Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 38 part 1/5

Wishing to exercise the reader in those things that have been made, so that he might come to know him by whom they were made, we have now arrived at his image, which is man—in that wherein he excels the other animals, that is, in reason or intelligence, and whatever else can be said of the rational or intellectual soul that pertains to the thing which is called 'mind' (mens) or 'spirit' (animus). By which name some authors of the Latin tongue distinguish, by a certain manner of speaking of their own, that which is excellent in man and is not in the beast, from the soul (anima) which is present also in the beast. If, then, above this nature we seek anything—and seek something true—it is God: a nature not created, but creating.

Whether this is a Trinity we ought now to demonstrate, not only to those who believe on the authority of divine Scripture, but also, if we can by some reason, to those who understand. But why I said 'if we can,' the matter itself will better indicate once it has begun to be inquired into by discussion. For God himself, whom we seek, will help us, as I hope, that our labor be not fruitless, and that we may understand what was said in the holy Psalm: 'Let the heart of them that seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord, and be strengthened; seek his face evermore.' For it seems that what is always sought is never found; and how then shall the heart of those who seek rejoice, and not rather be saddened, if they have not been able to find what they seek? For it does not say:

'Let the heart of those who find rejoice,' but 'of those who seek the Lord.' And yet that God the Lord can be found while he is sought, the prophet Isaiah testifies when he says: 'Seek the Lord, and as soon as you have found him, call upon him; and when he shall have drawn near to you, let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.' If, therefore, when sought he can be found, why is it said, 'Seek his face evermore'? Or must he perhaps be sought even when found? For thus are incomprehensible things to be sought, lest he think he has found nothing who has been able to find how incomprehensible is that which he was seeking.

Why then does he seek so, if he comprehends that what he seeks is incomprehensible, unless because he must not cease so long as he is making progress in the very inquiry into incomprehensible things, and the seeker becomes better and better as he seeks so great a good, which is both sought that it may be found, and found that it may be sought? For it is sought that it may be found the more sweetly, and it is found that it may be sought the more eagerly. According to this may be understood what is said in the book Ecclesiasticus, that wisdom says: 'They that eat me shall yet hunger, and they that drink me shall yet thirst.' For they eat and drink because they find; and because they hunger and thirst they still seek. Faith seeks, understanding finds; on which account the prophet says: 'Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand.'

And again, understanding still seeks him whom it has found: for 'God looked down upon the sons of men,' as is sung in the holy Psalm, 'to see if there were any that understood, or that sought after God.' To this end, therefore, ought man to be understanding, that he may seek after God. Let us then have tarried long enough among those things which God has made, that through them he himself who made them might be known: 'For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.'

Whence in the book of Wisdom those are reproved who, from the things that are seen to be good, could not know him who is, nor by attending to the works acknowledged the workman; but supposed either fire, or spirit, or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violence of waters, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods that govern the world. Of whom, if they were delighted with their beauty and supposed them to be gods, let them know how much better than they is their Lord; for the very author of beauty created them. But if they wondered at their power and operation, let them understand from these how much mightier is he who established them. For from the greatness of the beauty and of the creature the creator of these may be knowably seen.

I have quoted these things from the book of Wisdom for this reason: that none of the faithful might think that I had sought in vain and to no purpose, through certain trinities of their own kind in the creature, in a certain gradual manner until I should arrive at the mind of man, for indications of that highest Trinity which we seek when we seek God.

But since the necessity of discussing and reasoning has compelled us, throughout fourteen books, to say many things which we are not able to behold all at once, so as to refer them by swift thought to that which we wish to apprehend, I shall do what I can, with the Lord's help, to gather briefly, apart from argument, whatever in each of the several volumes I brought by discussion to knowledge, and to set down—as it were under a single glance of the mind—not the manner in which each point was proved, but the very points that were proved; lest the conclusions be so far removed from the premises that the inspection of the conclusions should cause forgetfulness of the premises; or at least, if it should cause it, that what has slipped away may quickly be recovered by re-reading.

In the first book, according to the holy Scriptures, the unity and equality of that highest Trinity is shown. In the second, third, and fourth, the same; but the question, diligently treated concerning the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, made three books; and it was demonstrated that the one who was sent is not therefore less than the one who sent, because the one sent, and this one was sent—since the Trinity, which is in all respects equal, and likewise in its own nature immutable and invisible and everywhere present, works inseparably.

In the fifth, on account of those to whom the substance of the Father and of the Son seems not to be the same, because they think that everything said of God is said according to substance, and therefore contend that, since 'to beget' and 'to be begotten,' or 'begotten' and 'unbegotten,' are diverse, the substances are diverse—it is demonstrated that not everything said of God is said according to substance, as 'good' and 'great' are said according to substance, and whatever else is said with reference to himself; but that some things are said relatively, that is, not with reference to himself but to something which he himself is not, as 'Father' is said in reference to 'Son,' or 'Lord' in reference to the creature that serves him; where, if anything is said relatively, that is, with reference to something which he himself is not, and is even said in time, as it is:

'Lord, thou hast been made a refuge unto us,' then nothing befalls him whereby he is changed, but he wholly remains, in his nature or essence, immutable. In the sixth, how Christ is called by the apostolic mouth 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' is so discussed that the same question is deferred to be more diligently reconsidered—namely, whether he from whom Christ is begotten is not himself wisdom but only the Father of his own wisdom, or whether wisdom begot wisdom. But whichever of these it might be, in this book too the equality of the Trinity appeared, and that God is not triple but a Trinity; nor that the Father and the Son are as it were something double in relation to the single Holy Spirit; since neither are the three anything more than any one of them.

It was also discussed how that can be understood which Bishop Hilary said: 'Eternity is in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift.' In the seventh, the question which had been deferred is unfolded, so that God who begot the Son is not only the Father of his own power and wisdom, but is himself also power and wisdom, and likewise the Holy Spirit; and yet the three are not together three powers or three wisdoms, but one power and one wisdom, as one God and one essence. Then it was asked how they are called one essence, three persons; or, as by certain Greeks, one essence, three substances;

and it was found that this is said out of the necessity of speech, so that by some one name there might be enunciated what the three are, when it is asked what the three are whom we truly confess to be three—namely, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the eighth, when reason too has been rendered, it is clear to those who understand that, in the substance of truth, not only is the Father not greater than the Son, but neither are both together anything greater than the Holy Spirit alone; nor are any two whatever in the same Trinity anything greater than one; nor are all three together anything greater than each singly.

Then, through the truth which is beheld when understood, and through the highest good from which is all good, and through the righteousness on account of which a righteous soul is loved even by a soul not yet righteous, I gave admonition that a nature not only incorporeal but also immutable—which is God—might, as far as it can be, be understood; and through charity, which in the holy Scriptures is called God, through which the Trinity too began in some way to appear even to those who understand, as there are the lover, and that which is loved, and love.

In the ninth, the discussion came to the image of God, which is man according to the mind; and in it a certain trinity is found, that is, the mind, and the knowledge by which it knows itself, and the love by which it loves itself and its own knowledge; and these three are shown to be equal among themselves and to be of one essence. In the tenth, this same thing was treated more diligently and more subtly, and brought to this point: that there might be found in the mind a more evident trinity of it, namely in memory and understanding and will.

But since it was also ascertained that the mind never could be such that it did not remember itself, understand itself, and love itself—although it did not always think of itself, and when it thought of itself did not, by that same thought, distinguish itself from corporeal things—the discussion concerning the Trinity of which this is the image was deferred, in order that in the very seeing of corporeal things too a trinity might be found, and that in it the reader's attention might be more distinctly exercised.

In the eleventh, therefore, the sense of the eyes was chosen, in which that which had been found might be recognized also in the other four senses of the body even though not stated; and thus the trinity of the outer man appeared first in those things which are perceived without—namely, from the body which is seen, and the form which is thence impressed upon the gaze of the beholder, and the intention of the will coupling the two together. But these three were shown not to be equal among themselves nor of one substance.

Then, in the mind itself, another trinity was found—as it were introduced from those things which were perceived without—where the same three appeared to be of one substance: the imagination of a body which is in the memory, and the information thence produced when the gaze of the thinker is turned to it, and the intention of the will joining both together. But this trinity too was found to pertain to the outer man, because it was brought in from bodies which are perceived without. In the twelfth, wisdom seemed to be distinguished from knowledge, and in that which is properly called knowledge, because it is inferior, a certain trinity of its own kind was first to be inquired into, which, though it now pertains to the inner man, is nevertheless not yet to be either called or thought the image of God.

And this is dealt with in the thirteenth, by way of commending the Christian faith. In the fourteenth, however, concerning the true wisdom of man—that is, the wisdom bestowed by God's gift in participation of that same God, which is distinguished from knowledge—the discussion proceeds, and the discussion arrives at this point: that a trinity may appear in the image of God, which is man according to the mind that is renewed in the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created man to his own image; and thus man perceives wisdom, where there is contemplation of eternal things. Now, therefore, in the very eternal, incorporeal, and immutable things themselves, in the perfect contemplation of which is promised to us that blessed life which is none other than eternal, let us seek the Trinity which is God.

For not only does the authority of the divine books proclaim that God exists; but the whole of nature itself which surrounds us, and to which we ourselves also belong, cries aloud that it has a most excellent Founder, who has given us a mind and natural reason, whereby we see that living things are to be preferred to non-living, things endowed with sense to those without sense, things with intelligence to those without intelligence, immortal to mortal, powerful to powerless, just to unjust, beautiful to deformed, good to evil, incorruptible to corruptible, immutable to mutable, invisible to visible, incorporeal to corporeal, blessed to wretched.

And through this, since without doubt we set the Creator above created things, it behooves us to confess that he both lives in the highest degree and perceives and understands all things, and cannot die, be corrupted, or be changed; and that he is not body but spirit, the most powerful, most just, most beautiful, best, and most blessed of all. But all these things which I have said, and whatever else in a like manner of human speech seems to be worthily said of God, apply both to the whole Trinity, which is one God, and to the several persons in that same Trinity.

For who would dare to say that the one God, which is the Trinity itself, or the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, is either not living, or perceives nothing, or does not understand; or that, in that nature in which they are predicated equal among themselves, any one of them is mortal, or corruptible, or mutable, or corporeal? Or who would deny that there is there someone most powerful, most just, most beautiful, best, most blessed? If, then, these and all things of this kind can be said both of the Trinity itself and of each singly within it, where or how will the Trinity appear? Let us therefore first reduce these many things to some fewness. For that which is called 'life' in God is his very essence and nature. God, therefore, does not live except by a life which he himself is to himself.

But this life is not such as is in a tree, where there is no understanding, no sense; nor such as is in a beast—for the life of a beast has the fivefold sense but has no understanding; whereas that life which is God perceives and understands all things, and perceives by mind, not by body, for God is spirit. But God does not perceive through a body, as the animals do that have bodies; for he does not consist of soul and body; and through this, that simple nature, as it understands, so it perceives, and as it perceives, so it understands, and its perceiving is the same as its understanding. Nor does it so perceive as at some time to cease to be, or to have begun to be; for it is immortal. And it was not said in vain of him that he alone has immortality.

For his immortality is truly immortality, in whose nature there is no change. This same is also true eternity, whereby God is immutable, without beginning, without end, and consequently also incorruptible. One and the same thing, therefore, is said, whether God be called eternal, or immortal, or incorruptible, or immutable; and likewise, when he is called living and understanding—which is assuredly wise—this very same thing is said. For he did not receive wisdom so as to be wise, but he himself is wisdom. And this life is the same as virtue or power, and the same as the beauty by which he is called powerful and beautiful. For what is more powerful and more beautiful than wisdom, which reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly?

Do goodness and justice in God's nature stand apart from each other, as they do in His works, as though they were two different qualities of God, one goodness and the other justice? Certainly not. Rather, the very justice is that same goodness, and the very goodness is that same blessedness. Moreover, God is called incorporeal or bodiless so that He may be believed or understood to be spirit, not body. Accordingly, if we say, 'Eternal, immortal, incorruptible, immutable, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, just, good, blessed, spirit,' of all these the last one I have set down seems to signify, as it were, only the substance, while the rest seem to signify the qualities of that substance; but it is not so in that ineffable and simple nature.

For whatever seems to be said there according to qualities must be understood according to substance or essence. Far be it that God should be called spirit according to substance and good according to quality; rather, both are according to substance. So too with all the rest that we have mentioned, concerning which we have already said much in the earlier books. Of the first four, then, which we have just enumerated and set in order — that is, eternal, immortal, incorruptible, immutable — let us choose some one thing, since these four signify one thing, as I have already discussed, lest our attention be strained through many, and let us rather choose that which was placed first, namely 'eternal.' Let us do the same with the second four, which are living, wise, powerful, beautiful.

And since life of some kind is present even in a beast, in which there is no wisdom, while these two, namely wisdom and power, are so compared with each other in man that Holy Scripture could say, 'Wisdom is better than strength' — and further, bodies too are commonly called beautiful — let the one we choose from these four be 'wise'; although these four are not to be called equal in God, for there are four names, but the reality is one.

Now of the third and last four: although in God to be just is the same as to be good and to be blessed, and to be spirit is the same as to be just and good and blessed, yet because in men there can be a spirit that is not blessed, and there can be one both just and good yet not yet blessed, while he who is blessed is assuredly also just and good and spirit — let us rather choose that which cannot be present even in men without those three, namely 'blessed.' [VI 9] Do we then, when we say 'Eternal, wise, blessed,' have these three as the Trinity which is called God? We have indeed reduced those twelve to this small number of three; but perhaps in the same manner we can reduce these three into some one of them.

For if one and the same thing in God's nature can be wisdom and power, or life and wisdom, why can one and the same thing not be, in God's nature, eternity and wisdom, or blessedness and wisdom? And therefore, just as it made no difference whether we said those twelve or these three when we reduced those many to this small number, so it makes no difference whether we say these three or that one, in whose singularity we have shown that the other two can likewise be reduced. What method of disputation, then, what force and power of understanding at last, what liveliness of reason, what keenness of thought will show — to pass over other things in silence — how this one thing which is called wisdom is God, in what way it is a Trinity?

For God does not derive wisdom from something, as we perceive wisdom from Him; rather, He Himself is His own wisdom, because His wisdom is not one thing and His essence another, for whom to be is the very same as to be wisdom. In the Holy Scriptures Christ is indeed called the power of God and the wisdom of God; but how this is to be understood, lest the Son should seem to make the Father wise, was discussed in the seventh book, and reason arrived at this: that the Son is wisdom of wisdom in the same way as light of light, God of God. Nor could we find that the Holy Spirit is anything other than Himself also being wisdom, and all together one wisdom, just as one God, one essence. This wisdom, then, which is God — how do we understand it to be a Trinity?

I did not say, 'How do we believe it?' (for among the faithful this ought to raise no question), but: if in some way, through understanding, we can see what we believe, what will that way be? For if we recall where in these books the Trinity first began to appear to our understanding, the eighth book comes to mind. There indeed, as best we could by disputation, we tried to raise up the attention of the mind to understand that most excellent and unchangeable nature which our mind is not. Yet we so beheld it that it was neither far from us nor above us — not in place, but by its own venerable and wondrous excellence — so that it seemed to be present with us by its own indwelling light.

Yet in it no Trinity as yet appeared to us, because we did not hold the mind's steady gaze fixed upon that radiance in order to seek it there; only, because there was no mass such that the greatness of two or three would need to be believed greater than that of one, we discerned this after a fashion. But when we came to charity, which in Holy Scripture is called God, the Trinity gleamed forth a little — that is, the one who loves, and that which is loved, and love.

But because that ineffable light beat back our gaze, and the weakness of our mind was in some way convinced that it could not yet be attuned to it, in order to refresh the labouring attention we turned back, between our undertaking and our design, to the consideration — more familiar, as it were — of our own mind, according to which man was made in the image of God; and thence, dwelling upon the creature which we ourselves are, that we might be able to behold the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made, we tarried from the ninth book to the fourteenth. And behold, now that our understanding has been exercised in things lower, as much as was necessary — or perhaps more than was necessary — we wish to raise ourselves to behold the supreme Trinity which is God, and we are not able.

For do we — just as we see most certain trinities, whether those which come about outwardly from bodily things, or when those very things which were sensed outwardly are thought about; or when those things which arise in the soul and do not pertain to the body's senses, such as faith, such as the virtues which are the arts of conducting life, are discerned by manifest reason and are contained in knowledge; or when the mind itself, by which we know whatever we truly say that we know, is known to itself or thinks about itself; or when it beholds something which it itself is not, something eternal and unchangeable —

do we then — just as in all these we see most certain trinities, because they come about in us or are in us when we remember, look upon, and will these things — do we likewise also see the Trinity, God, because there too by understanding we behold, as it were, one speaking and His word, that is, the Father and the Son, and thence proceeding the charity common to both, namely the Holy Spirit? Or do we rather see those trinities pertaining to our senses or soul, than believe them, whereas we rather believe than see that God is a Trinity?

But if this is so, then assuredly either we behold none of His invisible things understood through the things that are made, or if we behold any, we do not behold the Trinity in them; and there is there something for us to behold, and there is something which, though not beheld, we ought nevertheless to believe. That we do behold the unchangeable good which we ourselves are not, the eighth book has shown, and the fourteenth admonished, when we spoke of the wisdom which comes to man from God. Why, then, do we not there recognize the Trinity? Does this wisdom which is called God not understand itself, not love itself? Who would say this? Or who is there who does not see that where there is no knowledge, there is in no way any wisdom?

Or are we really to suppose that the wisdom which is God knows other things and does not know itself, or loves other things and does not love itself? To say or believe this is foolish and impious. Behold, then, a Trinity: namely wisdom, and the knowledge of itself, and the love of itself. For thus too in man we find a trinity, that is, the mind, and the knowledge by which it knows itself, and the love by which it loves itself. [VII 11] But these three are so in man that they are not themselves the man. For man is, as the ancients defined, a rational, mortal animal. Those three, therefore, are excellent things in man, but they are not themselves the man. And one person, that is, each single man, has those three in his mind, or the mind. But if we also define man in this way, saying:

'Man is a rational substance consisting of soul and body,' there is no doubt that man has a soul which is not body, and has a body which is not soul. And therefore those three are not the man, but are the man's, or are in the man. Even when the body is set aside, if the soul alone be considered, something of it is the mind, as it were its head or eye or face; but these are not to be thought of as bodies. It is not the soul, therefore, but that which is excellent in the soul, that is called mind. But can we say that the Trinity is in God in such a way that it is something of God and is not itself God?

Wherefore each single man, who is called the image of God not according to all things that pertain to his nature but according to his mind alone, is one person, and is an image of the Trinity in his mind. But that Trinity of which he is the image is, in its wholeness, nothing other than God; in its wholeness, nothing other than the Trinity. Nor does anything pertain to the nature of God which does not pertain to that Trinity; and the three persons are of one essence — not as each single man is one person.

Likewise in this there is a great difference: that whether we speak of the mind in man and its knowledge and love, or of memory, understanding, and will, we remember nothing of the mind except through memory, nor understand except through understanding, nor love except through will. But in that Trinity, who would dare to say that the Father understands neither Himself nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit except through the Son, or loves except through the Holy Spirit, but through Himself only remembers, whether Himself or the Son or the Holy Spirit; and in the same way that the Son remembers neither Himself nor the Father except through the Father, nor loves except through the Holy Spirit, but through Himself only understands both the Father and Himself and the Holy Spirit;

and likewise that the Holy Spirit through the Father remembers both the Father and the Son and Himself, and through the Son understands both the Father and the Son and Himself, but through Himself only loves both Himself and the Father and the Son — as though the Father were the memory both of Himself and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Son the understanding both of Himself and of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit the charity both of Himself and of the Father and of the Son? Who would presume to think or affirm these things concerning that Trinity? For if there the Son alone understands both for Himself and for the Father and for the Holy Spirit, we are brought back to that absurdity: that the Father is not wise from Himself but from the Son, and that wisdom did not beget wisdom, but that by that wisdom which He begot the Father is said to be wise.