20. Nor does it escape me, that some who before us were eminent defenders of the Catholic faith and expounders of the word of God, while they looked for these two things in one human being, whose entire soul they perceived to be a sort of excellent paradise, asserted that the man was the mind, but that the woman was the bodily sense. And according to this distribution, by which the man is assumed to be the mind, but the woman the bodily sense, all things seem aptly to agree together if they are handled with due attention: unless that it is written, that in all the beasts and flying things there was not found for man an helpmate like to himself; and then the woman was made out of his side.^ And on this account I, for my part, have not thought that the bodily sense should be taken for the woman, which we see to be common to ourselves and to the beasts; but I have desired to find something which the beasts had not; and I have rather thought the bodily sense should be understood to be the serpent, whom we read to have been more subtle than all beasts of the field.^ For in those natural good things which we see are common to ourselves and to the irrational animals, the sense excels by a kind of living power; not the sense of which it is written in the epistle addressed to the Hebrews, where we read, that " strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil;"^ for these " senses " belong to the rational 1 Gen. ii. 20-22. ' Gen. iii. 1. » Heb. v. 14.
CHAP. XIV.] DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. 301 nature and pertain to the understanding; but that sense which is divided into five parts in the body, through which corporeal species and motion is perceived not only by our- selves, but also by the beasts.
21. But whether that the apostle calls the man the image and glory of God, but the woman the glory of the man,^ is to be received in this, or that, or in any other way; yet it is clear, that when we live according to God, our mind which is intent on the invisible things of Him ought to be fashioned with proficiency from His eternity, truth, charity; but that some- thing of our own reasonable purpose, that is, of the same mind, must be directed to the using of changeable and cor- poreal things, without which this life does not go on; not that we may be conformed to this world,^ by placing our end in such good things, and by forcing aside the desire of blessed- ness towards them, but that whatever we do rationally in the using of temporal things, we may do it with the contemplation of attaining eternal things, passing through the former, but cleaving to the latter.
Chap, xiv. — WJiat is the difference between wisdom and knowledge. The worship of God is the love of Him. How the intellectual cognizance of eternal things comes to pass through wisdom.
For knowledge also has its own good measure, if that in it which puffs up, or is wont to puff up, is conquered by love of eternal things, which does not puff up, but, as we know, edifieth.^ Certainly without knowledge the virtues them- selves, by which one lives rightly, cannot be possessed, by which this miserable life may be so governed, that we may attain to that eternal life which is truly blessed.
22. Yet action, by which we use temporal things well, differs from contemplation of eternal things; and the latter is reckoned to wisdom, the former to knowledge. For although that which is wisdom can also be called kuowledge, as the apostle too speaks, where he says, " ISTow I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known;"* when doubt- less he meant his words to be understood of the knowledge of the contemplation of God, which will be the highest reward of the saints; yet where he says, " For to one is given by the s/ 302 ON THE TKINITY. [BOOK XII.
Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit/'^ certainly he distinguishes without doubt these two things, although he does not there explain the dif- ference, nor in what way one may be discerned from the other. But having examined a great number of passages from the Holy Scriptures, I find it written in the Book of Job, that holy man being the speaker, " Behold, piety, that is wisdom; but to depart from evil is knowledge."^ In thus distinguish- ing, it must be understood that wisdom belongs to contempla- tion, knowledge to action. For in this place he meant by piety the worship of God, which in Greek is called Oeoae- /3eta. For the sentence in the Greek MSS. has that word. And what is there in eternal things more excellent than God, of whom alone the nature is unchangeable? And what is the worship of Him except the love of Him, by which we now desire to see Him, and we believe and hope that we shall see Him; and in proportion as we make progress, see now through a glass in an enigma, but then in clearness? For this is what the Apostle Paul means by "face to face."^ This is also what John says, " Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."* Discourse about these and the like subjects seems to me to be the discourse itself of wisdom. But to depart from evil, which Job says is knowledge, is without doubt of temporal things. Since it is according to time that we are in evil, from which we ought to abstain, that we may came to those good eternal things. And therefore, whatsoever we do prudently, boldly, temperately, and justly, belongs to that knowledge or discipline wherewith our action is conversant in avoiding evil and desiring good; and so also, whatsoever we gather by the knowledge that comes from inquiry, in the way of examples either to be guarded against or to be imitated, and in the way of necessary proofs respecting any subject, accommodated to our use.
23. When a discourse then relates to these things, I hold it to be a discourse belonging to knowledge, and to be dis- tinguished from a discourse belonging to wisdom, to which CHAP. XIV.] WISDOM IS OF THE ETERNAL REASONS OF THINGS. 303 those things belong, which neither have been, nor shall be, but are; and on account of that eternity in which they are, are said to have been, and to be, and to be about to be, without any changeableness of times. For neither have they been in such way as that they should cease to be, nor are they about to be in such way as if they were not now; but they have always had and always will have that very absolute being. And they abide, but not as if fixed in some place as are bodies; but as intelligible things in incorporeal nature, they are so at hand to the glance of the mind, as things visible or tangible in place are to the sense of the body. And not only in the case of sensible things posited in place, there abide also intelligible and incorporeal reasons of them apart from local space; but also of motions that pass by in successive times, apart from any transit in time, there stand also like reasons, them- selves certainly intelligible, and not sensible. And to attain to these with the eye of the mind is the lot of few; and when they are attained as much as they can be, he himself who attains to them does not abide in them, but is as it were re- pelled by the rebounding of the eye itself of the mind, and so there comes to be a transitory thought of a thing not transi- tory. V And yet this transient thought is committed to the memory through the instructions by which the mind is taught; that the mind which is compelled to pass from thence, may be able to return thither again; although, if the thought should not return to the memory and find there what it had committed to it, it would be led thereto like an uninstructed person, as it had been led before, and would find it where it had first found it, that is to say, in that incorporeal truth, whence yet once more it may be as it were written down and fixed in the mind. For the thought of man, for example, does not so abide in that incorporeal and unchangeable reason of a square body, as that reason itself abides: if, to be sure, it could attain to it at all without the phantasy of local space. Or if one were to apprehend the rhythm of any artificial or musical sound, passing through certain intervals of time, as it rested without time in some secret and deep silence, it could at least be thought as long as that song could be heard; yet what the glance of the mind, transient though it was, caught 304 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XII.
from tlience, and absorbing as it were into the belly, so laid up in the memory, over this it will be able to ruminate in some measure by recollection, and to transfer what it has thus learned into systematic knowledge. But if this has been blotted out by absolute forgetfulness, yet once again, under the guidance of teaching, one will come to that which had alto- gether dropped away, and it will be found such as it was.
Chap. xv. — In opposition to the reminiscence of Plato and Pythagoras. Pytha- goras the Samlan. Of the difference between wisdom and knowledge, and of seeking the Trinity in the knowledge of temporal things.
24. And hence that noble philosopher Plato endeavoured to persuade us that the souls of men lived here even before they bare these bodies; and that hence those things which are learnt, are rather remembered as haying been known already, than taken into knowledge as things new. Tor he has told us that a boy, when questioned I know not what respecting geometry, replied as if he were perfectly skilled in that branch of learn- ing. For being questioned step by step and skilfully, he saw what was to be seen, and said that which he saw. But if this had been a recollecting of things previously known, then cer- tainly every one, or almost every one, would not have been able so to answer when questioned. For not every one was a geometrician in the former life, since geometricians are so few among men that scarcely one can be found anywhere. But we ought rather to believe, that the intellectual mind is so formed in its nature as to see those things, which by the dis- position of the Creator are subjoined to things intelligible in a natural order, by a sort of incorporeal light of an unique kind; as the eye of the flesh sees things adjacent to itself in this bodily light, of which light it is made to be receptive, and adapted to it. For none the more does this fleshly eye, too, distinguish black things from white without a teacher, because it had already known them before it was created in this flesh. Why, lastly, is it possible only in intelligible things that any one properly questioned should answer according to any branch of learning, although ignorant of it? Why can no one do this with things sensible, except those which he has seen in this his present body, or has believed the information of others who knew them, whether somebody's writings or words? For we CHAP. XV.] THE EEMINISCENCES OF PLATO A^^D PYTHAGOEAS. 305 must not acquiesce in their story, who assert that the Samian Pythagoras recollected some things of this kind, which he had experienced when he was previously here in another body; and others tell yet of others, that they experienced something of the same sort in their minds: but it may be conjectured that these were untrue recollections, such as we commonly experience in sleep, when we fancy we remember, as though we had done or seen it, what we never did or saw at all; and that the minds of these persons, even though awake, were affected in this way at the suggestion of malignant and de- ceitful spirits, whose care it is to confirm or to sow some false belief concerning the changes of souls, in order to deceive men. This, I say, may be conjectured from this, that if they truly remembered those things which they had seen here before, while occupying other bodies, the same thing would happen to many, nay to almost all; since they suppose that as the dead from the living, so, without cessation and continu- ally, the living are coming into existence from the dead; as sleepers from those that are awake, and those that are awake from them that sleep.
25. If therefore this is the right distinction between wisdomi and knowledge, that the intellectual cognizance of eternal i things belongs to wisdom, but the rational cognizance of tem-| poral things to knowledge, it is not difficult to judge which is| to be preferred or postponed to which. But if we must employ! some other distinction by which to know these two apart, which without doubt the apostle teaches us are different, saying, " To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit; " still the difference between those two which we have laid down is a most evident one, in that the intellectual cognizance of eternal things is one thing, the rational cognizance of temporal things another; and no one doubts but that the former is to be preferred to the latter. As then we leave behind those things which belong to the outer man, and desire to ascend within from those things which we have in common with beasts, before we come to the cognizance of things intelligible and supreme, which are eternal, the rational cognizance of temporal things presents itself. Let us then find a trinity in tliis also, if we DE TRIN. u 306 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XII.
can, as we found one in the senses of the body, and in those things which through them entered in the way of images into our soul or spirit; so that instead of corporeal things which we touch by corporeal sense, placed as they are without us, we might have resemblances of bodies impressed within on the memoiy from which thought might be formed, while the wiU as a third united them; just as the sight of the eyes was formed from without, which the will applied to the visible thing in order to produce vision, and united both, while itself also added itself thereto as a third. But this subject must not be com- pressed into this book; that in that which follows, if God help, it may be suitably examined, and the conclusions to which we come may be unfolded.
CHAP. I.] WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. 307 BOOK THIETEENTH.
THE INQtriRY IS PROSECUTED RESPECTING KNOWLEDGE, IN WHICH, AS DISTIN- GUISHED FROM WISDOM, AUGUSTINE HAD BEGUN IN THE FORMER BOOK TO LOOK FOR A KIND OF TRINITY. AND OCCASION IS TAKEN OF COMMENDING CHRISTIAN FAITH, AND OF EXPLAINING HOW THE FAITH OF BELIEVERS IS ONE AND COMMON. NEXT, THAT ALL DESIRE BLESSEDNESS, YET THAT ALL HAVE NOT THE FAITH WHEREBY WE ARRIVE AT BLESSEDNESS; AND THAT THIS FAITH IS DEFINED IN CHRIST, WHO IN THE FLESH ROSE FROM THE DEAD; AND THAT NO ONE IS SET FREE FROM THE DOMINION OF THE DEVIL THROUGH FORGIVENESS OF SINS, SAVE THROUGH HIM. IT IS SHOWN ALSO AT LENGTH THAT IT WAS NEEDFUL THAT THE DEVIL SHOULD BE CONQUERED BY CHRIST, NOT BY POWER, BUT BY RIGHTEOUSNESS. FINALLY, THAT WHEN THE WORDS OF THIS FAITH ARE COMMITTED TO MEMORY, THERE IS IN THE MIND A KIND OF TRINITY, SINCE THERE ARE, FIRST, IN THE MEMORY THE SOUNDS OF THE WORDS, AND THIS EVEN WHEN THE MAN IS NOT THINKING OF THEM; AND NEXT, THE MIND'S EYE OF HIS RECOLLECTION IS FORMED THEREUPON WHEN HE THINKS OF THEM; AND, LASTLY, THE WILL, WHEN HE SO THINKS AND REMEMBERS, COMBINES BOTH.
Chap. i. — The attempt is made to distinguish out of the Scriptures the offices of wisdom and of knowledge. That in the beginning of John some things that are said belong to wisdom, some to knowledge. Some things there are only known by the help of faith. How we see the faith that is in us. In the same narrative of John, some things are known by the sense of the body, others only by the reason of the mind.
1. In the book before this, viz. the twelfth of this work, we have done enough to distinguish the office of the rational mind in temporal things, wherein not only our knowing but our action is concerned, from the more excellent office of the same mind, which is employed in contemplating eternal things, and is limited to knowing alone. But I think it more convenient that I should insert somewhat out of the Holy Scriptures, by which the two may more easily be distinguished.
2. John the Evangelist has thus begun his Gospel: ''In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light 308 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XIII.
shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through Him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the w^orld. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." ^ This entire passage, which I have here taken from the Gospel, contains in its earlier portions what is immutable and eternal, the contem- plation of which makes us blessed; but in those which follow, eternal things are mentioned in conjunction with temporal things. And hence some things there belong to knowledge, some to wisdom, according to our previous distinction in the twelfth book. For the words, — " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not: " — require a contemplative life, and must be discerned by the intellectual mind; and the more any one has profited in this, the wiser without doubt will he become. But on account of the verse, " The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not," faith certainly was necessary, whereby that which was not seen might be believed. For by " darkness" he intended to signify the hearts of mortals turned away from light of this kind, and hardly able to behold it; for which reason he subjoins, " There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through Him might iJolini. 1-14.
CHAP. I.] KNOWING SCHIPTUEE BY WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. 309 believe." But liere we come to a thing that was done in time, and belongs to knowledge, which is comprised in the cognizance of facts. And we think of the man John under that phantasy which is impressed on our memory from the notion of human nature. And whether men believe or not, they think this in the same manner. For both alike know what man is, the outer part of whom, that is, his body, they have learned through the eyes of the body; but of the inner, that is, the soul, they possess the knowledge in themselves, because they also them- selves are men, and through intercourse with men; so that they are able to think what is said, " There was a man, whose name was John," because they know the names also by inter- change of speech. But that which is there also, viz. " sent from God," they who hold at all, hold by faith; and they who do not hold it by faith, either hesitate through doubt, or deride it through unbelief. Yet both, if they are not in the number of those over-foolish ones, who say in their heart " There is no God," ^ when they hear these words, think both things, viz. both what God is, and what it is to be sent from God; and if they do not do this as the things themselves really are, they do it at any rate as they can.
3. Further, we know from other sources the faith itself which a mani sees to be in his own heart, if he believes, or not to be there, if he does not believe: but not as we know bodies, which we see with the bodily eyes, and think of even when absent through the images of themselves which we retain in memory; nor yet as those things which we have not seen, and which we frame howsoever we can in thought from those which we have seen, and commit them to memory, that we may recur to them when we will, in order that therein we may similarly by recollection discern them, or rather discern the images of them, of what sort soever these are which we have fixed there; nor again as a living man, whose soul we do not indeed see, but conjecture from our own, and from corpo- real motions gaze also in thought upon the living man, as we have learnt him by sight. Faith is not so seen in the heart in which it is, by him whose it is; but most certain knowledge holds it fast, and conscience proclaims it. Although therefore 310 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XIII.
we are bidden to believe on this account, because we cannot see what we are bidden to believe; nevertheless we see faith itself in ourselves, when that faith is in us; because faith even in absent things is present, and faith in things which are with- out us is within, and faith in things which are not seen is itself seen, and itself none the less comes into the hearts of men in time; and if any cease to be faithful and become un- believers, then it perishes from them. And sometimes faith is accommodated even to falsehoods; for we sometimes so speak as to say, I put faith in him, and he deceived me. And this kind of faith, if indeed it too is to be called faith, perishes from the heart without blame, when truth is found and expels it. But faith in things that are true, passes, as one should wish it to pass, into the things themselves.!For we must not say that faith perishes, when those things which were believed are seen. Tor is it indeed still to be called faith, when faith, according to the definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is the evidence of things not seen? -^ 4. In the words which follow next, " The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe;" the action, as we have said, is one done in time. For to bear witness even to that which is eternal, as is that light that is intelligible, is a thing done in time. And of this it was that John came to bear witness, who " was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light." For he adds, " That was the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Now they who know the Latin language, understand all these words, from those things which they know: and of these, some have become known to us through the senses of the body, as man, a^ the world itself, of which the greatness is so evident to our sight; as again the sounds of the words themselves, for hearing also is a sense of the body; and some through the reason of the mind, as that which is said, "And His own received Him not;" for this means, that they did not believe in Him; and what belief is, we do not know by any sense of the body, but iHeb. xi. 1.
iHeb. xi. 1.
CHAP. I.] BY WHAT FACULTIES WE UNDERSTAND WORDS. 311 by the reason of the mind. We have learned, too, not the sounds, but the meanings of the words themselves, partly through the sense of the body, partly through the reason of the mind. Nor have we now heard those words for the first time, but they are words we had heard before. And we were retaining in our memory as things known, and we here recog- nised, not only the words themselves, but also what they meant. For when the bisyllabic word mundus is uttered, then some- thing that is certainly corporeal, for it is a sound, has become known through the body, that is, through the ear. But that which it means also, has become known through the body, that is, through the eyes of the flesh. For so far as the world is known to us at all, it is known through sight. But the quadri- syllable word crediderunt reaches us, so far as its sound, since that is a corporeal thing, through the ear of the flesh; but its meaning is discoverable by no sense of the body, but by the reason of the mind. For unless we knew through the mind what the word crediderunt meant, we should not understand what they did not do, of whom it is said, " And His own re- ceived Him not." The sound then of the word rings upon the ears of the body from without, and reaches the sense which is called hearing. The species also of man is both known to us in ourselves, and is presented to the senses of the body from without, in other men; to the eyes, when it is seen; to the ears, when it is heard; to the touch, when it is held and touched; and it has, too, its image in our memory, incorporeal indeed, but like the body. Lastly, the wonderful beauty of the world itself is at hand from without, both to our gaze, and to that sense which is called touch, if we come in contact with any of it: and this also has its image within in our memory, to which we revert, when we think of it either in the enclosure of a room* or again in darkness. But we have already sufficiently spoken in the eleventh book of these images of corporeal things; incorporeal indeed, yet having the likeness of bodies, and belonging to the life of the outer nian. But we are treating now of the inner man, and of his knowledge, namely, that knowledge which is of things temporal and changeable; into the purpose and scope of which, when anything is assumed, even of things belonging to the outer man, it must be assumed 312 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XIII.
for this end, that something may thence be taught which may- help rational knowledge. And hence the rational use of those things which we have in common with irrational animals belongs to the inner man; neither can it rightly be said that this is common to us with the irrational animals.
Chap. ii. — Faith a thing of tlie heart, not of the body; how it is common and one and the same in all believers. The faith of believers is one, no otherwise than the will of those who will is one.