to God' lest it be thought to take place according to some other creature; and it is said to be 'according to the image of God' that this renewal may be understood to take place in that thing wherein is the image of God, that is, in the mind—just as we say that one who departs faithful and righteous out of the body is dead 'according to the body,' not according to the spirit.

For what do we mean by 'dead according to the body' except dead in body or in respect of the body, not in soul or in respect of the soul? Or if we should say, 'He is beautiful according to the body,' or, 'He is strong according to the body, not according to the mind,' what is this but 'He is beautiful or strong in body, not in mind'? And we speak so in countless instances. Let us not, therefore, understand 'according to the image of him that created him' as though the image according to which one is renewed were one thing, and not the very image that is renewed. Assuredly this renewal does not take place in the single moment of conversion itself, as that renewal in baptism takes place in a single moment by the remission of all sins; for not even one sin, however small, remains that is not remitted.