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For that Lamb, slain by them without any debt of sin owed to them, overcame them not by the power of might but by the justice of his blood before that of might. Accordingly, freed from the power of the devil, they are received by the holy angels, delivered from all evils through the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus; since — as the divine Scriptures agree, both old and new, both those through which Christ was foretold and those through which he was proclaimed — there is no other name under heaven in which men must be saved. And they are set, purged of all contagion of corruption, in tranquil abodes, until they receive back their bodies, but now incorruptible bodies, such as adorn and do not burden.
For it has thus pleased the best and wisest Creator that the spirit of man, piously subject to God, should have the body happily subject to it, and that this happiness itself should abide without end. There we shall see the truth without any difficulty, and shall enjoy it most clear and most certain. Nor shall we seek anything by a reasoning mind, but by a contemplating mind we shall discern why the Holy Spirit is not the Son, though he proceeds from the Father. In that light there will be no question.
But here indeed this very experience appeared so difficult to me — as it will doubtless likewise appear to those who read these things carefully and intelligently — that although in another place in the second book of this work I promised to speak of it thereafter, yet whenever I wished to show, in that creature which we ourselves are, something like to that reality, my sufficient utterance did not follow whatever understanding I had; although even in the understanding itself I felt that I had made an effort rather than an achievement. And in one person indeed, which is man, I felt that I had found an image of that supreme Trinity, and in a mutable thing I had wished to display those three — the more easily to be understood — even through temporal intervals, especially in the ninth book.
But three of one person could not, as human intent demands, correspond to those three persons, as we have demonstrated in this fifteenth book. [XXVI] Furthermore, in that supreme Trinity which is God, there are no intervals of time by which it could be shown, or even asked, whether the Son was first born of the Father and afterward the Holy Spirit proceeded from both; since Holy Scripture calls him the Spirit of both. For it is he of whom the Apostle says: 'And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts'; and it is he of whom the same Son says: 'For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.'
And by many other testimonies of the divine utterances it is proved that the Spirit who is properly called in the Trinity the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son; of whom likewise the Son himself says: 'Whom I will send to you from the Father,' and in another place: 'Whom the Father will send in my name.' And that he proceeds from both is thus taught, because the Son himself says: 'He proceeds from the Father'; and when he had risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples, he breathed upon them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit' — so that he might show that the Spirit proceeds also from himself. And this is the power that went forth from him, as we read in the Gospel, and healed all.
But what was the reason that after his resurrection he first gave the Holy Spirit on earth and afterward sent it from heaven, I think it is this: that through this very gift the love is poured out in our hearts by which we love God and neighbor, according to those two commandments on which hang the whole Law and the Prophets. Signifying this, the Lord Jesus gave the Holy Spirit twice: once on earth on account of love of neighbor, and again from heaven on account of love of God. And if perhaps some other reason be given for the Spirit twice bestowed, yet we ought not to doubt that it was the same Spirit that was given when Jesus breathed, of whom he presently said: 'Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,' where this Trinity is especially commended.
He it is, therefore, who was also given from heaven on the day of Pentecost, that is, ten days after the Lord ascended into heaven. How then is he not God who gives the Holy Spirit? Nay, how great a God is he who gives God! For none of his disciples gave the Holy Spirit. They prayed indeed that he might come upon those on whom they laid hands, but they did not themselves give him. And this custom the Church even now preserves in her prelates. Finally, Simon Magus too, offering the apostles money, did not say, 'Give me also this power, that I may give the Holy Spirit,' but he said, 'that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Spirit'; for the Scripture had not said above, 'Now when Simon saw that the apostles gave the Holy Spirit,' but had said:
'Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given.' For this reason the Lord Jesus himself not only gave the Holy Spirit as God but also received it as man; and for this reason he was said to be full of grace. And it is written more plainly of him in the Acts of the Apostles: 'Because God anointed him with the Holy Spirit' — not indeed with visible oil, but with the gift of grace which is signified by the visible ointment with which the Church anoints the baptized. Nor indeed was Christ then anointed with the Holy Spirit when, at his baptism, the Spirit descended upon him as a dove; for then he deigned to prefigure his body, that is, his Church, in which especially the baptized receive the Holy Spirit.
But by that mystical and invisible anointing he is to be understood as anointed when the Word of God was made flesh, that is, when the human nature, without any preceding merits of good works, was united to God the Word in the womb of the Virgin, so as to become with him one person. On this account we confess him born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. For it is most absurd that we should believe he received the Holy Spirit when he was already thirty years old — for at that age he was baptized by John — but rather that, just as he came to that baptism entirely without sin, so he came not without the Holy Spirit. For if of his servant and forerunner, John himself, it is written:
'He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb' — since, although sown by a father, yet being formed in the womb he received the Holy Spirit — what is to be understood or believed of the man Christ, the very conception of whose flesh was not carnal but spiritual? In that also which is written of him, that he received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured it forth, both natures are shown, namely the human and the divine. For he received as man, he poured forth as God. But we can indeed receive this gift according to our small measure; yet we certainly cannot pour it forth upon others, but that this may come to pass, we invoke over them God, by whom it is effected.
Can we then ask whether the Holy Spirit had already proceeded from the Father when the Son was born, or had not yet proceeded, and, the Son being born, proceeded from both — where there are no times — just as we were able to ask, where we found times, that the will first proceeds from the human mind in order that what is sought may be sought, so that when found it is called offspring, since that will, once brought forth or begotten, is perfected, resting in that end, so that what had been the seeking of one searching becomes the love of one enjoying, which now proceeds from both, that is, from the begetting mind and the begotten notion, as from parent and offspring? These things absolutely cannot be asked there, where nothing is begun from time so as to be perfected by a consequent in time.
Wherefore, let him who can understand the generation of the Son from the Father without time, understand also the procession of the Holy Spirit from both without time. And let him who can understand, in that which the Son says, 'As the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life' — that the Father gave, yet so begot him without time that the life which the Father gave to the Son by begetting is coeternal with the life of the Father who gave — let him understand that, as the Father has in himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed also from him, so he has given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from him, and both without time; and that the Holy Spirit is thus said to proceed from the Father, so that it is understood that his proceeding also from the Son is to the Son from the Father.
For if the Son has from the Father whatever he has, then surely he has from the Father this too — that the Holy Spirit should proceed also from him. But let no times be conceived there which have before and after, since there are absolutely none there. How, then, would it not be most absurd for the Son to be called the Son of both, since, just as generation from the Father confers on the Son being without beginning of time and without any mutability of nature, so procession from both confers on the Holy Spirit being without any beginning of time and without any mutability of nature? For this reason, although we do not call the Holy Spirit begotten, yet we dare not call him unbegotten, lest by this term anyone should suspect either two fathers in that Trinity, or two who are not from another.
For the Father alone is not from another; therefore he alone is called unbegotten — not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of those who dispute and who, concerning so great a matter, bring forth such discourse as they are able. And the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds principally from the Father, and — the Father giving without any interval of time — proceeds in common from both. He would be called the Son of the Father and of the Son if both had begotten him, which is abhorrent to the senses of all sound minds. He is therefore not begotten by both, but proceeds from both as the Spirit of both.
[XXVII 48] But since in that coeternal and equal and incorporeal and ineffably immutable and inseparable Trinity it is most difficult to distinguish generation from procession, let it suffice for the present, for those who are not able to extend themselves further, that which we said concerning this matter in a certain sermon delivered to the ears of the Christian people, and which, being said, we wrote down. For among other things, when through the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures I had taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both: 'If, then,' I said, 'the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, He proceeds from the Father? Why, do you think, unless because it is his custom to refer to him even what is his own, from whom he himself also is? Whence is that which he says:
My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me. If, therefore, here his doctrine is understood, which he nevertheless said was not his own but the Father's, how much more there is the Holy Spirit to be understood as proceeding also from him, where he speaks thus: He proceeds from the Father — in such a way that he did not say, He does not proceed from me? But from whom the Son has it that he is God (for he is God from God), from him surely he has it also that the Holy Spirit should proceed from him; and thus the Holy Spirit has it from the Father himself that he should proceed also from the Son, just as he proceeds from the Father.
Here too, in a certain way, this is also understood — as far as it can be understood by such as we are — why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born but rather to proceed; because if he too were called Son, he would surely be called the Son of both, which is most absurd. For no one is son of two save of a father and a mother. But far be it that we should suspect anything of the sort between God the Father and God the Son; since not even a son of men proceeds at once both from father and from mother, but when he proceeds into the mother from the father, he does not then proceed from the mother, and when he proceeds from the mother into this light, he does not then proceed from the father.
But the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father into the Son and from the Son proceed to sanctify the creature, but he proceeds from both at once; although this the Father gave to the Son, that just as he proceeds from himself, so also from him he should proceed. For neither can we say that the Holy Spirit is not life, since the Father is life, the Son is life. And therefore, just as the Father, though he has life in himself, has given to the Son also to have life in himself, so he has given to him that life should proceed from him just as it proceeds also from himself. These things I have transferred from that sermon into this book, but speaking to the faithful, not to the unbelieving.
But if for beholding this image, and for seeing how true are those things which are in their mind — and the three are not so as to be three persons, but all three belong to the man who is one person — they are less fit, why do they not rather believe, concerning that supreme Trinity which is God, what is found in the sacred writings, rather than demand that a most transparent account be rendered them, which is not grasped by the human mind, slow indeed and weak? And surely, when they have believed unshakably the Holy Scriptures as most truthful witnesses, let them act by praying and seeking and living well, that they may understand — that is, that as far as it can be seen, what is held by faith may be seen by the mind. Who would forbid this? Nay rather, who would not exhort to it?
But if they think these things must therefore be denied because they cannot discern them with blind minds, then those too who are blind from their birth ought to deny the sun. The light, therefore, shines in the darkness; but if the darkness does not comprehend it, let them first be illumined by the gift of God, that they may be faithful and begin to be light in comparison with the unbelieving; and, this foundation being laid, let them be built up for seeing the things they believe, that at some time they may be able to see. For there are things that are so believed that they can no longer be seen at all. For Christ is not to be seen again on the cross; but unless this be believed — that it so came to pass and was seen that it is no longer hoped to be future and to be seen — one does not arrive at Christ such as he is to be seen without end.
But as far as pertains to that supreme, ineffable, incorporeal, and immutable nature, which is somehow to be discerned through the understanding, nowhere — provided the rule of faith govern it — may the gaze of the human mind exercise itself better than in that which man in his own nature has better than the other animals, better even than the other parts of his own soul: namely the mind itself, to which a certain sight of invisible things has been assigned, and to which, presiding honorably as though in a higher and inner place, even the bodily senses report all things to be judged; and than which there is none higher, to whom it is subject to be ruled, save God.
But amid these many things which I have now said, I dare to profess that I have said nothing worthy of the ineffability of that supreme Trinity, but rather to confess that his knowledge, made marvelous, has prevailed above me, and that I have not been able to attain to it. O you, my soul, where do you feel yourself to be, where do you lie or where do you stand, until all your infirmities are healed by him who has become gracious to all your iniquities? You recognize surely that you are in that inn to which the Samaritan brought him whom he found half-dead, with many wounds inflicted by robbers. And yet you have seen many true things — not with these eyes with which colored bodies are seen, but with those for which he prayed who said: Let my eyes behold equity.
Assuredly, then, you have seen many true things, and have distinguished them from that light by whose shining you saw them. Lift up your eyes into that very light, and fix them upon it if you can. For thus you will see how the birth of the Word of God differs from the procession of the Gift of God, on account of which the only-begotten Son said that the Holy Spirit is not born of the Father — otherwise he would be his brother — but proceeds. Whence, since there is a certain consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son, the Spirit of both is called the Son of neither — far be it! But for discerning this clearly and plainly you cannot fix your gaze there. I know, you cannot. I speak the truth; I speak to myself; I know what I cannot do.
Yet that same light has shown you in yourself those three, in which you might recognize the image of that supreme Trinity which you are not yet able to contemplate with fixed eyes. That same light has shown you that there is a true word in you when it is begotten of your knowledge — that is, when we utter what we know, even though we neither utter nor conceive a sounding word that signifies in the tongue of any nation; but from that which we know our thought is formed, and there is in the gaze of the one thinking an image most like to the knowledge which the memory contained, these two, namely, as it were parent and offspring, being joined by a third — will or love.
That this will indeed proceeds from cognition — for no one wills that of which he is wholly ignorant what or of what sort it is — yet is not the image of cognition, and that therefore in this intelligible matter a certain distance of birth and of procession is intimated, since to behold by thought is not the same as to seek or even to enjoy by will: this he discerns and distinguishes who is able. You too were able, although you have not been able nor are able to explain with sufficient utterance what, amid the clouds of corporeal likenesses which do not cease to meet human thoughts, you have scarcely seen.
But that light — which is not what you are — has also shown you this: that those incorporeal likenesses of bodies are one thing, and that the truth which, once these are rejected, we behold by understanding is another. These, and other things likewise certain, that light has revealed to your inner eyes. What, then, is the cause why, with fixed gaze, you cannot see that light itself, unless surely infirmity? And who has made this infirmity for you, unless surely iniquity? Who, then, heals all your infirmities, unless he who is gracious to all your iniquities? And so I shall at last, some time, close this book better by prayer than by disputation. [XXVIII 51] O Lord our God, we believe in you, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. For the Truth would not say:
'Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' — this you would not command unless you were a Trinity. Nor would you bid us be baptized, O Lord God, in the name of one who is not Lord God. Nor would it be said by the divine voice, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God,' unless you were so a Trinity as still to be one Lord God. And if you, God the Father, were yourself also the Son, your Word Jesus Christ, and were yourself also your gift the Holy Spirit, we should not read in the writings of truth, 'God sent his Son'; nor would you, the only-begotten, say of the Holy Spirit, 'Whom the Father will send in my name,' and, 'Whom I will send to you from the Father.'
Directing my purpose to this rule of faith as much as I could, as much as you enabled me to, I sought you and desired to see with my understanding what I had believed; and I argued much and laboured much. O Lord my God, my only hope, hear me, lest through weariness I should be unwilling to seek you, but may I ever seek your face ardently. Give strength to seek, you who caused yourself to be found and gave the hope, ever more and more, of finding you. Before you is my strength and my weakness: preserve the one, heal the other. Before you is my knowledge and my ignorance: where you have opened to me, receive me as I enter; where you have closed, open to me as I knock. Let me remember you, understand you, love you. Increase these in me until you reform me to wholeness. I know it is written:
'In much speaking you shall not escape sin.' But would that I spoke only in preaching your word and praising you! Then I should not only flee sin, but I should acquire a good merit, however much I thus spoke. For a man blessed by you would not enjoin sin upon his own son, a true son in the faith, to whom he wrote saying, 'Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season.' Are we to say that he did not speak much, who did not keep silent about your word, O Lord, not only in season but even out of season? But it was not much precisely because it was only what was necessary. Free me, my God, from the much speaking which I suffer inwardly in my wretched soul in your sight, as it flees to your mercy. For I am not silent in my thoughts even when I am silent with my voice.
And indeed, if I thought only what would please you, I should certainly not be asking you to free me from this much speaking. But many of my thoughts are such as you know the thoughts of men to be, seeing that they are vain. Grant me not to consent to them, and, whenever they delight me, nonetheless to disapprove them, and not to linger in them as though drowsing. Nor let them prevail so far with me that anything of them should pass into my deeds; but from them at least let my judgment be safe, my conscience safe, under your protection. A certain wise man, when he spoke of you in his book which is now called by its proper name Ecclesiasticus, said: 'We speak many things, and we do not attain, and the sum of our words is: he is all.'
When therefore we shall have attained to you, these many things which we speak and do not attain shall cease, and you shall remain, one all in all; and without end we shall say one thing, praising you in unity, and in you made even we ourselves one. O Lord God, one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is yours, let your own acknowledge; if anything is of my own, may both you pardon it and your own. Amen.