or the Son, or the Holy Spirit; and in the same way that the Son remembers neither Himself nor the Father, except by the Father, nor loves them except by the Holy Spirit; but that by Himself He only understands both the Father and Son and Holy Spirit: and in like manner, that the Holy Spirit by the Father remembers both the Father and the Son and Himself, and by the Son understands both the Father and the Son and Himself; but by Himself only loves both Him- self and the Father and the Son; — as though the Father were both His own memory, and that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and the Son were the understanding of both Himself, and the Father and the Holy Spirit; but the Holy Spirit were the love both of Himself, and of the Father and of the Son? "Who would presume to think or affirm this of that Trinity? For if therein the Son alone understands both for Himself and for the Father and for the Holy Spirit, we have returned to the old absurdity, that the Father is not wise from Himself, but from the Son, and that wisdom has not begotten wisdom, but that the Father is said to be wise by that wis- dom which He begat. For where there is no understanding there can be no wisdom; and hence, if the Father does not understand Himself for Himself, but the Son understands for the Father, assuredly the Son makes the Father wise. But if to God to be is to be wise, and essence is to Him the same as wisdom, then it is not the Son that has His essence from the Father, which is the truth, but rather the Father from the Son, which is a most absurd falsehood. And this absurdity, beyond all doubt, we have discussed, disproved, and rejected, in the seventh book. Therefore God the Father is wise by that wisdom by which He is His own wisdom, and the Son is the wisdom of the Father from the wisdom which is the Father, from whom the Son is begotten; whence it foUows that the Father understands also by that understanding by which He is His own understanding (for he could not be wise that did not understand); and that the Son is the under- standing of the Father, begotten of the understanding which is the Father. And this same may not be unfitly said of memory also. For how is he wise, that remembers nothing, or does not remember himself? Accordingly, since the CHAP. VIL] god's wisdom INCOMPREHENSIBLE. 391 Fatlier is wisdom, and the Son is wisdom, therefore, as the Father remembers Himself, so does the Son also remember Himself; and as the Father remembers both Himself and the Son, not by the memory of the Son, but by His own, so does the Son remember both Himself and the Father, not by the memory of the Father, but by His own. Where, again, there is no love, who would say there was any wisdom? And hence we must infer that the Father is in such way His own love, as He is His own understanding and memory. And therefore these three, i.e. memory, understanding, love or will, in that highest and unchangeable essence which is God, are, we see, not the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but the Father alone. And because the Son too is wisdom be- gotten of wisdom, as neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit understands for Him, but He understands for Himself; so neither does the Father remember for Him, nor the Holy Spirit love for Him, but He remembers and loves for Himself: for He is Himself also His own memory. His own under- standing, and His own love. But that He is so comes to Him from the Father, of whom He is born. And because the Holy Spirit also is wisdom proceeding from wisdom. He too has not the Father for a memory, and the Son for an understanding, and Himself for love: for He would not be wisdom if another remembered for Him, and yet another understood for Him, and He only loved for Himself; but Himself has all three things, and has them in such Way that they are Himself. But that He is so comes to Him thence, whence He proceeds. 13. What man, then, is there who can comprehend that wisdom by which God knows all things, in such wise that neither what we call things past are past therein, nor what we call things future are therein waited for as coming, as though they were absent, but both past and future with things present are all present; nor yet are things thought severally, so that thought passes from one to another, but all things simultaneously are at hand in one glance; — what man, I say, is there that comprehends that wisdom, and the like pru- dence, and the like knowledge, since in truth even our own wisdom is beyond our comprehension? For somehow we are able to behold the things that are present to our senses or to our 392 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XV.
understanding; but the things that are absent, and yet have once been present, we know by memory, if we have not for- gotten them. And we conjecture, too, not the past from the future, but the future from the past, yet by an unstable know- ledge. For there are some of our thoughts to which, although future, we, as it were, look onward with greater plainness and certainty as being very near; and we do this by the means of memory when we are able to do it, as much as we ever are able, although memory seems to belong not to the future, but to the past. And this may be tried in the case of any words or songs, the due order of which we are rendering by memory; for we certainly should not utter each in succession, unless we foresaw in thought what came next. And yet it is not fore- sight, but memory, that enables us to foresee it; for up to the very end of the words or the song, nothing is uttered except as foreseen and looked forward to. And yet in doing this, we are not said to speak or sing by foresight, but by memory; and if any one is more than commonly capable of uttering many pieces in this way, he is usually praised, not for his foresight, but for his memory. We know, and are absolutely certain, that all this takes place in our mind or by our mind; but how it takes place, the more attentively we desire to scrutinize, the more do both our very words break down, and our purpose itself fails, when by our understanding, if not our tongue, we would reach to something of clearness. And do such as we are, think, that in so great infirmity of mind we can comprehend whether the foresight of God is the same as His memory and His understanding, who does not regard in thought each several thing, but embraces all that He knows in one eternal and unchangeable and ineffable vision? In this difficulty, then, and strait, we may well cry out to the living God, " Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it." ^ For I understand by myself how wonderful and incomprehensible is Thy knowledge, by which Thou madest me, when I cannot even comprehend myself whom Thou hast made! And yet, " while I was musing, the fire burned," ^ so that " I seek Thy face evermore." ^ 1 Ps. cxxxix. 6. ^ Ps. xxxix. 3. ^ Ps. cv. 4.
CHAP. VIIL] of seeing GOD THROUGH A GLASS. 393 Chap. viii. — Hoio the apostle says that God is noiv seen hy us through a glass.
14. I know that wisdom is an incorporeal substance, and that it is the light by which those things are seen that are not seen by carnal eyes; and yet a man so great and so spiritual [as Paul] says, " We see now through a glass, in an enigma, but then face to face." ^ If we ask what and of what sort is this " glass," this assuredly occurs to our minds, that in a glass nothing is discerned but an image. We have endeavoured, then, so to do; in order that we might see in some way or other by this image which we are. Him by whom we are made, as by a glass. And this is intimated also in the words of the same apostle: "But we with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."^ "Beholding as in a glass," ^ he has said, i.e. seeing by means of a glass, not looking from a watch-tower: an ambiguity that does not exist in the Greek language, whence the apostolic epistles have been rendered into Latin. For in Greek, a glass,* in which the images of things are visible, is wholly distinct in the sound of the word also from a watch-tower,^ from the height of which we command a more distant view. And it is quite plain that the apostle, in using the word " speculantes" in respect to the glory of the Lord, meant it to come from " speculum," not from " specula." But where he says, " We are transformed into the same image," he assuredly means to speak of the image of God; and by calling it "the same," he means that very image which we see in the glass, because that same image is also the glory of the Lord; as he says elsewhere, "For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God," ^ — a text already discussed in the twelfth book. He means, then, by " We are transformed," that we are changed from one form to another, and that we pass from a form that is obscure to a form that is bright: since the obscure form too is the image of God; and if an image, then assuredly also " glory," in which we are created as men, being better than the other animals. Tor it is said of human nature in itself, " The man ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God."
394 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XV.
And this nature, being the most excellent among things created, is transformed from a form that is defaced into a form that is beautiful, when it is justified by its own Creator from ungod- liness. Since even in ungodliness itself, the more the faulti- ness is to be condemned, the more certainly is the nature to be praised. And therefore he has added, "from glory to glory:" from the glory of creation to the glory of justification. Although these words, " from glory to glory," may be understood also in other ways; — from the glory of faith to the glory of sight, from the glory whereby we are sons of God to the glory whereby we shall be like Him, because "we shall see Him as He is."^ But in that he has added, " as from the Spirit of the Lord," he declares, that the blessing of so desirable a transformation is conferred upon us by the grace of God.
Chap. ix. — Of the term ^'enigma" and of tropical modes of speech.
15. What has been said relates to the words of the apostle, that " we see now through a glass;" but whereas he has added, " in an enigma," the meaning of this addition is unknown to any who are unacquainted with the books that contain the doctrine of those modes of speech, which the Greeks call Tropes, which Greek word we also use in Latin. Por as we more commonly speak of scJumata than of figures, so we more commonly speak of tropes than of modes. And it is a very difficult and uncommon thing to express the names of the several modes or tropes in Latin, so as to refer its appropriate name to each. And hence some Latin translators, through unwillingness to employ a Greek word, where the apostle says, " Which things are an allegory," ^ have rendered it by a circumlocution — Which things signify one thing by another. But there are several species of this kind of trope that is called allegory, and one of them is that which is called enigma. Now the definition of the generic term must necessarily embrace also all its species; and hence, as every horse is an animal, but not every animal is a horse, so every enigma is an allegory, but every allegory is not an enigma. What then is an allegory, but a trope wherein one thing is understood from another? as in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, CHAP. IX.] OF SEEING GOD IN AN ENIGMA. 395 " Let "US not therefore sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober: for they who sleep, sleep in the night; and they who are drunken, are drunken in the night: but let us, who are of the day, be sober." ^ But this allegory is not an enigma, for here the meaning is patent to all but the very dull; but an enigma is, to explain it briefly, an obscure alle- gory, as, e.g., " The horse-leech had three daughters," ^ and other like instances. But when the apostle spoke of an allegory, he does not find it in the words, but in the fact; since he has shown that the two Testaments are to be understood by the two sons of Abraham, one by a bond-maid, and the other by a free woman, which was a thing not said, but also done. And before this was explained, it was obscure; and accordingly such an allegory, which is the generic name, could be specifically called an enigma.
16. But because it is not only those that are ignorant of the books that contain the doctrine of tropes, who inquire the apostle's meaning, when he said that we " see now in an enigma," but those, too, who are acquainted with the doctrine, but yet desire to know what that enigma is in which " we now see;" we must find a single meaning for the two phrases, viz.' for that which says, " we see now through a glass," and for that which adds, '' in an enigma." For it makes but one sentence, when the whole is so uttered, " We see now through a glass in an enigma." Accordingly, as far as my judgment goes, as by the word glass he meant to signify an image, so by that of enigma any likeness you will, but yet one obscure, and difficult to see through. While, therefore, any likenesses whatever may be understood as signified by the apostle when he speaks of a glass and an enigma, so that they are adapted to the understanding of God, in such way as He can be under- stood; yet nothing is better adapted to this purpose than that which is not vainly called His image. Let no one, then, wonder, that we labour to see in any way at all, even in that fashion of seeing which is granted to us in this life, viz. through a glass, in an enigma. For we should not hear of an enigma in this place if sight were easy. And this is a yet greater enigma, that we do not see what we cannot but see.
396 ON THE TRINITY. [bOOK XV.
For who does not see his own thought? And yet who does see his own thought, I do not say with the eye of the flesh, but with the inner sight itself? Who does not see it, and who does see it? Since thought is a kind of sight of the mind; whether those things are present which are seen also by the bodily eyes, or perceived by the other senses; or whether they are not present, but their likenesses are dis- cerned by thought; or whether neither of these is the case, but things are thought of that are neither bodily things nor likenesses of bodily things, as the virtues and vices; or as, indeed, thought itself is thought of; or whether it be those things which are the subjects of instruction and of liberal sciences; or whether the higher causes and reasons themselves of all these things in the unchangeable nature are thought of; or whether it be even evil, and vain, and false things that we are thinking of, with either the sense not consenting, or erring in its consent.
Chap. x. — Concerning the icord of the mind, in which we see the Word of God, as in a glass and an enigma.
1*7. But let us now speak of those things of which we think as known, and have in our knowledge even if we do not think of them; whether they belong to the contemplative knowledge, which, as I have argued, is properly to be called wisdom, or to the active, w^hich is properly to be called knowledge. For both together belong to one mind, and are one image of God. But when we treat of the lower of the two distinctly and separately, then it is not to be called an image of God, although even then, too, some likeness of that Trinity may be found in it; as we showed in the thirteenth book. We speak now, therefore, of the entire knowledge of man altogether, in which whatever is known to us is known; that, at any rate, which is true; otherwise it would not be laiown. For no one knows what is false, except when he knows it to be false; and if he knows this, then he knows what is true: for it is true that that is false. We treat, therefore, now of those things which we think as known, and which are known to us even if they are not being thought of. But certainly, if we would utter them in words, we can only do so by thinking them. For altliough there were no words spoken, at any rate, he who thinks CHAP. X.] OF THE WOED UTTEKED IN THE HEART. 397 speaks in his heart. And hence that passage in the book of Wisdom: " They said within themselves, thinking not aright." ^ Por the words, " They said within themselves," are explained by the addition of " thinking." A like passage to this is that in the Gospel, — that certain scribes, when they heard the Lord's words to the paralytic man, " Be of good cheer, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee," said within themselves, "This man blasphemeth." For how did they "say within themselves," except by thinking? Then follows, " And when Jesus saw their thoughts. He said. Why think ye evil in your thoughts? "^ So far Matthew. But Luke narrates the same thing thus: "The scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying. Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He, answering, said unto them. What think ye in your hearts? "^ That which in the book of Wisdom is, " They said, thinking," is the same here with, " They thought, saying." For both there and here it is declared, that they spake within themselves, and in their own heart, i.e. spake by thinking. For they " spake within themselves," and it was said to them, " What think ye?" And the Lord Himself says of that rich man whose ground brought forth plentifully, " And he thought within himself, saying." * 18. Some thoughts, then, are speeches of the heart, where- in the Lord also shows that there is a mouth, when He says, " Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, that defileth a man." In one sentence He has comprised two diverse mouths of the man, one of the body, one of the heart. For assuredly, that from which they thought the man to be defiled, enters into the mouth of the body; but that from which the Lord said the man was defiled, proceedeth out of the mouth of the heart. So certainly He Himself explained what He had said. For a little after, He says also to His disciples concerning the same thing: " Are ye also yet without understanding? Do ye not under- stand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the beUy, and is cast out into the draught? " Here He most certainly pointed to the mouth of the body. But in that 398 ON THE TRINITY. [bOOK XV.
which follows He plainly speaks of the mouth of the heart, where He says, " But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,"^ etc. What is clearer than this explanation? And yet, when we call thoughts speeches of the heart, it does not follow that they are not also acts of sight, arising from the sight of knowledge, when they are true. For when these things are done outwardly by means of the body, then speech and sight are different things; but when we think inwardly, the two are one, — just as sight and hearing are two things mutually distinct in the bodily senses, but to see and hear are the same thing in the mind; and hence, while speech is not seen but rather heard outwardly, yet the inward speeches/ i.e. thoughts, are said by the holy Gospel to have been seen, not heard, by the Lord. " They said within themselves. This man blasphemeth," says the Gospel; and then subjoined, " And when Jesus saw their thoughts." Therefore He saw, what they said. For by His own thought He saw their thoughts, which they supposed no one saw but themselves.
19. Whoever, then, is able to understand a word, not only before it is uttered in sound, but also before the images of its sounds are considered in thought, — for this it is which belongs to no tongue, to wit, of those which are called the tongues of nations, of which our Latin tongue is one; — whoever, I say, is able to understand this, is able now to see through this glass and in this enigma some likeness of that Word of whom it is said, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."^ For of necessity, when we speak what is true, i.e. speak what we know, there is born from the knowledge itself which the memory retains, a word that is altogether of the same kind with that knowledge from which it is born. For the thought that is formed by the thing which we know, is the word which we speak in the heart: which word is neither Greek nor Latin, nor of any other tongue. But when it is needful to convey this to the knowledge of those to whom we speak, then some sign is assumed whereby to signify it. And generally a sound, sometinies a nod, is exhibited, the former to the ears, the latter to the eyes, that the word which we CHAP. XL] SOUNDS AND LETTEES ONLY OUTWAED SIGNS. 399 bear in our mind may become known also by bodily signs to the bodily senses. For what is to nod or beckon, except to speak in some way to the sight? And Holy Scripture gives its tes- timony to this; for we read in the Gospel according to John: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one upon another, doubting of whom He spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus' breast one of His disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckons to him, and says to him. Who is it of whom He speaks V'^ Here he spoke by beckoning what he did not venture to speak by sounds. But whereas we exhibit these and the like bodily signs either to ears or eyes of persons pre- sent to whom we speak, letters have been invented that we might be able to converse also with the absent; but these are signs of words, as words themselves are signs in our conversa- tion of those things which we think..
Chap. xi. — The likeness of the Divine Word, such as it is, is to he sought, not in our ovm outer and sensible word, hut in the inner and mental one. There is the greatest possible unlikeness between our word and knowledge and the Divine Word and knowledge.
20. Accordingly, the word that sounds outwardly is the sign of the word that gives light inwardly; which latter has the greater claim to be called a word. For that which is uttered with the mouth of the flesh, is the articulate sound of a word; and is itself also called a word, on account of that to make which outwardly apparent it is itself assumed. For our word is so made in some way into an articulate sound of the body, by assuming that articulate sound by which it may be manifested to men's senses, as the Word of God was made flesh, by assuming that flesh in which itself also might be manifested to men's senses. And as our word becomes an articulate sound, yet is not changed into one; so the Word of God became flesh, but far be it from us to say He was changed into flesh. For both that word of ours became an articulate sound, and that other Word became flesh, by assuming it, not by consuming itself so as to be changed into it. And therefore whoever desires to arrive at any likeness, be it of what sort it may, of the Word of God, however in many respects unlike, 400 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK XV.
must not regard the word of ours that sounds in the ears, either when it is uttered in an articulate sound or when it is silently- thought. For the words of all tongues that are uttered in sound are also silently thought, and the mind runs over verses while the bodily mouth is silent. And not only the numbers of syllables, but the tunes also of songs, since they are corporeal, and pertain to that sense of the body which is called hearing, are at hand by certain incorporeal images appropriate to them, to those who think of them, and who silently revolve all these things. But we must pass by this, in order to arrive at that word of man, by the likeness of which, be it of what sort it may, the Word of God may be somehow seen as in an enigma. Not that word which was spoken to this or that prophet, and of which it is said, " Now the word of God grew and multiplied:"^ and again, " Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ;"^ and again, ''When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God " ^ (and there are countless other like sayings in the Scriptures respecting the word of God, which is disseminated in the sounds of many and diverse languages through the hearts and mouths of men; and which is therefore called the word of God, because the doctrine that is delivered is not human, but divine); — but we are now seeking to see, in whatsoever way we can, by means of this like- ness, that Word of God of which it is said, "The Word was God;'* of which it is said, " All things were made by Him;" of which it is said, " The Word became flesh;" of which it is said, " The Word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom."* We must go on, then, to that word of man, to the word of the rational animal, to the word of that image of God, that is not born of God, but made by God; which is neither utterable in sound nor capable of being thought under the likeness of sound, such as must needs be with the word of any tongue; but which precedes all the signs by which it is signified, and is begotten from the knowledge that continues in the mind, when that same know- ledge is spoken inwardly according as it really is. For the sight