Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 42

Chapter I. The cause and aim of the present work. Since it is written, and confirmed by the most robust authority of apostolic teaching, that 'the just man lives by faith' (Hab. 2:4; Gal. 3:11); and since that faith demands of us a duty both of heart and of tongue—for the Apostle says, 'With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation' (Rom. 10:10)—it behooves us to be mindful both of righteousness and of salvation. For, seeing that we who are to reign in everlasting righteousness cannot be saved from this present evil age unless we too, striving for the salvation of our neighbors, also profess with the mouth the faith which we bear in the heart:

and lest this faith be able to be violated in us in any part by the fraudulent cunning of heretics, we must provide against it with pious and wary vigilance. Now the catholic faith is known to the faithful in the Creed, and committed to memory, with as much brevity of speech as the matter has permitted: so that for beginners and sucklings, for those who have been reborn in Christ but are not yet strengthened by the most diligent and spiritual handling and knowledge of the divine Scriptures, it might be settled that they should believe in a few words what would have to be expounded in many words to those who make progress and rise to the divine doctrine with a sure firmness of humility and charity. Under these very few words, then, set down in the Creed, most heretics have tried to hide their poisons:

but the divine mercy has withstood and still withstands them through spiritual men, who have merited not only to receive and believe the catholic faith in those words, but also, by the Lord's revealing, to understand and know it. For it is written, 'Unless you believe, you shall not understand' (Isa. 7:9, according to the LXX). But the treatment of the faith avails for fortifying the Creed: not that it should be handed over to be committed to memory and recited in place of the Creed by those who obtain the grace of God; but that what is retained in the Creed may be guarded, against the snares of heretics, by catholic authority and a firmer defense. Chapter II. That there was no nature co-eternal with God, out of which He made the world. How the world was made from nothing, if it was made from formless matter.

For certain men have attempted to persuade others that God the Father is not almighty: not that they have dared to say this openly, but they are convicted of thinking and believing it in their traditions. For when they say that there is a nature which God almighty did not create, out of which nevertheless He fashioned this world—which they grant to be so beautifully ordered—they thus deny God to be almighty, in that they do not believe He could have made the world unless, in fashioning it, He had used another nature which already existed and which He Himself had not made: following, forsooth, the carnal habit of seeing craftsmen and builders of houses and workmen of every sort, who, unless they are aided by prepared material, cannot arrive at the accomplishment of their art.

Thus they also understand that the Maker of the world is not almighty, if He could not fashion the world unless some nature not fashioned by Him aided Him as material. But if they grant that God the Maker of the world is almighty, they must of necessity confess that He made what He made out of nothing. For there cannot be anything of which He was not the creator, since He was almighty. For even if He made something out of something, as He made man from clay, He surely did not make it out of that which He Himself had not made; because the earth, from which the clay comes, He had made out of nothing. And if He had made the very heaven and earth—that is, the world and all things that are in it—out of some matter, as it is written, 'Who madest the world out of unseen matter' (Wisd.

11:18)—or even out of formless matter, as some copies have it—we must in no way believe that that very matter, out of which the world was made, however formless, however unseen, in whatever manner it existed, could have existed of itself, as though co-eternal and coeval with God: but whatever measure it had of its own, so as to exist in any way at all and to be able to receive the forms of distinct things, it did not have except from God almighty, by whose bounty a thing is not only whatever is already formed, but also whatever is formable. Now between the formed and the formable there is this difference, that the formed has already received a form, while the formable can receive one. But He who bestows form on things, He also bestows the very power of being formed:

since from Him and in Him is the most beautiful and unchangeable Form of all things; and therefore He alone is the one who grants to any thing whatever, not only that it be beautiful, but also that it be able to be beautiful. Wherefore we most rightly believe that God made all things out of nothing: for even if the world was made out of some matter, that same matter was made out of nothing, so that by God's most orderly gift there might first come to be the capacity for forms, and thereafter whatever things are formed might be formed. This, however, we have said lest anyone suppose that the pronouncements of the divine Scriptures are contrary to one another, since it is both written that God made all things out of nothing, and that the world was made out of formless matter.

Believing, therefore, in God the Father almighty, we ought to hold that there is no creature which has not been created by the Almighty. And since He created all things through the Word—which Word is called both Truth (John 14:6), and the Power and Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), and is intimated by many other titles by which He is commended to our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ, namely our liberator and ruler, the Son of God—for that Word, through whom all things were founded, could not have been begotten save by Him who founded all things through Him. Chapter III. Why the Son of God is called the Word. That the Word is the very same as the Father is. We believe also in Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Father's only-begotten, that is, His only Son, our Lord.

Yet this Word we ought not to take as we take our own words, which, uttered by voice and mouth, pass away when the air is struck, and remain no longer than they sound. For that Word remains unchangeably; for of it this was said, when Wisdom was being spoken of, 'Remaining in herself, she makes all things new' (Wisd. 7:27). And it is called the Word of the Father precisely because through it the Father is made known. Just as, then, by our words we bring it about, when we speak truth, that our mind may be made known to the hearer, and whatever we bear secret in the heart may, through a sign of this kind, be brought forth to the knowledge of another: so that Wisdom, which God the Father begot, since through it the most hidden Father is made known to worthy minds, is most fittingly named His Word.

But between our soul and our words, by which we try to display that same soul, there is a very great distance. For we do not beget sounding words, but make them; and for making them, the body serves as underlying material. But between the soul and the body there is a very great difference. God, however, when He begot the Word, begot that which He Himself is; neither out of nothing, nor out of any already made and founded material, but out of Himself that which He Himself is. For this too we try to do when we speak—if we carefully consider the desire of our will—not when we lie, but when we speak truth. For what else do we strive at, but to bring our very own mind, if it can be done, into the mind of the hearer to be known and discerned:

so that we ourselves indeed remain within ourselves and do not depart from ourselves, and yet bring forth such a token by which our knowledge may come to be in another; so that, as far as the faculty is granted, as it were another mind may be brought forth from our mind, through which it may make itself known? We do this by attempting it both with words, and with the very sound of the voice, and with countenance, and with the gesture of the body—with so many devices, that is, desiring to demonstrate what is within: because we cannot bring forth any such thing perfectly, and therefore the mind of the speaker cannot become fully known; whence there lies open a place even for lies. But God the Father, who most truly both willed and was able to make Himself judged by minds that would come to know Him, begot, for the making of Himself known, that which He Himself who begot is:

who is also called His Power and Wisdom, because through Him He wrought and disposed all things; concerning whom therefore it is said, 'She reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly' (Wisd. 8:1). Chapter IV. The Son of God is neither made nor less than the Father. To create and to found are the same. Why the Son of God was made man. Against the heresy of the Manichees. The whole man was assumed by the Word. The nativity of Christ from a woman. Wherefore the only-begotten Son of God was neither made by the Father—since, as the evangelist says, 'All things were made through Him' (John 1:3); nor begotten in time—since God, being eternally wise, has His Wisdom eternally with Himself; nor is He unequal to the Father, that is, in any respect less;

for the Apostle also says, 'Who, being established in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God' (Phil. 2:6). By this catholic faith, then, both those are excluded who say that the Son is the very same who is the Father—because this Word cannot be 'with God' except with God the Father, and He is equal to none who alone is (i.e., the Father alone would exclude the Son's coequality)—and those are also excluded who say that the Son is a creature, though not such a one as the other creatures are. For however great a creature they call Him, if He is a creature, He has been founded and made. For 'to found' is the same as 'to create': although in the usage of the Latin tongue it is sometimes said 'to create' for that which is 'to beget'; but the Greek distinguishes them.

For that which they call 'ktisma' or 'ktisis,' this we call a creature; and when we wish to speak without ambiguity, we do not say 'to create,' but 'to found.' Therefore, if the Son is a creature, however great He be, He has been made. But we believe in Him through whom all things were made, not in Him through whom the rest were made: for here we cannot understand 'all things' otherwise than as whatsoever things have been made. Now since 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14), the same Wisdom which was begotten of God deigned also to be created among men. To this pertains that saying, 'The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways' (Prov. 8:22).

For the beginning of His ways is the Head, the Church, which is Christ clothed with man, through whom an example of living was to be given to us—that is, the straight way by which we might come to God. For we could not return except by humility, we who had fallen by pride, as was said to our first creature, 'Taste, and you shall be as gods' (Gen. 3:5). Of this humility, then—that is, of the way by which we had to return—our Repairer Himself deigned to show forth the example in His own person, He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6-7); that man might be created in the beginning of His ways—the Word through whom all things were made.

Wherefore, according to that in which He is only-begotten, He has no brothers; but according to that in which He is firstborn, He deigned to call brothers all who, after His and through His primacy, are reborn into the grace of God by the adoption of sons (Luke 8:21), as the apostolic teaching commends (Heb. 2:11). The natural Son, therefore, was born of the very substance of the Father, the only one, being that which the Father is: God of God, Light of Light; but we are not light by nature, but are illumined by that Light, so that we may be able to shine with wisdom. For 'there was,' He says, 'the true Light, which enlightens every man coming into this world' (John 1:9).

We add, therefore, to the faith of eternal things also the temporal dispensation of our Lord, which He deigned to carry out and administer for us, for our salvation. For according to that in which He is the only-begotten Son of God, it cannot be said 'He was' and 'He shall be,' but only 'He is': because both what was is now no longer, and what shall be is not yet. He, therefore, is unchangeable, without the condition and variation of times. Nor do I think that from any other source remains that name which He intimated to His servant Moses as His own. For when Moses asked Him, if the people to whom he was being sent should scorn him, by whom he should say he was sent, he receives the answer of the One saying, 'I am who I am.' Then He added, 'These things you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you' (Exod. 3:14).

From this I trust it is now plain to spiritual minds that no nature can be contrary to God. For if He 'is,' and this word can properly be said of God alone (for what truly is, remains unchangeably; since that which is changed both was something which now is not, and shall be something which is not yet), then God has nothing contrary to Him. For if it were asked of us what is contrary to white, we should answer black; if it were asked what is contrary to hot, we should answer cold; if it were asked what is contrary to swift, we should answer slow; and whatever things are like these. But when it is asked what is contrary to that which is, rightly is it answered: that which is not.

But since, through the temporal dispensation, as I have said, our changeable nature was assumed by that unchangeable Wisdom of God, for our salvation and restoration, God's benignity working therein, we add the faith of temporal things wholesomely accomplished for us, believing in Him, the Son of God, who was born through the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. For by the gift of God—that is, by the Holy Spirit—so great a humility of so great a God has been granted to us, that He deigned to assume the whole man in the womb of the Virgin, inhabiting the maternal body whole and leaving it whole. Against this temporal dispensation the heretics lay their snares in many ways.

But if anyone holds the catholic faith, so as to believe that the whole man was assumed by the Word of God—that is, body, soul, and spirit—he is sufficiently fortified against them. Indeed, since that assumption was accomplished for our salvation, care must be taken lest, when someone believes that some part of us does not pertain to that assumption, it should not pertain to salvation. And since man—apart from the form of members, which is diversely allotted to the diverse kinds of living creatures—differs from a beast only by the rational spirit, which is also called the mind, how is that a sound faith by which it is believed that God's Wisdom assumed that of ours which we have in common with the beast, but did not assume that which is illumined by the light of wisdom, and which is proper to man?

Moreover, those too are to be detested who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had a mother, Mary, on earth; whereas that dispensation honored both sexes, both the masculine and the feminine, and showed that they pertain to God's care—not only the one whom He assumed, but also that one through whom He assumed it, by bearing Himself as a man, by being born of a woman. Nor does what was said by Him compel us to deny Christ's mother, when He said, 'What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come' (John 2:4). But it rather admonishes us to understand that, according to His Godhead, He did not have a mother, whose majesty's person He was preparing to show by turning water into wine. But in that He was crucified, He was crucified according to His manhood;

and that was the hour which had not yet come, when it was said, 'What is it to me and to you? My hour has not yet come'—that is, the hour in which I will acknowledge you. For then, being crucified as a man, He acknowledged His human mother, and most humanely commended her to the most beloved disciple (John 19:26-27). Nor let that move us, that, when His mother and brothers were announced to Him, He answered, 'Who is my mother, or my brothers?' etc. (Matt. 12:48). But rather let it teach us that, in our ministry by which we minister the word of God to the brethren, when parents hinder, they ought not to be acknowledged. For if anyone should therefore suppose that He had no mother on earth because He said, 'Who is my mother?'

then the Apostle too must of necessity be forced to deny that men have fathers on earth, since he charged them, saying, 'Call no man father to yourselves on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven' (Matt. 23:9). Nor let the thought of a woman's inward parts diminish this faith in us, as though such a generation of our Lord ought therefore to be refused, because the filthy-minded deem it filthy. For the Apostle most truly says both that 'the foolishness of God is wiser than men' (1 Cor. 1:25), and that 'to the pure all things are pure' (Tit. 1:15).

They ought, then, who think this, to consider the rays of this sun—which they certainly do not praise as a creature of God, but adore as God {the Manichees}—diffused everywhere through the stenches of sewers and whatever horrid things, and working in these according to their own nature, and yet not growing foul from thence by any contamination, although visible light is by nature more closely joined to visible filth: how much less, then, could the Word of God, being neither corporeal nor visible, be polluted by a female body, where He assumed human flesh together with a soul and spirit, by whose intervention the majesty of the Word dwelt more secretly apart from the frailty of the human body?

Whence it is manifest that the Word of God could in no way be defiled by a human body, by which not even the human soul itself is defiled. For the soul is defiled by the body, not when it governs and gives life to it, but when it covets the body's mortal goods. But if they wished to shun these defilements of the soul, they would rather dread these lies and sacrileges. Chapter V. The passion and burial of Christ. The resurrection of Christ. But small was our Lord's humility, for our sake, in being born: there was added also that He deigned to die for mortals. For 'He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' (Phil. 2:8);

lest any of us, even if he could not fear death, should shrink from some kind of death which men deem most ignominious. We believe, therefore, in Him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried. For the judge's name had to be added, for the knowledge of the times. And when that burial is believed, there arises a remembrance of the new tomb, which offered a testimony to Him who was to rise again unto newness of life, just as the virginal womb did to Him who was to be born. For just as in that tomb no other dead man was buried (John 19:41), neither before nor after; so in that womb neither before nor after was anything mortal conceived.

We believe also that He rose again from the dead on the third day, the firstborn among the brethren who were to follow, whom He called into the adoption of the sons of God (Eph. 1:5), whom He deigned to be His fellow-partakers and fellow-heirs. Chapter VI. The ascension into heaven. We believe that He ascended into heaven, which place of blessedness He also promised to us, saying, 'They shall be as the Angels in heaven' (Matt. 22:30), in that city which is the mother of us all, the eternal Jerusalem in the heavens (Gal. 4:26). Now it is wont to offend certain persons, whether impious Gentiles or heretics, that we believe an earthly body was taken up into heaven. But the Gentiles for the most part strive to contend with us by the arguments of the philosophers, to say that nothing earthly can be in heaven.

For they know not our Scriptures, nor understand how it is said, 'It is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body.' For it was not so said as though the body is turned into spirit and becomes spirit; since even now our body, which is called natural, is not turned into soul and made soul. But a spiritual body is understood to be one so subjected to the spirit that it is suited to a heavenly habitation, all earthly frailty and blemish being changed and converted into heavenly purity and stability. This is the change of which the Apostle likewise says, 'We shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed.' And that this change is made not for the worse but for the better, the same one teaches, when he says, 'And we shall be changed' (1 Cor. 15:44, 51, 52).

But where and in what manner the Lord's body is in heaven is a most curious and superfluous thing to inquire; only it must be believed to be in heaven. For it belongs not to our frailty to discuss the secrets of the heavens, but it belongs to our faith to hold high and honorable thoughts concerning the dignity of the Lord's body. Chapter VII. The sitting at the right hand of the Father. We believe also that He sits at the right hand of the Father. Nor yet is God the Father therefore to be thought of as circumscribed by a human form, so that, to those thinking of Him, a right or a left side should occur to the mind;

or that this very thing—that the Father is said to sit—is to be supposed to come about by the bending of hams (knees), lest we fall into that sacrilege in which the Apostle execrates those 'who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man' (Rom. 1:23). For it is unlawful for a Christian to set up such an image of God in a temple; much more is it wicked in the heart, where the temple of God truly is, if it be cleansed from earthly desire and error. 'At the right hand,' therefore, is to be understood as thus said: in the highest blessedness, where there is righteousness and peace and joy; just as at the left hand the goats are stationed (Matt. 25:33), that is, in misery, on account of their iniquities, labors, and torments.

Therefore, when God is said to sit, this signifies not the position of limbs but judicial power, which that Majesty never lacks, always assigning what is worthy to those who are worthy; although at the final judgment the undoubted glory of the only-begotten Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, will be far more manifest among men. Chapter VIII. His coming to judgment. We believe also that from thence He shall come at the most fitting time, and shall judge the living and the dead. Whether by these names the righteous and sinners be signified, or whether those be called the living whom before death He shall find on earth at His coming, and the dead those who shall rise again at His coming: this dispensation is temporal, not merely so, as was that generation according to God;

but also has been, and shall be. For our Lord was on earth, and now is in heaven, and shall be in glory the Judge of the living and the dead. For He shall so come as He ascended, according to the authority contained in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:11). Out of this temporal dispensation, therefore, He speaks in the Apocalypse, where it is written: These things saith He who is, and who was, and who is to come (Rev. 1:8). Chapter IX. On faith in the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Trinity. Explained by similitudes. The profession of the Christian faith. Concerning the Holy Spirit, the opinion of certain persons that He is the very Godhead of the Father and the Son: Holiness (sanctitas) is from making holy (a sanciendo).

Having thus set forth and commended to faith both the divine generation of our Lord and His human dispensation, there is added to our confession, for the perfecting of the faith which we have concerning God, the Holy Spirit, of a nature no less than the Father and the Son, but, so to speak, consubstantial and coeternal; because this Trinity is one God: not so that the Father is the same as the Son and the Holy Spirit, but so that the Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and this Trinity is one God, as it is written: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God (Deut. 6:4). Yet if we be questioned concerning each severally, and it be said to us, Is the Father God? we shall answer, God.

If it be asked whether the Son is God, we shall answer the same. Nor, if such a question be put concerning the Holy Spirit, ought we to answer that He is anything other than God: taking most earnest heed not to understand it in the way it was said of men, Ye are gods (Ps. 82:6). For those are not gods by nature, whosoever have been made and created by the Father through the Son by the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the Trinity itself is signified when the Apostle says, For of Him, and in Him, and through Him are all things (Rom. 11:36). Therefore, although being questioned concerning each severally we answer that He of whom the question is asked is God — whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit — yet let no one suppose that three gods are worshipped by us. 17.

Nor is it wonderful that these things are said of that ineffable nature, since even in those things which we perceive with bodily eyes and judge by bodily sense, something of the like sort occurs. For when we are asked concerning a spring, we cannot say that it is itself the river; nor, when asked concerning the river, can we call it the spring; and again the draught which is drawn from spring or river, we can call neither river nor spring; yet in this trinity which we name, even when each is asked about severally, we answer 'water' for each. For if I ask whether there be water in the river, no other answer is given, and in that draught there can be no other answer; nor yet do we call these three waters, but one.

Yet one must indeed be on guard lest anyone conceive the ineffable substance of that Majesty as one conceives this visible and bodily spring or river or draught. For in these, that water which is now in the spring goes forth into the river, and does not remain in itself; and when from river or spring it passes into the draught, it does not remain there whence it is taken. And so it can come about that the same water now pertains to the name of spring, now of river, now of draught: whereas in that Trinity we have said it cannot come about that the Father be sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit; just as in a tree the root is nothing but the root, nor is the trunk anything other than the trunk, nor can we call the branches anything but branches: for that which is called the root cannot be called trunk and branches;

nor can the wood that belongs to the root ever be, by any transition, now in the root, now in the trunk, now in the branches, but only in the root: while yet the rule of the name remains, so that the root is wood, and the trunk wood, and the branches wood; nor yet are they called three woods, but one. Or if these have some dissimilarity, so that they might not absurdly be called three woods, because of the difference of firmness; this at least all concede, that if from one spring three cups be filled, they may be called three cups, but three waters they cannot be called, but altogether one water; although, being asked concerning each of the cups severally, you would answer that there is water in any of them: even though here no transition takes place, as we were saying of the passing from spring into river.

But these bodily examples have been given, not on account of any likeness to that divine nature, but on account of the unity even of visible things, that it might be understood how it can come about that some three things obtain, not only severally but also together, one single name; and that no one should marvel and think it absurd that we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three gods in that Trinity, but one God and one substance. 18. And indeed concerning the Father and the Son learned and spiritual men have discoursed in many books, wherein, so far as men could avail toward men, they endeavoured to intimate both how the Father and the Son were not one, but were one thing; and what properly the Father is, and what the Son:

that the one is begetter, the other begotten; the one not of the Son, the other of the Father; of the one the other is the beginning, whence He is also called the head of Christ (1 Cor. 11:3), although Christ too is a beginning (John 8:25), but not of the Father; while the latter is the image of the former (Col. 1:15), though in no part unlike and altogether without difference equal. These matters are treated more at large by those who wish to unfold the profession of the whole Christian faith less briefly than we. And so, in so far as He is the Son, He has received from the Father that He should be, whereas the Father has not received this from the Son:

and inasmuch as, by ineffable mercy and in a temporal dispensation, He took upon Himself man — that is, a mutable creature to be changed for the better — many things are found in the Scriptures said of Him in such a way that the impious minds of heretics, wishing to teach before knowing, have fallen into error, so that they thought Him not equal to the Father, nor of the same substance: such as these, For the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and, The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God (1 Cor. 11:3); and, Then shall He Himself also be subject unto Him that put all things under Him (1 Cor. 15:28); and, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, to My God and your God (John 20:17); and some others of this kind:

all of which have been set down, not that they might signify an inequality of nature and substance — lest those others be false: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); and, He that hath seen Me hath seen My Father also (John 14:9); and, The Word was God, for it was not made, since all things were made through Him (John 1:1,3); and, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; and the rest of such kind — but those were set down partly on account of the administration of the man assumed, whereby it is said, He emptied Himself (Phil. 2:7); not because that Wisdom was changed, seeing that it is altogether unchangeable, but because He willed so humbly to make Himself known to men: partly, therefore, on account of this administration were those things so written, of which the heretics make their slanderous cavils;

partly on account of this, that the Son owes to the Father that He is, owing thereby to the Father also this very thing, that He is equal or on a par with that same Father; whereas the Father owes to no one whatever He is. 19. But concerning the Holy Spirit there has not yet been so copious and careful a discussion by the learned and great expounders of the divine Scriptures, that it can be easily understood also what is His property, by which property it comes about that we can call Him neither Son nor Father, but only the Holy Spirit; except that they proclaim Him to be the gift of God, so that we may believe that God gives no gift inferior to Himself. Yet they hold fast that they should proclaim the Holy Spirit as not begotten, like the Son, from the Father; for Christ is the only one: nor as it were the grandson of the most high Father, from the Son:

and yet that which He is, He owes not to no one, but to the Father, of whom are all things; lest we set up two principles without a principle, which is most false and most absurd, and proper not to the Catholic faith but to the error of certain heretics. Some, however, have dared to believe that the very communion of the Father and the Son, and, so to speak, their Godhead, which the Greeks call theotes, is the Holy Spirit: so that, since the Father is God and the Son is God, that very Godhead by which they are joined to one another — both He by begetting the Son and He by cleaving to the Father — should be made equal to Him by whom He is begotten.

This Godhead, therefore, which they would also have understood as the mutual love and charity of them both toward each other, they say is called the Holy Spirit; and they support this opinion of theirs by many testimonies of the Scriptures: whether by that which is said, Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rom. 5:5); or by many other such testimonies; and by this very fact, that through the Holy Spirit we are reconciled to God, whence also when He is called the gift of God, they would have it sufficiently signified that the love of God is the Holy Spirit. For we are not reconciled to Him except through love, by which also we are called sons {of God} (1 John 3:1):

no longer under fear as servants, because perfect love casteth out fear (1 John 4:18); and we have received the Spirit of liberty, in which we cry, Abba, Father (Rom. 8:15). And because, being reconciled and recalled into friendship through charity (Rom. 5:8-10), we shall be able to know all the secrets of God, therefore concerning the Holy Spirit it is said, He shall lead you into all truth (John 16:13). Therefore also the confidence in preaching the truth, with which the Apostles were filled at His coming (Acts 2:4), is rightly attributed to charity; because diffidence too is given to fear, which the consummation of charity excludes. Therefore also He is called the gift of God (Eph. 3:7), because no one enjoys that which he knows, unless he also love it.

But to enjoy the wisdom of God is nothing else than to cleave to it by love: nor does anyone abide in that which he perceives, save by love; and therefore He is called the Holy Spirit, since whatsoever things are established (sanciuntur) are established that they may abide, nor is there any doubt that holiness (sanctitas) is named from establishing (a sanciendo). And most of all the asserters of this view make use of that testimony which is written, That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6): since God is a Spirit (John 4:24). For here He speaks of our regeneration, which is not according to Adam of the flesh, but according to Christ of the Holy Spirit.

Wherefore, if in this place mention was made of the Holy Spirit, when it was said, God is a Spirit: it must be noted, they say, that it was not said, A Spirit is God; but, God is a Spirit; so that in this place the very Godhead of the Father and the Son was called God, which is the Holy Spirit. To this there is added another testimony which the Apostle John utters, God is love (1 John 4:16). For here too he does not say, Love is God; but, God is love; so that the very Godhead may be understood as love. And as to the fact that in that enumeration of things connected with one another, where it is said, All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's (1 Cor. 3:22,23);

and, The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God — no mention is made of the Holy Spirit; they say this pertains to the fact that in those things which are connected with one another the connexion itself is not usually counted. Whence in that place also those who read more attentively seem to recognize the Trinity itself, when it is said, For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things (Rom. 11:36). Of Him, as of Him who owes to no one what He is; through Him, as through the Mediator; in Him, as in Him who contains, that is, joins by union. 20.

To this opinion those are opposed who think that this communion — which we call either Godhead or love or charity — is not a substance, and who seek to have the Holy Spirit expounded to them according to substance, and do not understand that it could not otherwise be said, God is love, unless love were a substance. For they are led by the habit of bodily things; since, if two bodies be joined together so as to be placed side by side, that very joining is not a body; inasmuch as, when those bodies which had been joined are separated, no joining is found: nor yet is it understood to have departed and migrated, as those bodies do.

But let such men make their heart pure, as far as they can, that they may be able to see that in the substance of God there is nothing of such a kind, as though one thing there were substance, another something that befalls the substance and is not substance; but whatsoever can there be understood is substance. Yet these things can easily be said and believed: but how they stand can by no means be seen save by a pure heart. Wherefore, whether this opinion be true, or something else be the case, the faith must be held unshaken, that we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; nor three gods, but that Trinity one God; nor diverse in nature, but of the same substance; nor so that the Father be sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit;

but the Father always Father, and the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always Holy Spirit. Nor let us rashly affirm anything concerning invisible things as though knowing, but as believing; since they cannot be seen save by a purified heart: and he who sees them in this life in part, as it has been said, and in a riddle (1 Cor. 13:12), cannot bring it about that he too sees to whom he speaks, if that one is hindered by the defilements of the heart. But blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). This is the faith concerning God, our Founder and Renewer. 21. But since love is enjoined upon us not only toward God, when it is said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind;

but also toward the neighbour; for, Thou shalt love, He says, thy neighbour as thyself (Luke 10:27): if this faith hold not the congregation and society of men in which brotherly charity may operate, it is less fruitful. Chapter X. The Catholic Church. The remission of sins. The whole man to be changed for the better, to be perfected in the resurrection. The resurrection of the flesh. The truth of the future resurrection confirmed. We believe in the holy Church, assuredly the Catholic. For both heretics and schismatics call their congregations churches. But heretics, by holding false notions concerning God, violate the faith itself; while schismatics, by wicked separations, leap away from brotherly charity, although they believe the same things that we believe.

Wherefore neither do heretics belong to the Catholic Church, which loves God; nor schismatics, since it loves the neighbour; and therefore it easily forgives the sins of the neighbour, because it prays that its own be forgiven by Him who reconciled us to Himself, blotting out all things past, and calling us to a new life: which life, until we lay hold of it in its perfection, we cannot be without sins: yet it matters of what sort they be. 22. And since there are three things of which man consists — spirit, soul, body — which again are called two, because often the soul is named together with the spirit; for a certain part of the same rational faculty, of which the beasts are void, is called spirit: our principal part is spirit; then the life by which we are joined to the body is called soul;

lastly the body itself, since it is visible, is our lowest part. Now this whole creation groaneth and travaileth even until now (Rom. 8:22): yet it has given the firstfruits of the spirit, because it has believed God, and is already of good will. This spirit is also called mind, of which the Apostle says, With the mind I serve the law of God (Rom. 7:25). Who likewise in another place says, For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit (Rom. 1:9). But the soul, when it still craves carnal goods, is named flesh. For a certain part of it resists the spirit, not by nature, but by the habit of sins. Whence it is said, With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Which habit was turned into nature according to the mortal generation, through the sin of the first man.

And therefore it is written, And we also were by nature once children of wrath (Eph. 2:3), that is, of vengeance, through which it came about that we serve the law of sin. But the nature of the soul is perfect when it is subjected to its own spirit, and when it follows God who follows it. Therefore the natural (animal) man perceiveth not the things which are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). But with us the soul is subjugated to the spirit for good working as quickly as the spirit is to God for true faith and good will: yet sometimes more slowly is that impulse of the soul curbed, by which it flows down into things carnal and temporal.

But since it too is cleansed, recovering the stability of its nature under the dominion of the spirit — which is its head, and to which head, that is its head, Christ is head — we must not despair that the body also is restored to its own nature: yet assuredly not so quickly as the soul, just as neither the soul so quickly as the spirit; but at the fitting time, at the last trumpet, when the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. And therefore we believe also in the resurrection of the flesh; not only because the soul is repaired, which now on account of carnal affections is named flesh; but this visible flesh also, which by nature is flesh, whose name 'soul' it has received not on account of nature, but on account of carnal affections:

this visible flesh, therefore, which is properly called flesh, must without doubt be believed to rise again. For the Apostle Paul seems to point it out as with a finger, when he says, This corruptible must put on incorruption. For when he says, this, he directs as it were a finger toward it. But that which is visible can be pointed out with a finger: whereas even the soul might be called corruptible; for by the vices of morals it is itself corrupted. And, This mortal must put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:53), when it is read, the same visible flesh is signified, because toward it again as it were a finger is directed. For the soul can be called both corruptible on account of the vices of morals, and thus also mortal. For it is after the manner of the soul to apostatize from God (Sir. 10:12):

which, its first sin in paradise, is contained in the sacred Scriptures. 24. The body therefore shall rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. And to whomsoever this seems incredible, he attends to what the flesh now is, but considers not what it shall be: for at that time of angelic transmutation it shall no longer be flesh and blood, but only body. For when the Apostle was speaking of flesh, There is, he says, one flesh of cattle, another of birds, another of fishes, another of serpents; and there are heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies. For he did not say, and heavenly flesh: but he said, both heavenly and earthly bodies. For all flesh is also body, but not all body is also flesh:

first among these earthly things, since wood is a body, but not flesh: but of man or of cattle it is both body and flesh: in heavenly things, however, there is no flesh, but bodies simple and shining, which the Apostle calls spiritual; while some call them ethereal. And therefore that saying does not contradict the resurrection of the flesh, Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God; but it proclaims what shall be that which is now flesh and blood (Retract. I, 17). Into what kind of nature whoever believes not that this flesh can be converted must be led by steps to the faith. For if you ask him whether earth can be converted into water; on account of their nearness it does not seem incredible. Again, if you ask whether water can be converted into air;

he answers that neither is this absurd; for they are near to one another. And if it be asked concerning air whether it can be changed into an ethereal, that is, a heavenly body; now the very nearness persuades. Since, therefore, he concedes that through these steps it can come about that earth be converted into an ethereal body, why does he not believe that, at the accession of the will of God — by which the human body was able to walk upon the waters — it can come about most swiftly, as it has been said, in the twinkling of an eye, without any such steps, just as very often smoke is converted into flame with wondrous swiftness? For our flesh is assuredly from earth:

but the philosophers, by whose arguments the resurrection of the flesh is often resisted — with which they assert that there can be no earthly body in heaven — do concede that any body whatsoever can be converted and changed into every body. And when this resurrection of the body is accomplished, being freed from the condition of time, we shall enjoy eternal life with ineffable charity and stability, without corruption. For then shall come to pass that which is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy strife? (1 Cor. 15:54,55). 25. This is the faith which, to be held in few words, is given in the Creed to new Christians.

Which few words are known to the faithful, that by believing they may be subjected to God, being subjected may live rightly, by living rightly may make the heart pure, and with a pure heart may understand what they believe.