Chap. hi. — What Augustine requests from his readers. The errors of readers dull of comprehension not to he ascribed to the author.
5. Further let me ask of my reader, wherever, alike with myself, he is certain, there to go on with me; wherever, alike with myself, he hesitates, there to join with me in inquiring; wherever he recognises himself to be in error, there to return to me; wherever he recognises me to be so, there to call me back: so that we may enter together upon the path of charity, and advance towards Him of whom it is said, " Seek His face evermore." ^ And I would make this pious and safe agree- ment, in the presence of our Lord God, with all who read my writings, as well in all other cases as, above all, in the case of those which inquire into the unity of the Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; because in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more labo- rious, or the discovery of truth more profitable. If, then, any 6 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK I.
reader shall say, This is not well said, because I do not under- stand it; such an one finds fault with my language, not with my faith: and it might perhaps in very truth have been put more clearly; yet no man ever so spoke as to be understood in all things by all men. Let him, therefore, who finds this fault with my discourse, see whether he can understand other men who have handled similar subjects and questions, when he does not understand me: and if he can, let him put down my book, or even, if he pleases, throw it away; and let him spend labour and time rather on those whom he understands. Yet let him not think on that account that I ought to have been silent,because I have not been able to express myself so smoothly and clearly to him as those do whom he understands. For neither do all things, which all men have written, come into the hands of all. And possibly some, who are capable of under- standing even these our writings, may not find those more lucid works, and may meet with ours only. And therefore it is useful that many persons should write many books, differ- ing in style but not in faith, concerning even the same ques- tions, that the matter itself may reach the greatest number — some in one way, some in another. But if he who complains that he has not understood these things has never been able to comprehend any careful and exact reasonings at all upon such subjects, let him in that case deal with himself by resolu- tion and study, that he may know better; not with me by quarrellings and wranglings, that I may hold my peace. Let him, again, who says, when he reads my book. Certainly I under- stand what is said, but it is not true, assert, if he pleases, his own opinion, and refute mine if he is able. And if he do this with charity and truth, and take the pains to make it known to me (if I am still alive), I shall then receive the most abundant fruit of this my labour. And if he cannot inform myself, most willing and glad should I be that he should in- form those whom he can. Yet, for my part, " I meditate in the law of the Lord," ^ if not " day and night," at least such short times as I can; and I commit my meditations to writing, lest they should escape me through forgetfulness; hoping by the mercy of God that He will make me hold stedfastly all CHAP. lY.] CATHOLIC DOCTKINE OF THE TRINITY.
truths of wliicli I feel certain; " but if in anything I be other- wise minded, that He will Himself reveal even this to me/' ^ whether through secret inspiration and admonition, or through His own plain utterances, or through the reasonings of my brethren. This I pray for, and this my trust and desire I com- mit to Him, who is sufiiciently able to keep those things which He has given me, and to render those which He has promised. 6. I expect, indeed, that some, who are more dull of under- standing, will imagine that in some parts of my books I have held sentiments which I have not held, or have not held those which I have. But their error, as none can be ignorant, ought not to be attributed to me, if they have deviated into false doctrine through following my steps without apprehend- ing me, whilst I am compelled to pick my way through a hard and obscure subject: seeing that neither can any one, in any way, rightly ascribe the numerous and various errors of heretics to the holy testimonies themselves of the divine books; although all of them endeavour to defend out of those same Scriptures their own false and erroneous opinions. The law of Christ, that is, charity, admonishes me clearly, and commands me with a sweet constraint, that when men think that I have held in my books something false which I have not held, and that same falsehood displeases one and pleases another, I should prefer to be blamed by him who reprehends the falsehood, rather than praised by him who praises it. For although I, who never held the error, am not rightly blamed by the former, yet the error itself is rightly censured; whilst by the latter neither am I rightly praised, who am thought to have held that which the truth censures, nor the sentiment itself, which the truth also censures. Let us therefore essay the work which we have undertaken in the name of the Lord Chap. iv. — WJiat the doctrine of the Catholic faith is concerning the Trinity.
*7. All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have pur- posed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity 8 ON THE TPJNITY. [BOOK I.
of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and cruci- fied under Pontius Pilate, and buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor, again, that this Trinity descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when He was baptized; ^ nor that, on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, when " there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind," ^ the same Trinity *' sat upon each of them with cloven tongues like as of fire," but only the Holy Spirit. Nor yet that this Trinity said from heaven, " Thou art my Son," ^ whether when He was baptized by John, or when the three disciples were with Him in the mount,^ or when the voice sounded, saying, " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again;"^ but that it was a word of the Father only, spoken to the Son; although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indi- visible, so work indivisibly. This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith.
Chap. v. — Of difficulties concerning the Trinity: in wliat manner thne are one God, and how, working indivisibly, they yet i^erform, some things seve- rally.
8. Some persons, however, find a difficulty in this faith; when they hear that the Father is God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet that this Trinity is not three Gods, but one God; and they ask how they are to understand this: especially when it is said that the Trinity works indivisibly in everything that God works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father spoke, which is not the voice of the Son; and that none except the Son was born in the flesh, and suffered, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; and that none except * IMatt. xvii. 5. ** Jolm xii. 28.
CHAP. Y.] DIFFICULTIES OF THE DOCTRINE. 9 the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. They wish to understand how the Trinity uttered that voice which was only of the Father; and how the same Trinity created that flesh in which the Son only was born of the Virgin; and how the very same Trinity itself wrought that form of a dove, in which the Holy Spirit only appeared. Yet, otherwise, the Trinity does not work indivisibly, but the Father does some things, the Son other things, and the Holy Spirit yet others; or else, if they do some things together, some severally, then the Trinity is not indivisible. It is a difficulty, too, to them, in what manner the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity, whom neither the Father nor the Son, nor both, have begotten, although He is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. Since, then, men weary us with asking such questions, let us unfold to them, as we are able, whatever wisdom God's gift has bestowed upon our weakness on this subject; neither " let us go on our way with consuming envy."^ Should we say that we are not accustomed to think about such things, it would not be true; yet if we ac- knowledge that such subjects commonly dwell in our thoughts, carried away as we are by the love of investigating the truth, then they require of us, by the law of charity, to make known to them what we have herein been able to find out. " ISTot as though I had already attained, either were already perfect " (for, if the Apostle Paul, how much more must I, who lie far beneath his feet, count myself not to have apprehended!); but, according to my measure, " if I forget those things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are before, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling," ^ I am requested to disclose so much of the road as I have already passed, and the point to which I have reached, whence the course yet remains to bring me to the end. And those make the request, whom a generous charity compels me to serve. Needs must too, and God will grant that, in supplying them with matter to read, I shall profit myself also; and that, in seeking to reply to their inquiries, I shall myself likewise find that for which I was inquiring. Accordingly I have undertaken the task, by the bidding and help of the Lord my God, not so much of discoursing with authority respecting things I 10 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK I.
know already, as of learning those things by piously discours- ing of tliem.
Chap. vi. — That the Son is very God, of the same substance with the Father. Not only the Father, hut the Trinity, is affirmed to be immortal. All things are not from the Father alone, but also from the Son. That the Holy Spirit is very God, equal with the Father and the Son.
9. Tliey who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or not very God, or not with the Father the One and only God, or not truly immortal because changeable, are proved wrong by the most plain and unanimous voice of divine tes- timonies; as, for instance, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." For it is plain that we are to take the Word of God to be the only Son of God, of whom it is afterwards said, " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," on account of that birth of His incarnation, which was wrought in time of the Virgin. But herein is declared, not only that He is God, but also that He is of the same substance with the Father; because, after saying, " And the Word was God," it is said also, " The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made."-^ ISTot simply, " all things;" but only all things that were made, that is, the whole creature. From which it appears clearly, that He Him- self was not made, by whom all things were made. And if He was not made, then He is not a creature; but if He is not a creature, then He is of the same substance with the Father.
For all substance that is not God is creature; and all that is not creature is God. And if the Son is not of the same sub- stance with the Father, then He is a substance that was made: and if He is a substance that was made, then all things were not made by Him; but " all things were made by Him," therefore He is of one and the same substance with the Father. And so He is not only God, but also very God. And the same John most expressly af&rms this in his epistle: " For we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know the true God, and that we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." ^ CHAP. VI.] DIVINITY OF THE SON. 11 10. Hence also It follows by consequence, that the Apostle Paul did not say, " "Who alone has immortality," of the Father merely; but of the One and only God, which is the Trinity itself For that which is itself eternal life is not mortal according to any changeableness; and hence the Son, of God, because " He is Eternal Life," is also Himself understood with the Father, where it is said, " Who only hath immortality." For we, too, are made partakers of this eternal life, and be- come, in our own measure, immortal. But the eternal life itself, of which we are made partakers, is one thing; we our- selves, who, by partaking of it, shall live eternally, are another. For if he had said, " Whom in His own time the Father will show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality; " not even so would it be necessarily understood that the Son is excluded. For neither has the Son separated the Father from Himself, because He Himself, speaking elsewhere with the voice of wisdom (for He Himself is the Wisdom of God ^), says, " I alone compassed the circuit of heaven." ^ And therefore so much the more is it not necessary that the words, " Who hath immortality," should be understood of the Father alone, omitting the Son; when they are said thus: " That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: whom in His own time He will show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen."^ In which words neither is the Father specially named, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit; but the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; that is, the One and only and true God, the Trinity itself.
11. But perhaps what follows may interfere with this meaning; because it is said, " Whom no man hath seen, nor can see: " although this may also be taken as belonging to Christ according to His divinity, which the Jews did not see, who yet saw and crucified Him in the flesh; whereas His divinity can in no wise be seen by human sight, but is seen 12 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK I.
with that sight with which they who see are no longer men, "but beyond men. Eightly, therefore, is God Himself, the Trinity, understood to he the " blessed and only Potentate," who " shows the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in His own time." For the words, " Who only hath immortality," are said in the same way as it is said, " Who only doeth wondrous things." ^ And I should be glad to know of whom they take these words to be said. If only of the Father, how then is that true which the Son Himself says, " For what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise "? Is there any, among wonderful works, more wonderful than to raise up and quicken the dead? Yet the same Son saith, " As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." ^ How, then, does the Father alone " do wondrous things," when these words allow us to understand neither the Father only, nor the Son only, but assuredly the one only true God, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
12. Also, when the same apostle says, " But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him," ^ who can doubt that he speaks of all things which are created; as does John, when he says, " All things were made by Him "? I ask, therefore, of whom he speaks in another place: " For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." * For if of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so as to assign each clause severally to each person: of Him, that is to say, of the Father; through Him, that is to say, through the Son; in Him, that is to say, in the Holy Spirit, — it is manifest that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one God, inas- much as the words continue in the singular number, " To whom ^ be glory for ever." For at the beginning of the passage he does not say, " 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge " of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, but " of the wisdom and knowledge of God I " " How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding CHAP. VI.] DIVINITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 13 out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? Fov of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." ^ But if they will have this to be understood only of the Father, then in what way are all things by the Father, as is said here; and all things by the Son, as where it is said to the Corinthians, "And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things," ^ and as in the Gospel of John, " All things were made by Him "? For if some things were made by the Father, and some by the Son, then all things were not made by the Father, nor all things by the Son; but if all things were made by the Father, and all things by the Son, then the same things were made by the Father and by the Son. The Son, therefore, is equal with the Fathe?, and the working of the Father and the Son is indivisible. Because if the Father made even the Son, whom certainly the Son Himself did not make, then all things were not made by the Son; but all things were made by the Son: therefore He Himself was not made, that with the Father He might make all things that were made. And the apostle has not refrained from using the very word itself, but has said most expressly, " Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; " ^ using here the name of God specially of the Father; as elsewhere, " But the head of Christ is God." ^ 13. Similar evidence has been collected also concerning the Holy Spirit, of which those who have discussed the subject before ourselves have most fully availed themselves, that He too is God, and not a creature. But if not a creature, then not only God (for men likewise are called gods^), but also very God; and therefore absolutely equal with the Father and the Son, and in the unity of the Trinity consubstantial and co-eternal. But that the Holy Spirit is not a creature is made quite plain by that passage above all others, where we are commanded not to serve the creature, but the Creator;^ not in the sense in which we are commanded to '' serve " one another by love,^ which is in Greek BovXevecv, but in that in 14 ON THE TRINITy. [BOOK I.
which God alone is served, which is in Greek Xarpevetv. From whence they are called idolaters who tender that service to images which is due to God. For it is this service concerning which it is said, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." ^ For this is found also more dis- tinctly in the Greek Scriptures, which have Xarpeuo-et?. ISTow if we are forbidden to serve the creature with such a service, seeing that it is written, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (and hence, too, the apostle repudiates those who worship and serve the creature more than the Creator), then assuredly the Holy Spirit is not a creature, to whom such a service is paid by all the saints; as says the apostle, "For we are the circumcision, which serve the Spirit of God," ^ which is in the Greek XaTpevovre^. For even most Latin copies also have it thus, "We who serve the Spirit of God; " but all Greek ones, or almost all, have it so. Although in some Latin copies we find, not " We worship the Spirit of God," but, "We worship God in the Spirit." But let those who err in this case, and refuse to give up to the more weighty authority, tell us whether they find this text also varied in the MSS.: " Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?" Yet what can be more senseless or more profane, than that any one should dare to say that the members of Christ are the temple of one who, in their opinion, is a creature inferior to Christ? For the apostle says in another place, "Your bodies are members of Christ." But if the members of Christ are also the temple of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is not a creature; because we must needs owe to Him, of whom our body is the temple, that service wherewith God only is to be served, which in Greek is called Xarpela. And accordingly the apostle says, " Therefore glorify God in your body." ^ Chap. vii. — In what manner the Son is less than the Father, and than Himself.
14. In these and like testimonies of the divine Scriptures, by free use of which, as I have said, our predecessors ex- ploded such sophistries or errors of the heretics, the unity and CHAP. YIL] subordination OF THE SON. 15 equality of the Trinity are intimated to our faith. But be- cause, on account of the incarnation of the Word of God for the working out of our salvation, that the man Christ Jesus might be the Mediator between God and men/ many things are so said in the sacred books as to signify, or even most expressly declare, the Father to be greater than the Son; men have erred through a want of careful examination or con-» sideration of the whole tenor of the Scriptures, and have en- deavoured to transfer those things which are said of Jesus Christ according to the flesh, to that substance of His which was eternal before the incarnation, and is eternal. They say, for instance, that the Son is less than the Father, because it is written that the Lord Himself said, " My Father is greater than I." ^ But the truth shows that after the same sense the Son is less also than Himself; for how was He not made less also than Himself, who "emptied^ Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant "? For He did not so take the form of a servant as that He should lose the form of God, in which He was equal to the Father. If, then, the form of a servant was so taken that the form of God was not lost, since both in the form of a servant and in the form of God He Himself is the same only-begotten Son of God the Father, in the form of God equal to the Father, in the form of a servant the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; is there any one who cannot perceive that He Himself in the form of God is also greater than Himself, but yet likewise in the form of a servant less than Himself? And not, therefore, without cause the Scripture says both the one and the other, both that the Son is equal to the Father, and that the Father is greater than the Son. For there is no confusion when the former is understood as on account of the form of God, and the latter as on account of the form of a servant. And, in truth, this rule for clearing the question through all the sacred Scriptures is set forth in one chapter of an epistle of the Apostle Paul, where this distinction is com- mended to us plainly enough. For he says, " Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a