Nor is it as it happened or appeared when we were treating of that knowledge already established in the resources of the inner man — knowledge which had to be distinguished from wisdom — whereby the things that are known are, as it were, adventitious in the mind: either brought in by historical cognition, as are deeds and words which are accomplished in time and pass away, or things set in their own places and regions in the nature of things; or those which, not having been in the man himself, arise there, whether from others teaching or from his own thoughts, such as faith, which we commended chiefly in the thirteenth book, and such as the virtues by which, if they be true, one lives well in this mortal state to the end that one may live blessedly in that immortality which is divinely promised.
These and things of this kind have their own order in time, in which the trinity of memory, vision, and love more easily appeared to us. For some of them precede the cognition of those who learn; for they are knowable even before they are known, and beget in the learners the knowledge of themselves. But they exist either in their own places, or as things that have passed away in time — though the things that have passed away are not themselves present, but rather certain signs of those past things, by whose being seen or heard it is known that they were and have passed.
These signs are either set in places, such as the monuments of the dead and whatever is like them; or in trustworthy writings, such as is every history of grave and approvable authority; or in the minds of those who already know these things — for to them indeed these things are already known, and to others they are certainly knowable, being things whose knowledge they have anticipated, and who are able, when they teach, to make them known to those to whom they are known. And all these things, when they are learned, make a certain trinity: of their own species, which was knowable even before it was known; joined to it the cognition of the learner, which then begins to be when it is learned; and a third, the will, which joins both together.
And when they have been known, another trinity comes to be, now inwardly within the mind itself, while they are recalled — a trinity out of those images which were impressed on the memory when they were learned, and out of the informing of the thought when the gaze of the one remembering is turned toward them, and out of the will which as a third thing joins these two together. But those things which arise in the mind where they had not been — such as faith and the rest of this kind — even though they seem adventitious when they are introduced by teaching, are yet not placed without nor accomplished without, like the things that are believed, but have altogether begun to be within, in the mind itself. For faith is not that which is believed, but that by which it is believed; and the former is believed, the latter is beheld.
Yet because it began to be in a mind which was already a mind before these things began to be in it, it seems to be something adventitious, and it will be held among things past when, upon another species succeeding, it will have ceased to be. Now it makes one trinity by its presence — retained, beheld, loved; then it will make another by a certain trace of itself, which, in passing away, it will have left behind in the memory, as has already been said above. [Chapter 9, 12] But whether the virtues too, by which one lives well in this mortal state, since they themselves also begin to be in a mind which, though it was previously without them, was nevertheless a mind — whether they cease to be when they have led us to eternal things, is no small question.
For to some it has seemed that they will cease to be; and concerning three of them indeed — prudence, fortitude, temperance — when this is said, something not without meaning seems to be said. But justice is immortal, and will then be perfected in us rather than cease to be. Yet concerning all four, Tullius, that great master of eloquence, disputing in the dialogue Hortensius, says: 'If it were permitted us, when we have departed from this life, to pass an immortal age in the isles of the blessed, as the fables tell, what need would there be of eloquence, since no judgments would be held; or even of the virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude, with no toil or danger set before us; nor justice, since there would be nothing of another's to be coveted;'
'nor temperance, which should govern those lusts that would be none; nor indeed should we need prudence, with no choice of goods and evils set before us. We should therefore be blessed by one thing alone: the knowledge and science of nature, by which alone even the life of the gods is to be praised. From which it can be understood that the other things belong to necessity, this one alone to the will.'
Thus that so great orator, when he was extolling philosophy — recalling the things he had received from the philosophers and expounding them splendidly and pleasantly — said that all four virtues are necessary only in this life which we see, full of hardships and errors; but that none of them will be needed when we shall have departed from this life, if it be permitted to live there where one lives blessedly; rather, that good souls are blessed by knowledge and science alone, that is, by the contemplation of that nature than which nothing is better and more lovable — the nature which created and established all the other natures. To be subject to its rule, if this belongs to justice, then justice is altogether immortal, nor will it cease to be in that blessedness, but will be such and so great that it could not be more perfect or greater.
Perhaps the other three virtues also — prudence without any danger of error, fortitude without the distress of enduring evils, temperance without the resistance of lusts — will be present in that felicity: so that it belongs to prudence to prefer or equate no good to God; to fortitude to cleave to Him most firmly; to temperance to delight in no harmful defect. But now what justice does in succoring the wretched, what prudence does in guarding against snares, what fortitude does in enduring hardships, what temperance does in restraining depraved delights — these will not be there where there will be no evil at all.
And through this, these works of the virtues which are necessary for this mortal life, like faith to which they are to be referred, will be held among things past, and now they make one trinity while we hold them present, behold them, and love them; then they will make another when we shall find that they are not, but were, through certain traces of them which in passing away they will leave behind in the memory. For then too there will be a trinity, when both that trace, of whatever kind, will be retained by memory and truly recognized, and both of these will be joined by the will as a third thing.
[Chapter 10, 13] In all knowledge of those temporal things which we have recalled, certain knowable things precede cognition by an interval of time, such as those sensible things which already were in reality before they were known, or all those things which are known through history. But others begin to be at the same time — as, for instance, if something visible which did not exist at all should arise before our eyes, it certainly does not precede our cognition; or if something should sound where a hearer is present, assuredly the sound and the hearing of it begin at the same moment and cease at the same moment. Nevertheless, whether preceding in time or beginning at the same time, knowable things beget cognition, and are not begotten by cognition.
But once cognition has been made, when the things we have come to know, placed in the memory, are revisited by recollection, who does not see that the retention in the memory is prior in time to the vision in recollection, and that the joining of both of these by the will as a third thing is later still? But in the mind it is not so;
for the mind is not adventitious to its own self, as though that very same mind, which already was, had come to itself from elsewhere — the very self which was not; nor as though it had not come from elsewhere, but that very self which was not had been born within itself, which already was, as within the mind, which already was, there arises faith, which was not; nor does it, after the cognition of itself, in remembering see itself as though set up in its own memory, as if it had not been there before it came to know itself — since assuredly, from the time it began to be, it has never ceased to remember itself, never to understand itself, never to love itself, as we have already shown. And through this, when it is turned toward itself by thought, there comes to be a trinity in which now the word too can be understood. For it is formed out of the thought itself, the will joining both.
There, therefore, the image which we seek is rather to be recognized. [Chapter 11, 14] But someone will say: 'That is not memory, by which the mind is said to remember itself, since it is always present to itself; for memory is of things past, not of things present.' For certain persons — among whom is also Tullius — when they were treating of the virtues, divided prudence into these three parts: memory, understanding, foresight; assigning namely memory to things past, understanding to things present, foresight to things future — which foresight they do not have as certain unless they be foreknowers of the future, which is not a gift of men unless it be given from above, as to the prophets. Whence the Scripture of Wisdom, treating of men, says: 'The thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresights uncertain.'
But memory is of things past, and understanding of things present is certain (yet of present things that are incorporeal; for corporeal things are present to the sight of the eyes). But let him who says that memory is not of present things attend to how it was said even in secular literature — where the integrity of words was of greater concern than the truth of things: 'Nor did Ulysses endure such things, nor did the Ithacan forget himself in so great a peril.' For Virgil, when he said that Ulysses did not forget himself, what else did he wish to be understood but that he remembered himself? Since therefore he was present to himself, in no way could he have remembered himself unless memory pertained also to present things.
Wherefore, just as in things past that is called memory by which it comes about that they can be recalled and remembered, so in a present thing — namely, what the mind is to itself — that may without absurdity be called memory by which it is present to itself, so that by its own thought it can be understood, and both can be joined by love of itself. [Chapter 12, 15] This trinity of the mind, therefore, is the image of God not because the mind remembers itself and understands and loves itself, but because it is able also to remember and understand and love Him by whom it was made. And when it does this, it becomes wise. But if it does not do this, then even when it remembers itself and understands and loves itself, it is foolish. Let it therefore remember its God, to whose image it was made, and understand and love Him.
That I may say this more briefly: let it worship the uncreated God, of whom it was made capable by Him, and of whom it can be a partaker; for which reason it is written: 'Behold, the worship of God is wisdom.' And it will be wise not by its own light, but by participation in that supreme Light; and where it will reign eternal, there it will reign blessed. For this wisdom of man is so called that it may also be God's. For then it is true; but if it is human, it is vain. Yet not so is God's wisdom, whereby God is wise; for He is not wise by participation in Himself, as the mind is wise by participation in God. But just as there is said to be a justice of God — not only that whereby He Himself is just, but that which He gives to man when He justifies the ungodly — which justice the Apostle, commending it, says concerning certain persons:
'For being ignorant of the justice of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to the justice of God' — so too it can be said of certain persons: 'Being ignorant of the wisdom of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to the wisdom of God.' There is therefore an uncreated nature which made all the other natures, great and small, and is without doubt more excellent than those it made; and through this, more excellent also than this of which we speak — the rational and intellectual nature which is the mind of man, made to the image of Him who made it. But that nature which is more excellent than the rest is God, and indeed not placed far from any one of us, as the Apostle says, adding: 'For in Him we live and move and are.'
But if he had said this according to the body, it could be understood even of this bodily world. For in it too, according to the body, we live and move and are. Whence, according to the mind, which was made to His image, this ought to be taken in a certain more excellent, and yet not visible but intelligible, manner. For what is there that is not in Him, of whom it is divinely written: 'Since from Him and through Him and in Him are all things'? Accordingly, if all things are in Him, in what at last can those things live that live, and those things move that move, save in Him in whom they are? Yet not all are with Him in the manner in which it was said to Him: 'I am always with You'; nor is He with all in the manner in which we say:
'The Lord be with you.' Great therefore is the misery of man, not to be with Him without whom he cannot be. For without doubt he is not without Him in whom he is; and yet, if he does not remember Him and does not understand nor love Him, he is not with Him. But that which anyone utterly forgets, he certainly cannot even be reminded of. [Chapter 13, 17] Let us take an example for this matter from visible things. Someone whom you do not recognize says to you: 'You know me'; and, to remind you, he tells where, when, and how he became known to you.
And when all the signs by which you might be recalled to memory have been applied, if you still do not recognize him, then you have so forgotten that all that knowledge has been utterly wiped from the mind, and nothing else remains except either to believe him who tells you this — that you once knew him — or not even that, if the one who speaks does not seem to you worthy of trust. But if you remember, then assuredly you return into your own memory and find in it what had not been utterly wiped out by oblivion. Let us return to that for the sake of which we brought forward the example of human intercourse. Among other things, the ninth Psalm says: 'Let sinners be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God.' And again, the twenty-first:
'They shall be reminded,' it says, 'and shall be turned to the Lord, all the ends of the earth.' Therefore these nations had not so forgotten God that, even when reminded, they would not recall Him. But by forgetting God, as though by forgetting their own life, they were turned toward death, that is, toward hell. But when reminded, they are turned to the Lord, as though coming to life again by remembering the life which their oblivion had held from them. Likewise it is read in the ninety-third: 'Understand now, you who are foolish among the people; and you fools, at length be wise. He who planted the ear, shall He not hear?' and the rest. For it was said to those who, by not understanding God, spoke vain things concerning Him. [Chapter 14, 18] But concerning the love of God, more testimonies are found in the divine words.
For there those other two things are consequently understood, since no one loves what he does not remember and what he utterly does not know. Whence comes that most well-known and chief commandment: 'You shall love the Lord your God.' Thus therefore was the human mind founded, that it never fails to remember itself, never fails to understand itself, never fails to love itself. But since he who hates someone strives to harm him, not without reason is the mind of man too said to hate itself when it harms itself. For unknowingly it wills evil to itself while it does not think that what it wills is harmful to it; yet nevertheless it wills evil to itself when it wills that which is harmful to itself, whence is that which is written: 'He who loves iniquity hates his own soul.' He therefore who has learned to love himself, loves God;
but he who does not love God, even if he loves himself — which is naturally implanted in him — is nevertheless not inappropriately said to hate himself, since he does that which is contrary to himself and pursues his own self as though he were his own enemy. And this is assuredly a horrible error: that whereas all wish to do themselves good, many do nothing except what is most pernicious to them. When the poet was describing a similar disease of the dumb animals, he said: 'The gods grant better things to the pious, and that error to our enemies!' — 'With bared teeth they tore their sundered limbs.' Since that was a disease of the body, why did he call it error, unless because — every animal being by nature reconciled to itself so that it may guard itself as much as it can — such was that disease that they tore the very limbs whose welfare they sought?
But when the mind loves God and, as has been said, consequently remembers Him and understands Him, then rightly is it commanded concerning its neighbor to love him as itself. For now it loves itself not perversely but rightly, when it loves God, by participation in whom that image not only is, but is even renewed from its oldness, reformed from its deformity, made blessed from its unhappiness. For although it so loves itself that, if one or the other were set before it, it would rather lose all the things it loves beneath itself than perish, yet by forsaking Him who is above it — to whom alone it could preserve its own strength and enjoy Him as its own light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm: 'My strength, I will keep it toward You,' and in another:
'Draw near to Him and be enlightened' — thus it became so weak and darkened that it slipped, even from its own self, more unhappily into those things that are not what it is and above which it is, through loves which it cannot conquer and errors from which it does not see how to return. Whence, now by God's mercy repenting, it cries out in the Psalms: 'My strength has forsaken me, and the light of my eyes is not with me.' Yet even amid these so great evils of infirmity and error it could not lose the natural memory, understanding, and love of itself. For which reason it could rightly be said, as I recalled above: 'Though man walks in an image, yet he is disquieted in vain. He heaps up treasure, and knows not for whom he shall gather it.'
For why does he heap up treasure, unless because his strength has forsaken him — the strength by which, having God, he would need nothing? And why does he know not for whom he shall gather it, unless because the light of his eyes is not with him? And therefore he does not see what the Truth says: 'Fool, this night they require your soul of you. These things which you have prepared, whose shall they be?' Nevertheless, because even such a man walks in an image, and the mind of man has memory and understanding and love of himself — if it were made manifest to him that he could not have both, and he were permitted to choose one of the two, about to lose the other, either the treasures which he has gathered or his mind — who is so far without a mind that he would rather have the treasures than the mind?
For treasures can for the most part overturn the mind, whereas a mind which is not overturned by treasures can live more easily and unencumbered without any treasures. But who could possess any treasures except through the mind? For if an infant child, however wealthy, born lord of all that is rightfully his, possesses nothing while its mind lies dormant, in what manner at last shall anyone possess anything with his mind lost? But why do I speak of treasures, when any man whatever, if such a choice be set before him, prefers to be without them rather than without his mind, since no one prefers them to, nor compares them with, the eyes of the body, by which not gold — which few men possess — but every man possesses the heavens? For through the eyes of the body each man possesses whatever he gladly sees.
Who therefore, if he cannot keep both and is compelled to lose one or the other, would not rather lose the treasures than the eyes? And yet, if under a like condition it be asked of him whether he would rather lose his eyes or his mind, who would not see with his mind that he would rather lose his eyes than his mind? For a mind without the eyes of the flesh is human; but the eyes of the flesh without a mind are those of a beast. Who, moreover, would not rather be a man even blind in the flesh than a seeing beast? I have said these things so that even the slower — into whose eyes or ears these writings shall come — might, though briefly, be admonished by me how greatly the mind loves itself, even weak and erring, by loving amiss and pursuing the things that are beneath itself.
But it could not love itself if it were utterly ignorant of itself, that is, if it did not remember itself nor understand itself. And by this image of God within itself it is so powerful that it can cleave to Him whose image it is. For it is so set in order — in the order of natures, not of places — that above it there is none but He. Finally, when it shall have cleaved wholly to Him, it will be one spirit; to which thing the Apostle bears witness, saying: 'But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit' — the mind indeed acceding to participation in His nature, truth, and blessedness, while yet He does not increase in His own nature, truth, and blessedness. In that nature, therefore, when it shall have happily cleaved to it, it will see as unchangeable everything that it sees.
Then, as the divine Scripture promises it, its desire shall be satisfied in good things — in unchangeable good things, in that very Trinity, its God, whose image it is; and lest henceforth it be anywhere violated, it shall be in the hiding place of His countenance, filled with such abundance of Him that it shall never delight to sin. But its own self, now when it sees it, it does not see as something unchangeable. [Chapter 15, 21] And of this it certainly does not doubt for this reason: that it is wretched and desires to be blessed, nor does it hope that this can come to pass for any other reason than that it is mutable. For if it were not mutable, then just as it could not become wretched from blessed, so it could not become blessed from wretched. And what would have made it wretched under an almighty and good Lord, save its own sin and the justice of its Lord?
And what will make it blessed, save its own merit and the reward of its Lord? But even its merit is the grace of Him whose reward will be its blessedness. For it cannot give itself the justice which, once lost, it does not have. For this it received when man was created, and by sinning it certainly lost. It receives justice, therefore, on account of which it may deserve to receive blessedness. Whence it is truly said to it by the Apostle, as though it were beginning to be proud as of its own good: 'For what have you that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?'
But when it rightly remembers its Lord, having received His Spirit, it feels altogether — because this it learns by an inward teaching — that it could not rise except by His gratuitous working, nor could it have fallen except by its own voluntary defection. It does not indeed recall its own blessedness. For that was, and is not, and this it has utterly forgotten, and therefore it cannot even be reminded of it. But it believes concerning that blessedness the trustworthy writings of its God, written by His prophets, which recount the felicity of paradise and, by historical tradition, disclose that first good and evil of man. But of the Lord its God it is reminded. For He indeed always is, neither was and is not, nor is and was not, but just as He will never not be, so He never was not.
And He is everywhere wholly present, for which reason this soul both lives and moves and is in Him, and therefore can be reminded of Him — not because it recalls this: that it knew Him in Adam, or somewhere else before the life of this body, or when it was first made to be inserted into this body; for it recalls none of these things at all; whatever there is of these has been wiped out by oblivion. But it is reminded, so that it may be turned to the Lord, as to that Light by which it was in some manner touched even when it was turned away from Him. For hence it is that even the ungodly think about eternity, and rightly reprove and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. By what rules, then, do they judge these things, save by those in which they see how each man ought to live, even if they themselves do not live in the same way?
Where do they see these rules? For not in their own nature — since without doubt they are seen by the mind, and it is agreed that their minds are mutable, whereas whoever has been able to see these rules also sees them to be immutable; nor in the disposition of their own mind, since those rules are rules of justice, whereas it is agreed that their minds are unjust. Where, then, are these rules written, where he who is unjust recognizes what is just, where he discerns that he ought to have what he himself does not have? Where, then, are they written, save in the book of that Light which is called Truth, whence every just law is copied, and is transferred into the heart of the man who works justice — not by migrating, but as though by being impressed, just as an image passes from a ring even into wax, and yet does not leave the ring?
But he who does not work, and yet sees what ought to be worked, is the very one who is turned away from that Light, by which nevertheless he is touched. But he who does not even see how he ought to live, sins indeed more excusably, because he is not a transgressor of a law unknown to him; yet even he too is sometimes reached by the splendor of the Truth which is everywhere present, when, being admonished, he confesses. [Chapter 16, 22] But those who, being reminded, are turned to the Lord, are reformed from that deformity by which, through worldly desires, they were being conformed to this world — hearing from Him the Apostle saying: 'Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind,' so that that image may begin to be reformed by Him by whom it was formed;
for it cannot reform itself, as it was able to deform itself. He says also elsewhere: 'Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.' What he says, 'created according to God,' is said in another place, 'to the image of God.' But by sinning it lost the justice and holiness of truth, for which reason this image became deformed and discolored; this it receives back when it is reformed and renewed. But when he says, 'in the spirit of your mind,' he did not wish two things to be understood there, as though the mind were one thing and the spirit of the mind another, but because every mind is spirit, though not every spirit is mind. For God too is spirit, who cannot be renewed because He cannot grow old.
There is also said to be a spirit in man which is not the mind, to which belong imaginations similar to bodies — of which he speaks to the Corinthians, where he says: 'But if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.' For he says this when what is spoken is not understood, since it cannot even be spoken unless images of bodily voices precede, in the thought of the spirit, the sound of the mouth. The soul of man too is called spirit, whence it is in the Gospel: 'And bowing His head, He gave up the spirit,' by which was signified the death of the body, the soul departing. The spirit even of a beast is spoken of, which is most plainly written in the book of Ecclesiastes of Solomon, where he says:
'Who knows the spirit of the sons of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goes downward into the earth?' It is written also in Genesis, where he says that in the flood there died all flesh which had in it the spirit of life. The wind too is called spirit — a thing most plainly corporeal — whence is that in the Psalms: 'Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm.' Since therefore in so many ways 'spirit' is spoken of, by 'the spirit of the mind' he wished to designate that spirit which is called mind. As the same Apostle also says: 'In the putting off of the body of the flesh.'