On the Trinity

Augustine of Hippo, rewritten in modern English from the Haddan and Shedd translation

A Note on This Translation

This is a modern-English rewrite of Augustine's On the Trinity, made from the public-domain English translation by Arthur West Haddan, as revised by William G. T. Shedd (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 3). Augustine wrote in Latin around the year 400, in long, winding sentences. Here is how this edition handles them.

What stays the same. Every argument is Augustine's, in his order. Nothing has been added to his case, and nothing he says has been softened. His technical terms, such as substance, essence and person, are kept, because they are the book's subject.

What changes. His long periods are broken into shorter sentences. Old phrasing is replaced with plain modern English. The voice is warm and spoken, and it often speaks straight to you, the reader. Where Augustine runs several ideas together, they are set out in numbered points with short headings so you can follow the path of the argument. His numbered sections become these headings, and his own chapter summaries are kept as italic lead-ins.

Scripture. Every Bible quotation is taken from the English Standard Version and labelled like this: (Psalm 57:2, ESV). Augustine quoted an older Latin Bible, so the wording sometimes differs from the ESV. Where the difference would change his argument, his sense is kept and a short editor's note says what his text read.

A word of caution. This is a rewrite for readers, not a scholarly translation. If you are studying a particular phrase closely, check it against the Haddan and Shedd text.

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Argument

This book is about one question: who is the God Christians worship, and how can he be one and yet Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Augustine answers it in fifteen books, and they fall into three parts. First he proves the doctrine from Scripture and answers the objections raised against it. Then he looks at the words we use, and at the first traces of the Trinity in love. Finally he searches the human mind, made in God's image, for a likeness of the God who made it.

The first part: Scripture (Books 1 to 4). Book 1 shows from the Bible that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God and equal. The next three books deal with the objection that the Son must be less than the Father because the Father sent him. Book 2 answers it, Book 3 asks what the appearances of God to the patriarchs really were, and Book 4 explains why the Son was sent. Augustine's answer is that being sent does not make anyone less. The Trinity is equal in every way, unchangeable, present everywhere, and it works as one.

The second part: the language of faith (Books 5 to 8). Book 5 asks what we mean when we say something of God. Some things are said of his substance, such as that he is good and great. Others are said of how the persons stand toward each other, as Father is said in relation to Son. Book 6 asks whether the Father is himself wisdom, or only the begetter of it. Book 7 answers that he is, and explains why we say "one essence and three persons": we need some word to answer the question "Three what?" Book 8 then turns from argument to truth, goodness and love. Love, Augustine says, is where we first begin to glimpse the Trinity: the one who loves, the one who is loved, and the love.

The third part: the image of God in us (Books 9 to 15). Books 9 and 10 find a kind of trinity in the mind, first in the mind, its knowledge of itself, and its love, then more exactly in memory, understanding and will. Book 11 looks for likenesses in the outer man, in seeing and the things we see, and finds they are not equal and not of one substance. Book 12 separates wisdom from knowledge. Book 13 treats the trinity in knowledge and uses it to commend the Christian faith. Book 14 comes to true wisdom, in which the mind is renewed after the image of its Creator, and so the image of God is found. Book 15 gathers up the whole argument, then turns to the Trinity who is God, which these images can only point to and never match. It ends in a prayer.

Augustine never claims that the mind explains God. His claim is more modest: the image is real, it is broken, it is being mended, and a God who can be only partly understood is still always to be sought.

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Book One: The Unity and Equality of the Trinity Shown from Scripture

Chapter 1: Why We Begin With Faith

A quick note before we start: Augustine wrote this book for people who want to understand God before they will trust him. He is going to argue that it works the other way around. Faith comes first, and understanding is what faith is given in order to grow into.

Let me tell you why I'm writing this.

There are people who refuse to begin with faith. They want God explained first, on their own terms, and only then will they believe. They are not stupid. They have a love of reason, but it is a crude and crooked love, and it leads them astray. Everything in this book is written to guard you against their sophistries. So let me show you exactly where they go wrong.

Three ways of going wrong about God

1. Some measure God by bodies. They take the ideas they have formed from the things they can see and touch, whether by experience, by natural cleverness, or by skill in some art, and they carry those ideas over to a God who has no body at all. They try to measure the spiritual by the physical.

2. Some measure God by the human mind. They frame everything they think about God according to the nature and feelings of the human soul. Then they wonder why their arguments about him come out crooked. The rules they are using are crooked from the start.

3. Some try to climb above creation altogether. These people do see that everything made is changeable, and they want to lift their thoughts to the unchangeable God. But they are weighed down by mortality. They want to seem to know what they don't know, and they can't know what they want to know. Then they make it worse by boldly asserting their own judgments. They would rather keep a wrong opinion than change what they have once defended.

Notice that all three share one disease. And the third group is the furthest from the truth of all, because the thing they imagine can't be found anywhere. It isn't in bodies. It isn't in created spirits. It isn't in the Creator himself.

Here is what I mean. If you think God is white or red, you are wrong, though at least white and red exist in bodies. If you think God sometimes forgets and then remembers, you are wrong too, though forgetting and remembering exist in minds. But if you think God has the power to have begotten himself, you are wrong in a deeper way. God doesn't exist like that, and neither does any creature, whether bodily or spiritual. Nothing at all begets its own existence.

How Scripture lifts us up

So how does God cleanse our minds of errors like these? Look at how Scripture speaks. It is written for little children, and it does not turn away from the things that really exist. It uses them as food, so that our understanding can climb step by step toward the things of God that are beyond us.

Sometimes it speaks of God in bodily terms: "hide me in the shadow of your wings" (Psalm 17:8, ESV). Sometimes it borrows from the world of the spirit: "I the LORD your God am a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5, ESV), and "the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth" (Genesis 6:6, ESV). God is not literally jealous or sorry the way we are, but there is no other way to say it to us.

Yet notice this. Scripture never draws a figure of speech from something that doesn't exist. That is why those third-kind thinkers are the emptiest of all. They imagine about God what is found neither in him nor in any creature.

Scripture builds allurements for children out of things in the creation, so that weak affections, step by step, may be moved to look up and leave the things below. But it rarely uses words that belong properly to God alone and are found in no creature. When it does, we should sit up and listen. Think of what God said to Moses: "I AM WHO I AM," and "I AM has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14, ESV). Bodies are said to be. Souls are said to be. So Scripture surely means something special by this word here.

The same is true when Paul says God "alone has immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV). Souls are in a way immortal too, so why "alone"? Because true immortality is unchangeableness, and no creature has that. It belongs to the Creator only.

James says the same: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17, ESV). So does the Psalmist: "You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same" (Psalm 102:26–27, ESV).

So we are fed on faith first

I won't pretend this is easy. It is hard to contemplate and truly know the substance of a God who makes changeable things without changing, and who creates things in time without any movement in time within himself. Our minds need cleansing before we can see what can't be put into words.

We haven't reached that point yet. So until we do, we are nourished by faith. We are led by paths suited to what we can bear, until we are fit and able to take it in.

That is exactly why Paul says that in Christ "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3, ESV), and yet speaks to his readers as infants in Christ. They were born again by his grace. But they were still carnal and natural. And the point is this: they were held back not by the divine power by which Christ is equal to the Father, but by the human weakness by which he was crucified. That's why Paul says, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV), and "I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling" (1 Corinthians 2:3, ESV). Then he adds, "I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:1, ESV). And, "I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready" (1 Corinthians 3:2, ESV).

A word to those who get angry

Some people are angry when they hear language like this. They take it as a slight, and they would rather believe that the speaker has nothing to say than admit that they themselves can't follow what has been said.

I'll be honest with you. We sometimes give them an answer, but not the one they asked for. They can't receive that one, and perhaps we can't fully grasp or express it either. We give them an answer that shows how unable and unfit they are to understand what they demand. And they, hearing nothing of what they wanted, decide we are either hiding our own ignorance or speaking from malice because we grudge them knowledge. So they leave indignant and troubled.

Chapter 2: What This Book Sets Out to Do

In what manner this work proposes to discourse concerning the Trinity.

So, with the Lord our God helping us, I'm going to give them, as far as I can, the very account they so insistently demand. I will show that the Trinity is the one and only true God. I will also show how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are rightly said, believed and understood to be of one and the same substance, or essence.

I want to do this so that they won't think I'm mocking them with excuses. I want them to find out by actual trial two things. The first is that the highest good is what the most purified minds can see. The second is that this is the very reason they can't see or understand it yet. The eye of the human mind is weak, and it is dazzled by so great a light, unless it is strengthened by the nourishment of the righteousness of faith.

The order we will follow

First, though, I have to show from the authority of Holy Scripture whether the faith really is as I have said. Only after that, if God is willing and helps me, can I perhaps do these talkative arguers one more service. They are more puffed up than capable, and so they suffer from the more dangerous disease.

What is that service? To help them find something they cannot doubt. Then, in the places where they can't find the same certainty, they may be led to blame their own minds, not the truth itself and not our reasonings.

And if there is anything in them of love or fear toward God, they may come back and begin from faith, in its proper order. At last they will see what a healthful medicine has been provided for the faithful in the holy Church. A careful piety heals the weakness of the mind and makes it able to perceive the unchangeable truth. It also keeps the mind from falling headlong, through disorderly rashness, into harmful and false opinion.

A promise from the author

Here is a promise before we begin. I won't shrink from asking questions if I am anywhere in doubt. And I won't be ashamed to learn if I am anywhere in error.

Chapter 3: What Augustine Asks of His Readers

What Augustine requests from his readers. The errors of readers who are slow to understand are not to be put down to the author.

An agreement between you and me

Let me ask something of you, the reader. Wherever you are as certain as I am, come along with me. Wherever you hesitate as I do, join me in asking. Wherever you see that you are in error, come back to me. Wherever you see that I am in error, call me back. That way we can set out together on the path of charity and press on toward the one of whom it is said, "Seek his presence continually" (Psalm 105:4, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "seek his face evermore." The ESV has "seek his presence continually." They mean the same thing, and the ESV is printed here.

I want to make this godly and safe agreement in the presence of our Lord God with everyone who reads my writings. That goes for all of them, but above all for the ones that look into the unity of the Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. On no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry harder work, or the discovery of truth more rewarding.

If you say, "I don't understand it"

Suppose a reader says, "This is not well put, because I don't understand it." That person is finding fault with my language, not with my faith. It may well be that I could have said it more clearly. But no one has ever spoken so as to be understood in everything by everyone.

So let anyone who finds this fault with me ask himself whether he can understand other writers who have handled the same subjects, when he can't understand me. If he can, let him put my book down, or even throw it away if he likes, and spend his time and effort on those he understands.

But he shouldn't think I ought to have kept silent just because I couldn't make myself as smooth and clear to him as those writers do. Not everything that has been written comes into everyone's hands. And perhaps some who could understand even my writings will never come across those clearer ones, and will meet only mine. That's why it is useful for many people to write many books on the same questions, different in style but not in faith, so that the subject itself can reach as many people as possible, some in one way and some in another.

But suppose he complains that he hasn't understood, and he has never been able to follow any careful, exact reasoning on such subjects. Then let him deal with himself, with resolve and study, so that he may know better. He shouldn't deal with me by quarrelling and wrangling, to make me hold my peace.

If you say, "I understand it, but it isn't true"

Now suppose a reader says, "I certainly understand what is said, but it is not true." Let him state his own opinion, if he likes, and refute mine if he can. And if he does this with charity and truth, and takes the trouble to let me know (if I am still alive), I will receive the richest fruit of my labor. If he can't tell me, I would still be glad and willing for him to tell those he can.

As for me, I meditate on God's law, as it says of the righteous person, "on his law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2, ESV). I can't claim day and night, but I do it in such short times as I can. And I write my meditations down, so they don't slip away from me through forgetfulness.

I hope, by the mercy of God, that he will make me hold firmly to every truth I am sure of. And "if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you" (Philippians 3:15, ESV). I pray that he will show me even this, whether by secret inspiration and warning, or by his own plain words, or by the reasonings of my brothers. This is my prayer, and I commit my trust and desire to him, who is well able to keep what he has given me and to deliver what he has promised.

Readers who think I said something I didn't

I expect that some readers, who are slower to understand, will imagine that in parts of my books I hold opinions I don't hold, or don't hold ones I do. But their mistake can't be put down to me, as anyone can see, if they have wandered into false doctrine by following my steps without grasping me. I am, after all, forced to pick my way through a hard and obscure subject.

Think of it this way. No one can rightly blame the many different errors of heretics on the holy testimonies of the divine books, although every one of those heretics tries to defend his own false and mistaken opinions out of the same Scriptures.

The law of Christ, which is charity, admonishes me plainly, and commands me with a sweet constraint. When people think I have held in my books something false that I have not held, and that same falsehood displeases one reader and pleases another, I should prefer to be blamed by the one who censures the falsehood than to be praised by the one who praises it.

Here is why. The first reader doesn't blame me rightly, since I never held the error. But the error itself is rightly condemned. As for the second reader, he doesn't rightly praise me, because he thinks I held what the truth condemns. And he doesn't rightly praise the opinion either, because the truth condemns that too.

Editor's note: "The law of Christ" is Paul's phrase in Galatians 6:2, which Augustine echoes here without citing it.

So let us begin the work we have undertaken, in the name of the Lord.

Chapter 4: What the Catholic Faith Teaches About the Trinity

What the doctrine of the Catholic faith is concerning the Trinity.

I've read all the Catholic writers I could find, on both the Old and New Testaments, who wrote on the Trinity before me. And every one of them set out to teach the same thing from Scripture. Let me list what they taught.

What these teachers agreed on

1. One God, not three. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit make known a divine unity of one and the same substance, in an indivisible equality. So they are not three Gods but one God.

2. Yet the three are not each other. The Father begot the Son, so the Father is not the Son. The Son was begotten by the Father, so the Son is not the Father. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. He is only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, himself also equal to the Father and the Son, and belonging to the unity of the Trinity.

3. The Trinity did not do each of these things. It was not the Trinity who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, and rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven. Only the Son did that.

4. The Trinity did not descend as a dove. It was not the Trinity who came down in the form of a dove on Jesus when he was baptized. Scripture says "the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove" (Luke 3:22, ESV). That was the Holy Spirit alone.

5. And not at Pentecost either. After the Lord's ascension, on the day of Pentecost, "there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind" (Acts 2:2, ESV), and "divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them" (Acts 2:3, ESV). It was not the whole Trinity who rested upon them. It was only the Holy Spirit.

6. The Trinity did not speak as the Father. Nor was it the Trinity who said from heaven, "You are my beloved Son" (Luke 3:22, ESV), whether at his baptism by John or when the three disciples were with him on the mountain, where the voice said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him" (Matthew 17:5, ESV). Nor was it the Trinity when the voice sounded, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again" (John 12:28, ESV). Those words were the Father's alone, spoken to the Son.

And yet, as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are indivisible, so they work indivisibly.

This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith.

Chapter 5: The Difficulty, and Why I Take It Up

Of difficulties concerning the Trinity: in what manner three are one God, and how, working indivisibly, they yet perform some things severally.

The questions people ask

Some people find this faith hard. They hear that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet that this Trinity is not three Gods but one God. They ask how they are to understand it.

Their difficulty gets sharper at three points.

1. The works are indivisible, but the voice is only the Father's. We say the Trinity works indivisibly in everything God does. Yet a certain voice of the Father spoke, and it was not the voice of the Son.

2. The Son alone was born. None but the Son was born in the flesh, suffered, rose again and ascended into heaven.

3. The Spirit alone was the dove. None but the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove.

So they want to know how the Trinity uttered a voice that was only the Father's. They want to know how the same Trinity made the flesh in which only the Son was born of the Virgin. And they want to know how that same Trinity made the form of a dove in which only the Holy Spirit appeared.

If they can't be answered, they say, then the Trinity does not work indivisibly. The Father does some things, the Son others, and the Holy Spirit yet others. Or, if the three do some things together and some things separately, then the Trinity is not indivisible after all.

There is a further difficulty for them. How is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, when neither the Father nor the Son, nor both together, begot him, although he is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son?

Why I will answer them

People tire us out with questions like these. So I will set out for them, as well as I can, whatever wisdom God has given to my weakness on this subject. And I will not "go on my way with consuming envy."

Editor's note: Augustine's quotation here is from the Wisdom of Solomon (6:23). That book is not in the ESV, so no ESV wording can be given. His sense is: I will not hoard what I have learned.

I couldn't honestly say I'm not used to thinking about such things. They are often in my thoughts, because I am carried away by the love of looking into the truth. And since that is so, the law of charity requires me to make known to them what I have found out.

I know I haven't arrived. Paul says, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect" (Philippians 3:12, ESV). If the Apostle Paul says that, how much more must I, who lie far beneath his feet, count myself as not having taken hold of it! But I can say with him, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13–14, ESV).

So according to my measure, I have been asked to show how much of the road I have already covered, and where I have reached. The rest of the way is still to be run before I come to the end. Those who ask me are the people a generous charity compels me to serve.

I also expect that, in giving them something to read, I'll benefit myself. In trying to answer their questions I will probably find what I was looking for myself. So I have taken up this work at the bidding and with the help of the Lord my God. I haven't taken it up to speak with authority about things I already know. I've taken it up to learn those things by discussing them reverently.

Chapter 6: The Son and the Spirit Are Truly God

That the Son is very God, of the same substance with the Father. Not only the Father but 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.

1. The Son is truly God, and of one substance with the Father

Some have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or not truly God, or not, together with the Father, the one and only God, or not truly immortal because he is changeable. The plain and united voice of the divine testimonies proves them wrong.

Take John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1, ESV). It is clear that we are to take the Word of God to be the only Son of God. Of him it is said later, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV). That refers to his birth in the incarnation, which was worked in time from the Virgin.

But John is also declaring something more than that he is God. He is declaring that the Son is of the same substance as the Father. After saying "the Word was God," he goes on: "He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:2–3, ESV).

Notice what that says. It is not simply "all things." It is all things that were made, which is the whole creation. So it is plain that the one through whom all things were made was himself not made. And if he was not made, then he is not a creature. And if he is not a creature, then he is of the same substance as the Father.

Here is the reasoning in one place. Every substance that is not God is a creature, and everything that is not a creature is God. Suppose the Son were not of the same substance as the Father. Then he would be a substance that was made. And if he were a substance that was made, then all things were not made through him. But "all things were made through him." Therefore he is of one and the same substance with the Father. So he is not only God. He is truly God.

John says the same thing outright in his letter: "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20, ESV).

2. "Who alone has immortality" speaks of the whole Trinity

From this it follows that when the Apostle Paul says "who alone has immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV), he is not speaking of the Father only. He is speaking of the one and only God, who is the Trinity itself.

What is eternal life itself is not mortal in any way that involves change. So the Son of God, because he is eternal life, is also understood along with the Father in the words "who alone has immortality." We too are made sharers in this eternal life, and so we become, in our own measure, immortal. But the eternal life we share in is one thing. We, who by sharing in it shall live forever, are another.

Suppose Paul had written, "he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality" (1 Timothy 6:15–16, ESV). Even then it would not follow that the Son is shut out. The Son has not cut the Father off from himself. Elsewhere he speaks with the voice of wisdom, for he is himself the Wisdom of God, and says, "I alone compassed the circuit of heaven."

Editor's note: This saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 24:5), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

So there is even less reason to understand "who alone has immortality" of the Father alone, leaving the Son out. Look at the whole passage: "keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen" (1 Timothy 6:14–16, ESV).

Not one of the three is named there by himself. It speaks of "the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords." That is the one and only true God, the Trinity itself.

3. "Whom no one has ever seen"

Perhaps the next words stand in the way: "whom no one has ever seen or can see." But these too can be taken of Christ in his divinity. The Jews did not see his divinity, though they saw and crucified him in the flesh. His divinity can never be seen by human sight. It is seen only by a sight with which those who see are no longer merely men, but beyond men.

So God himself, the Trinity, is rightly understood as the "blessed and only Sovereign" who displays the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ in his own time. The words "who alone has immortality" are used in the same way as "who alone does wondrous things" (Psalm 72:18, ESV).

I would like to know whom they take that to be said of. If it is said of the Father alone, how can that be true when the Son himself says, "whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise" (John 5:19, ESV)? Is there any wonder greater than raising the dead and giving them life? Yet the same Son says, "as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will" (John 5:21, ESV).

So how does the Father alone "do wondrous things," when those words can be taken neither of the Father only nor of the Son only? They can only mean the one true God, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

4. All things are from the Father, and through the Son, and one God is praised

The same apostle says: "for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Corinthians 8:6, ESV). Who can doubt that he is speaking there of all created things, just as John does when he says "All things were made through him"?

Now look at another place: "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:36, ESV). Suppose each phrase is given to a different person. "From him" is the Father. "Through him" is the Son. "To him" is the Holy Spirit. Even so it is plain that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, because the words go on in the singular: "To him be glory forever."

Editor's note: Augustine's text of Romans 11:36 reads "of him, and through him, and in him," and he gives "in him" to the Holy Spirit. The ESV has "to him." In 1 Corinthians 8:6 his text has "and we in him" where the ESV has "for whom we exist." The ESV is printed, and his argument, that the words continue in the singular, is kept.

And look at how the passage opens. Paul does not say, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge" of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit. He says "of God!" Then he goes on: "How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?' 'Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33–36, ESV).

Suppose someone insists this speaks of the Father alone. Then in what way are all things "through" the Father, as it says here, and also all things "through" the Son, as it says to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 8:6, ESV) and as John says: "All things were made through him" (John 1:3, ESV)?

Think it through. If some things were made by the Father and some by the Son, then not all things were made by the Father, and not all things by the Son. But if all things were made by the Father and all things by the Son, then the very same things were made by both. So the Son is equal with the Father, and the working of the Father and the Son is indivisible.

Here is another way to see it. If the Father made even the Son, whom the Son certainly did not make, then all things were not made through the Son. But all things were made through the Son. So the Son himself was not made, so that together with the Father he might make all the things that were made.

The apostle himself does not shrink from the word. He says, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV). Here he uses the name "God" specially of the Father, just as in another place: "the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3, ESV).

5. The Holy Spirit is also God

Those who dealt with this subject before me have gathered similar evidence about the Holy Spirit, and have used it very fully. They show that he too is God, and not a creature. And if he is not a creature, then he is not merely "a god" (for men are called gods in a sense), but truly God. So he is fully equal with the Father and the Son, and in the unity of the Trinity he is of one substance and eternal with them.

The best proof that the Holy Spirit is not a creature is the passage where we are commanded not to serve the creature but the Creator. Paul writes of those who "worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever" (Romans 1:25, ESV).

Let me say what kind of service I mean. It is not the service we are commanded to give each other in love, which in Greek is douleuein. It is the service with which God alone is served, which in Greek is latreuein. That is why people who give this service to images are called idolaters. It is the service of which our Lord says: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" (Matthew 4:10, ESV). The Greek Scriptures have latreuseis there, which makes it clearer still.

If we are forbidden to give such service to a creature, then the Holy Spirit is not a creature, because all the saints give it to him. Paul says, "we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God" (Philippians 3:3, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's argument depends on the reading "we who serve the Spirit of God" (Greek latreuontes, from the same verb as latreuein), which he says most Latin copies and almost all Greek copies have. The ESV renders the phrase "worship by the Spirit of God", close to the few Latin copies he mentions that read "we worship God in the Spirit". So the ESV wording cannot carry his proof. His sense is kept: the saints give the Spirit the service that belongs to God alone. He asks those who will not yield to the weightier authority of the Greek copies to answer the next point.

Here is the next point. "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19, ESV). Let those who will not yield to the weightier authority tell us whether they find this text varied in the manuscripts too. Yet what could be more senseless or more profane than to say that the members of Christ are the temple of one who, in that person's opinion, is a creature lower than Christ? Paul says elsewhere, "your bodies are members of Christ" (1 Corinthians 6:15, ESV).

But if the members of Christ are also the temple of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is not a creature. We must owe to him, whose temple our body is, the service with which God alone is to be served, which in Greek is called latreia. And so Paul says, "glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20, ESV).

Chapter 7: In What Sense the Son Is Less Than the Father

In what manner the Son is less than the Father, and than himself.

The rule that clears up the whole question

Texts like these, as I have said, were used freely by those who came before us to break down the sophistries and errors of the heretics. They show to our faith the unity and equality of the Trinity.

But the Word of God became flesh to work out our salvation, so that the man Christ Jesus might be the Mediator between God and men. Because of that, many things are said in the sacred books that indicate, or even expressly declare, that the Father is greater than the Son. People have gone wrong here because they haven't carefully studied the whole tenor of the Scriptures. They have tried to transfer what is said of Jesus Christ according to the flesh to that substance of his which was eternal before the incarnation and is eternal still.

They say, for instance, that the Son is less than the Father, because the Lord himself said, "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV). But the truth shows that in this same sense the Son is less also than himself.

How else could he be made less than himself, if he "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7, ESV)? He did not take the form of a servant in such a way as to lose the form of God, in which he was equal to the Father.

Two forms, one Son

So if the form of a servant was taken without losing the form of God, then the same only-begotten Son of God the Father is in both. In the form of God he is equal to the Father. In the form of a servant he is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Can anyone fail to see, then, that in the form of God he is also greater than himself, and in the form of a servant less than himself?

That is why Scripture says both things, and it says them for a reason: that the Son is equal to the Father, and that the Father is greater than the Son. There is no confusion if we understand the first as spoken on account of the form of God, and the second on account of the form of a servant.

In fact this rule for settling the question throughout all the sacred Scriptures is set out in one chapter of an epistle of the apostle Paul, where the distinction is shown plainly. He says: "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form" (Philippians 2:6–7, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's argument turns on the Latin word for the last clause, "fashion" in the translation this book follows. He contrasts "equal in nature" with "less in fashion"; the ESV has "in human form". His sense is kept, and "fashion" is used in the lines that follow.

So the Son of God is equal to God the Father in nature, but less in "fashion." In the form of a servant which he took he is less than the Father. In the form of God, in which he also was before he took the form of a servant, he is equal to the Father.

What each form does

In the form of God he is the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3, ESV). In the form of a servant he was "born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Galatians 4:4–5, ESV). In the same way, in the form of God he made man. In the form of a servant he was made man.

If the Father had made man alone, without the Son, it would not have been written, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26, ESV).

So when the form of God took the form of a servant, both are God, and both are man. But both are God on account of God who takes, and both are man on account of man who is taken. Neither is turned or changed into the other by that taking. The divinity is not changed into the creature, so as to cease to be divinity. And the creature is not changed into divinity, so as to cease to be creature.

Chapter 8: When the Son Is Said to Be Subject to the Father

The texts about the Son's subjection to the Father are often misunderstood. Christ will not hand over the kingdom to the Father in such a way that he takes it away from himself. Seeing him is the promised goal of everything we do. And the Holy Spirit is enough for our blessedness, exactly as the Father is.

Here is a text that has troubled many readers. Paul writes, "When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him" (1 Corinthians 15:28, ESV). Here is the question it raises: does it mean that the human "fashion" the Son took will one day be turned into the Godhead?

Two ways to take Paul's words

1. Perhaps the words are worded this way to guard against a mistake. Someone might think that the "form" Christ took from the human creature will one day be turned into the Godhead. The Godhead is not a creature. It is the unity of the Trinity, a nature without a body, unchangeable, of one substance and eternal together with itself. Paul's words may be there to stop you thinking that the human nature will become that.

2. Or perhaps someone insists the text means exactly that. He says the "subjection" is a change, so that what was the substance of a creature will one day become the substance of the Creator. Very well. Even that person has to admit something nobody can doubt: it had not yet happened when the Lord said, "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV). He said it before he ascended into heaven. He said it before he suffered and rose from the dead.

Take it further. Suppose someone thinks the humanity in Christ will be changed into the substance of the Godhead only at the end, when he delivers up the kingdom after the day of judgment. Then, even by his own opinion, the Father is still greater than the form of a servant that was taken from the Virgin. And suppose someone goes further still and says the man Christ Jesus has already been changed into the substance of God. He still cannot deny that the human nature was there when the Lord said, before his passion, that the Father is greater. So there is no doubt about the sense in which it was said. The Father is greater than the form of a servant. In the form of God, the Son is equal to him.

Did the Father alone put all things under the Son?

Don't misread Paul's next words either: "it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him" (1 Corinthians 15:27, ESV). Don't take them to mean that the Father put all things under the Son, but that the Son did not put anything under himself.

Paul makes this plain himself when he writes to the Philippians. He says we await "a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:20–21, ESV). So the Son subjects all things to himself. That is because the working of the Father and of the Son cannot be divided. If it could, the Father would not have put all things under himself. The Son would have put all things under him, since it is the Son who delivers up the kingdom to him. Yet Paul speaks of the Son as the one who hands over the kingdom to the Father, "after destroying every rule and every authority and power" (1 Corinthians 15:24, ESV). The one who puts down is the same one who makes subject.

Christ does not take the kingdom away from himself

1. "Delivering up" does not mean losing. Some empty talkers have supposed that when Christ "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" (1 Corinthians 15:24, ESV), he gives it up in such a way that he no longer has it. But when Paul says the kingdom is delivered to "God the Father," the Son is not shut out. He is one God together with the Father.

2. The word "until" misleads careless readers. Paul says, "he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25, ESV). Readers who are eager for a fight conclude that once the enemies are under his feet he will stop reigning. They have not noticed that the same word is used elsewhere in Scripture without this sense. Of the righteous man it is said, "His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries" (Psalm 112:8, ESV). Will he be afraid when he finally sees his adversaries defeated? Of course not.

3. So what does "delivering up the kingdom" mean? It cannot mean that God the Father has no kingdom now. It means this. Christ is going to bring all the righteous to the sight of God. Right now they live by faith, and the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, reigns over them. Then he will bring them to what the same apostle calls seeing "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). "When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father" means, "When he has brought believers to see God the Father."

Hear the Lord himself: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27, ESV). The Father will be shown by the Son "after destroying every rule and every authority and power" (1 Corinthians 15:24, ESV). That is, there will be no more need for any system of pictures and likenesses carried by angelic rulers and authorities and powers.

Editor's note: Augustine now finds these rulers hinted at in the Song of Songs, where, in his text, the bride is told, "We will make you borders of gold, with studs of silver, while the King sits at his table." The ESV reads, "We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver" (Song of Solomon 1:11), and, in the next verse, "While the king was on his couch" (Song of Solomon 1:12). Augustine's point is that the angelic ministries are the decorations that serve us while the King is out of sight.

That fits what Paul says: "your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:3–4, ESV). Until that day, "now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). A mirror, an enigma, a likeness. Then, the thing itself.

Seeing him is where all our actions are going

1. The end of everything we do. This sight is held out to us as the goal of all our actions and the lasting fullness of joy. "We are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

2. It is what Moses was told. God said to his servant, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3:14, ESV). That is what we will gaze at when we live in eternity. It is what the Lord means when he says, "this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV).

3. It comes when the darkness is gone. It will be given when the Lord comes, "who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness" (1 Corinthians 4:5, ESV), when the darkness of this mortal and corruptible life has passed away. Then it will be our morning. That is the morning spoken of in the Psalm: "in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch" (Psalm 5:3, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text read, "In the morning will I direct my prayer to you, and will contemplate you." The ESV has "I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch." The thought is the same: waiting for God, with eyes lifted. The ESV is printed here.

This is how I understand the words, "when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father." I mean this: when he has brought the righteous, who now live by faith under the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, to the sight of God the Father. If I'm wrong in this, let the one who knows better correct me. To me it seems to be as I have said.

When we see him, we will ask for nothing more

We won't look for anything else once we have come to this sight. But it isn't here yet. While our joy is still in hope, we don't have it. "Hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24–25, ESV). We wait like that while the King sits at his table. Then will come what is written: "in your presence there is fullness of joy" (Psalm 16:11, ESV). We won't ask for more than that joy, because there will be nothing more to ask for. The Father will be shown to us, and that will be enough.

What Philip understood, and what he didn't

Philip understood this much. He said to the Lord, "show us the Father, and it is enough for us" (John 14:8, ESV). But he hadn't yet understood that he could have said the very same thing another way: "Lord, show us yourself, and it is enough for us." So the Lord answered him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9, ESV).

But the Lord meant Philip to live by faith before he could see. So he went on, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" (John 14:10, ESV). That is our situation exactly: "while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:6–7, ESV).

Seeing is faith's reward. Our hearts are purified by faith for it: "having cleansed their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9, ESV). And that our hearts must be cleansed for this sight is shown most clearly in the Lord's words, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8, ESV). That this is eternal life, God says in the Psalm: "With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation" (Psalm 91:16, ESV).

So whether we hear "show us the Son" or "show us the Father," it comes to the same thing. Neither can be shown without the other. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). Because they cannot be divided, it is enough to name sometimes the Father alone, and sometimes the Son alone, as the one who will fill us with the joy of his face.

The Spirit is not left out

The Spirit of the Father and of the Son is not left out either. Of him the Lord says, "the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive" (John 14:17, ESV). Enjoying God the Trinity, after whose image we are made, is the fullness of our joy, and there is nothing greater.

So sometimes Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit as though he alone were enough for our blessedness. And he is enough, because he cannot be divided from the Father and the Son. In just the same way, the Father alone is enough, because he can't be divided from the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the Son alone is enough, because he can't be divided from the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Look at what the Lord says: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive" (John 14:15–17, ESV). He means those who love the world. "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:14, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text called the Spirit "Comforter." The ESV says "Helper." It is the same Greek word, and the ESV is printed here.

A trap for those who say the Son is less

Now someone might say that "another Helper" suggests the Son alone was not enough. And then there is the other text, which makes the Spirit sound like he alone is enough: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13, ESV).

Ask yourself: is the Son shut out here? As though he doesn't teach all the truth? As though the Holy Spirit is going to fill in what the Son could not teach? If that is what you conclude, then you must say the Holy Spirit is greater than the Son. And these are the same people who are used to calling the Son the lesser.

Or do they reply, "It doesn't say he alone will guide you, or no one else but he." Then let them grant that the Son may be believed to teach together with him. If they won't, Paul has shut the Son out of knowing the things of God, since he says, "no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:11, ESV). On their reasoning, nobody but the Holy Spirit teaches even the Son the things of God, as a greater teaches a lesser. And the Son himself seems to give the Spirit this much honour: "because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you" (John 16:6–7, ESV).

Chapter 9: Sometimes All Three Are Understood in One Person

The Scriptures sometimes name one person of the Trinity and mean all three.

So how do we read that last text? Not as a statement of inequality between the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. The point is that the presence of the Son of man among the disciples stood in the way of the Spirit's coming. The Spirit was not less. He had not "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7, ESV), as the Son had. So the form of a servant had to be taken out of their sight. They were gazing at it, and they supposed that what they could see was all there was of Christ.

Why the Lord had to go

1. "The Father is greater than I." That is the meaning of "If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV). He is saying: "It's necessary for me to go to the Father, because while you see me like this, you take me to be less than the Father. You are caught up in the creature and the form I have taken, and you can't see the equality I have with the Father."

2. "Do not cling to me." It is the same with his word to Mary: "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (John 20:17, ESV). Editor's note: Augustine's text read "Touch me not," and his comment turns on "touch." The ESV has "Do not cling to me." The ESV is printed, and "clinging" stands for his "touch." Touching, as it were, puts a limit on what they could imagine. He would not have the heart's thoughts, as they were turned toward him, held within such a boundary, as though he were only what he seemed to be. "Ascending to the Father" meant appearing as he is, equal to the Father, so that the end of the sight that is enough for us might be reached there.

Sometimes the Son alone is named

Sometimes Scripture says of the Son alone that he is sufficient, and holds out the whole reward of our love and longing as the sight of him. "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21, ESV).

Did the Lord shut the Father out because he didn't say, "and I will show the Father to him also"? Not at all. It is true that "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). So when the Father is shown, the Son who is in him is shown. And when the Son is shown, the Father who is in him is shown.

So when he says, "manifest myself to him," you must understand that he shows the Father too. And in the same way, when it says, "when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father," you must understand that he does not take it away from himself. When he brings believers to the sight of God the Father, he will without any doubt bring them to the sight of himself, who said, "manifest myself to him."

"We will come to him"

Judas (not Iscariot) asked, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" (John 14:22, ESV). Jesus answered, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23, ESV). See what he is saying. He doesn't manifest only himself to the one who loves him. He comes to him together with the Father, and the two of them make their home with him.

The Spirit does not leave when they come

1. Is the Spirit shut out of that home? Do you think so, when the Father and the Son make their home with the one who loves them? Then what do you do with what the Lord said of the Spirit just before: "You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you" (John 14:17, ESV)? The Spirit is not shut out. Unless someone is so senseless as to suppose that when the Father and the Son arrive to make their home, the Holy Spirit packs up and leaves, as though giving way to his betters.

2. Scripture meets this fleshly idea head on. A few lines earlier he said, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever" (John 14:16, ESV). Forever. The Spirit does not leave when the Father and the Son come. He will be in the same home with them eternally. He doesn't come without them, and they don't come without him.

3. Why Scripture names one at a time. To point to the Trinity, some things are said of the persons separately, each named for himself. But that doesn't mean the others are shut out. They are one Trinity, and the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have one substance and one Godhead.

Chapter 10: How Christ Will Deliver Up the Kingdom, and Why He Will Not Then Intercede

Christ will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father in a way that leaves neither himself nor the Holy Spirit outside it. When the kingdom has been delivered up, Christ will no longer be pleading for us.

So, to gather it up: our Lord Jesus Christ will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. He is not excluded from it by this, and neither is the Holy Spirit. He will do it by bringing believers to the sight of God. In that sight is the goal of all good actions, and everlasting rest, and a joy that will never be taken from us. He promises it in the words, "I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you" (John 16:22, ESV).

Mary and Martha

Mary pictures this joy. She sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. She rested from all business and gave her mind to the truth, as far as this life allows. And in that way she showed beforehand what will last for ever.

Her sister Martha "was distracted with much serving" (Luke 10:40, ESV). That was necessary work. It was good and useful. But when rest arrives, it is going to end. Martha complained that Mary was not helping her. And the Lord answered, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41–42, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text read "the best part," not "the good portion." His reading helps his point. The ESV is printed here, and the argument stands on it.

Notice what he did not say. He did not say Martha was doing something bad. He said Mary had a part that will not be taken away. The part that is busy meeting a need will be taken away when the need passes. A good work that comes to an end is rewarded with a rest that never ends.

God will be all in all

In that sight, God will be all in all. There will be nothing else to ask for. It will be enough to be lit up by him and to enjoy him alone.

So the person in whom "the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Romans 8:26, ESV) says, "One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD" (Psalm 27:4, ESV).

The Mediator and the one he serves

We will gaze on God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, when the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, has delivered up the kingdom to God the Father. He will no longer plead for us as our Mediator and Priest, the Son of God and Son of man.

Let me set out carefully what that means.

1. As Priest, he will himself be put under God. In so far as he is a Priest, having taken the form of a servant for us, he will be put under the one who has put all things under him, and under whom he himself has put all things.

2. As God, he puts us under himself with the Father. In so far as he is God, he with the Father puts us under himself. In so far as he is Priest, he with us is put under the Father.

3. Be careful where the difference of substance lies. The Son is both God and man. So it is better to say that the manhood in the Son is a different substance from his Godhead than to say that the Son is a different substance from the Father. You can see the same thing in yourself. Your flesh is more truly a different substance from your soul, though they are in one and the same man, than another man's soul is from yours.

Editor's note: The Haddan and Shedd text says "the carnal nature of my soul" here. The sense appears to be the flesh in relation to the soul, and that is how it is rendered above.

Why he will no longer intercede

When he has "delivered up the kingdom to God the Father," that is, when he has brought those who believe and live by faith to the sight we sigh and groan for, then toil and groaning will be over. He will no longer plead with the Father for us. For at that point the kingdom will have been delivered up to the Father.

"I will tell you plainly about the Father"

The Lord signals this himself: "I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father" (John 16:25, ESV). Those figures will not be figures any more when the sight is face to face. "Tell you plainly" is the right phrase for another reason. He is the Father's Word, so telling is what he does.

He goes on: "In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father" (John 16:26–28, ESV).

Four sentences, one meaning

What do these four short sentences mean? Let me take them one at a time.

1. "I came from the Father." I haven't appeared in the form in which I am equal to the Father. I have appeared otherwise, as less than the Father, in the creature I took on.

2. "[I] have come into the world." I have shown the form of a servant, which I took on when I made myself nothing, to the eyes even of sinners who love this world.

3. "I am leaving the world." I take away from the sight of the lovers of this world what they have seen.

4. "[I am] going to the Father." I teach my faithful ones to understand me in that being in which I am equal to the Father.

Those who believe this will be counted worthy to be brought by faith to sight. That is the very sight he is said to bring them to when he "delivers the kingdom to God the Father." His faithful ones, whom he has bought with his blood, are called his kingdom. For them he now pleads. But then he will make them abide in himself, there where he is equal to the Father, and he will no longer pray the Father for them.

He prays as less, and grants as equal

"For the Father himself loves you." Here is the answer to the puzzle. In so far as he is less than the Father, he prays. In so far as he is equal to the Father, he grants together with the Father.

He doesn't shut himself out when he says, "the Father himself loves you." He wants it understood the way I have said already, and it is worth saying again. Often one person of the Trinity is named in such a way that the others are to be understood too. So "the Father himself loves you" includes the Son and the Holy Spirit.

He loves us as we shall be

Don't think this means he doesn't love us now. He is the one "who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Romans 8:32, ESV). But God loves us as we shall be, not as we are. The ones he loves are the ones he keeps for ever. That will come to pass when the one who now pleads for us has delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, and no longer needs to ask, because the Father himself loves us.

And for what merit does he love us? None, except faith. We believe before we see what is promised. By this faith we will arrive at sight, so that he may love us as the people we shall be, the people he is making us become, and not as we are now. He hates what we are, and he urges us and enables us to wish not to remain what we are for ever.

Chapter 11: The Rule for Reading the Texts Where the Son Is Equal and the Texts Where He Is Less

By what rule we are to understand, in the Scriptures, that the Son is sometimes equal to the Father and sometimes less.

With this you now hold the rule I promised. When Scripture speaks of the Son of God, you must ask which of two things it is talking about. Is it speaking of the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father? Or is it speaking of the form of a servant, which he took, in which he is less than the Father?

Keep that rule, and the apparent contradictions in the sacred books will not trouble you. Texts that seem to fight with each other will no longer fight.

Equal in the form of God, less in the form of a servant

In the form of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal to the Father. Neither of them is a creature. We have shown that already. But in the form of a servant, the Son is less than the Father, because he himself said, "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV). Look at the ways this plays out.

1. He is less than the Father. "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV).

2. He is less than himself. He is less than himself, because it is said of him that he "made himself nothing" (Philippians 2:7, ESV). It is the same person, in a different form.

3. He is less than the Holy Spirit. He says, "whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven" (Matthew 12:32, ESV). And he worked miracles in the Spirit: "if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matthew 12:28, ESV).

4. He is sent by the Spirit's presence on him. In Isaiah he says, in the passage he read himself in the synagogue and declared fulfilled in himself without a shadow of doubt, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives" (Luke 4:18, ESV). And he said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21, ESV). He says he is "sent" to do these things because the Spirit of God is upon him.

Pairs of texts, side by side

Look at the same thing in pairs. In each pair, the first speaks of the form of God and the second of the form of a servant.

1. Maker and made. "All things were made through him" (John 1:3, ESV). And in the other form: "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4, ESV).

2. One with the Father, and not doing his own will. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). And in the other form: "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38, ESV).

3. Life in himself, and a soul that is sorrowful. "As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). And in the other form: "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death," and "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:38–39, ESV).

4. True God, and obedient to death. "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20, ESV). And in the other form: "he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8, ESV).

5. Everything the Father has is his, and the teaching is not his own. In the form of God, "All that the Father has is mine" (John 16:15, ESV), and "All mine are yours, and yours are mine" (John 17:10, ESV). In the form of a servant: "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John 7:16, ESV).

Chapter 12: What the Son Does Not Know, What He Does Not Give, and How He Judges and Does Not Judge

In what way the Son is said not to know the day and the hour which the Father knows. Some things are said of Christ according to the form of God, others according to the form of a servant. In what way it is Christ's to give the kingdom, and in what way it is not. Christ will both judge and not judge.

"No one knows... nor the Son"

Take another text: "concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32, ESV).

1. He is ignorant as one who makes others ignorant. The Son is said not to know it in the sense that he did not so know it as to show it to his disciples at that time. Compare what was said to Abraham: "now I know that you fear God" (Genesis 22:12, ESV). God did not learn something new there. The sense is, "Now I have made you know it." Abraham was tested, and in that testing he became known to himself.

2. He would tell them at the right time. He was certainly going to tell his disciples this very thing at the proper time. And he speaks of that future as already past, when he says, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15, ESV). He had not yet done it all. He speaks as though it were done, because he certainly would do it. To those same disciples he said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now" (John 16:12, ESV). Among those many things we must count the day and the hour.

3. Paul speaks the same way. He says, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV). He was speaking to people who couldn't take higher things about the Godhead of Christ. And a little after that, he says to them, "I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:1, ESV). He was "ignorant" among them of what they were not able to learn from him. He said he knew only what it was right for them to learn from him. Yet he knew among the mature what he did not know among infants. For he says, "among the mature we do impart wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:6, ESV).

4. This is an ordinary way of speaking. A man is said not to know what he hides. We use the same kind of speech when we call a ditch "blind" because it is hidden. The Scriptures use no kind of speech other than what is found among people, because they speak to people.

Eternal begetting, and being made in time

1. Begotten before all things. In the form of God, Wisdom says, "before the hills, I was brought forth" (Proverbs 8:25, ESV). Augustine reads the hills as the heights of everything created. In the Psalm he also hears the Father saying that he begat the Son before the dawn, which means before all times and temporal things.

Editor's note: In the Haddan and Shedd translation of Augustine's text, these two lines read, "Before all the hills he begat me," and "Before the dawn I begat you." The ESV of the second is quite different: "from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours" (Psalm 110:3, ESV). Augustine's sense is kept above, because his argument rests on it: the Son's begetting comes before everything created.

2. "Created me in the beginning of his ways." In the form of a servant, it is said, in Augustine's text, "The LORD created me in the beginning of his ways." The ESV has, "The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work" (Proverbs 8:22, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Bible read "created me." The ESV has "possessed me." Augustine hears "created" as speaking of the Son in the form of a servant, and the whole of the next point depends on that word. So his reading is kept above, with the ESV beside it.

3. Truth and the way. In the form of God he is "the truth." In the form of a servant he is "the way" (John 14:6, ESV). Why "the way"? Because he himself, "the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18, ESV), opened a passage to the kingdom of God and life eternal for his Church. He is so much the head of that body that he makes the body immortal too. So in his work, as Augustine's Bible has it, he was "created in the beginning of the ways" of God.

4. The beginning, and the bridegroom. In the form of God he is the beginning, the one who speaks to us, and in that beginning God made heaven and earth ("In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," Genesis 1:1, ESV). In the form of a servant he is "like a bridegroom leaving his chamber" (Psalm 19:5, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine takes "the beginning" from his reading of John 8:25, where, in the Haddan and Shedd translation, Christ is "the beginning, that also speaks to us." The ESV has "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning" (John 8:25, ESV), which does not make the same point. The thought that he is the beginning is kept, because Colossians says it too: "He is the beginning" (Colossians 1:18, ESV).

5. Firstborn of creation, and head of the body. In the form of God: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation," and "he is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15, 17, ESV). In the form of a servant: "he is the head of the body, the church" (Colossians 1:18, ESV).

The Lord of glory

In the form of God he is "the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8, ESV). And from that it is clear that he himself glorifies his saints. "Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:30, ESV).

Of him it is said that he justifies "the ungodly" (Romans 4:5, ESV). Of him it is said that he is "just and the justifier" (Romans 3:26, ESV). So if he has glorified those whom he has justified, then he who justifies is the one who glorifies. And he is, as I said, the Lord of glory.

Yet in the form of a servant he answered his disciples, when they asked about their own glorification, "to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father" (Matthew 20:23, ESV).

What the Father prepares, the Son prepares

What the Father prepares, the Son also prepares, because he and the Father are one. We've seen again and again in the Scriptures that in this Trinity what is said of one is also said of all, because the one substance works indivisibly.

Take the Holy Spirit. The Son says, "if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7, ESV). He doesn't say "we will send." It sounds as if the Son alone sends and the Father doesn't. But he says elsewhere, "the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26, ESV). Here it sounds as though the Father alone sends, and the Son doesn't.

So also with the seats: when he says "for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father," he means that he himself, with the Father, prepares seats of glory for those he chooses.

An objection, and the reply. Someone may say: "In the case of the Spirit, he says he will send him, and doesn't deny that the Father will. In the other place he says the Father will send him, and doesn't deny that he will himself. But here he says outright, 'not mine to grant,' and goes on to say it's prepared by the Father."

That is the very thing we have already said is spoken according to the form of a servant. "Not mine to grant" must be taken like this: "It is not in the power of a man to grant this." In that way he is understood to grant it through the power by which he is God, equal to the Father. "Not mine to grant" means, "I do not give these things by human power." But take care, too, that you grasp this. If "all that the Father has is mine" (John 16:15, ESV), then this is mine too, and I have prepared these things with the Father.

"I do not judge him": the Son's judging

Here is the same question again, from another text. What does he mean when he says, "If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him"? He may mean it the way he meant "not mine to grant." But look at what follows: "for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world" (John 12:47, ESV). And then: "The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day" (John 12:48, ESV).

1. If the judge is the Father... You might think "has a judge" must mean the Father, had he not added, "the word that I have spoken will judge him." So does the Son not judge, and the Father not judge, but only the word the Son has spoken?

2. Listen to what he says next. "For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me" (John 12:49–50, ESV).

3. So the Father judges. If the Son doesn't judge, but "the word that I have spoken" judges, and the word judges because the Son did not speak on his own authority but the Father gave him a commandment on what to say, then it is the Father who judges, whose word the Son has spoken. And yet the Son himself is the very Word of the Father. The commandment of the Father is not one thing and the word of the Father another. Jesus called it both a word and a commandment.

4. What does "not of myself" mean? Let's ask whether "I have not spoken on my own authority" means this: "I am not born of myself." If he speaks the Father's word, then he speaks himself, because he is the Father's Word. Often he says, "the Father gave me." He means that the Father begat him. He doesn't mean the Father gave something to a Son who already existed and had nothing. To give, so that he might have, means to beget, so that he might be.

5. The difference from a creature. With the creature, one thing is what it is and another thing is what it has. But the only-begotten, through whom all things were made, was before he took our flesh just what he has. This is said most plainly, if you can take it, in the text: "as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). The Father didn't give life to a Son who already existed without it, because the Son, in that he is, is life. So "he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" means, "he begat the Son to be unchangeable life, which is eternal life."

6. The Word is the commandment, and the commandment is life. The Word of God is the Son of God. And the Son of God is, as John says in his letter, "the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20, ESV). So when the Lord says, "the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day," and calls that very word the Father's word and the Father's commandment, and says "I know that his commandment is eternal life" (John 12:50, ESV), what should we recognise but the Son himself?

Judging and not judging

So how do we understand "I do not judge him; the word that I have spoken will judge him"? It looks as if he were saying, "I will not judge, but the Word of the Father will judge." But the Word of the Father is the Son of God himself. Does it mean, "I will not judge, and I will judge"? How can that be true? Only in this way: "I will not judge by human power, because I am the Son of man. But I will judge by the power of the Word, because I am the Son of God."

If that still seems a contradiction, look at another text: "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John 7:16, ESV). How can it be "my teaching" and "not mine"? Notice that he didn't say "this teaching is not mine." He said, "My teaching is not mine." The very thing he called his own he called not his own. How can that be true unless he calls it his own in one respect and not his own in another? In the form of God it is his own. In the form of a servant it is not his own. When he says, "it is not mine but his who sent me," he sends us back to the Word himself. For the Father's teaching is the Father's Word, the only Son.

"Whoever believes in me, believes not in me"

And what does this mean: "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me" (John 12:44, ESV)? How can you believe in him and not believe in him? It is a contradiction, unless you take it in this way. Whoever believes in me doesn't believe in what he sees. That would put our hope in a creature. He believes in the one who took the creature, so that he might appear to human eyes and so cleanse our hearts by faith to gaze on himself as equal to the Father.

So when he turns the attention of believers to the Father, he is certainly not saying that he is separate from the Father. He means that people should believe in him as they believe in the Father, to whom he is equal. He says it outright elsewhere: "Believe in God; believe also in me" (John 14:1, ESV). In the same way that you believe in God, believe also in me, because the Father and I are one God.

In the one place he seems to draw the faith of people away from himself and send it to the Father. Yet he didn't separate himself from the Father. In the same way, when he speaks of a seat that is "not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father" (Matthew 20:23, ESV), it is plain how both statements are to be taken. And the same applies to "I do not judge." For he himself will judge the living and the dead (he is the one who will judge the living and the dead; compare Acts 10:42, an editor's cross-reference).

But he won't do it by human power. So he turns back to the Godhead, and lifts the hearts of men upward. And it was to lift them up that he himself came down.

Chapter 13: One Christ, Two Natures, and Why the Father "Judges No One"

Different things are said about the same Christ, because the one person has two natures. And why it is said that the Father will not judge, but has given judgment to the Son.

1. The Lord of glory was crucified

Let me begin with a point that holds everything else together. The very same person who is the Son of God, on account of the form of God in which he is, is also the Son of man, on account of the form of a servant which he took. If that were not so, Paul would never have said of the rulers of this world, "None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8, ESV).

Think about what Paul has done there. Christ was crucified in the form of a servant. And yet it is "the Lord of glory" who was crucified. That is because the taking of the servant's form was of such a kind that it made God man, and man God.

Now, which thing is said on account of which nature, and which according to which, is something the thoughtful, careful and devout reader will work out for himself, with the Lord's help. I have given you the rule. Let me show you how it works.

We have said that Christ glorifies his own people as God, and so certainly as the Lord of glory. And yet the Lord of glory was crucified. The reason is that even God is rightly said to have been crucified, not according to the power of his divinity, but according to the weakness of his flesh.

2. In the same way, he judges as God, and yet the man will judge

We say the same about judgment. He judges as God, that is, by divine power and not by human power. And yet the man himself will judge, just as the Lord of glory was crucified. He says so in plain words: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations" (Matthew 25:31–32, ESV). The rest of what he foretells there about the future judgment runs on to the last sentence.

3. The wicked will see the Judge, but not the form of God

Now think about who will be looking at him on that day. Good and bad alike will see the Judge of the living and the dead. And the Jews, since they will be punished in that judgment for persisting in their wickedness, will do what is written elsewhere: "They will look on him whom they have pierced" (John 19:37, ESV).

So the Jews, and all the ungodly who persist in their wickedness, will be punished in that judgment, and they will see him. But what will they see? Without doubt the bad will be able to see him only in the form in which he is the Son of man. They will see him in the glory with which he judges, not in the lowliness in which he was judged.

They will not see that form of God in which he is equal to the Father. Why not? Because they are not pure in heart. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8, ESV). And that sight is "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). It is the very sight promised as the highest reward of the just. It will come when he "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" (1 Corinthians 15:24, ESV).

By "kingdom" there, Christ means that the sight of his own form is also to be understood. All creation will then be made subject to God, including that creature in which the Son of God became the Son of man. Paul goes on: "then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28, ESV). The Son is subject in that creature, the human nature he took.

Consider the alternative. Suppose the Son of God, judging in the form in which he is equal to the Father, appeared to the ungodly as well. Then what would become of that promise which he makes as something great to the person who loves him? "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21, ESV). If he showed himself to everyone in that form, there would be nothing special in the promise.

Here is how it fits together, then. He will judge as the Son of man, and yet not by human power but by the power by which he is the Son of God. And he will judge as the Son of God, and yet he will not appear in that form in which he is God, equal to the Father. He will appear in the form in which he is the Son of man.

4. So two things can be said, and both are true

You can see now that both ways of speaking may be used. The Son of man will judge, and the Son of man will not judge.

1. The Son of man will judge. This keeps true the text which says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory ... Before him will be gathered all the nations" (Matthew 25:31–32, ESV).

2. The Son of man will not judge. This keeps true the text which says, "If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him" (John 12:47, ESV), and, "I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge" (John 8:50, ESV).

So in what sense does the Father himself not judge? Here it is. In the judgment it is not the form of God that will appear, but the form of the Son of man. In respect of that, the Father will not judge. That is the meaning of the words, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22, ESV).

5. Two ways the "giving" might be understood

When the Son says that the Father "has given" judgment to him, there are two ways to take the word "given." Either one will do for my argument.

The first way. The word may be used as it was when Jesus said, "as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). As we saw earlier, that "giving" means that the Father begat the Son. It is not that the Son once lacked life and then received it. It is that the Son is from the Father.

The second way. The word may be used as Paul uses it when he speaks of the Son of man: "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9, ESV). In that case the "giving" is said of the Son of man. In respect to him the Son of God was raised from the dead.

Let me explain why that is possible. The Son, being in the form of God, equal to the Father, "emptied himself" by taking the form of a servant. In that same form of a servant he acts and suffers and receives. Paul tells us what he received: "he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:8–11, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "emptied himself" in Philippians 2:7 and "in the Glory of God the Father" at the end. The ESV has "made himself nothing" and "to the glory of God the Father." The meaning is unchanged.

6. Why it cannot be the first meaning in this place

Whichever of the two meanings is meant by "he has committed all judgment to the Son," one thing is clear from the passage. It cannot be the first meaning, the one in "he has granted the Son also to have life in himself," when the Lord says, "The Father judges no one."

Here is the reason. In respect of this, that the Father has begotten the Son equal to himself, the Father judges with the Son. So when the text says the Father judges no one, it cannot be speaking of the Son's being begotten. It must be speaking of something else, that in the judgment, not the form of God, but the form of the Son of man will appear.

I do not mean that the Father will not judge, when he has given all judgment to the Son. The Son himself says of the Father, "there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge" (John 8:50, ESV). What the text means is something like this: no one will see the Father in the judgment of the living and the dead, but all will see the Son. The Son is also the Son of man, so he can be seen even by the ungodly. They too shall see him whom they have pierced.

7. Proof from the Lord's own words

Now I don't want you to think I am merely guessing at this. So let me produce a plain statement of the Lord himself, which shows that this is the very reason he said, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son."

The reason is that he will appear as Judge in the form of the Son of man. That is not the form of the Father. It is the form of the Son. And it is not that form of the Son in which he is equal to the Father, but the form in which he is less than the Father. He will appear in that form so that in the judgment he may be visible to the good and to the bad alike.

Follow his own words in order.

1. A little later he says: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life" (John 5:24, ESV). Now this eternal life is that very sight which does not belong to the bad.

2. Then he goes on: "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (John 5:25, ESV). This belongs to the godly alone. They hear of his coming in the flesh in such a way that they believe him to be the Son of God. They take him as one made, for their sake, less than the Father, in the form of a servant, and they believe him equal to the Father in the form of God.

3. Next he presses the very point: "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV).

4. Then he comes to the sight of his own glory, in which he will come to judgment. That sight will be common to the ungodly and the just. He says: "And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man" (John 5:27, ESV).

I think nothing could be clearer. As the Son of God, equal to the Father, he does not receive the power of judging. He has it with the Father, in secret. But he does receive it, so that the good and the bad may see him judging as the Son of man. For the sight of the Son of man will be shown to the bad too. The sight of the form of God will be shown only to the pure in heart, "for they shall see God." That is, it will be shown only to the godly, to whose love he promises this very thing, that he will show himself to them.

8. "Do not marvel at this"

See what he says next, and notice it carefully. "Do not marvel at this" (John 5:28, ESV).

Why does he tell us not to marvel? Because, in truth, everyone marvels who does not understand why the Father gave him authority to execute judgment "because he is the Son of Man." You would have expected him to say, "because he is the Son of God."

But the wicked are not able to see the Son of God as he is in the form of God, equal to the Father. Yet both the just and the wicked must see the Judge of the living and the dead, when they are judged in his presence. So he says: "Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28–29, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "the resurrection of damnation." The ESV has "the resurrection of judgment." Both words refer to the condemnation of the wicked, and the ESV is printed here.

For this purpose, then, he had to receive that power, because he is the Son of man. All who rise again must see him in the form in which he can be seen by all. Some will see him to their condemnation, and others to eternal life.

9. And what is eternal life?

What is eternal life, if it is not that sight which is not granted to the ungodly? "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV).

How are the righteous to know Jesus Christ himself? As the one true God, who will show himself to them. They will not know him merely as he will show himself in the form of the Son of man to those who are also to be punished. That sight is common to all. The other is for the pure in heart alone.

10. Why only God is called "good"

There is one more matter, and it follows from all of this. The question is why the Lord answered the man who called him "Good Teacher."

First, the sense in which he is "good" is this. He is good according to that sight by which God appears to the pure in heart. "Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart" (Psalm 73:1, ESV).

But when the wicked see the Judge, he will not seem good to them. They will not rejoice in their hearts to see him. Instead, "all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him" (Revelation 1:7, ESV). They will wail as people who are numbered among the wicked and unbelieving.

This is the reason, I believe, why he answered the man who had called him good and who came seeking advice on how to reach eternal life. The man asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 18:18, ESV). The Lord replied, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19, ESV). In Matthew the same exchange is put like this (it is this form that my argument below, about "ask me about good," rests on): "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good" (Matthew 19:17, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Matthew 19:17 ended "that is, God." The ESV leaves the one who is good unnamed in Matthew and names him in Luke ("God alone"). The sense is the same in both.

Yet the Lord himself, elsewhere, calls a man good: "The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil" (Matthew 12:35, ESV). So he is not denying that any man can be good in any sense. What was happening in that conversation?

1. The man was seeking eternal life.
2. Eternal life consists in that contemplation in which God is seen, not for punishment but for everlasting joy.
3. He did not understand whom he was speaking to. He thought Jesus was only the Son of man.

So, as I read it, Jesus' reply runs like this: "Why do you ask me about the good? That is, with respect to the form you can see, why do you ask me about the good, and call me good according to what you see? That is the form of the Son of man, the form that has been taken. It is the form that will appear in judgment, not only to the righteous but also to the ungodly. And the sight of that form will not be for good to those who are wicked. But there is a sight of that other form of mine, the form in which I was when I thought it no robbery to be equal with God. In order to take this form I emptied myself."

Editor's note: The words in this paragraph are Augustine's own expansion of the Lord's reply, not a quotation. His "robbery" is the older English for what the ESV renders "a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV).

11. The one God is alone good

Now put it together. That one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, will not appear except for a joy which cannot be taken away from the just. That is the joy David sighs for: "One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD" (Psalm 27:4, ESV).

That one God is alone good, for this reason: no one sees him with sorrow and wailing, but only with salvation and true joy. So if you understand me by that latter form, then I am good. But if you take me only by the former, then why do you ask me about good?

If you are among those who "look on him whom they have pierced" (John 19:37, ESV), that very sight will be evil for you, because it will be a sight that punishes.

12. The sight that is our chief good

I think the explanation is probable, on the proofs I have given. Let me gather them. There is a sight of God by which we shall contemplate the unchangeable substance of God, invisible to human eyes. It is promised to the saints alone. Consider how Scripture speaks of it.

1. Paul calls it "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).
2. John says of it, "when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).
3. The psalmist says, "to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD" (Psalm 27:4, ESV).
4. The Lord himself says, "I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21, ESV).
5. It is the only reason we cleanse our hearts by faith, so that we may be among "the pure in heart" who are blessed, "for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8, ESV).

And whatever else is said of that sight, anyone who turns the eye of love to look for it will find it most richly scattered through the whole of Scripture.

That sight alone, I say, is our chief good. Everything we do aright, we are directed to do in order to reach it.

13. The sight of the Son of man is not that chief good

But the other sight, the sight of the Son of man, is a different thing. It is foretold for the time when all nations will be gathered before him, and will say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?" (Matthew 25:37, ESV). That sight will not be a good to the ungodly, who are to be sent into everlasting fire. And it will not be the chief good for the righteous either. He still has more to say to these, and he calls them into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

For as he will say to the one group, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41, ESV), so he will say to the other, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34, ESV). And as those go away into everlasting punishment, "the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:46, ESV).

But what is eternal life, except "that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV)? And notice what kind of knowing this is. It is to know him now in that glory of which he says to the Father, "the glory that I had with you before the world existed" (John 17:5, ESV).

14. The kingdom delivered up, the good servant, the hidden ones

For then he will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. Then the good servant will enter into the joy of his Lord: "Well done, good and faithful servant ... Enter into the joy of your master" (Matthew 25:21, ESV). And then he will hide those whom God keeps in the cover of his countenance, away from the confusion of men. The confusion I mean is that of the men who will be put to shame by hearing the sentence I have just quoted. Of that evil hearing (in Augustine's text, "the righteous man shall not be afraid"), if only he is kept safe in "the tabernacle," that is, in the true faith of the Catholic Church, away from "the strife of tongues," that is, from the sophistries of heretics. The psalms say it this way: "In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues" (Psalm 31:20, ESV). And again, "He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD" (Psalm 112:7, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's "tabernacle" is the word in his Latin of Psalm 31:20. The ESV has "shelter," and in Psalm 112:7 "bad news" where he has "evil hearing." The ESV wording is printed, and his sense of the Church as the tent that guards the believer is kept in the comment above.

15. If there is another explanation

Last, I should say this. Perhaps there is some other way to explain the Lord's words, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good" (Matthew 19:17, ESV). If so, I am glad to use it. I ask only two things of any explanation. It must not make the substance of the Father to be of greater goodness than that of the Son, by whom, as the Word, all things were made. And it must contain nothing that is out of line with sound doctrine.

Provided those are kept, let us use not just one explanation, but as many as we can find. The more ways out we have open for avoiding the heretics' snares, the more powerfully they are shown to be wrong.

That finishes what I had to say about the texts where the Son seems less than the Father. Let us now start afresh, and take up what still remains.

Book Two: The Equality of the Trinity Defended Against Objections From the Sending of the Son and the Spirit

In this book Augustine continues to defend the equality of the Trinity. He will take up the texts that speak of the Son and the Holy Spirit being "sent," and he will show that the one who is sent is not less than the one who sends. The Trinity is equal in all things, unchangeable, invisible and present everywhere, and it works as one in every sending and every appearance of God.

Chapter 1: A Word Before We Begin, and a Rule for Reading

A preface on how to treat those who err, followed by the double rule for understanding what Scripture says about the Son of God. The Bible's way of speaking about him is of three kinds.

A word before we begin

Let me say something first about the people I'm writing for, and about myself.

When someone sets out to know God, and bends his mind as far as human weakness allows toward understanding the Trinity, he soon finds the work wearisome. Sometimes the trouble is in the seeing itself, because the mind is straining to look at "unapproachable light" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV). Sometimes the trouble is in the many different ways the sacred writings speak. I think those ways are there to give the mind a rough workout, so that it will find sweetness when it is glorified by the grace of Christ.

Now here is my point. A man who has worked through the confusion and arrived at something certain ought to be the first to show patience toward those who go wrong in so deep a matter. He has been where they are.

Two faults that are hard to bear

When people are in error, two things are especially hard to put up with.

1. Rushing to a conclusion before the truth is clear. This is hasty assumption.

2. Defending the falsehood after the truth has been made clear. This is stubbornness, and it is worse.

Both of these are enemies of finding the truth, and both are enemies of handling the holy books rightly. I pray, and I hope, that God will cover me with the shield of his good will and the grace of his mercy, and keep me from them. If he does, I will not be slow to search out the substance of God, whether through his Scripture or through his creation. Both are set before us for the same purpose: that God himself may be sought and loved, who inspired the one and made the other.

Why I'm not afraid to say what I think

I will not be afraid to give my opinion. I would far rather have it examined by upright people than be afraid of being picked at by the perverse. Love, which is the best of all things and makes no show, gladly receives the eye of a dove. But the tooth of a dog is a different matter. There are only two things to do with it: avoid it by the most careful humility, or blunt it by the most solid truth.

And I would much rather be criticized by anyone at all than be praised by the mistaken or the flatterer. A lover of truth has nobody's criticism to fear, because the one who criticizes must be either an enemy or a friend. If an enemy abuses me, I'll put up with it. If a friend is wrong, he must be taught. If he teaches me, I must listen. But if someone in error praises you, he confirms you in your error. If someone flatters you, he leads you into error.

So I take the psalmist's words as my own: "Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head" (Psalm 141:5, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text ran on from this line to read, "but the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head," which is how he sets the righteous man's rebuke against the flatterer. The ESV words differ here, so only the first part is quoted; Augustine's meaning is carried in the lines above.

The rule we start from

Now to the subject. Let me remind you of the settled rule we already hold about our Lord Jesus Christ. It runs all through the Scriptures, and learned, Catholic interpreters of those Scriptures have shown it to be so. Here it is: the Son of God is equal to the Father according to the form of God in which he exists, and he is less than the Father according to the form of a servant which he took.

Notice how far that goes. In that form of a servant he is less than the Father, and less than the Holy Spirit too. More than that, he is less than himself. I don't mean less than himself as he was. I mean less than himself as he is. For when he took the form of a servant he did not lose the form of God. We saw the testimonies of Scripture for this in the previous book.

Some texts could go either way

Yet there are passages in the sacred text that are put in such a way that it isn't clear which rule applies. There are two possibilities.

1. The Son is less, because he took the creature upon himself.

2. The Son is not less but equal, yet he is from the Father: God of God, Light of Light.

Think about how we speak. We call the Son "God of God." But we call the Father "God," and no more than that. We do not say "of God." So it is clear that the Son has someone he is from, and someone he is Son to. But the Father does not have a Son he is from. He has a Son he is Father to.

That is just how it works with any father and son. Every son is what he is from his father, and is son to his father. But no father is what he is from his son. He is father to his son.

Three kinds of texts

So there are three ways Scripture speaks of the Father and the Son. Let me set them out.

1. Texts that show their unity and equality of substance. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). And "though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV). There are others like these.

2. Texts that show the Son as less, on account of the form of a servant. I mean the taking on of a changeable, human creature. "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV) is one. Another is "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22, ESV). A little further on he adds that the Father "has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man" (John 5:27, ESV).

3. Texts that show him neither as less nor as equal, but only that he is from the Father. "As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). And, "the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19, ESV).

Why the third kind cannot be about the servant's form

Let me stay with that last text, because it is where people most easily go wrong. Suppose we said the Son "can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" is spoken because the Son is less in the form taken from the creature. Then look where that leads.

It would mean the Father must have walked on the sea before the Son did. It would mean the Father must have anointed the eyes of some other man born blind with mud made of spittle. And so on, with all the other things the Son did among men in the flesh. The Father would have to have done every one of them first, so that the Son could then do what he had seen the Father do. That is what it would take for the Son to be unable to do anything of himself, except what he has seen the Father do.

Who, even if he were out of his mind, would think that? So that reading can't be right.

What the text really means

This is what remains, and it is the right reading. These words are spoken because the Son's life is as unchangeable as the Father's. And yet he is from the Father. The Father and the Son work indivisibly. And yet the Son has been given to work by the one he is from, that is, by the Father. The Son sees the Father in such a way that his seeing is itself his being the Son.

Let me put it plainly. For him to be of the Father, that is, to be born of the Father, is nothing other than to see the Father. And for him to see the Father working is nothing other than to work with him. But he does not work from himself, because he is not from himself.

So here is what Jesus means: "For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise" (John 5:19, ESV). The Son does these things because he is of the Father.

Notice two details in that sentence.

1. He does not do other things the way a painter does. A painter paints a new picture after looking at pictures that another man has painted. That is not what the Son does.

2. He does not do the same things in a different way. The body writes out the same letters the mind has thought, but in another form. That is not what the Son does either.

Editor's note: In the translation Augustine used, the verse reads, "whatsoever things the Father doeth, these same things also doeth the Son likewise," and he leans on both "these same things" and "likewise." The ESV has "whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." The ESV keeps the idea of "likewise" but has only a single "that," so Augustine's emphasis on the doubled expression is kept in the discussion here.

Jesus said "these same things," and he said "likewise." Put those together and you can see that the working of the Father and the Son is indivisible and equal. Yet it runs from the Father to the Son.

So the Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing. That is to say, he is the Son, and the Son is from the Father.

Why this matters for you

Look at what has happened. Some people have taken the rule that Scripture sometimes speaks in order to show which one is from which, and they have drawn from it that the Son is being called less. That is a mistake.

Some among our own people are more unlearned and less well taught in these matters. They try to read these texts according to the form of a servant, and so they misread them. Then they are troubled. To prevent this, hold on to the rule. In these texts the Son is not said to be less. All that is being said is that he is of the Father. What is declared is not his inequality but his birth.

Chapter 2: When a Text Could Be Read Either Way

That some ways of speaking about the Son are to be understood according to either rule. Augustine has just given us two keys for reading Scripture about Christ. Here he deals with the verses that seem to fit both.

A third group of texts

You will remember the two rules I have been working with. Some texts speak of the Son as less than the Father, and those speak of him in "the form of a servant," the human nature he took. Other texts speak of the Son as equal to the Father, and those speak of him in "the form of God." A third kind of text shows neither inequality nor equality. It simply tells us that the Son is of the Father.

Now I face a practical problem. What do we do with a verse when we can't tell which rule it belongs to?

1. Where it can't be decided, either reading is safe

Here is what I think. There are some places in the sacred books where it is doubtful which rule applies. Is the Son called less here because he took on a created nature? Or is he equal here, and we are only being told that he is from the Father? If the matter is really so uncertain that no one can settle it, then I see no danger in understanding the passage by either rule.

Take the Lord's words: "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John 7:16, ESV). You can take that according to the form of a servant, as we handled it in the earlier book. Or you can take it according to the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father and yet is of the Father.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "My doctrine is not mine." The ESV has "My teaching." The sense is the same, and the ESV is printed here. In the explanation below, Augustine's word "doctrine" is kept, because his argument is about what the Son's teaching is.

2. In the form of God, his doctrine is himself

Let me show you how the second reading works. In the form of God, the Son does not have a life that is one thing while he himself is another. The life itself is the Son. In the same way, he does not have a doctrine that is one thing while he himself is another. The doctrine itself is the Son.

Now follow this carefully. Think of what Jesus says in another place: "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). That cannot mean anything other than this: the Father has begotten the Son, who is life.

So it is exactly the same when we are told that the Father gave doctrine to the Son. It can rightly be understood to mean that the Father begot the Son, who is doctrine. And then "My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me" comes to mean this: I am not from myself, but from him who sent me.

Do you see what has happened? A verse that sounded as if it made the Son smaller turns out to say something quite different. It does not say the Son is less. It says where the Son comes from.

Chapter 3: What the Spirit Says About Himself Follows the Same Rule

Some things said about the Holy Spirit are to be understood according to the one rule only.

The Spirit does not speak "from himself"

Think about the Holy Spirit. Of him it is never said, "he made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." Yet the Lord says of him, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13–14, ESV).

Now notice that the Lord went on at once to say something more: "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:15, ESV). Without that, someone might have thought the Holy Spirit was born of Christ in the way Christ is born of the Father. After all, of himself the Lord had said, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John 7:16, ESV), and of the Spirit he says, "he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak."

But the Lord gives the reason for what he says. He says he will take "what is mine" because "all that the Father has is mine." So the right way to understand it is this: the Holy Spirit has from the Father what the Son also has from the Father.

How can that be?

How can this be, if not in the way we have already seen? Hear the Lord again: "when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me" (John 15:26, ESV).

So the Spirit is said not to speak "on his own authority" because he proceeds from the Father. In the same way it does not follow that the Son is less because he says, "the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19, ESV). He did not say that according to the form of a servant but according to the form of God, as we have already shown. Those words don't set him forth as less than the Father. They show that he is of the Father. And so it doesn't follow that the Holy Spirit is less, because of the words "he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak." They are said of him as proceeding from the Father.

A question I will leave for another place

That raises a question. The Son is of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. So why are they not both called sons, and both said to be begotten? Why is the one called the only-begotten Son, while the Holy Spirit is neither son nor begotten? If he were begotten, he would surely be a son. I will take that up in another place, if God grants it, and so far as he grants it.

Chapter 4: Being Glorified Does Not Make the Son Less

The Father's glorifying of the Son does not prove inequality.

"Father, glorify me"

Here too let those wake up who think they have found a text on their side to prove that the Father is greater than the Son. They say it is because the Son says, "glorify your Son" (John 17:1, ESV).

But the Holy Spirit also glorifies him. Is the Spirit, then, greater than the Son too?

Following the glory around the circle

Think it through. The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son because "he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14, ESV). And he takes what is the Son's because "all that the Father has is mine" (John 16:15, ESV). So when the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son, the Father glorifies the Son.

From this we can see that all things that the Father has belong not only to the Son but also to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is able to glorify the Son, whom the Father glorifies.

Now suppose that whoever glorifies is greater than the one he glorifies. Then those who glorify each other must be equal. And Scripture also says that the Son glorifies the Father: "I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do" (John 17:4, ESV).

Let them be careful, then, or they will end up thinking the Holy Spirit is greater than both. He glorifies the Son whom the Father glorifies. And yet it is nowhere written that he himself is glorified by the Father or by the Son.

Chapter 5: "Sent" Does Not Mean "Less"

The Son and the Holy Spirit are not less because they are sent. The Son is sent also by himself. On the sending of the Holy Spirit.

The next objection

Beaten back thus far, people turn to another argument. They say that the one who sends is greater than the one who is sent. So the Father is greater than the Son, because the Son keeps saying that he has been sent by the Father. And the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, because Jesus says of the Spirit, "whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26, ESV). The Holy Spirit is less than both, because both the Father sends him, as we have said, and the Son, who says, "if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7, ESV).

1. Where was the Son sent from, and where to?

I ask first: from where was the Son sent, and to where? He says, "I came from the Father and have come into the world" (John 16:28, ESV). So to be sent is to come out from the Father and to come into the world.

Now what does the same evangelist say about him? "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him." And then: "He came to his own" (John 1:10–11, ESV). Surely he was sent to the place he came to. But if he was sent into the world because he came from the Father, then he both came into the world and was in the world. He was sent, then, to where he already was.

Consider also what the Lord says by the prophet: "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" (Jeremiah 23:24, ESV). If that is said of the Son (and some insist that the Son himself spoke by or in the prophets), where was he sent to, except to the place where he already was? He who says "I fill heaven and earth" was everywhere.

But suppose it is said of the Father. Where could he be without his own Word and his own Wisdom, which "reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and orders all things well"? And he cannot be anywhere without his own Spirit. So if God is everywhere, his Spirit is everywhere too. And so the Holy Spirit was also sent to where he already was.

Editor's note: The quotation about Wisdom is from the Wisdom of Solomon (8:1), which is not in the ESV, so no ESV wording can be given. Augustine's sense is kept.

The psalmist finds no place to go from the presence of God, and says, "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7, ESV). He wants us to understand that God is present everywhere, and he names God's Spirit in the verse just before the one about heaven and Sheol. "If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Psalm 139:8, ESV).

2. What it means for the Son to be "sent"

So both the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent to where they already were. Then we must ask how that sending is to be understood, whether of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. Of the Father alone we nowhere read that he is sent.

Of the Son the apostle writes, "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Galatians 4:4–5, ESV). "He sent his Son, born of woman." And by the word "woman," what Catholic doesn't know that Paul did not mean to say she had lost her virginity? He is speaking, in the Hebrew way, of the difference of sex.

So when Paul says "God sent forth his Son, born of woman," he shows well enough that the Son was "sent" in just this way: by being born of a woman. In that he was born of God, he was in the world. In that he was born of Mary, he was sent and came into the world.

Nor could the Father send him without the Holy Spirit. The Father, when he sent him, that is, when he made him of a woman, did not make him without his own Spirit. And the Gospel says it plainly. When Mary asked the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" the answer was, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:34–35, ESV). Matthew says she "was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:18, ESV). And in the prophet Isaiah, Christ himself is understood to speak of his own coming: "And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit" (Isaiah 48:16, ESV).

3. "Then the Son sent himself!"

Perhaps someone will try to push us further and say that the Son was sent also by himself. For the conceiving and bearing of Mary is the work of the Trinity, by whose act everything created is created. "And how," he will go on, "did the Father send him, if he sent himself?"

I answer by asking him a question first. Tell me, if you can, how the Father consecrated him, if he consecrated himself. The same Lord says both. "Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?" (John 10:36, ESV). And in another place he says, "for their sake I consecrate myself" (John 17:19, ESV).

I ask also how the Father gave him up, if he gave himself up. Paul says both. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Romans 8:32, ESV), and elsewhere, of the Savior himself, "the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, ESV).

If he has a right understanding of these things, he will reply, "Because the will of the Father and the Son is one, and their working indivisible." So let him understand the incarnation and the birth from the Virgin in the same way. In this the Son is understood to be sent, and it was wrought by one and the same working of the Father and the Son, indivisibly. The Holy Spirit is not shut out of it either, for it is expressly said that she "was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit."

4. How did God send his Son?

Perhaps my meaning will be clearer if we ask how God sent his Son. He commanded that he should come, and the Son, obeying the command, came. Did the Father request it, or only suggest it? Whichever it was, it was certainly done by a word, and the Word of God is the Son of God himself.

So since the Father sent him by a word, his being sent was the work of both the Father and his Word. The same Son, then, was sent by the Father and by the Son, because the Son himself is the Word of the Father.

For who would hold so wicked an opinion as to think the Father spoke a word in time, so that the eternal Son might be sent by it and appear in the flesh in the fullness of time? Surely it was in that Word itself, which was in the beginning with God and was God, that is, in the very wisdom of God, outside of time, that it was settled at what time that wisdom would appear in the flesh.

Since, then, the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, without any beginning of time, it was in the Word itself, without any time, that it was settled when the Word would become flesh and dwell among us. And when the fullness of time came, "God sent forth his Son, born of woman" (Galatians 4:4, ESV). That is, he was made in time, so that the incarnate Word might appear to men. But in that Word himself, outside of time, it was settled when this would be done. For the order of times is in the eternal wisdom of God, without time.

5. Why the one who appears is called "sent"

That the Son should appear in the flesh was worked by both the Father and the Son. So it is fitting to say that he who appeared in that flesh was sent, and that he who did not appear in it sent him. Things done outwardly before the eyes of the body come from the inner structure of the spiritual nature, and for that reason they are fitly said to be "sent."

Further, the human form he took is the person of the Son, not also of the Father. So the invisible Father, together with the Son, who is invisible with the Father, is said to have sent the same Son by making him visible.

Suppose he had become visible in such a way as to stop being invisible with the Father. That is, suppose the substance of the invisible Word had been turned by change and passage into a visible creature. Then the Son would be understood to be sent by the Father in such a way that he would be found only sent, and not also, with the Father, sending.

But he took the form of a servant so that the unchangeable form of God remained. So it is clear that what became visible in the Son was done by the Father and the Son, who did not become visible. That is, by the invisible Father, with the invisible Son, the same Son himself was sent so as to be visible.

Why, then, does he say, "I came not of my own accord" (John 8:42, ESV)? We can now say that this is said according to the form of a servant, in the same way as "I judge no one" (John 8:15, ESV).

6. And so with the Holy Spirit

If the Son is said to be sent because he appeared outwardly in the bodily creature, while inwardly in his spiritual nature he is always hidden from mortal eyes, it is now easy to understand why the Holy Spirit too is said to be sent.

In due time a certain outward appearance of the creature was made, in which the Holy Spirit could be shown visibly. It was either when he came down upon the Lord himself in bodily form as a dove, or on the day of Pentecost, when "there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind" and "divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them" (Acts 2:2–3, ESV).

That working, visibly shown and set before mortal eyes, is called the sending of the Holy Spirit. It does not mean that his very substance appeared, in which he too is invisible and unchangeable, like the Father and the Son. It means that the hearts of men, touched by what they saw outwardly, might be turned from his coming in time to his hidden eternity, where he is always present.

Chapter 6: The Flesh the Word Took, and the Dove and the Fire

The creature is not taken up by the Holy Spirit as flesh is taken up by the Word.

Why the Spirit is never called less than the Father

This is why it is nowhere written that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, or that the Holy Spirit is less than God the Father. The creature in which the Holy Spirit was to appear was not taken in the same way as the Son of man was taken, as the form in which the very person of the Word of God would be set forth.

Think of it like this. The Son did not simply possess the word of God, as other holy and wise men have possessed it. The Scripture says of him that he is "beyond your companions" (Psalm 45:7, ESV; Hebrews 1:9, ESV; the reference is the editor's). Not that he had the word more than they, as if he were wiser than the rest, but that he was the very Word himself.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "above his fellows". The ESV has "beyond your companions". The sense is the same, and the ESV is printed.

For the word in the flesh is one thing, and the Word made flesh is another. The word in man is one thing, and the Word who is man is another. In Scripture "flesh" stands for "man," as in "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14, ESV) and "all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Luke 3:6, ESV). That does not mean flesh without soul and without mind. "All flesh" is the same as saying every man.

Why the dove and the fire are not like the flesh of Christ

The creature in which the Holy Spirit appeared was not taken up as flesh and human form were taken from the Virgin Mary. The Spirit did not make the dove, or the wind, or the fire blessed, and join them forever to himself and to his person in unity and "fashion" (an echo of Philippians 2:7: his Latin text has "found in fashion as a man," where the ESV has "human form").

Nor is the nature of the Holy Spirit changeable, as if those things were not made out of the creature but he himself were turned and changed first into one and then into another, as water is changed into ice. They appeared at the times they should have appeared. The creature served the Creator and was changed and turned at the command of the one who remains unchanged in himself. It was to signify and show him in the way fit for him to be signified and shown to mortal men.

We can't say "God and a dove" the way we say "God and man"

Although that dove is called the Spirit, and of the fire it says "divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:3–4, ESV), in order to show that the Spirit was shown by that fire as by the dove, we cannot call the Holy Spirit both God and a dove, or both God and fire, in the way we call the Son both God and man.

Nor can we call him that in the way we call the Son the Lamb of God. John the Baptist says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29, ESV), and John the Evangelist sees the Lamb slain in the Revelation: "I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6, ESV).

That prophetic vision was not shown to bodily eyes through bodily forms. It was shown in the spirit, through spiritual images of bodily things. But whoever saw that dove and that fire saw them with their eyes.

How was the fire seen?

It may perhaps be disputed whether the fire was seen by the eyes or in the spirit, because of the way the sentence is worded. The text does not say "they saw divided tongues as of fire." It says they "appeared to them." We don't usually use "it appeared to me" with the same meaning as "I saw." In spiritual visions of bodily images the usual expressions are both "it appeared to me" and "I saw." But in things shown to the eyes through real bodily forms, the common expression is not "it appeared to me," but "I saw."

So a question may be raised about that fire: was it seen inwardly in the spirit, as if outwardly, or really outwardly before the eyes of the flesh? But about the dove, which is said to have come down "in bodily form" (Luke 3:22, ESV), no one has ever doubted that it was seen by the eyes.

The Rock, and the things that came into being only to signify

Nor can we call the Spirit a dove or fire in the way we call the Son a Rock, since it is written, "the Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4, ESV). That rock was a thing already created, and by the way it was used it was called by the name of Christ, whom it signified. It was like the stone Jacob put under his head and anointed, which he took to signify the Lord (Genesis 28:18, ESV). Or it was like Isaac, who was Christ in a figure when he carried the wood for the sacrifice of himself (Genesis 22:6, ESV).

In those cases a particular act of signifying was added to things that already existed. They did not suddenly come into being just to signify, as the dove and the fire did.

The dove and the fire seem to me more like the flame that appeared to Moses in the bush (Exodus 3:2, ESV), or the pillar the people followed in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21, ESV), or the thunders and lightnings when the Law was given on the mountain (Exodus 19:16, ESV). The bodily form of these things came into being for the very purpose of signifying something, and then passing away.

Chapter 7: A Doubt About the Appearances of God

A doubt raised about divine appearances.

Why isn't the Father said to be "sent" too?

So the Holy Spirit is also said to be sent, on account of those bodily forms that came into being in time, to signify him and show him as he had to be shown to human senses. Yet he is not said to be less than the Father, as the Son is said to be because he was in the form of a servant. The form of a servant was joined to the unity of the Son's person. But those bodily forms appeared for a time, to show what had to be shown, and then ceased to be.

But then why is the Father not also said to be sent through those bodily forms: the fire of the bush, the pillar of cloud or fire, the lightnings on the mountain, and whatever else of the kind appeared at that time? Scripture teaches us that at those times he spoke "face to face" with the fathers (compare Exodus 33:11, which speaks of Moses). If he himself was shown by those forms of the creature, as set before human sight in bodily form, why was he not sent?

And if the Son was shown by them, why is he said to be sent so long afterward, when he was made of a woman, as the apostle says, "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman" (Galatians 4:4, ESV)? He was also sent before, when he appeared to the fathers by those changeable forms of the creature.

Or if he can rightly be called sent only when the Word was made flesh, why is the Holy Spirit said to be sent, when no such incarnation was ever worked in him? And if it was neither the Father nor the Son but the Holy Spirit who was shown by those visible things set before us in the Law and the prophets, why is he said to be sent now, when he was sent also before in those ways?

How I will go about answering this

In the perplexity of this inquiry, with the Lord helping us, we must first ask this. Was it the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Or was it sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit? Or was it without any distinction of persons, in the way the one and only God is spoken of, so that the Trinity itself appeared to the fathers by those forms of the creature?

Next, whichever of these we find or think true, we must ask another thing. Was the creature made only for this purpose, so that God could be shown to human sight as he judged fit at that time? Or were angels who already existed so sent that they spoke in the person of God, taking a bodily form from the bodily creature for their service as each needed it? Or did they, by the power the Creator gave them, change and turn their own body itself, which they do not serve but govern as subject to themselves, into whatever appearances were fit for their several actions?

Finally, we shall see what we set out to ask. Were the Son and the Holy Spirit also sent before? If they were, what difference is there between that sending and the one we read of in the Gospel? Or in truth was neither of them sent, except when the Son was made of the Virgin Mary, or when the Holy Spirit appeared in visible form, whether in the dove or in tongues of fire?

Chapter 8: The Whole Trinity Is Invisible

The entire Trinity is invisible.

A word about those who think the Word is visible

Let me say nothing at all of those who, with a mind too carnal, have thought that the nature of the Word of God is changeable, and even visible. I mean the Word and the Wisdom of God, who "while remaining in herself, renews all things," whom we call the only Son of God.

These people bring a very dull heart to the inquiry into divine things, with more daring than reverence. The soul is a spiritual substance. It was itself made, and it could be made by no one but him by whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. Yet although it is changeable, it is not visible. They have believed the same of the Word himself and the Wisdom of God by which the soul was made.

But this Wisdom is not only invisible, as the soul also is. It is also unchangeable, which the soul is not. That unchangeableness is just what is meant in the words "while remaining in herself, she renews all things."

Editor's note: This quotation is from the Wisdom of Solomon (7:27), which is not in the ESV, so no ESV wording can be given. Augustine's sense is kept.

Their proof texts

These people try to prop up their falling error with testimonies from Scripture. They take the words of the apostle Paul, which are said of the one only God, in whom the Trinity itself is understood, and they take them as said only of the Father, and not of the Son or the Holy Spirit: "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen" (1 Timothy 1:17, ESV).

And that other passage: "he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:15–16, ESV). How these passages are to be understood I think we have already discussed enough.

Chapter 9: Against Those Who Say Only the Father Is Immortal and Invisible

Against those who believed the Father alone to be immortal and invisible. The truth is to be sought by peaceful study.

What they say

There are people who insist that these texts about the invisible, immortal God must be understood of the Father alone, and not of the Son or the Holy Spirit. They say the Son is visible, not only because he took flesh of the Virgin, but also before that, in himself. For he himself, they say, appeared to the eyes of the fathers.

Suppose you say to them, "If the Son is visible in himself, then in the same way he is mortal in himself. So you must also understand 'who alone has immortality' as said of the Father only." And suppose you press them: "If the Son is mortal because he took our flesh, then allow that it is on account of this flesh that he is also visible." They have an answer. They reply that they don't say the Son is mortal because he took our flesh. Just as he was visible before, so he was mortal before.

Why that doesn't work

They have a problem. If they say the Son is mortal because he took our flesh, then the Father is not the only one who has immortality, apart from the Son. His Word also has immortality, and all things were made through that Word. He did not lose his immortality because he took mortal flesh. This could not even happen to the human soul, that it should die with the body, since the Lord himself says, "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Matthew 10:28, ESV).

Or do they say that the Holy Spirit also took flesh? They will find it hard to say how, if the Son is mortal because he took our flesh, the Father alone has immortality without the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not take our flesh. If he lacks immortality, then the Son is not mortal on account of taking our flesh. But if the Holy Spirit has immortality, then it is not said of the Father alone, "who alone has immortality."

What they say next

So they think they can prove that the Son was mortal in himself before the incarnation too. They say that changeableness itself is not wrongly called mortality, in the sense in which the soul is also said to die. The soul does not die by being turned into a body or into some other substance. It dies in the sense that whatever in its own same substance is now different from what it once was is found to be mortal, in so far as it has ceased to be what it was.

Before the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary, they say, he appeared to our fathers not in one form only but in many, first in one and then in another. So he is visible in himself, because his substance was visible to mortal eyes when he had not yet taken our flesh. And he is mortal, in so far as he is changeable. And so too the Holy Spirit, who appeared at one time as a dove and at another time as fire.

From this they conclude that the following texts do not belong to the Trinity but singularly and properly to the Father alone: "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God" (1 Timothy 1:17, ESV), and "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV).

What I will do instead

I will leave these reasoners aside. They can't even know the substance of the soul, which is invisible. So they are very far from knowing that the substance of the one and only God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, remains forever not only invisible but also unchangeable, and so has true and real immortality.

As for us, we deny that God, whether the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit, ever appeared to bodily eyes except through the bodily creature made subject to his power. I ask you to do the following with me. Let us be ready to be corrected if we are reproved in a brotherly and upright spirit. Let us be ready even if an enemy carps at us, so long as he speaks the truth. In catholic peace and with peaceful study, let us ask whether God appeared indiscriminately to our fathers before Christ came in the flesh, or whether it was one person of the Trinity, or whether the persons appeared severally, as if by turns.

Chapter 10: Who Appeared to Adam, and to Abraham?

Whether God the Trinity appeared indiscriminately to the fathers, or any one person of the Trinity. The appearing of God to Adam. The vision to Abraham.

1. God speaks with Adam

Start with what is written in Genesis, that God spoke with the man he had formed from the dust. Set the figurative meaning aside and take the story at face value. Then it would seem that God spoke with man in the appearance of a man.

The book does not say this in so many words. But the whole tenor of the reading sounds that way, especially where it says that Adam "heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day," and hid himself among the trees (Genesis 3:8, ESV). When God called, "Where are you?" Adam answered, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself" (Genesis 3:9–10, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text has Adam hear "the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening," and say, "I heard your voice, and I hid myself from your face." The ESV has "sound" for "voice," "cool of the day" for "evening," and no mention of the face in Adam's words (it says only "hid from the presence of the LORD God"). His argument below turns on "voice" and "face," so where I say "voice" and "face" in what follows, I am following his text.

I don't see how such a walking and speaking of God can be taken literally unless he appeared as a man. It can't be said that only a voice of God was made, when God is said to have walked. And it can't be said that the one walking in a place was not visible, since Adam too says he hid himself from the face of God.

2. But who was it?

Who was it? The Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Did God the Trinity himself speak to man in the form of a man, with no distinction?

The context of Scripture nowhere seems to mark a change from one person to another. It seems to be still the same one who spoke to the first man, the one who said, "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3, ESV) and "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters" (Genesis 1:6, ESV), and so on through each of those days. We usually take that to be God the Father, making by a word whatever he wished to make. For he made all things by his Word, and by the right rule of faith we know that Word to be his only Son.

So if God the Father spoke to the first man, and was himself walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and if the sinner hid from his face among the trees, why not go on to understand that it was also he who appeared to Abraham and to Moses, and to whomever he wished, and in whatever way he wished? He did it through the changeable and visible creature, which was subject to him, while he himself remains in himself, in his own substance, unchangeable and invisible.

On the other hand, it may be that Scripture passed in a hidden way from one person to another. Having told us that the Father said "Let there be light," and the rest which it says he did by the Word, it may then have gone on to show the Son speaking to the first man. It would not be opening this up plainly, but hinting it to those who can understand.

3. What I can and can't say

Let anyone who has the strength to see this secret clearly with the eye of his mind go ahead and examine it. Let him see either that the Father also is able to appear to human eyes through a visible creature, or that only the Son and the Holy Spirit are able. Let him go on to put it into words if he can.

But as far as this testimony of Scripture goes, where God spoke with man, I think the thing cannot be found out. It doesn't even clearly appear whether Adam was in the habit of seeing God with the eyes of his body. And it is a great question what sort of eyes were opened when they ate the forbidden fruit, for before they ate, those eyes were closed (Genesis 3:7, ESV).

I would not rashly say that, even if Scripture means that Paradise was a physical place, God could not have walked there in any way except in some bodily form. It could be said that only words were formed for the man to hear, without his seeing any form. And it does not follow, because it is written that Adam hid from the face of God, that he used to see his face. What if Adam himself could not see, but feared to be seen by the one whose voice he had heard, and whose presence he had felt as he walked? Cain also said to God, "from your face I shall be hidden" (Genesis 4:14, ESV). Yet we are not forced to admit that he was used to seeing the face of God with his bodily eyes in some visible form, though he had heard the voice of God questioning him and speaking to him about his sin.

4. If it was only words, I would think of the Father

What sort of speech God uttered to the outward ears of men, especially when speaking to the first man, is hard to find out, and we have not undertaken to say in this discourse. But suppose only words and sounds were made, to bring about some perceptible presence of God to those first men. Then I don't know why I should not understand there the person of God the Father.

His person is also shown in that voice when Jesus appeared in glory on the mountain before the three disciples, and in the voice when the dove came down on him at his baptism, and in the voice when he cried to the Father about his own glorification and was answered, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again" (John 12:28, ESV).

This does not mean the voice could be made without the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit, since the Trinity works indivisibly. It means that such a voice was made as to show the person of the Father only. In the same way, the Trinity made that human form from the Virgin Mary, and yet it is the person of the Son alone. The invisible Trinity made the visible person of the Son alone.

And nothing forbids us to understand the words spoken to Adam as spoken by the Trinity and as showing the person of the Trinity. We are forced to understand "This is my beloved Son" (Matthew 3:17, ESV) of the Father only. Jesus can neither be believed nor understood to be the Son of the Holy Spirit, or his own Son. And where the voice said, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again," we confess it was only the person of the Father. It was the answer to the Lord's words, in which he had said, "glorify your Son" (John 17:1, ESV). He could say that only to God the Father, and not also to the Holy Spirit, whose Son he was not. But here, where it is written, "the LORD God called to the man," no reason can be given why the Trinity itself should not be understood.

5. The vision to Abraham

It is the same with what is written, "Now the LORD said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house'" (Genesis 12:1, ESV). It is not clear whether only a voice came to Abraham's ears or whether anything also appeared to his eyes. A little later it is somewhat clearer: "Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land'" (Genesis 12:7, ESV). But there too it does not say in what form God appeared to him, or whether it was the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps they think it was the Son who appeared to Abraham, because it is written not "God appeared to him" but "the LORD appeared to him." The Son does seem to be called Lord as if the name belonged to him in a special way. The apostle says, "although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords,' yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things" (1 Corinthians 8:5–6, ESV).

But God the Father too is called Lord in many places: "The LORD said to me, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you'" (Psalm 2:7, ESV), and "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" (Psalm 110:1, ESV). The Holy Spirit is also called Lord, where the apostle says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit." And lest anyone think he means the Son, called Spirit because of his non-bodily substance, Paul goes on, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17, ESV). No one has ever doubted that the Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit.

So neither here is it clear whether it was one person of the Trinity who appeared to Abraham, or God himself, the Trinity. Of that one God it is said, "It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve" (Deuteronomy 6:13, ESV).

6. Three men at Mamre

Under the oak at Mamre, though, Abraham saw three men. He invited them, welcomed them and waited on them as they ate. Yet at the beginning of that account Scripture does not say, "three men appeared to him." It says, "the LORD appeared to him" (Genesis 18:1, ESV). Then, setting out in order how the Lord appeared to him, it adds the story of the three men. Abraham invites them in the plural, and then speaks to them in the singular as to one. And as one, "the LORD" promises him a son by Sarah: "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son" (Genesis 18:10, ESV).

He invites them, washes their feet, and leads them out as they leave, as if they were men. But he speaks with the Lord God, whether when a son is promised to him or when the destruction hanging over Sodom is shown to him.

Chapter 11: Three Men, One Lord

Of the same appearance.

1. If it had been one man

This place in Scripture deserves more than a slight or passing look. If one man had appeared, what would those people cry out at once, who say that the Son was visible in his own substance even before he was born of the Virgin? They would say it was himself, since, as they say, "to the only invisible God" is said of the Father.

Even then I could go on to ask how he was "found in human form" before he had taken our flesh, when his feet were washed and he ate earthly food. How could that be, when he was still "in the form of God," not counting "equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV)? Had he already "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7, ESV)? We know when he did that: through his birth of the Virgin. So how, before he had done it, did he appear to Abraham as one man? Or was that form not real?

Editor's note: Augustine's text has "found in fashion as a man" here. The ESV has "found in human form". The sense is the same, and the ESV is printed.

I could ask these questions if one man had appeared to Abraham, and if that one man were believed to be the Son of God. But three men appeared, and none of them is said to be greater than the others, whether in form or age or power. So why should we not understand here, shown visibly by the visible creature, the equality of the Trinity and one and the same substance in three persons?

2. Lest anyone think one of the three was the Lord and two were angels

Suppose someone thought that one of the three is here shown to be the greater, and that this one is to be understood as the Lord, the Son of God, while the other two are his angels. Abraham speaks to one as the Lord, though three appeared.

Holy Scripture has not forgotten to meet in advance, by a contradiction, such thoughts and opinions. A little later it says that two angels came to Lot, and that this just man, who deserved to be freed from the burning of Sodom, also speaks to one of them as to the Lord. For Scripture goes on, "And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place" (Genesis 18:33, ESV).

Chapter 12: The Appearance to Lot

The appearance to Lot is examined.

1. Two angels in the evening

"The two angels came to Sodom in the evening" (Genesis 19:1, ESV). I must look more carefully at what I have begun to set out. Abraham was certainly speaking with three, and he called one of them, in the singular, the Lord. Perhaps someone will say he recognized one of the three as the Lord and the other two as his angels.

What then does Scripture mean when it goes on, "And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening"? Are we to suppose that the one among the three who was recognized as the Lord had left, and had sent the two angels who were with him to destroy Sodom? Let us see what follows.

"Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, 'My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house'" (Genesis 19:1–2, ESV). Here it is clear that there were two angels, that they were invited in the plural to take hospitality, and that they were honorably called lords when they were perhaps thought to be men.

2. "It is objected..."

It is objected again that Lot would not have bowed with his face to the ground unless he knew they were angels of God. Then why are hospitality and food offered to them, as though they needed such human help? But whatever may lie hidden here, let us pursue what we have undertaken.

Two appear. Both are called angels. They are invited in the plural. Lot speaks to them as to two, in the plural, until the departure from Sodom. Then Scripture goes on: "And as they brought them out, one said, 'Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.' And Lot said to them, 'Oh, no, my lords'" (Genesis 19:17–18, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text reads the singular here, "Oh! not so, my lord," and his argument depends on that singular. The ESV has "my lords" (plural). The ESV is printed, and my argument is given below as I make it from my own text.

On the text I am using, I ask what Lot means by saying "my lord," if the one who was the Lord had already left and sent the angels. Why does Lot say "my lord," and not "my lords"? Or if he wanted to speak to just one of them, why does Scripture say, "Lot said to them"? Are we to understand here, too, two persons in the plural, but when the two are addressed as one, the one Lord God of one substance?

Then which two persons are we to understand? The Father and the Son? The Father and the Holy Spirit? Or the Son and the Holy Spirit? The last is perhaps the most fitting, for they said of themselves that they were sent, which is what we say of the Son and the Holy Spirit. For we find nowhere in the Scriptures that the Father was sent.

Chapter 13: The Bush That Burned and Was Not Consumed

The appearance in the bush.

1. The angel of the LORD, and then God

When Moses was sent to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, it is written that the Lord appeared to him in this way. "Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, 'I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.' When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush... 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'" (Exodus 3:1–4, 6, ESV).

Notice that he is first called "the angel of the LORD," and then "God." Was an angel the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? So he can rightly be understood as the Savior himself, of whom the apostle says, "from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever" (Romans 9:5, ESV). He "who is God over all, blessed forever" can reasonably be understood here as himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

2. But why "angel" first?

Why is he first called the angel of the LORD, when he appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush? There are two possibilities.

1. It was one of many angels, who by a kind of arrangement carried the person of his Lord. If so, who could easily say whether the person he was given to announce was the Son's, or the Holy Spirit's, or God the Father's, or the whole Trinity's, the one and only God, so that he could say, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob"? We can't say that the Son of God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Father is not. Nor will anyone dare to deny that the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, whom we believe and understand to be the one God, is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Whoever is not God is not the God of those fathers.

Not only the Father is God, as everyone admits, even heretics. The Son is too, which they must acknowledge whether they will or not, since the apostle says, "the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever." And the Holy Spirit is, since the same apostle says, "glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20, ESV), after saying, "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God" (1 Corinthians 6:19, ESV). And these three are one God, as catholic soundness believes. So if the angel was one of the other angels, it is not clear enough which person of the Trinity he carried, or whether he carried any one person and not rather that of the Trinity itself.

2. Or a creature was taken up for the occasion. It was taken up so that God might appear to human eyes, and sound in human ears, and be called the angel of the LORD, and the LORD, and God. Then God here cannot be understood as the Father, but as either the Son or the Holy Spirit.

I can't call to mind that the Holy Spirit is anywhere else called an angel, though it could be understood from his work, since it is said of him, "he will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:13, ESV). "Angel" in Greek means "messenger." But we read very plainly of the Lord Jesus Christ in the prophet that he is called "the Angel of Great Counsel," while both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God are God and Lord of the angels.

Editor's note: "Angel of Great Counsel" is the Greek (Septuagint) reading of Isaiah 9:6, which Augustine's Latin follows. The ESV, from the Hebrew, has "Wonderful Counselor" (Isaiah 9:6). His point, that Christ is called an angel or messenger, rests on the older reading.

Chapter 14: The Pillar of Cloud and of Fire

Of the appearance in the pillar of cloud and of fire.

When the people of Israel went out of Egypt, it is written, "the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light" (Exodus 13:21, ESV). And "the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people" (Exodus 13:22, ESV).

Who here would doubt that God appeared to the eyes of mortal men by the bodily creature made subject to him, and not by his own substance? But it is not equally clear whether it was the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, the one God.

Nor is this distinguished, in my judgment, where it is written, "the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. And the LORD said to Moses, 'I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel'" (Exodus 16:10–12, ESV).

Chapter 15: The Mountain on Fire: Sinai

Of the appearance on Sinai. Whether the Trinity spoke in it, or one person specially.

1. What no one can believe

Now consider the clouds, the voices, the lightnings, the trumpet and the smoke on Mount Sinai. "Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire" (Exodus 19:18, ESV). "As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder" (Exodus 19:19, ESV). After the Law was given in the ten commandments, the text goes on: "Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off. The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was" (Exodus 20:18, 21, ESV).

What shall I say about this, except that no one can be so out of his mind as to believe that the smoke, and the fire, and the cloud, and the darkness, and whatever else there was of the kind, were the substance of the Word and Wisdom of God, which is Christ, or of the Holy Spirit? Not even the Arians ever dared to say that they were the substance of God the Father. All these things were done through the creature serving the Creator, and set before human senses in a fitting arrangement.

2. What carnal thoughts must suppose

Unless, perhaps, because it is said, "Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was," carnal thoughts must suppose that the people did see the cloud, but that inside the cloud Moses saw the Son of God with the eyes of the flesh, whom doting heretics will have seen in his own substance. Moses might indeed have seen him with the eyes of the flesh, if not only the wisdom of God which is Christ but even the wisdom of any man, however wise, can be seen with the eyes of the flesh.

Or take it that because it is written of the elders of Israel, "they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness" (Exodus 24:10, ESV), we are therefore to believe that the Word and Wisdom of God in his own substance stood within the space of an earthly place. That is the Wisdom who "reaches mightily from one end to the other and orders all things well." And we are to believe that the Word of God, by whom all things were made, is so changeable as to contract himself at one time and stretch himself out at another. May the Lord cleanse the hearts of his faithful ones from such thoughts!

Editor's note: Augustine's text of Exodus 24:10 reads "they saw the place where the God of Israel had stood." The ESV has "they saw the God of Israel." His inference, that the Word of God "stood within the space of an earthly place," rests on his reading. The ESV is printed.

Editor's note: The words about Wisdom are from the Wisdom of Solomon (8:1), which is not in the ESV. Augustine's sense is kept.

3. What these things really do

All these visible and perceptible things are, as we have often said, shown through the creature made subject, to signify the invisible and understandable God. That is not the Father only, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit, "from him and through him and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36, ESV; his Latin has "in him" for the ESV's "to him"). As Paul says, "his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:20, ESV).

4. What I can and can't conclude

As far as our present undertaking goes, I can't see how it appears from all the things shown with such fear to mortal senses on Mount Sinai whether God the Trinity spoke, or the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit severally.

But if it is allowed, without rash assertion, to offer a modest and hesitating guess from this passage, then if the passage can be understood of one person of the Trinity, why do we not understand it rather of the Holy Spirit? The Law given there is said to have been written on tablets of stone "with the finger of God" (Exodus 31:18, ESV), and in the Gospel we know that name signifies the Holy Spirit. Compare "if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons" (Matthew 12:28, ESV) with "if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons" (Luke 11:20, ESV).

Fifty days are counted from the slaying of the lamb and the celebration of the Passover to the day these things began on Mount Sinai. In the same way, after the passion of our Lord, fifty days are counted from his resurrection, and then came the Holy Spirit whom the Son of God had promised. And in that very coming, which we read about in the Acts of the Apostles, "divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them" (Acts 2:3, ESV). This agrees with Exodus, where it is written, "the LORD had descended on it in fire," and a little after, "the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel" (Exodus 19:18; 24:17, ESV).

Or suppose these things were done because neither the Father nor the Son could be shown there in that way without the Holy Spirit, by whom the Law had to be written. Then we know for certain that God appeared there, not by his own substance, which remains invisible and unchangeable, but by the appearance of the creature I have described. And as far as my understanding reaches, we do not see that any particular person of the Trinity appeared, picked out by a mark of his own.

Chapter 16: How Moses Saw God

In what manner Moses saw God.

1. A difficulty that troubles many

There is another difficulty that troubles most people. It is written, "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11, ESV). But a little later the same Moses says, "if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people" (Exodus 33:13, ESV). And a little after, Moses said to the Lord again, "Please show me your glory" (Exodus 33:18, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text has Moses say, "show me now yourself plainly, that I may see you." The ESV has "show me now your ways, that I may know you." His argument depends on the first wording, in which Moses asks to see God himself. The ESV is printed. The next verse, "Please show me your glory," supports the same sense, and Augustine's argument is given from his own text.

2. What does this mean?

What does this mean? In everything that was done as I have said, God was thought to have appeared by his own substance. So these wretched people have believed that the Son of God is visible not through the creature but in himself. And Moses, entering the cloud, seemed to enter so that a cloudy darkness might be shown to the eyes of the people while he himself, inside, heard God's words as if he were seeing his face. As it is said, "the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." And yet the same Moses says, "show me yourself plainly."

Surely he knew that what he saw, he saw bodily, and he was asking for the true sight of God in spirit. The kind of speech wrought in words was so shaped as if a friend were speaking to a friend. Yet who sees God the Father with the eyes of the body? And that Word, who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was God, through whom all things were made: who sees him with the eyes of the body? And the spirit of wisdom: who sees that with the eyes of the body?

What does "show me yourself plainly, that I may see you" mean, unless "show me your substance"? If Moses had not said this, we would have to put up with those foolish people as best we could, who think the substance of God was made visible to his eyes through the things I have mentioned. But it is shown most clearly that this was not granted to him, even though he desired it. So who will dare to say that by like forms that had appeared to him, not the creature serving God but the very one who is God appeared to the eyes of a mortal man?

3. And the Lord's own answer

Add what the Lord said to Moses afterward: "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen" (Exodus 33:20–23, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "watch-tower of the rock" where the ESV has "cleft of the rock." He builds on the idea of a safe place of watching. The ESV is printed.

Chapter 17: How the "Back" of God Was Seen

How the back parts of God were seen. The faith of the resurrection of Christ. The Catholic Church alone is the place from which the back parts of God are seen. The back parts of God were seen by the Israelites. It is a rash opinion to think that God the Father only was never seen by the fathers.

1. His "back" and his "face"

It is commonly understood, and not unfittingly, that this is a picture of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. His "back" is understood to be his flesh, in which he was born of the Virgin, and died, and rose again. It may be called his back on account of the lateness of mortality. Or it may be because it was almost at the end of the world, a late time, that he deigned to take it. But his "face" is that form of God in which he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV), which no one can see and live.

Why can no one see it and live? There are two ways of taking this.

1. Because after this life we shall see "face to face." In this life, "while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:6, ESV). Paul says, "now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). The Psalms say of this life, "Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!" (Psalm 39:5, ESV) and "no one living is righteous before you" (Psalm 143:2, ESV). And in this life, according to John, "what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV). He certainly meant this to be understood of after this life, when we have paid the debt of death and received the promise of the resurrection.

2. Because even now we die to carnal things. In whatever degree we now understand spiritually the wisdom of God by which all things were made, in that same degree we die to fleshly affections. We regard this world as dead to us, and we ourselves die to this world, and we say what the apostle says: "far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14, ESV). He also speaks of this death: "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations" (Colossians 2:20, ESV).

So it is not without reason that no one will be able to see the "face," the very showing of the wisdom of God, and live. It is this appearing that everyone sighs for who strives to love God with all his heart, all his soul and all his mind. And whoever loves his neighbor as himself builds up his neighbor toward it as far as he can. "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37–40, ESV).

2. Moses already shows both loves

This is signified in Moses himself. In the love of God that burned in him he said, "if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways." And at once, out of love for his neighbor, he added, "Consider too that this nation is your people" (Exodus 33:13, ESV).

That appearing, then, sweeps every reasoning soul away with the desire for it, and all the more ardently the purer the soul is. It is purer the more it rises to spiritual things, and it rises the more to spiritual things the more it dies to carnal things.

3. The "back" is seen by faith, standing on the rock

But while we are away from the Lord, we "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7, ESV). We ought to see the "back" of Christ, his flesh, by faith itself. We stand on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies. We behold it from a safe watchtower, in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, "on this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18, ESV).

The more surely we love the face of Christ, which we long to see, the more we recognize in his back how much Christ first loved us.

4. The resurrection saves us

In the flesh itself, faith in his resurrection saves and justifies us. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9, ESV). And again, he "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25, ESV).

So the reward of our faith is the resurrection of the body of our Lord. Even his enemies believe that his flesh died on the cross. They do not believe that it rose again. We hold this most firmly. We look at it as from the solidity of a rock. From there we wait with sure hope for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23, ESV). For we hope for that in the members of Christ, that is, in ourselves, which by sound faith we acknowledge to be perfect in him as in our Head.

That is why he would not have his back seen except as he passed by, so that his resurrection might be believed. The Hebrew word Pascha is translated "Passover." So John the Evangelist says, "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father" (John 13:1, ESV).

5. The place by the Lord is the Church

But those who believe this, and don't believe it in the Catholic Church but in some schism or heresy, do not see the Lord's back "from the place that is by him." What does it mean when the Lord says, "there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock" (Exodus 33:21, ESV)? What earthly place is "by" the Lord, unless it is that which touches him spiritually? For what place is not by the Lord, who (in Wisdom 8:1, which is not in the ESV; see the earlier notes) "reaches mightily from one end to the other and orders all things well," and of whom it is said, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?" (Isaiah 66:1, ESV)?

But it is plainly the Catholic Church that is understood as "the place by him." There one stands on a rock and sees, to his health, the "Pascha Domini," the passing by of the Lord, and his back, his body, by believing in his resurrection. "While my glory passes by," he says, "you shall stand on the rock."

Immediately after the majesty of the Lord had passed by in the glorification in which he rose and went up to the Father, we stood firm on the rock. Peter himself stood firm then, so that he preached with confidence the one he had denied three times out of fear (Matthew 26:75, ESV). He had already been set in predestination on the rock's watchtower, but the Lord's hand was still held over him that he might not see. He was to see his back, and the Lord had not yet "passed by," that is, from death to life. He had not yet been glorified by the resurrection.

6. The Israelites too saw his "back"

Now as to what follows in Exodus, "I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back" (Exodus 33:22–23, ESV): many Israelites, of whom Moses was then a figure, believed in the Lord after his resurrection. It was as if his hand had been taken off their eyes and they now saw his back. That is why the evangelist mentions Isaiah's prophecy, "Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes" (Isaiah 6:10, ESV).

The Psalm too can reasonably be understood to be said in their person: "day and night your hand was heavy upon me" (Psalm 32:4, ESV). "By day" perhaps when he performed plain miracles yet was not acknowledged by them. "By night" when he died in suffering, when they thought still more surely that he had been cut off and brought to an end, like any other man.

But when he had already passed by, so that his back was seen, and the apostle Peter preached to them that Christ had to suffer and rise again, they were "cut to the heart" (Acts 2:37, ESV) with the grief of repentance. Then what is said at the beginning of that Psalm could come about among the baptized: "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1, ESV).

So after "your hand was heavy upon me," as the Lord passes by and takes away his hand, and his back is seen, there follows the voice of one who grieves and confesses and receives forgiveness of sins by faith in the Lord's resurrection: "I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin" (Psalm 32:5, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." The ESV has "my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer" (Psalm 32:4). The clause comes just before the confession quoted here. The sense is the same.

7. We must not think of God as having a face and a back

We should not be so wrapped in the darkness of the flesh as to think that God's face is invisible but his back is visible, since both appeared visibly in the form of a servant. Far be it from us to think anything of the kind about the form of God. Far be it from us to think that the Word and Wisdom of God has a face on one side and a back on the other, like a human body, or is changed in place or time by any appearance or motion.

8. What follows for the Father

So if in the words spoken in Exodus, and in all those bodily appearances, the Lord Jesus Christ was shown, or if in some cases Christ was shown, as this passage persuades us, and in others the Holy Spirit, as what we have said above admonishes us, still it does not follow that God the Father never appeared in such a form to the fathers.

Many such appearances happened in those times without the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit being expressly named in them. Yet some hints were given through certain very probable interpretations. So it would be too rash to say that God the Father never appeared by visible forms to the fathers or the prophets.

This opinion was born in those who couldn't understand, with respect to the unity of the Trinity, such texts as "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God" (1 Timothy 1:17, ESV) and "whom no one has ever seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV). Those texts are understood by sound faith of that very highest substance, divine in the highest degree and unchangeable, by which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one and only God. But those visions were wrought through the changeable creature, made subject to the unchangeable God. They did not show God properly as he is. They gave hints suited to the causes and times of the different occasions.

Chapter 18: Daniel's Vision of the Ancient of Days

The vision of Daniel.

1. The Father giving, the Son receiving

I don't know how these people understand that the Ancient of Days appeared to Daniel. The Son of man, which he deigned to be for our sakes, is understood to have received the kingdom from him. The one who says to him in the Psalms, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage" (Psalm 2:7–8, ESV), is the one who has "put all things under his feet" (Psalm 8:6, ESV).

If both the Father giving the kingdom and the Son receiving it appeared to Daniel in bodily form, how can those people say that the Father never appeared to the prophets, and so that only he is to be understood as invisible whom no one has seen or can see?

Daniel tells us: "As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened" (Daniel 7:9–10, ESV). And a little after: "I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:13–14, ESV).

Here you have the Father giving and the Son receiving an everlasting kingdom, and both are in the sight of the prophet in visible form. So it is not unsuitably believed that God the Father too was in the habit of appearing in this way to mortals.

2. "But that was a dream!"

Unless perhaps someone says that the Father is not visible because he appeared within the sight of one who was dreaming, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are visible because Moses saw all those things awake. As if Moses saw the Word and the Wisdom of God with fleshly eyes! Or as if even the human spirit that gives life to that flesh can be seen, or even that bodily thing which is called wind. How much less can that Spirit of God be seen, who is above the minds of all men and angels by the unspeakable excellence of the divine substance!

Or could anyone fall headlong into such an error as to say that the Son and the Holy Spirit are visible to men who are awake, but the Father only to those who dream? How then do they understand of the Father alone, "whom no one has ever seen or can see"? When men sleep, are they not men? And cannot the one who can shape the likeness of a body to signify himself in the visions of dreamers also shape that same bodily creature to signify himself to the eyes of those who are awake? His own very substance, by which he is what he is, cannot be shown by any bodily likeness to a sleeper or by any bodily appearance to one awake. And that is true not of the Father only but of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

As for those who are moved by the visions of waking men to believe that not the Father but only the Son or the Holy Spirit appeared to the bodily sight of men, I leave aside the great extent of the sacred pages and their many interpretations, such that no one of sound reason should say the person of the Father was nowhere shown to the eyes of waking men in any bodily appearance. But what do they say of our father Abraham, who was certainly awake and serving? Scripture had first said, "the LORD appeared to him" (Genesis 18:1, ESV), and then not one or two but three men appeared to him. Not one of them is said to have stood out above the others, or to have shone with greater glory, or to have acted with more authority.

3. Where this leaves us

So, in our threefold division, we set out to ask first whether it was the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit; or sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit; or without any distinction of persons, the one and only God, the Trinity itself, who appeared to the fathers through those forms of the creature.

Now we have examined, as far as seemed enough, the places in the Holy Scriptures that we could. As far as I can judge, a modest and careful consideration of divine mysteries leads to this conclusion and no other. We may not rashly say which person of the Trinity appeared to this or that father or prophet in some body or likeness of a body, unless the context attaches some probable hints to the story.

For the nature itself, or substance, or essence, or whatever other name that very thing which is God ought to be called, cannot be seen bodily. We must believe that, by means of the creature made subject to him, not only the Son or the Holy Spirit but also the Father may have given hints of himself to mortal senses by a bodily form or likeness.

And since this is how things stand, so that this second book may not run to an immoderate length, let us look at what remains in the books that follow.

Book Three: Angels, Visible Signs, and the God Who Is Never Seen As He Is

In this book Augustine asks about the appearances of God described in the previous book, which came in bodily forms. Was a creature simply made for the occasion, so that God could show himself to human sight as he saw fit? Or were angels who already existed sent to speak in the person of God, either taking a bodily appearance from the bodily creation, or changing their own bodies into whatever forms suited the action, by the power the Creator gave them? In every case, the essence of God was never seen as it is in itself.

Preface: Why I Keep Writing About the Trinity, and What I Ask of You

Why Augustine writes of the Trinity, what he asks of his readers, and what was said in the previous book.

Why I keep writing

I would like those who are willing to believe it to know that I would rather spend my effort reading than dictating things for others to read. But some of you will not believe that. If you are both able and willing to put it to the test, then give me whatever answers can be gathered from reading, either to my own questions or to the questions others put to me. Because of the position I hold in the service of Christ, and because I burn with zeal that our faith be fortified against the error of carnal and natural people, I have to put up with those questions. Do that for me, and you will see how easily I would lay this labor down, and with what joy I would give my pen a holiday.

But here is my situation.

1. What I have read on these subjects is either not set out well enough, or cannot be found at all, or at least cannot easily be found by me in the Latin language.
2. I am not familiar enough with Greek to read and understand the books that treat these topics in that language. Judging by the little that has been translated for us, I do not doubt that everything we could profitably look for is contained in them.
3. Even so, I cannot resist my brothers when they ask of me, by the law that makes me their servant, that I should serve their praiseworthy studies in Christ above all by my tongue and by my pen. In me those two are yoked together, and Love is the charioteer.
4. And I myself confess that I have learned many things by writing that I did not know.

So this labor should not seem pointless to the idle reader or to the very learned one. It is needed, in no small part, by many who are busy and by many who are unlearned, and I am one of the unlearned myself.

Greatly supported and helped by what I have already read of others on this subject, I have undertaken to inquire into and discuss whatever can, in my judgment, be reverently inquired into and discussed about the Trinity, the one supreme and supremely good God. He himself urges me to the inquiry and helps me in the discussion. My hope is this. If there are no other writings of the kind, here is something for willing and capable readers to have. If there are some already, it will be that much easier to find such writings, the more of them there are.

What I ask of readers and correctors

In all my writings I want not only a pious reader but also a free corrector. I want that most of all in this inquiry, which is so important that I wish there were as many inquirers as there are objectors.

But just as I do not want my reader to be tied to me, I do not want my corrector to be tied to himself. Let the reader not love me more than the catholic faith. Let the corrector not love himself more than catholic truth. Here is what I say to each.

To the reader. Do not give my writings the same deference you give the canonical Scriptures. In the Scriptures, when you discover something you did not believe before, believe it without hesitation. In my writings, unless you have understood with certainty something you did not previously hold as certain, do not be willing to hold it fast.

To the corrector. Do not amend my writings by your own opinion or argument. Amend them from the divine text, or by unanswerable reason.

If you find anything true in them, its being there does not make it mine. By understanding and loving it, let it be both yours and mine. If you convict anything of falsehood, then although it was once mine, because I was guilty of the error, let it now, by being avoided, be neither yours nor mine.

Where we left off

Let this third book take up where the second ended. This is what we had reached. We wanted to show that the Son is not less than the Father because the Father sent and the Son was sent. We also wanted to show that the Holy Spirit is not less than both because we read in the Gospel that he was sent by the one and by the other.

So we set out to ask a question. The Son was sent to a place where he already was, for he came into the world and "was in the world." The Holy Spirit was sent to a place where he already was, for "the Spirit of the Lord fills the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said."

Editor's note: this last line is from the book of Wisdom (Wisdom 1:7), which is not in the ESV text used for this edition. The sense is Augustine's.

Here is the question. Was the Lord "sent" because he was born in the flesh, so that he was no longer hidden? Did he come forth, as it were, from the bosom of the Father and appear to human eyes in the form of a servant? And was the Holy Spirit "sent" because he too was seen in bodily form, as a dove and in divided tongues like fire? On that view, "to be sent," when said of them, means to go out from a spiritual hiding place into the sight of mortals in some bodily form. The Father did not do that, which is why he is said only to have sent and never to be sent.

We then asked several things.

1. Why is the Father not sometimes also said to be sent, if he himself was shown through the bodily forms that appeared to the ancients?
2. If the Son was shown at those times, why is he said to be "sent" so long afterward, when the fullness of time came for him to be born of a woman? He was already sent before, surely, when he appeared bodily in those forms.
3. Or suppose he is rightly said to be "sent" only when the Word was made flesh. Then why do we read that the Holy Spirit was "sent," when nothing like an incarnation ever happened to him?
4. And if neither the Father nor the Son but the Holy Spirit was shown through those ancient appearances, why should he be said to be "sent" now, when he was sent before in all those various ways?

Then we divided the subject into three questions so that it could be handled with care. One part was explained in the second book. Two remain, and I will take them up next. We have already looked into this and decided that it was not the Father alone, nor the Son alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone who appeared in those ancient bodily forms and visions. It was either the Lord God without distinction, which means the Trinity itself, or else one person of the Trinity, whichever the text of the narrative indicates through hints given in its context.

Chapter 1: The Question We Are Pursuing

What is to be said on this subject.

The second question, in full

So let us go on in order. Under the second head of that division, the question was this. Was a creature formed for that work alone, so that God could be shown to human sight in whatever way he then judged fitting? Or were angels who already existed sent to speak in the person of God? If so, there are two possibilities for how they did it.

1. They assumed a bodily appearance from the bodily creation for the sake of their ministry.
2. They changed and turned their own body into whatever forms were appropriate and fitting for their actions. They are not subject to that body. They govern it as subject to themselves. And they do this by the power the Creator gave them.

When we have looked into this part, as far as God permits, we will come last to the question we began with. Were the Son and the Holy Spirit also "sent" before? If so, what is the difference between that sending and the one we read of in the Gospel? Or was neither of them sent except when the Son was made of the Virgin Mary, or when the Holy Spirit appeared in visible form, whether as a dove or in tongues of fire?

A question I will not settle

I will confess something. It goes beyond what I can manage to ask whether angels do the following. By the spiritual quality of the body that stays in them, they work secretly. They take something from the lower and more bodily elements, fit it to themselves, and change it and turn it, like a garment, into whatever bodily appearances they please. Those appearances would be real too, as real water was changed by our Lord into real wine. Or do they transform their own bodies themselves into whatever they want, to suit the particular act?

It makes no difference to the present question which of these is the case.

I am a man, and I cannot understand these things from experience the way the angels do, who do them and know them better than I know such things. I mean how far my own body can be changed by the working of my will, whether I judge that from my own experience or from what I have gathered from others. Nor do I need to say here which alternative I should believe on the authority of the divine Scriptures. If I did, I would be forced to prove it, and my discourse would run too long on a point that does not touch the present question.

What we are really asking

Our question, then, is this. Were the angels the agents both in showing those bodily appearances to human eyes and in sounding those words in human ears? In that case the created, sensible world itself, serving its Creator at his beck, was turned for the time into whatever was needed.

This is written in the book of Wisdom. The creation, serving the Maker, increases its strength against the unrighteous to punish them, and relaxes its strength for the benefit of those who trust in him. So even then it was altered into all sorts of shapes. It obeyed God's grace, which nourishes all things, according to the desire of those who longed for him.

Editor's note: this is Wisdom 16:24-25, which is not in the ESV text used here. It is given as Augustine's sense, without quotation marks.

The power of God's will reaches through the spiritual creature even to visible and sensible effects in the bodily creature. There is nowhere that the wisdom of the almighty God does not work what he wills. That wisdom, as the same book says, reaches from one end to the other mightily and orders all things sweetly.

Editor's note: this is Wisdom 8:1, likewise outside the ESV text.

Chapter 2: The Will of God Is the Higher Cause of All Bodily Change

The will of God is the higher cause of all bodily change. This is shown by an example.

The ordinary order and the unusual one

There is one kind of natural order in the changing of bodies. It also serves God's bidding, but because it runs on without a break, it has stopped causing wonder. I mean things that change at very short intervals, or at least not long ones, in the heavens, on the earth, or in the sea: rising, setting, and changes of appearance from time to time.

There are other things that come from the same order but are less familiar because the intervals are longer. Many people wonder at these stupidly. Those who study this world understand them, and as the generations go on they become less wonderful, the more often they are repeated and the more people know about them. Examples are eclipses of the sun and moon, the occasional appearance of some stars, earthquakes, and unnatural births of living creatures.

Not one of these takes place without the will of God. But to most people that is not apparent. So the vanity of philosophers has found license to assign such things to other causes. Sometimes these are true causes, but only proximate ones, while the philosophers cannot see at all the cause that is higher than all the rest, which is the will of God. Sometimes they are false causes, put forward not from any diligent investigation of bodies and their motions, but from their own guesswork and error.

An example, to make it plainer

Let me bring an example, if I can, to make this clearer.

In the human body there is a certain bulk of flesh, an outward form, an arrangement and distinction of limbs, and a balance of health. A soul breathed into it governs the body, and that soul is a rational one. Although it is changeable, it can still share in that unchangeable wisdom, so that, in the words of the psalm, it "partakes of that which is in and of itself."

That is how the psalm speaks about all the saints, from whom, as from living stones, is built that Jerusalem which is the mother of us all, eternal in the heavens. For it is sung, "Jerusalem is built as a city that is partaker of that which is in and of itself." That phrase, "in and of itself," is understood there of the chief and unchangeable good, which is God, and of his own wisdom and will. To him it is sung in another place, "You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away" (Psalm 102:26, ESV), "but you are the same" (Psalm 102:27, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text of Psalm 122:3 read "Jerusalem is built as a city whose participation is in the selfsame," which is the "in and of itself" on which he builds. The ESV has "built as a city that is bound firmly together" (Psalm 122:3, ESV), and it cannot carry his argument, so his sense is given here rather than the ESV words. His text of Psalm 102:26 also added "and they shall be changed" after "you shall change them"; the ESV does not.

Chapter 3: The Same Argument, Taken Further

Of the same argument.

A wise man and his illness

Take the case of a wise man. His rational soul already shares in the unchangeable and eternal truth. He consults that truth about all his actions. He does nothing that he does not know by it ought to be done, so that by being subject to it and obeying it he may act rightly.

Suppose this man consults the highest reason of divine righteousness, which he hears with the ear of his heart in secret. At its bidding he wears out his body with toil in some work of mercy and falls ill. He asks the physicians. One tells him the cause of the disease is too much dryness of the body. Another says it is too much moisture. One of them is no doubt giving the true cause and the other is mistaken. But both are speaking of proximate causes only, that is, bodily ones.

Climbing to the first cause

Now suppose someone asks the cause of that dryness and finds it was the self-imposed toil. Then we have come to a higher cause. It proceeds from the soul and affects the body the soul governs.

But even this is not the first cause. There was one higher still, in the unchangeable wisdom itself. By serving that wisdom in love, and by obeying its ineffable commands, the soul of the wise man took on that self-imposed toil. So nothing else but the will of God would be found to be, most truly, the first cause of that illness.

Everyone he used was used by God

Now take it one step further. Suppose that in this work of pious toil the wise man had called in the help of others to work with him in the good work. They did not serve God with the same will he did. Some wanted to gain the reward of their own carnal desires. Others only wanted to avoid carnal unpleasantness.

Suppose also he had used beasts of burden, if the work needed them. They would certainly be irrational animals, and they would not move their limbs under their loads because they thought at all about that good work. They would move out of the natural appetite of their own liking and to avoid annoyance.

Suppose, lastly, he had used bodily things themselves that have no sense at all but were needed for the work, such as corn, wine, oil, clothes, money, or a book, or anything of the kind.

In all of these bodily things employed in the work, whether living or lifeless, there was movement, wear and tear, repair, destruction, renewal, or change of one sort or another, as places and times affected them. What could be the cause of all these visible and changeable facts except the invisible and unchangeable will of God? He was using all of them: bad and irrational souls, and then bodies, both those animated by such souls and those without any sense. And he did so by means of that upright soul as the seat of his wisdom, since that good and holy soul had itself used them first, having been subjected by his wisdom to itself in pious and religious obedience.

Chapter 4: God Uses All Creatures As He Wills

God uses all creatures as he wills, and makes visible things for the manifestation of himself.

From one wise man to the whole creation

What I have said by way of example about a single wise man, though he still bears a mortal body and still sees only in part, can fairly be extended to a family, if it is a society of such people. It can be extended to a city, or even to the whole world, if the chief rule and government of human affairs were in the hands of the wise, who were piously and perfectly subject to God.

That is not yet the case. First we have to be exercised in this pilgrimage in a mortal way, and be taught with stripes by the force of gentleness and patience. So let us turn our thoughts to that country above, the heavenly one, from which we are pilgrims here.

How the will of God governs from above

There, the will of God presides. He "makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire" (Psalm 104:4, ESV). The spirits there are joined in perfect peace and friendship and combined in one will by a kind of spiritual fire of charity. From this elevated, holy, secret seat, as from its own house and its own temple, God's will spreads itself through all things by perfectly ordered movements of the creature, first spiritual and then bodily. It uses everything according to the unchangeable pleasure of its own purpose. That includes things without bodies and things with bodies, rational spirits and irrational ones, spirits that are good by his grace and spirits that are evil by their own will.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text of Psalm 104:4 read "who makes his angels spirits," and he is thinking of angels. The ESV has "messengers" and "winds," and the Hebrew word can mean either. His sense is that the ministers of God are spiritual beings serving with a fire of love.

The order of governing

Notice the order in which this governing goes.

1. The grosser and lower bodies are governed in due order by the finer and more powerful ones.
2. All bodies are governed by the living spirit.
3. The living spirit without reason is governed by the reasoning living spirit.
4. The reasoning spirit that fails and sins is governed by the reasoning spirit that is pious and just.
5. And that spirit is governed by God himself.

So the whole creation is governed by its Creator, from whom and through whom and in whom it is created and established. And so the will of God is the first and highest cause of all bodily appearances and movements. Nothing is done visibly or sensibly unless it is either commanded or permitted from the inner court of the supreme Governor, invisible and intelligible. This happens according to the unspeakable justice of rewards and punishments, of favor and retribution, in the vast and boundless commonwealth of the whole creation.

The apostle's example: Paul's preaching and the sacrament

Consider the Apostle Paul. He still carried the burden of a body subject to corruption, which presses down the soul. He still saw only in part and in a riddle. He wished to depart and be with Christ, and he groaned within himself, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of his body (compare Philippians 1:23, 1 Corinthians 13:12, and Romans 8:23). Even so, he was able to preach the Lord Jesus Christ with meaning, in several ways. He did it by his tongue, by letter, and by the sacrament of Christ's body and blood.

Of course, we do not call the apostle's tongue, or the parchments, or the ink, or the meaningful sounds his tongue made, or the letters written on skins, the body and blood of Christ. We mean only what we take from the fruits of the earth, consecrate by mystic prayer, and then receive rightly for our spiritual health in memory of the Lord's passion for us. It is brought by the hands of men to that visible form. But it is not made holy into so great a sacrament except by the Spirit of God working invisibly. For God works everything done in that rite through bodily movements, by setting in motion, first of all, the invisible things of his servants, whether the souls of human beings or the services of hidden spirits subject to himself.

So why be surprised at the appearances?

What wonder is it, then, if God also works in the creation of heaven and earth, of sea and air, the sensible and visible things he wills, in order to signify and show himself in them as he himself knows to be fitting? He does this without any appearing of his own substance, by which he is, which is altogether unchangeable and more inwardly and secretly exalted than all the spirits he has created.

Chapter 5: Why Miracles Are Not the Usual Works

Why miracles are not usual works.

Ordinary works and unusual works of the same power

The divine power governs the whole spiritual and bodily creation. So on certain days of every year the waters of the sea are summoned and poured out upon the face of the earth. But when this was done at the prayer of the holy Elijah, the circumstances were different. A long run of fair weather had gone before, so that people were starving. At the very hour in which the servant of God prayed, the air itself had given no sign of coming rain by any moist look. So the divine power showed itself in the great and rapid showers that followed, by which that miracle was granted and dispensed.

God works through thunder and lightning in the ordinary way too. But on Mount Sinai these were produced in an unusual manner. The sounds did not come in a confused noise. By the surest proofs it was clear that certain messages were being given by them. So they were miracles.

More examples of the same thing

Who draws up the sap through the root of the vine to the bunch of grapes and makes the wine, except God? Man plants and waters, but God himself gives the growth (compare 1 Corinthians 3:6). But when at the command of the Lord the water was turned into wine with extraordinary quickness, the divine power was made manifest, even by the confession of fools.

Who ordinarily clothes the trees with leaves and flowers except God? Yet when the rod of Aaron the priest blossomed, the Godhead in some way conversed with doubting humanity.

Again, earthy matter serves in common for the production and formation of all kinds of wood and of the flesh of all animals. Who makes these things but the one who commanded the earth to bring them forth, and who governs and guides by that same word the things he has created? Yet when he changed the same matter, immediately and quickly, out of the rod of Moses into the flesh of a serpent, that change was a miracle. It was unusual, though it happened to a thing that is changeable. And who is it that gives life to every living thing at its birth, unless the one who gave life to that serpent too, for the moment, as there was need?

Chapter 6: What Makes a Miracle Is Only That It Is Unusual

Diversity alone makes a miracle.

Who is it that gave the dead back their own souls when the dead rose again, unless the one who gives life to the flesh in the mother's womb, so that those who are yet to die may come into being?

When such things happen in what is like a continuous river of ever-flowing succession, passing from the hidden to the visible and from the visible to the hidden along a regular, well-worn track, we call them natural. When they are thrust in by an unusual change for the warning of human beings, we call them miracles.

Chapter 7: Great Wonders Worked by Magic Arts

Great miracles worked by magic arts.

The puzzle of the magicians

I see what may occur to a weak judgment here. Why are such miracles worked by magic arts too? Pharaoh's wise men also made serpents, and did other like things (compare Exodus 7:11-12).

It is even more astonishing that the power of those magicians, which could make serpents, failed entirely when it came to the very small flies. The lice, which was the third plague that struck the proud people of Egypt, are very short-lived little flies. And there the magicians certainly failed, saying, "This is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19, ESV).

Nothing works without power given from above

From this we are given to understand that even those angels and powers of the air who transgressed cannot do anything except by power given from above. They have been thrust down from their dwelling in that lofty, pure upper air into the lowest darkness, as into a kind of prison of their own. Whatever power magic arts have, they have through these spirits. Even they can do nothing except by power given from above.

That power is given for one of three purposes.

1. To deceive the deceitful. It was given against the Egyptians, and against the magicians themselves. By seducing them, those spirits made the magicians seem wonderful for the works the spirits wrought, but condemned by the truth of God.
2. To admonish the faithful. They must not desire to do anything of the kind as though it were a great thing. That is why these things have been handed down to us by the authority of Scripture.
3. To exercise, prove and display the patience of the righteous. It was by no small power of visible miracles that Job lost everything he had, both his children and his bodily health itself.

Chapter 8: God Alone Creates the Things That Magic Changes

God alone creates those things which are changed by magic art.

Matter obeys God, not wicked angels

None of this means that the matter of visible things is subject to the bidding of those wicked angels. It is subject to God, who gives them this power, and only as far as he, who is unchangeable, decides in his lofty and spiritual dwelling to give it.

Even wicked people are served by water, fire and earth. Those who are condemned to the mines have them to do with what they will, but only as far as is permitted. And those evil angels cannot be called creators because the magicians who withstood the servant of God made frogs and serpents by their means. They did not create them.

Hidden seeds in the elements

The truth is that some hidden seeds of all things that are born in bodily, visible fashion are concealed in the bodily elements of this world. The seeds we can see now, from fruits and living things, are quite distinct from the hidden seeds from which they came. At the Creator's bidding, from those hidden seeds the water produced the first swimming creatures and birds, and the earth the first plants after their kind and the first living creatures after their kind.

And when that happened, those seeds were not drawn out into their kinds of products in such a way that the power of production was used up in those products. Often, what is lacking is the right combination of circumstances, which would let them burst forth and complete their kind.

Think about it. The very smallest shoot is a seed, for if it is fitly planted in the earth, it produces a tree. But there is a still finer seed of this shoot in some grain of the same species, and that is visible even to us. And of this grain there is further still a seed. We cannot see it with our eyes, but we can infer that it exists by reason. Unless there were some such power in those elements, we would not so often see things produced from the earth that had never been sown there. Nor would we see so many animals produced without any previous union of male and female, whether on land or in the water. They grow, and by uniting they bring forth others, though they themselves sprang up with no union of parents. Bees, certainly, do not conceive the seeds of their young by mating but gather them with their mouths as they lie scattered over the earth.

The Creator of the hidden seeds is the Creator of all

The Creator of these invisible seeds is the Creator of all things himself. Whatever comes forth to our sight by being born receives the first beginnings of its course from hidden seeds. From these, as from original rules, it takes the successive increases of its proper size and its distinctive forms.

So we do not call parents the creators of human beings, nor farmers the creators of corn. It is by the outward application of their actions that the power of God works within to create these things. In the same way, it is not right to think that even the good angels are creators, let alone the bad ones. They may, through the subtlety of their perception and bodies, know the seeds of things that are more hidden from us. They may scatter them secretly through fitting blends of the elements, and so supply opportunities for things to be produced and for their growth to be hastened. But the good angels do none of this except as far as God commands. And the evil ones do none of it wrongfully, except as far as he righteously permits. The malice of the wicked one makes his own will wrongful. But the power to act, he receives rightfully, whether for his own punishment, or, in the case of others, for the punishment of the wicked, or for the praise of the good.

Paul's distinction between inward and outward work

The Apostle Paul distinguishes God's creating and forming within from the operations of the creature applied from without. He draws a likeness from farming: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:6, ESV).

Think of spiritual life itself. No one except God can work righteousness in our minds. Yet human beings can preach the gospel as an outward means, the good in sincerity and the evil in pretence. In the same way, in the creation of visible things God works from within. The outward operations of angels or humans, good or bad, or even of any kind of animal, are applied by him to that nature of things in which he creates all things. They come out of his own absolute power and out of the distribution of faculties and of appetites for pleasant things that he himself has given. They are related to creation as farming is to the soil.

So I can no more call the bad angels, summoned by magic arts, the creators of the frogs and serpents than I can say that bad people were the creators of a corn crop that I see sprang up through their labor.

Jacob's rods and the flocks

Take Jacob too. He was not the creator of the colors in the flocks because he placed variously colored rods in front of the mothers as they drank, for them to look at as they conceived (compare Genesis 30:37-39). Nor were the cattle themselves the creators of the variety in their own offspring. The variegated image, impressed through their eyes by the sight of the colored rods, clung to their souls. But it could affect the body animated by the spirit thus affected only by sympathy with that mixing, so far as to stain the tender beginnings of their offspring with color.

Why do they react like this, whether the soul reacting from the body or the body from the soul? It comes from suitable reasons that exist unchangeably in that highest wisdom of God himself. No extent of place contains it. While it is itself unchangeable, it never leaves any of the changeable things, because there is not one of them that is not created by it.

It was the unchangeable and invisible reason of the wisdom of God, by which all things are created, that caused cattle, and not rods, to be born from cattle. But the color of the conceived cattle was influenced to some degree by the variety of the rods because the soul of the pregnant animals was affected from outside, through their eyes. According to its own measure, the soul drew inwardly into itself the rule of formation which it had received from the innermost power of its own Creator.

How far the soul can affect the body

How great may be the power of the soul in affecting and changing bodily substance is a very large subject, and not one I need now. Certainly the soul cannot be called the creator of the body. Every cause of changeable and sensible substance, and all its measure and number and weight, by which it comes to be at all and to be of such and such a kind, arises from the intelligible and unchangeable life which is above all things and reaches even to the most distant and earthly things.

But I thought the act of Jacob with the cattle was worth mentioning for this reason. If the man who placed the rods cannot be called the creator of the colors in the lambs and kids, and neither can the souls of the mothers, who colored the seeds conceived in the flesh by the image of variegated color taken in through the eyes of the body so far as nature permitted, then much less can the bad angels be called the creators of the frogs and serpents, though through them Pharaoh's magicians made them.

Chapter 9: The Original Cause of All Things Is From God

The original cause of all things is from God.

Two kinds of work: the inmost cause and the outward application

It is one thing to make and administer the creature from the innermost and highest turning point of causation. He alone does that who is God the Creator. It is quite another thing to apply some operation from outside, in proportion to the strength and faculties he has assigned to each, so that what is created comes into being at this time or that and in this way or that.

All these things, in the way of origin and beginning, have already been created in a sort of weaving of the elements. But they come forth when they get the opportunity. As mothers are pregnant with their young, so the world itself is pregnant with the causes of things that are born. These causes are not created in the world except from that highest essence, where nothing either springs up or dies, nothing begins to be or ceases to be.

The applying from outside of added causes is different. These are not natural, but they are to be applied according to nature, so that what is contained and hidden in the secret bosom of nature may break forth and be created outwardly, by the unfolding of the measures and numbers and weights it has secretly received from him "who has ordered all things in measure and number and weight." This applying lies within the power not only of bad angels but also of bad men, as I showed above by the example of farming.

Editor's note: the quoted line, which Augustine takes from the book of Wisdom (Wisdom 11:20), is outside the ESV text used for this edition. Its sense is his.

Creatures that breathe, and men who know how

Perhaps someone is troubled that animals are in a somewhat different condition, since they have the breath of life, with the feeling of desiring what is according to nature and avoiding what is against it. Consider, then, how many people there are who know from what herbs or flesh, or from whatever juices or liquids you please, whether set in such a way or buried, or crushed or mixed, this animal or that is commonly born. Who could be so foolish as to dare to call himself the creator of those animals?

So is it any surprise, if the most worthless of men can know where such worms and flies come from, that the evil angels, in proportion to the subtlety of their perceptions, can see in the hidden seeds of the elements where frogs and serpents come from? Through known, opportune combinations they apply these seeds by secret movements and cause them to be created, but they do not create them. It is only that people do not marvel at what people usually do.

If someone should wonder at how quickly those creatures grew, let him consider how even this can be brought about by people, within the measure of human ability. Why do the same bodies breed worms more quickly in summer than in winter, or in hotter than in colder places? The difference is that people apply these things with that much more difficulty, in proportion as their earthly, sluggish limbs lack subtlety of perception and speed of bodily motion. So in the case of any kind of angels, the easier it is for them to draw out the nearer causes from the elements, the more astonishing is their speed in works of this kind.

Only one is the creator

Only he is the creator who is the chief former of these things. No one can be that except the one in whom the measure, number and weight of all existing things primarily rests. That is God, the one Creator. By his unspeakable power it comes about that what these angels could do if they were permitted, they cannot do because they are not permitted.

There is no other reason why those who made frogs and serpents could not make the smallest flies, except that the greater power of God was present, forbidding them through the Holy Spirit. The magicians themselves confessed it, saying, "This is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19, ESV).

What angels can do by nature, and what they cannot

What angels are able by nature to do and yet cannot, because they are forbidden, and what the very condition of their nature does not let them do, is hard, indeed impossible, for a human to search out. Only the gift of God that the apostle mentions can help: "to another the ability to distinguish between spirits" (1 Corinthians 12:10, ESV).

Think of it this way. We know that a man can walk, but he cannot if he is not permitted. And we know that he cannot fly, even if he is permitted. In the same way, those angels can do certain things if they are permitted by more powerful angels, according to the supreme command of God. They cannot do certain other things, even if those angels permit them, because the one does not permit from whom they received such and such a measure of natural powers. Even through his angels, he does not usually permit what he has given them power to be able to do.

The ordinary and the rare, both under God's will

Set aside, then, the bodily things that are done in the order of nature in a perfectly usual series of times: the rising and setting of the stars, the births and deaths of animals, the countless varieties of seeds and buds, vapors and clouds, snow and rain, lightning and thunder, thunderbolts and hail, winds and fire, cold and heat, and all like things.

Set aside also those which happen rarely in the same order of nature, such as eclipses, unusual appearances of stars, monsters, earthquakes, and the like.

Of all these the first and chief cause is only the will of God. That is why, in the Psalm, when some things of this kind had been named, "Fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind" (Psalm 148:8, ESV), the psalm adds at once, so that no one would think they come about by chance, or from bodily causes only, or even from spiritual causes that exist apart from the will of God: "fulfilling his word" (Psalm 148:8, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "vapor" where the ESV reads "mist." The point is the same.

Chapter 10: The Ways the Creature Is Used as a Sign, and the Eucharist

In how many ways the creature is taken by way of sign. The Eucharist.

Signs from God: four ways a messenger can speak

Setting all of those aside, there are others of a different kind. They come from the same bodily substance, but they are brought within the reach of our senses to announce something from God. These are properly called miracles and signs. Even so, the person of God himself is not taken on in everything that the Lord God announces to us. When that person is taken on, it is made manifest in one of two ways.

1. As an angel.
2. In a form that is not an angel in its own proper being, though it is ordered and ministered by an angel.

When it is taken on in that second way, there are again two possibilities.

- An existing body. Sometimes it is a body that already exists, taken after some kind of change in order to make the message plain.
- A body made for the purpose. Sometimes it is one that comes into being for the purpose and is discarded once that purpose is accomplished.

The same pattern among human messengers

Human messengers work in the same way. Sometimes they speak the words of God in their own person, with an introduction such as "The Lord said," or "Thus says the Lord," or some other like phrase. But sometimes, without such an introduction, they take on the very person of God. For example: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go" (Psalm 32:8, ESV).

So, not only in word but also in action, the signifying of the person of God can be laid upon the prophet, so that he bears that person in ministering the prophecy. For example, he bore that person who tore his garment into twelve pieces and gave ten of them to the servant of King Solomon, the future king of Israel (compare 1 Kings 11:29-31).

Sometimes a thing that was not a prophet in itself, and that already existed among earthly things, was taken to signify something. An example is the stone which Jacob had under his head while asleep, and which he used upon waking after seeing the dream (compare Genesis 28:11, 18).

Sometimes a thing is made of the same kind for that very purpose. It may last a little while, as the bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness did, and as written records can. Or it may pass away after doing its service, as the bread made for the purpose is consumed in receiving the sacrament.

Why the angels' works are more wonderful

Because these things are known to people, since people do them, they may well be treated with reverence as holy things, but they cannot cause wonder as miracles. The things done by angels are more wonderful to us because they are harder and less known to us. To the angels they are known and easy, being their own actions.

An angel speaks in the person of God to a man, saying, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6, ESV). Scripture had said just before that the angel of the LORD appeared to him (compare Exodus 3:2). And a man also speaks in the person of God: "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God" (Psalm 50:7, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Psalm 50:7 read "Hear, O my people, and I will testify to you, O Israel: I am the Lord your God." The ESV is printed; his point, that a human speaker here takes on the person of God, is unchanged.

A rod was taken to serve as a sign and was changed into a serpent by angelic power. That power is lacking to man, yet a stone was also taken by a man for a similar sign. There is a wide difference between the deed of the angel and the deed of the man. The angel's deed is both to be wondered at and to be understood. The man's is only to be understood. What is understood from both may perhaps be one and the same, but the things from which it is understood are different. It is as if the name of God were written both in gold and in ink. The gold would be the more precious and the ink the more worthless, yet what is signified in both is one and the same.

The serpent, the stone, and what they signified

Although the serpent from Moses' rod signified the same thing as Jacob's stone, Jacob's stone signified something better than the serpents of the magicians did.

The anointing of the stone signified Christ in the flesh, in which he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows (compare Psalm 45:7). In the same way, the rod of Moses turned into a serpent signified Christ himself made obedient "to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8, ESV).

That is why Christ says, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14-15, ESV). Those who gazed at the serpent lifted up in the wilderness did not perish from the bites of the serpents. And Paul says that "our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing" (Romans 6:6, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of John 3:15 read "that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life," and his text of Romans 6:6 read "destroyed" where the ESV has "brought to nothing." The ESV is printed; the sense is the same.

By the serpent, death is understood, the death that the serpent worked in paradise. This is a manner of speech in which the effect is named by the one who produced it. So the rod passing into the serpent was Christ passing into death. The serpent passing back into the rod was the whole Christ, with his body, passing into the resurrection. That body is the Church (compare Colossians 1:18). This will come in the end of time, and it was signified by the tail, which Moses held in order that it might return into a rod.

The serpents of the magicians are like those who are dead in the world. Unless by believing in Christ they have been, as it were, swallowed up by his body and entered into it, they will not be able to rise again in him.

So Jacob's stone, as I said, signified something better than the serpents of the magicians, yet the deed of the magicians was far more wonderful. But this is no obstacle to understanding the matter. It is just as if a man's name were written in gold and God's in ink.

Clouds and fires, and the bread on the altar

Who knows how the angels made or took those clouds and fires to signify the message they were bearing, even supposing the Lord or the Holy Spirit were shown in those bodily forms?

Think of infants and what is placed on the altar and consumed after the holy celebration. They do not know where it comes from or how it is made, or where it is taken from for religious use. Suppose they never learned this from their own experience or anyone else's, and never saw that kind of thing except during the celebration of the sacrament, while it is being offered and given. And suppose someone told them, on the weightiest authority, whose body and blood it is. They would believe nothing else than that the Lord truly appeared in this form to mortal eyes, and that this liquid truly flowed from the piercing of a side that looked like this.

A caution for myself and for you

It is a useful caution for me to remember what my own powers are, and to warn my brothers to remember theirs, so that human weakness does not go past what is safe. How do the angels do these things? Or rather, how does God do them by his angels, and how far does he will them to be done even by bad angels, whether by permitting, commanding, or compelling, from the hidden seat of his own supreme power? I can neither penetrate this by the sight of my eyes, nor make it clear by the certainty of reason, nor be carried on to grasp it by the reach of my understanding, so as to speak on every question that might be asked about these matters as surely as if I were an angel, a prophet or an apostle.

For, in the words of the book of Wisdom, the thoughts of mortal men are miserable and our devices uncertain. The perishable body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tent burdens the mind that thinks on many things. We hardly guess the things on earth, and with labor find the things before us. Who has searched out the things in heaven? But that same book goes on to say: who has known your counsel, unless you give wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from above?

Editor's note: this passage is from Wisdom 9:14-17, which is not in the ESV text used for this edition. It is given here as Augustine's sense, without quotation marks.

What I do dare to say

So we refrain from searching out the things in heaven. Under those I include angelic bodies according to their proper dignity, and any bodily action of those bodies. Yet, according to the Spirit of God sent to us from above, and according to his grace given to our minds, I dare to say with confidence this much. Neither God the Father, nor his Word, nor his Spirit, who together are the one God, is changeable in any way in respect of what he is and of that by which he is what he is. Much less is he visible in that respect.

There are some things that are changeable but not visible, such as our thoughts, memories and wills, and the whole incorporeal creation. But there is nothing visible that is not also changeable.

Chapter 11: The Essence of God Was Never Seen in Itself

The essence of God never appeared in itself. The divine appearances to the fathers were worked by the ministry of angels. An objection drawn from the manner of speaking is answered. The appearing of God to Abraham himself, just like that to Moses, was worked by angels. The same thing is proved by the law being given to Moses by angels. What has been said in this book, and what remains for the next.

The conclusion so far

So the substance of God, or, if it is better to say so, the essence of God, is that in which we understand the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in proportion to our measure and in however small a degree. Because it is in no way changeable, it can in no way be visible in its own self.

All the appearances were worked through the creature

It is clear, then, that all those appearances to the fathers, when God was presented to them according to his own plan suited to the times, were worked through the creature. We cannot discern how he worked them by the ministry of angels. Yet we say they were worked by angels. We do not say it from any power of discernment of our own, so that no one will think we are wise beyond our measure. We are wise so as to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (compare Romans 12:3). And we believe, and so we speak, as Paul says: "we also believe, and so we also speak" (2 Corinthians 4:13, ESV).

The authority of the divine Scriptures stands, and our reason ought not to turn aside from it. Reason must not leave the solid support of the divine word and fall headlong over the cliff of its own guesses, in matters where neither the perceptions of the body rule nor the clear reason of truth shines out.

The Letter to the Hebrews says it plainly

It is written most clearly in the Letter to the Hebrews. There, where the New Testament dispensation was to be distinguished from the Old, according to the fitness of ages and times, we learn that not only those visible things but the word itself was worked by angels. It says: "And to which of the angels has he ever said, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" (Hebrews 1:13-14, ESV).

From this it appears that all those things were done not only by angels but also on our account, that is, on account of the people of God, to whom the inheritance of eternal life is promised. So it is also written to the Corinthians: "Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come" (1 Corinthians 10:11, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "in a figure" where the ESV has "as an example." He takes it as "by way of figure," and the ESV wording does not change his point.

Then the writer shows by plain consequence that as the word was spoken at that time through angels, so now it is spoken by the Son. "Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:1-3, ESV).

It is as though you asked, "What salvation?" To show that he is now speaking of the New Testament, that is, of the word spoken not by angels but by the Lord, he goes on: "It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (Hebrews 2:3-4, ESV).

"The Lord said," not "the angel said"

Someone may say, "Then why is it written 'The Lord said to Moses,' and not 'The angel said to Moses'?" Here is the answer. When a herald proclaims the judge's words, the record does not usually read, "the herald said so and so." It reads, "the judge said so and so."

In the same way, when a holy prophet speaks, we say, "the prophet said," and we mean nothing but that the Lord said. If we said, "the Lord said," we would not be pushing the prophet aside. We would only be pointing to who spoke by him.

And these Scriptures often show the angel to be the Lord, whose speaking is from time to time introduced with "the Lord said," as we have already shown.

There are some who, because Scripture mentions an angel in that place, insist that it means the Son of God himself, since a prophet calls him an angel as the announcer of his Father's will and his own. For their sake I thought it right to bring a plainer witness from this letter. There it is not said "by an angel" but "by angels."

Stephen's account: Abraham and Moses

Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, relates these things in the way they are written in the Old Testament. He says, "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia" (Acts 7:2, ESV). But lest anyone think the God of glory then appeared to the eyes of any mortal as he is in himself, Stephen goes on to say that an angel appeared to Moses.

Moses, he says, fled and lived in the land of Midian. Then "when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush" (Acts 7:30, ESV). "When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord" (Acts 7:31, ESV). The voice said, "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob" (Acts 7:32, ESV). "And Moses trembled and did not dare to look" (Acts 7:32, ESV). "Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off the sandals from your feet'" (Acts 7:33, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text of Acts 7:30 read "an angel of the Lord." The ESV has "an angel"; Exodus 3:2 itself says "the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Exodus 3:2, ESV). His point stands on either wording.

Here Stephen speaks both of an angel and of the Lord, and of the same one as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, as is written in Genesis (the words are actually from Exodus 3:6).

Was Abraham different from Moses?

Could anyone say that the Lord appeared to Moses through an angel but to Abraham by himself? Let us not answer this from Stephen but from the book Stephen took his account from.

It is written that the Lord God said to Abraham, and a little after that the Lord God appeared to Abraham. Were these things, for that reason, not done by angels? Elsewhere it is said in the same way, "the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1, ESV). And yet it is added at once that when "he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him" (Genesis 18:2, ESV). We have already spoken of those three.

How will people explain how God was seen in three men if they will not rise from the words to the meaning, or if they too easily throw themselves down from the meaning to the words? They will have to confess that those three were angels, as what follows also shows.

Because it is not said that an angel spoke or appeared to him, will they dare to say this? That the vision and voice granted to Moses were worked by an angel because it is so written, but that God appeared and spoke in his own substance to Abraham because there is no mention of an angel?

The sacrifice of Isaac

In fact, an angel is not left unmentioned even with Abraham. When Abraham was ordered to offer up his son as a sacrifice, we read: "After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, 'Abraham!' And he said, 'Here am I.' He said, 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you'" (Genesis 22:1-2, ESV). Here God is certainly mentioned, not an angel.

But a little afterwards Scripture says: "Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, 'Abraham, Abraham!' And he said, 'Here am I.' He said, 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him'" (Genesis 22:10-12, ESV).

What can be answered to this? Will they say that God commanded Isaac to be slain and an angel forbade it? And further, that the father himself, against the decree of God who had commanded him to slay his son, obeyed the angel who told him to spare him? That reading is to be rejected as absurd. Yet Scripture does not leave any room even for such a coarse reading, because it adds at once: "for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Genesis 22:12, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "on account of me" where the ESV has "from me." His argument rests on that phrase: "on account of me" can only mean on account of the one who commanded the slaying. The sense is kept, and the ESV is printed.

What does "on account of me" mean here (the ESV has "from me"), except on account of the one who had commanded him to slay his son? Was the God of Abraham, then, the same as the angel? Or was it not rather God speaking by an angel?

Look at what follows. Here an angel has already been most clearly spoken of, and yet notice the context: "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, 'The LORD will provide'; as it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided'" (Genesis 22:13-14, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord saw; as it is said to this day, In the mount the Lord was seen." A little further on, the argument rests on "was seen," which the ESV does not have. His sense is kept, and the ESV is printed.

Now notice what the angel said a little before: "now I know that you fear God." That was said by God through an angel. It does not mean that God then came to know something. It means that he brought it about that Abraham himself came to know how much strength of heart he had to obey God, even to the sacrificing of his only son. This follows the manner of speaking in which the effect is named by the one who produces it. We say, for instance, that cold is "sluggish" because it makes people sluggish. So God is said to "know" because he made Abraham himself know. Abraham might well not have discerned the firmness of his own faith unless it had been proved by such a trial.

In the same way, Abraham called the name of the place "The Lord saw," that is, the Lord caused himself to be seen. For Scripture goes on at once, in Augustine's text, "as it is said to this day, In the mount the Lord was seen." Here you see that the same angel is called Lord. Why, unless because the Lord spoke by the angel?

If we pass on to what follows, the angel speaks altogether as a prophet, and expressly reveals that God is speaking by the angel: "And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, 'By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son'" (Genesis 22:15-16, ESV). Prophets also commonly use these words. The one through whom the Lord speaks says, "Thus says the Lord." Does the Son of God say "the Lord says" of the Father, when he himself is that Angel of the Father?

What then? Do these people not see how hard pressed they are about the three men who appeared to Abraham, when it had been said before, "The LORD appeared to him"? Were they not angels because they are called men? Let them read Daniel: "the man Gabriel" (Daniel 9:21, ESV).

The Law itself was given by angels

Why delay any longer in stopping their mouths with another most clear and weighty proof? Here neither an angel in the singular nor men in the plural are spoken of, but simply angels. By them not just some particular word was worked but the Law itself is most distinctly declared to have been given. None of the faithful doubts that God gave it to Moses to govern the children of Israel. Yet it was given by angels.

So Stephen speaks: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it" (Acts 7:51-53, ESV).

What is more evident than this? What is stronger than such an authority? The Law was given to that people by the arrangement of angels. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ's coming was prepared and announced beforehand by it. He himself, as the Word of God, was in some wonderful and unspeakable manner in the angels, by whose arrangement the Law itself was given.

That is why he said in the Gospel, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46, ESV). So the Lord was speaking by the angels. And the Son of God, who was to be the Mediator of God and men from the seed of Abraham, was preparing his own coming by the angels. He wanted to find some who would receive him, confessing themselves guilty, whom the unfulfilled Law had made transgressors.

Paul on the Law, and the one Mediator

The apostle says to the Galatians: "Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary" (Galatians 3:19, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "ordered through angels in the hand of a mediator." He takes this to mean "ordered through angels in his own hand," that is, in the hand of Christ, who was born "not in limitation but in power," and the next paragraph depends on that reading. The ESV has "by an intermediary," which is why the gloss that follows ("in the hand of Christ himself") is needed. The ESV is printed, and his sense is given here.

That is, the Law was ordered through angels in the hand of Christ himself. He was not born under limits but in power. And you learn elsewhere that Paul does not mean any one of the angels as the mediator but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, in so far as he deigned to be made man: "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV).

From this come the Passover in the killing of the lamb, and all the things spoken in figures in the Law about Christ coming in the flesh, suffering, and rising again. That Law was given by the arrangement of angels. In those angels were certainly the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit, and sometimes God without any distinction of person was signified through them in figure. God appeared in visible and sensible forms, but by his own creature and not by his substance. And it is in order to see that substance that hearts are cleansed, through all those things which are seen by the eyes and heard by the ears.

Where we stand, and what comes next

I think we have now sufficiently discussed and shown what we undertook to show in this book, according to our capacity. It has been established, by probable reasoning so far as a man, or rather so far as I, can do it, and by the strength of authority so far as the divine declarations of the Holy Scriptures have been made clear. It is this. The words and bodily appearances given to those ancient fathers of ours before the incarnation of the Savior, when God was said to appear, were worked by angels. They were either speaking or doing something in the person of God, as we have shown that the prophets were also accustomed to do, or they were taking from the creation something which they themselves were not, in which God could be shown in a figure to people. Scripture teaches by many examples that the prophets did not leave this manner of showing out either.

It remains for us to consider the following. In the Lord as born of a virgin, in the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form like a dove, and in the tongues like fire that appeared with a sound from heaven on the day of Pentecost after the Lord's ascension, it was not the Word of God himself by his own substance, in which he is equal and co-eternal with the Father. Nor was it the Spirit of the Father and the Son by his own substance, in which he too is equal and co-eternal with both. It was assuredly a creature, such as could be formed and exist in these ways, which appeared to bodily, mortal senses.

So the thing that remains is to consider what difference there is between these manifestations and those that were proper to the Son of God and to the Holy Spirit, although worked through the visible creature. That subject we shall more conveniently begin in another book.

Book Four: Why the Son Was Sent

In this book Augustine asks what the Son of God was sent to do. He answers that Christ died for sinners so that we would know how great God's love is, and also what sort of people we are whom he loved. The Word became flesh so that we could be cleansed to see God and cling to him. Our double death was undone by his one death. Augustine then shows why the one fits our two, and he spends some time on the perfection of the number six. All are gathered from many into one by the one Mediator of life, and only through him is the soul truly cleansed. Last, Augustine shows that the Son, though made less by being sent, is not less than the Father in the form of God, since he was sent by himself too. The same goes for the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Preface: Seek the Knowledge of God From God

The knowledge of God has to be sought from God.

Which knowledge is better?

1. Most people prize knowledge of earth and sky. People think a great deal of knowing things on earth and in the heavens. But those judge better who prefer to that knowledge the knowledge of themselves.

2. The better mind knows its own weakness. A mind that knows its own weakness is more to be praised than one that searches out and even learns the paths of the stars, or holds fast to that knowledge once it has it, while it stays ignorant of the way to its own health and strength.

Now think of someone who has woken up toward God. The warmth of the Holy Spirit has kindled him. In the love of God he has become small in his own eyes. He wants to come to God and doesn't have the strength. By the light God gives, he has looked at himself and found himself. He has learned that his own filth cannot mix with God's purity. He finds it sweet to weep and to plead that God will have mercy again and again, until he has put off all his misery. He prays with confidence, because he has already received, as a free gift, the pledge of salvation through his only Saviour and Enlightener.

That kind of person, living and grieving like that, is not made proud by his knowledge, "love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1, ESV). He has preferred one knowledge to another. He has chosen to know his own weakness over knowing the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth and the peaks of heaven. And in gaining that knowledge he has gained sorrow too. It is sorrow for wandering away from the desire to reach his own country and its Creator, his own blessed God.

A prayer before the book begins

If I am among people like that, in the family of your Christ, O Lord my God, if I groan among your poor, then give me out of your bread, so that I can answer those who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6, ESV). These others are already stuffed, and they have plenty. What has filled them is the empty picture of things, not your truth. They have pushed your truth away and shrunk back from it, and so they fall into their own emptiness.

I know well how many fictions the human heart gives birth to. And what is my heart but a human heart? So I pray to the God of my heart that I won't spit up into these pages any of those fictions as if they were solid truths. I ask that only what the breath of his truth has breathed into me may pass into them. I am cast out from the sight of his eyes. I am struggling from far off to return by the road that the divinity of his only-begotten Son has made through his humanity.

What this truth is like

I drink in this truth, changeable as I am, only so far as I see nothing changeable in it. Look at the three kinds of change we know.

1. Change in place and time. That is how it is with bodies.

2. Change in time, and in a way in place. That is how it is with the thoughts of our own spirits.

3. Change in time only, with not even a hint of place. That is how it is with some of the reasonings of our own minds.

The essence of God, by which he is, has nothing changeable in it at all. It does not change in eternity, or in truth, or in will. There truth is eternal and love is eternal. There love is true and eternity is true. There eternity is loved and truth is loved.

Chapter 1: We Are Made Perfect by Owning Our Weakness

We are made perfect by acknowledging our own weakness. The incarnate Word dispels our darkness.

We are exiles from the unchangeable joy. But we are not cut off or torn away from it, since we still look for eternity, truth and blessedness even in changeable and temporal things. We don't want to die. We don't want to be deceived. We don't want to be troubled.

So visions have been sent to us from heaven, fitted to our pilgrimage. They remind us that what we seek is not here. We must return from this pilgrimage to the place we came from, or we would not be looking for these things at all.

Two things we needed to learn

1. How much God loves us. We had to be persuaded of this first, so that we wouldn't despair and fail to look up to him.

2. What sort of people he loved. We also had to be shown this, so that we wouldn't be proud, as though we had earned his love, and move further from him and fall further on our own strength.

So he dealt with us in a way that would let us profit more from his strength. In the weakness of humility the power of love could then be made perfect. The Psalm hints at it: "Rain in abundance, O God, you shed abroad; you restored your inheritance as it languished" (Psalm 68:9, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text called this rain "spontaneous," a rain given freely, and he builds on that word. The ESV has "rain in abundance." His point still stands, because he reads the rain as grace, and that is the sense kept in the next paragraph.

By that rain I mean nothing but grace, given freely and not paid as a wage. That is why it is called grace. He gave it because he willed to, not because we were worth it. Once we know this, we won't trust in ourselves, and that is what it means to be made weak. He himself makes us perfect. He said to the apostle Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV).

So people had to be persuaded of two things. They had to learn how much God loved us, so they wouldn't despair. And they had to learn what sort of people we were whom he loved, so they wouldn't be proud. The apostle sets this out: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:8–10, ESV).

And in another place: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31–32, ESV).

What is told to us as already done was shown to the righteous of old as something about to be done. They too were humbled by the same faith, and so made weak. And being made weak, they were made perfect.

Everything is alive in the Word

1. The Word is one. Everything was made by the one Word of God, who is unchangeable truth. In him all things are together, in power and without change. That includes everything now in creation, and everything that has been and everything that will be. In him they neither have been nor will be. They simply are. In him all things are life, and all things are one. Or rather, it is one being and one life.

2. Things were made in such a way that what was made is life in him. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1, ESV). The Word was not made. If all things were made through him, he must himself have been before all things, and not made. "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3, ESV).

3. Even a body is life in him before it is made. Even a body, which is not itself life, could not have been made through him unless it was life in him first. And it is not just any kind of life. The soul too is the life of the body, but the soul is also made, because it is changeable. So by whom was it made, if not by the unchangeable Word of God? "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4, ESV).

4. The light of men is the light of minds. It is the light of rational minds, the light that makes men different from beasts, and so makes them men. This is not bodily light, the light of the flesh, whether it shines from heaven or is lit by earthly fires. Bodily light is seen not only by human flesh but by beasts, down to the smallest worms. But that life was the light of men. And it is not far from any one of us, for "in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28, ESV).

Chapter 2: How the Incarnate Word Makes Us Ready for the Truth

How we are made fit to see the truth through the incarnate Word.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text read "the darkness comprehended it not." The ESV reads "has not overcome it." Both are fair readings of the Greek, and the ESV is printed here. Augustine's point, that the darkness did not take the light in, is kept in the next lines.

What the darkness is, and what was done about it

The darkness is the foolish minds of men, blinded by wicked desires and by unbelief. To care for these minds and heal them, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV).

Our enlightening is a sharing in the Word, in that life which is the light of men. But we were not fit for this sharing. Our sins had made us unclean, and we fell short. So we had to be cleansed.

The only cleansing for the proud

1. The cleansing is a Righteous One's blood. The one thing that cleanses the unrighteous and the proud is the blood of the Righteous One and the humbling of God himself.

2. He became what we are. We were to be cleansed through him. He was made what we are by nature, and not what we are by sin, so that we might see God, whom by nature we are not. By nature we are not God. By nature we are men, and by sin we are not righteous.

3. Like to like. So God, made a righteous man, pleaded with God for sinful man. A sinner doesn't fit with a righteous one, but man fits with man. By joining to us the likeness of his humanity, he took away the difference that lay in our unrighteousness. By sharing in our mortality, he made us share in his divinity.

One death for two

The death of the sinner comes out of the necessity of condemnation. It is rightly undone by the death of the Righteous One, which came from the free choice of his mercy. His single death and resurrection answers to our double death and resurrection.

Editor's note: The brackets in the Haddan and Shedd text supply "death and resurrection" and "united" here. The sense, one fitted to two, is kept.

Let me stop for a word about the fitness of one to two. It matters in all joining together, or better, all fitting together, in creation. What I mean is what the Greeks call harmonia. This is not the place to explain how much weight that fitness of one to two carries, which is found especially in us. It is so planted in us (and by whom, but by the one who made us?) that even the untrained can't help feeling it, whether they sing or listen. By it, high and low voices blend. Anyone who departs from it in his note offends not just the trained ear, which most people lack, but hearing itself. To demonstrate this would take a long talk, but anyone who knows how can make it plain to the ear on a properly strung monochord.

Chapter 3: One Death and Resurrection for Our Two

The one death and resurrection of the body of Christ fits our double death and resurrection, of body and of soul, for our salvation. How the single death of Christ is given to our double death.

For our present need, we must ask how, so far as God gives me strength, our Lord and Saviour's one answers to our two, and is, so to speak, in tune with it.

We are dead twice over

No Christian doubts this. We are dead in soul and in body. In soul, because of sin. In body, because of the punishment of sin, and so also because of sin. Both parts of us needed medicine and a resurrection, so that what had been changed for the worse could be renewed for the better.

1. The death of the soul is ungodliness. The death of the soul is not believing, not loving God.

2. The death of the body is corruptibility. And from that comes the soul's departure from the body. As the soul dies when God leaves it, so the body dies when the soul leaves it. The first becomes foolish. The second becomes lifeless.

How the two are raised

1. The soul is raised first, by repentance and faith. The soul is raised again by repentance. The renewing of life begins in the body, which is still mortal, by faith, by which people believe on him "who justifies the ungodly" (Romans 4:5, ESV). That life is increased and strengthened by good habits from day to day, as "our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16, ESV).

2. The body is raised last. The body is the outer man. The longer this life lasts, the more it is worn down, by age or illness or all kinds of troubles, until it reaches the last trouble, which everyone calls death. Its resurrection waits until the end, when our justification itself will also be made perfect beyond words. Then "we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

For now, the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and human life on earth is all temptation. In comparison with the righteousness in which we will be made "equal to angels" (Luke 20:36, ESV), and with the glory that is to be revealed in us, "no one living is righteous before you" (Psalm 143:2, ESV). Paul says the sufferings of this present time "are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine here echoes a line from the book of Wisdom (9:15) about the corruptible body weighing down the soul. That book is not in the ESV text used here, so the line is given as an echo and not as a quotation.

Two kinds of death in one sentence of the Gospel

I could give more proofs of the difference between the death of the soul and the death of the body. But the Lord has made both deaths easy to tell apart in one sentence: "leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22, ESV). Burial is the proper treatment of a dead body. The ones doing the burying are those dead in soul by the sin of unbelief. They are the ones who are woken by the words, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14, ESV).

The apostle speaks of a death like this when he writes of the widow: "she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives" (1 Timothy 5:6, ESV). So a soul that was ungodly and is now godly is said to have come alive again from the dead, because of the righteousness of faith.

The body, for its part, is called "about to die" because of the soul's coming departure. But because of the great weakness of flesh and blood, Scripture even calls it dead already: "the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10, ESV). This life is worked by faith, "for the righteous shall live by faith" (Galatians 3:11, ESV). And what follows? "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you" (Romans 8:11, ESV).

What the Saviour gave to our double death

1. His one death to our two. On this double death of ours our Saviour bestowed his own single death. And to cause both our resurrections, he set out ahead of time, in mystery and in a figure, his own one resurrection.

2. He was not dead in soul. He was not a sinner or ungodly. He didn't need to be renewed in the inner man like someone dead in spirit, or to be called back to a life of righteousness by repentance. He took on mortal flesh. In that alone he died. In that alone he rose. In that alone he answered for both our deaths. For in it a mystery was worked for the inner man, and a figure was given for the outer.

3. The cry from the cross as a mystery of the inner man. When he cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, ESV), in the Psalm and again on the cross, it was a mystery of the death of our soul. I hear the apostle agreeing: "our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin" (Romans 6:6, ESV). Here the crucifixion of the inner man means the pains of repentance and a healthy agony of self-control. By this death the death of ungodliness is destroyed. In that death God has left us. And the body of sin is brought to nothing through such a cross, so that we no longer "present [our] members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness" (Romans 6:13, ESV).

The inner man is renewed day by day. But it is certainly old before it is renewed. That is the work the apostle speaks of: "to put off your old self" and "to put on the new self" (Ephesians 4:22, 24, ESV). He goes on to say what it looks like: "having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor" (Ephesians 4:25, ESV). Where is falsehood put away, if not inwardly? So that the one who "speaks truth in his heart" may "dwell on your holy hill" (Psalm 15:1–2, ESV).

4. The risen body as a mystery of the inner resurrection. After the Lord had risen, he said to the woman, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (John 20:17, ESV). The apostle's words go with this mystery: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above" (Colossians 3:1–2, ESV). Not to touch Christ before he had ascended to the Father means not to think of Christ in a fleshly way.

5. The death of his flesh as a figure of our outer death. It is mainly in that suffering that he urges his servants, "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Matthew 10:28, ESV). So the apostle says, "in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" (Colossians 1:24, ESV).

6. His risen body as a figure of our outer resurrection. He said to his disciples, "Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39, ESV). And one of them, touching his wounds, cried out, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28, ESV). The whole of that flesh was plainly there. This was shown in what he had said to encourage his disciples: "not a hair of your head will perish" (Luke 21:18, ESV).

An apparent contradiction

First it is said, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (John 20:17, ESV). Yet before ascending to the Father he is touched by his disciples. How can both be? Because in the first the mystery of the inner man was shown, and in the second a figure of the outer man was given.

Could anyone be so dull, and so turned from the truth, as to say that he was touched by men before he ascended, but by women after? It is because of this figure, which went ahead in the Lord, of our future resurrection in the body, that the apostle says, "Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:23, ESV). That passage is about the resurrection of the body. For its sake he also says that Christ "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21, ESV).

So our Saviour's one death brought salvation to our double death. His one resurrection worked two resurrections for us. In both his death and his resurrection his body was given to us by a kind of healing fitness, as a mystery of the inner man and a figure of the outer.

Chapter 4: Why the Number Six Matters for the One and the Two

The ratio of one to two comes from the perfection of the number six. The Scriptures commend that perfection, and the year is full of sixes.

Why six is called perfect

The fitting of one to two comes from the number three, since one added to two makes three. But the whole that these make reaches to six, because one and two and three make six.

This number is called perfect for a simple reason: it is completed by its own parts. It has a sixth, a third and a half, and no other part can be found in it that divides it evenly. Its sixth part is one. Its third part is two. Its half is three. And one and two and three add up to the same six.

Where Scripture commends it

1. Creation. God finished his works in six days. Of the sixth day it is written, "God created man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27, ESV), and "there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31, ESV).

2. The sixth age. The Son of God came and was made the Son of man in the sixth age of the human race, to make us new after the image of God. That sixth age is the present one. You can count the ages in two ways. You can give a thousand years to each. Or you can trace out the memorable turning points in Scripture. On that second count, the first age runs from Adam to Noah, and the second from Noah to Abraham. After that Matthew divides the history: from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation to Babylon, and from there to the birth of Christ, "fourteen generations" each (Matthew 1:17, ESV). That makes five ages. The Lord's birth began the sixth, which goes on until the hidden end of time.

3. A threefold division of time. We also see something of six in the way we reckon time: one stretch before the Law, a second under the Law, a third under grace. In this last time we have received the sacrament of renewal, so that at the end of time we may be renewed in every part, by the resurrection of the flesh. Then we will be made whole from all our weakness, in body as well as soul.

The bent woman and the fig tree

1. The woman bent for eighteen years. She is understood as a type of the Church. The Lord made her straight after she had been bent over by weakness through the binding of Satan. The Psalm laments such hidden enemies: "my soul was bowed down" (Psalm 57:6, ESV). The Gospel says she "had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years" (Luke 13:11, ESV). Eighteen is three times six. And the months of eighteen years add up to the cube of six: six times six times six.

Editor's note: Augustine's text read, "They bowed down my soul." The ESV words are printed here. The thought is the same, and so is Augustine's use of it.

2. The fig tree. Nearly in the same place in the Gospel is the fig tree, convicted by the third year of its barrenness. Someone pleaded for it: "let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down" (Luke 13:8–9, ESV). Three years also belong to the same threefold division. And the months of three years make the square of six, six times six.

The year itself

1. Three hundred sixty days. Take a year of twelve months of thirty days each, the month the old way fixed by the moon. Six in the first order of numbers (units up to ten) is sixty in the second (tens up to a hundred). Sixty days are a sixth of the year. Multiply the sixth of the second order by the sixth of the first, six times sixty, and you get three hundred sixty days, the twelve months.

2. The extra days. The sun, not the moon, marks the year, and five days and a quarter remain for the sun to finish its course. Four quarters make one day, which is added every fourth year. Even in these five and a quarter days six prevails. First, the whole is usually reckoned from a part, so we should count not five days but six, taking the quarters as one day. Second, five days are a sixth part of a month. And the quarter of a day is six hours, since a whole day, night included, is twenty-four hours, and a quarter of that is six. So much does the number six prevail in the course of the year.

Chapter 5: Six in the Building of the Lord's Body and the Temple

The number six is also commended in the building up of the body of Christ and of the temple at Jerusalem.

It is not without reason that six is taken for a year in the building up of the body of the Lord. He spoke of his body when he said of the temple, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19, ESV). The Jews answered, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple" (John 2:20, ESV). Six times forty-six is two hundred seventy-six. That number of days fills nine months and six days, which is counted as ten months for the labour of women. Not everyone is born on the sixth day after the ninth month. But the body of the Lord was brought to its perfection, it is found, in this many days, as the Church maintains on the tradition of the elders.

Editor's note: Augustine takes these dates from church tradition. Scripture does not give the day of Christ's conception or birth. He relies on the tradition, and says so.

March and December

By that tradition he is believed to have been conceived on the twenty-fifth of March, the day on which he also suffered. So the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived and where no mortal had been begotten, matches the new tomb in which he was buried: a tomb cut in stone "where no one had ever yet been laid" (Luke 23:53, ESV). John says the same: "in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid" (John 19:41, ESV). And by the same tradition he was born on the twenty-fifth of December. Count from the twenty-fifth of March to the twenty-fifth of December and you find two hundred seventy-six days, which is forty-six times six.

The temple and the body

In that number of years the temple was built, because in that number of sixes the body of the Lord was brought to perfection, up to its birth. When it was destroyed by the suffering of death, he raised it on the third day. The Gospel says so with the plainest and most solid witness: "he was speaking about the temple of his body" (John 2:21, ESV). And he said, "just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40, ESV).

Chapter 6: The Three Days of the Resurrection, and the One to Two Again

The three days of the resurrection, in which the ratio of one to two also shows.

Scripture itself shows that those three days were not whole and complete. The first day counts as a whole from its last part. The third day counts as a whole from its first part. The day in between, the second, was a whole day of twenty-four hours, twelve of day and twelve of night.

The hours of the first day

The Jews cried out for his crucifixion in the third hour, and it was the sixth day of the week. He hung on the cross at the sixth hour, and "at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice" (Mark 15:34, ESV), and gave up his spirit. He was buried, as the evangelist says, "When it was evening" (Matthew 27:57, ESV), that is, at the end of the day.

Start counting wherever you like. Even if some other explanation can be found, one that doesn't contradict John, by which he was hung on the cross at the third hour (compare "it was the third hour when they crucified him," Mark 15:25, ESV, with "about the sixth hour," John 19:14, ESV), you still can't make the first day a whole day. It will be counted whole from its last part, as the third is counted whole from its first part.

The night belongs to the next day

The night up to the dawn, when the Lord's resurrection was announced, belongs to the third day. God "said, 'Let light shine out of darkness'" (2 Corinthians 4:6, ESV). That is, through the grace of the New Testament and a share in Christ's resurrection, these words can be said to us: "at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8, ESV). It hints to us that the day takes its beginning from the night.

At the first, days were counted from light to night, because of man's coming fall. These days are counted from darkness to light, because of man's restoring.

Forty hours and thirty-six hours

1. Forty hours. From the hour of his death to the dawn of the resurrection are forty hours, counting the ninth hour itself. This agrees with the forty days of his life on earth after the resurrection, when he appeared to them "during forty days" (Acts 1:3, ESV). Forty is used most often in Scripture for the mystery of perfection in the fourfold world. Ten has a certain perfection, and ten times four is forty.

2. Thirty-six hours. From the evening of the burial to the dawn of the resurrection are thirty-six hours, which is six times six. That points again to the ratio of one to two, where the fitting of the parts is most harmonious. Twelve added to twenty-four fits the ratio of one to two and makes thirty-six: a whole night, a whole day, and a whole night.

3. And again, a mystery. It is not without meaning, as I said above, that we compare the spirit to the day and the body to the night. For the body of the Lord in death and resurrection was a mystery of our spirit and a figure of our body. So the ratio of one to two shows again in the thirty-six hours, when twelve are added to twenty-four.

A word about the reasons

Others may trace out other reasons why these numbers are used in Scripture. Their reasons might be better than mine, or equal to mine, or more probable. But no one is so foolish as to say these numbers stand in Scripture for no purpose, or that there is no hidden meaning in them.

The reasons I have given I took from the authority of the Church, according to the tradition of our fathers, or from the witness of the divine Scriptures, or from the very nature of numbers and likenesses. No sober person will decide against reason. No Christian will decide against the Scriptures. No peaceable person will decide against the Church.

Chapter 7: How We Are Gathered From Many Into One Through the One Mediator

How we are gathered from many into one through one Mediator.

This mystery, this sacrifice, this priest, this God existed before he was sent and came, made of a woman. Everything that appeared to our fathers in a holy and hidden way, through the wonders of angels, or that was done by the fathers themselves, was a likeness of him. The point was that every creature, by what it did, might speak in some way of the One who was to come, in whom there would be salvation, and the recovery of all from death.

Why the many pointed to the One

1. We had fallen away. Through the wickedness of ungodliness we had pulled back and fallen away, in discord, from the one true and highest God. We had become empty in many things. We were scattered across many things and stuck fast to many things.

2. God, in his mercy, ordered it so. By his decree and command, those many things were to join in announcing the One who was to come. The One was to come announced by those many things. And the many were to join in witnessing that the One had come.

3. So that we would come to the One. Freed from the weight of the many, we were to come to the One. We were dead in soul through many sins, and bound to die in the flesh because of sin. We were to love the One who died in the flesh for us without sin. By believing in him as he is now raised again, and by rising with him in spirit through faith, we were to be made righteous by being made one in the one Righteous One.

4. So that we would not despair of our own resurrection. We were not to give up hope of rising in the flesh itself, since we can see that the one Head has gone before us, the many members. In him we are now cleansed through faith. Later we will be renewed by sight. Through him as Mediator we are reconciled to God. And we are to cling to the One, to feed on the One, and to remain one.

Chapter 8: How Christ Wills That All Be One in Himself

In what manner Christ wills that all shall be one in himself.

So the Son of God himself, the Word of God, is also the Mediator between God and men. He is the Son of man. He is equal to the Father in the unity of the Godhead, and he shares with us by taking on our humanity. He pleads for us with the Father in that he was man, and he doesn't hide that he is God, one with the Father. Among other things he says this:

"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one" (John 17:20–22, ESV).

Chapter 9: The Same Argument, Carried On

The same argument continued.

Notice what he did not say. He did not say, "I and they are one thing." He might have said that, since he is the head of the Church, which is his body. He might have said, "We are, not one thing, but one person," because the head and the body are one Christ.

But he wanted to show his own Godhead, of one substance with the Father. That is why he says in another place, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). In his own kind, in the shared equality of the same nature, he wills his own to be one, but in himself. They could not be one in themselves. They are separated from each other by different pleasures and desires and the uncleanness of sin.

How they are made one

They are cleansed through the Mediator, so that they may be one in him. This is not only because of the same nature, in which all of us, from being mortal men, become equal to the angels. It is also because of the same will, in perfect harmony with one another, aiming at the same blessedness, fused in some way by the fire of love into one spirit.

That is what his words mean: "that they may be one even as we are one" (John 17:22, ESV). As the Father and the Son are one, not only in equality of substance but also in will, so those between whom and God the Son is mediator are to be one, not only because they have the same nature but because of the same bond of love.

Then he goes on to make plain that he himself is the Mediator, through whom we are reconciled to God: "I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one" (John 17:23, ESV).

Chapter 10: Christ the Mediator of Life, the Devil the Mediator of Death

As Christ is the Mediator of life, so the devil is the mediator of death.

Here is our true peace and the firm bond that joins us to our Creator. We are to be purified and reconciled through the Mediator of life, as we had been defiled and estranged, and so had gone away from him, through the mediator of death.

Two ways, one up and one down

1. The devil led through pride. By pride the devil led man through pride to death. Christ, through humility, led man back through obedience to life.

2. One fell by being lifted up, one was raised by being brought low. The first fell by being lifted up, and threw down with him the man who agreed with him. The other was raised up through being humbled, and lifted up with him the man who believed in him.

How the devil gained his standing

The devil had not come to the place where he led man. In his ungodliness he bore the death of the spirit, but he had not undergone the death of the flesh, because he had taken no covering of flesh. So he seemed to man a mighty chief among the legions of devils, through whom he rules in deceits.

His methods are several.

1. He puffs man up. He puffs up man, who wants power more than righteousness, through the pride of being lifted up, or through false philosophy.

2. He tangles man in unholy rites. He catches him in sacrilegious rites. The more curious and proud minds he throws down headlong by deceit and illusion, and he holds them captive to magic tricks.

3. He promises cleansing. He even promises the cleansing of the soul through the initiations the pagans call teletai. He disguises himself as an angel of light, working through all kinds of schemes in lying signs and wonders. Paul says as much: "even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14, ESV).

Chapter 11: Miracles Done by Demons Are Not to Be Admired

Miracles that are done by demons are to be despised.

It is easy for the most worthless spirits to do many things by means of bodies made of air. These things cause wonder to souls weighed down with earthly bodies, even souls that mean well.

Think of the theatre

Earthly bodies, trained by skill and practice, put on such marvels in theatre shows that those who haven't seen them hardly believe them when they are told. Why would it be hard for the devil and his angels, using their airy bodies, to make things that stun the flesh out of physical elements? Or to produce unreal appearances by secret suggestions, to fool the senses of people awake or asleep, or to drive them into madness?

What a good person does

Suppose a man better than they in life and character watches the most worthless of men walking a tightrope, or doing hard-to-believe tricks with their bodies. He doesn't want to do such things. He doesn't think those men are better than himself because of it.

In the same way, the faithful and godly soul may see the miracles of demons, or even shudder at them because of the weakness of the flesh. It will not mourn that it can't do such things. It will not judge them to be better than itself. It is in the company of the holy, whether men or good angels. They do, through the power of God, to whom all things are subject, wonders far greater, and the very opposite of deceiving.

Chapter 12: The Devil Mediator of Death, Christ of Life

The devil is the mediator of death, and Christ is the Mediator of life.

Souls are in no way cleansed and reconciled to God by sacrilegious copies, or by strange and ungodly arts, or by magic spells. The false mediator doesn't carry them to higher things. He blocks and cuts off the way there, through the feelings he stirs in his own company, which are wicked in proportion as they are proud. Those feelings cannot feed the wings of virtue to fly upward. They pile on the weight of vices to press down. And the more a soul thinks it has been lifted, the heavier it falls.

Return by another way

The Magi, warned by God, were led by a star to worship the humble Lord. After that, "they departed to their own country by another way" (Matthew 2:12, ESV). We should do the same. We should return to our country, not by the road we came on, but by another road, which the lowly King has taught, and which the proud king, the enemy of the lowly King, cannot block.

For us too, so that we may worship the lowly Christ, "the heavens declare the glory of God," and "their words [go out] to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:1, 4, ESV).

The way to death, and its mediator

A road to death was opened for us by sin in Adam. "Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned" (Romans 5:12, ESV). The devil was the mediator of this road. He persuaded man to sin and threw him down into death.

He too used his one death to work out our double death. He died in the spirit by ungodliness, but did not die in the flesh. Yet he persuaded us to ungodliness, and so brought it about that we deserved to come into the death of the flesh. We wanted the one through wicked persuasion. The other followed us by a just sentence.

Editor's note: At this point Augustine writes that it is written that "God made not death." That line is from the book of Wisdom (1:13), which is not in the ESV text used here. It is given as a paraphrase: God was not himself the cause of death.

God was not the cause of death. But death was inflicted on the sinner by his most just reward. It is like a judge who gives a punishment to the guilty. The cause of the punishment is not the justice of the judge but the crime that deserves it.

Where our Lord went in

The mediator of death caused us to pass into the death of the flesh, but he did not come there himself. There our Lord God brought in for us the medicine of correction, which he did not deserve. He did so by a hidden and very mysterious decree of his deep and divine justice.

The reason was this: "as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:21, ESV). People worked harder to avoid what they could not avoid, the death of the flesh, than the death of the spirit. They feared the punishment more than the sin that deserved it. Not sinning is something people don't care about, or care about too little. Not dying is something they are eager for, though they can't get it.

The Mediator of life showed that the thing not to fear is death, which by the condition of humanity cannot now be escaped. What we must fear is ungodliness, which can be guarded against through faith. And so he meets us at the end where we have arrived, but not by the road we came on. We came to death through sin. He came through righteousness. So as our death is the punishment of sin, his death was made a sacrifice for sin.

Chapter 13: Christ's Death Was His Own Choice

The death of Christ was voluntary. How the Mediator of life subdued the mediator of death. How the devil leads his own to despise the death of Christ.

The spirit is to be preferred to the body. The death of the spirit is that God has left it. The death of the body is that the spirit has left it. And here lies the punishment of the body's death: the spirit leaves the body against its will, because it left God willingly. The spirit left God because it wished to. It leaves the body though it does not wish to, and it leaves when it wishes only if it has done violence to itself, so that the body itself is killed.

He laid down his life of his own accord

The Mediator's spirit showed that it was through no punishment of sin that he came to the death of the flesh. He did not leave the flesh against his will. He left it because he willed to, when he willed to, as he willed to. He is so joined with the flesh by the Word of God that he is one with it. So he says, "I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:17–18, ESV).

The Gospel tells us that the bystanders were most amazed that after his last word, in which he had set out the figure of our sin, he gave up his spirit at once. People hanging on a cross are usually worn down by a long dying. That is why the legs of the thieves were broken, "that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away" (John 19:31, ESV), so that they would die quickly and be taken down before the Sabbath. And when Jesus was found already dead, it caused wonder. That is what we read of Pilate: "Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died" (Mark 15:44, ESV), when the body was asked of him for burial.

The false mediator cannot do what Christ did

1. He can match one death only. The deceiver was a mediator to death for man. He pretends to offer life under the name of cleansing, through sacrilegious rites and sacrifices, by which the proud are led away. He can share neither in our death nor in a rising from his own. He has been able to apply his single death to our double one. But he has not been able to apply a single resurrection, which would be at once a mystery of our renewal and a figure of the waking up at the end.

2. Christ drove him out. The true Mediator of life, alive in the spirit, raised up his own flesh that was dead. He has thrown out the dead-in-spirit mediator of death from the spirits of those who believe in him. The devil must not reign within. He may attack from outside, but he cannot win.

3. Christ offered himself to be tempted. He offered himself even to the devil's tempting, so that he might be Mediator in overcoming temptations, not only by helping us but by his example. "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matthew 4:1, ESV). The devil tried every entrance to creep into his inner parts and was thrown out, when his tempting was over. "Then the devil left him" (Matthew 4:11, ESV). Being dead in spirit, he could force no entrance into the one alive in spirit.

Where the devil lost

So the devil, still eager for the death of man by any means, turned to bringing about the death he could and was allowed to bring about, upon the mortal part that the living Mediator had taken from us. And where he could do anything, there he was beaten in every way. Where he got the outward power to kill the Lord in the flesh, there the inward power by which he held us was killed.

It came about that the chains of many sins in many deaths were undone by the one death of One, whom no sin had come before. The Lord paid that death, though it was not owed, so that the death that was owed would not hurt us.

He was not stripped of the flesh by anyone's rule over him. He stripped himself. He could have not died, if he had not wished. He died because he wished. And so "he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" (Colossians 2:15, ESV).

Through his death the one most real sacrifice was offered for us. Whatever fault gave the rulers and authorities a right to hold us for the penalty, he cleansed, abolished and put out. By his resurrection he also called us to new life. "Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:30, ESV).

How the devil lost what he held

In the very death of the flesh, the devil lost man, whom he held as if by absolute right. Man had been led astray and had agreed. The devil ruled over him. But the devil himself was free of the corruption of flesh and blood, the weakness of the mortal body, which made man both poor and weak. He was proud in proportion as he seemed richer and stronger, ruling over someone dressed in rags and full of troubles.

Where he drove the sinner to fall, he did not follow. By following, he forced the Redeemer to come down there. The Son of God was willing to become our friend in the fellowship of death. Because the devil never came there, the enemy thought himself better and greater than we are. Our Redeemer says, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends" (John 15:13, ESV).

So the devil thought himself above the Lord himself, since the Lord gave way to him in his sufferings. It is of the Lord too, I understand, that Scripture says he was made "for a little while lower than the angels" (Hebrews 2:7, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine cites this from the Psalm, in the form "a little lower than the angels." The Psalm in the ESV (Psalm 8:5) says "a little lower than the heavenly beings." Hebrews 2:7 quotes the Psalm with "angels," and Hebrews is printed here.

He was put to death although innocent, by the unjust one, who acted against us as though by just right. Because of that, he could beat the devil by a most just right. He could "[lead] a host of captives" (Ephesians 4:8, ESV), the captivity worked by sin. He could free us from a captivity that was just because of our sin. He did it by "canceling the record of debt that stood against us" (Colossians 2:14, ESV). He redeemed us, who were to be justified though sinners, by his own righteous blood, unrighteously shed.

Why the devil mocks his own to this day

The devil, to this day, mocks those who belong to him. He presents himself to them as a false mediator, as though they would be cleansed. They are really being tangled up and drowned by his rites. He easily persuades the proud to laugh at and despise the death of Christ. The more he himself is kept away from that death, the holier and more divine he seems to them.

Yet very few are left with him. The nations recognise the price paid for them and take it in with godly humility. They trust it, leave their enemy, and gather to their Redeemer.

The devil does not know how the highest wisdom of God uses both his traps and his fury to bring about the salvation of God's faithful ones. It runs from the first end, which is the beginning of the spiritual creature, to the last end, which is the death of the body. It "reach[es] from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things."

Editor's note: That last line, and the next sentence in Augustine, about wisdom passing and going through all things by reason of her purity, are from the book of Wisdom (8:1 and 7:24), which is not in the ESV text used here. They are given as echoes.

Two deaths, and the pride that despises Christ

The devil has nothing to do with the death of the flesh. That is where his great pride comes from. But another kind of death is prepared for him in the eternal fire of hell, by which not only spirits with earthly bodies but also those with airy bodies can be tormented.

Proud men despise Christ because he died. Yet in dying he bought us at so great a price. Those men bring back the first death, and they drag other men back to the misery of their nature, which comes from the first sin. They will be thrown into the second death with the devil.

They have preferred the devil to Christ, because he threw them into the first death. He himself didn't fall into it, since his nature is different. Christ went down into it for their sake, in his great mercy. Yet they will not hesitate to think themselves better than the devils. They keep attacking them with every curse. And they know very well that devils have nothing to do with the suffering of this kind of death, the very thing for which they despise Christ.

They don't consider that the Word of God, remaining in himself and in no way changing in himself, may take on a lower nature and so suffer something lower. An unclean spirit can't suffer that, because it has no earthly body. They themselves are better than the devils, but because they carry a body of flesh, they can die as the devils cannot. They put great hope in the deaths of their own sacrifices. They do not see that they are sacrificing to deceitful and proud spirits. Or if they have seen it, they think the friendship of such spirits is some good to them, though those spirits are treacherous and envious, and aim at nothing but blocking our return.

Chapter 14: Christ, the Most Perfect Offering for Our Faults

Christ is the most perfect victim for cleansing our faults. In every sacrifice four things are to be considered.

They don't understand that not even the proudest spirits could take pleasure in the honour of sacrifices, unless a true sacrifice was due to the one true God, in whose place they want to be worshipped. A true sacrifice can be rightly offered only by a holy and righteous priest. It has to be received from those for whom it is offered. And it has to be without fault, so that it can be offered to cleanse the faulty. All who want sacrifice offered for themselves to God want at least this.

Who fits all of this?

1. Who is so righteous and holy a priest as the only Son of God? He had no need to cleanse his own sins by sacrifice, whether the sin we are born with or the sin added by human life. The Bible says of him that he is "one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, ESV). And he "has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself" (Hebrews 7:27, ESV).

2. What could be so fittingly chosen by men to be offered for them as human flesh? And what is so fit to be killed as mortal flesh? What is so clean for cleansing the faults of mortal men as flesh born in and from the womb of a virgin, without any stain of fleshly desire?

3. What could be so acceptably offered and received as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our priest?

Four things in every sacrifice

In every sacrifice four things have to be considered: to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, and for whom it is offered.

The one true Mediator himself, reconciling us to God by the sacrifice of peace, stayed one with the one to whom he offered. He made those for whom he offered one in himself. And he himself was, in one, both the one who offers and the offering. "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2, ESV).

Chapter 15: The Proud Who Think They Can Cleanse Themselves

They are proud who think they can be cleansed by their own righteousness so as to see God.

Some people think they can be cleansed by their own righteousness, so that they can look on God and live in God. Their very pride stains them more than anyone. No sin is more opposed to the divine law, and over no sin does the proudest of spirits, the mediator to things below and a barrier against things above, gain a greater right of mastery. Unless, that is, you avoid his secret snares by going another way. Or, if he rages openly through a sinful people (which is what Amalek means), and forbids by fighting the way to the promised land, he must be overcome by the cross of the Lord. That cross was foreshadowed in the holding out of the hands of Moses. "Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed" (Exodus 17:11, ESV).

The proud man and the ship of wood

These people promise themselves cleansing by their own righteousness, because some of them have managed to look beyond the whole creation with the eye of the mind, and to touch, if only slightly, the light of unchangeable truth. They laugh at the many Christians who cannot yet do this, and who live by faith alone for now.

But what good is it to the proud man, who is too ashamed to climb aboard the ship of wood, to see his homeland from far off across the sea? And how does it hurt the humble man not to see it from so far, when he is in fact arriving there on that very wood, which the other one scorns to be carried by?

Chapter 16: Do Not Ask the Old Philosophers About the Resurrection

The old philosophers are not to be consulted about the resurrection or about things to come.

These same people also find fault with us for believing in the resurrection of the flesh. They want us to believe them about these things. As though, because they managed to understand the high and unchangeable substance through the things that are made, they have a claim to be consulted about the turning of changeable things, or the connected order of the ages.

Seeing God's wisdom is not seeing the future

Think about it. They argue very truly, and persuade us by the most certain proofs, that all temporal things are made according to an eternal knowledge. Does that make them able to see clearly in that knowledge, or to collect from it, how many kinds of animals there are? What the seeds of each are at their beginnings? What measure they grow by? What numbers run through their conceiving, birth, age and death? What movements drive them toward what suits their nature and away from its opposite?

Did they not look into all these things, not through that unchangeable wisdom, but through the history of places and times? Or did they trust what others had written down from experience?

No wonder they failed on the long ages

It is no surprise, then, that they failed completely to search out the course of longer ages. They could not find the goal of that course, down which the human race is sailing as down a river, nor the passing of each person from there to his own proper end. These are things historians could not write about. They lie far in the future and have been experienced and told by no one.

Even the philosophers who made the best progress in that high and eternal knowledge could not grasp such things with the understanding. If they had, they would not be inquiring, as best they could, into past things of that kind, which belong to historians. They would rather have foreknown things to come too. Those who can do that, they call soothsayers. We call them prophets.

Chapter 17: The Different Ways Future Things Are Known

In how many ways future things are foreknown. Neither the philosophers, nor those who were distinguished among the ancients, are to be consulted about the resurrection of the dead.

Though the name of prophets is not altogether foreign to their writings, it makes the greatest difference how future things come to be known. Let me list the ways.

Four ways of foreknowing

1. Guessing from experience of the past. Doctors have written many things down in the way of foresight, from what they noticed by experience. Farmers and sailors, too, foretell many things. If such predictions are made long beforehand, they are thought to be divinations.

2. Seeing things already on their way. Some future things have already started on their road to us. They are seen coming from far off, and are announced according to how sharp the eyes of those who see them are. This is how the powers of the air are thought to foretell things. It is like a man on a mountain top who sees someone coming far off and tells those who live close by in the plain.

3. Told by holy angels. Some things are announced beforehand to certain people, or heard by them and passed on to others, by holy angels. God shows the angels these things by his Word and Wisdom, in which both future and past things consist.

4. Seen by the Holy Spirit directly. The minds of some people are carried upward by the Holy Spirit so far that they see for themselves, without angels, the unmoving causes of future things, at the very highest peak of the universe.

The powers of the air hear these things too, either by message through angels or through men. They hear only as much as is fitting for him to allow, to whom all things are subject. Many things are also foretold by a kind of instinct and inner prompting in people who don't know what they are saying. Caiaphas "did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation" (John 11:51, ESV).

Why we should not ask them about the resurrection

So neither about the order of the ages nor about the resurrection of the dead should we consult these philosophers. They understood the eternity of the Creator as far as they could, the Creator "in [whom] we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28, ESV). But they knew God through the things that were made, and "they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him" (Romans 1:21, ESV). Instead "claiming to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22, ESV).

They couldn't fix the eye of the mind firmly enough on the eternity of the spiritual and unchangeable nature to see, in the wisdom of the Creator and Governor of all things, the turnings of the ages. Those turnings were always there in that wisdom, but here they were still to come. Neither could they see the changes for the better, not only of souls but of the bodies of men, up to the perfection of their proper measure.

Since they were in no way fit to see these things there, they were also not thought worthy to receive any announcement of them from holy angels. Not outwardly through the bodily senses, and not by inner revelations shown in the spirit. But our fathers, who had true godliness, did receive these things. By foretelling them, and winning belief through present signs or through events close at hand that turned out as they had said, they earned the authority to be believed about things far in the future, even to the end of the world.

The proud and deceiving powers of the air have sometimes said, through their soothsayers, some things about the fellowship and citizenship of the saints and about the true Mediator. They heard these things from the holy prophets or angels. Their aim was to lure even God's faithful away by these borrowed truths, if they could, and make them fall back to their own falsehoods. But God did this through people who didn't know what they were saying, so that the truth might sound from all sides, to help the faithful and to witness against the ungodly.

Chapter 18: The Son Became Flesh So We Could Be Cleansed by Faith

The Son of God became incarnate so that we, being cleansed by faith, might be raised to the unchangeable truth.

We were not fit to take hold of things eternal. We were weighed down by the filth of sins, which we picked up by loving temporal things, and which were planted in us almost naturally, from the root of mortality. So we needed cleansing.

Healing has to meet the disease

We could not be cleansed so as to be joined to eternal things except through temporal things, because we were already joined to temporal things and held by them. Health is the opposite of disease. But the process of healing in between does not lead to perfect health unless it has some fit with the disease.

1. Useless temporal things. They only deceive the sick.

2. Useful temporal things. They take up those who need healing and pass them on, healed, to eternal things.

The reasoning mind owes contemplation to eternal things when it is cleansed. And when it needs cleansing, it owes faith to temporal things.

As eternity is to what begins, truth is to faith

One of the wise men of the Greeks said, "The truth stands to faith as eternity stands to what has a beginning." He is surely right. What we call temporal, he calls having a beginning. We belong to that kind too, not only in body but in the changeableness of the soul. Nothing that undergoes any change at all is properly called eternal. So to the degree that we change, we stand apart from eternity.

Eternal life is promised to us through the truth. But our faith stands as far from the clear knowledge of that truth as mortality stands from eternity. So we now put our faith in things done in time for our sake, and by that faith we are cleansed. When we come to sight, truth will follow faith, and eternity will follow mortality.

Our faith will become truth when we reach what is promised to us who believe. What is promised is eternal life. And the Truth himself (not a truth that will come to be as our faith comes to be, but the truth that always is, because eternity is in it) has said, "this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV). When our faith, by seeing, has become truth, then eternity will take hold of our now-changed mortality.

How the Truth took a beginning

Until that happens, and so that it may happen, we fit the faith of belief to things that have a beginning, and we hope for the truth of sight in things eternal. This keeps the faith of mortal life from clashing with the truth of eternal life. So the Truth himself, eternal with the Father, took a beginning from earth. The Son of God came as the Son of man and took our faith to himself, to lead us on by it to his own truth. He took on our mortality and did not lose his own eternity.

For truth stands to faith as eternity stands to what has a beginning. So we have to be cleansed in such a way that we come to a beginning that stays eternal, and don't have one beginning in faith and another in truth. We could not pass from having a beginning to eternal things unless we were carried over, by the eternal joined to us through our own beginning, into his own eternity.

Four things, two known and two hoped for

Our faith has already followed, in a measure, to where the One we believed in has gone. He was born, he died, he rose, he was taken up. Of those four, the first two we know in ourselves. We know that men have a beginning and that they die. The last two, to be raised and to be taken up, we rightly hope will happen in us, because we have believed them done in him.

Since in him what had a beginning has passed over to eternity, it will pass over in us too, when faith arrives at truth.

To believers, so that they may remain in the word of faith, and be led on from there to the truth, and through the truth to eternity, and be freed from death, he says: "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31–32, ESV).

Free from what? Only from death, from corruption, from changeableness. Truth stays deathless, uncorrupted and unchangeable. And true deathlessness, true incorruption, true unchangeableness is eternity itself.

Chapter 19: How the Son Was Sent and Announced Beforehand

In what manner the Son was sent and proclaimed beforehand. How, in the sending of his birth in the flesh, he was made less without loss to his equality with the Father.

So here is why the Son of God was sent. Better, here is what it is for the Son of God to be sent. Everything that was done in time to produce faith, by which we are cleansed to contemplate the truth, was done in things that have a beginning, put forth from eternity and pointing back to eternity. All of it was either a witness to this mission, or the mission itself of the Son of God.

Some of these witnesses announced him beforehand as coming. Some testified that he had come. The One by whom all creation was made had to be made a creature, and that needed a witness from all creation. For he had to be proclaimed through the sending of many witnesses, and unless there were witnesses that seemed great to the lowly, it would not be believed that he, being great, would make men great, and was sent as a lowly one to the lowly.

The heaven and the earth and all that is in them are works of the Son of God incomparably greater than the signs and wonders that broke out in witness of him, since all things were made by him. But so that men, being lowly, might believe that these great things had been done by him, they trembled at those lowly things as if they were great.

"Born of woman": sent because made

"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4, ESV). He was so lowly that he was "made." He was sent in being made.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." His chain of argument, sent, so made, so less, turns on "made." The ESV has "born," so in the sentences that follow I use his word "made."

If the greater sends the less, then we too acknowledge that he was made less. He was less as far as he was made, and made as far as he was sent. "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." Yet because all things were made by him, and this before he was made and sent, and before all things at all, we confess him to be equal to the one who sent him, though we call him less as one sent.

How could the fathers have seen him?

How, then, was he seen by the fathers in certain visions of angels, before that fullness of time when it was right that he should be sent? He had not yet been sent, and yet he was seen as equal with the Father. How can that be?

Think of what he says to Philip, who certainly saw him, as the rest did, and as even those who crucified him in the flesh did: "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9, ESV). He was seen and he was not seen. He was seen as he had been made, in being sent. He was not seen as the one by whom all things were made.

Or think of another saying: "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21, ESV). He said that when he was in plain view before men's eyes. How could that be? He was offering the flesh that the Word became in the fullness of time, to be received by our faith. He was holding back the Word himself, by whom all things were made, to be seen in eternity by the mind once it was cleansed by faith.

Chapter 20: The Sender and the Sent Are Equal

The sender and the sent are equal. Why the Son is said to be sent by the Father. The sending of the Holy Spirit: how, and by whom, he was sent. The Father is the source of the whole Godhead.

Suppose the Son is said to be sent by the Father only because one is the Father and the other the Son. That does not stop us believing the Son to be equal, of one substance, and eternal with the Father, and yet sent as Son by the Father. It is not that one is greater and the other less. It is that one is Father and the other Son. One begets and the other is begotten. One is the one from whom the sent one is, and the other is the one who is from the one who sends. The Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son.

Not only sent as man, but sent that the Word might be made flesh

In this way we can see that the Son is not only said to have been sent because "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14, ESV). He was sent so that the Word might be made flesh, and do through his bodily presence the things that were written. It is not only that he is understood to have been sent as man, which the Word became. The Word was sent so that he might be made man.

He was not sent because of any inequality of power or substance, or anything in him not equal to the Father. He was sent because the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son. For the Son is the Word of the Father, who is also called his wisdom.

Light from light

Editor's note: In the next paragraphs Augustine reads the book of Wisdom (7:25–27, 9:10) on the nature of Wisdom. That book is not in the ESV text used here. His wording is given as he has it, as an echo of Wisdom. The ESV says something close of the Son in Hebrews 1:3: "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature."

What wonder, then, if the Son is sent, not because he is unequal with the Father, but because he is "a pure emanation issuing from the glory of the Almighty"? There, what issues and that from which it issues are of one and the same substance. It does not issue as water comes out of a hole in earth or stone. It issues as light from light.

When Wisdom is called "the brightness of the everlasting light," what else does that mean but that she is light from everlasting light? For what is the brightness of light but light itself, and so eternal together with the light from which it comes?

It is better to say "the brightness of light" than "light of light." Otherwise you might think that what issues is darker than that from which it issues. Hearing "brightness of light" as light itself makes it easier to believe that the first shines by means of the second than that the second shines less.

No heretic has ever dared to say that the light which begat the other is the lesser, and no one will. So Scripture meets the other thought, that what issues might seem darker than its source. It removes the guess by saying, "It is the brightness of that light," that is, of eternal light. That shows it to be equal. If it were less, it would be its darkness and not its brightness. If it were greater, it could not issue from it, for it cannot be greater than what it comes out of.

Because it issues from it, it is not greater. Because it is not its darkness but its brightness, it is not less. So it is equal.

An emanation, but all-powerful

Don't let it trouble you that this Wisdom is called a pure emanation issuing from the glory of the Almighty, as though she were not all-powerful herself, only an emanation from the All-powerful. A little later it says of her, "being but one, she can do all things." And who is all-powerful, but the one who can do all things?

Sent from where she comes from

She is sent by the one from whom she issues. That is how the man who loved and desired her sought her: "Send her out of your holy heavens, and from the throne of your glory, that, being present, she may labor with me." That is, may teach me to labour gladly, so that I may not labour grudgingly. Her labours are virtues.

But she is sent in one way to be with man, and sent in another way to be man herself. For "entering into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets." She also fills the holy angels, and works through them all that is fitting for such services.

But when the fullness of time came, she was sent, not to fill angels, nor to be an angel (except in so far as she announced the Father's counsel, which was hers too). She was not sent to be with men or in men, since that had already taken place in the fathers and prophets. She was sent so that the Word himself should be made flesh, that is, made man.

The salvation of those wise and holy people who were born of women before he was born of the Virgin was in that mystery still to come, when it should be revealed. And in that mystery, done and made known, is the salvation of all who believe, hope and love. For this is "the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory" (1 Timothy 3:16, ESV).

Sent by the one he comes from

So the Word of God is sent by the one of whom he is the Word. He is sent by the one by whom he was begotten. The one who begets sends. The one who is begotten is sent.

1. Sent to each who grasps him. He is sent to each person when that person takes him in, as far as he can be taken in, in proportion to the grasp of a reasoning soul either advancing toward God or already perfected in God.

2. Not sent merely by being begotten. The Son is not properly said to be sent simply in that he is begotten of the Father. He is sent either in that the Word made flesh appeared to the world, which is why he says, "I came from the Father and have come into the world" (John 16:28, ESV), or in that from time to time he is perceived by the mind of each person. That is the sense of the prayer, "Send her, that, being present with me, she may labor with me."

3. What is born from eternity is eternal. What is born from eternity is eternal, "for it is the brightness of the everlasting light." What is sent from time to time is what is grasped by each person.

When the Son of God was made manifest in the flesh, he was sent into this world in the fullness of time, made of a woman. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom (because "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it," John 1:5, ESV), "it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21, ESV), and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

But when he comes forth from time to time and is perceived by the mind of each person, he is said to be sent, but not into this world. He does not appear to the senses, that is, he does not present himself to the bodily senses. For we ourselves are not in this world either, in so far as our minds grasp what is eternal, as far as we can. The spirits of all the righteous are not in this world, even of those still living in the flesh, in so far as they see things divine.

The Father is never sent

The Father is not said to be sent when from time to time someone takes him in. He has no one he is from or comes from. Wisdom says, "I came out of the mouth of the Most High." And of the Holy Spirit it is said, "the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV). But the Father is from no one.

Editor's note: The line "I came out of the mouth of the Most High" is from the book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 24:3). Like Wisdom, it is not in the ESV text used here. It is given as an echo.

Sent, begotten, and given

As the Father begat, the Son is begotten. As the Father sent, the Son was sent. But as the one who begat and the one who was begotten are one, so the one who sent and the one who was sent are one. For the Father and the Son are one. And the Holy Spirit is one with them too, since these three are one.

Here is how the words line up.

1. For the Son, to be born is to be from the Father. And to be sent is to be known to be from the Father.

2. For the Holy Spirit, to be the gift of God is to proceed from the Father. And to be sent is to be known to proceed from the Father.

We can't say that the Holy Spirit does not also proceed from the Son. The same Spirit is not without reason called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son: "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him" (Romans 8:9, ESV).

The breath on the disciples

I don't see what else the Lord meant to show when he breathed on the disciples' faces and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22, ESV). That bodily breath, coming from a body with the feel of a touch, was not the substance of the Holy Spirit. It was a statement in a fitting sign that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father but also from the Son. Only the maddest of men would say that the Spirit he gave when he breathed on them was one Spirit, and the one he sent after his ascension was another.

The Spirit of God is one: the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit, who works all in all (compare 1 Corinthians 12:6, where the subject is God, and 12:11, "All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit," ESV). That he was given twice was certainly a meaningful arrangement, which we will talk about in its place, as far as the Lord allows.

When the Lord said, "whom I will send to you from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV), he showed that the Spirit is both the Father's and the Son's. And when he had said, "whom the Father will send," he added, "in my name" (John 14:26, ESV). Yet he did not say, "whom the Father will send from me," as he said, "whom I will send to you from the Father." That shows the Father to be the source of the whole divinity, or, if it is better put this way, the whole deity. So the one who proceeds from the Father and from the Son is referred back to the one from whom the Son was born.

"The Spirit had not yet been given"

The evangelist says, "as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39, ESV). How do we understand that? Only in this way: the giving or sending of the Holy Spirit after Christ's glorification was to be such as it had never been before. It was not that nothing like it existed before. It had not been like this.

If the Holy Spirit had not been given before, what filled the prophets who spoke? Scripture says plainly, and in many places, that they spoke by the Holy Spirit.

1. John the Baptist. It is said of him, "he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15, ESV).

2. Zechariah. His father "was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied" (Luke 1:67, ESV).

3. Mary. She was filled with the Holy Spirit so as to foretell such things of the Lord she was bearing in her womb ("My soul magnifies the Lord," Luke 1:46, ESV).

4. Simeon and Anna. Simeon was righteous and devout, "and the Holy Spirit was upon him" (Luke 2:25, ESV). And the prophetess Anna "began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38, ESV). They recognised the greatness of the little child Christ.

So how could "the Spirit not yet [have] been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"? Because this giving, granting or sending of the Holy Spirit was to have a special feature of its own in its very coming, such as had never been before.

We read nowhere that men spoke in tongues they did not know when the Holy Spirit came upon them, as happened then. It was necessary that his coming be made plain by visible signs. They "were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4, ESV). It showed that the whole world, and all nations with their different tongues, would believe in Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit. That fulfils what is sung in the Psalm: "There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:3–4, ESV).

One person at the fullness of time

So man was joined, and in a way mixed, with the Word of God to be one person, when the fullness of time came and the Son of God, made of a woman, was sent into this world. He was to be the Son of man for the sake of the sons of men. The angelic nature could prefigure this person beforehand, to announce it. It could not take it as its own, to be that person itself.

Chapter 21: The Visible Appearances of the Spirit, and the Eternity of the Trinity

Of the visible showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the co-eternity of the Trinity. What has been said, and what remains to be said.

Now think of the visible showing of the Holy Spirit, whether in the form of a dove or in tongues of fire. In those, the subject creature, by moving and taking forms in time, showed his substance, which is eternal with the Father and the Son and unchangeable like them. But the creature was not joined to him to be one person with him, as the flesh was that the Word became.

I don't dare say that nothing of the kind was done before. But I would say boldly that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of one and the same substance, God the Creator, the all-powerful Trinity, work indivisibly. And this cannot be shown indivisibly by the creature, which is far inferior, least of all by the bodily creature.

How our words show it

It is just like the way we speak. We can't say Father, Son and Holy Spirit with our words, which are bodily sounds, except in their own separate stretches of time, with a clear gap between them, taken up by the syllables of each word. In their own substance, in which they are, the three are one. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the very same, with no motion in time, above the whole creation, with no stretch of time or place between them, at once one and the same from eternity to eternity, as eternity itself, which is not without truth and love. But in my speech the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separated and cannot be said at once. They have their own places, one after another, in the letters.

Memory, understanding and will

Take my memory, my understanding and my will. When I name each one, each name refers to one of them alone. But each name is spoken by all three. There is not one of these three names that is not spoken by my memory and my understanding and my will together, that is, by the soul as a whole.

In the same way, the Trinity together made the voice of the Father, the flesh of the Son and the dove of the Holy Spirit, though each of these is referred to one person. By this likeness you can see, in a measure, that the Trinity, inseparable in itself, is shown separately by the appearance of the visible creature. The working of the Trinity is also inseparable in each of those things that are said to belong properly to showing either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit.

Three questions I expect

1. How were the voices and visible forms made before the incarnation? If I am asked in what way words or visible forms and appearances were made before the incarnation of the Word, to prefigure him as about to come, my answer is that God made them through the angels. I think I have shown this enough from the testimonies of Scripture.

2. How did the incarnation itself happen? If I am asked how the incarnation itself came about, my answer is that the Word of God was made flesh, that is, made man. He was not turned and changed into what he was made. He was made in such a way that there was in that man not only the Word of God and the flesh of man, but also the reasoning soul of man. This whole is called God on account of God, and man on account of man.

If that is hard to understand, the mind must be purified by faith, by keeping away from sin more and more, by doing good works, and by praying with the groaning of holy desires. By profiting through divine help, it will understand and love.

3. How was the voice of the Father, or the dove, made after the incarnation? If I am asked how, after the incarnation of the Word, a voice of the Father was produced, or a bodily appearance by which the Holy Spirit was shown, I do not doubt that this was done through the creature. Whether only through a bodily creature that can be sensed, or through a creature with a rational or intellectual spirit too (a word some prefer for what the Greeks call noeron), I can't be sure. It certainly was not done so as to make one person, for who could say that whatever creature the voice of the Father sounded through is God the Father in the sense that the Son of God is that man who was made of a virgin? Or that whatever creature the Holy Spirit was shown through, in the form of a dove or tongues of fire, is the Holy Spirit in that sense? It was only for the service of bringing about such signs as God thought needful. Or whether there is something else to understand, it is hard to find out, and unwise to state rashly.

Still, I do not see how those things could have been done without a rational or intellectual creature. But this is not yet the place to explain why I think so, if the Lord gives me strength. First the arguments of the heretics must be set out and answered. They don't take them from the divine books but from their own reasonings. They think those reasonings force us to understand the Scriptures about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as they themselves choose.

Where Book Four ends

I think it has now been shown enough that the Son is not less because he is sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not less because both the Father and the Son sent him. These things are laid down in the Scriptures because of the visible creature, or rather to bring to our minds the emanation within the Godhead. They are not laid down because of inequality, or unequal rank, or unlikeness of substance.

Even if God the Father had wished to appear visibly through the subject creature, it would be most absurd to say he was sent by the Son, whom he begot, or by the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from him.

Let this, then, be the limit of this book. In the rest we shall see, with the Lord's help, what sort of crafty arguments the heretics bring, and how they can be answered.

Book Five: What We Say of God in Himself, and What We Say of the Persons in Relation

In this book Augustine turns on the objection the Arians raise, not from Scripture but from their own reasoning. They say that everything we say of God we say according to his substance. So to be "unbegotten" belongs to the Father's substance, and to be "begotten" belongs to the Son's. Those two are different, so the two substances must be different. Augustine shows that this does not follow. Some things are said of God in himself, such as good and great. Other things are said of God in relation to something else, such as Father and Son, or Lord and creature. Some of these are even said in time, such as "Lord, you have become our refuge." Yet nothing happens to God that changes him. He stays unchangeable in his own nature.

Chapter 1: What I Ask of God, and What I Ask of You

What the author asks from God, and what from the reader. Nothing in God is to be thought of as bodily or changeable.

1. A prayer, and a request for pardon

From here on I am speaking of things that cannot be said just as they are thought. Perhaps no one can say them like that, and I certainly can't. Even our thinking about God the Trinity falls far short of the One we are thinking about. It does not take hold of him as he is. Even Paul, great as he was, saw only "in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).

So I begin by praying to the Lord our God himself. He is the One we should always be thinking of, and the One we can never think of worthily. Blessing is due to him at every moment, and no speech is enough to declare him. I ask him to give me help to understand and to explain what I have set out to do. And I ask him to pardon me if I go wrong anywhere. I have kept in mind not only my desire but my weakness.

I ask something of you, too. Where you see that I had the wish to say something but not the power, forgive me. Perhaps you understand it better than I do. Perhaps you simply fail to follow because my language is dark. And I will forgive you in return for whatever you can't understand because of your own dullness.

2. Don't measure God by what you can see

We will forgive each other more easily if we know, or at least firmly believe, one thing. Whatever is said of a nature that is unchangeable, invisible, and living in itself and sufficient for itself must not be measured by the habits of things that are visible, changeable, mortal, or not self-sufficient.

I know we struggle even to grasp the things our bodily senses can reach. We struggle to know what we are in our own inner selves. Yet there is no shamelessness in a faithful piety that burns to reach the divine things above us, things beyond all telling. That piety is not puffed up by pride in its own strength. It is set on fire by the grace of its Creator and Saviour.

Let me put it this way. How can a man understand God when he doesn't yet understand the very understanding by which he wants to understand him? And suppose he does understand it. Then let him look carefully at it and ask whether there is anything in his own nature better than that. Does he see outlines of shapes there? Does he see the brightness of colours, or greatness of space, or distance between parts, or any bulk or size? Does he see anything move across a distance? He finds none of it. He finds nothing like that in the best thing he has, his own intellect, by which he grasps wisdom as far as he can.

So what we do not find in the best part of ourselves, we should not look for in God, who is far better than that best. This is how we understand God, if we can, and as far as we can. He is good without quality and great without size. He is a Creator who lacks nothing. He rules without a position to rule from, and holds all things without "having" them as a possession. He is whole everywhere, yet in no place. He is eternal without time. He makes changeable things without changing himself, and he acts without suffering anything.

Whoever thinks of God like that may not yet find out everything he is. But he takes care, as well as he can, to think nothing of him that he is not.

Chapter 2: God Is the Only Unchangeable Being

3. What the word "essence" means

God is, without doubt, a substance, or, if that is the better word, an essence. The Greeks call it ousia. Think of how the words are built. Wisdom takes its name from being wise, and knowledge from knowing. In the same way, what we call essence comes from being.

And who is more than the One who said to his servant Moses, "I am who I am," and "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3:14, ESV)?

Other things that we call essences or substances can take on accidents, and these produce a change in them, great or small. But no accident of that kind can touch God. So God is the only unchangeable substance, or essence. To him, certainly, being itself, from which the name of essence comes, belongs most truly and most especially.

Here is why. What changes does not keep its own being. And what can change, even if it never does, is able not to be what it had been. So only the One who does not change, and who cannot change at all, falls without any difficulty or hesitation under the word being.

Chapter 3: The Arians' Argument From "Begotten" and "Unbegotten"

Their reasoning, and why it defeats itself.

4. Their favourite argument

Now I turn to answer the opponents of our faith. They bring arguments about things that are neither said as they are thought nor thought as they really are. Among all their arguments against the catholic faith, the Arians seem to rely most on this one, which they think very clever.

They say that whatever is said or understood of God is said according to substance, never according to accident. So to be unbegotten belongs to the Father according to substance, and to be begotten belongs to the Son according to substance. But unbegotten and begotten are different. Therefore the Father's substance and the Son's substance are different.

5. Our reply, in three steps

1. Start with a text. If everything said of God is said according to substance, then "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV) is said according to substance. So the Father and the Son have one substance.

2. Or deny that. Suppose they say that this was not said according to substance. Then they admit that something can be said of God that is not said according to substance. If so, nothing forces us any longer to take "unbegotten" and "begotten" as statements of substance.

3. Press on another text. Scripture says of the Son that he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV). Equal according to what? If he is not called equal according to substance, they have again admitted that something can be said of God that is not said according to substance. So let them grant that begotten and unbegotten are not said according to substance. But if they refuse, because they insist that everything said of God is said according to substance, then the Son is equal to the Father according to substance.

Chapter 4: An Accident Always Means Some Change

6. What an accident is

An accident is something that can be lost, because the thing it belongs to can change. Some accidents are called inseparable. Greek calls them achoriston. The blackness of a raven's feather is one. Yet the feather loses that colour, not while it is a feather, but because the feather does not last forever. When the animal dies and its body turns to earth, the black goes with it. So even an inseparable accident belongs to something changeable.

There are also accidents called separable, and they are lost by change too. Take the blackness of a man's hair. We call it separable because the hair stays hair when it turns white. But look carefully at what happens. Nothing leaves the head and goes somewhere. Blackness does not depart and whiteness arrive in its place. The quality of colour is simply turned and changed.

So there is nothing accidental in God, because there is nothing in him that can change or be lost.

7. What if it only grows or shrinks?

Someone might say that anything is an accident if it can be increased or decreased, even if it can't be lost. Take the life of the soul. As long as the soul is, it lives, and because the soul is always, it always lives. Yet it lives more when it is wise and less when it is foolish. So some change comes about there. Life is not absent in the foolish, as wisdom is absent in them, but it is less.

Nothing like this happens in God either. He stays altogether unchangeable.

Chapter 5: Nothing Is Said of God by Accident. It Is Said by Substance or by Relation.

8. The key move

This brings us to the heart of the matter. Nothing in God is said according to accident, because nothing is accidental to him. But it does not follow that everything said of him is said according to substance.

In created and changeable things, whatever is not said according to substance must be said according to accident. There is no other choice. For them, everything that can be lost or lessened is an accident: sizes and qualities, and also things said in relation to something else, like friendships, kinships, services, likenesses and equalities. So are positions, conditions, places, times, doing and suffering.

But in God nothing is said by accident, because nothing in him can change. And yet not everything said of him is said according to substance. Some of it is said in relation to something. The Father is called Father in relation to the Son, and the Son is called Son in relation to the Father.

9. Why this relation is not an accident

This is not an accident, because the one is always Father and the other is always Son. I don't mean "always" in the sense that the Son was born at a certain time and the Father has never stopped being Father since. I mean that the Son was always born, and never began to be Son. If he had begun to be Son at some time, or were to stop being Son at some time, then he would be called Son by accident. He is not.

10. Why it is not a statement of substance, either

Now suppose "Father" meant something about the Father in himself, and not about the Son. And suppose "Son" meant something about the Son in himself, and not about the Father. Then Father and Son would be said according to substance, and the substances would differ.

But the Father is called Father only because he has a Son, and the Son is called Son only because he has a Father. Each name points to the other. Neither name says what the one is in himself. So these names are not said according to substance. And they are not said according to accident, because being Father and being Son are eternal and unchangeable.

So here is the conclusion. To be the Father and to be the Son are different. Yet their substance is not different. They are called what they are not according to substance but according to relation. And this relation is not an accident, because it is not changeable.

Chapter 6: The Reply to Their Objection About "Begotten" and "Unbegotten"

11. The objection restated

They may try to answer like this. "Yes, 'Father' is said in relation to the Son, and 'Son' in relation to the Father. But 'unbegotten' and 'begotten' are said of each in relation to himself, not to the other. After all, 'unbegotten' is not the same as 'Father.' The Father could be called unbegotten even if he had never begotten a Son. And a man who begets a son is not therefore unbegotten, since men who were begotten by others beget in turn. So 'unbegotten' is said of the Father in himself, and 'begotten' of the Son in himself. Whatever is said of God in himself is said according to substance, and unbegotten and begotten are different. Therefore the substances are different."

If this is their argument, they do not see that it needs more careful treatment: neither is anyone a father because he is unbegotten, nor unbegotten because he is a father. Beyond that I have two things to say.

12. First, "begotten" is relative after all

They don't see, in their remarkable blindness, that nobody can be called begotten except in relation to something. A son is a son because he is begotten, and because he is a son, he is certainly begotten. The relation of the begotten to the begetter is the same as the relation of the son to the father.

So the Father is understood as begetter under one idea, and as unbegotten under another. Both are said of God the Father. But the first is said in relation to the Son, which they do not deny. And they claim that the second is said in relation to himself.

13. Second, their own argument turns against them

Let me put their argument in its best form. "If something is called a father in itself, though it cannot be called a son in itself, and whatever is said in itself is said according to substance, and the Father is called unbegotten in himself, which the Son cannot be called, then the Father is called unbegotten according to substance. The Son can't be called that. So he is not of the same substance."

We meet this cleverness by making them say according to what the Son is equal to the Father. Is it according to what is said in relation to himself, or according to what is said in relation to the Father?

It cannot be according to what is said in relation to the Father. In relation to the Father he is called Son, and the Father is not Son but Father. Father and Son are not related the way friends or neighbours are. A friend is a friend to his friend. If they love each other equally, the same friendship is in both. A neighbour is a neighbour to his neighbour, and because each is neighbour to the other in the same degree, the same neighbourhood is in both. But the Son is not called Son in relation to the Son. He is called Son in relation to the Father. So it is not according to what is said in relation to the Father that the Son is equal to the Father.

That leaves only one answer. He is equal according to what is said in relation to himself. But whatever is said in relation to oneself is said according to substance. So he is equal according to substance. Therefore the substance of both is the same.

And when the Father is called "unbegotten," that doesn't tell us what he is. It tells us what he is not. When a relative word is denied, the denial is not a denial about substance, because the relative word wasn't affirmed about substance in the first place.

Chapter 7: Adding a "Not" Does Not Change the Category

14. Begotten means son; unbegotten means not-son

Let me make this clear with examples. First, notice that "begotten" means the same as "son." He is a son because he is begotten, and because he is a son, he is certainly begotten. So when we say "unbegotten," we declare that he is not a son.

Latin has filius but no word like infilius. The same holds for "neighbour" and "friend." Latin has inimicus, but no invicinus, though both are relative words. Latin does have genitus, begotten, and ingenitus, unbegotten. But a language's habits don't decide what the things themselves mean. To keep us from being misled by the word, let's stop saying "unbegotten," though Latin allows it. Let's say "not begotten," which means the same. And what is that other than saying "not a son"?

15. A negative stays in the same category

Putting a "not" in front of a word does not move it into a different category. It only denies what was affirmed without the "not."

Here are the ordinary categories, one by one.

1. Substance. If I say "he is a man," I name his substance. If I say "he is not a man," I deny according to substance. It is the same category.

2. Quantity. If I say "he is four feet tall," I affirm according to quantity. If I say "he is not four feet tall," I deny according to quantity.

3. Quality. "He is white" and "he is not white" are both according to quality.

4. Relation. "He is near" and "he is not near" are both according to relation.

5. Position. "He is lying down" and "he is not lying down."

6. Condition. "He is armed" and "he is not armed," which is the same as "he is unarmed."

7. Time. "He is from yesterday" and "he is not from yesterday."

8. Place. "He is in Rome" and "he is not in Rome."

9. Action. "He strikes" and "he does not strike."

10. Suffering. "He is struck" and "he is not struck."

So there is no category in which I can affirm something without denying in the same category when I put in the "not." Therefore, if "son" were said according to substance, "not son" would be too. But "son" is said relatively, because it points to a father. So "not son" is also relative. It points to the same father, and it says he has no parent.

If "son" means the same as "begotten," then "not begotten" means the same as "not son." We deny relatively when we say "not a son." Therefore we deny relatively when we say "not begotten." In short, we do not escape the category of relation by calling him "unbegotten."

16. The conclusion

Look at it this way. "Begotten" is not said in relation to oneself. It is said because the one is from a begetter. And when someone is called "unbegotten," he is not so called in relation to himself either. It is declared that he is not from a begetter. Both words turn on the same category, the category of relation. And what is said relatively does not name a substance.

So begotten and unbegotten are different. But they do not name different substances. Son is referred to father, and not-son to not-father. In the same way, begotten must be referred to begetter, and not-begotten to not-begetter.

Chapter 8: What Is Said of Each Person, and of the Trinity Together

One essence in God, and three persons. The Greeks say "hypostases"; the Latins say "persons."

17. Hold this above all

Keep this firmly in hand. Whatever is said of that most high and divine greatness in respect to itself is said according to substance. Whatever is said in relation to something is not said according to substance. It is said relatively.

The result of the one substance in Father, Son and Holy Spirit is this: whatever is said of each of them in respect to himself is to be taken, not in the plural as a sum, but in the singular.

18. Three examples

1. God. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Nobody doubts that this is said according to substance. Yet we do not say that the supreme Trinity is three Gods. We say one God.

2. Great. The Father is great, the Son is great, the Holy Spirit is great. Yet not three greats, but one great. Scripture does not say "You are great" of the Father alone, as they wrongly suppose. It says it of the whole Trinity: "For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God" (Psalm 86:10, ESV).

3. Good. The Father is good, the Son is good, the Holy Spirit is good. Yet not three goods, but one good. Remember what the Lord Jesus said. A man had called him "Good Teacher," meaning only a man. Jesus did not say that no one is good but the Father alone. He said, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18, ESV). The Father by himself is meant by the name of Father. But by the name of God is meant the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together, because the Trinity is one God.

19. What is said of God only as a figure

Position, condition, place and time are not said of God properly. They are said as figures of speech and likenesses. For example, he is said to be "enthroned upon the cherubim" (Psalm 80:1, ESV), which speaks of position. He "covered it with the deep as with a garment" (Psalm 104:6, ESV), which speaks of condition. "Your years have no end" (Psalm 102:27, ESV) speaks of time. And "If I ascend to heaven, you are there!" (Psalm 139:8, ESV) speaks of place.

As for action, that may be the one category that can be said most truly of God alone. God alone makes, and he himself is not made. And he is not subject to suffering, so far as the substance goes by which he is God.

20. Omnipotent, and the rule behind it all

So the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty. Yet not three almighties, but one almighty: "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:36, ESV).

The rule, then, is this. Whatever is said of God in respect to himself is said of each person singly, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And it is said of the Trinity together, in the singular and not the plural.

The reason is that for God it is not one thing to be and another thing to be great. To him, being and being great are the same. So, as we do not say three essences, we do not say three greatnesses. We say one essence and one greatness. By essence I mean what Greek calls ousia and what we more usually call substance.

Chapter 9: Why We Say "Three Persons" at All

The three persons are not properly so called in a human sense.

21. The Greek habit, and the Latin one

The Greeks also use the word hypostasis. They mean to draw some distinction, I don't know quite what, between ousia and hypostasis. Most of our writers who handle these things in Greek say mia ousia, treis hypostaseis. In Latin that would come out as "one essence, three substances."

But in Latin usage, essence and substance have come to mean the same thing. So we do not dare to say "one essence, three substances." We say one essence, or substance, and three persons. Many Latin writers of authority who deal with these matters have said so. They could not find any better way to put into words what they understood without words.

22. Why we say three at all

The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Father. And the Holy Spirit, who is also called the gift of God, is neither the Father nor the Son. Certainly they are three. That is why it is said in the plural, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). He did not say "I and the Father is one," as the Sabellians would like, but "are one."

But then someone asks, three what? Here human speech labours under a great poverty. The answer we give is "three persons." We do not say it because it tells the whole truth. We say it so that we do not have to leave the truth unspoken.

Chapter 10: What Belongs to God as Essence Is Said in the Singular

23. How greatness works in a house and in God

So, as we do not say three essences, we do not say three greatnesses, or three who are great. Look at things that are great by sharing in greatness, such as a great house, a great mountain, a great mind. For these, being and being great are two different things. Greatness is one thing, and the thing that is great because of greatness is another. A great house is certainly not greatness itself.

But there is a greatness itself, by which a great house is great, and a great mountain is great, and by which every other thing that is called great is great. Greatness itself is one thing, and the things called great because of it are another. This greatness is great first and most of all, in a far more excellent way than the things that share in it.

24. God is not great by sharing in something

Now God is not great with a greatness that is not himself, as if he too were a partaker of greatness. If he were, that greatness would be greater than God, and there is nothing greater than God. So he is great with the greatness by which he himself is that same greatness.

Therefore, as we do not say three essences, we do not say three greatnesses. For God, to be and to be great are the same. And for the same reason we do not say three greats, but one who is great. God is not great by taking part in greatness. He is great by being great, because he himself is his own greatness.

The same holds for his goodness, his eternity, his almightiness, and every other name that is said of God in respect to himself. These are said properly, not as figures or likenesses, if anything can be said properly of him by the mouth of man.

Chapter 11: What Is Said Relatively in the Trinity

25. Names that are not shared

Now some things in the Trinity are said of the persons severally. These are never said of them in respect to themselves. They are said in relation to each other, or in relation to the creature. So it is clear they are said relatively and not according to substance.

The Trinity is called one God, great, good, eternal, almighty. And the same God can be called his own deity, his own greatness, his own goodness, his own eternity, his own almightiness. But the Trinity cannot be called the Father in the same way. Perhaps it can be so called as a figure, in relation to the creature, because of the adoption of sons.

When Scripture says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4, ESV), it does not leave out the Son or the Holy Spirit. And we rightly call this one Lord our Father too, because he regenerates us by his grace.

Nor can the Trinity be called the Son. But it can be called the Holy Spirit, in its entirety, according to what is written: "God is spirit" (John 4:24, ESV). The Father is spirit and the Son is spirit. The Father is holy and the Son is holy. Since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and God is holy and God is spirit, the Trinity can be called the Holy Spirit.

26. The Holy Spirit as a proper name

But the Holy Spirit who is not the Trinity, and who is understood as in the Trinity, is named by that proper name relatively. He is referred to the Father and to the Son, because he is the Spirit of both. The relation is not obvious in the name itself. It becomes plain when he is called the gift of God.

He is the gift of the Father and of the Son, because he "proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV), as the Lord says. And what the apostle says, "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him" (Romans 8:9, ESV), he says of the Holy Spirit himself. So when we say "the gift of the giver" and "the giver of the gift," we speak relatively in both cases, each pointing to the other.

27. A suggestion about the name

So the Holy Spirit is a kind of unspeakable fellowship of the Father and the Son. For that reason, perhaps, he is called by the name that fits both of them in common. That is what he is called specially which they are called in common. The Father is spirit and the Son is spirit. The Father is holy and the Son is holy. To signify the fellowship of both, then, he takes a name that suits both, and is called the Holy Spirit, the gift of both.

And this Trinity is one God, alone, good, great, eternal, almighty. It is its own unity, deity, greatness, goodness, eternity and almightiness.

Chapter 12: Sometimes Reciprocal Relations Have No Matching Names

28. The missing partner of the name

You may be bothered that the one the Spirit is referred to doesn't seem to answer back by name. We can say "the servant of a master" and "the master of a servant," "the son of a father" and "the father of a son." But we say "the Holy Spirit of the Father," and we do not say "the Father of the Holy Spirit," lest the Spirit be taken for his Son. We say "the Holy Spirit of the Son," and we do not say "the Son of the Holy Spirit," lest the Spirit be taken for his Father.

Don't let that trouble you. Many relative words have no partner name to answer them. Take "earnest," that is, a down payment. Few words are more plainly relative. An earnest is always the earnest of something. We can say "the earnest of the Father and of the Son," but we can't say in return "the Father of the earnest" or "the Son of the earnest."

It is the same with "gift." We say "the gift of the Father and of the Son," and we can't say "the Father of the gift." But to make the two answer each other, we say "the gift of the giver" and "the giver of the gift." There a usable word was found. In the other case none could be found.

Chapter 13: "Beginning" Is Said Relatively Too

29. The Father is Beginning to all things

The Father is called Father relatively. He is also called Beginning relatively, and whatever else is of that kind. He is called Father in relation to the Son, and Beginning in relation to all things that come from him.

The Son is also named relatively. He is called the Word and the Image. In all these names he is referred to the Father, but the Father is not called by any of them.

30. The Son is Beginning too

The Son is also called the Beginning. When the Jews said to him, "Who are you?", he answered, as my Latin Bible has it, "The Beginning, who also speak to you."

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin Bible read John 8:25 as "Principium, qui et loquor vobis," "The Beginning, who also speak to you." The ESV reads it differently: "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning." Augustine's argument here rests on his own reading, so his sense is kept and the verse is not quoted from the ESV.

Is the Son the Beginning of the Father? Of course not. By calling himself the Beginning, he meant to show that he is the Creator. In the same way the Father is the beginning of the creature, since all things are from him. "Creator" is also relative, just as "master" is to "servant."

So when we say that the Father is the Beginning and the Son is the Beginning, we do not speak of two beginnings of the creature. The Father and the Son together are one beginning in respect to the creature, as they are one Creator and one God.

31. And so is the Holy Spirit

Suppose we say that whatever remains in itself and produces or works something is a beginning to the thing it produces. Then we cannot deny that the Holy Spirit is also rightly called the Beginning. We do not separate him from the name of Creator. Scripture says that he works. And certainly in working he remains in himself, because he is not changed or turned into any of the things he works.

See what he works: "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills" (1 Corinthians 12:7–11, ESV).

Certainly he works as God. Who but God could work such great things? And Paul says, "it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone" (1 Corinthians 12:6, ESV). If you ask me point by point about the Holy Spirit, I answer most truly that he is God, and that with the Father and the Son he is one God. So God is spoken of as one Beginning in respect to the creature, not as two or three beginnings.

Chapter 14: The Father and the Son Are the One Beginning of the Holy Spirit

32. A question that is not small

Now look at their relation to each other within the Trinity itself. If a begetter is a beginning to the one he begets, then the Father is a beginning in relation to the Son, because he begets him. But is the Father also a beginning in relation to the Holy Spirit, since it is said, "He proceeds from the Father"? That is no small question. If he is, then the Father is a beginning not only to what he begets or makes, but also to what he gives.

33. Why the Spirit is not a Son

Here too we meet the question that troubles many. Why is the Holy Spirit not also a son, since he too comes forth from the Father, as the Gospel says? The answer is that he came forth not as born but as given. So he is not called a son. He was not born, as the Only-begotten was. And he was not made, so that by God's grace he might be born into adoption, as we are.

Think about what the word "Son" does. What is born of the Father is referred only to the Father when it is called Son. The Son is the Son of the Father, and not our Son as well. But what is given is referred both to the One who gave and to those to whom he gave. So the Holy Spirit is not only the Spirit of the Father and the Son, who gave him. He is also called ours, who have received him. In the same way "the salvation of the Lord," who gives salvation, is also called our salvation, because we have received it.

34. In what way the Spirit is "ours"

The Spirit is the Spirit of God who gave him, and ours who have received him. I don't mean the spirit of ours by which we exist, because that is the spirit of the man which is in him. The Holy Spirit is ours in another way, the way in which we say, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11, ESV).

True, we have also received that other spirit by which we exist. "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV). But it is one thing to receive something that we may exist, and another to receive something that we may be holy.

Scripture speaks that way elsewhere. Of John it is written that he would go "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17, ESV). By the spirit of Elijah is meant the Holy Spirit whom Elijah received. And when the Lord says to Moses, "I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them" (Numbers 11:17, ESV), he means, I will give them of the Holy Spirit whom I have already given to you.

35. So the two are one Beginning

If what is given has as its beginning the One who gives it, and has received what proceeds from him from no other source, then we must grant that the Father and the Son are a Beginning of the Holy Spirit. They are not two Beginnings. As the Father and the Son are one God, one Creator, and one Lord in relation to the creature, so they are one Beginning in relation to the Holy Spirit. And the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together are one Beginning in relation to the creature, as they are one Creator and one God.

Chapter 15: Was the Holy Spirit a Gift Before He Was Given?

36. The question

Another question follows. The Son, by being born, has not only this, that he is the Son, but also that he is absolutely. In the same way, does the Holy Spirit, by being given, have not only this, that he is given, but that he is absolutely? Did he exist before he was given, though he was not yet a gift? Or was he already a gift before he was given, simply because God was going to give him?

If he proceeds only when he is given, and there was no one to give him to until there was someone to give him to, then how did he exist in his very substance? He would seem to exist only because he is given. But the Son, by being born, has not only his relation of being Son. He has his substance absolutely, so that he is.

37. The answer

Perhaps the Holy Spirit proceeds always, not in time but from eternity. And because he so proceeded that he could be given, he was already a gift even before there was anyone to give him to.

There is a difference between a gift and a thing that has been given. A gift can exist before it is given. But it cannot be called a thing given unless it has been given.

Chapter 16: What Is Said of God in Time Is Said Relatively, Not by Accident

38. Not troubled by the word "given"

Don't let it trouble you that the Holy Spirit, though co-eternal with the Father and the Son, is called something that exists in time. I mean the very thing we just called him, a thing given. The Spirit is a gift eternally, but given in time.

Compare it with the word "lord." A lord is not so called unless he begins to have a servant. So that word, too, is relative and is said of God in time, because the creature, of which he is Lord, is not from all eternity.

39. The puzzle

Then how can we hold that relative terms are not accidental, when nothing happens to God by accident in time? Remember we argued in the beginning that he cannot change. Here is the difficulty. To be Lord is not eternal to God. If it were, we would be forced to say that the creature is from eternity too. He would not be Lord from all eternity unless the creature were his servant from all eternity. As there is no slave without a lord, so there is no lord without a slave.

Someone may reply that God alone is eternal, and times are not eternal, because they vary and change. But times did not begin in time, they will say, for there was no time before times began. So it did not happen to God in time that he became Lord. He was Lord of the times themselves.

What will he say about man? Man was made in time, and God was certainly not Lord of him before he existed. To be Lord of man happened to God in time. To make it beyond dispute: to be your Lord or mine, who have only just begun to be, happened to God in time.

Or if this seems uncertain to someone because of the obscure question about the soul, what will he say of God as Lord of the people of Israel? The nature of the soul may already have existed, but that people did not yet exist, and there is a time when it began. Finally, to be Lord of this tree or that crop, which began to be only lately, happened in time. The matter already existed, yet it is one thing to be lord of the matter and another to be lord of the nature already formed. A man can be lord of the wood at one time, and later lord of the chest made of the same wood. He was not lord of the chest while he was only lord of the wood.

40. How it still isn't accident

So how can we hold that nothing is said of God by accident? The answer is that nothing happens to God's nature that could change him. The relative accidents of ordinary things are those that happen together with some change in the things they are said of. A friend, for example, is called relatively a friend. He doesn't begin to be one unless he has begun to love. So some change of will takes place before he is called a friend.

But money, when it is called a price, is also spoken of relatively. And the money was not changed when it began to be a price. The same goes when it is called a pledge, or any other such thing. If money can be spoken of relatively so often without any change in itself, then how much more easily can we admit of the unchangeable substance of God that something may be said of him in relation to the creature? It may begin to be said in time, and yet nothing is understood to have happened to God's substance. It happens only to the creature in respect to which the word is used.

41. Refuge, Father and friend

Take the psalm, as my Latin Bible has it: "Lord, you have become our refuge" (Psalm 90:1). God is said to be our refuge relatively. He is referred to us. He becomes our refuge when we flee to him. Does anything come to pass in his nature then that was not there before we fled to him? No. There is a change in us. We were worse before we fled to him, and we become better by fleeing. But in him there is no change.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin Bible read Psalm 90:1 as "Lord, you have become our refuge." The ESV reads, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations." Augustine's point depends on the word "become," so his reading is kept here and the verse is not quoted from the ESV.

In the same way, he begins to be our Father when we are regenerated by his grace, since "to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12, ESV). Our substance is changed for the better when we become his children. At the same time he begins to be our Father, but without any change in his own substance.

So whatever begins to be said of God in time, and was not said of him before, is said of him relatively. It is not said according to any accident of God, as if something had happened to him. It is said according to some accident of that in respect to which God begins to be called something.

42. God's love does not begin in time

When a righteous man begins to be a friend of God, he himself is changed. But far be it from us to say that God loves someone in time with a new love, a love that wasn't in him before. With God, things gone by have not passed away, and things to come have already been done.

So he loved all his saints "before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4, ESV), when he predestined them. But when they are converted and find him, they are said to begin to be loved by him. We say it that way so that it can be understood in the way human affections understand.

It is the same when God is said to be angry with the unrighteous and gentle with the good. They are changed, not he. Think of the light. It is troublesome to weak eyes and pleasant to strong ones. The change is in the eyes, not in the light.

Book Six: Is the Father Himself Wisdom? Unity, Equality, and the Three in One

In this book Augustine takes up an objection against the equality of the Son. Paul calls Christ "the power of God and the wisdom of God." Does that mean the Father is not himself power and wisdom, but only the Father of power and wisdom? Augustine sets that question aside for a little while, to be answered fully in the next book. First he proves, as briefly as he can, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and equal. He shows that we are to believe in a Trinity, not in a threefold God. Last, he explains a saying of Hilary of Poitiers: "Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift."

Chapter 1: Christ, the Power and the Wisdom of God

The Son is the power and wisdom of the Father, according to the apostle. This is how the catholic writers argued against the earlier Arians. A difficulty arises: is the Father not wisdom himself, but only the Father of wisdom?

1. The objection

Some people think they are blocked from admitting that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal. They are blocked by a text: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV). Their reasoning goes like this. If Christ is the power and wisdom of God, then the Father is not himself power and wisdom. He is only the one who begot power and wisdom. And that doesn't look like equality.

This question is usually asked with unusual seriousness: in what way can God be called the Father of power and wisdom?

2. How some of our own side argued against Arius

Let me tell you where this comes from. Some on our side reasoned from this very verse against the Arians, at least the earlier ones. Arius himself is reported to have said that if he is a Son, then he was born. And if he was born, there was a time when the Son was not.

Arius did not see that being born, for God, is from all eternity. The Son is co-eternal with the Father, the way the brightness that fire produces and spreads around is as old as the fire. It would be co-eternal with it, if the fire were eternal. Later Arians gave up that opinion and confessed that the Son of God did not begin in time.

But our people used to argue against those who said "there was a time when the Son was not." Their argument ran like this. If the Son of God is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never without power and wisdom, then the Son is co-eternal with God the Father. The apostle says, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." And you would have to be senseless to say God was ever without power or wisdom. So there was no time when the Son was not.

3. What that argument costs us

Now this argument forces us to say something awkward. It says God the Father is wise only by having the wisdom he begat. It does not say the Father is wise because he is wisdom itself.

Let's follow that through. The Son is called God of God, Light of Light. So must we also call him wisdom of wisdom? But that would be strange if the Father is not wisdom itself, only the begetter of wisdom.

And if we hold this about wisdom, why not about his other names? Why would he not also be the begetter of his own greatness, goodness, eternity and almighty power? Then the Father would not be his own greatness, goodness, eternity and power. He would be great with a greatness that he begat, good with a goodness he begat, eternal with an eternity he begat, and almighty with an almightiness that was born of him. Just as, on this view, he is wise with a wisdom born of him.

Do we need to fear that this would force us to say there are many co-eternal sons of God? No. It is easy to answer that cavil. It does not follow that he is the Father of many sons because many things are named. Nor does it follow that he is the Father of two sons because Christ is called both the power of God and the wisdom of God. The power is the wisdom, and the wisdom is the power. The same goes for the rest. Greatness is power, and so on, for everything we have named or will name.

Chapter 2: What Is Said of the Father and the Son Together, and What Is Not

4. Following the argument out

Suppose, then, that nothing is said of the Father as such except what is said of him in relation to the Son. That is, he is Father, or begetter, or beginning. And a begetter is, of course, a beginning to the one he begets from himself. Suppose everything else said of him is said of him with the Son, or rather in the Son. He is great with the greatness he begat, just with the justice he begat, good with the goodness he begat, powerful with the power he begat, wise with the wisdom he begat.

On that view the Father is not called greatness itself but the begetter of greatness. The Son, as Son, is not called Son with the Father but in relation to the Father. So the Son is not great in and by himself, but great with the Father, of whom he is the greatness. And he is wise with the Father, of whom he is the wisdom. In the same way, the Father is called wise with the Son, because he is wise with the wisdom he begat.

So neither is called anything without the other, whatever they are called that shows their essential nature. Both are so called together. If this is right, the Father is not God without the Son, nor the Son God without the Father. Both together are God.

5. Testing it on John 1:1

Look at what this does to the first words of John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word" can mean that the Word was in the Father. Or if "in the beginning" means "before all things," then look at the next words: "and the Word was with God" (John 1:1, ESV). Here the Word is the Son alone. He is not the Father and the Son together, as if the two were one Word. He is the Word the way he is the Image. The Father and the Son together are not the Image. The Son alone is the Image of the Father. In the same way he is the Son of the Father, and both together are not the Son.

But then "the Word was with God" can be read like this. The Word, who is the Son alone, was with God, who is not the Father alone, but God the Father and the Son together.

Does that strike you as odd? It shouldn't. We say it of two very different things all the time. What is more different than soul and body? Yet we can say the soul was with a man, that is, in a man, even though the soul is not the body and the man is soul and body together. So the next phrase, "and the Word was God," could mean that the Word, who is not the Father, was God together with the Father.

6. Where this leads, and the trouble it makes

So should we say that the Father is the begetter of his own greatness, power and wisdom, and that the Son is greatness, power and wisdom, while the great, almighty and wise God is the two of them together?

Then how can we say "God of God, Light of Light"? Both together are not God of God. Only the Son is of God, that is, of the Father. Both together are not Light of Light. Only the Son is of Light, that is, of the Father.

Perhaps those phrases were meant to say briefly that the Son is co-eternal with the Father. It is as if they said: this God, who is not the Son without the Father, is of that God, who is not the Father without the Son. This Light, who is not Light without the Father, is of that Light, who is not Light without the Father's Son. Then the Begetter did not come before the one he begat.

If that is so, then only this cannot be said of them: "this of that," where both are not both together. We cannot say the Word is of the Word, because both are not the Word together. Only the Son is. We cannot say image of image, because they are not both the image. We cannot say Son of Son, because both together are not the Son. And all of this agrees with what the Lord says: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). For "we are one" means "what he is, that am I also." That is said according to essence, not according to relation.

Chapter 3: "They Are One" Means One Essence, and the Son Is Equal in All Things

7. When Scripture says "one," what does it mean?

I don't know whether the words "they are one" are ever used in Scripture of things whose nature is different. But when there are several things of the same nature, and they differ in what they think, they are not one, and they are not one so far as they differ in what they think.

Here is the proof. If the disciples were already one just because they were men, the Lord would not have prayed to the Father "that they may be one, even as we are one" (John 17:11, ESV). But Paul and Apollos were both men, and they also thought alike. So Paul says: "He who plants and he who waters are one" (1 Corinthians 3:8, ESV).

So when something is called "one" and it is not added in what respect they are one, and yet several things are called one, then the same essence and nature is meant, not different and not at odds. But when it is added in what they are one, then it may be that something has been made one out of several things, even things of different natures.

8. Soul and body, and the Lord and us

Soul and body are certainly not "one," for what could be more different? Unless we add or understand in what they are one: one man, or one living being. That is why the apostle says, "he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her" (1 Corinthians 6:16, ESV). He does not say they are one, or he is one. He adds "body." One body is composed out of two bodies joined together, a man's and a woman's. And he says, "he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (1 Corinthians 6:17, ESV). Again he does not say, he who is joined to the Lord is one. He adds "spirit." The spirit of a man and the Spirit of God are different in nature. But by being joined, they become one spirit out of two. The Spirit of God is blessed and perfect without the human spirit, but the human spirit cannot be blessed without God.

I don't think it is for nothing that the Lord says so much in John's Gospel about unity, and so often. He speaks of his own unity with the Father, and of ours with each other. And yet he never says that we are one with himself. He says, "that they may be one, even as we are one" (John 17:11, ESV).

So the Father and the Son are one, undoubtedly in unity of substance. And there is one God, one great, one wise, as we argued.

9. Then in what way is the Father greater?

If the Father is greater, he is greater by greatness. But the Son is the Father's greatness. So the Son is not greater than the One who begat him, and the Father is not greater than the greatness by which he is great. Therefore they are equal. Equal in what? In what he is, because for him it is not one thing to be and another to be great.

Suppose someone says the Father is greater in eternity. Then the Son is not equal in anything at all. How could he be? If you say he is equal in greatness, a greatness that is less eternal is not equal greatness. And so on with everything else.

Perhaps equal in power but not in wisdom? How can a power that is less wise be equal? Or equal in wisdom, but not in power? How can a wisdom that is less powerful be equal? It follows that if he is not equal in one thing, he is not equal in all.

But Scripture proclaims that he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6, ESV). Any adversary of the truth who feels bound by apostolic authority has to confess that the Son is equal to God in each single thing. Let him pick any one he likes. From that one thing it will be shown that he is equal in everything said of his substance.

Chapter 4: The Same Argument, From Human Virtues

10. Courage, prudence, justice

Think of the virtues in the human mind. Each has its own meaning, yet none can be separated from the others. If two men are equal in courage, they are also equal in prudence, temperance and justice. Say that one is greater in prudence. Then the other man's courage is less prudent, and so their courage is not equal either, because the first man's courage is wiser. You will find the same with the other virtues if you take them one at a time. I'm speaking of courage of mind, not strength of body.

How much more is this true of that unchangeable, eternal substance, which is incomparably simpler than the human mind! In the human mind, to be is not the same as to be strong, or prudent, or just, or temperate. A mind can exist and have none of these. But in God, to be is the same as to be strong, to be just, to be wise, or whatever else is said to signify his substance. It is a simple multiplicity, or a manifold simplicity.

11. The unity of two, and of the Trinity

So we can say "God of God" in such a way that the name "God" belongs to each, yet not so that both together are two Gods but one God. They are so united with each other that, according to the apostle, even different and unlike substances can be joined: the Lord alone is spirit, and a man's spirit alone is spirit, but if it clings to the Lord, the two become one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). How much more is this true where the union is utterly inseparable and eternal!

There is a problem we must watch for here. If "God" is said only of both together, then the Son might seem absurdly to be called the Son of both when he is called the Son of God. Or maybe whatever is said of God to show his substance is not said of the persons except together, or rather of the Trinity itself together. Which is it? That needs closer inquiry. For now it is enough to see this. The Son is not equal to the Father in anything if he is found unequal in anything that signifies his substance. But the apostle has said he is equal. So the Son is equal to the Father in all things, and of one and the same substance.

Chapter 5: The Holy Spirit Is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things

12. The Spirit stands in the same unity

So the Holy Spirit also stands in the same unity of substance and the same equality. He may be the unity of the two, or their holiness, or their love. Or he may be their unity because he is their love, and their love because he is their holiness. Whichever it is, he is plainly not one of the two. He is the one through whom the two are joined. Through him the Begotten is loved by the Begetter, and loves the One who begat him.

And through him they are "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3, ESV). They do this not by sharing in something. They do it by their own essence, not by a gift from someone above them, but by their own. We are commanded to imitate this by grace, both toward God and toward each other. "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40, ESV).

So those three are God: one, alone, great, wise, holy, blessed.

13. And we are blessed from him

But we are blessed from him, through him, and in him. We are one by his gift. We are one spirit with him, because our soul clings to him so as to follow him. "For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God" (Psalm 73:27–28, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "to cleave to God" where the ESV has "to be near God." His sense is the same, and the cleaving he has in mind is the same cleaving he has just spoken of.

14. Love is a substance

So the Holy Spirit, whatever he is, is something common to the Father and the Son. That communion is itself of one substance and co-eternal. If it may fitly be called friendship, let it be called so. But it is more aptly called love. And this is also a substance, since God is a substance, and "God is love" (1 John 4:8, ESV).

As he is a substance together with the Father and the Son, so that substance is together with them great, together with them good, together with them holy, and whatever else is said in reference to substance. For it is not one thing for God to be and another to be great or good, as we showed above.

15. Why love must be equal

Here is the argument. If love in God were less great than wisdom, then wisdom would be loved less than it is. Love is therefore equal, so that wisdom may be loved according to what it is. But wisdom is equal to the Father, as we proved above. So the Holy Spirit is equal too. And if equal, equal in all things, on account of the perfect simplicity of that substance.

So there are no more than three. There is the One who loves the One who is from him. There is the One who loves the One he is from. And there is Love itself. If this last is nothing, how is "God love"? If it is not a substance, how is God a substance?

Chapter 6: How God's Substance Is Both Simple and Manifold

16. Why creatures are manifold and not simple

Someone will ask how that substance can be both simple and manifold. To see it, first ask why a creature is manifold and in no way simple.

Start with bodies. Every body is made of parts. In it one part is greater and another less, and the whole is greater than any part. Heaven and earth are parts of the whole bulk of the world. Each of them is made of countless parts. A third of it is less than the rest, and a half of it is less than the whole. The whole body of the world, which we usually name by its two parts, heaven and earth, is certainly greater than the heaven alone or the earth alone.

In any one body, size is one thing, colour another, shape another. The same colour and shape can remain while the size shrinks. The same shape and size can remain while the colour changes. And even with the shape gone, the thing may be just as large and of the same colour. Whatever else we say of a body together can change, all at once or most of it without the rest. So the nature of body is proved manifold, and in no way simple.

17. The soul is simpler, but not simple

The spiritual creature, the soul, is simpler than the body if you compare the two. But leave the comparison aside, and the soul is manifold too, and not simple. It is simpler than the body because it is not spread out in bulk through a stretch of place. In each body, it is whole in the whole and whole in each part. So when something happens in some tiny part of the body that the soul can feel, the whole soul feels it, even though it does not happen in the whole body. The whole soul is not unaware of it.

Yet in the soul it is one thing to be skilful, another to be lazy, another to be intelligent, another to remember well. Desire is one thing, fear another, joy another, sadness another. Countless things in countless ways are found in the soul's nature, some without the others, some more and some less. So its nature is not simple but manifold. Nothing simple is changeable, and every creature is changeable.

Chapter 7: God Is a Trinity, Not Threefold

18. In God, all the names are one

God is truly spoken of in many ways: great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatever else can be worthily said of him. But his greatness is the same as his wisdom. He is not great by bulk but by power. His goodness is the same as his wisdom and his greatness, and his truth is the same as all these. In him it is not one thing to be blessed and another to be great, or wise, or true, or good, or in a word to be himself.

19. Why he is not threefold

Because he is a Trinity, we must not think him triple. Otherwise the Father alone, or the Son alone, would be less than the Father and the Son together.

It is hard even to see how we can say "the Father alone" or "the Son alone." The Father is with the Son, and the Son with the Father, always and inseparably. I don't mean both are the Father or both are the Son. I mean each is always related to the other, and neither is ever alone.

Yet we call the Trinity itself "God alone," although he is always with holy spirits and souls. We say he only is God because they are not God with him. In the same way we call the Father "the Father alone." We don't mean he is separate from the Son. We mean that the two of them together are not the Father.

Chapter 8: Nothing Can Be Added to God's Nature

20. Bodies grow by joining, spirits do not

Since the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone is as great as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together, God is by no means to be called threefold. Bodies grow by uniting. When a man is joined to his wife they are one body, but it is a bigger body than the husband alone or the wife alone.

In spiritual things it is different. When the lesser clings to the greater, as the creature to the Creator, the lesser becomes greater than it was. The greater does not. Where greatness is not a matter of bulk, being greater is being better. A creature's spirit becomes better when it clings to the Creator than if it did not, and so it becomes greater because better.

"He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (1 Corinthians 6:17, ESV). But the Lord does not become greater by that, though the one joined to him does.

21. Perfection cannot grow

So in God himself, when the equal Son, or the Holy Spirit equal to the Father and the Son, is joined to the equal Father, God does not become greater than each one by himself. That perfection cannot increase. Whether it is the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, each is perfect. And God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is perfect. So he is a Trinity rather than threefold.

Chapter 9: Is the Only God One Person, or the Three Together?

22. The puzzle in the Lord's own prayer

We have been showing how we can say "the Father alone." There is no Father in the Godhead except himself. Now we must consider the opinion that the only true God is not the Father alone but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together.

If someone asks, "Is the Father alone God?", how can we answer that he is not? Unless we say that the Father is God, but not God alone, and that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are God alone.

But what do we do with the Lord's own words? He was speaking to the Father, and he named the Father as the one he was speaking to, when he said: "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV). The Arians take this to mean that the Son is not true God. Let's leave them aside. We still have to ask whether, when he says to the Father, "that they know you the only true God," we are forced to understand that he means the Father alone is the true God. Otherwise we would not understand anyone to be God except the three together.

23. How the verse can be read

We have two ways forward.

1. Each is the only true God. From the Lord's testimony we call the Father the only true God, the Son the only true God, and the Holy Spirit the only true God. And the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together, that is, the Trinity itself, we call not three true Gods but one true God.

2. Read the words in another order. Because he added "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," perhaps we are to supply "the only true God" at the end. The order of the words would then be: "that they may know you, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, the only true God."

But then why did he leave out the Holy Spirit? Perhaps because, whenever we name two who cling to each other by a harmony so great that through it both are one, that harmony itself must be understood, even if it is not mentioned. The apostle seems to pass over the Holy Spirit in the same way, and yet the Spirit is understood there too: "all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:22–23, ESV).

24. "The head of Christ is God"

There is another puzzle. The apostle says, "the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3, ESV). If God is only all three together, how can God be the head of Christ? That would make the Trinity the head of Christ, though Christ is in the Trinity so that it may be a Trinity at all. Is the Father together with the Son the head of the Son alone? The Father with the Son is God, but the Son alone is Christ.

The answer lies in who is speaking. It is the Word already made flesh. According to that lowliness, the Father is greater than he, as he says: "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, ESV). So the very being of God, which is one with the Father, is itself the head of the man who is mediator, which he is alone.

Compare it to ourselves. We rightly call the mind the chief part of a man, as it were the head of the human substance, though the man himself together with the mind is the man. Why would the Word together with the Father, who together are God, not be much more fittingly the head of Christ? Christ, as man, can't be understood apart from the Word who was made flesh.

We will look at this more carefully later. For now the equality and single substance of the Trinity has been shown as briefly as possible. However that other question is settled, the stricter discussion of which we have put off, nothing now stops us from confessing the full equality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 10: Hilary on the Special Marks of Each Person

The Trinity is mirrored in things that are made.

25. "Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift"

A certain writer wanted to say briefly what is special to each person of the Trinity. He told us that "eternity is in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift." He was a man of real authority in handling the Scriptures and defending the faith. It was Hilary who put this in his book On the Trinity, book two. So I have looked for the hidden meaning of these words as far as I can: Father, Image and Gift; eternity, form and use.

26. Eternity in the Father

I don't think Hilary meant more by "eternity" than this. The Father has no father he is from. The Son is from the Father, so as to be, and so as to be co-eternal with him. If an image perfectly fills the measure of what it is the image of, then the image is made equal to that of which it is the image. It is not the other way round. The thing is not made equal to its own image.

27. Form in the Image

For the Image he named form. I believe he did so because of the quality of beauty. Here there is perfect fitness, first equality and first likeness. It differs in nothing, is unequal in nothing, and is unlike in no part, but answers exactly to the One whose image it is.

Here there is first and absolute life. For him it is not one thing to live and another to be, but to be and to live are the same. Here there is first and absolute intellect. For him it is not one thing to live and another to understand. To understand is to live, and to be, and all things are one. It is like a perfect Word, to which nothing is lacking, and a kind of skill of the almighty and wise God. It is full of all the living, unchangeable knowledge, all of it one in it, as it is itself one from one, with whom it is one.

In this God knew all the things he made by it. So while times pass away and follow one another, nothing passes away or follows in God's knowledge. Created things are not known by God because they were made. They were made, though changeable, because he knows them unchangeably.

28. Use in the Gift

So the unspeakable union of the Father and his Image is not without enjoyment, without love, without joy. That love, delight, happiness or blessedness, if any human word can worthily name it, Hilary briefly called use. It is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity: not begotten, but the sweetness of the Begetter and the Begotten. He fills all creatures, each according to its capacity, with an abundant generosity and richness. In this way they keep their proper order and rest satisfied in their proper place.

29. The traces of the Trinity in what is made

All the things made by divine skill show in themselves a certain unity, form and order. Each is some one thing, like the natures of bodies and the dispositions of souls. Each is shaped in some form, like the figures and qualities of bodies, and the learning and skill of souls. And each seeks or keeps a certain order, like the weights and arrangements of bodies and the loves and delights of souls.

So when we look at the Creator, who is understood through the things he has made, we must understand the Trinity, whose traces show in the creature as they should. In that Trinity is the supreme source of all things, the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed delight. These three seem to be defined in relation to each other, and in themselves they are infinite.

30. One is as much as three

Here among bodies, one alone is not as much as three together, and two are more than one. But in that highest Trinity, one is as much as the three together, and two are not more than one. They are infinite in themselves. So each is in each, and all are in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one.

Whoever sees this, in part or "in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV), let him rejoice in knowing God. Let him honour him as God and give thanks. And whoever does not see it, let him strive to see it through piety, and not quarrel with it through blindness. God is one, and yet a Trinity. We are not to take the words "from him and through him and to him are all things" as used carelessly, as if they pointed to a unity with no distinctions. Nor do they point to many gods, for "to him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:36, ESV).

Book Seven: The Father Is Wisdom Himself, and Why We Say "Three Persons"

In this book Augustine answers the question he put off in the last one. If Christ is the power and wisdom of God, is the Father only the Father of power and wisdom, or is he himself power and wisdom? Augustine shows that the Father is himself wisdom, and so is the Holy Spirit. Yet there are not three wisdoms, any more than three Gods or three essences. There is one wisdom, because there is one essence. Then he asks why the Latins say "one essence, three persons" and the Greeks say "one essence, three substances." He shows that both ways of speaking grew out of the need to say something when we are asked "three what?", while truly confessing that there are three: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 1: Back to the Question, and Why It Is So Hard

Augustine returns to the question whether each person of the Trinity is wisdom by himself. How hard it is to solve, and how it is to be solved.

1. The question I put off

Let's now look more carefully, as far as God allows, at the question I put off a little while ago. Can each person in the Trinity, on his own and not with the other two, be called God, or great, or wise, or true, or almighty, or just, or anything else that is said of God absolutely and not relatively? Or can these things be said only when the Trinity as a whole is understood?

The question arises because it is written, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV). Is the Father the Father of his own wisdom and his own power in such a way that he is wise with the wisdom he begat and powerful with the power he begat? And since he is always powerful and always wise, did he always beget power and wisdom?

If that is so, then, as I said before, why is he not also the Father of his own greatness, by which he is great, and his own goodness, by which he is good, and his own justice, by which he is just, and so on? Or are all of these understood to be in the same wisdom and power, though under more than one name? Then greatness is power, goodness is wisdom, and wisdom is power, as I have already argued. If so, keep this in mind. When I name any one of these, take me as naming all of them.

2. Does the Father speak by the Word?

So the question is this. Is the Father also wise by himself, and is he himself his own wisdom? Or is he wise in the same way that he speaks?

For he speaks by the Word he begat. I don't mean the spoken word that sounds and passes away. I mean the Word who "was with God, and the Word was God," and by whom "all things were made" (John 1:1–3, ESV). That Word is equal to him, and by him the Father always and unchangeably says himself. The Father is not himself the Word, just as he is not the Son or the image. Leave aside the words God speaks in time, which are produced in the creature and sound and pass away. When he speaks by that co-eternal Word, he is not understood alone. He is understood together with that Word, without whom he certainly does not speak.

3. What follows if the Father is wise only as he speaks

Is the Father wise in the same way as he speaks? Then wisdom would be for him what the Word is. To be the Word would be to be wisdom, and so also to be power. Power, wisdom and the Word would be the same, and would be called relatively, as the Son and the image are. The Father would not be powerful or wise alone, but together with the power and wisdom he begat. He would speak not alone but by the Word and together with the Word he begat. He would be great together with the greatness he begat.

Follow it further. If he is not great by one thing and God by another, but great by the very thing that makes him God, then he is not God alone either. He is God by that deity and together with that deity he begat. The Son would be the deity of the Father, as he is the wisdom and power of the Father, and the Word and image of the Father.

And because for him it is not one thing to be and another to be God, the Son would be the essence of the Father too, as he is his Word and image. Then, apart from being "Father," the Father would not be anything at all, except that he has the Son. Even what he is in respect to his own substance would be said because he begat his own essence. For as he is great only with the greatness he begat, so he would be only with the essence he begat. Is he, then, the Father of his own essence, as he is the Father of his greatness, power and wisdom? His greatness is the same as his power, and his essence the same as his greatness.

4. The corner we are pushed into

All of this started from one text: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." The discussion has been squeezed into narrow limits, while we are trying to say what can't be said. There seem to be only a few ways out, and each one has a problem.

1. Deny the text. We could say Christ is not the power and wisdom of God. That would be to resist the apostle shamelessly and impiously.

2. Deny that the Father begat his own power and wisdom. We could grant that Christ is the power and wisdom of God, but say his Father is not the Father of his own power and wisdom. That is no less impious. Then the Father would not be the Father of Christ, since Christ is the power and wisdom of God.

3. Deny that the Father is powerful or wise by his own power and wisdom. Who would dare to say this?

4. Say that in the Father it is one thing to be and another to be wise. Then he would not be by that by which he is wise. That is often true of a soul, which is sometimes foolish and sometimes wise, because it is changeable by nature and not perfectly simple. It can't be true of God.

5. Say that the Father is nothing in respect to his own substance. On this view, not only that he is Father but that he is at all would be said relatively, in relation to the Son. How then could the Son be of the same essence as the Father, if the Father in himself is not his own essence, and doesn't exist in himself, and even his essence is in relation to the Son? (If anything, this would make them more plainly of one and the same essence, since the Father would have his very being not in respect to himself but in relation to the Son, the essence he begat, by which he is whatever he is. But then neither person would exist in himself alone, and both would exist only in relation to each other.)

5. Taking the last way seriously, and why it collapses

Let's follow that fifth way out for a moment. Suppose the Father alone is not called Father of himself, and whatever he is called, he is called in relation to the Son. And the Son, on the other hand, is spoken of in reference to himself. What is said of him in reference to himself? His essence? But the Son is the essence of the Father, as he is the power and wisdom, the Word and image of the Father.

Or suppose the Son is called essence in reference to himself, while the Father is not essence but the begetter of essence, and exists by the essence he begat, as he is great by the greatness he begat. Then the Son is also called greatness in reference to himself. In the same way he would be called power, wisdom, word and image. And what could be more absurd than saying he is called image in reference to himself?

Or say that image and word are not the same as power and wisdom, and that the first two are said relatively and the last two in reference to oneself. Then the Father is not wise with the wisdom he begat, because he can't be spoken of relatively to that wisdom, and it can't be spoken of relatively to him. Everything said relatively is said in both directions.

So the only thing left is to say that even in essence the Son is spoken of relatively to the Father. But that gives a most unexpected result: essence itself is not essence. When it is called essence, it is not essence but something relative that is meant.

6. What "relative" really means

Look at how this works. When we say "master," we are not naming an essence. We are naming a relation that points to a slave. But when we say "man," or anything like it that is said of a thing in itself and not in relation to something else, we are naming an essence. When a man is called a master, then, the man himself is an essence, but he is called master relatively. He is called man in respect to himself, but master in respect to his slave.

So if essence itself is said relatively, essence itself is not essence. And there is more. Everything that is an essence and is spoken of relatively is also something when the relation is taken away. A man who is a master, a man who is a slave, a horse that is a beast of burden, money that is a pledge: the man, the horse and the money are spoken of in respect to themselves, and they are substances or essences. "Master," "slave," "beast of burden" and "pledge" are spoken of relatively.

But if there were no man, that is, no substance, nobody could be called a master. If there were no horse with its own essence, nothing could be called a beast of burden. If money were not some kind of substance, it could not be called a pledge. So if the Father too is not something in respect to himself, then nothing at all can be spoken of relatively to him.

7. Colour is not a good comparison

It is not like colour. The colour of a thing is referred to the thing coloured, and colour is not spoken of at all in reference to substance. It is always colour of something coloured. But the thing that has the colour, even if it is referred to colour in being coloured, is still spoken of in respect to substance in being a body.

We can't think in the same way that the Father is not called anything in respect to his own substance, and everything he is called is said in relation to the Son. And we can't think that the Son is spoken of both in respect to his own substance and in relation to the Father, when he is called great greatness and powerful power. That would be to say that he is, in himself, the greatness and power of the great and powerful Father by which the Father is great and powerful. It is not so. Both are substance, and both are one substance.

8. Whiteness is not a good comparison either

As it is absurd to say that whiteness is not white, so it is absurd to say that wisdom is not wise. As whiteness is called white in respect to itself, wisdom is called wise in respect to itself. But the whiteness of a body is not an essence, since the body itself is the essence and whiteness is a quality of it. That is why a body is said to be white from that quality, though for the body to be is not the same as to be white. In a body the form is one thing and the colour another. Neither is in itself. Both are in a certain bulk, which is neither form nor colour but is formed and coloured.

True wisdom is both wise, and wise in itself. Think of a soul that becomes wise by sharing in wisdom. If it becomes foolish again, wisdom in itself remains. When the soul changes into folly, wisdom does not change into folly. So wisdom is not in the one who becomes wise by it the way whiteness is in a body made white by it. When the body changes to another colour, that whiteness does not remain. It ceases to be altogether.

9. The decisive argument: why the Father must himself be wisdom

Now suppose the Father, who begat wisdom, is also made wise by it, and to be is not for him the same as to be wise. Then the Son is the Father's quality and not his offspring. And there is no longer absolute simplicity in the Godhead. Far be that from us. In truth the Godhead is simple essence, and there to be is the same as to be wise.

But if to be is the same as to be wise, then the Father is not wise by a wisdom he begat. Otherwise he did not beget it, but it begat him. What else do we say when we say that for him to be is the same as to be wise, except that he is by that by which he is wise? So whatever is the cause for him of being wise is also the cause for him that he is. If the wisdom he begat is the cause of his being wise, it is also the cause of his being. That could only happen if it begat him or created him. No one ever said, in any sense, that wisdom is the begetter or the creator of the Father. What could be more senseless?

So the Father is himself wisdom. And the Son is called the wisdom of the Father in the same way he is called the light of the Father. As there is light from light, and yet both are one light, so we must understand wisdom from wisdom, and both are one wisdom. And so also one essence, since in God to be is the same as to be wise.

For what being wise is to wisdom, and being able is to power, and being eternal is to eternity, and being just is to justice, and being great is to greatness, that being itself is to essence. And since in the divine simplicity being wise is nothing else than being, wisdom there is the same as essence.

Chapter 2: One Wisdom, One Essence, but Not One Word

The Father and the Son together are one wisdom, as one essence, although they are not together one Word.

10. What the two have together, and what they do not

So the Father and the Son together are one essence, one greatness, one truth, one wisdom. But the Father and the Son together are not one Word, because together they are not one Son. As the Son is referred to the Father, and is not called Son in respect to himself, so the Word is referred to the one whose Word it is. He is the Son in that he is the Word, and the Word in that he is the Son. The Father and the Son together are certainly not one Son. So they are not one Word of both.

11. Why the Son is not Word because he is wisdom

So the Son is not the Word in that he is wisdom. He is not called the Word in respect to himself, but only relatively to the one whose Word he is, just as he is called Son in relation to the Father. But he is wisdom by that whereby he is essence. And because there is one essence, there is one wisdom.

Yet the Word is also wisdom. How do we put that together? He is not the Word because he is wisdom. He is understood to be the Word relatively, and wisdom essentially. So when he is called the Word, let us understand "wisdom that is born." In those two words, wisdom and born, notice what each does. In the word born, Word, Image and Son are all understood. None of those names expresses essence, because they are all said relatively. In the other word, wisdom, essence is also expressed, because wisdom is said in respect to substance. Wisdom is wise in itself, and it names the being of his which is to be wise.

12. The result

The Father and the Son together are therefore one wisdom, because they are one essence. Singly each is wisdom of wisdom, as essence of essence. They are not any less one essence because the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, or because the Father is unbegotten and the Son begotten. Those names express only their relations. Both together are one wisdom and one essence, in which to be is the same as to be wise. Both together are not the Word or the Son, since to be is not the same as to be the Word or the Son, as we have already shown that these terms are spoken relatively.

Chapter 3: Why Scripture Speaks of the Son as Wisdom, and How the Spirit Is Wisdom Too

Why the Son chiefly is meant in Scripture by the name of wisdom, while the Father and the Holy Spirit are wisdom also. The Holy Spirit, with the Father and the Son, is one wisdom.

13. A puzzle about how Scripture talks

Here is something that may have puzzled you. Why is almost nothing said in Scripture about wisdom, except to show that it was begotten or created by God? There are two cases.

1. Begotten. This is true of the Wisdom by which all things are made.

2. Created or made. This is true in men, when they are turned to the Wisdom who is not created and made but begotten, and so are enlightened. In those men something comes to be that may be called their wisdom.

The Scriptures also foretell and tell that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV). In this way Christ was made wisdom, because he was made man.

So why does wisdom in these books not speak, or have anything said of it, except that it is born of God or made by him? The Father himself is wisdom. I think the reason is that wisdom is to be commended to us and imitated by us, so that by imitating it we may be rightly formed.

14. How the Father speaks the Word

For the Father speaks wisdom, so that it may be his Word. He doesn't speak it the way a word with a sound comes out of the mouth, or is thought before it is spoken. That kind of word is finished in stretches of time. This Word is eternal. It speaks to us by lighting us up, and tells us what should be told to men, both about itself and about the Father.

That is why he says, "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27, ESV). The Father reveals by the Son, that is, by his Word. If our word, which is temporary and passes away, declares both itself and the thing we are talking about, how much more does the Word of God, by whom all things were made?

This Word declares the Father as he is Father. It is what the Father is, in so far as it is wisdom and essence. In so far as it is Word, it is not what the Father is, because the Word is not the Father. "Word" is said relatively, as "Son" is, and the Son is certainly not the Father.

15. Light, life and wisdom

So Christ is the power and wisdom of God because he himself, being also power and wisdom, is from the Father, who is power and wisdom. He is the light of the Father, who is light. He is the fountain of life with God the Father, who is himself the fountain of life.

Scripture says it of both. "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light" (Psalm 36:9, ESV). "As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV). "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world" (John 1:9, ESV). That light, the Word, was with God, and the Word was God. And "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, ESV).

This is a light that is not bodily but spiritual. Nor is it spiritual in the sense that it works by lighting something up, as when it was said to the apostles, "You are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14, ESV). It is the light that lights everyone, the supreme wisdom itself who is God, of whom we are now speaking.

16. So each is wisdom, and both are one wisdom

The Son is therefore Wisdom of wisdom, namely of the Father, as he is Light of light and God of God. So the Father singly is light, and the Son singly is light. The Father singly is God, and the Son singly is God. Therefore the Father also singly is wisdom, and the Son singly is wisdom. As both together are one light and one God, so both are one wisdom.

But the Son is also the one "whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30, ESV). We turn to him at a certain time, so that we may remain with him forever. And it was from a certain time that he himself, the Word, "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV).

17. Why the Son is the one set before us

So whenever anything about wisdom is declared or told in the Scriptures, whether wisdom is speaking or something is said of wisdom, it is chiefly the Son who is meant to us. We are the image of God as well, but not an image equal to him. We are made so by the Father through the Son, not born of the Father as the Son is. And we are the image because we are enlightened by light. He is the image because he is the light that enlightens. He has no pattern before him, and so he is a pattern for us.

He does not imitate anyone who went before him, in relation to the Father. He can never be separated from the Father, since he is the very same substance as the one he is from. But we imitate by striving. We imitate the One who abides, and follow the One who stands still, and walk in him, reaching toward him. In time he became a way for us by his humbling. By his divinity he is for us an eternal resting-place.

18. What the humbling was for

He gave pure intellectual spirits, who have not fallen through pride, an example in the form of God, as equal with God and as God. But fallen man cannot see God, because of the uncleanness of sin and the punishment of mortality. So, to give himself as an example of returning, he emptied himself: he "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7, ESV). He did it not by changing his divinity but by taking on our changeableness.

He came to us into this world: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him" (John 1:10, ESV). He came to be an example in many directions.

1. Upward, to those who see God.

2. Downward, to those who admire man.

3. To the healthy, that they may keep on.

4. To the sick, that they may be made well.

5. To those who are going to die, that they may not fear.

6. To the dead, that they may rise.

All this "that in everything he might be preeminent" (Colossians 1:18, ESV).

The point is this. A man ought to follow nobody but God to be blessed, and yet he cannot perceive God. So he follows God made man, and so follows at once the one he can perceive and the one he ought to follow. Let us love him, then, and cling to him, by the love that is "poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5, ESV).

It is no wonder, then, that when Scripture speaks of wisdom it speaks of the Son. He is the Image equal to the Father, and he gives us an example so that we can be refashioned after the image of God. We follow him by living wisely. But the Father too is wisdom, as he is light and God.

19. The Holy Spirit is wisdom too

Now the Holy Spirit. We may call him that absolute love which joins the Father and the Son together, and joins us to them from below. Then it is not unfitly said, "God is love" (1 John 4:8, ESV). How is he not also himself wisdom, since he is light, because "God is light"?

Or we may name the essence of the Holy Spirit in some other single and proper way. Even then, since he is God, he is certainly light. And since he is light, he is certainly wisdom.

Scripture proclaims that the Holy Spirit is God, by the apostle who says, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16, ESV). God dwells in his own temple. The Spirit of God does not dwell in God's temple as a servant. Paul says it more plainly elsewhere: "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19–20, ESV).

20. One light, one wisdom, one God

And what is wisdom except spiritual and unchangeable light? That sun up there is also light, but it is bodily. The spiritual creature is also light, but it is not unchangeable. So the Father is light, the Son is light, and the Holy Spirit is light. Together they are not three lights but one light.

So the Father is wisdom, the Son is wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is wisdom. Together they are not three wisdoms but one wisdom. And because in the Trinity to be is the same as to be wise, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one essence. In the Trinity it is not one thing to be and another to be God. Therefore the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God.

Chapter 4: How the Greeks Came to Say "Three Hypostases" and the Latins "Three Persons"

Scripture nowhere speaks of three persons in one God.

21. Why anyone says "three" at all

We want to speak of what cannot be uttered, and to say in some way what we can in no way say fully. So our Greek friends have spoken of one essence, three substances. The Latins say one essence or substance, three persons. As I have said, in our language, in Latin, "essence" usually means nothing other than "substance."

If this is understood only as a mystery, that way of speaking was enough. It gave us something to say when asked what the three are, which the true faith pronounces to be three. For the faith declares both that the Father is not the Son, and that the Holy Spirit, who is the gift of God, is neither the Father nor the Son.

When we are asked what the three are, or who they are, we go looking for some special or general name to take all three in. No such name comes to mind, because the surpassing greatness of the Godhead is beyond ordinary speech. God is thought more truly than he is spoken, and he is more truly than he is thought.

22. How "three what?" works with ordinary things

Let me show you how naming works. When we say that Jacob is not Abraham, and that Isaac is neither Abraham nor Jacob, we confess that they are three: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If someone asks "three what?", we answer "three men." That is a specific name, in the plural. We could also use a generic one. Man, as the ancients defined him, is a rational, mortal animal. Or we could say "three souls," as our Scriptures usually do. It is fitting to name the whole from its better part, that is, to name both body and soul, which is the whole man, from the soul. That is how it is said that "seventy-five persons" went down into Egypt with Jacob (Acts 7:14, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "seventy-five souls." The ESV of Acts 7:14, which has the same number, says "persons." His point does not depend on the word, so the ESV is used.

Now take your horse and mine. When we say your horse is not mine, and a third belonging to someone else is neither mine nor yours, we confess three. If someone asks "three what?", we answer "three horses" by a specific name, and "three animals" by a generic one.

Take an ox, a horse and a dog. We say an ox is not a horse, and a dog is neither an ox nor a horse. We speak of a three. If asked "three what?", we do not say three horses, or oxen, or dogs, because the three do not fall under one species. We say "three animals," a generic name. Or under a higher genus, "three substances," "three creatures," or "three natures."

23. The rule underneath

Here is the rule. Whatever things are put in the plural under a specific name can also be put under a generic name. But not everything that goes under a generic name can go under a specific one. Three horses we may also call three animals. But a horse, an ox and a dog we may only call three animals or substances, generic names, and nothing more. We can't call them three horses, oxen or dogs.

We use one name, in the plural, for things that share what the name signifies. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob share what it is to be man, so they are three men. A horse, an ox and a dog share what it is to be animal, so they are three animals. Three laurels are three trees. A laurel, a myrtle and an olive are only three trees, or three substances, or three natures. Three stones are three bodies. Stone, wood and iron are only three bodies, or whatever higher generic name fits.

24. Now apply it to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

They are three. What three? What do they have in common?

It is not being the Father. That is not common to them, so that they could be fathers to one another. Friends are so called relatively, and if they are friends to each other they can be called three friends. That doesn't happen in the Trinity. The Father is there the only father, and not father of two, but of the Son only. Nor are they three Sons, since the Father is not the Son there, nor is the Holy Spirit. Nor are they three Holy Spirits, since the Holy Spirit, in the proper sense in which he is also called the gift of God, is neither the Father nor the Son.

What three, then? If we say three persons, then what "person" means is common to them. So the name is either specific or generic for them, in the way we speak. Where there is no difference of nature, things that are several in number are named in a generic way that can also be specific. It is a difference of nature that makes us call a laurel, a myrtle and an olive three trees, not three laurels, and a horse, an ox and a dog three animals, not three oxen.

But here there is no difference of essence. So these three need a specific name, and there isn't one to be found. "Person" is a generic name. A man can be called a person too, though the difference between man and God is so great.

25. If "person" works, why not "three Gods"?

Look at that word "person" again. Suppose we say three persons because what "person" means is common to the three. Otherwise they could not be called that, just as they are not called three sons, because what "son" means is not common to them.

Then why do we not say three Gods? The Father is a person, the Son is a person, and the Holy Spirit is a person. So there are three persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Why not three Gods?

Or the other way round. Because of their unspeakable union, these three are together one God. Why not also one person? Then we could not say three persons, though we call each one a person on his own. In the same way we cannot say three Gods, though we call each on his own God, whether the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit.

26. Scripture does not settle it either way

Is it because Scripture doesn't say three Gods? But neither do we find Scripture anywhere saying three persons. Or is it because Scripture doesn't call them either three persons or one person? We read of the person of the Lord, but not of the Lord as a person.

So perhaps it was lawful, through the mere need of speaking and reasoning, to say three persons. Scripture does not say it, but Scripture does not contradict it. If we said three Gods, Scripture would contradict it. It says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4, ESV).

Then why may we not say three essences? Scripture does not say that either, and equally does not contradict it. If essence is a specific name common to three, why are they not called three essences, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are called three men because "man" is the specific name common to all men? If essence is not specific but generic, since man, cattle, tree, star and angel are all called essences, why are these three not called three essences, as three horses, three laurels, three stones are called three animals, trees and bodies?

Or if they are not called three essences but one essence, because of the unity of the Trinity, why shouldn't the same unity forbid us to say three substances or three persons, and make us say one substance and one person? The name of essence is common to them, so that each singly is called essence. In the same way the name of substance, or of person, is common to them. What we say of persons, in our usage, is to be understood of substances in the Greek usage. They say three substances, one essence, as we say three persons, one essence or substance.

27. What is left but to say these words come from need

So what remains except to confess that these terms came out of the necessity of speaking, when plentiful reasoning was needed against the devices and errors of the heretics?

Human weakness was trying to say in speech to the senses of man what it grasps in the secret places of the mind about the Lord God its creator, by devout faith or by whatever insight. It feared to say three essences, in case some difference might be understood in that absolute equality. Yet it could not say that there were not three somewhats, for it was by saying that Sabellius fell into heresy.

It must be devoutly believed, as most certainly known from the Scriptures, and held by the eye of the mind without doubting, that there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son is not the same as the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the same as the Father or the Son.

So it looked for what to call these three, and answered "substances" or "persons." By those names it did not mean to point to a difference. It meant to deny that they are one single thing. In "one essence" we understand unity. In "three substances or persons" we understand Trinity.

28. Why "three substances" can be risky

If for God to be (esse) is the same as to subsist (subsistere), then they ought not to be called three substances, any more than they are called three essences. The same is true of wisdom. For God to be is the same as to be wise, so we do not say three essences, and we do not say three wisdoms. Since for God to be God is the same as to be, it is not right to say three essences, as it is not right to say three Gods.

But suppose for God to be is one thing and to subsist another, as it is one thing for God to be, and another to be the Father or the Lord. (What he is, he is in respect to himself. He is called Father in relation to the Son, and Lord in relation to the creature that serves him.) Then he subsists relatively, as he begets relatively and rules relatively. Then substance would no longer be substance, because it would be relative. As from being he is called essence, so from subsisting we speak of substance. But it is absurd that substance should be spoken relatively. Everything subsists in respect to itself. How much more God!

Chapter 5: In God, "Substance" Is Said Loosely and "Essence" Properly

29. What "subsist" properly means

Suppose it is fitting to say that God subsists. The word properly applies to things that serve as subjects for what is "in a subject," such as colour or shape in a body. A body subsists and so is a substance. The things that are in the body, which subsists and is their subject, are not substances. They are in a substance. If that colour or shape ceases to be, the body does not stop being a body, because it is not part of the being of a body to keep a particular shape or colour. So neither changeable things nor simple things are properly called substances.

If God subsists so that he can be properly called a substance, then there is something in him as in a subject, and he is not simple. For God to be would not be the same as anything else said of him in respect to himself, such as great, almighty or good. And it is impious to say that God subsists, and is a subject for his own goodness, and that this goodness is not a substance, or rather an essence, and that God himself is not his own goodness but that it is in him as in a subject.

30. So "essence" is the true word

It is clear, then, that God is called substance loosely, so that he may be understood by the more usual name, essence, which is the name he is truly and properly called. Perhaps it is right that God alone should be called essence. He alone truly is, because he is unchangeable. He declared this to be his own name to his servant Moses: "I am who I am," and "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3:14, ESV).

But whether he is called essence, which he is properly called, or substance, which he is called loosely, he is called both in respect to himself, not relatively to anything. For God, to be is the same as to subsist. So the Trinity, if it is one essence, is also one substance. Perhaps, then, the three are more suitably called three persons than three substances.

Chapter 6: Why Not One Person and Three Essences? What to Believe if You Cannot Grasp This

What he ought to believe about the Trinity who does not receive what is said above. Man is both "after the image" and "the image" of God.

31. The Greeks could have said "persons" too

I don't want to seem to favour ourselves, the Latins. So let me press the question further. The Greeks, if they liked, could have said "three prosopa," three persons, just as they call three substances three hypostases. They preferred the word that perhaps better fit the usage of their language.

The same problem arises with the word "person." For God, it is not one thing to be and another to be a person. It is absolutely the same.

Suppose "to be" were said in respect to himself and "person" relatively. Then we would say three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as we speak of three friends, or three relatives, or three neighbours, who are such to each other and not each one in respect to himself. Any one of them would be the friend of the other two, or the relative, or the neighbour, because these names are relative.

Are we, then, to call the Father the person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Or the Son the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit? That is not how the word is used. When we speak of the person of the Father in this Trinity, we mean nothing other than the substance of the Father. As the substance of the Father is the Father himself, not as he is Father but as he is, so the person of the Father is nothing other than the Father himself. He is called a person in respect to himself, not in respect to the Son or the Holy Spirit. He is called in respect to himself God, great, good, just, and everything of that kind. Just as for him to be is the same as to be God, or great, or good, so for him to be is the same as to be a person.

32. Why we say "three persons" and not "one person"

Why, then, do we not call these three together one person, as we say one essence and one God? Why do we say three persons, when we do not say three Gods or three essences? Only because we want some one word to serve for the meaning by which the Trinity is understood. Then we need not be altogether silent when asked "three what?", while we confess that they are three.

33. Genus and species won't work

Some think essence is the genus, and substance or person the species. If so, I have to drop what I said just now, that they should be called three essences as they are called three substances or persons. Three horses are called three horses and also three animals, since horse is the species and animal the genus. In that case the species is not put in the plural while the genus stays singular, as if three horses were one animal. As they are three horses by the specific name, so they are three animals by the generic one.

Or perhaps they say that "substance" or "person" does not signify a species but something singular and individual. A person is then called that, not as one is called "man," which is common to all men, but as one is called this man or that man: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or anyone who could be pointed out with a finger. The same reasoning reaches this too. As Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are called three individuals, they are also called three men and three souls. Why, then, are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, if we reason about them by genus, species and individual, not called three essences, as they are called three substances or persons?

I pass over that. But I do affirm this. If essence is a genus, then a single essence has no species, just as, since animal is a genus, a single animal has no species. So the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three species of one essence.

And if essence is a species, as man is, and these three are what we call substances or persons, then they have the same species in common, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have in common what is called man. But man is not divided into Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the way that one man can be divided into several single men. That is altogether impossible, since one man is already a single man. Why, then, is one essence divided into three substances or persons? If essence is a species like man, one essence is like one man.

34. The comparison of three human beings

Perhaps we say three substances in one essence the way we say of any three human beings of the same sex, the same body type and the same mind that they are one nature. They are three human beings but one nature. Perhaps we also say, in the Trinity, three substances one essence, or three persons one substance or essence.

This is somewhat parallel. The ancients who spoke Latin, before the terms "essence" and "substance" (which have not been in use long) came along, used to say "nature." So we do not use these terms according to genus or species. We use them as of a matter that is common and the same.

35. The statues made from one gold

Here is a picture. Suppose three statues are made from the same gold. We say three statues, one gold. We do not call the gold the genus and the statues species. Nor do we call the gold the species and the statues individuals. No species goes beyond its own individuals so as to take in anything outside them.

When I define "man," which is a specific name, every individual man is contained in the one definition, and nothing belongs to it that is not a man. But when I define "gold," not statues alone, if they are gold, but also rings and anything else made of gold will belong to gold. Even if nothing were made of it, it would still be called gold. Even if there were no gold statues, there would not be no statues at all.

Likewise no species goes beyond the definition of its genus. When I define "animal," since horse is a species of that genus, every horse is an animal. But every statue is not gold. So, though with three golden statues we rightly say three statues, one gold, we do not mean that gold is a genus and statues are its species.

36. Where the picture fails

So we don't call the Trinity three persons or substances, one essence and one God, as if three somethings subsisted out of one matter, with matter left over. Whatever that essence is, it is unfolded in these three. There is nothing else of that essence besides the Trinity.

Yet we say three persons of the same essence, or three persons one essence. We do not say three persons out of the same essence, as if essence were one thing and person another, as we can say three statues out of the same gold. For there it is one thing to be gold and another to be statues.

When we say three men one nature, or three men of the same nature, we can also say three men out of the same nature, since out of the same nature there can be three other such men. But in the essence of the Trinity no other person whatever can exist out of that same essence.

Then add this. Among men, one man is not as much as three men together, and two men are more than one. In equal statues, three together contain more gold than each singly, and one contains less gold than two. In God it is not so. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together are not a greater essence than the Father alone or the Son alone. These three substances or persons, if they must be so called, together are equal to each singly. The natural man doesn't grasp this. He cannot think except under conditions of bulk and space, small or great, since pictures, or images of bodies, flit about in his mind.

37. Until your mind is cleansed, believe

Until he is cleansed from this uncleanness, let him believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, alone, great, almighty, good, just, merciful, Creator of all things visible and invisible, and whatever else can be worthily and truly said of him as far as human capacity goes.

When he is told that the Father only is God, let him not separate the Son or the Holy Spirit from him. Together with him the Son is the only God, because together with him he is one God. When we are told that the Son also is the only God, we must take it without any separation of the Father or the Holy Spirit.

Let him say one essence in such a way as not to think any one greater or better than another, or different from another in any respect. But the Father himself is not both Son and Holy Spirit, nor whatever else each is called singly in relation to the others. Word is said only of the Son, and Gift only of the Holy Spirit.

38. How Scripture itself uses the plural

For this reason the plural number is admitted, as it is written in the Gospel: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30, ESV). The word "one" and the words "we are" are both there. "One" is according to essence, because they are the same God. "We are" is according to relation, because one is Father and the other is Son.

Sometimes the unity of essence is left unsaid and only the relatives are mentioned in the plural: "we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23, ESV). "We will come" and "we will make" are plural. In Augustine's text the two are named together ("My Father and I will come to him"), which is how he knows the plural is said of terms used relatively to one another. The ESV has only "my Father" and "we."

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read this verse as "My Father and I will come to him, and make our abode with him," which spells out the two persons. The ESV reads "my Father will love him, and we will come to him." The plural he draws attention to is the same, so the ESV is quoted.

Sometimes the meaning is hidden altogether, as in Genesis: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26, ESV). "Let us make" and "our" are in the plural, and ought to be received only as said of relatives. It was not that gods might make, or make after the image and likeness of gods. It was that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit might make after the image of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that man might subsist as the image of God. And God is the Trinity.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "Let us make man after our image and likeness." The ESV has "in our image, after our likeness." His argument in the next sections turns on the words "after our image," so his wording is used there.

39. Man is after the image, and is the image

That image of God was not made altogether equal to him, since it was not born of him but created by him. To signify this, man is the image in such a way that he is "after the image." He is not made equal by sameness, but approaches him by a kind of likeness. Approach to God is not by distance of place but by likeness, and withdrawal from him is by unlikeness.

Some draw a distinction. They want the Son to be the image, and man not the image but only "after the image." The apostle answers them: "For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God" (1 Corinthians 11:7, ESV). He did not say "after the image." He said "the image."

When man is elsewhere said to be "after the image," it is not said in relation to the Son, who is the image equal to the Father. Otherwise it would not say "after our image." How could it say our, when the Son is the image of the Father alone? Man is said to be "after the image" because of the inequality of the likeness. And so it says after our image, so that man might be the image of the Trinity. He is not equal to the Trinity as the Son is equal to the Father. He approaches it, as I have said, by a kind of likeness. It is as nearness may be signified in things far apart from each other, not in respect of place but by a kind of imitation.

That is why it is also said, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Romans 12:2, ESV). And to the same people: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children" (Ephesians 5:1, ESV). To the new man it is said that he is "being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10, ESV).

40. A last caution, and a call to faith

Or suppose we choose to allow the plural number, to meet the needs of argument, and set relative terms aside. We want to be able to answer with one term when asked "three what?", and say three substances or three persons. Then let no one imagine any bulk or interval, or any distance of even the smallest unlikeness, so that in the Trinity any one is understood to be even a little less than another, in any way one thing can be less than another. There must be neither a confusion of the persons nor a distinction that brings in inequality.

And if this can't be grasped by the understanding, let it be held by faith, until he dawns in the heart who says by the prophet, "If you do not believe, you will not understand."

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin Bible, following the Greek Septuagint, read Isaiah 7:9 as "If you do not believe, you will not understand." The ESV, following the Hebrew, reads "If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all." The saying is central to his whole approach, as Book Fifteen shows, so his reading is kept in his own words and not replaced by the ESV.

Book Eight: Truth, the Good, and Love as a Trace of the Trinity

In this book Augustine argues that neither the Father is greater than the Son, nor are the Father and the Son together greater than the Holy Spirit, nor are any two persons of the Trinity greater than one, nor are all three greater than each one. He then shows how we may begin to understand the nature of God from our grasp of truth, from our knowledge of the highest good, and from our natural love of righteousness, by which even someone who is not yet righteous loves a righteous person. Above all he urges that God is to be sought by love, which Scripture says God is, and in love he points out the first trace of a trinity.

Preface: Where We Stand, and the Rule to Keep

Let me gather up what has been said so far, and then tell you how to hold on to your footing when the questions get harder.

We have said that some things are spoken of the persons in the Trinity relatively, in relation to each other. The Father is spoken of in relation to the Son, the Son in relation to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the gift of both. The Father is not the Trinity. The Son is not the Trinity. The gift is not the Trinity.

But when each person is spoken of in himself, we do not count three. We say one, the Trinity itself. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is good, the Son is good, and the Holy Spirit is good. The Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty. Yet there are not three Gods, or three goods, or three almighties. There is one God, one good, one almighty, the Trinity itself. The same holds for everything else that is said of them not in relation to each other but in respect of themselves.

These things are spoken of them according to essence. In God, to be is the same as to be great, to be good, to be wise, and everything else that is said of each person in himself or of the Trinity itself. And we call them three persons, or three substances, not to suggest any difference of essence. We do it so that we have some one word to answer with when someone asks, "Three what?"

So great is the equality in this Trinity that the Father is not greater than the Son as regards divinity. Nor are the Father and the Son together greater than the Holy Spirit. Nor is any single person of the three less than the Trinity itself.

That is what we have said. If a thing like this is handled and repeated often, it becomes more familiar. Still, a limit has to be set on the discussion. We should ask God, with the most devout piety, to open our understanding and take away our itch to argue, so that our minds may see the essence of the truth, which has no bulk and does not move.

So now, as far as the Creator himself helps us in his wonderful mercy, let us look at these same subjects, only more deeply than before. I will keep one rule while we do it. What has not yet become clear to our understanding must not, for that reason, be loosened from the firmness of our faith.

Chapter 1: Reason Shows That Three Persons Are Not Greater Than One

It is shown by reason that in God three persons are not anything greater than one.

1. What the claim is, and why it is hard to receive

We say that in this Trinity, two persons or three are not anything greater than one of them. Our carnal way of perceiving does not receive that, and there is one reason only. It sees the true things that are made, as well as it can, but it cannot see the Truth by which they are made. If it could, the light of the sun itself would not be clearer than what I am about to say.

2. The argument, step by step

Follow it slowly, because every step is short.

1. In the substance of truth, nothing is greater unless it is more truly. Truth is the one substance that truly is. So nothing in it can be greater, except by being more truly.

2. Among intelligible and unchangeable things, nothing is more truly than another. All of them are alike unchangeably eternal. So whatever is called great there is not great from any other source than that by which it truly is.

3. So where magnitude is truth, more magnitude must mean more truth. If something has not more truth, it has not more magnitude. And whatever has more truth is more true, just as whatever has more magnitude is greater.

4. Now apply this to the persons. The Father and the Son together are not more truly than the Father alone, or than the Son alone. So both together are not anything greater than each of them singly.

5. The Holy Spirit equally truly is. So the Father and the Son together are not greater than he, since they are not more truly.

6. The same goes for every pairing. The Father and the Holy Spirit together do not surpass the Son in truth, since they are not more truly. So they do not surpass him in magnitude either. And the Son and the Holy Spirit together are exactly as great as the Father alone, since they are exactly as truly.

7. So the Trinity itself is as great as each person in it. Where truth itself is magnitude, whatever is not more true is not more great. In the essence of truth, to be true is the same as to be, and to be is the same as to be great. So to be great is the same as to be true. What is equally true must be equally great.

Chapter 2: Setting Aside Every Bodily Picture

Every corporeal conception must be rejected, in order that it may be understood how God is truth.

1. Why this does not work for bodies

With bodies, it might be different. This piece of gold and that piece of gold may be equally true gold, yet one is greater than the other. Magnitude and truth are not the same thing here. It is one thing to be gold and another to be large.

It is the same with the soul. A soul is not called great in the same sense in which it is called true. A man may have a true soul and not have a great one. The essence of a body or a soul is not the essence of truth itself. But the Trinity is not like that. The Trinity is one God, alone great, true, truthful, the truth.

2. What to do with your imagination

When we try to think of him, as far as he himself permits and grants it, we must not picture any touching or embracing in space, as if three bodies were packed together. The myths tell of three-bodied Geryon, and that is just the sort of picture to avoid. Throw out, without any doubt, whatever comes to mind that is greater in three than in each singly, and less in one than in two. That is how everything bodily is rejected.

Then take one step more. Even among spiritual things, let nothing changeable that comes to your mind be thought of as God. When we climb from this depth up to that height, it is no small step in knowledge if we can already know what God is not, before we can know what he is.

3. What God is not

He is not earth or heaven, or earth and heaven together. He is not anything we see in the sky, or anything we do not see but which may perhaps be there. If you enlarge the light of the sun in your imagination as far as you can, a thousand times brighter and greater, or times without number, that is not God either.

Nor is God the pure angels, imagined as spirits that animate heavenly bodies, changing them and working with them according to the will by which they serve God. Even if all of them, "a thousand thousands" (Daniel 7:10, ESV), were gathered into one, that would not be God. And nor is God those same spirits thought of without bodies, which is very hard for carnal thought to do.

4. Look, if you can

Now look. See, if you can, O soul weighed down by a perishable body and by many and various earthly thoughts. See, if you can, that God is truth. It is written that "God is light" (1 John 1:5, ESV). That does not mean the way these eyes see light. It means the way the heart sees, when it is told, "He is truth."

Do not ask what truth is. If you do, the darkness of bodily images and the clouds of fantasy will crowd in at once, and they will spoil the calm that flashed on you at the first instant, when I said "truth." Stay, if you can, in that first flash which dazzled you when you heard the word. But you can't. You will slide back into the usual earthly things.

What weight is it that makes you slide back? It is the bird-lime of the stains your appetites have left on you, and the errors of your wandering from the right road.

Chapter 3: How We Know That God Is the Highest Good

How God may be known to be the chief good. The mind does not become good unless by turning to God.

1. Look again at the good

Look again, and see if you can. You love nothing except what is good. The earth is good, with its high mountains and its well-measured hills and its level plains. A pleasant, fertile estate is good. A house built in fair proportions, roomy and bright, is good. Living bodies are good. Mild and healthy air is good. Food that is pleasant and fit for health is good. Health itself, without pain or weariness, is good. A human face in its right proportions, cheerful in look and bright in colour, is good. The mind of a friend is good, with the sweetness of agreement and the confidence of love. A righteous man is good. Riches are good, because they are readily useful. The sky is good, with its sun and moon and stars. The angels are good, in their holy obedience. Speech that teaches sweetly and warns fittingly is good. A poem harmonious in its numbers and weighty in its sense is good.

Why go on and on? This is good and that is good. But take away this and that, and look at good itself, if you can. Then you will see God. He is not good by some good other than himself. He is the good of every good.

2. How we know it

In all these good things, whether the ones I named or any others we can see or think of, we could never say that one is better than another, if we were judging truly, unless a notion of the good itself had been stamped on us. By that notion we approve some things as good and prefer one good to another.

So God is to be loved, not as this good or that good, but as the good itself. The good that the soul must seek is not one it is to fly over in judgment, but one it is to cling to in love. And what can that be but God? It is not a good mind, or a good angel, or a good heaven. It is the good Good.

3. A way to see it more easily

Perhaps what I want to say will be easier to grasp this way. When we call a mind good, there are two words, and from the two words I understand two things. One is that it is a mind. The other is that it is good.

The mind had no part in making itself a mind. There was nothing yet to do the making. But to make itself a good mind is something the will must bring about. This is not because that by which it is a mind is not itself a good thing. How else could we rightly say, and most truly say, that a mind is better than a body? But we do not yet call it a good mind, because the act of the will is still missing, by which it must rise to something more excellent. If it neglects that act, it is rightly blamed and is rightly said not to be a good mind. It differs from the mind that does perform it. The one that performs is praiseworthy, and the one that doesn't is blameworthy.

Now suppose the mind does this on purpose and becomes good. It still cannot become good unless it turns to something that it is not itself. To what can it turn, in order to become a good mind, except to the good which it loves and seeks and gains? And if it turns away from that good and stops being good, then by the very act of turning away it could not find its way back, unless that good stayed in it from which it turned. Otherwise it could never turn back, even if it wanted to repent.

4. The changeable goods need the unchangeable one

So there would be no changeable goods unless there were an unchangeable good. When you are told of this good thing and that good thing, things that can in other respects be called not good, put aside, if you can, whatever is good by sharing in the good, and look at the good itself, by sharing in which they are good. For when you hear of this good or that good, you understand the good itself along with them.

If you can remove them and see the good in itself, you will have seen God. And if you cling to him in love, you will at once be blessed. Other things are loved only because they are good. So be ashamed, when you cling to them, not to love the good itself from which they are good.

5. The mind that pleases us

Think about a mind, merely because it is a mind, before it has also become good by turning to the unchangeable good. When it pleases us so much that we prefer it, if we understand rightly, to all bodily light, it does not please us in itself. It pleases us in the skill by which it was made. We approve it as something made, because in the maker's skill we see how it was to be made.

That skill is truth, and simple good. It is nothing other than good itself, and for that reason it is also the highest good. Only a good that is good from another good can be made smaller or greater.

So the mind turns, in order to be good, to that by which it comes to be a mind. The will is then in harmony with nature, so that the mind is made perfect in good, when that good is loved by the will's turning to it. From that good comes the other good too, the mind's being a mind, which is not lost when the will turns away. By turning away from the highest good, the mind loses its being a good mind, but it does not lose its being a mind. And that too is already a good, and a better one than a body.

So the will loses what the will obtains. The mind already existed, and so it could wish to be turned to that from which it was. But the mind did not yet exist before it was made, and so it could not wish anything.

Here is our highest good. We see whether a thing ought to be, or ought to have been, and we see that it could not have been unless it ought to have been, though we do not understand in what manner it ought to have been. This good is not far from any of us. "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28, ESV).

Chapter 4: God Must First Be Believed in Order to Be Loved

God must first be known by an unerring faith, that he may be loved.

1. We must love in order to see

It is by love that we must stand firm in this good and cling to it. Then we may enjoy the presence of the one by whom we are, and without whom we could not be at all.

"We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7, ESV). So we do not yet see God, as the same apostle says, "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). And we will never see him unless we already love him now.

But who loves what he does not know? It is possible to know something and not love it. The question is whether something unknown can be loved. If it cannot, then nobody loves God before he knows him.

What is it to know God? It is to look on him and fix your mind steadily on him. He is not a body to be hunted down with bodily eyes. But before we have the power to look on him and perceive him as he can be perceived, which is granted to the pure in heart ("Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," Matthew 5:8, ESV), we have to love him by faith. Unless he is loved by faith, the heart cannot be cleansed so that it becomes fit to see him.

2. The three, and the danger of faith that invents

Where are those three for the building of which the whole machinery of Scripture was raised up? I mean faith, hope and love. They are in a mind that believes what it does not yet see, and hopes for and loves what it believes. So even the one who is not known, but is believed, can be loved.

But we must be careful. The mind that believes what it does not see can make up something that does not exist, and then hope for and love what is false. In that case it would not be "love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Timothy 1:5, ESV), which Paul says is the aim of the commandment.

3. What happens when we believe in things we have not seen

When we believe in bodily things we have never seen, because we read or heard about them, our mind has to form some picture of them in bodily shapes, just as the shapes occur to our thoughts. That picture is either untrue, or, in the rare case that it is true, it does us no good to believe it by faith. It is useful only for some other purpose, which is hinted at by means of it.

Take the apostle Paul. Who reads or hears what Paul wrote, or what was written about him, without picturing the face of the apostle and the faces of everyone named there? Among so many people who know these books, each pictures those features differently. So it is certainly uncertain which of them pictures them closest to the truth. And our faith is not busy with the bodily faces of those men. It is busy with this: that by the grace of God they lived and acted as the Scripture bears witness. That is what is useful to believe, what we must not despair of, and what we must seek.

The same is true even of our Lord's own face in the flesh. It is pictured in countless different ways by different imaginations, though it was one face, whatever it was. And the thing that saves us in our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not the picture the mind makes up for itself, which may be far from the truth. It is what we think of him according to his kind, as a man. We have a notion of human nature planted in us, as a kind of rule. By it we know at once that whatever we see of that sort is a man or the form of a man.

Chapter 5: How the Trinity Can Be Loved Though Unknown

How the Trinity may be loved though unknown.

1. Our faith is built on notions we already have

Our picture is formed according to that notion when we believe that God was made man for us, as an example of humility and to show God's love toward us. This is what it is good for us to believe, and to keep firmly and unshakably in our heart. The humility by which God was born of a woman, and was led to death through such great insults from mortal men, is the chief remedy for curing the swelling of our pride. It is the deep mystery by which the bond of sin is loosed.

In the same way, because we know what omnipotence is, we believe in the omnipotent God, in the power of his miracles and of his resurrection. We form our pictures of such acts from the kinds of things that are either planted in us by nature or gathered by experience, so that our faith may not be a pretence.

Think of what we do not know. We do not know the face of the Virgin Mary, from whom, untouched by a husband and unspoiled in the birth itself, he was wonderfully born. We have not seen the features of the body of Lazarus, or Bethany, or the tomb and the stone he ordered to be rolled away when he raised him from the dead. We have not seen the new tomb cut in the rock from which he himself rose, or the Mount of Olives from which he ascended into heaven. Whoever of us has not seen these things does not know whether they are as we picture them. In fact we judge it more likely that they are not.

When the look of a place, or a man, or any other body that we happened to imagine before we saw it turns out to be the same when we see it, we are struck with no small wonder. That is how rarely it happens.

2. What we really believe

And yet we believe these things most firmly, because we picture them according to a particular and a general notion of which we are certain. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin called Mary. We do not merely believe, but certainly know, what a virgin is, what it is to be born, and what a proper name is. But whether the face that came to mind when we spoke or remembered those things was the face of Mary, we neither know nor believe.

So we may say, without any harm to the faith, "perhaps she had such a face, perhaps she had not." But no one could say, without harm to the Christian faith, "perhaps Christ was born of a virgin."

3. The real problem

Now see where this leaves us. We want to understand the eternity, equality and unity of the Trinity as far as we are allowed. But we ought to believe before we understand. We must be careful that our faith is not made up. We must enjoy this same Trinity if we are to live blessedly. But if we have believed anything false about it, our hope would be worthless and our love impure.

How, then, can we love, by believing, a Trinity we do not know? Is it according to a particular or a general notion, as we love the apostle Paul? Even if Paul did not have the face that comes to our mind when we think of him (and of that we know nothing), we still know what a man is. We are that ourselves, and it is plain that he was that too, and that his soul, joined to his body, lived as mortals do. So we believe about him what we find in ourselves, according to the kind under which all human nature is gathered.

But what do we know, in a particular or a general way, about that most excellent Trinity? It is as if there were many such trinities, some of which we had come to know by experience. Then we could believe that Trinity to be like them, by a rule of likeness pressed on us, and so love what we believe and do not yet know from its likeness to what we do know. But this is certainly not so.

Perhaps it is like this. In our Lord Jesus Christ we love the fact that he rose from the dead, though we never saw anyone rise from the dead. Might we, in the same way, believe in and love the Trinity, which we do not see, and the like of which we never saw? But there is a difference. We certainly know what it is to die and what it is to live, because we live, and from time to time we have seen and experienced both dead and dying people. And what is rising again, except living again, returning to life from death?

When we say and believe that there is a Trinity, we do know what a trinity is, because we know what three is. But that is not what we love. To pass over other examples, we can have it whenever we like by holding up three fingers. Is it perhaps that we love, not every trinity, but the Trinity that is God? Then we love in the Trinity that it is God. But we never saw or knew any other God, since God is one. He alone is the God we have not yet seen and love by believing.

So the question stands: by what likeness or comparison with known things can we believe, so that we may love God, whom we do not yet know?

Chapter 6: How a Person Who Is Not Yet Righteous Can Know the Righteous Person He Loves

How the man not yet righteous can know the righteous man whom he loves.

1. Why do we love the apostle?

Come back with me, then, and let us ask why we love the apostle. Is it on account of his human kind, which we know very well, since we believe him to have been a man? Surely not. If it were, we would no longer be loving him, since he is no longer that man. His soul has been parted from his body. But we believe that what we love in him is still alive. We love his righteous mind.

By what general or particular rule do we do that? Only because we know what a mind is and what it is to be righteous.

2. How we know what a mind is

We say, and not unfittingly, that we know what a mind is because we have one. We never saw a mind with our eyes, and then formed a general or particular notion from the likeness of more minds than one that we had seen. Rather, as I said before, we have one ourselves. What is known so intimately, and perceives itself so well to be itself, as that by which all other things are perceived, namely the mind itself?

We even recognize the movements of other bodies, and from them we perceive that others live besides ourselves. We do it by their likeness to ourselves, since we move our own bodies in the same way when we live. Even when a living body is moved, no path opens to our eyes to see the mind, which eyes cannot see. But we sense that something is contained in that bulk, such as is contained in ourselves, to move the bulk in the same way. That is life and soul.

This is not even a special gift of human forethought and reason. Brute animals also perceive that not only they themselves live, but other animals too, each of the other, and that we do. They do not see our souls except from the movements of the body, and they do it at once and very easily by some natural agreement.

So we know the mind of anyone else from our own, and from our own we believe in the mind of the person we do not know. We not only perceive that a mind exists. We can know what a mind is by considering ours, because we have one.

3. But how do we know what a righteous person is?

We said that we love the apostle for no other reason than that he is a righteous mind. So we must know what a righteous person is, just as we know what a mind is. We know what a mind is from ourselves, since there is a mind in us. But how do we know what a righteous person is, if we are not righteous ourselves?

Suppose only the righteous know what a righteous person is. Then only a righteous person loves a righteous person. For you cannot love someone you believe to be righteous, for that very reason, if you do not know what it is to be righteous. We showed above that no one loves what he believes and does not see, except by some general or particular notion.

And if only a righteous person loves a righteous person, how will anyone who is not yet righteous ever wish to be righteous? No one wishes to be what he does not love. Yet for an unrighteous person to become righteous, he must wish to be righteous. And to wish to be righteous, he must love the righteous person. So even the person who is not yet righteous loves the righteous person.

But he cannot love the righteous person if he does not know what a righteous person is. So even the one who is not yet righteous knows what a righteous person is. Where does he get it from?

4. Not from the eyes

Does he see it with his eyes? Is any bodily thing righteous, the way it is white or black, square or round? Who would say so? Yet with our eyes we have seen nothing except bodily things. There is nothing righteous in a human being except the mind. When a man is called righteous, he is called so from the mind, not from the body. For righteousness is in a way the beauty of the mind. By it people are beautiful, and many are beautiful by it who are misshapen and deformed in body. And as the mind is not seen with the eyes, neither is its beauty.

So where does the not-yet-righteous person learn what a righteous person is, and love him in order to become righteous? Do certain signs flash out in the movements of the body, which show that this or that person is righteous? But how would anyone know these are signs of a righteous mind, when he is utterly ignorant of what it is to be righteous? So he does know.

5. Not from outside, but within

But where do we get the knowledge of what it is to be righteous, even when we are not yet righteous? If we got it from outside ourselves, we would get it through some bodily thing. But this is no bodily thing. So we know it in ourselves.

I find it nowhere else when I try to put it into words, except within myself. If I ask someone else what it is to be righteous, he looks inside himself for the answer. Whoever can answer truly from this has found his answer within himself.

6. Two cities, and a third thing

Compare it with what happens when I want to speak of Carthage. I look within myself for what to say, and I find within me an idea or image of Carthage. But I received that through the body, through bodily perception, because I was in that city in the body, and I saw it and took it in and kept it in my memory, so that I could find a word about it within myself whenever I wished to speak. Its word is the image itself in my memory. It is not the two-syllable sound when "Carthage" is named, or even when the name is thought of silently now and then. It is what I see in my mind when I utter those two syllables with my voice, or even before I utter them.

Now when I want to speak of Alexandria, which I have never seen, an image of it is also present with me. I heard from many people, and believed, that the city was great, as it could be told me, and I formed an image of it in my mind as well as I could. That is its word with me when I want to speak of it, before I speak the five syllables of the name that nearly everyone knows. And yet, if I could bring that image out of my mind to the eyes of people who know Alexandria, they would all either say, "That's not it," or, if they said, "That's it," I should be greatly surprised. I would look at the image in my mind, which is like its picture, and still not know that it is the city. I should only believe those who kept an image of what they had seen.

7. Righteousness is not like that

But when I ask what it is to be righteous, I do not ask or find or look at it that way when I say it. When I am heard, I am not approved that way. When I hear, I do not approve that way. It is not as though I had seen such a thing with my eyes, or learned it by some bodily sense, or heard it from people who had learned it that way.

When I say, and say knowingly, that the righteous mind is the one that knowingly and on purpose gives to everyone their due in life and behavior, I am not thinking of something absent, like Carthage. Nor am I picturing it as best I can, like Alexandria, whether it is so or not. I see something present, and I see it within myself, though I am not what I see. And many who hear it will approve it. Whoever hears me and knowingly approves it also sees this same thing within himself, even though he himself is not what he sees. But when a righteous man says this, he sees and says what he himself is. And where does he see it, except within himself? That is not surprising, since where else would he see himself?

The wonder is this. A mind sees within itself what it has seen nowhere else. It sees truly. It sees the very true righteous mind. It is itself a mind, and yet not a righteous mind, and still it sees within itself the righteous mind.

8. Where does this righteousness live?

Is there another mind, a righteous one, inside the mind that is not yet righteous? Or if not, what does the unrighteous mind see there, when it sees and says what a righteous mind is, and sees it nowhere else but in itself, when it is itself not a righteous mind?

Is what it sees an inner truth, present to the mind that has the power to look at it? But not everyone has that power. And not all of those who have the power to look at it are themselves what they look at. That is, they are not themselves righteous minds, though they can see and say what a righteous mind is.

So how will they ever be able to be what they see? Only by clinging to that very same form that they look at, so that they may be shaped by it and become righteous minds. Then they will not only see and say that the righteous mind is the one that knowingly and on purpose gives to everyone what is his due in life and behavior. They will also live righteously and be righteous in character, by giving to everyone his due, "Owe no one anything, except to love each other" (Romans 13:8, ESV).

9. We cling by loving

And how can anyone cling to that form except by loving it? Then why do we love another person whom we believe to be righteous, and not love that form itself in which we see what a righteous mind is, so that we too may be able to be righteous? The answer must be that unless we loved the form also, we would not love the person at all, whom we love through it. But while we are not yet righteous, we love that form too little to be able to become righteous.

So the person believed to be righteous is loved through that form and truth, which the lover sees and understands within himself. But that very form and truth cannot be loved from any other source than itself. We do not find any other such thing besides it, so that we could believe and love it when it is unknown, because we already know another like it. Whatever of that kind anyone has seen is itself. There is no other such thing, since it alone is such as it is.

10. How to love people rightly

So whoever loves people ought to love them either because they are righteous, or so that they may become righteous. In the same way he ought to love himself, either because he is righteous, or so that he may become righteous. That is how he loves his neighbour as himself without any risk. Whoever loves himself in any other way loves himself wrongly. He loves himself to the end that he may be unrighteous, and so to the end that he may be wicked. It follows that he does not love himself at all. For "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul" (Psalm 11:5, in Augustine's Latin).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Psalm 11:5 read "he that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul." The ESV reads "his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence." The ESV cannot carry his argument, so his sense is kept, in his words.

Chapter 7: True Love, and Where We Look for God

Of true love, by which we arrive at the knowledge of the Trinity. God is to be sought, not outwardly, by seeking to do wonderful things with the angels, but inwardly, by imitating the piety of good angels.

1. What we should be looking at

In this inquiry about the Trinity, and about knowing God, there is nothing to look at chiefly except what true love is. Or rather, what love is. What is true should be called love, and the rest is only desire. People who merely desire are wrongly said to love, and people who love are wrongly said to desire.

True love is this: that we cling to the truth, live righteously, and so despise all mortal things in comparison with the love of people, by which we wish them to live righteously. In this way we would be ready to die for our brothers and sisters, to our profit, as the Lord Jesus Christ taught us by his example.

2. Why Scripture often names only one love

There are two commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets: love of God and love of neighbour. It is not without reason that Scripture so often names one in place of both.

Sometimes it names only love of God. "We know that for those who love God all things work together for good" (Romans 8:28, ESV). "But if anyone loves God, he is known by God" (1 Corinthians 8:3, ESV). "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5, ESV). There are many more like these. The reason is that anyone who loves God must do what God has commanded, and loves him just in proportion as he does it. So he must also love his neighbour, because God has commanded it.

Sometimes Scripture names only love of neighbour. "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2, ESV). "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Galatians 5:14, ESV). And in the Gospel: "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12, ESV). Many other passages seem to command only love of neighbour for perfection, and to pass over the love of God in silence, though the Law and the Prophets hang on both commandments.

This too has a reason. Whoever loves his neighbour must also love above everything else love itself. "God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16, ESV). So he must above all love God.

3. The wrong road to God

Now see what follows for those who look for God through the Powers that rule the world or parts of the world. They are thrown far away from him. They are separated from him not by distances in space, but by the difference of their affections. They try to find a path outside themselves, and they abandon their own inner things, within which God dwells.

Even if they have heard of some holy heavenly Power, or have thought of one in some way, they covet its deeds, which human weakness marvels at, and do not copy the piety by which divine rest is won. Through pride they would rather be able to do what an angel does than, through devotion, be what an angel is.

No holy being rejoices in his own power. He rejoices in the power of the one from whom he has whatever power he can rightly have. He knows it is a greater mark of power to be joined to the Almighty by a godly will than to be able by his own power and will to do things that make others tremble who cannot do them.

4. What the Lord himself taught

So the Lord Jesus Christ did such wonders to teach better things to people who marvelled at them. He wanted to turn people who were wondering at unusual temporal things to eternal and inward things. And what does he say? "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you" (Matthew 11:28–29, ESV).

He does not go on to say, "Learn from me, because I raise people who have been dead four days." He says, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29, ESV). Humility, which is most solid, is stronger and safer than pride, which is most inflated. So he goes on: "and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29, ESV). For love, as Paul says, "is not arrogant" (1 Corinthians 13:4, ESV). And "God is love" (1 John 4:8, ESV). "Those who are faithful in love will abide with him" (Wisdom 3:9), called back from the noise outside to silent joys.

Editor's note: The last saying is from the Wisdom of Solomon (3:9), which is not in the ESV. It is given here in Augustine's sense. In 1 Corinthians 13:4 Augustine's Latin said that love "is not puffed up." The ESV's "arrogant" carries the same thought, so the ESV is printed.

Look. "God is love." Why do we run out to the heights of heaven and the lowest parts of the earth, looking for him who is within us, if we want to be with him?

Chapter 8: Whoever Loves His Brother Loves God

That he who loves his brother loves God, because he loves love itself, which is of God and is God.

1. "I do not know what I love"

Let no one say, "I do not know what I love." Let him love his brother, and he will love the same love. He knows the love with which he loves better than the brother whom he loves. So he can now know God better than he knows his brother. He knows him better because God is more present. He knows him better because God is more within him. He knows him better because God is more certain.

Embrace the love of God, and by love embrace God. That is the love that binds together all good angels and all the servants of God in the bond of holiness. It joins us with them, and them with us, and joins us all under himself. The more we are healed of the swelling of pride, the fuller we are of love. And with what is a person full who is full of love, except with God?

2. "I see love, but I do not see the Trinity"

You may say, "I see love, and as far as I can, I gaze at it with my mind. And I believe the Scripture, which says 'God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God' (1 John 4:16, ESV). But when I see love, I do not see the Trinity in it."

Yes, you do. You see the Trinity if you see love. I will try, if I can, to remind you, so that you may see that you see it. Only let love itself be present, so that we may be moved by love toward something good.

When we love love, we love someone who loves something. And we love that person on account of this very thing, that he loves something. So what does love love, so that love itself may also be loved? For that is not love which loves nothing. And if love loves itself, it must love something, so that it may love itself as love.

Think of a word. A word points to something, and points to itself too. But it does not point to itself as a word unless it points out that it points to something. In the same way love does love itself. But unless it loves itself as loving something, it does not love itself as love.

So what does love love, except what we love with love? And to begin from what is nearest to us, that is our brother.

3. What John says

Hear how strongly the apostle John commends love of the brother: "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling" (1 John 2:10, ESV). It is plain that he placed the perfection of righteousness in love of the brother. The person in whom "there is no cause for stumbling" is certainly perfect. Yet John seems to have passed over the love of God in silence. He would never have done that unless he meant us to understand God in brotherly love itself.

A little further on in the same letter he says it most plainly: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7–8, ESV).

This passage declares clearly enough that this brotherly love itself, for that is what we mean when we love each other, is held up by so great an authority as being not only from God but also God. So when we love our brother out of love, we love our brother out of God. And we cannot fail to love above everything else the very love by which we love our brother.

4. The two commandments are one

From this you can gather that the two commandments can exist only together. Since God is love, whoever loves love certainly loves God. But whoever loves his brother must love love. And so, a little after, John says: "he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20, ESV).

Why does he not see God? Because he does not love his brother. Whoever does not love his brother does not abide in love. And whoever does not abide in love does not abide in God, because God is love. Whoever does not abide in God does not abide in the light, for "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, ESV).

What wonder is it, then, if he who does not abide in the light does not see the light, that is, does not see God, since he is in darkness? He sees his brother with human sight, which cannot see God. But if he loved with spiritual love the brother he sees with human sight, he would see God, who is love itself, with the inner sight by which God can be seen.

So how can a man love God, whom he does not see, if he does not love the brother he does see? He does not see God precisely because God is love, and he does not have love, since he does not love his brother.

5. Do not be troubled over the proportions

Do not be bothered by the further question of how much love we should spend on our brother and how much on God. The answer is: incomparably more on God than on ourselves, and on our brother as much as on ourselves. And we love ourselves the more, the more we love God.

So we love God and our neighbour out of one and the same love. But we love God for God's sake, and we love ourselves and our neighbours for God's sake.

Chapter 9: Our Love of Righteous People Is Kindled by the Unchanging Form of Righteousness

Our love of the righteous is kindled from love itself of the unchangeable form of righteousness.

1. Why we burn when we read of Paul

Why is it that we are set on fire when we hear and read these words? "Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything" (2 Corinthians 6:2–10, ESV).

Why are we inflamed with love for the apostle Paul when we read this? Because we believe he lived like that. And we do not believe that the ministers of God ought to live like that because we heard it from somebody. We see it inwardly in ourselves, or rather above ourselves, in the truth itself.

2. Two loves feeding each other

So we love Paul, whom we believe to have lived this way, for what we see. If we did not love above all else that form which we see as always steady and unchangeable, we would not love him for the reason that we hold fast to our belief that his life, when he lived in the flesh, fitted and agreed with this form.

And somehow we are stirred up more to the love of this form itself, through the belief by which we believe that someone lived this way. We are stirred also by the hope, by which we no longer despair at all that we too can live like that. We are human, and some humans have lived like this, and so we desire it more ardently and pray for it more confidently.

So the love of that form, according to which they are believed to have lived, makes their lives loved by us. And their lives, thus believed, stir up a more burning love toward the same form. The more ardently we love God, the more certainly and calmly we see him, because in God we behold the unchanging form of righteousness, by which we judge how a person ought to live.

That is the work of faith. It helps toward the knowledge and love of God, not as though God were altogether unknown or altogether unloved, but so that he may be known more clearly and loved more steadily.

Chapter 10: The Three Things in Love, a Trace of the Trinity

There are three things in love, as it were a trace of the Trinity.

1. What love is

What, then, is love, which divine Scripture so greatly praises and proclaims? It is nothing other than love of the good. Now love belongs to someone who loves, and by love something is loved. So look. There are three things: the one who loves, the one who is loved, and love.

What is love, then, except a kind of life that joins together, or seeks to join together, two things, the lover and the loved? That is so even in outward, fleshly loves.

2. Going higher

But let us drink in something purer and clearer. Let us tread down the flesh and climb to the mind. What does the mind love in a friend, except the mind? So there too are three things: the one who loves, the one who is loved, and love.

It remains to climb higher still, and to seek those things which are above, as far as it is given to a human being. But here let our purpose rest for a little while. It should not think that it has already found what it seeks. When we look for something, we usually have to find first the place where it is to be sought, though we have not yet found the thing itself. So let it be enough to have said this much, so that we may have, as it were, a hinge, a starting point, from which to weave the rest of our discourse.

Book Nine: A Kind of Trinity in the Mind of Man, the Image of God

Augustine now turns to the human mind. He shows that a kind of trinity can be found in man, who is the image of God: the mind, the knowledge by which the mind knows itself, and the love by which it loves both itself and its own knowledge. He argues that these three are equal to each other and of one essence.

Chapter 1: How We Should Go About Searching

In what way we must inquire concerning the Trinity.

1. We are still seeking

We are looking for a trinity. Not just any trinity, but the Trinity that is God, the true, the highest and the only God. So please wait with me, my hearers, because we are still seeking. And no one can fairly find fault with such a search, as long as the seeker holds steady in the faith. The thing he seeks is very hard either to know or to put into words.

But anyone who sees more clearly, or teaches better, may quickly and justly find fault with a person who speaks about it with too much confidence. Scripture says, "you who seek God, let your hearts revive" (Psalm 69:32, ESV). And so that no one may rashly rejoice as if he had already caught hold of him, it says, "Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!" (Psalm 105:4, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Psalm 69:32 read "Seek God, and your heart shall live," and of Psalm 105:4 "Seek his face evermore." The ESV wording carries the same sense, so it is printed.

2. What Paul teaches us about seeking

The apostle says the same. "If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God" (1 Corinthians 8:2–3, ESV). Notice that he does not say "he has known him," which would be a dangerous presumption. He says "he is known by him."

He does the same in another place. He says, "now that you have come to know God," and he corrects himself at once: "or rather to be known by God" (Galatians 4:9, ESV).

And above all there is this: "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way" (Philippians 3:13–15, ESV).

Do you see what he tells us? Perfection in this life is nothing else than to forget what lies behind and to strain forward toward what lies ahead. The seeker has the safest purpose, one that goes on seeking until it takes hold of the place it is heading for and reaching toward.

3. Start from faith, and keep seeking

The right purpose is the one that starts from faith. For a certain faith is, in a way, the starting point of knowledge. But a certain knowledge will not be made perfect until after this life, when we shall see "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).

So let us think in this way. Let us know that the habit of seeking the truth is safer than the habit of presuming that unknown things are known. Let us seek as if we were going to find, and let us find as if we were about to seek again. For "when a man has finished, then he begins."

Editor's note: That last saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 18:7), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

Let us doubt without unbelief about the things we are to believe. Let us affirm without rashness the things we are to understand. In the first case, authority must be held fast. In the second, truth must be sought out.

4. What we believe as we begin

On this question, then, let us believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, the Creator and Ruler of the whole creation. The Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. They are a trinity of persons related to one another, and a unity of equal essence.

And let us seek to understand this, praying for help from the very one whom we want to understand. As far as he grants it, let us try to explain what we understand with so much godly care and anxiety that, even if in some place we say one thing for another, we may at least say nothing unworthy.

Here is what I mean. Suppose we say something about the Father that does not properly belong to the Father, but belongs to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, or to the Trinity itself. Or suppose we say something about the Son that does not properly suit the Son, though it suits the Father, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity. Or suppose we say something about the Holy Spirit that is not properly his, though it is not foreign to the Father or the Son or the one God, the Trinity itself.

That is just our situation now. We want to see whether the Holy Spirit is properly that love which is the highest. If he is not, then either the Father is love, or the Son, or the Trinity itself, since we cannot resist the most certain faith and weighty authority of Scripture, which says, "God is love" (1 John 4:8, ESV). And yet we must not wander into profane error, by saying anything about the Trinity that suits a creature and not the Creator, or that is made up outright by empty thought.

Chapter 2: The Three Things We Found in Love

The three things which are found in love must be considered.

1. Looking at ourselves

With that in mind, let us turn our attention to the three things we think we found. We are not yet speaking of heavenly things, or of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are speaking of that poor image, which is still an image: man. Our weak mind can perhaps look on this more familiarly and more easily.

When I, who am making this inquiry, love anything, three things are involved: myself, the thing I love, and love itself. I do not love love unless I love a lover, for there is no love where nothing is loved. So there are three: the one who loves, what is loved, and love.

2. But what if I love only myself?

What if I love nobody but myself? Will there not then be two things, what I love and love? When someone loves himself, the lover and the loved are the same person. And in the same way, loving and being loved are the same thing. It is one and the same statement to say "he loves himself" and "he is loved by himself." Loving and being loved are not two different things, just as the lover and the loved are not two different persons.

Still, even so, love and what is loved remain two. When someone loves himself, there is no love unless love itself is loved. It is one thing to love oneself, and another to love one's own love. Love is not loved unless it is already loving something. Where nothing is loved, there is no love. So when someone loves himself, there are two things, love and what is loved. For then the lover and the loved are one.

It seems to follow that three things are not necessarily to be understood wherever there is love.

3. Narrowing it to the mind

So let us put aside from the inquiry all the many other things that make up a human being. To find clearly what we are looking for, as far as that is possible on such a subject, let us deal with the mind alone.

When the mind loves itself, it shows two things: mind and love. What is it to love oneself, except to want to give oneself the enjoyment of oneself? And when someone wants himself to be just as much as he is, then the will is on a par with the mind, and the love is equal to the one who loves.

If love is a substance, it is certainly not a body but a spirit. And the mind is not a body but a spirit too. Yet love and mind are not two spirits but one spirit. They are not two essences but one. And still here are two things that are one: the one who loves and love. Or, if you prefer, the loved and love.

4. Two kinds of language

These two are spoken of relatively, in relation to each other. The one who loves is referred to love, and love to the one who loves. For the lover loves with some love, and love is the love of someone who loves.

But "mind" and "spirit" are not relative words. They name an essence. "Mind" and "spirit" do not exist because of the mind and spirit of some particular man. If you subtract the body from what we call a man, which is so named with the body joined to it, the mind and spirit remain. But if you subtract the one who loves, there is no love. And if you subtract love, there is no one who loves.

So in so far as they refer to each other, they are two. But in so far as each is spoken of in respect of itself, each is spirit, and both together are one spirit. Each is mind, and both together are one mind.

Where, then, is the trinity? Let us pay attention as well as we can, and let us call on the everlasting light to shine on our darkness, so that we may see in ourselves, as far as we are allowed, the image of God.

Chapter 3: The Mind Knows Itself, and Loves Itself

The image of the Trinity in the mind of man who knows himself and loves himself. The mind knows itself through itself.

1. Love needs knowledge

The mind cannot love itself unless it also knows itself. How can it love what it does not know?

Someone might say that the mind, from a general or particular knowledge, believes itself to be the sort of thing it has found other minds to be by experience, and so loves itself. That would be very foolish. How does a mind know another mind if it does not know itself? The mind does not know other minds and fail to know itself, the way the eye of the body sees other eyes and does not see itself.

2. What the eyes can and cannot do

We see bodies through the eyes of the body. Unless we are looking into a mirror, we cannot bend the rays back on themselves, the rays that go out through those eyes and touch whatever we see. That is a subject handled very subtly and obscurely, until it is clearly shown whether it is so or not.

But whatever the nature of the power by which we see through the eyes, whether it is rays or something else, we cannot see that power itself with the eyes. We inquire into it with the mind, and if possible, we understand even this with the mind.

3. The mind through itself

The mind gathers its knowledge of bodily things through the senses of the body. It gathers its knowledge of non-bodily things through itself. So it knows itself too through itself, because it is not a body. For if it does not know itself, it does not love itself.

Chapter 4: Mind, Knowledge and Love Are One and Equal

The three are one, and also equal: the mind itself, and the love, and the knowledge of it. The same three exist as substances and are spoken of relatively. The same three are inseparable. They are not joined and mixed like parts, but are of one essence, and are relatives.

1. Three things, and they are equal when perfect

Just as there are two things, the mind and its love, when it loves itself, so there are two things, the mind and its knowledge, when it knows itself. So the mind, its love and its knowledge are three things, and these three are one. When they are perfect, they are equal.

Here is why. Suppose a person loves himself less than he is. For example, suppose the mind of a man loves itself only as much as the body of a man should be loved, though the mind is more than the body. Then the mind is at fault, and its love is not perfect. Or suppose it loves itself more than it is. Suppose it loves itself as much as God is to be loved, though the mind is incomparably less than God. Here again it is badly at fault, and its love of itself is not perfect. But it is at fault even more perversely and wrongly when it loves the body as much as God is to be loved.

2. Knowledge, too

The same goes for knowledge. If knowledge is less than the thing known, which can be fully known, then the knowledge is not perfect. If it is greater, then the nature that knows is above the nature that is known. The knowledge of a body is greater than the body itself, which is known by that knowledge. For knowledge is a kind of life in the reason of the knower, but a body is not life. Any life is greater than any body, not in bulk but in power.

But when the mind knows itself, its knowledge does not rise above itself, because the same mind knows and is known. When it knows itself entirely, and nothing else along with itself, its knowledge is equal to itself. Its knowledge is not from another nature, since it is knowledge of itself. And when it perceives itself entirely, and nothing more, it is neither less nor greater. So we were right to say that these three, the mind, its love and its knowledge, when they are perfect, are equal.

3. Not like colours in a body

A similar line of reasoning suggests something else, if we can understand it at all. Love and knowledge exist in the soul. They are, as it were, folded up in it, and they unfold from it so as to be perceived and counted as substances, or, as we might say, as essences. They are not in the soul as in a subject, as colour or shape or any other quality or quantity is in a body.

A thing of that kind does not go beyond the subject it is in. The colour or shape of this particular body cannot also be the colour or shape of another. But the mind can love something besides itself, with the love with which it loves itself. And the mind knows not only itself, but many other things.

So love and knowledge are not contained in the mind as in a subject. They exist as substances, as the mind itself does. Even if they are spoken of relatively to each other, each exists in its own substance. They are not related as colour and the coloured thing are, where the colour is in the coloured body and has no substance of its own, because the coloured body is a substance and the colour is in a substance. They are related as two friends are two men. Two men are substances, and they are called men not relatively, but friends relatively.

4. Friends can be separated, but these cannot

Now suppose the one who loves is a substance, the one who knows is a substance, knowledge is a substance, and love is a substance. The lover and love, or the knower and knowledge, are spoken of relatively to each other, as friends are. Yet "mind" and "spirit" are not relatives, any more than "men" are.

Still, the lover and love, or the knower and knowledge, cannot exist apart from each other, as men who are friends can. It may seem that friends too can be parted in body but not in mind, as far as they are friends. It can even happen that one friend begins to hate the other, and so stops being a friend, while the other does not know it and still loves him.

But if the love with which the mind loves itself ceases to be, the mind will at the same moment cease to love. And if the knowledge by which the mind knows itself ceases to be, the mind will at the same moment cease to know itself.

Take another example. Anything that has a head is certainly headed, and "head" and "having a head" are said in relation to each other, although both are substances. A head is a body, and so is what has the head. If there is no head, there is nothing that has a head. But those can be separated by cutting off. The other three cannot.

5. Are they parts?

Even if some bodies cannot be wholly separated and divided, they would not be bodies unless they consisted of their own proper parts. A part is spoken of relatively to a whole, since every part is a part of some whole, and a whole is a whole by having all its parts. Since both part and whole are bodies, they are not only relative terms but also substances.

So perhaps the mind is a whole, and the love with which it loves itself and the knowledge with which it knows itself are, as it were, its parts, and the whole is made of these two. Or are there three equal parts that make up one whole?

But no part embraces the whole of which it is a part. When the mind knows itself as a whole, that is, knows itself perfectly, the knowledge of it reaches through the whole of it. And when it loves itself perfectly, it loves itself as a whole, and its love reaches through the whole of it.

6. Or are they mixed, like a drink?

Is it, then, like a drink made of wine and water and honey? Each single part reaches through the whole, and still they are three things. There is no part of the drink that does not contain these three. They are not joined as water and oil would be, but entirely mixed. All three are substances, and the whole liquid made of the three is one substance. Is it in some such way that we are to think of these three together: mind, love and knowledge?

But water, wine and honey are not of one substance, though one substance results in the drink from mixing them. And I cannot see how those other three would not be of the same substance, since the mind itself loves itself, and itself knows itself. These three exist in such a way that the mind is neither loved nor known by anything else at all. So these three must be of one and the same essence.

And for that reason, if they were mixed together by blending, they could not be three in any way, and could not be referred to each other.

7. The three rings of gold

Think of three similar rings made from one and the same gold. Though they are linked to one another, they are referred to each other, because they are similar. Everything similar is similar to something. So there is a trinity of rings and one gold.

But suppose they were blended together, each mixed with the other through the whole of its bulk. Then the trinity would fall away, and would not exist at all. Not only would it no longer be called one gold, as it was in the case of the three rings, but it would not be called three things of gold at all.

Chapter 5: Each in Itself, and All in All

That these three are several in themselves, and mutually all in all.

1. The trinity remains

In these three, when the mind knows itself and loves itself, a trinity remains: mind, love and knowledge. And this trinity is not confounded by any mixing. Each is in itself, and they are all in each other. Or you could say each is in the other two, and each two are in each one. So all are in all.

2. How each is in itself

The mind is certainly in itself, since it is called mind in respect of itself. It is said to be knowing, known or knowable in relation to its own knowledge. And it is said to be loving, loved or lovable in relation to love, by which it loves itself.

Knowledge, although it is referred to the mind that knows or is known, is also spoken of in respect of itself as both known and knowing. For the knowledge by which the mind knows itself is not unknown to itself.

And love, although it is referred to the mind that loves and whose love it is, is also love in respect of itself, so that it exists in itself. Love is also loved, and cannot be loved with anything except love, that is, with itself.

So these things are each in themselves.

3. How they are in each other

But they are also in each other. The mind that loves is in its love. Love is in the knowledge of the one who loves. And knowledge is in the mind that knows.

Each is likewise in the other two. The mind that knows and loves itself is in its own love and knowledge. The love of the mind that loves and knows itself is in the mind and in its knowledge. The knowledge of the mind that knows and loves itself is in the mind and in its love. The reason is that it loves itself, who knows, and it knows itself, who loves.

And so each two are also in each one. The mind that knows and loves itself is, together with its own knowledge, in love, and, together with its own love, in knowledge. Love and knowledge too are together in the mind that loves and knows itself.

4. How all are in all

How all are in all we have already shown above. The mind loves itself as a whole, and knows itself as a whole. It knows its own love wholly and loves its own knowledge wholly, when these three are perfect in themselves.

So these three are wonderfully inseparable from each other. And yet each of them is a substance in itself, and all together are one substance or essence, while they are spoken of relatively to each other.

Chapter 6: Knowing a Thing Is One Thing, Seeing It in Eternal Truth Is Another

There is one knowledge of the thing in the thing itself, and another in eternal truth itself. Bodily things, too, are to be judged by the rules of eternal truth.

1. What the mind does not find unchanging in itself

When the human mind knows itself and loves itself, it does not know and love anything unchangeable. Each person describes his own mind in one way when he looks at what goes on in himself. But he defines the human mind in the abstract, by general or particular knowledge, in another way.

So when someone tells me about his own individual mind, whether he understands this or that or doesn't, whether he wants this or that or doesn't, I believe him. But when he speaks the truth about the human mind in general or in kind, I recognise it and approve.

It is plain, then, that one person sees a thing in himself, in such a way that another can believe what he says of it but cannot see it. Another person sees a thing in the truth itself, in such a way that others can look at it too. The first changes at different times. The second stands in unchanging eternity.

We do not gather our general or particular knowledge of the human mind from the likeness of many minds seen with the eyes of the body. We look at unchanging truth. From it we define as perfectly as we can not what sort of mind any particular man has, but what sort of mind it ought to be, in the eternal plan.

2. Even our bodily pictures are judged from above

The same is true of the images of bodily things. They are drawn in through the bodily senses and in some way poured into memory. From memory we also think of things we have not seen, under a pictured image, whether it is different from how they really are or, perhaps, just as they are.

Even here we are proved to accept or reject, within ourselves, according to other rules that stay altogether unchangeable above our mind, when we approve or reject anything rightly. When I recall the walls of Carthage, which I have seen, and picture to myself the walls of Alexandria, which I have not seen, I prefer one picture to the other, and I do it on the ground of reason. The judgment of truth from above is still strong and clear. It rests firmly on the utterly indestructible rules of its own right. And if it is covered, as it were, by the cloudiness of bodily images, it is not wrapped up in them or confused with them.

3. Clouds below, light above

It makes a difference whether I am shut off from the clear sky under that darkness, or whether I am, as on a high mountain, enjoying the free air between and at the same moment looking up to the calmest light above and down on the thickest clouds below.

Consider where the ardour of brotherly love is kindled in me when I hear that some man has borne bitter torments for the excellence and steadfastness of his faith. If he is pointed out to me, I am eager to join myself to him, to get to know him, to bind him to me in friendship. If there is an opportunity, I go up to him. I speak to him. I tell him my goodwill toward him in whatever words I can, and I wish the same to be brought about in him and said to me. I strive for a spiritual embrace through belief, because I cannot search out so quickly and see altogether his innermost heart.

So I love the faithful and courageous man with a pure and genuine love.

4. What if I learn something unworthy?

But suppose he confesses to me in conversation, or lets slip through carelessness, that he believes something unseemly about God and wants something fleshly in God. Suppose he bore those torments for such an error, or for the money he hoped for, or out of an empty greed for human praise.

Immediately the love with which I was drawn to him is displeased. It is turned away, as it were, and taken from an unworthy man. It stays on in that form after which I loved him, believing him to be as I thought. Unless, perhaps, I have come to love him to this end, that he may become such a man, though I have found that he is not.

In that man, too, nothing is changed, though he could be changed so as to become what I had believed him to be already. But something certainly changes in my mind: the estimate I had formed of him, which was one thing before and is another now. And the same love, at the bidding of unchangeable righteousness from above, is turned from the purpose of enjoying to the purpose of taking counsel.

But the form itself of unshaken and steady truth stays where it was. In it I would have enjoyed the man, believing him good. In it I also take counsel that he may be good. In an immovable eternity it pours the same light of incorruptible and most sound reason, both on the sight of my mind and on that cloud of images which I look down on from above when I think of the same man I had seen.

5. The arch at Carthage

Here is another case. I call back to my mind some arch, beautifully and symmetrically turned, which I saw at Carthage. A real thing that was made known to the mind through the eyes and handed over to the memory produces the imagined view.

But in my mind I see yet another thing, according to which that work of art pleases me, and according to which, if it displeased me, I would correct it. So we judge those particular things according to that form of eternal truth, and we see that form by the sight of the reasoning mind.

The things themselves we either touch, if they are present, by the bodily sense, or, if they are absent, remember their images fixed in memory. Or we picture things like them, such as we ourselves would laboriously build, if we wished and were able. In one way we shape in the mind the images of bodies, or see bodies through the body. In another way we grasp, by simple understanding, what is above the eye of the mind: the reasons and the unspeakably beautiful skill of such forms.

Chapter 7: We Conceive and Beget a Word Within

We conceive and beget the word within, from the things we have beheld in the eternal truth. The word, whether of the creature or of the Creator, is conceived by love.

1. The word that stays within

By the sight of the mind we behold, in that eternal truth from which all temporal things are made, the form according to which we are, and according to which we do anything by true and right reason, either in ourselves or in bodily things.

From it we have the true knowledge of things, conceived there as a word within us. By speaking, we beget it from within. And it does not leave us by being born. When we speak to others, we add to the word that stays within us the service of the voice or of some bodily sign. In this way a similar thing may be brought about, by a kind of memory working through the senses, in the mind of the hearer. It is similar, I say, to that which does not depart from the mind of the speaker.

So we do nothing through the members of the body, in the words and actions by which the conduct of people is approved or blamed, that we have not first foreseen by a word spoken within ourselves. No one willingly does anything that he has not first said in his heart.

2. By love

And this word is conceived by love, either of the creature or of the Creator. That is, either of changeable nature or of unchangeable truth.

Chapter 8: How Desire and Love Differ

In what desire and love differ.

1. Desire and love

The word is conceived, then, either by desire or by love. I do not mean that the creature ought not to be loved. If that love is referred to the Creator, it will not be desire (in Latin, cupiditas) but love (caritas). It is desire when the creature is loved for its own sake. Then it does not help a person, as it would by being used. It corrupts him in the enjoying.

2. Using and enjoying

Therefore, when the creature is equal to us or lower, we must use the lower in order to reach God. But we must enjoy the equal only in God. Just as you ought to enjoy yourself, not in yourself but in the one who made you, so ought you to enjoy him whom you love as yourself. Let us enjoy both ourselves and our brothers and sisters in the Lord. And let us not dare to give way to ourselves, as it were to relax ourselves into ourselves, in the downward direction.

3. When the word is born

A word is born when, after being thought out, it pleases us, either to the end of sinning or to the end of doing right. So love, as a kind of middle, joins our word and the mind from which it is conceived. Without any confusion, it binds itself to them as a third, in an embrace that has no body.

Chapter 9: The Word Conceived and the Word Born

In the love of spiritual things the word born is the same as the word conceived. It is otherwise in the love of carnal things.

1. In spiritual things, they are the same

The word conceived and the word born are the very same when the will rests in the knowledge itself, as it does in the love of spiritual things. Take someone who knows righteousness perfectly and loves it perfectly. He is already righteous, even if there is no need for him to act on it outwardly through the members of his body.

2. In carnal things, they are not

But in the love of carnal and temporal things, as in the offspring of animals, the conception of the word is one thing and the bringing forth is another. What is conceived by desiring is born by getting.

Greed is not satisfied by knowing and loving gold. It must also have it. Nor is it enough to know and love eating, or sexual pleasure. A person must do it. It is not enough to know and love honours and power. They must actually come to pass. Even then, all these things are not enough once obtained. "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again" (John 4:13, ESV).

3. The Scripture on conceiving

The Psalmist speaks in the same way: "the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies" (Psalm 7:14, ESV). He speaks of pain or labour as conceived (his Latin has "pain"; see the note below), when we conceive things that it is not enough to know and will. The mind burns and grows sick with want until it reaches them and, as it were, brings them forth.

That is why the Latin language uses the word parta so elegantly for both reperta ("found") and comperta ("discovered"). These words sound as if they were derived from bringing forth. So James says, "desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin" (James 1:15, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Psalm 7:14 read "he has conceived pain and brought forth iniquity." The ESV reads as printed above. His argument is about the picture of conceiving and giving birth, and the ESV keeps that picture, so the ESV is printed. His remark that the psalmist speaks of "pain or labour" as conceived rests on his Latin word for "pain," which the ESV does not have (it has "evil" and "mischief"). His Latin pun on parta, reperta and comperta cannot be carried into English, and is explained in the text.

4. The Lord says it too

For this reason the Lord proclaims, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden" (Matthew 11:28, ESV). And in another place, "And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!" (Matthew 24:19, ESV).

And when he referred all right actions and all sins to the bringing forth of the word, he said: "for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:37, ESV). He means by "words" not those of the visible mouth (his Latin has "mouth"), but of the invisible one within, of the thought and the heart.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "by your mouth," and he takes this of the inner mouth. The ESV's "words" fits his sense, and is printed.

Chapter 10: Is Only Loved Knowledge the Word of the Mind?

Whether only knowledge that is loved is the word of the mind.

1. The question

It is fair to ask whether all knowledge is a word, or only knowledge that is loved. We also know things that we hate. But what we do not like cannot be said to be conceived or brought forth by the mind. Not everything that touches the mind in some way is conceived by it. Some things only reach the point of being known and are not spoken as words. The things I am saying now are like that.

2. Three senses of "word"

Words are spoken of in three ways.

1. A word made of syllables. Some are called words because they take up spaces of time by their syllables, whether they are spoken aloud or only thought.

2. Anything known. In another way, everything known is called a word imprinted on the mind, as long as it can be brought out of memory and defined, even if we dislike the thing itself.

3. A word we like. In a third way, a word is what we like when it is conceived in the mind.

The apostle's saying must be taken of this last kind of word: "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3, ESV). Others say it too, but in the other sense of the word "word." The Lord himself speaks of them: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21, ESV).

3. Even things we hate can become a word

Even with things we hate, when we rightly dislike and rightly censure them, we approve and like the censure given to them, and that becomes a word. It is not the knowledge of vices that displeases us, but the vices themselves. I like to know and define what intemperance is, and that is its word.

It is like known faults in an art. The knowledge of them is rightly approved, when an expert sees the kind or the lack of excellence, so as to affirm or deny that it is there. But to be without excellence and fall into the fault deserves condemnation. To define intemperance and say its word belongs to the art of morals. To be intemperate belongs to what that art censures. So also, to know and define what a solecism is belongs to the art of speaking. To commit one is a fault which the same art reproves.

4. The conclusion

A word, then, which is the point we now want to see and show, is knowledge together with love. When the mind knows and loves itself, its word is joined to it by love. And since it loves knowledge and knows love, the word is in love and love is in the word, and both are in the one who loves and speaks.

Chapter 11: The Word of the Mind Is Equal to the Mind

That the image or begotten word of the mind that knows itself is equal to the mind itself.

1. Likeness in knowing

All knowledge according to species is like the thing it knows. There is another knowledge, according to privation, by which we speak a word only when we condemn. This condemnation of a privation amounts to praise of the species, and so it is approved. So the mind holds a likeness to a known species, either when it likes that species or when it dislikes its privation.

2. Our knowledge of God

From this it follows that, in so far as we know God, we are like him. But we are not like him to the point of equality, since we do not know him to the extent of his own being.

Consider what happens when we think of bodies through the bodily sense. A likeness of them arises in our mind, a picture in the memory. The bodies themselves are not in the mind at all when we think them. Only their likenesses are there. So if we approve the likenesses for the bodies, we err, because approving one thing for another is an error. Still, the image of the body in the mind is of a better sort than the body itself, since it is in a better nature, a living substance such as the mind.

In the same way, when we know God, we are made better than we were before we knew him. Above all, when that same knowledge is also liked and worthily loved, and becomes a word, that knowledge becomes a kind of likeness of God. But it is a lower likeness, because it is in a lower nature. The mind is a creature, and God is Creator.

3. Our knowledge of ourselves

From this we may infer that when the mind knows and approves itself, this knowledge is its word in such a way that it is altogether on a par with it, equal to it, and the same. It is not the knowledge of a lower essence, such as a body, nor of a higher one, such as God.

Knowledge bears a likeness to what it knows, that is, to the thing it is the knowledge of. In this case it has a perfect and equal likeness, since the mind that knows is itself the one that is known. So it is both image and word. It is uttered about that mind, to which it is made equal in knowing. And what is begotten is equal to the one who begets.

Chapter 12: Why Love Is Not Begotten as Knowledge Is

Why love is not the offspring of the mind, as knowledge is. The solution of the question. The mind, with the knowledge of itself and the love of itself, is the image of the Trinity.

1. The question

What, then, is love? Will it not be an image? Will it not be a word? Will it not be begotten? Why does the mind beget its knowledge when it knows itself, and not beget its love when it loves itself? If the mind is the cause of its own knowing because it is knowable, it is also the cause of its own love because it is lovable. So it is hard to say why it does not beget both.

2. Why this matters

There is a related question about the supreme Trinity itself, the almighty God and Creator, after whose image man is made. It troubles people whom the truth of God invites to the faith through human speech. Why is the Holy Spirit not also to be believed or understood to be begotten by God the Father, so that he too might be called a Son?

We are trying to investigate this question in the human mind. We are looking at a lower image, one in which our own nature, as it were, answers when it is questioned in a more familiar way. In this way we can direct a more practised vision of the mind from the enlightened creature to the unchangeable light.

In doing so we assume that the truth itself has persuaded us of this: just as no Christian doubts that the Word of God is the Son, so the Holy Spirit is love.

So let us go back to a more careful questioning of that image which is a creature, the rational mind. In it we can see more clearly what to say, because in it the knowledge of some things comes into being in time that did not exist before, and the love of some things begins that was not loved before. Speech itself has to be arranged in time, and what is grasped in the order of time is easier to explain in speech.

3. Something may be knowable and yet unknown

First, it is clear that a thing may be knowable, that is, able to be known, and yet be unknown. But it is not possible for something to be known that is not knowable. So we must hold clearly that everything we know begets in us, at the same moment, the knowledge of itself. Knowledge is brought forth from both: from the knower and from the thing known.

When the mind knows itself, it alone is the parent of its own knowledge, since it is both the thing known and the one who knows it. But it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself. Only the knowledge of itself was not in it, so long as it did not know itself. In knowing itself, then, it begets a knowledge of itself that is equal to itself. It does not know itself as less than it is. Nor is its knowledge the knowledge of someone else's essence. It knows not only that it knows, but that it knows itself, as we have said above.

4. Why not love too?

What are we to say about love? Why, when the mind loves itself, should it not seem to have begotten the love of itself? It was lovable to itself even before it loved itself, since it could love itself, just as it was knowable to itself before it knew itself, since it could know itself. If it had not been knowable to itself, it could never have known itself. And if it had not been lovable to itself, it could never have loved itself. So why may it not be said, by loving itself, to have begotten its own love, as by knowing itself it has begotten its own knowledge?

5. The answer

Perhaps the answer is that it is plainly shown that the mind is the source of love, from which love proceeds. Love proceeds from the mind itself, which is lovable to itself before it loves itself, and so is the source of the love with which it loves itself. But this love is not rightly said to be begotten by the mind, as the mind's knowledge of itself is.

Why? Because in the case of knowledge the thing has been found already. That is what we call brought forth or discovered, and it is usually preceded by an inquiry, which finds rest when its goal is reached. Inquiry is the desire to find, which is the same as the desire to discover. And things that are discovered are, as it were, brought forth. That is why they are like offspring. But where, except in knowledge itself? For there they are, as it were, spoken and shaped. The things we found by seeking already existed. But the knowledge of them did not yet exist, and that knowledge we regard as an offspring that is born.

6. The desire that seeks

The desire that there is in seeking proceeds from the one who seeks. It is in a way in suspense, and it does not rest in the end toward which it is directed until the thing sought is found and joined to the one who seeks. This desire, that is, inquiry, does not seem to be the love by which what is known is loved, for in this case we are still striving to know. Yet it is something of the same kind. It can be called will, since everyone who seeks wills to find. And if what is sought belongs to knowledge, everyone who seeks wills to know. If he wills it ardently and earnestly, he is said to study, a word most commonly used for pursuing and gaining any branch of learning.

So the bringing forth of the mind is preceded by some desire. Through seeking and finding what we wish to know, the offspring, knowledge itself, is born. For this reason, the desire by which knowledge is conceived and brought forth cannot rightly be called the bringing forth and the offspring. And the very same desire that made us long to know the thing becomes the love of the thing when it is known. It holds and embraces its accepted offspring, that is, knowledge, and unites it to the one who begot it.

7. The image of the Trinity

And so there is a kind of image of the Trinity in the mind itself, and the knowledge of it, which is its offspring and its word about itself, and love as a third. These three are one, and one substance. The offspring is not less, since the mind knows itself according to the measure of its own being. Nor is the love less, since it loves itself according to the measure both of its own knowledge and of its own being.

Book Ten: Memory, Understanding and Will

Augustine shows that there is another trinity in the mind of man, and one that appears much more plainly: his memory, his understanding and his will.

Chapter 1: What a Student Loves, and Why It Is Never the Unknown

The love of the studious mind, that is, of one desirous to know, is not the love of a thing which it does not know.

1. The puzzle

Let us go on, then, in due order, and with a more exact aim, to explain this same point more thoroughly. We begin with this. No one can love a thing of which he is wholly ignorant. So we need to think carefully about what kind of love belongs to students. I mean people who do not yet know some branch of learning but want to.

2. Love that begins with hearsay

Take first the cases where we do not usually use the word "study." Love often begins there from hearsay. The reputation of something beautiful sets the mind on fire to see it and enjoy it. The mind already knows in general what makes bodily things beautiful, because it has seen them so often, and there is within it a faculty for approving what it longs for outwardly. When this happens, the love that is called out is not love of something wholly unknown, because its kind is known.

Or take a good man whose face we have never seen. We love him from the knowledge of his virtues, and those virtues we know, in the abstract, in the truth itself.

3. Love of learning

In the case of learning, it is mostly the authority of other people, who praise and recommend it, that kindles our love. Even so, we could not burn with any zeal to study it unless we already had in our mind at least a slight impression of the knowledge in each kind of learning. Who, for example, would give care and labour to learning rhetoric unless he knew beforehand that it is the science of speaking?

Sometimes we marvel at the results of learning itself, which we have heard of or experienced, and so we burn to gain, by learning, the power to reach those results. Suppose someone who does not know his letters is told that there is a kind of learning which lets a man send words, written silently by hand, to someone far away, so that the person they are sent to takes in the words not with his ears but with his eyes. And suppose he sees it actually done. Is he not moved to study, since he wants to know how to do it, by the result he already knows and holds? That is how the zeal of learners is kindled. What someone is utterly ignorant of, he cannot love at all.

4. The example of an unknown word

Here is another case. Suppose someone hears a sign he does not know, such as the sound of a word whose meaning he does not know. He wants to know what it is. That is, he wants to know what thing it is that people have agreed will be brought to mind by that sound.

Say he hears the word temetum and, not knowing it, asks what it is. He must already know that it is a sign, that the word is not an empty noise but signifies something. In every other respect this three-syllable word is already known to him, and it has already stamped its spoken form on his mind through hearing. What more is required for him to go on to a fuller knowledge of a word whose every letter and every space between sounds is already known to him, unless it has become known to him that it is a sign, and it has moved him to want to know what it is a sign of?

The more a thing is known, yet not fully known, the more the mind desires to know what is left. If he knew it only as such-and-such a spoken word, and did not know it as the sign of something, he would look no further, since the thing the senses can detect has already been perceived as far as the senses can take it. But because he knows it as not only a spoken word but also a sign, he wants to know it perfectly. And no sign is known perfectly unless it is known what it is the sign of.

5. So what does he love?

A person who looks into this with ardent care, and keeps up the search with a student's zeal, can hardly be said to be without love. So what does he love? For certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known. He does not love those three syllables, which he already knows. If he loves in them the fact that he knows they signify something, that is not what we are asking now, because that is not what he is trying to find out. We are asking what he loves in the thing he wants to know and certainly does not yet know. We are wondering why he loves, when we know most surely that nothing can be loved unless it is known.

What does he love, then? He knows and perceives, in the reason of things, what excellence there is in learning, which holds the knowledge of all signs. He knows what benefit there is in being skilled in these, since by them human fellowship passes on its thoughts to each other. If people could not mingle their thoughts by talking together, a crowd of them would be worse than being alone.

So the soul sees this fitting and useful form. It knows it and loves it. And the person who seeks the meaning of words he does not know is striving to make that form perfect in himself, as far as he can. It is one thing to see it in the light of truth. It is another to desire it as within his own power. In the light of truth he sees how great and how good a thing it would be to understand and speak the tongues of all nations, and so to hear no tongue as a foreigner, and be heard by no one as a foreigner.

6. The beauty already seen

The beauty of this knowledge is already seen by thought. The thing is known and so it is loved. And it so moves the zeal of learners that they are stirred about it and long for it eagerly in all the labour they spend on gaining such a skill, so that they may take hold in practice of what they know beforehand by reason.

The nearer anyone comes, in hope, to that ability, the more fervently he loves and desires it. People study most eagerly the branches of learning that they do not despair of mastering. When someone has no hope of reaching his goal, he either loves lukewarmly or does not love at all, however well he sees its excellence.

That is why, since the knowledge of all languages is felt to be nearly hopeless, everyone studies hardest to know his own nation's tongue. And even if he feels unequal to understanding even that perfectly, no one is so lazy in this knowledge as not to want to know, when he hears an unknown word, what it is, and to seek and learn it if he can.

7. It only looks like love of the unknown

While he seeks, he certainly has a student's zeal and seems to love a thing he does not know. But the case is really otherwise. A form touches the mind, which the mind knows and thinks about. In it is seen the plain usefulness that comes from minds being joined with each other, in hearing and answering known and spoken words. This form kindles a student's zeal in the person who looks for what he does not yet know, but who gazes on and loves the unknown form to which it belongs.

Suppose someone asked, "What is temetum?" (I gave this word as my example a moment ago.) Suppose he were told, "What is that to you?" He would answer: "Lest I hear someone speaking and not understand him, or read the word somewhere and not know what the writer meant." Who would say to such an inquirer, "Don't bother to understand what you hear. Don't bother to know what you read"?

Nearly every rational soul quickly sees the beauty of the knowledge through which people's thoughts are made known to each other by the spelling out of meaningful words. It is on account of this known usefulness, and because it is known and therefore loved, that such an unknown word is eagerly looked up. Then he hears and learns that our forefathers called wine temetum, but that the word is now quite out of use. He may think that he still needs the word for the sake of this or that book by those forefathers. But if he decides those books are of no importance either, he may now conclude the word is not worth remembering. He sees it has nothing to do with that kind of learning which he knows with his mind, gazes on, and so loves.

8. The conclusion

So in every case, the love of a studious mind, one that wants to know what it does not know, is not love of the thing it does not know. It is love of something it does know, on account of which it wants to know what it does not.

Or suppose the person is so inquisitive that he is carried away by the mere love of knowing unknown things, with no other reason known to him. Then he is certainly different from an ordinary student. But he does not love things he does not know either. If anything, it is truer to say that he hates things he does not know, since, by wanting to know everything, he wants there to be no such things left unknown.

9. A word to the careful reader

Someone might lay before us a harder question. He might say it is just as impossible to hate what you do not know as to love what you do not know. We will not resist what is true. But it must be understood that "he loves to know unknown things" is not the same as "he loves unknown things." A man may love to know unknown things. He cannot love unknown things. The word "know" is not put there for nothing. Whoever loves to know unknown things does not love the unknown things themselves. He loves the knowing of them.

And unless he knew what knowing is, no one could say with confidence either that he knows or that he does not know. The one who says "I know," and says it truly, must know what knowing is. But so must the one who says "I do not know," and says it confidently and truly, and knows he says it truly. He tells apart the one who does not know from the one who knows, when he looks into himself, and says truly, "I do not know." And since he knows that he says this truly, where would he get that knowledge, if he did not know what knowing is?

Chapter 2: No One Loves What Is Unknown

No one at all loves things unknown.

1. Four ways it can look like love of the unknown

So no student, no inquirer, loves things he does not know, even when he is pressing with the strongest desire to know what he does not know. There are several ways it can look otherwise. Let me set them out.

1. He knows the kind, and wants to know the individual. He already knows in general what he loves, and longs to know it also in some one individual, or some individuals, which have been praised to him but which he does not yet know. In his mind he pictures an imagined form by which he can be stirred to love. Where does he get that picture, except from things he has already known? And perhaps he will not love it, if he finds that the form that was praised is unlike the other form, the one he pictured and had fully known in thought. If he has loved it, he will begin to love it from the time he learned it, since a little before, the form he loved was other than the one the mind that formed it was used to showing itself.

But suppose he finds it like the form that report had proclaimed, so that he could truly say, "I was already loving you." Even then he did not love a form he did not know, since he had known it in that likeness.

2. We see something in the form of eternal reason. Or else we see something in the form of eternal reason, and love it there. When it is shown in some image of a temporal thing, we believe the praises of those who have tried it, and so we love it. Then we do not love anything unknown, as we have already discussed enough above.

3. We love something known, and seek something unknown on its account. Or else we love something known, and for its sake seek something unknown. Then it is by no means the love of the unknown thing that grips us. It is the love of the known thing, to which we know the unknown thing belongs. So we know even that which we still seek as unknown. I said this a little before about an unknown word.

4. We love knowing itself. Or else everyone loves the very act of knowing, as no one can fail to know who wants to know anything.

2. Where this leaves us

For these reasons people who want to know something they do not know seem to love unknown things. Because of their intense desire to inquire, they cannot be said to be without love. But how different the case really is, and that nothing can be loved at all that is not known, I think I have persuaded everyone who looks carefully at the truth.

But the examples we have given all belong to people who want to know something that they themselves are not. So we must take care that no new notion appears when the mind desires to know itself.

Chapter 3: When the Mind Loves Itself, It Is Not Unknown to Itself

That when the mind loves itself, it is not unknown to itself.

1. The question

What, then, does the mind love when it ardently seeks to know itself, while it is still unknown to itself? The mind seeks to know itself, and it is stirred to it by a student's zeal. So it loves. But what does it love? Is it itself? How can that be, when it does not yet know itself, and no one can love what he does not know?

2. Several possible answers, and why each falls short

1. Has report told it what it looks like? Perhaps report has told it its own form, as we usually hear of people who are absent. Then perhaps it does not love itself, but loves what it imagines about itself, which may be very different from what it is.

2. Or is the picture a true likeness? Or suppose the picture in the mind is like the mind itself. Then when it loves this imagined image, it loves itself before it knew itself, because it looks on something like itself. But then it knew other minds, from which to picture itself, and so is known to itself in general. Why, then, when it knows other minds, does it not know itself, since nothing can possibly be more present to it than itself?

3. Or is it like the eyes? Suppose, as other eyes are more known to the eyes of the body than those eyes are to themselves, so the mind is. Then let it not seek itself, because it will never find itself. Eyes can never see themselves except in mirrors. And it cannot be supposed that anything of that kind applies to the contemplation of non-bodily things, so that the mind would know itself, as it were, in a mirror.

4. Or does it see how beautiful it is to know oneself? Or does it see, in the reason of eternal truth, how beautiful a thing it is to know oneself, and so love what it sees, and work to bring it about in itself? Though it is not known to itself, it is known to it how good it is that it should be known to itself. And this is very wonderful: that it does not yet know itself, and yet already knows how excellent it is to know itself.

5. Or does it remember its own blessedness? Or does it see some highest end, namely its own peace and happiness, by a hidden remembrance that has not left it, though it has travelled far, and believe that it cannot reach that end unless it knows itself? Then, in loving that, it seeks this. It loves what is known, for the sake of which it seeks what is unknown. But why should the remembrance of its own blessedness be able to last, and the remembrance of itself not be able to last as well? Then it would know itself, which wants to reach, as well as know that to which it wants to reach.

6. Or does it love the very act of knowing? Or, when it loves to know itself, does it love, not itself, which it does not yet know, but the act of knowing? Does it feel the more annoyed that it is itself missing from its own knowledge, with which it wants to embrace all things? It knows what it is to know. While it loves this, which it knows, it also desires to know itself.

3. The way out: it already knows itself

Here is the way out. How does the mind know its own knowing, if it does not know itself? It knows that it knows other things, but that it does not know itself. That is how it also knows what knowing is. In what way, then, does something that does not know itself know itself as knowing anything? It does not know that some other mind knows. It knows that it does. So it knows itself.

Again, when it seeks to know itself, it already knows itself as seeking. So again it knows itself. It cannot be wholly ignorant of itself, since it knows itself well enough to know itself as not knowing itself. But if it did not know that it does not know itself, it would not seek to know itself.

So in the very fact that it seeks itself, it is clearly shown to be more known to itself than unknown. It knows itself as seeking, and as not knowing itself, in that it seeks to know itself.

Chapter 4: The Mind Knows Itself as a Whole

How the mind knows itself, not in part, but as a whole.

1. Does it know itself in part?

What shall we say, then? Does what knows itself in part not know itself in part? It is absurd to say that it does not know as a whole what it knows. I do not say it knows wholly. But what it knows, it knows as a whole. So when it knows anything about itself, which it can only know as a whole, it knows itself as a whole. It knows that it knows something, and it cannot know anything except as a whole. So it knows itself as a whole.

2. Three more proofs

1. It knows that it lives. What is so known to a mind as that it lives? A mind cannot be a mind and not live. It has something over and above that: it understands. For beasts' souls live, but do not understand. As a mind is a whole mind, so it lives as a whole. It knows that it lives. So it knows itself as a whole.

2. It knows that it is a mind. When the mind seeks to know itself, it already knows that it is a mind. Otherwise it would not know whether it was seeking itself, and might perhaps seek one thing while meaning to seek another. It could happen that it was not a mind at all, and so, in trying to know what a mind is, did not seek to know itself. Since the mind, when it seeks to know what mind is, knows that it seeks itself, it certainly knows that it is a mind. And if it knows this in itself, that it is a mind, and a whole mind, then it knows itself as a whole.

3. Even if it only knew that it was seeking itself. Suppose it did not know itself to be a mind, but only knew in seeking itself that it was seeking itself. Then too it could seek one thing for another if it did not know this. But so that it does not seek one thing for another, it undoubtedly knows what it seeks. If it knows what it seeks, and seeks itself, it certainly knows itself. What more does it seek?

3. The impossibility of seeking only a part

But suppose it knows itself in part and still seeks itself in part. Then it does not seek itself but a part of itself, for when we speak of the mind itself, we speak of it as a whole. Because it knows that it has not yet been found by itself as a whole, it knows how much the whole is. So it seeks what is lacking, as we seek to call back to mind something that has slipped from it but has not gone away from it altogether. We can recognise it, when it comes back, as the same thing we were seeking.

But how can the mind come into the mind, as though it were possible for the mind not to be in the mind?

Add this. If, having found a part, it does not seek itself as a whole, still it as a whole seeks itself. So as a whole it is present to itself, and there is nothing left to be sought. What is wanting is what is sought, not the mind that seeks. Since it as a whole seeks itself, nothing of it is wanting.

Or suppose it does not as a whole seek itself, but the part that has been found seeks the part that has not yet been found. Then the mind does not seek itself, because no part of it seeks itself. The part found does not seek itself. And the part not yet found does not seek itself, since it is sought by the part already found. So since neither the mind as a whole seeks itself nor any part of it seeks itself, the mind does not seek itself at all.

Chapter 5: Why the Soul Is Told to Know Itself

Why the soul is enjoined to know itself. Whence come the errors of the mind concerning its own substance.

1. Why the command?

Why, then, is the mind commanded to know itself? I suppose it is so that it may think about itself and live according to its own nature. That is, so that it may seek to be ordered according to its own nature, under him to whom it ought to be subject and above the things it should rule. It is to be under him by whom it ought to be ruled, and above those things that it ought to rule.

2. What goes wrong when it forgets itself

The mind does many things from vicious desire, as though forgetting itself. It sees some things as excellent in themselves, in that more excellent nature which is God. It ought to stay steady so that it may enjoy them. But it is turned away from him. It wants to make those things its own, and not to be like him by his gift, but to be what he is by its own power. It begins to move away and slip gradually down into less and less, which it thinks to be more and more. It is not enough for itself, and nothing at all is enough for it, if it withdraws from him who alone is enough.

So, through need and distress, it becomes too intent on its own actions and the restless pleasures it gets from them. In this way, by a desire to gain knowledge from outward things, whose nature it knows and loves, and which it feels can be lost unless held with anxious care, it loses its security. It thinks of itself less, in proportion as it feels more secure that it cannot lose itself.

3. Not knowing is not the same as not thinking

Here is a distinction. It is one thing not to know oneself and another not to think of oneself. We do not say that a man with much learning is ignorant of grammar just because he is not thinking of it at the moment, since he is thinking of the art of medicine.

Now such is the strength of love that the mind draws along with it the things it has long thought of with love, and has grown into them by the close clinging of diligent study, even when it turns in some way to think of itself.

4. How the mind ends up carrying bodies inside

These things are bodily, the things it loved outwardly through the fleshly senses. It has become tangled with them by a kind of daily familiarity. And yet it cannot carry the bodies themselves with it, so to speak, inward into the region of non-bodily nature. So it forms certain images of them and thrusts these made things out of itself into itself. It gives to the forming of them something of its own substance. Yet it keeps something by which it may judge freely of the form of those images. This something is more properly the mind, that is, the rational understanding, which is kept in order to judge. For we see that we share with beasts those parts of the soul which are shaped by the likenesses of bodily things.

Chapter 6: The Mind's Opinion of Itself Deceives It

The opinion which the mind has of itself is deceitful.

The mind goes wrong when it joins itself so lovingly and closely to these images that it even considers itself to be something of the same kind. It is then conformed to them to some extent, not by being this, but by thinking it is so. It does not think itself to be an image. It thinks itself to be the very thing of which it holds the image.

For there still lives in it the power of telling the bodily thing it has left outside from the image of that bodily thing which it holds within itself. The exception is when these images are projected as if felt outside, and not thought within, as with people asleep, or mad, or in a trance.

Chapter 7: What Philosophers Have Said About the Soul

The opinions of philosophers respecting the substance of the soul. The error of those who think the soul corporeal does not arise from defective knowledge of the soul, but from their adding to it something foreign to it. What is meant by finding.

1. The mind pictures itself as a body

When the mind thinks itself to be something of this kind, it thinks itself to be a bodily thing. And it is perfectly aware of its own superiority, by which it rules the body. So the question has been raised, which part of the body has the greater power in the body. The opinion has been held that this is the mind, indeed that it is the whole soul altogether.

2. The various opinions

1. A part of the body. Some think the mind is the blood, others the brain, others the heart. They do not mean it the way Scripture speaks: "I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart" (Psalm 9:1, ESV), and "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart" (Deuteronomy 6:5, ESV). There the word is transferred, by a figure of speech, from the body to the soul. They have simply thought the soul to be that small part of the body we see when the inward parts are torn apart.

2. Atoms. Others have believed the soul is made of very small individual particles, which they call atoms, meeting and sticking together.

3. Air or fire. Others have said its substance is air, others fire.

4. No substance at all. Others have held that it is no substance at all, since they could not think of any substance unless it is a body, and they did not find that the soul was a body. In their opinion it was the tempering together of our body, or the combining of the elements by which that flesh is, as it were, held together.

All of these have held the soul to be mortal. Whether it were a body or some combination of body, it could not in either case last forever without death.

5. A life that is not a body. But there are those who have held its substance to be a kind of life, the opposite of bodily, since they found it to be a life that animates and quickens every living body. They have therefore tried, each as he was able, to prove it immortal, since life cannot be without life.

3. The "fifth body"

As for that fifth kind of body, I know not what, which some have added to the four well-known elements of the world, and have said the soul was made of this, I do not think we need spend time on it here. Either they mean by "body" what we mean, namely, that of which a part is smaller than the whole in extent of place. Then they are to be counted among those who believed the mind to be bodily. Or they call all substance, or all changeable substance, a body, though they know that not all substance is held in extent of place by length and breadth and height. Then we need not argue with them about a question of words.

4. Where these philosophers go wrong

Anyone who sees that the nature of the mind is a substance and yet is not a body, that is, that it does not take up a smaller extent of place with a smaller part of itself and a greater with a greater, must see at the same time that those who think it a body do not err from lack of knowledge about the mind. They err because they join to it things without which they cannot conceive any nature at all. If you tell them to conceive of existence without bodily images, they hold it to be simply nothing.

And so the mind would not seek itself as though missing from itself. For what is so present to knowledge as what is present to the mind? And what is so present to the mind as the mind itself?

5. What "finding" means

Think of the word "invention," if we look at where it comes from. In Latin, invenire, "to find," is made of in and venire, "to come into." What does it mean but "coming into" what is sought? That is why the things that come into the mind, as it were, of themselves are not usually said to be found, though they may be said to be known. We did not strive by seeking to come into them, that is, to find them out.

The mind itself seeks those things that are sought by the eyes or by any other bodily sense. The mind directs even the fleshly sense, and then it finds when that sense comes to the things sought. In the same way it finds the other things it ought to know, not through the medium of the bodily sense, but through itself, when it "comes into" them. This holds whether the things belong to the higher substance that is in God, or to the other parts of the soul. It does the same when it judges bodily images themselves, for it finds these within, in the soul, stamped on it through the body.

Chapter 8: How the Soul Looks for Itself

How the soul inquires into itself. Whence comes the error of the soul concerning itself.

1. The wonder

It is a wonderful question, then, in what manner the soul seeks and finds itself. What does it aim at in order to seek? Where does it come, so as to come into itself and find itself? What is so much in the mind as the mind itself?

2. The tangle

But the mind lives in the things it thinks of with love. And it is accustomed to being, with love, in sensible, that is, bodily things. So it cannot be in itself without the images of those bodily things. And so a shameful error blocks its way. It cannot separate from itself the images of sensible things, so as to see itself alone. They have stuck to it in a wonderful way by the close clinging of love.

This is where its uncleanness lies. When it strives to think of itself alone, it imagines itself to be that without which it cannot think of itself.

3. What to do

So when the mind is told to become acquainted with itself, let it not seek itself as though it were withdrawn from itself. Let it remove what it has added to itself. For it lies deeper within than those sensible things, which are clearly outside, and deeper than their images, which are indeed in some part of the soul, the part that beasts also have, though beasts lack understanding, which is the mind's own.

Since the mind is within, it goes out in a way from itself when it sends out the affection of love toward these, as it were, footprints of many acts of attention. These footprints are imprinted on the memory at the time when the outward bodily things are perceived, in such a way that even when those bodily things are absent, the images of them are at hand for those who think of them.

So let the mind become acquainted with itself, and not seek itself as if absent. Let it fix on itself the act of attention by which it was wandering among other things, and let it think of itself. Then it will see that at no time did it ever fail to love itself, and at no time did it ever fail to know itself. But by loving another thing together with itself, it has confused itself with that thing, and has in a sense grown into one with it. And while it embraces different things as though they were one, it has come to think that those things are one which are different.

Chapter 9: The Mind Knows Itself by Understanding the Command

The mind knows itself by the very act of understanding the precept to know itself.

1. Present, not absent

Let the mind not try to see itself as though it were absent. Let it take pains to see itself as present. Let it not take notice of itself as though it did not know itself. Let it tell itself apart from what it knows to be other than itself.

For how will it take pains to obey the very command given to it, "Know yourself," if it does not know what "know" means or what "yourself" means? If it knows both, it also knows itself.

2. Four kinds of command

"Know yourself" is not said to the mind in the way these are said.

1. "Know the cherubim and the seraphim." They are absent. We believe in them, and according to that belief they are declared to be certain heavenly powers.

2. "Know the will of that man." We cannot perceive that at all, either by sense or by understanding, except through bodily signs actually set before us. And even then we rather believe than understand.

3. "Look at your own face." A man can do that only in a mirror. Our own face is out of reach of our own sight, because it is not where our look can be directed.

4. "Know yourself." When this is said to the mind, it knows itself by the very act by which it understands the word "yourself." And the only reason is that it is present to itself. If it did not understand what was said, it certainly would not do what it is told to do. So it is commanded to do what it does do, when it understands the very command that commands it.

Chapter 10: Every Mind Knows Three Things Certainly About Itself

Every mind knows certainly three things concerning itself: that it understands, that it is, and that it lives.

1. Add nothing to what you know yourself to be

When the mind is told to know itself, let it not add anything to what it knows itself to be. It knows at any rate that this is said to itself, to the self that is, and lives, and understands. But a dead body also is, and cattle live. Yet neither a dead body nor cattle understand. So the mind knows that it is, and that it lives, as something that understands both is and lives.

When, for example, the mind thinks itself to be air, it thinks that air understands. It knows that it understands, but it does not know itself to be air. It only thinks so. Let it separate what it thinks itself to be. Let it see what it knows. Let this remain with it, about which not even those who have thought the mind to be this bodily thing or that have doubted.

Not every mind thinks itself to be air. Some think themselves fire, others the brain, and so on, one kind of bodily thing for one, another for another, as I mentioned before. Yet they all know that they themselves understand, and are, and live. They refer understanding to what they understand, but being and living to themselves.

2. What no one doubts

No one doubts that no one understands who does not live, or that no one lives of whom it is not true that he is. So whatever understands both is and lives. It is not like a dead body, which is but does not live. It is not like a soul that lives but does not understand. It is, and lives, in some proper and more excellent manner.

They know also that they will. They equally know that no one can will who is not and who does not live. They also refer that will to something they will with it. They know too that they remember. They know at the same time that nobody could remember unless he both was and lived. And we refer memory itself to something, in that we remember those things.

3. Memory, understanding and will

So the knowledge and science of many things are held in two of these three, memory and understanding. But will must be present, so that we may enjoy or use them. We enjoy things known, in which the will finds delight for their own sake, and so rests. We use those things which we refer to some other thing that we are to enjoy. The life of man is vicious and blameworthy in no other way than by wrongly using and wrongly enjoying. But this is not the place to discuss that.

4. The certainty that cannot be shaken

Since we are treating the nature of the mind, let us set aside all knowledge received from outside through the senses of the body. Let us attend more carefully to the position we laid down: that all minds know and are certain about themselves.

People have certainly doubted whether the power of living, of remembering, of understanding, of willing, of thinking, of knowing and of judging belongs to air, or to fire, or to the brain, or to blood, or to atoms, or to a fifth kind of body, I know not what. They have doubted whether the combining or tempering together of this very flesh has the power to do these things. One has tried to establish this, another that.

Yet who ever doubts that he himself lives, and remembers, and understands, and wills, and thinks, and knows, and judges? Even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts, he remembers why he doubts. If he doubts, he understands that he doubts. If he doubts, he wants to be certain. If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows that he does not know. If he doubts, he judges that he ought not to agree rashly. Whoever doubts about anything else, therefore, ought not to doubt about all these things. If they were not so, he would not be able to doubt about anything.

5. Those who think the mind is a body

Those who think the mind is a body, or the combination or tempering of the body, will have all these things seem to be in a subject. The substance is air, or fire, or some other bodily thing which they think to be the mind. And the understanding is in this bodily thing as its quality. The bodily thing is the subject, and the understanding is in the subject.

Nearly the same opinion is held by those who deny that the mind is a body but think it is the combination or tempering together of the body. There is this difference. The first say the mind itself is the substance in which the understanding is, as in a subject. The second say the mind itself is in a subject, namely the body, of which it is the combination. So what else can they think but that the understanding is also in the same body as in a subject?

6. What they all miss

All of these fail to see that the mind knows itself, even when it seeks itself, as we have already shown. Nothing is rightly said to be known while its substance is not known. So when the mind knows itself, it knows its own substance. When it is certain about itself, it is certain about its own substance.

But it is certain about itself, as the things said above prove convincingly. And it is not at all certain whether it is air, or fire, or some body, or some function of body. Therefore it is none of these.

To the whole self that is told to know itself belongs this: that it is certain it is not any of those things about which it is uncertain, and certain that it is that only which it is certain that it is. It thinks of fire, or air, or anything else bodily, in one way. It cannot possibly think of what it itself is in that way. It thinks all these things through an imagined picture, whether fire, or air, or this body or that, or the part or combination and tempering of the body. It is assuredly not said to be all of them at once, but one of them. But if it were any one of them, it would think of this one differently from the rest. It would not think of it through an imagined picture, as absent things are thought of, which have been touched, themselves or others of the same kind, by bodily sense. It would think of it by an inward true presence, not made up. For nothing is more present to it than itself. In the same way, it thinks of itself as living, remembering, understanding and willing. It knows these in itself, and does not imagine them as though it had touched them with a sense outside itself, as bodily things are touched.

And if it adds nothing to itself from the thought of these things, so as to think itself to be something of that kind, then whatever remains to it from itself, that alone is itself.

Chapter 11: Memory, Understanding and Will: Ability, Learning and Use

In memory, understanding and will we have to note ability, learning and use. Memory, understanding and will are one essentially, and three relatively.

1. Looking at the three

Putting aside for a little while all the other things of which the mind is certain concerning itself, let us especially consider these three: memory, understanding and will. In these three we can ordinarily see the character of a young person's abilities. The more tenaciously and easily a boy remembers, the more sharply he understands, and the more keenly he studies, the more praiseworthy he is in ability.

2. Ability, learning and use

But when we ask about someone's learning, we do not ask how firmly and easily he remembers, or how shrewdly he understands. We ask what he remembers and what he understands. And since a mind is praised not only for being learned but also for being good, we look not only at what he remembers and understands but also at what he wills. We look not at how ardently he wills, but first at what he wills, and then at how greatly he wills it. For the mind that loves eagerly is to be praised when it loves what ought to be loved eagerly.

So we speak of three things: ability, learning and use.

1. Ability. The first is to be considered under three heads: what a person can do in memory, in understanding and in will.

2. Learning. The second is considered by what someone has in his memory and in his understanding, which he has gained by a studious will.

3. Use. The third, use, lies in the will, which handles the things held in the memory and understanding. It either refers them on to something further or is satisfied with them as an end.

To use is to take something up into the power of the will. To enjoy is to use with joy, no longer the joy of hope but of the actual thing. So everyone who enjoys uses, because he takes something up into the power of the will and is satisfied with it as an end. But not everyone who uses enjoys, if he has sought after what he takes up into the power of the will not for the thing itself but for the sake of something else.

3. One life, one mind, one essence

Since memory, understanding and will are not three lives but one life, not three minds but one mind, it follows that they are not three substances but one substance. Memory is called life, and mind, and substance, in respect of itself. But it is called memory in relation to something. I would say the same of understanding and of will, since they are called understanding and will in relation to something. But each in respect of itself is life, and mind, and essence.

So these three are one, in that they are one life, one mind, one essence. Whatever else they are called severally in respect of themselves, they are called also together, not in the plural but in the singular. But they are three in that in which they are referred to each other. If they were not equal, and equal not only each to each but also each to all, they could not contain each other. For not only is each contained by each, but all by each.

4. How each contains the others

Look at it in my own case. I remember that I have memory and understanding and will. I understand that I understand, and will, and remember. I will that I will, and remember, and understand. And I remember all together my whole memory, understanding and will.

What of my memory I do not remember is not in my memory. And nothing is so much in the memory as memory itself. So I remember the whole memory.

Whatever I understand, I know that I understand, and I know that I will whatever I will. But whatever I know, I remember. So I remember the whole of my understanding and the whole of my will.

Likewise, when I understand these three, I understand them together as wholes. There is nothing intelligible that I do not understand, except what I do not know. But what I do not know I neither remember nor will. So whatever intelligible thing I do not understand, I also neither remember nor will. And whatever intelligible thing I remember and will, it follows that I understand.

My will also takes in my whole understanding and my whole memory, since I use the whole of what I understand and remember.

5. The result

And so, while all are contained by each, and as wholes, each as a whole is equal to each as a whole, and each as a whole is equal to all as wholes. And these three are one: one life, one mind, one essence.

Chapter 12: The Mind Is an Image of the Trinity in Its Memory, Understanding and Will

The mind is an image of the Trinity in its own memory, understanding and will.

1. Where do we go from here?

Are we, then, to go upward now, with whatever strength of purpose we have, to that chief and highest essence, of which the human mind is an inadequate image, but an image? Or should these same three be made plainer still in the soul, by means of the things we receive from outside through the bodily sense, in which the knowledge of bodily things is impressed on us in time?

2. Why the first answer was hard to see

We found the mind to be such, in its own memory, understanding and will, that since it was understood always to know itself and always to will itself, it was understood also, at the same time, always to remember itself, always to understand and love itself. It does not always think of itself as distinct from the things that are not itself. So its memory of itself and its understanding of itself are hard to tell apart in it.

For in this case, where the two are very closely joined and one is not ahead of the other by any time at all, it looks as if they are not two things but one called by two names. And love itself is not so plainly felt to exist when no sense of need shows it up, since what is loved is always at hand.

3. What will make it plainer

So these things may be set forth more clearly, even to people of duller minds, if we treat topics that come within reach of the mind in time, and that happen to it in time. It remembers what it did not remember before, and sees what it did not see before, and loves what it did not love before.

But this discussion needs another beginning, because of the length of the present book.

Book Eleven: Traces of the Trinity in the Outer Man

In this book Augustine begins his search for an image of the Trinity inside ourselves. He starts with the outer man, the part of us that deals with bodies through the senses. First he finds a kind of trinity in the things we perceive from outside: the visible object, the sight that it forms in the eye, and the will that joins the two. These three are neither equal nor of one substance. Then he finds a second kind of trinity inside the mind, brought in from outside: the picture of a bodily thing held in the memory, the picture the mind's eye forms when it turns to look at it, and the will that joins the two. Here the three are of one substance. Even so, this second trinity still belongs to the outer man, because it comes into the mind from bodily things. Neither of them is yet the image of God. Neither of them is yet the image of God, and Augustine is careful to say so.

Chapter 1: Looking for a Trace of the Trinity in the Outer Man

A trace of the Trinity can be found even in the outer man.

Why we start with the outer man

1. No one doubts the basic fact. The inner man has understanding. The outer man has the bodily senses. So let me try something. Can we find, even in this outer man, some trace of the Trinity? I don't mean that the outer man is the image of God in the same way the inner man is. The apostle is plain about that. He says the inner man is "being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10, ESV). And in another place he says, "Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "outer man" and "inner man" here, and older English Bibles do too. The ESV renders them "outer nature" and "inner nature," and "new self" in Colossians 3:10. This book keeps his terms "outer man" and "inner man" throughout.

2. So we are looking in something that is passing away. Let us look there for some likeness of the Trinity. It may not be as clear as the image in the inner man. It may, however, be easier to spot. And the outer man isn't called "man" for nothing. There is something in him that resembles the inner man.

3. Why this is the easier place to start. Look at the condition we live in. We are mortal and fleshly, and so we handle visible things more easily and more familiarly than things we can only understand. The visible things are outside us, and we take them in through the body. The understandable things are inside us, and we grasp them with the mind. And we ourselves, meaning our minds, are not things the senses can pick up. We are not bodies. We are understandable things, because we are life.

Our thoughts run back to bodies

I should be honest about a weakness here. We are so used to bodies, and our thought has leaned out toward them so strongly, that something odd happens. We try to pull our thought away from the uncertainty of bodily things, to fix it on spirit, where knowledge is much more certain and steady. Then we find it flying straight back to bodies, looking for rest in the very place that made it weak.

We have to fit our argument to this weakness. If we want to describe the inward, spiritual thing more fittingly, or to point it out more quickly, we need to take our examples from outward things that belong to the body.

Why we will use the eyes

1. The outer man deals with bodies. He does it through the bodily sense, which is fivefold: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching.

2. We don't need to check all five. It would be a lot of trouble, and it isn't necessary. What one of them shows us holds for the rest.

3. So we will mainly use the evidence of the eyes. Of all the bodily senses, sight is by far the best. And, since it is different in kind from the others, it comes nearest to the sight of the mind.

Chapter 2: A Trinity in Seeing

There is a kind of trinity in sight. There are three things in seeing, and each is different in its own nature. We see how sight is produced from a visible thing, or rather how the image of what is seen is produced. An example makes it plainer. And we see how the three combine into one.

Three things in every act of seeing

1. The object itself. When we see any bodily thing, three things are present, and it is easy to tell them apart. The first is the object we see. It may be a stone, a flame, or anything else the eyes can see. And it could have existed before we saw it.

2. The sight. This is the act of seeing. It did not exist before we perceived the object that was presented to the sense.

3. The attention of the mind. This is what holds the sense of the eye on the object for as long as it is seen.

Different in nature, not only in name

These three are clearly distinct. But I want you to notice that they are also different in nature.

1. The visible body and the eye's sense are very different things. The body is one thing. The sense of the eyes is another. When the sense meets the body, sight arises. And what is sight, after all, but the sense shaped by the thing it perceives? Take the visible object away and there is no sight. Without a body to be seen, there could be no sight of that kind at all.

Even so, the body that shapes the sense, and the form that it stamps on the sense, which we call sight, are not at all of the same substance. The body that is seen can be separated and moved about by its own nature. The sense, though, was already in the living creature before it saw anything it was able to see. So the sense, or the sight that is formed in it from the visible body, belongs to the nature of the living creature. That is altogether different from the body we see. The body does not make the sense into a sense. It makes it into sight.

2. The proof is the blind. If the sense were not in us before the object was put in front of us, we would be no different from blind people at the moments when we see nothing. That happens in darkness, or when our eyes are shut. But we are different. Even when we are not seeing, we have what lets us see. We call it the sense. The blind do not have it, and that is the only reason they are called blind.

3. The attention of the mind is different from both. It holds the sense on the thing we see and links the two. It differs from the visible thing in nature, because one is mind and the other is body. And it differs from the sense and from sight too, because attention is an act of the mind alone. The sense of the eyes is called a bodily sense for one reason only, which is that the eyes are themselves members of the body. A lifeless body does not perceive. But the soul, joined to the body, perceives through a bodily instrument, and that instrument is what we call sense.

4. What happens when a man loses his sight. The sense can be cut off and put out by an injury to the body. When someone is blinded, the sense is gone but the mind is the same. His attention no longer has a bodily sense to join to the thing outside, so it cannot fix its gaze on it. Yet by its very striving it shows that, though the bodily sense is taken away, the attention itself can neither perish nor shrink. The desire to see stays whole, whether or not it can be carried out.

So the three are plainly distinct: the body that is seen, the sight itself, and the attention of the mind that joins them. They differ in their properties, and they differ in their natures.

How sight is produced

1. Sight does not come from the visible body alone. Here the sense is not given by the body we look at. It comes from the body of the living creature that perceives, with which the soul is blended together in some wonderful way of its own. But sight is formed, which is to say the sense itself is shaped, by the visible body. So now there is not only the power of sense, which stays whole even in the dark so long as the eyes are sound. There is also a sense actually shaped, which is called sight.

2. It takes both. Sight, then, is produced from a visible thing, but not from that alone. There has to be someone present who sees. So sight is produced from the visible thing together with the one who sees. On the seer's side there is the sense of seeing, and the intention of looking and gazing at the object. But the shape in the sense, the thing we call sight, is stamped only by the visible body.

3. And it doesn't last without the object. Take the visible thing away and that form no longer remains, though it was in the sense while the object was in front of us. The sense itself remains, as it did before anything was perceived. It is like the mark of a body in water. The mark lasts as long as the body that presses on it is in the water. Remove the body and the mark is gone, though the water stays, as it was before it took that shape.

So we can't say that the visible thing produces the sense. But it does produce a form, which is something like its own likeness, and which comes to be in the sense when we see anything. And we can't tell, by the same sense, the form of the body we see from the form it makes in our sense. The two are joined too closely for that. But reason tells us that we could not see at all unless some likeness of the body seen were made in our own sense.

The ring and the wax

Think of a ring pressed into wax. When the ring is withdrawn, the image can be seen in the wax. But the image did not first begin when the ring was pulled away. We just could not tell it apart from the ring until the two were separated. Then, because what was made stays behind, we find it easy to believe that the form was already in the wax, stamped by the ring, before it was lifted off.

Now suppose the ring were pressed into a liquid. When it was withdrawn, no image at all would show. Even so, reason should still say that while the ring was in the liquid, the liquid carried a form of the ring made by the ring. That form is not the same as the form in the ring. When the ring is taken away, the form in the liquid ceases. The form in the ring remains, and it is the source of the other.

So we shouldn't suppose that the perception of the eyes holds no image of the body just because the image does not stay once the body is removed. I admit it is very hard to persuade people of slower mind that an image of the visible thing is formed in our sense when we see it, and that this very form is sight.

Afterimages

1. Something you have seen yourself. If you look at a light for a little while and then shut your eyes, bright colors seem to play before them. They change into one another and shine less and less until they stop completely. These are the leftovers of the form that was made in the sense while the shining body was being seen. They show up as they slowly fade away, step by step. The same thing happens with the crossbars of a window if you have been looking at them. It is plain that our sense is affected by the impression of the thing seen.

2. The form was there all along. So that form existed while we were seeing. At that time it was clearer and stronger. But it was joined so closely to the appearance of the thing perceived that it could not be told apart from it. And that was sight itself.

3. Seeing double. Even the little flame of a lamp is, in a way, doubled when the lines of sight from the two eyes are pulled apart. Then there is a double sight, though the thing seen is one. Each eye is affected on its own, because the two are not allowed to meet evenly and combine on the bodily object, so as to form a single view. Shut one eye and you see one flame, as it really is. Why the appearance on the right vanishes when you shut the left eye, and the other way round, would be tedious to work out. It isn't needed for what we are doing. It is enough for our purpose to notice this. Unless an image exactly like the thing we perceive were made in our sense, the flame would not appear doubled according to the number of eyes. Something that is really single cannot be seen as double by one eye, however much you pull it down, press on it or twist it, if the other eye is shut.

How the three are tempered into one

1. Let us remember where we have got to. There are three things of different natures, blended into a kind of unity. First, the form of the body that is seen. Second, the image of it stamped on the sense, which is sight, or the sense when it has been shaped. Third, the will of the mind, which applies the sense to the thing it senses and holds the sight on it.

2. Where each one belongs. The first, the visible thing, does not belong to the nature of the living creature, except when we look at our own body. The second belongs to that nature in this way: it is worked in the body, and through the body in the soul, since it is worked in the sense, which is neither without the body nor without the soul. The third belongs to the soul alone, because it is the will.

3. How tightly they cling. Although the substances of the three are so different, they merge into such a unity that the first two can hardly be told apart, even when reason steps in as judge. I mean the form of the body that is seen, and the image of it made in the sense, which is sight. And the will so strongly joins the two that it both applies the sense, in order to be shaped, to the thing perceived, and keeps the sense on the thing once it is shaped.

When the will is strong, the body follows

1. The body can be changed by desire. If the will is so forceful that it can be called love, or desire, or lust, it affects the rest of the creature's body too. Where the stuff of the body is not too dull and hard to resist, it changes the body into a matching shape and color. You can watch a chameleon's little body change as quickly as the colors it sees.

2. The offspring show it. With other animals the flesh is too coarse to change easily. But the young often show the particular fancies of their mothers, whatever they happened to watch with special delight. The more tender and, so to speak, the more formable the first seeds are, the more readily they follow the bent of the mother's soul and the picture that was made in it through the body she gazed at so eagerly.

3. An example from Scripture. I could give many instances, but one is enough, and it comes from the most trustworthy books. Jacob set striped rods before his flocks in the troughs of water, so that as they drank they would look at them when they conceived, and the sheep and goats would bear young of various colors (see Genesis 30:37–39, ESV).

Chapter 3: The Same Unity in Thought

The three come together in thought, namely memory, inward vision, and the will that joins the two.

When the soul lives a lower life

1. A trinity of the outer man. The reasoning soul lives badly when it lives according to the trinity of the outer man. What does that mean? It means that to the things which shape the bodily sense from outside, it brings no praiseworthy will that would direct them to some useful end. It brings a base desire that clings to them.

2. What remains when the body is gone. Even if the form of the body that was perceived is taken away, its likeness stays in the memory. The will can turn its eye to that likeness again, so that the mind is shaped from within, just as the sense was shaped from outside by the presence of the bodily thing.

3. A second trinity. So a trinity is produced out of memory, inward vision, and the will that joins the two. When these three are combined into one, they are called, from that combination, conception, or thought. And in these three there is no longer any difference of substance.

What takes the place of what

Look at the replacements, one at a time.

1. The bodily thing is replaced by the memory. The sensible body is not there. It is altogether different from the nature of the living creature. Neither is the bodily sense there, shaped into sight. Nor is the will doing its old work of applying the sense to the body and holding it there. Instead of the bodily form that was perceived from outside, there comes the memory, holding that form which the soul drank in through the bodily sense.

2. Outward sight is replaced by inward sight. In place of the sight that was outward when the sense was shaped by the sensible body, there comes a similar sight within. The eye of the mind is shaped by what the memory keeps, while the bodily things being thought about are absent.

3. The will does the same work again. Before, it applied the sense, which was about to be shaped, to the bodily thing presented from outside, and joined it to the thing once shaped. Now it turns the sight of the one who is recalling back to the memory, so that the mind's sight may be shaped by what the memory has kept, and the thought may have a like sight.

Two things that look like one

Reason was needed before, to tell the visible appearance that shapes the sense from the likeness of it made in the sense. Without reason, the two would be taken as one and the same. It is the same here.

1. How it looks. The mental picture arises when the mind thinks about the appearance of a body it has seen. It consists of two things: the likeness the memory keeps, and the likeness that is formed from it in the eye of the one who is recalling. Yet it seems so single that only the judgment of reason can show it is two.

2. What reason tells us. Reason lets us understand that what remains in the memory, even while we are thinking about something else, is different from what comes into being when we remember. Remembering means coming back again to the memory and finding the same appearance there. If the appearance were no longer there, we would say we had forgotten so completely that we could not recall it at all.

3. Neither works without the other. If the eye of the one recalling were not shaped by what was in the memory, the thinker's sight could not happen at all. But the two joined together, what the memory keeps and what is formed from it to shape the recalling eye, look as if they were one, because they are so alike.

4. When the eye turns away. When the eye of the one thinking turns away and stops looking at what it saw in the memory, nothing of that stamped form stays in the eye. The eye will be shaped by whatever it turns to next, and another thought comes about. But what it left behind remains in the memory. We can turn to it again when we recollect, be shaped by it, and become one with it.

Chapter 4: How This Unity Comes About

How the unity of these three comes about.

When the mind turns wholly inward

1. The will can pull the whole mind inward. The will moves the eye that is to be shaped back and forth, here and there, and joins it to what shapes it. Suppose it converges wholly on the inward picture. Suppose it turns the eye of the mind completely away from the bodies lying around the senses, and from the bodily senses themselves, and turns it entirely to the image perceived within.

2. The picture can become so exact that reason cannot judge. Then the likeness of the bodily appearance, drawn out of the memory, is presented so exactly that even reason is not allowed to tell whether the body itself is being seen outside, or only something of the kind is being thought of inside.

3. Examples. People have sometimes been drawn or frightened by thinking too much about visible things. They have suddenly cried out words to match, as if they were really in the middle of such actions or sufferings. I remember someone telling me that he used to see in his thought the form of a woman's body so distinctly, and as if so solid, that he was moved as though it were real. That is how much power the soul has over its own body, and how much influence it has in turning and changing the quality of its bodily garment. It is like a man who is affected when his clothes stick to him. The same kind of affection deceives us through the imaginations of sleep.

Different ways the senses can be put out of action

It makes a very great difference what is happening to the bodily senses at the time. I can list the cases.

1. The senses lulled to sleep. That is the case with sleepers.

2. The senses upset in their inward workings. That is the case with madmen.

3. The senses drawn off in some other way. That is the case with diviners or prophets.

In these cases the mind's attention is forced, by a kind of necessity, onto the images that come to it. Sometimes they come from the memory. Sometimes they come from some other hidden force, through certain spiritual mingling of a likewise spiritual substance.

4. Or the senses may be sound. Sometimes, in people who are healthy and awake, the will is occupied with thought and turns itself away from the senses. It shapes the eye of the mind by various images of sensible things, as though those things were actually being perceived.

Fear does it as well as desire

These impressions of images come not only when the will is directed on such things by desiring them. They come also when the mind is carried away to look at the very things it wants to avoid and guard against, so as to flee from them. So not only desire but fear causes both the bodily eye to be shaped by the sensible things themselves, and the mental eye to be shaped by the images of those sensible things. The stronger the fear or the desire, the more distinctly the eye is shaped. That is true of the one who perceives by the body what lies close to him in place. It is true too of the one who forms a picture from the image of the body in his memory.

The two trinities side by side

Now put the two together.

1. The first line of comparison. What a body in place is to the bodily sense, the likeness of a body in the memory is to the eye of the mind.

2. The second line. What the sight of someone looking at a thing is to the appearance of the body that shapes the sense, the sight of the one who is thinking is to the image of the body fixed in the memory, from which the eye of the mind is shaped.

3. The third line. What the intention of the will is toward a seen body and the sight that has to be joined with it, so that a certain unity of three things comes about there, though their natures differ, the same intention of the will is toward joining the image of the body in the memory with the sight of the one thinking. That sight is the form which the eye of the mind has taken on in returning to the memory.

4. The result. Here too a certain unity of three things comes about. But now they are not separated by a difference of nature. They are of one and the same substance, because this whole is within, and the whole is one mind.

Chapter 5: This Is Not Yet the Image of God

The trinity of the outer man, the trinity of outward vision, is not an image of God. Even in sins, men are reaching for a likeness of God. In outward vision the form of the bodily thing is something like a parent and the sight is something like its offspring. But the will that joins them suggests the Holy Spirit.

When the picture is gone, the will cannot bring it back

1. Lost forms are lost. When the form and appearance of a body have perished, the will cannot call back the sense of perceiving. In the same way, when the image the memory carries has been wiped out by forgetfulness, the will cannot force the eye of the mind back by recollection to be shaped by it.

2. The mind can imagine things it never saw. But the mind has great power. It can picture things it forgot, and also things it never saw or experienced. It does this by enlarging, shrinking, changing or compounding, as it pleases, the things that have not dropped out of its memory. So it often pictures things to be such as it knows they are not, or as it does not know they are.

3. Two dangers. In that case we have to take care that the mind does not either speak falsely to deceive, or hold an opinion and so be deceived. If it avoids both of these evils, imagined pictures do no harm. In the same way, sensible things that we have experienced or kept in memory do no harm, so long as we neither chase them passionately when they are pleasant nor shun them basely when they are unpleasant.

When the will wallows

But when the will leaves better things and greedily wallows in these, it becomes unclean. Then such things are thought about harmfully when they are present, and more harmfully when they are absent.

1. Who lives badly. The one who lives according to the trinity of the outer man lives badly and in a degraded way. It is the purpose of using things sensible and bodily that has begotten that trinity. Even though it pictures within, it pictures things outside.

2. We need these things, and need to use them well. No one could use those things even well unless the images of things perceived by the senses were kept in the memory. But the will has to dwell for the greater part on higher and inward things. And that same will, which is fitted either to the bodies outside or to their images within, must refer whatever it takes from them to a better and truer life. It must rest in that end, since it is by looking to that end that it judges what should be done.

3. If it does not, what are we doing? We are doing exactly what the apostle forbids when he says, "Do not be conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2, ESV).

Why this trinity is not the image of God

1. It comes from below. That trinity is not an image of God, since it is produced in the mind itself, through the bodily sense, from the lowest thing there is, the bodily creature. The mind is higher than that.

2. Yet it is not altogether unlike God. What is there that has no likeness of God, in proportion to its kind and measure? "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31, ESV). He made all things good for one reason only, that he himself is supremely good. So, in so far as anything that exists is good, to that extent it has some likeness to the supreme good, though at however great a distance. If the likeness is natural, it is a right and well-ordered one. If it is faulty, it is a degraded and twisted one.

3. Even sinners reach for a likeness of God. In their very sins, souls strive after nothing else but a kind of likeness of God, in a proud, perverse and, so to speak, slavish liberty. That is how our first parents were persuaded to sin. It would not have been possible unless it had been said, "You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5, ESV).

4. But "likeness" is not "image." Everything in the creatures that is in any way like God is not therefore to be called his image. The image is the one thing than which God himself alone is higher. Only that is copied from him in every point, because no nature stands between it and him.

The parent and the offspring in seeing

1. The form of the body is a kind of parent. Take the sight, which is the form worked in the sense of the one who sees. The form of the bodily thing it was made from is, as it were, its parent. But it is not a true parent. So the sight is not a true offspring either, because it is not altogether born from the bodily thing. Something else has to be applied to the bodily thing for the sight to be formed from it, namely the sense of the one who sees. And for this reason, to love this is to be estranged.

2. The will is more spiritual than the other two. The will unites both the so-called parent and the so-called child, and it is more spiritual than either. The bodily thing that is seen is not spiritual at all. The sight that comes into being in the sense has something spiritual mixed in, since it cannot come to be without the soul. But it is not wholly spiritual, because what is formed is a sense of the body. So the will that unites them is plainly more spiritual, as I have said. And here it begins to suggest, in a way, the person of the Spirit in the Trinity.

3. The will belongs more to the sense than to the body. It belongs more to the sense that is formed than to the bodily thing it is formed from. The sense and the will of a living creature belong to the soul, not to the stone or any other bodily thing that is seen. So the will does not proceed from the bodily thing as from a parent.

4. And it is not the offspring of sight either. The will did not proceed from the other, the sight and the form in the sense, as a kind of offspring. The will existed before the sight came about. It was the will that applied the sense, which was to be formed, to the bodily thing, which was to be discerned. But it was not yet satisfied. How could it be satisfied by what was not yet seen? And satisfaction means a will that rests content.

5. So the will is neither parent nor offspring. We cannot call it the offspring of the sight, since it existed before the sight. We cannot call it the parent either, since the sight was not formed and brought out from the will. It was formed from the bodily thing that was seen.

Chapter 6: Where the Will Comes to Rest in Seeing

What we are to count as the rest and the end of the will in sight.

Is sight the end of the will?

1. In one narrow sense, yes. Perhaps we can rightly call sight the end and rest of the will, but only with respect to this one object, the visible bodily thing. The will does not stop willing everything else just because it sees what it was willing to see now.

2. It is not the whole will. I don't mean the whole will of the man. The end of that is nothing else than blessedness. I mean a will directed for the time being at one object, and its end, in seeing, is nothing but the sight. This is so whether the person refers the thing seen to something else or not.

3. If he refers it to nothing further. Suppose he wants only to see this thing, and nothing more. Then there is no argument at all about whether the end of that will is the sight. It is obvious.

4. If he refers it to something further. Then he does will something else. It is no longer a will merely to see. Or if it is a will to see, it is not a will to see that particular thing for its own sake.

Some examples

Consider a man who wants to see a scar, so that he may learn from it that there was a wound. Or a man who wants to see a window, so that through the window he may see the people passing by.

1. Each of these wills has its own near end. These and other acts of will each have a nearer end of their own. And these nearer ends are all referred to that final end of the will by which we want to live blessedly, and to reach that life which is not referred to anything else but is enough in itself for the one who loves it.

2. So the will to see has sight as its end. And the will to see this particular thing has the sight of this particular thing as its end.

3. The scar. The will to see the scar wants its own end, the sight of the scar, and does not reach beyond it. The will to prove that there was a wound is a different will, although it depends on the first. Its end is to prove that there was a wound.

4. The window. The will to see the window has the sight of the window as its end. Another and further will depends on it, which is to see the passers-by through the window. Its end is the sight of the passers-by.

Wills that are tied together

All the several wills that are bound to one another are right together if the one to which they are all referred is good. If that one is bad, then all of them are bad.

1. A road of right wills. A connected series of right wills is a kind of road, made up of steps, by which we climb up toward blessedness. The songs of these steps (the Songs of Ascents, Psalms 120 to 134, as the editor adds) are in the Psalms. Blessed are those who sing the song of the steps in their deeds and in their character.

2. A tangle of bad wills. The tangle of twisted and depraved wills is a bond. The man who acts this way will be bound by it and, in the words of the parable, be "cast... into the outer darkness" (Matthew 22:13, ESV). Woe to those who "draw sin as with cart ropes" (Isaiah 5:18, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "who draw sin as a long rope." The ESV's cart rope carries the same picture, and the ESV is printed here.

Resting and walking

1. Rest that is still on the way. To say that the will is at rest, which is what we call its end, when it is still referred to something further, is like saying the foot is at rest in walking when it is planted in a place from which another foot may be set down in the direction of the man's steps.

2. Even delight is not the end. Suppose something satisfies so fully that the will rests in it with a certain delight. It is still not the place the man is ultimately heading for. This too is referred to something further. It is to be treated not as the home country of a citizen but as a place of refreshment for a traveler, or even a place to stop for the night.

Chapter 7: A Second Trinity, in the Memory of the One Who Thinks Again

There is another trinity in the memory of the one who thinks over again what he has seen.

From the senses to the memory

1. A more inward trinity. Let us take another trinity. It is more inward than the one in sensible things and in the senses, but it is still conceived from them. Now it is no longer the sense of the body that is shaped by the body. It is the eye of the mind that is shaped from the memory. The appearance of the body that we perceived from outside has settled in the memory itself.

2. The quasi-parent. The appearance that is in the memory we may call a kind of parent of what is worked in the imagination of the one who forms a picture. It was in the memory before we thought of it, just as the body was in its place before we saw it, so that sight could happen.

3. The quasi-offspring. When we picture it, a copy is made from the form the memory holds. It is copied in the mind's eye of the one who is picturing it, and it is formed there by remembering. That is the kind of offspring of what the memory keeps.

4. Neither is a true parent or a true offspring. The mind's sight that is formed from memory when we recollect does not proceed from that appearance which we remember as seen. We could not have remembered those things unless we had seen them. But the mind's eye, which is shaped by recollection, existed before we saw the body we now remember. How much more it existed before we committed that body to memory!

So the form in the mind's eye of the one remembering is worked from the form in the memory. But the mind's eye itself does not come from it. It was there before. And so, if the one is not a true parent, the other is not a true offspring. Still, both the so-called parent and the so-called offspring point toward something. They help the inner and truer things come into view more usefully and more certainly.

Where does the will fit here?

1. It is harder to tell the three apart. It is harder to see clearly here whether the will, which joins the sight to the memory, is the parent or the offspring of one of them. The likeness and equality of the same nature and substance make this hard to settle.

2. We can't do it the way we did with the outer sense. There, the sense was formed from outside, and it was easy to tell it from the sensible body. It was easy to tell the will from both as well, because the three were different in nature. We spoke about that at enough length above.

3. This trinity is brought in from outside but works inside. Although the trinity we are now speaking of is introduced into the mind from outside, it is carried on within. No part of it is outside the nature of the mind. How, then, can it be shown that the will is neither the parent nor the offspring, either of the bodily likeness held in the memory or of the likeness copied from it in recollecting? The will joins both in the act of picturing so completely that they appear as one. Only reason can tell them apart.

First, there can be no will to remember without some memory

1. The rule. There can be no will to remember unless we keep, in the recesses of the memory, the whole or some part of the thing we want to remember. A will to remember cannot arise in the case of a thing we have forgotten altogether and absolutely. We have already remembered that the thing we want to remember is, or has been, in our memory.

2. Supper. Suppose I want to remember what I ate for supper yesterday. Either I have already remembered that I did have supper, or if not that, I have at least remembered something about that time. At the very least I have remembered yesterday, and the part of yesterday in which people usually have supper, and what supper is. If I had remembered nothing of this sort, I could not want to remember what I ate for supper yesterday.

3. What follows. The will to remember proceeds from things that are kept in the memory. It also draws on things that are copied from there, by recollection, through the act of discerning. That is, it comes from the combination of something we have remembered and of the sight that was formed from it, when we remembered, in the mind's eye of the one thinking.

4. And the will needs something more. The will that joins both needs some other thing as well, which is, as it were, close at hand and next to the one remembering.

How many trinities are there?

1. As many as there are remembrances. There are as many trinities of this kind as there are things remembered. In every one of them these three are found. First, what was stored in the memory even before it was thought of. Second, what comes about in the thought when this is discerned. Third, the will that unites both, and from both and itself as a third completes one single thing.

2. Or just one? Or should we rather recognize one single trinity of this kind? Then we would speak in general of all the bodily appearances hidden in the memory as one unity. We would speak in general of the sight of the mind that remembers and pictures such things as another single unity. The will that combines them would be joined to those two as a third. And the whole would be a certain unity made out of three.

Chapter 8: The Different Ways of Picturing Things

The different modes of conceiving.

The trinities come and go

1. The mind's eye can't look at everything at once. The eye of the mind cannot take in, in one glance, all the things the memory keeps. So these trinities of thought alternate, in a series of withdrawals and successions. In that way the trinity becomes beyond counting in number.

2. Yet it is not infinite. It is not infinite, so long as it does not pass beyond the number of things stored in the memory. Suppose we begin to reckon from the earliest perception anyone has of material things through any bodily sense. Suppose we even include the things he has forgotten. The number would still be fixed and definite, though beyond counting. We call things "innumerable" not only when they are infinite. We call them that also when they are finite but more than anyone can count.

What the memory keeps and what the mind pictures

1. They are different things. We can see a little more clearly from this that what the memory stores up and keeps is different from what is copied from it in the thought of the one who remembers. When the two are combined, they seem to be one and the same.

2. The memory is limited by what I actually saw. I can remember only as many kinds of bodies as I have actually seen, and as big and as they were when I saw them. The mind drank them into the memory from the bodily sense.

3. The picturing mind is not so limited. The things seen in thought are drawn from what is in the memory, but they are multiplied and varied beyond number and without end.

4. The sun. I remember one sun, because I have seen only one. But if I like, I can picture two, or three, or as many as I want. The mind's sight, when it pictures many, is formed from the same memory by which I remember one. And I remember it as large as I saw it. If I remembered it as larger or smaller than I saw it, I would no longer be remembering what I saw, and so I would not be remembering it at all. Because I do remember it, I remember it as large as I saw it. But in my picturing I can make it greater or smaller, as I wish.

5. And more. I remember it as I saw it. But in my picturing I can have it running its course as I will, or standing still where I will, or coming from wherever I will and going wherever I will. I can picture it square though I remember it round. I can picture it any color I please, though I have never seen a green sun and so do not remember one. As with the sun, so with all other things.

6. The mind's mistake. Because these forms of things are bodily and sensible, the mind falls into error when it imagines them to exist outside in the same way as it pictures them inside. This happens when they have already stopped existing outside but are still kept in the memory. It also happens when what we remember is formed in the mind, not by faithful recollection, but in the shifting ways of thought.

What if someone else tells us?

1. The objection. Very often we believe a true account that others give us, of things the speakers perceived with their own senses. As we hear it, we picture the things told to us. But the eye of the mind does not seem to turn back to the memory to call up pictures in our thoughts. We are not picturing from our own recollection. We are picturing from another person's telling. So the trinity does not seem to be completed here, the one made when the appearance hidden in the memory and the sight of the man who remembers are joined by will as a third. I am not picturing what lay hidden in my memory. I am picturing what I hear, when something is told to me.

2. A word of clarification. I am not speaking of the words of the speaker themselves. I don't want anyone to think I have gone off to that other trinity, the one carried on outside, in sensible things or in the senses. I am speaking of the appearances of material things that the narrator points out to me by words and sounds. I picture these not by remembering but by hearing.

3. The answer: even here we do not step outside the memory. If we look at it more carefully, the limit of the memory is not passed even here. I could not even understand the narrator unless I remembered, in kind, each of the things he is speaking of. That holds even though I am hearing them for the first time joined together in one story.

4. An illustration. Suppose someone describes to me a mountain stripped of timber and covered with olive trees. He is describing it to someone who remembers the appearance of mountains, of timber and of olive trees. If I had forgotten these, I would not know at all what he was speaking about, and so I could not picture his description.

5. The conclusion. So it comes about that anyone who pictures bodily things falls back on his memory. It does not matter whether he imagines something himself, or hears a story of things past, or reads a prophecy of things to come. In the memory he finds the limit and measure of all the forms he gazes at in his thought. No one can picture a color or bodily shape he never saw, or a sound he never heard, or a taste he never tasted, or a scent he never smelled, or any touch of a bodily thing he never felt.

6. A matching limit at each stage. No one pictures anything bodily except what he has perceived through the senses, because no one remembers anything bodily except what he has perceived that way. So, as the limit of perceiving is in bodies, the limit of thinking is in the memory. The sense receives the appearance from the body we perceive. The memory receives it from the sense. And the mental eye of the one picturing receives it from the memory.

The will joins, and the will separates

1. The will applies each to the next. As the will applies the sense to the bodily object, so it applies the memory to the sense, and the eye of the mind of the one picturing to the memory. But the same will that joins these things and brings them together also separates and parts them.

2. It separates the senses from bodies by moving the body. It does this to stop us from perceiving a thing, or so that we cease to perceive it. We turn our eyes away from what we don't want to see, or shut them. We turn our ears away from sounds, our nostrils from smells. We turn away from tastes, by closing the mouth or by spitting the thing out. In touch we either remove the bodily thing so that we do not touch what we don't want to, or, if we were already touching it, we throw it or push it away.

3. The cost of doing it. So the will works through movement of the body, so that the bodily sense is not joined to sensible things. It does this according to its power. When it has to endure hardship in doing so, because of the condition of our slavish mortality, the result is torment. All that is left to the will then is to endure.

4. It separates the memory from the sense. The will turns the memory away from the sense when it is busy with something else and does not let present things stick to it. Anyone can see this. Often we do not seem to ourselves to have heard someone who was speaking to us, because we were thinking of something else.

5. But that is a mistake. We did hear. We do not remember, because the speaker's words slipped out of the hearing of our ears at once. The will's command, which usually fixes them in the memory, was turned elsewhere. So in such a case we ought to say more accurately "we do not remember" than "we did not hear."

6. My own experience. It happens in reading too, and very often to me. I read through a page or a letter, and I do not know what I have read, and I begin it again. The will was fixed on something else, so the memory was not applied to the bodily sense in the way that the sense was applied to the letters.

7. And in walking. Someone who walks with his will intent on something else does not know where he has got to. If he had not seen, he would not have walked there. Or he would have felt his way with greater attention, especially if he was passing through a place he did not know. But because he walked easily, he certainly saw. And because the memory was not applied to the sense in the same way as the sense of the eyes was applied to the places he was passing through, he could not remember even the last thing he saw.

8. And turning away from a thought. To will to turn the eye of the mind away from what is in the memory is nothing else than not to think about it.

Chapter 9: One Appearance Is Born From Another

One appearance is produced from another in succession.

Four forms, born one from another

1. The sequence. In this arrangement we begin from the bodily appearance and arrive at last at the appearance that comes to be in the gaze of the one picturing. Along the way we find four appearances born, so to speak, step by step from one another. The second comes from the first, the third from the second, the fourth from the third.

2. The four. From the appearance of the body itself arises what comes to be in the sense of the one perceiving. From this arises what comes to be in the memory. From this arises what comes to be in the mind's eye of the one picturing.

3. The will joins them three times. The will, then, joins like a parent with its offspring three times over. First, it joins the appearance of the body with what it gives birth to in the sense of the body. Then it joins that with what comes from it in the memory. And third, it joins this with what is born from it in the gaze of the picturing mind.

Which two are most alike?

1. The middle one is closer to the first. The middle combination, the second, is nearer to the first. But it is not as much like the first as the third is.

2. Two kinds of vision. There are two kinds of vision. One belongs to the person who perceives through the senses. The other belongs to the person who pictures in thought.

3. Why a likeness is made in memory. For the vision of thought to come about, something like the vision of perception is worked for that purpose in the memory. The eye of the mind can turn to it when picturing, as the glance of the eyes turns in perceiving to the bodily object.

4. Why I put forward two trinities and not three. So I have chosen to put forward two trinities of this kind. One is when the vision of perception is formed from the bodily object. The other is when the vision of thought is formed from the memory. I have held back from presenting a middle one. We do not usually call it vision when the form that comes to be in the sense of the perceiver is handed over to the memory.

5. The will in every case. In every case the will appears only as the one that combines what is like a parent and what is like an offspring. So, from whatever source it comes, it can be called neither parent nor offspring.

Chapter 10: The Imagination Joins What It Has Seen Separately

The imagination can add, even to things we have not seen, things that we have seen elsewhere.

If we remember only what we perceived, why do we picture false things?

1. The puzzle. If we remember only what we have perceived through the senses, and picture only what we remember, why do we often picture things that are false? We certainly do not remember falsely the things we have perceived.

2. The answer: it is the will. I have taken pains to show, as far as I can, that the will is the one that joins and separates things of this kind. It leads the sight of the one picturing, which is to be formed, through the hidden stores of the memory, as it likes and as it pleases. In order to picture things we do not remember, it urges the mind to take one thing from here and another from there, from among the things we do remember. These things join into one picture, and the result is something we call false. It is false because it does not exist outside in the nature of bodily things. Or it is false because it does not seem copied from the memory, since we do not remember ever having seen such a thing.

3. The black swan. Who ever saw a black swan? So no one remembers a black swan. Yet who cannot picture one? It is easy to apply to the shape we have come to know by seeing it a black color that we have seen in other bodies. Because we have seen both, we remember both.

4. The four-footed bird. In the same way, I do not remember a bird with four feet, because I never saw one. But I can picture it very easily. I add two other feet, such as I have also seen, to some winged shape I have seen.

5. What this shows. When we picture together what we remember having seen one by one, we seem not to be picturing what we remember. In fact we are doing it under the law of the memory, from which we take everything that we join together as we please in many different ways.

Even size and smallness depend on the memory

1. How big we can picture. We do not picture even the sizes of bodies that we have never seen without the help of the memory. The measure of space to which our gaze commonly reaches, through the size of the world, is the measure to which we enlarge the bulk of any bodies when we picture them as great as we can.

2. Reason goes further than the picture. Reason goes on beyond this, but the imagination does not follow. Reason announces, for instance, that number is infinite. No sight of someone picturing things according to bodies can take that in.

3. And the same with the very small. The same reason also teaches that the smallest particles can be divided without end. Yet when we have come to those slight and tiny particles that we remember seeing, we can no longer picture anything finer and tinier. Reason, though, does not stop dividing them.

4. The conclusion. So we picture no bodily things except either those we remember, or things made from those we remember.

Chapter 11: Number, Weight, Measure

Number, weight and measure.

Measure, number and weight in what we have been studying

1. Measure belongs to the memory. The things stamped on the memory one by one can be pictured according to number. So measure seems to belong to the memory, and number to the sight. There is no counting the multitude of such sights. But for each of them a limit is set in the memory, and it cannot be crossed.

2. So the memory has measure, and the sight has number. The same is true of visible bodies themselves. There is a certain measure in them, and the sense of those who see is adjusted to that measure, in number. From one visible object the sight of many onlookers is formed. Even a single person commonly sees a single thing under a double appearance, because of the number of his two eyes, as we said above.

3. In the things the sights are copied from there is measure, and in the sights themselves there is number.

4. And the will is the weight. The will unites and regulates these things and combines them into a certain unity. It does not quietly rest its desire, whether of perceiving or of picturing, except in those things from which the sights are formed. In this it is like weight.

5. A look ahead. I want to point out in advance these three, measure, number and weight, which are to be found in all other things too.

Editor's note: This is from the Wisdom of Solomon (Wisdom 11:20), a book of the Apocrypha that Augustine received as Scripture. It is not part of the ESV Old Testament, so it is not quoted here from the ESV. Augustine himself names only "Holy Scripture" in this passage.

Where we have got to

1. What I have shown. For the time being, I have shown as much as I can, and to the extent I can to those I can reach, that the will is the one that unites the visible thing and the sight. It does so as it were between parent and offspring, whether in perception or in picturing. And it can be called neither parent nor offspring.

2. Time to move inward. So the time has come to look for this same trinity in the inner man. We have to press on to pass inward from that animal and fleshly man, called the outer man, of whom I have spoken for so long. There we hope to find an image of God according to the Trinity. We hope God himself will help our efforts. As things themselves show, and as Holy Scripture also witnesses, he has arranged all things in measure, number and weight.

Book Twelve: Wisdom and Knowledge, and Where the Image of God Is Not Yet Found

In this book Augustine starts by separating wisdom from knowledge. Then he points to a kind of trinity of a particular sort in what is properly called knowledge, which is the lower of the two. That trinity certainly belongs to the inner man. But it is still not to be called, or thought of as, the image of God. Along the way he refuses a popular reading that finds the Trinity in a husband, a wife and their child. He explains what Paul means when he says the man is the image of God and the woman is the glory of the man. He traces how the soul slides down from its likeness to God to the likeness of the beasts, step by step. And he promises to look for a trinity in knowledge in the next book.

Chapter 1: Where the Outer Man Ends and the Inner Man Begins

What the outer man is, and what the inner man is.

Finding the boundary line

1. Come now, and let us see where the line lies. Where is the boundary between the outer man and the inner man? Here is a simple test. Whatever we have in the mind in common with the beasts rightly belongs to the outer man.

2. The outer man is more than the body. We should not think of the outer man as the body alone. We must add to it a certain peculiar life of the body, from which the body's structure gets its vigor. We must add all the senses with which he is equipped to perceive outward things. And when the images of these outward things, already perceived and fixed in the memory, are seen again by recollection, that is still a matter for the outer man.

3. In all this we are no different from the beasts. The only difference is the shape of the body. They are bent forward, and we are upright.

What the upright body is telling us

1. A warning from our Maker. The upright body admonishes us, through the one who made us. We are not to be like the beasts in our better part, which is the mind, even though we differ from them by the uprightness of the body.

2. It does not mean throwing the mind at high bodily things. Seeking rest for the will even among bodily things that are lofty is still to prostrate the mind.

3. It means the same thing for the mind that it means for the body. The body is naturally raised upright toward the most elevated of bodily things, which are the heavens. In the same way the mind, which is a spiritual substance, must be raised upright toward the most elevated of spiritual things. It is not raised by the swelling of pride. It is raised by the dutifulness of righteousness.

Chapter 2: Only Man Perceives the Eternal Reasons of Bodily Things

Of all living creatures, man alone perceives the eternal reasons of the things that belong to the body.

What the beasts can do

1. A good deal. The beasts too can perceive bodily things from outside, through the senses of the body. They can fix them in the memory and remember them. And in them they can look for what suits them and shun what doesn't.

What goes beyond the beasts

1. Deliberate noting. To take note of these things, and to keep them, is more than catching them up naturally. It means committing them to memory on purpose.

2. Pressing them back in as they slip away. When these things are just slipping into forgetfulness, we can press them in again by recollection and thought. So, just as thought is formed from what the memory holds, the contents of the memory are themselves fixed firmly by thought.

3. Combining pictures. We can also join imaginary things that we have seen, by taking this and that from what the memory holds and, as it were, tacking them to one another.

4. Telling the true from what only looks true. We can examine how things that are like the truth are to be told apart from the truth. And this we do not only with spiritual things, but with bodily things themselves.

5. Reason is mixed into all of this. These acts, and others like them, are performed in reference to sensible things and to what the mind has drawn from them through the bodily senses. But because they are combined with reason, they are not shared between men and beasts.

The higher reason

1. Judging bodily things by bodiless and eternal reasons. The part of us that belongs to the higher reason judges these bodily things according to reasons that are not bodily and that are eternal. Unless those reasons were above the human mind, they would certainly not be unchangeable.

2. And yet something of our own is joined to them. Unless something of our own were added to them, we could not use them as our measures for judging bodily things. For example, we judge bodily things by the rule of dimensions and figures, which the mind knows to remain the same for ever.

Chapter 3: The Higher Reason and the Lower Reason Are in One Mind

The higher reason, which belongs to contemplation, and the lower, which belongs to action, are in one mind.

The part of us that handles earthly things

1. It is rational, but it is a branch. The part of us that handles bodily and temporal things is rational, because we do not share it with the beasts. But it is drawn, as it were, out of that rational substance of our mind by which we depend on, and cling to, the truth that can be understood and that never changes. It has been given the job of handling and directing the lower things.

2. The helper. Think of the beginning of the human story. Among all the beasts there was not found for the man "a helper fit for him" (Genesis 2:20, ESV), unless one was taken from himself and formed to be his partner. In the same way, in the mind by which we consult the truth above and within, there is no like helper for the work that man's nature requires among bodily things, if we look among the parts of the soul that we have in common with the beasts.

3. So a part of our reason is set aside. It is not cut off, as if the unity were broken. It is, so to speak, turned aside to be a help to fellowship, and it is parted off to do its own proper work.

Two in one mind

1. A picture from marriage. Male and female are two who become one flesh. In the same way, in the mind, one nature embraces our understanding and our action. You may call them counsel and carrying out, or reason and rational appetite, or whatever other more telling names you like.

2. The words that fit. It was said of the first pair, "they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24, ESV). So it may be said of these two, that they are in one mind.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "they two shall be in one flesh." The ESV has "they shall become one flesh." The sense is the same, and the ESV is printed here.

Chapter 4: The Image of God Is in the Part That Contemplates Eternal Things

The trinity, and the image of God, is in that part of the mind alone that belongs to the contemplation of eternal things.

One mind, two jobs

1. We are talking about a single thing. When we discuss the nature of the human mind, we are discussing one subject. We do not double it into those two parts, except in respect of their jobs.

2. So we search the whole mind for the trinity. When we seek the trinity in the mind, we seek it in the whole mind. We do not separate the working of reason on temporal things from the contemplation of eternal things. If we did, we would have to look for some third thing to complete the trinity.

3. A test. This trinity must be found in the whole nature of the mind in such a way that, even if we took away the action upon temporal things, a trinity would still be found in the one mind. That action is the work for which the help is needed, and for which a part of the mind is turned aside to deal with these lower things. The mind itself is nowhere parted off.

Where the image is found

1. After the division is made. Suppose the distribution has already been made, so that one part contemplates eternal things and the other deals with temporal things. Then a trinity can be found, and not only a trinity but an image of God, in the part alone that belongs to the contemplation of eternal things.

2. In the other part, a trinity but no image. In the part that has been turned aside to deal with temporal things, there may be a trinity. But there cannot be found an image of God.

Chapter 5: A Popular Opinion: The Trinity in Husband, Wife and Child

The opinion that pictures an image of the Trinity in the marriage of male and female, and in their offspring.

What some people say

1. The idea. Some people claim that the trinity of the image of God in three persons can be found, as far as human nature goes, in the marriage of male and female and in their offspring. The man, they say, shows forth the person of the Father. The one who has proceeded from him by being born shows forth the Son. The third person, the Spirit, is the woman. She came forth from the man in such a way as to be neither son nor daughter, although the offspring was born by her conceiving.

2. The one part that holds up. The Lord has said of the Holy Spirit that he "proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV), and yet the Spirit is not a son. In this mistaken view, the only point with any probability, and one well shown by the faith of Holy Scripture, is in the account of the woman's creation. What comes from some person in such a way as to make another person cannot in every case be called a son. The woman came into existence from the man, and yet she is not called his daughter.

3. Everything else in it is absurd. All the rest of this opinion is so absurd, indeed so false, that it is very easy to refute.

An objection I set aside

1. I pass over a crude point. I will not make much of the idea that the Holy Spirit would then be the mother of the Son of God and the wife of the Father. Someone might answer that these things only offend us because we think of bodily conceiving and bearing. Pure minds think of such things very chastely. "To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled" (Titus 1:15, ESV). That is how even Christ, born of a virgin according to the flesh, is a stumbling block to some of them.

2. Higher things don't suffer from our words. In the case of the supreme spiritual things, the lower creatures are made after their likeness, though very remotely. In those supreme things nothing can be injured, nothing is corruptible, nothing is born in time, and nothing is formed from what is formless. Expressions like these ought not to disturb anyone's sober prudence, as though in avoiding empty disgust he might run into harmful error.

A habit to build

1. Find traces of spiritual things in bodily things. Let a person get used to finding in bodily things the traces of spiritual things. Then, when he begins to ascend from there under the guidance of reason, to reach the unchangeable truth through which these things were made, he will not drag up with him to the things above what he despises in the things below.

2. An example: wisdom as a wife. No one ever blushed to choose wisdom as a wife for himself. That is not because the name of wife brings to a man's mind the corruptible union of begetting children, and it is not because wisdom is a woman by sex, though the word for it in both Greek and Latin is feminine. Neither of these makes anyone blush.

Chapter 6: Why We Reject This Opinion

Why the opinion is to be rejected.

Not because of the Spirit's dignity

1. Not for that reason. We do not reject this opinion because we fear to think of that holy, inviolable and unchangeable Love as the spouse of God the Father. That Love is from him, but not as an offspring, so as to beget the Word by whom all things are made.

2. But because Scripture shows it to be false. God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26, ESV). A little later it is said that God created man "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read, "So God created man in the image of God." The ESV reads, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him." The ESV does say "in his own image" where his Latin did not. His whole remark below, "It does not say 'in his own image,'" rests on the Latin wording, so the ESV cannot carry it. The ESV is given where he quotes the verse in full, and his argument is given from his own text.

The argument from "our"

1. "Our" is plural. The word "our" would not be used rightly if man had been made in the image of one person, whether the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit. But he was made in the image of the Trinity. That is why it is said, "after our image."

2. And yet it is "the image of God." Lest we should think that the Trinity means believing in three Gods, since the same Trinity is one God, it is said, "God created man in the image of God." It does not say "in his own image." (That is the wording of the Latin Bible I am using; see the note above.)

This is how Scripture talks

1. A warning against a common mistake. Such ways of speaking are common in the Scriptures. Yet some people who are defending the Catholic faith do not look at them carefully. They think the words, "God made man in the image of God," mean that the Father made man after the image of the Son. In this way they hope to assert that the Son also is called God in the divine Scriptures. They act as if there were no other clear and most true proofs where the Son is called not only God but the true God.

2. They tangle themselves up. They try to solve a different difficulty in this text, and they get so tied up that they cannot untie themselves.

3. Why their view fails. Suppose the Father made man after the image of the Son, so that man is not the image of the Father but of the Son. Then the Son would be unlike the Father. But a godly faith teaches, as it does, that the Son is like the Father in equality of essence. So what is made in the likeness of the Son must also be made in the likeness of the Father.

4. The plural "our" shows it too. If the Father made man not in his own image but in the image of his Son, why does he not say, "Let us make man after your image and likeness"? He says "our." The reason is that the image of the Trinity was made in man. In that way man should be the image of the one true God, because the Trinity itself is the one true God.

Other places that speak the same way

There are countless expressions like this in the Scriptures. A few will be enough.

1. Psalm 3. "Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people!" (Psalm 3:8, ESV). It is as if the words were spoken to someone else, when they were spoken to the very one of whom it had just been said, "Salvation belongs to the LORD."

2. Psalm 18. "For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall" (Psalm 18:29, ESV). He says "by you" as though to one person, and "my God" as though of another, yet it is the same God.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read, "For by you I shall be delivered from temptation, and by hoping in my God I shall leap over the wall." The ESV reads differently in its first half. His point, that the writer turns from speaking about God to speaking to him as though to another, holds in the ESV as well.

3. Psalm 45. "Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; the peoples fall under you" (Psalm 45:5, ESV). It is as if he had said, "in the heart of your enemies." He had been speaking to that King, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he said, "the peoples fall under you." And he meant the same King when he said, "the king's enemies."

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin spoke of "the people" in the singular, and the ESV has "the peoples." The point is not affected.

In the New Testament too

Things of this kind are found more rarely in the New Testament. But the apostle says to the Romans that the gospel is "concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 1:3–4, ESV). It is as though he were speaking of someone else above.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead of Jesus Christ our Lord." The "of Jesus Christ" is attached to each phrase in his text, and that is what his argument leans on. The ESV, which is printed here, puts the name once at the end.

1. What is meant. What is meant by "the Son of God declared" by "the resurrection of the dead of Jesus Christ"? Only the same Jesus Christ who was declared the Son of God with power.

2. The point. In this passage we are told "the Son of God with power of Jesus Christ," or "the Son of God according to the spirit of holiness of Jesus Christ," or "the Son of God by the resurrection of the dead of Jesus Christ." It might have been put in the usual way: "in his own power," or "according to the spirit of his own holiness," or "by the resurrection of his own dead," or "of their dead." Yet we are not forced to understand another person. We understand one and the same person, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. The application. So also, when we are told that "God made man in the image of God," it might have been more usual to say, "after his own image." Yet we are not forced to understand any other person in the Trinity. We understand the one and selfsame Trinity, who is one God, and after whose image man is made.

A further difficulty for the husband, wife and child view

1. Man would not yet have been made in God's image. If we accept the image of the Trinity as being not in one human being but in three, father, mother and son, then the man was not made after the image of God before a wife was made for him and before they had a son. There was not yet a trinity.

2. The reply, and what's wrong with it. Will someone say there was already a trinity, though not yet in its proper form, because the woman was already in the man's side, and the son already in his father's loins? Then why, when Scripture had said "God made man after the image of God," did it go on to say, "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27, ESV), and then "And God blessed them" (Genesis 1:28, ESV)?

3. The punctuation. Or perhaps it should be divided like this: "And God created man," and then "in the image of God he created him," and in the third place, "male and female he created them." Some people have been afraid to say "he made him male and female," lest something monstrous be understood, like those people they call hermaphrodites. Even so, both would be rightly understood in the singular, because of the saying "two in one flesh."

4. The question stands. Why, as I began by asking, in speaking of the nature of man made after the image of God, does Scripture name nothing but male and female? If the image of the Trinity is to be completed, it ought to have added a son too, though still in his father's loins, as the woman was in his side.

5. A possible answer, and why it fails. Perhaps the woman had already been made, and Scripture combined in a short statement what it was going to explain afterward more carefully, how it was done. So no son could be mentioned, since no son had yet been born. But could the Holy Spirit not have included that too in the brief statement, while intending to tell of the son's birth afterward in its own place? Later in its own place it tells that the woman was taken from the man's side (compare Genesis 2:22; this reference is the editor's, not Augustine's), and yet it has not left her out here.

Chapter 7: How Man Is the Image of God, and What of the Woman?

How man is the image of God. Whether the woman is not also the image of God. How the apostle's saying that the man is the image of God and the woman the glory of the man is to be understood figuratively and mystically.

The image is not in three human beings

1. A plain conclusion. So we should not understand man to be made in the image of the supreme Trinity, the image of God, as though that same image were found in three human beings. This is especially so when the apostle says that the man is the image of God and, for that reason, takes the covering from his head, which he warns the woman to use. He says, "For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man" (1 Corinthians 11:7, ESV).

2. The puzzle that raises. What shall we say to this? If the woman fills up the image of the trinity in her own person, why is the man still called that image after she has been taken out of his side? Or suppose even one person out of three can be called the image of God, as each person is God in the supreme Trinity itself. Why is the woman not also the image of God? She is instructed for that very reason to cover her head, which he is forbidden to do because he is the image of God.

Two texts that don't contradict

1. Genesis. What the apostle says, that the man and not the woman is the image of God, is not contrary to what is written in Genesis: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27, ESV). The ESV here has "in his own image" before this clause, which Augustine's Latin did not have, so it is the second clause that he is quoting. That text says that human nature itself, which is complete in both sexes, was made in the image of God. It does not separate the woman from the image of God that it speaks of.

2. The wording. After saying that God made man in the image of God, it says "he created him." Then it says, "male and female." Or, punctuating the words another way, "male and female he created them."

3. So how can the apostle say what he says? How can he say that the man is the image of God, and so is forbidden to cover his head, while the woman is not, and so is commanded to cover hers?

The answer: the same mind, seen in two ways

1. The woman together with her husband is the image of God. I said this already when I was treating the nature of the human mind. Together with her husband, she is the image of God, so that the whole substance may be one image.

2. Looked at on her own, as a helper. When she is referred to separately, in her character as helper, which concerns the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God. But the man alone is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman is joined with him in one.

3. The same as with the mind. We said the same of the nature of the human mind. In the case where the mind as a whole contemplates the truth, it is the image of God. In the case where something is divided from it and turned aside to the knowledge of temporal things, it is still the image of God on the side on which it looks at truth and consults it. But on the side on which it is directed to the knowledge of lower things, it is not the image of God.

4. Why the man should not cover his head. The mind is formed more fully after the image of God the more it stretches itself out toward what is eternal. So it ought not to be held back, so as to refrain from going there. That is why the man ought not to cover his head.

5. Why the woman should. But going too far toward lower things is dangerous to the reasoning knowledge that deals with bodily and temporal things. This part ought to have power on its head. The covering shows that it should be restrained. A holy and godly meaning like this is pleasing to the holy angels. God does not see in the way of time. Nothing new happens in his vision and knowledge when something is done in time and passes away, in the way such things affect the senses. That holds for the fleshly senses of animals and men, and even for the heavenly senses of the angels.

A mystery behind the words

1. Paul is speaking of something deeper than the sexes. When the apostle Paul speaks openly of the sex of male and female, he is figuring the mystery of a more hidden truth. You can see that from another place. He says that a widow indeed is one who is left alone, without children or grandchildren, and that she ought to hope in God and continue in prayers night and day (see 1 Timothy 5:5, ESV). Here he indicates that the woman, who was brought into transgression by being deceived (1 Timothy 2:14, ESV), is brought to salvation by childbearing. Then he adds, "she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control" (1 Timothy 2:15, ESV).

2. A strange condition if read plainly. Could it possibly hurt a good widow if she had no sons? Or if the sons she had did not choose to continue in good works?

3. What it must mean. Good works are, as it were, the sons of our life. By "life" I mean the sense in which it answers the question, "What is a man's life?" That is, "How does he act in these temporal things?" The Greeks do not call that life zoe but bios. These good works are mostly done as acts of mercy. And acts of mercy are of no profit to pagans, or to Jews who do not believe in Christ, or to any heretics or schismatics in whom faith, love and sober holiness are not found.

4. The conclusion. What the apostle meant to signify is plain, and it is figurative and mystical. He was speaking of covering the woman's head, which would be only empty words unless it is referred to some hidden sacrament.

Man is the image according to the mind, not the body

1. Reason and the apostle agree. Not only the truest reason but the apostle's own authority declares that man was not made in the image of God according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational mind. It is a low and empty thought that holds God to be confined and limited by the lines of bodily limbs.

2. Paul on renewal. Does the same blessed apostle not say, "to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God" (Ephesians 4:23–24, ESV)? And in another place, more plainly, "you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV).

3. The conclusion no one can doubt. If we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and the new self is the one renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, then no one can doubt that man was made after the image of his creator. He was not made so according to the body. He was not made so according to just any part of the mind. He was made so according to the rational mind, in which the knowledge of God can exist.

4. The same renewal makes us sons of God. It is according to this renewal that we are made sons of God by the baptism of Christ. In putting on the new self, we put on Christ through faith.

Women are in this fellowship

1. Who would shut them out? Who will think women alien to this fellowship, when they are joint heirs of grace with us? In another place the same apostle says, "for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26–28, ESV).

2. Have faithful women lost their sex? Of course they have not. But they are renewed after the image of God where there is no sex. And man too is made after the image of God where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind.

3. Why then the covering? Why is the man not bound to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, while the woman is bound to do so, because she is the glory of the man? As though the woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator!

4. The answer. Because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it was possible rightly to represent, under her bodily covering, that part of reason that is turned aside to the government of temporal things. So the image of God remains on that side of the mind of man on which it clings to the beholding or consulting of the eternal reasons of things. And that side, it is clear, belongs not to men only but to women also.

Chapter 8: Turning Aside From the Image of God

How the mind turns aside from the image of God.

One mind in two persons' clothing

1. Common nature, divided figure. So a common nature is recognized in the minds of men and women. But in their bodies, a division of that one mind is figured.

2. Climbing inward. Let us go up step by step within, along the succession of the parts of the mind. At the point where something first meets us that we do not share with the beasts, reason begins. Here the inner man can now be recognized.

What happens when the inner man slips

1. He slips too far outward. Suppose this inner man, through that reason to which the care of temporal things has been handed over, slips on too far, with too much progress into outward things.

2. And his head consents. Suppose his head consents, that is, the part we may call the masculine part, which presides in the watchtower of counsel. Suppose it does not restrain or rein the slipping in.

3. Then he grows old. In his words he "has grown old because of all his enemies"; the ESV has "it grows weak because of all my foes" (Psalm 6:7, ESV). His foes are the demons with their prince the devil, who envy virtue.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "he has grown old among all his enemies." The ESV has "it grows weak because of all my foes." The ESV loses "old" and changes the person, and Augustine's point is the old man of the next sections. The ESV is printed.

4. The vision of eternal things is withdrawn. It is withdrawn even from the head himself, who has eaten with his spouse what was forbidden. So "the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me" (Psalm 38:10, ESV).

5. Both are naked. Both are stripped of the light that shows the truth. The eyes of their conscience are opened, and they see how shameful and unseemly they have been left. They are like the leaves of sweet fruits, without the fruits themselves. This is Augustine's allusion to the fig leaves of Genesis 3:7 (compare Genesis 3:7); the verse itself is not quoted by him.

6. What the leaves stand for. They weave together good words without the fruit of good works. While living wickedly, they cover over their disgrace, as it were, by speaking well.

Chapter 9: The Same Argument, Carried On

The same argument continued.

How pride begins

1. The soul loves its own power. The soul slips from the whole, which is common to all, into a part, which belongs especially to itself.

2. The apostate pride. That pride which turns away from God is called "the beginning of sin." It might have been ruled in the best possible way by the laws of God, if it had followed him as its ruler in the whole creation. Instead it seeks something more than the whole, and struggles to govern it by a law of its own.

Editor's note: "The beginning of sin" is from Sirach 10:13 (Ecclesiasticus), a book of the Apocrypha that Augustine received as Scripture. It is not in the ESV Old Testament, so no ESV wording is quoted here.

3. The result. Since nothing is more than the whole, it is pushed into caring for a part. And so, by lusting after something more, it is made less. That is why covetousness is called "the root of all evil," as his text has it. The ESV has "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" (1 Timothy 6:10, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's argument turns on "the root" and on covetousness as lusting after more. The ESV's "a root" and "the love of money" are narrower, so his wording is given beside it.

How it makes its way down

1. It governs the whole by its own body. The soul tries to administer that whole, in which it strives to do something of its own against the laws by which the whole is governed. It does so by means of its own body, which it holds only in part.

2. It is pleased by bodily forms and motions. It does not have these things within itself. It is wrapped up in their images, which it has fixed in the memory. And it is foully polluted by a kind of fornication of the imagination.

3. Everything is referred to those ends. It refers all its work to the ends for which it curiously seeks bodily and temporal things through the senses of the body.

4. Two ways down. Either it takes on a swelling arrogance, to be more excellent than other souls that are given over to the bodily senses. Or it is plunged into a foul whirlpool of carnal pleasure.

Chapter 10: The Lowest Degradation Is Reached by Degrees

The lowest degradation is reached by degrees.

When the soul does well

1. A soul with a good will. The soul may consult, either for itself or for others, with a good will toward perceiving the inner and higher things. These are things held in a chaste embrace, without any narrowness or envy. They are held not individually but in common by all who love such things.

2. Even if it errs. Even if it is deceived in something, through ignorance of temporal things, because its action here is a temporal one, and it does not hold to the way of acting it ought to, "no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man" (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV).

3. It is a great thing to pass through this life that way. This life is like a road on which we travel as we return home. It is a great thing to go through it so that no temptation takes us except what is common to man.

4. A sin outside the body. This is a sin that is outside the body (compare 1 Corinthians 6:18, ESV). It is not to be reckoned as fornication, and so it is very easily pardoned.

When the soul does badly

1. The turn. The soul may do something in order to reach the things perceived through the body. It does so through a lust to try them, or to excel in them, or to handle them. It wants to place its final good in them.

2. What follows. Then whatever it does, it does wickedly, and it commits fornication, like one who "sins against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18, ESV). While it snatches up from within the deceitful images of bodily things and combines them by vain thought, nothing seems to it to be divine unless it is of that kind. Through selfish greediness it is made fruitful in errors. Through selfish extravagance it is emptied of strength.

3. But it does not get there at once. It would not leap at one bound from the start to such shameless and miserable fornication. As it is written, whoever despises small things will fall little by little.

Editor's note: This saying is from Sirach 19:1 (Ecclesiasticus), a book of the Apocrypha that Augustine received as Scripture. It is not in the ESV Old Testament, so no ESV wording is quoted here.

Chapter 11: The Likeness of the Beast in Man

The image of the beast in man.

The snake that does not creep with open steps

1. The picture. A snake does not creep along with open steps. It advances by the tiniest effort of its separate scales. In the same way the slippery motion of falling away from what is good takes hold of the careless only a little at a time.

2. The start and the end. It begins from a perverse desire for the likeness of God. It arrives in the end at the likeness of beasts.

3. The garments. That is why, being naked of their first garment, they earned, by mortality, "garments of skins" (Genesis 3:21, ESV).

The honor of man and its loss

1. True honor. The true honor of man is the image and likeness of God. That is not kept unless it is held in relation to the one who stamps it on us. So the less a person loves what is his own, the more he cleaves to God.

2. The wish to test his own power. By his own bidding, through this desire, man falls down to himself, as to a kind of middle step. And so, while he wishes to be as God is, that is, under no one, he is pushed down, as a punishment, even from his own middle step to the lowest, to the things that beasts delight in.

3. Honor and dishonor. His honor is the likeness of God. His dishonor is the likeness of the beast. "Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish" (Psalm 49:12, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text read, "Man being in honor abideth not: he is compared to the foolish beasts, and is made like to them." The ESV has "pomp," "will not remain," and "like the beasts that perish." His argument needs "honor" against dishonor, and "is made like to them." The ESV is printed here.

4. How could he fall so far? By what path could he pass so great a distance, from the highest to the lowest, except through his own middle step?

Why the middle step is the road

1. He neglects wisdom. Wisdom remains always in the same way. When man neglects the love of it, he lusts after knowledge gained by experiment on temporal and changeable things. "This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1, ESV).

2. The mind is weighed down. The mind is overweighted and, as it were, thrust out by its own weight from blessedness. It learns by its own punishment, through trying its own middle position, the difference between the good it has abandoned and the bad it has handed itself over to.

3. It cannot come back by its own strength. Having thrown away and destroyed its strength, it cannot return, unless the grace of its Maker calls it to repentance and forgives its sins. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24, ESV). The answer is nothing other than the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text of the answer reads "the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and his point is the grace. The ESV answers "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25), which loses the word "grace."

4. A promise. We will speak of that grace in its place, as far as he himself enables us.

Chapter 12: A Hidden Marriage in the Inner Man

There is a kind of hidden marriage in the inner man. The unlawful pleasures of thought.

Where we are going next

1. The task. Let us now complete, as far as the Lord helps us, the discussion we undertook. It is about that part of reason that belongs to knowledge. That is the awareness of temporal and changeable things, necessary for managing the affairs of this life.

The garden and the single person

1. In the visible marriage. In the visible marriage of the first two human beings, the serpent did not eat of the forbidden tree. He only persuaded them to eat of it. The woman did not eat alone. She gave to her husband, and they ate together. Yet she alone spoke with the serpent, and she alone was led away by him.

2. In the hidden marriage within one person. So it is in the hidden and secret kind of marriage that goes on and is seen in a single human being. The fleshly movement of the soul, which is directed toward the senses of the body, is common to us with the beasts. It is shut off from the reason of wisdom. Bodily things are perceived by the sense of the body. But spiritual things, which are eternal and unchangeable, are understood by the reason of wisdom.

3. The reason of knowledge is near to appetite. What is called the knowledge of actions reasons about the bodily things perceived by the bodily sense. If it reasons well, it refers that knowledge to the end of the chief good. If it reasons badly, it enjoys these things as good things in which it can rest with a false blessedness.

Three stages in the fall of a thought

1. The serpent talks with the woman. Suppose the fleshly sense brings into the mind's purpose, the purpose that deals with temporal and bodily things for the work of a man's actions, some inducement to enjoy itself. Not as the public and common good, which is the unchangeable one, but as if it were some private good of its own. That is when, as it were, the serpent discourses with the woman. And to consent to this allurement is to eat of the forbidden tree.

2. The woman alone eats. Suppose the consent is satisfied by the pleasure of thought alone, but the members are held back by the authority of a higher counsel, so that they are not given over as "instruments for unrighteousness" (Romans 6:13, ESV). That, I think, is as if the woman alone had eaten the forbidden food.

3. She gives it to her husband. But suppose that, in this consent to use wickedly the things perceived through the senses of the body, some sin is so decided upon that if there is the power, it is also carried out by the body. Then we must understand that the woman gave the forbidden food to her husband to be eaten together with her. The mind cannot decide that a sin is not only to be thought of with pleasure but also actually committed, unless the intention of the mind that has the chief power of applying the members to an outward act, or holding them back from one, yields and serves the bad action.

Even a sin of thought alone is a sin

1. It cannot be denied. When the mind is pleased in thought alone with unlawful things, it is not deciding that they are to be done. But it is holding and pondering with gladness what ought to have been thrown out the very moment it touched the mind. This cannot be denied to be a sin. It is far less than if it were also decided to carry it out in outward act.

2. So we ask pardon. Pardon has to be asked for such thoughts too. The breast must be struck, and it must be said, "forgive us our debts." And what follows must be done and joined to the prayer: "as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12, ESV).

3. The first two were two persons; this is one. With the first two human beings, each bore his own person. If the woman alone had eaten the forbidden food, she alone would have been struck with death. But we can't say the same of one human being now. Suppose the thought, left on its own, is gladly fed on unlawful pleasures, from which it should turn away at once. Suppose there is no decision that the bad actions are to be done, only that they are kept with pleasure in the memory. We cannot say that the woman, as it were, can be condemned without the man. Far be it from us to believe this.

4. One person, condemned or pardoned as a whole. Here is one person, one human being. He as a whole will be condemned, unless those things that are perceived as sins of thought alone, where there is no will to do them but there is a will to please the mind with them, are pardoned through the grace of the Mediator.

How to take all this

1. The history is safe. I have sought in the mind of each human being a kind of reasoning marriage of contemplation and action, with the work divided between them, and yet with the unity of the mind kept in both. This leaves untouched the truth of the history that the divine testimony hands down about the first two human beings, the man and his wife, from whom the human race is descended.

2. How far the argument goes. This reasoning is to be listened to only this far. The apostle can be understood to have meant to signify something to be sought in one individual man, by giving the image of God to the man only, and not also to the woman, though in the merely different sex of two human beings.

Chapter 13: Those Who Took the Man for the Mind and the Woman for the Bodily Sense

The opinion of those who thought that the mind was signified by the man, and the bodily sense by the woman.

What earlier writers said

1. They saw the same two things in one person. I am aware that some who came before us were eminent defenders of the Catholic faith and expounders of the word of God. They looked for these two things in one human being, whose whole soul they saw as a kind of excellent paradise. They said that the man was the mind and the woman was the bodily sense.

2. How well it fits. On this division, with the man taken as mind and the woman as bodily sense, everything seems to agree well, if handled with care.

3. Except for one thing. It is written that among all the beasts and flying creatures there was not found for man a helper like himself. Then the woman was made out of his side (see Genesis 2:20–22, ESV).

Why I have not taken it that way

1. I looked for something the beasts lack. I have not thought that the bodily sense should be taken for the woman, since we see that the sense is common to ourselves and the beasts. I wanted to find something the beasts did not have.

2. The serpent is the better figure. I have rather thought that the bodily sense should be understood as the serpent, which we read was "more crafty than any other beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1, ESV). In those natural good things that we share with the irrational animals, the sense excels by a kind of living power.

3. Not the sense Hebrews speaks of. I do not mean the senses of which Hebrews speaks: "solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil" (Hebrews 5:14, ESV). Those belong to the reasoning nature, and they have to do with understanding. I mean that sense which is divided into five parts in the body, through which bodily form and motion are perceived, not only by ourselves but by the beasts.

What matters most

1. However the apostle's words are taken. Whether what the apostle says, that the man is the image and glory of God and the woman the glory of the man, is to be taken this way or that or some other, one thing is clear. When we live according to God, our mind that is intent on his invisible things ought to be shaped, as it makes progress, by his eternity, truth and love.

2. Something of our own reasoning is directed to using things that change. Some part of our own rational purpose, that is, of that same mind, has to be directed to using changeable and bodily things. Without them this life does not go on.

3. But not so that we are conformed to this world. We must not place our end in such good things, or push our desire of blessedness toward them. "Do not be conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2, ESV). Whatever we do rationally in using temporal things, we must do with an eye on reaching eternal things. We pass through the former, and we cling to the latter.

Chapter 14: Wisdom and Knowledge

The difference between wisdom and knowledge. The worship of God is the love of him. How the understanding of eternal things comes about through wisdom.

Knowledge has its own good measure

1. When knowledge is rightly kept. Knowledge too has its own good measure, if what in it puffs up, or is apt to puff up, is conquered by the love of eternal things. That love does not puff up. As we know, it builds up. "This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1, ESV).

2. We can't do without it. Without knowledge the virtues themselves cannot be had, the virtues by which we live rightly. By them this miserable life may be so governed that we reach that eternal life that is truly blessed.

Wisdom and knowledge distinguished

1. Two different things. Action, by which we use temporal things well, differs from the contemplation of eternal things. The contemplation is reckoned to wisdom, the action to knowledge.

2. Wisdom can also be called knowledge. The apostle speaks this way when he says, "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). Without a doubt he meant these words to be understood of the knowledge of the contemplation of God, which will be the highest reward of the saints.

3. But he distinguishes them elsewhere. Where he says, "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:8, ESV), he certainly distinguishes these two. But he does not explain the difference there, or how one may be told from the other.

What Job says

1. A passage from Job. I have examined a great number of passages in the Holy Scriptures. I find it written in the book of Job, with that holy man as the speaker: "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding" (Job 28:28, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's text read "Behold, piety, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is knowledge." He notes that the Greek manuscripts have the word theosebeia, which means the worship of God. His argument leans on both words, "piety" for the first half and "knowledge" for the second. The ESV, which is printed here, has "fear of the Lord" and "understanding." Keep in mind that Augustine takes the first half as the worship of God and the second as the knowledge that avoids evil.

2. How we are to read it. From this distinction we must understand that wisdom belongs to contemplation and knowledge to action. Here, he meant by "piety" the worship of God, which in Greek is called theosebeia. The Greek manuscripts have that word.

3. The worship of God is the love of him. What is there among eternal things more excellent than God, whose nature alone is unchangeable? And what is the worship of him except the love of him? By that love we now desire to see him. We believe and hope that we shall see him. And, as we make progress, we see now "in a mirror dimly," but then "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). (Augustine's Latin read "through a glass in an enigma," a word he leans on in the later books.) That is what the apostle Paul means by "face to face."

4. John says the same. "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

5. Which kind of talk belongs here. To speak about these and similar things seems to me to be the very discourse of wisdom.

And what belongs to knowledge

1. Departing from evil. To depart from evil, which Job says is knowledge, is without doubt a matter of temporal things. It is in reference to time and this world that we are in evil, and we must abstain from it to come to those good eternal things.

2. So all prudent action is knowledge. Whatever we do prudently, bravely, temperately and justly belongs to that knowledge, or discipline, by which our action deals with avoiding evil and desiring good.

3. And so is what we learn by inquiry. It includes whatever we gather by the knowledge that comes from inquiry. That means examples to guard against or to imitate, and necessary proofs on any subject, fitted to our use.

Two kinds of discourse

1. Knowledge. When a discourse deals with these things, I hold it to belong to knowledge.

2. Wisdom. That is to be distinguished from a discourse belonging to wisdom. That has to do with things that neither have been nor shall be, but are. On account of the eternity in which they are, they are said to have been, and to be, and to be about to be, without any changeableness of times.

3. What that means. They have not been in such a way as to have ceased to be. They are not about to be as though they were not now. They have always had, and always will have, that very absolute being.

How eternal things "stay"

1. They stay, but not in a place. They abide, but not as if fixed in some place, like bodies. They are intelligible things in a nature with no body. They are as close at hand to the glance of the mind as visible or tangible things in place are to the bodily sense.

2. Reasons without place or time. It is not only of sensible things set in place that there abide understandable and bodiless reasons, apart from space. Of movements that pass in successive times, too, there stand like reasons, apart from any passing in time. These are themselves understandable, not sensible.

3. Reaching them is rare and brief. To attain to these with the eye of the mind is the lot of few. And when they are attained as far as can be, the one who attains them does not stay in them. He is, as it were, driven back by the rebound of the mind's eye itself. So there comes to be a passing thought of a thing that does not pass.

How the passing thought is kept

1. The thought is entrusted to memory. Even so, this passing thought is committed to the memory through the teaching by which the mind is instructed. In that way the mind, which is forced to pass away from there, may be able to return again.

2. If it did not return to memory. Suppose the thought did not come back to the memory and find there what it had committed to it. It would be led there like an untaught person, as it had been led before. It would find it where it first found it, that is, in that bodiless truth. There it may again, as it were, be written down and fixed in the mind.

3. An example from geometry. Man's thought does not stay in the bodiless and unchangeable reason of a square body in the way that reason itself stays. That is, if it could reach it at all without a picture of space.

4. An example from music. Or suppose someone grasped the rhythm of some artful or musical sound, passing through certain stretches of time, as it rests without time in a deep and secret silence. It could be thought only as long as that song could be heard. Yet what the glance of the mind, passing though it was, caught from there, taking it in as if into a belly, it so laid up in the memory. Over this it will be able to ruminate, in some measure, by recollection, and to carry what it has so learned over into systematic knowledge.

5. If even that is forgotten. If this has been wiped out by complete forgetfulness, then once more, under the guidance of teaching, one will come to what had dropped away entirely, and it will be found as it was.

Chapter 15: Against Plato's Recollection, and the Trinity to Be Sought Next

Against the recollection of Plato and Pythagoras. The difference between wisdom and knowledge, and the search for a trinity in the knowledge of temporal things.

Plato's answer

1. What Plato tried to persuade us of. That famous philosopher Plato tried to persuade us that the souls of men lived even before they bore these bodies. So, he said, what we learn is rather remembered, as already known, than taken in as new.

2. His story of the boy. He told how a boy, questioned I do not know on what point of geometry, answered as if he were perfectly skilled in that branch of learning. Questioned step by step and skillfully, he saw what was to be seen and said what he saw.

3. Why the story does not prove it. If this were a recollecting of things previously known, then certainly everyone, or nearly everyone, would be able to answer when questioned in that way. But not everyone was a geometrician in the former life. Geometricians are so few among men that scarcely one can be found anywhere.

What we ought to believe instead

1. The mind is made to see. We ought rather to believe that the mind that understands is formed by its nature to see these things. By the plan of the Creator, they are attached, in a natural order, to things that can be understood. It sees them in a kind of bodiless light of a special kind.

2. The eye is like it. The eye of the flesh sees what lies close to it in this bodily light. It is made to receive that light, and it is fitted to it.

3. The eye needs no memory of a past life. Nor does the fleshly eye distinguish black from white, without a teacher, on the ground that it knew them before it was created in this flesh.

4. A further point. Why is it possible only with things that can be understood that someone who is properly questioned will answer according to some branch of learning, though ignorant of it? Why can no one do this with sensible things, except those he has seen in this present body, or has believed from the report of others who knew them, whether in someone's writings or words?

Pythagoras

1. We should not accept the story. We must not go along with those who say that the Samian Pythagoras recalled some things of this kind, which he had experienced when he was previously here in another body. Others tell the same of other people.

2. The likely explanation. It may be guessed that these were untrue recollections, like what we often experience in sleep. We fancy we remember, as though we had done or seen it, what we never did or saw at all. Even awake, these people's minds were affected in this way by the suggestion of malignant and deceitful spirits. It is their business to confirm or sow some false belief about the changes of souls, in order to deceive men.

3. The evidence. If these people really remembered things they had seen here before, while in other bodies, then the same thing would happen to many, indeed to almost all. For they suppose that, just as the dead come from the living, so the living come, without stopping and continually, from the dead. In the same way sleepers come from those who are awake, and those awake from those who sleep.

Where we stand, and what comes next

1. The distinction. If this is the right distinction between wisdom and knowledge, that the understanding of eternal things belongs to wisdom and the reasoning knowledge of temporal things belongs to knowledge, it is not hard to judge which is to be preferred and which put second.

2. If another distinction is used. Suppose we must use some other distinction to tell these two apart, which the apostle without doubt teaches us are different. He says, "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:8, ESV). Even then, the difference between the two I have set out is a most evident one. The understanding of eternal things is one thing. The reasoning knowledge of temporal things is another. And no one doubts that the first is to be preferred to the second.

3. We go inward. As we leave behind the things that belong to the outer man, and want to climb inward from what we share with the beasts, we meet something before we reach the understanding of the supreme and eternal things that can be understood. That is the reasoning knowledge of temporal things.

4. Let us look for a trinity here, too. Let us find a trinity in this also, if we can, as we found one in the senses of the body and in the things that entered through them, in the way of images, into our soul or spirit. Instead of the bodily things that we touch by the bodily sense, set as they are outside us, we would have likenesses of bodies stamped within on the memory. From these, thought might be formed, while the will as a third joined them. The sight of the eyes was formed from outside in the same way, and the will applied it to the visible thing to produce vision, and joined both, adding itself to them as a third.

5. Not in this book. This subject must not be squeezed into this book. In the one that follows, if God helps, it may be examined properly, and the conclusions we come to may be set out.

Book Thirteen: Faith, Blessedness, and the Trinity We Find in Knowledge

In this book Augustine goes on looking for a trinity in the part of the mind that deals with knowledge, as distinct from wisdom, and he takes the chance to commend the Christian faith. He shows that the faith of believers is one and common to all. He shows that everyone wants to be blessed, though not everyone has the faith by which we arrive at blessedness. He shows that this faith is summed up in Christ, who rose from the dead in the flesh, and that no one is set free from the devil's dominion by forgiveness of sins except through him. He argues at length that the devil had to be conquered by righteousness, not by power. And he ends by showing that when the words of this faith are held in memory, there is a kind of trinity in the mind.

Chapter 1: Where Wisdom Ends and Knowledge Begins in Scripture

An attempt to sort out from Scripture the work of wisdom and the work of knowledge. In the opening of John's Gospel some things belong to wisdom and some to knowledge. Some things can be known only with faith's help. How we see the faith that is in us. In the same passage some things are known by the senses of the body and others only by the reason of the mind.

1. Why I want to look at Scripture here

In the last book, the twelfth, I did enough to separate two jobs of the rational mind. One job deals with temporal things, where we are concerned not only to know but to act. The other and higher job is to contemplate eternal things, and that is limited to knowing alone. Now I think it will help you if I bring in something from Holy Scripture, so that you can tell the two apart more easily.

2. John's opening, read in two layers

John the Evangelist opens his Gospel like this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:1–5, ESV).

Then it goes on. "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:6–14, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "the darkness comprehended it not." The ESV has "has not overcome it." Augustine uses the verse only to say that the darkness stands for hearts turned away from the light, and that sense is kept below.

Look at how this one passage is built. The earlier part speaks of what is unchangeable and eternal, and to contemplate that is what makes us blessed. The later part mentions eternal things together with temporal things. So some of it belongs to knowledge and some to wisdom, in the way I distinguished them in the twelfth book.

1. The opening lines belong to wisdom. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness." These words call for the contemplative life. The mind must see them with understanding. And the more anyone grows in that, the wiser he becomes.

2. But faith is needed for the darkness. Look at the line, "the darkness has not overcome it." By "darkness" John means the hearts of mortal men who have turned away from a light like this and can hardly look at it. For that reason faith was needed, so that what is not seen might be believed. John adds at once, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness ... that all might believe through him."

3. Then we meet something done in time. Now we are in the territory of knowledge, which is the knowing of facts. Think of John the man. We picture him with an image that is stamped on our memory from what we know of human nature. And whether people believe or not, they picture him in the same way. Both alike know what a man is. They have learned about a man's outside, his body, through the eyes. And they know a man's inside, the soul, in themselves, because they are men too and have lived among men. So all of them can think the sentence, "There was a man, whose name was John." They know the names as well, from the give and take of speech.

4. But "sent from God" divides the hearers. Those who hold that at all hold it by faith. Those who do not hold it by faith either hesitate in doubt or laugh at it in unbelief. Yet both groups, unless they are among the very foolish, of whom it is written that each "says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1, ESV), think two things when they hear the words. They think what God is, and they think what it is to be sent from God. If they do not think these as the things really are, they do it as well as they can.

3. How we see our own faith

Here is something worth stopping over. We know faith itself from another source altogether. A person sees faith in his own heart if he believes. He sees that it is missing if he doesn't. But he does not know it the way he knows any of the following.

1. Not as we know bodies. We see bodies with the bodily eyes, and we think of them when they are absent through the images we keep in memory.

2. Not as we know things we have never seen. We build those in thought out of things we have seen. We commit them to memory so we can come back to them and look at them again, or rather look at the images of them, whatever those are like.

3. Not as we know a living man whose soul we cannot see. We guess at his soul from our own, and from the movements of his body. Then we picture the living man in thought as we have learned him by sight.

Faith is not seen like that in the heart that has it. The man whose faith it is holds it fast with the most certain knowledge, and conscience proclaims it.

I should be careful here, because it sounds odd. We are told to believe because we cannot see what we are told to believe. And yet we do see faith itself in ourselves, when it is there. Faith in absent things is itself present. Faith in things outside us is inside us. Faith in things unseen is itself seen. And it still comes into people's hearts at a certain time, and if someone stops being faithful and becomes an unbeliever, it dies out of him.

Sometimes faith is even given to falsehoods. We sometimes say, "I trusted him, and he deceived me." That kind of faith, if it should be called faith at all, leaves the heart without any blame when the truth is found and drives it out. But faith in things that are true passes, as it should, into the things themselves. We should not say that faith perishes when the things believed are seen. For would it still be called faith? The Letter to the Hebrews defines it as "the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, ESV).

4. Senses and reason in the next verses

Now take the verses that follow: "He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him." The action, as I said, is done in time. To bear witness, even to something eternal like that intelligible light, is a thing done in time. John "was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light." Then: "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him."

Anyone who knows the Latin language understands all these words from things he already knows. Some of them have come to us through the senses of the body. Think of "man," or of "the world," whose greatness is plain to our sight. Think also of the sounds of the words, since hearing is a sense of the body. Others have come to us through the reason of the mind. Take "his own people did not receive him." That means they did not believe in him, and we know what believing is by no sense of the body, but by the reason of the mind.

We learned the meanings of the words, not only their sounds, partly through the body and partly through the mind. And we are not hearing them for the first time. We heard them before, and we kept them in memory as known things. Here we recognize the words, and we recognize what they mean.

Take a word from the Latin text. When the word mundus, "world," is spoken, something bodily becomes known through the ear, because it is a sound. What it means becomes known through the body as well, through the eyes of the flesh. As far as we know the world at all, we know it by sight. But take the word crediderunt, "they believed." Its sound reaches us through the ear, since sound is bodily. But its meaning can be found by no bodily sense, only by the reason of the mind. Unless we knew by the mind what crediderunt means, we would not understand what the people did not do, of whom it is said that they "did not receive him."

So the sound of a word rings on the ears from outside and reaches the sense we call hearing. The shape of man is known to us in ourselves, and it is presented to the senses from outside in other men. It is presented to the eyes when it is seen, to the ears when it is heard, and to the touch when it is held. It also has its image in our memory, which is not bodily, though it is like a body. Even the wonderful beauty of the world is at hand from outside, to our gaze and to the sense of touch if we come into contact with any of it. It has its image within us too, in memory, and we go back to that when we think about it, whether in a closed room or in the dark.

I have already said enough about such images of bodily things in the eleventh book. They are not bodies, yet they carry the likeness of bodies, and they belong to the life of the outer man. But here we are dealing with the inner man and his knowledge, that is, the knowledge of temporal and changeable things. When anything from the outer man is brought into that discussion, it must be brought in for a reason, so that something may be taught from it that helps rational knowledge. So the rational use of the things we share with the irrational animals belongs to the inner man. And it cannot rightly be said that this use is common to us with the animals.

Chapter 2: Faith Is a Thing of the Heart, and It Is One

Faith is a thing of the heart and not of the body. It is common to all believers and it is one and the same in all. The faith of believers is one in just the way the will of those who will the same thing is one.

1. Where faith lives

I must now say more about faith, because the plan of this book requires it. Those who have faith are called the faithful. Those who have it not are called unbelievers, like the people who did not receive the Son of God when he came to his own.

Faith is worked in us by hearing, and yet it does not belong to the bodily sense of hearing, because it is not a sound. It does not belong to the eyes of the flesh, because it is not a colour or a bodily shape. It does not belong to touch, because it has no bulk. It belongs to no bodily sense at all, because it is a thing of the heart, not of the body. It is not outside us. It sits deep within us. And no one sees it in another person. Each person sees it only in himself.

It can even be faked. It can be thought to be in someone in whom it is not. So each of us sees his own faith in himself. He does not see that it is in another. He believes that it is. And he believes it the more firmly the better he knows its fruits, for faith is in the habit of working through love (Galatians 5:6, ESV).

2. In what sense faith is "common"

This faith is common to all of whom the evangelist goes on to say, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12, ESV). But I do not mean "common" in the way a bodily shape is common to the eyes of everyone looking at it. There, one and the same form shapes the gaze of all who see it. I mean "common" in the way the human face is common to all men. We say that, and yet each man has his own.

Here is the truth we can say with confidence. The faith of believers is stamped on the heart of each believer from one teaching. Each believes the same thing. But what is believed is one thing, and the faith by which it is believed is another. What is believed belongs to things that are, or have been, or will be. The faith itself is in the mind of the believer, and it is visible only to the one whose faith it is. It is true that a faith like it is in others, but not that very faith. It is one in kind, not one in number. Because of the likeness and the absence of any difference, we call it one rather than many.

We do the same when we see two men who look exactly alike. We are amazed and say they have one face.

3. "One heart and soul" and "one faith"

It is easier to say that those who, as we read in Acts, were "of one heart and soul" (Acts 4:32, ESV) had many souls, one apiece, than, where the apostle says "one faith" (Ephesians 4:5, ESV), to venture to say that there are as many faiths as there are believers.

And still the Lord himself, who says to one woman, "O woman, great is your faith!" (Matthew 15:28, ESV), and to another, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31, ESV), shows that each person has his own faith.

Editor's note: The second saying was spoken to Peter, a man, and not to a woman. Augustine says "to another" without saying who. The ESV puts both quotations as printed here.

So we say the like faith of believers is one in the same way as we say the like will of those who will the same thing is one. When people have the same will, each person's will is visible to himself, and the other's will is not visible to him, even though he wills the same thing. If the other shows his will by signs, it is believed rather than seen. But each man, being aware of his own mind, doesn't just believe it. He sees outright that this is his own will.

Chapter 3: What All Men Want

Some desires are the same in everyone, and each person knows them from himself. The comic actor, and the poet Ennius.

1. The actor's joke

There is such a harmony in our common nature, living as we do and using reason, that one man does not know what another wills. And yet there are some wills of everyone that each man knows. We do not know what any other single man wills, but in some things each of us can know what all will.

You may know the story of the comic actor's joke. He promised that in some other play he would say on the stage what was in everyone's mind and what everyone willed. On the appointed day a still larger crowd came, with great expectation. Everyone was in suspense and silent. The story goes that he said: "You all want to buy cheap and sell dear."

He was a poor actor, but everyone in the audience recognized in his words what they were conscious of in themselves. They applauded him with great goodwill for saying before the eyes of all something confessedly true, though nobody had expected it.

2. Why the crowd was so eager

Why did the promise raise such expectation? Because no man knows the wills of other men. Yet didn't he know that will? Is there anyone who doesn't? The reason is that each person quite fittingly guesses from himself what is in others, through a sympathy or agreement in vice or in virtue.

But it is one thing to see your own will. It is another to guess, however surely, at someone else's. Take an example from human affairs. I am as sure that Rome was built as I am that Constantinople was. Yet I have seen Rome with my own eyes, and of the other city I know nothing except what I have believed on the word of others. In the same way the comic actor believed it was common to all to want to buy cheap and sell dear, either by watching himself or by trying it out on others.

3. Not everyone is like that

Since such a will is really a fault, anyone can reach the opposite virtue, or run into some other fault that is contrary to it, and so resist and overcome it. I myself know of a case where a manuscript was offered for sale to a man. He saw that the seller did not know its worth and was asking very little. So he gave him the true price, which was much more, though the seller had not expected it.

On the other side, suppose a man is so wicked that he sells cheap what his parents left him, and buys dear, so as to waste it all on his lusts. I do not think such extravagance is hard to believe. If such men are sought, they can be found. They may even turn up without being sought. By a wickedness worse than the theatre's, they make a mockery of the theatrical remark, buying dishonour at a high price while selling land at a low one. We have heard also of people who bought grain at a higher price in order to sell it to their fellow citizens at a lower one.

4. Ennius, and the wish to be blessed

Consider also what the old poet Ennius said, that "all mortals wish to be praised." He too was guessing at what was in others from himself and from the people he knew. He seems to say what all men will. If the comic actor had said, "All of you want to be praised, and none of you wants to be abused," he would have seemed to say what everyone wills.

Yet there are some who hate their own faults. They do not want praise from others for something they themselves are displeased with. They thank the kindness of those who rebuke them, if the rebuke is meant to put them right.

But if the actor had said, "All of you want to be blessed, and none of you wants to be wretched," he would have said something that everyone would recognize in his own will. Whatever else a man may secretly want, he does not step aside from this will, which is well known to all men and well known to be in all men.

Chapter 4: Everyone Wants Blessedness, but What Is It?

The will to have blessedness is one in all, but there is very great variety of opinion about what blessedness is.

1. The puzzle

Here is a wonder. The will to obtain and keep blessedness is one in everyone. Where, then, does such variety and difference of opinion come from about blessedness itself? It is not that anyone is unwilling to have it. It is that not everyone knows it.

If all knew it, some would not think it lay in goodness of mind, others in pleasure of body, others in both, and others in one thing or another. People find special delight in this thing or that, and so they place their idea of a blessed life in it.

How, then, does everyone love so warmly something not everyone knows? Who can love what he does not know? I have already talked about that in the earlier books. Why, then, is blessedness loved by all when it is not known by all?

2. Perhaps they all know what it is, but not where it is?

Maybe everyone does know what blessedness is, and they only disagree about where to find it. That sounds like a business about some place in this world, where everyone who wants to live blessedly should want to live. But the question where blessedness is cannot be separated from the question what it is.

Think about it. If it lies in bodily pleasure, the man who enjoys bodily pleasure is blessed. If it lies in goodness of mind, the man who has that is blessed. If it lies in both, then the man who has both is blessed. Now one man says, "To live blessedly is to enjoy bodily pleasure." Another says, "To live blessedly is to enjoy goodness of mind." Either both know what a blessed life is, or neither does. How, then, do both love it, if nobody can love what he does not know?

3. Or is it false that all want it?

Perhaps what we took for most true and certain is false, that all men will to live blessedly. Suppose, for argument's sake, that to live blessedly is to live according to goodness of mind. Then how does a man will to live blessedly if he doesn't will that? Should we not rather say that this man does not will to live blessedly, because he does not want to live according to goodness, which alone is to live blessedly? On that view, not all will to live blessedly. In fact few do, since many do not will to live in goodness.

Should we, then, call false what the Academic Cicero never doubted, though the Academics doubt everything? In his dialogue Hortensius he wanted to find some certain thing from which to start his argument, something nobody doubted. He said, "We certainly all will to be blessed." Far be it from me to say that is false.

But what then? Are we to say that although there is no way of living blessedly except by goodness of mind, even the man who doesn't will that wills to live blessedly? That seems too absurd. It is much like saying, "Even the man who does not will to live blessedly wills to live blessedly." Who could listen to such a contradiction, or put up with it? And yet necessity pushes us into this corner, if it is true both that all will to live blessedly and that not all will to live in the only way in which one can live blessedly.

Chapter 5: Living as You Please Is Not Blessedness

The same subject.

1. "I'm blessed because I live as I please"

Perhaps the way out lies here. We said that everyone places his idea of a blessed life in whatever pleased him most. Pleasure pleased Epicurus, goodness pleased Zeno, and something else pleased others. So let us say that to live blessedly is nothing other than to live according to one's own pleasure. Then it is not false that all will to live blessedly, because all will what pleases them. If that had been called out to the crowd in the theatre, everyone would have found it in his own will.

But Cicero put this very idea against himself, and he refuted it so well that he made those who held it blush. He says: "But look, there are people who are not philosophers but who are quick to argue, and they say that all are blessed who live as they will." That is exactly what we mean by "as it pleases each." A little later he adds, "But this is quite false. To will what is not fitting is itself most miserable. And it is not so miserable not to obtain what you will as to will to obtain what you ought not."

He puts it excellently, and altogether truly. Who could be so blind in mind, so far from every light of decency, so wrapped in the darkness of shamelessness, as to call a man blessed because he lives as he wills, when he lives wickedly and disgracefully? Nobody holds him back, nobody punishes him, nobody dares even to blame him. Most people even praise him. Scripture says the wicked is praised in the desire of his heart and the one who works iniquity is blessed, and so he satisfies all his most criminal and shameful desires.

Editor's note: Augustine's quotation is from the Latin Psalter, at Psalm 10 (9 in his numbering). The ESV reads, "For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD" (Psalm 10:3, ESV). The ESV does not say "is praised" or "is blessed," and the argument does not need the exact words. Augustine's sense is kept above: the world may praise and call blessed the man who gets whatever his wicked heart longs for.

Even then he would be wretched. He would be less wretched if he could have had none of what he wickedly willed. A wicked will makes a person wretched even if it goes no further than willing. He is more wretched when he has the power to fulfil the longing of that wicked will.

2. What blessedness requires

So here is the position, and I think it holds. All men will to be blessed, and they seek that one thing with the most ardent love. They seek everything else they seek on account of it. Nobody can love what he does not know at all, neither what it is nor what kind of thing it is. Nobody can be ignorant of what it is that he knows he wills. So all men know a blessed life.

Now all who are blessed have what they will. But not all who have what they will are blessed. They are at once wretched if they do not have what they will, or if they have what they do not will rightly. So only that man is blessed who both has everything he wills and wills nothing wrongly.

Chapter 6: Why We Choose the Wrong Half

Why, when everyone wills to be blessed, people choose the thing by which they withdraw from being so.

1. The strange choice

A blessed life, then, consists of these two things, and it is known to all and dear to all. So what can be the reason why men, when they cannot have both, choose to have everything they will, rather than to will everything well, even if they do not get it?

Is it the very depravity of the human race? People are not unaware that a man is not blessed who lacks what he wills, and that he is not blessed who has what he wills wrongly. The blessed man is the one who has every good thing he wills and wills no evil. Yet when both halves are not granted, they choose the half that takes them further from a blessed life. He is certainly further from it who gets what he wickedly desired than he who only fails to get what he desired.

The good will ought rather to be chosen and preferred, even if it does not obtain what it seeks.

2. The man with a good will is already near

The man who wills well whatever he wills comes near to being blessed. He wills things which, when he gets them, will make him blessed. And certainly it is good things, not bad, that make men blessed, when anything does. Even now he already has something of the good, and it is not a small thing. It is the good will itself.

He longs to rejoice in those good things of which human nature is capable. He does not want to rejoice in doing or getting anything evil. He follows after such good things as are possible in this present miserable life, with a prudent, temperate, courageous and upright mind, and he gets as much of them as he can. So he is good even in the midst of evils. And when all evils have been done away and all good things filled up, he will then be blessed.

Chapter 7: Why Faith Is Needed in This Life

Faith is needed so that a man may at some time be blessed, which he will reach only in the life to come. The blessedness of the proud philosophers is ridiculous and pitiable.

1. Faith comes first in a life full of errors

For this reason, faith, by which men believe in God, is above all things necessary in this mortal life, which is so full of errors and hardships. There are no good things at all, and above all not the things that make a man good or that will make him blessed, which come to a man from any source but God.

When the one who is good and faithful in these miseries has come from this life to the blessed life, then something will happen that is now quite impossible. A man will live as he wills. In the midst of that happiness he will not will to live badly. He will not will anything that is missing, and nothing he wills will be missing. Whatever is loved will be present. Nothing will be longed for that is not there. Everything there will be good. The supreme God will be the supreme good, and he will be present to be enjoyed by those who love him. And what is most blessed of all, it will be certain that it will last forever.

2. What the philosophers did instead

Now, philosophers have made up for themselves, each according to his own taste, their own pictures of a blessed life. They wanted to do, as though by their own power, the thing which the common condition of mortals does not allow, which is to live as they would. They felt that nobody could be blessed unless he had what he would and suffered nothing he would not.

And who would not want the life that delights him, whatever it is, and that he therefore calls blessed, to be so much in his own power that he could keep it always? Yet who is in that condition?

Here are some questions to ask.

1. Who wills to suffer troubles in order to bear them bravely? He may both will and be able to bear them if he does suffer them. But he does not will the suffering.

2. Who would will to live in torment? He might be able to live in a way worthy of praise by holding to righteousness through patience in the midst of it. Even so, he would not will the torment.

People who have endured such evils, whether for wanting to have what they loved or for fear of losing it, whether wickedly or laudably, have thought of them as passing. Many have pushed boldly through passing evils to good things that will last. These people are doubtless blessed through hope, even while they are suffering. They are going through passing evils to arrive at goods that will not pass.

3. Blessed through hope is not yet blessed

But the man who is blessed through hope is not yet blessed. He expects through patience a blessedness he does not yet hold.

Take the other case, the man who is tormented with no such hope and no such reward. Let him use as much endurance as he likes. He is not truly blessed. He is bravely miserable. He is not "not miserable" because he would be more miserable if he bore his misery impatiently.

Go further. Suppose he does not suffer in his body the things he would not will to suffer. Even then he cannot be counted blessed, because he still does not live as he wills. I leave aside the other things that trouble the mind even when the body is unhurt, and which we would like to be free of. They are countless. At the very least he would will, if he could, to have his body safe and sound, free of every trouble, and to have that in his own control, or even to have it imperishable. Since he doesn't have this, and hangs in doubt about it, he does not live as he wills.

Here is what he does. He may be ready, from strength of character, to accept whatever happens and to bear it with a calm mind. But he would rather it did not happen, and he prevents it if he can. He is ready for both outcomes, but as far as lies in him he wishes for the one and shuns the other. If he falls into what he shuns, he bears it willingly only because what he willed could not happen. He bears it so as not to be crushed. But he would not willingly be burdened at all.

So how does he live as he wills? Because he is willingly strong enough to bear what he would not will to have laid on him? Then he wills only what he can, because he cannot have what he wills.

4. The proud and their borrowed wisdom

And here is the total of the blessedness of proud mortals. I do not know whether to laugh at it or rather pity it. They boast that they live as they will because they willingly bear with patience what they are unwilling should happen to them. This, they say, is like Terence's wise saying: "Since what you will cannot be, will what you can."

Who denies that this is well put? But it is advice given to the miserable man, so that he may not be more miserable. It is not rightly or truly said to the blessed man, whom everyone wishes to be. It cannot be said to him, "What you will cannot be." If he is blessed, whatever he wills can be, because he does not will what cannot be.

But such a life does not belong to this mortal state. It will not come to pass until immortality comes to pass. And if immortality could not be given to man at all, blessedness would be sought in vain, since it cannot exist without immortality.

Chapter 8: There Is No Blessedness Without Immortality

Blessedness cannot exist without immortality.

1. Everyone who wants to be blessed wants to be immortal

So all men will to be blessed. If they will it truly, they will also to be immortal. Without that they could not be blessed. And if you question them about immortality, as we did before about blessedness, all reply that they will it.

But in this life, a blessedness of one sort or another is sought, or rather invented, though not truly blessedness but only called so, while immortality is despaired of. Without immortality true blessedness cannot be. We have already said, and proved well enough, that he lives blessedly who lives as he wills and wills nothing wrongly. Now no one wills immortality wrongly, if human nature is capable of it by God's gift. And if it is not capable of it, it is not capable of blessedness either.

2. Death and the blessed life: three possibilities

For a man to live blessedly he must first live. If life leaves him by death, how can a blessed life stay with him? When it leaves him, it surely leaves him unwilling, or willing, or neither. Let's take each.

1. If it leaves him unwilling, how is it a blessed life, when it is so far within his will that it is not within his power? No one is blessed who wills something he does not have. How much less is he blessed who is left against his will, and left not by honour or wealth or any other thing, but by the blessed life itself, since he will have no life at all? It is true that no feeling will be left for him to be miserable with, since the blessed life leaves him because life itself leaves him altogether. But while he feels, he is wretched, because he knows that what he loves above all else, and for the sake of which he loves everything else, is being destroyed against his will.

So a life cannot be both blessed and leave a man against his will. Nobody becomes blessed against his will. How much more, then, does it make a man miserable by leaving him against his will, when it would make him miserable if he had it against his will?

2. If it leaves him willingly, how was that a blessed life which the one who had it willed should perish?

3. If neither unwilling nor willing. The remaining answer is that neither is in the mind of the blessed man. He is neither unwilling nor willing to be left by the blessed life when death takes life altogether. He stands firm with an even heart, ready for either. But a life like that is not a blessed life, since it is unworthy of the love of the man it makes blessed. How is it a blessed life if the blessed man does not love it? How is it loved, if he is indifferent whether it flourishes or perishes?

Perhaps someone will say that the virtues, which we love only on account of blessedness, can persuade us not to love blessedness itself. But if they did, we would stop loving the virtues themselves, since we would not love that on account of which alone we loved them.

3. The conclusion

And then, how could that opinion be true, which has been so tried and sifted and strained and is so certain, that all men will to be blessed, if those who are already blessed neither will nor will not to be blessed? But if they will it, as truth cries out and nature compels (for the supremely good and unchangeably blessed Creator planted that will in nature), then those who are blessed certainly do not will to be not blessed. And if they do not will to be not blessed, they surely do not will to be wiped out and lost in respect of their blessedness. But they cannot be blessed unless they are alive. So they do not will to be lost in respect of their life.

Therefore all who are truly blessed, or who desire to be, will to be immortal. And he does not live blessedly who does not have what he wills. So it follows that no life can be truly blessed unless it is also eternal.

Chapter 9: We Believe in Future Blessedness by Faith, Not by Argument

We say that future blessedness is truly eternal, not by human reasoning but with the help of faith. The immortality of blessedness becomes believable from the incarnation of the Son of God.

1. Can human nature receive it?

Whether human nature can receive this, which it admits to be desirable, is no small question. But if faith is present, the faith of those to whom Jesus has given "the right to become children of God" (John 1:12, ESV), then there is no question.

Look at those who have tried to discover it by human reasoning. Scarcely a few, with great gifts and plenty of leisure and the most subtle learning, have managed to reach as far as the immortality of the soul alone. And even for the soul they have not found a blessed life that is stable, that is, true. They have said it returns to the miseries of this life even after blessedness. And those among them who are ashamed of that opinion, and who hold that the purified soul is placed in eternal happiness without a body, hold such opinions about the world's having existed from eternity that they contradict their own opinion about the soul. It would take too long to show that here. I have, I think, explained it enough in the twelfth book of The City of God.

2. What faith promises

But faith promises, not by human reasoning but by divine authority, that the whole man, who is made of soul and body, shall be immortal and therefore truly blessed.

So when the Gospel had said that Jesus gave "the right to become children of God" to those who received him, it explained in a few words what it is to receive him, "who believed in his name." It went on to say in what way they are to become children of God: "who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12–13, ESV).

Then, lest the weakness of men, which we all see and bear, should despair of reaching so great a height, it adds in the same place, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV). It was added so that men might be convinced of what seemed beyond belief.

Think about it. If he who is by nature the Son of God was made the Son of man through mercy for the sake of the sons of men, how much more believable is it that the sons of men by nature should be made sons of God by the grace of God? They would live in God, in whom alone and from whom alone the blessed can become sharers in that immortality. And the Son of God was made a sharer in our mortality, so that we might be convinced of it.

Chapter 10: Was There No Other Way?

There was no more fitting way to free man from the misery of mortality than the incarnation of the Word. What we call our merits are the gifts of God.

1. The objection

Some people ask this. Did God have no other way to free men from the misery of this mortality? Did he have to will that his only-begotten Son, God and co-eternal with himself, become man by taking a human soul and flesh, and be made mortal in order to endure death?

It is not enough to answer them by saying that the way God has chosen to free us, through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is good and fits the dignity of God. We must go further. I do not say that no other way was possible to God, to whose power all things are equally subject. I say there neither was nor needed to be any other way better suited to curing our misery.

2. What our hope needed

What was so needed to build up our hope? What was so needed to free the minds of mortals, cast down by the condition of mortality itself, from despair of immortality? Surely this: that it should be shown to us how highly God valued us and how greatly he loved us.

And what could be clearer and more evident, in so great a proof, than this? The Son of God, who is unchangeably good, remained what he was in himself. He received from us and for us what he was not, with no loss to his own nature, and he deigned to enter into fellowship with ours. First, without any evil deserving of his own, he bore our evils. Then, with a generosity that owed us nothing, he gave us his own gifts. We now believe how much God loves us, and we now hope for what we used to despair of. We have no good deserts of our own, and our evil deserts came first.

3. Even our "merits" are his gifts

The things we call our deserts are also his gifts. For faith to work through love, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5, ESV). And the Spirit was given when Jesus was glorified in the resurrection. Then Jesus promised to send him, and he sent him, as it was written and foretold: "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men" (Ephesians 4:8, ESV).

Editor's note: The same words are found in Psalm 68:18, where the ESV reads "receiving gifts among men." Paul quotes Psalm 68:18 here and gives it as "gave gifts." The ESV of the psalm itself reads "receiving gifts among men," and the Latin Psalter has "received gifts among men." Augustine's point is Paul's wording, so Ephesians 4:8 is printed.

Those gifts are our deserts. By them we arrive at the chief good of immortal blessedness.

4. Sinners, enemies, weak, ungodly

Hear the apostle: "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:8–9, ESV). He goes on: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:10, ESV).

Notice the pairs.

1. First he calls them sinners, then enemies of God.

2. First justified by his blood, then reconciled by the death of the Son.

3. First saved from wrath through him, then saved by his life.

So before that grace we were not merely sinners in some ordinary way. We were in such sins that we were enemies of God. The same apostle uses two names for us several times, "sinners" and "enemies of God." One seems the mildest and the other plainly the harshest.

Then Paul says another thing: "while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6, ESV). Those he called weak, he also called ungodly. Weakness sounds like something slight. Sometimes it is such that it is called impiety. But if it were not weakness, it would not need a physician. The physician is Jesus, which in Hebrew means Saviour. (The Latin language did not have that word before, but it could have, since it had it when it needed it.)

This sentence from Paul fits closely with the two that follow. It is as though he matched them: sinners with the weak, and the enemies of God with the ungodly.

Chapter 11: A Difficulty About Being "Justified by His Blood"

How are we justified in the blood of the Son of God?

1. The question

What is meant by "justified by his blood"? What power is there in this blood, I ask you, that those who believe should be justified in it? And what is meant by being "reconciled by the death of his Son"?

Was it like this? God the Father was angry with us, and he saw the death of his Son for us, and was made gentle toward us? Was his Son already so gentle toward us that he even deigned to die for us, while the Father was still so angry that unless the Son died for us, he would not be appeased?

2. The apparent clash

And what, then, does the same teacher of the Gentiles say in another place? "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31–32, ESV).

Would the Father have given up his own Son, not sparing him for us, unless he had already been made gentle? Doesn't one view seem to be against the other? In one, the Son dies for us and the Father is reconciled to us by his death. In the other, as though the Father had loved us first, he himself does not spare the Son on our account, he himself gives him up to death for us.

3. The answer begins

But I see that the Father loved us before this too. He loved us before the Son died for us, and before he created the world. The apostle is my witness: "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4, ESV). Nor was the Son given up for us as though unwilling, with the Father simply not sparing him. It is said of the Son too: he "loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, ESV).

Therefore the Father and the Son and the Spirit of both work all things equally and in harmony. And yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son. I will explain here too, as I can, how this was done, as far as seems sufficient.

Chapter 12: In Adam, All Were Handed Over to the Devil

Because of the sin of Adam, all were delivered into the power of the devil.

1. Delivered over in justice

By the justice of God, in a certain sense, the human race was delivered into the power of the devil. The sin of the first man passed down into everyone, male and female, at birth, through the union of husband and wife. The debt of our first parents bound all their descendants.

This handing over is first signified in Genesis. When it was said to the serpent, "dust you shall eat" (Genesis 3:14, ESV), it was said to the man, "you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19, ESV).

1. "To dust you shall return" announces the death of the body. He would not have experienced that death either, if he had stayed upright to the end as he was made.

2. "You are dust," said to him while he was still living, shows that the whole man had changed for the worse. It is much the same as, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh" (Genesis 6:3, ESV).

3. "Dust you shall eat," said to the serpent, showed that the man was delivered over to the devil, whose instrument the serpent was.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Genesis 6:3 read "My spirit shall not remain in these men, for they also are flesh." The ESV differs in wording, but Augustine uses it only for the idea that "flesh" describes the whole man brought low, and that sense is kept.

2. The apostle says it more plainly

The apostle declares it more clearly. "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind" (Ephesians 2:1–3, ESV).

The "sons of disobedience" are the unbelievers. And who is not one of these before he becomes a believer? So all men are, by origin, under the prince of the power of the air, "the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience."

By "by origin" I mean what the apostle means when he says that even they, "by nature," were like the rest. That is, by nature as it was spoiled by sin, not by nature as it was created upright at the beginning.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin said "children of unfaithfulness." The ESV has "sons of disobedience." He reads the phrase as "unbelief," which is why he identifies these sons with unbelievers.

3. God permitted it, and permitted it justly

But we must not understand the way man was delivered into the power of the devil as though God did this, or commanded it. God only permitted it, and he did so justly. When God forsook the sinner, the author of sin at once entered in.

Yet God did not forsake his creature so completely that he stopped showing himself to him as the God who creates and gives life, and who gives many good things even among penal evils. "Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" (Psalm 77:9, ESV). The answer is no. Nor did he release man from the law of his power when he permitted him to be in the power of the devil. The devil himself is not separated from the power of the Almighty, any more than he is from his goodness. For how do even the evil angels exist, in whatever kind of life they have, except through him who gives life to all things?

So if the committing of sins, through the just anger of God, subjected man to the devil, then doubtless the forgiveness of sins, through the merciful reconciliation of God, rescues man from the devil.

Chapter 13: Conquered by Righteousness, Not by Power

Man was to be rescued from the power of the devil, not by power but by righteousness.

1. Why not simply overpower him?

The devil had to be overcome, not by God's power but by his righteousness. What is more powerful than the Almighty? What creature has power that can be set beside the power of the Creator?

But the devil, by the fault of his own perversity, became a lover of power, and a deserter and enemy of righteousness. Men imitate him in exactly this way. They imitate him the more they set their hearts on power and neglect or even hate righteousness, whether they take pleasure in getting power or are inflamed by the lust for it.

So it pleased God that, in order to rescue man from the devil's grasp, the devil should be conquered, not by power but by righteousness. And so men, in imitation of Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by righteousness and not by power.

2. Power is not evil, but it comes second

I am not saying power is to be shunned as though it were evil. I am saying the order must be kept, in which righteousness comes first. How great can the power of mortals be? Let mortals hold on to righteousness. Power will be given to the immortal. Compared with that, the power of those called mighty on earth turns out to be ridiculous weakness. A pit is dug there for the sinner, where the wicked seem most powerful.

The righteous man says in his song: "Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law, to give him rest from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked. For the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it" (Psalm 94:12–15, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of the last clause read "until righteousness return unto judgment," and he builds on that. The ESV has "justice will return to the righteous." His sense is kept in what follows: the righteousness the weak and pious now hold will one day be given the power to judge.

3. What the psalm means for us now

At this present time, then, while the might of God's people is delayed, "the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage," however bitter and unworthy the things it suffers in its humility and weakness. This will last until the righteousness the pious now hold in their weakness "returns to judgment." That is, it receives the power of judging. That power is kept for the righteous at the end, when power in its right order has followed after righteousness going before. Power joined to righteousness, or righteousness added to power, makes judicial authority.

Righteousness belongs to a good will. That is why the angels said when Christ was born, "on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased" (Luke 2:14, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "peace to men of good will," which he uses here to tie righteousness to the good will. The ESV's "those with whom he is pleased" is printed.

4. Power must follow, not lead

Power ought to follow righteousness, not go before it. It is placed in the "second" position, which is why prosperous fortune is called "second," from "following."

Two things, as I argued above, make a man blessed: to will well, and to be able to do what he wills. People ought not to be so perverse as to choose, out of the two, the ability to do what they will, and neglect to will what they ought. A man ought first to have a good will, and great power afterwards.

Further, the good will must first be cleansed of the vices. If a man is overcome by them, he is overcome in such a way that he wills evil, and then how is his will still good?

So it is to be wished that power may be given now, but power against vices. People do not want to be powerful in order to conquer vices. They want it in order to conquer men. Why is that, unless they themselves are in truth conquered, and only seem to be conquerors, in opinion and not in truth?

Let a man will to be prudent, strong, temperate and just. To have these things truly, let him certainly desire power, and seek to be powerful in himself, and (strange as it sounds) against himself, for himself. But for everything else that he rightly wills and yet cannot have, immortality for instance, and true and full happiness, let him not stop longing for it, and let him wait for it patiently.

Chapter 14: Christ's Death Owed Nothing, and So It Frees Those Who Owed

The death of Christ, which he did not owe, has freed those who were liable to death.

1. The righteousness by which the devil was conquered

What is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered? What but the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he conquered? In this way: though he found in Christ nothing worthy of death, he killed him anyway.

And it is certainly just that we, whom the devil held as debtors, should be let go free by believing in the one he killed, though that one owed nothing. That is how we are said to be "justified by his blood" (Romans 5:9, ESV). The innocent blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

2. "Free among the dead"

That is why Christ calls himself, in the Psalms, "free among the dead." Only the man who is dead is free from the debt of death. He says in another psalm, "What I did not steal must I now restore?" (Psalm 69:4, ESV). By the thing "stolen," he means sin, because sin is seized against what is lawful.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Psalm 88:5 read "free among the dead," and he builds on that word. The ESV has "like one set loose among the dead" (Psalm 88:5, ESV), which still carries the thought of one let go from death's hold. His reading of Psalm 69:4 is in his own sense: the one who took nothing is made to give back.

And so too he says, by the mouth of his own flesh, in the Gospel: "the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here" (John 14:30–31, ESV). "No claim" means no sin. (Augustine's Latin reads "hath nothing in me," that is, no sin.) And from there he goes on to his passion, in order to pay for us debtors what he himself did not owe.

3. Would power have done as well?

Would the devil have been conquered by this most just right, if Christ had chosen to deal with him by power, not by righteousness? But Christ held back what was possible to him, so as to do first what was fitting.

That is why he had to be both man and God.

1. Unless he were man, he could not be slain.

2. Unless he were God, men would not have believed that he chose not to do what he could. They would have believed that he could not do what he wanted. We would not have thought he put righteousness before power. We would have thought he lacked power.

Now he suffered for us what belongs to man, because he was man. But if he had not chosen it, he could have avoided suffering, because he was also God. So righteousness was made more acceptable in humility, because the great power of his divinity could have kept him from suffering humility, if he had wished.

So through the one who died, being so powerful, righteousness was commended to us and power was promised to us, weak mortals. He did one of these in dying and the other in rising again.

4. Righteousness first, then power

What is more righteous than to go even to the death of the cross for righteousness? And what is more powerful than to rise from the dead and ascend into heaven in that very flesh in which he was slain?

So he conquered the devil first by righteousness and then by power. By righteousness, because he had no sin and was killed by the devil most unjustly. By power, because having been dead he lived again, never to die afterwards.

He would have conquered the devil by power even if the devil could not have killed him. Still, it takes greater power to conquer death itself by rising than to avoid it by living.

But the real reason that we are justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the devil's power by the forgiveness of sins, is something else. It has to do with this: the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by power. For Christ was crucified, not through immortal power but through the weakness he took upon himself in mortal flesh. Of that weakness the apostle says, "the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25, ESV).

Chapter 15: The Devil Was Beaten at the Moment He Thought He Won

The same subject.

1. Two ways of seeing the victory

It is not hard to see that the devil was conquered when the one he had killed rose again. It is something more, and harder to understand, to see that the devil was conquered when he thought he had conquered, that is, when Christ was killed.

For then that blood was poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. It was the blood of one who had no sin at all. The devil rightly held those whom he bound by the condition of death as guilty of sin. So it was right that he should rightly lose them through the one whom, as guilty of no sin, the punishment of death struck undeservedly.

2. The strong man bound

By this righteousness the strong man was conquered. He was bound with this chain so that his vessels might be plundered (Matthew 12:29, ESV). Those vessels had been, with him and his angels, "vessels of wrath" (Romans 9:22, ESV). They were to be turned into "vessels of mercy" (Romans 9:23, ESV).

The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus himself spoke these words to him from heaven when he was first called: "I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me ... delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles ... to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26:16–18, ESV).

Hence the same apostle, urging believers to give thanks to God the Father, says: "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13–14, ESV).

3. The price that bound the buyer

In this redemption, the blood of Christ was given as a kind of price for us. When the devil accepted it, he was not enriched. He was bound. We were loosed from his bonds. And he could not drag any of those whom Christ had redeemed, free of all debt, by pouring out his own blood, into the nets of sins and so hand them over to the destruction of the second and eternal death (Revelation 20:14, ESV).

Those who belong to the grace of Christ were foreknown, predestined and chosen before the foundation of the world. They will die only so far as Christ himself died for them, that is, only by the death of the flesh and not of the spirit.

Chapter 16: Why the Evils of This Life Remain, and What God's Anger Is

The remains of death and the evils of the world turn to good for the elect. How fitting the death of Christ was, that we might be justified in his blood. What the anger of God is.

1. Death and trouble put to good use

The death of the body came originally from the sin of the first man. Yet its good use has made the most glorious martyrs. And it is not only death. All the evils of this world, and the griefs and labours of men, come from the deserts of sins, and above all from original sin, which bound life itself with the bond of death. They have fittingly stayed with us even after sin is forgiven. They give a man something to contend with for the truth. They give the goodness of the faithful something to be exercised on.

God's purpose is that the new man, under the new covenant, may be made ready in the midst of this world's evils for a new world. He is to bear wisely the misery that this condemned life deserved. He is to rejoice soberly because it will be finished. And he is to expect faithfully and patiently the blessedness that the life to come, set free, will have forever.

2. The devil on a leash

The devil has been thrown out of his dominion and out of the hearts of the faithful. He used to reign in those hearts through their condemnation and unbelief, although he was himself condemned. Now he is allowed to be an adversary only as far as God knows is good for them, given the state of this mortal life. The apostle speaks of it in these words: "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV).

The evils which the faithful endure with devotion are useful in three ways.

1. For the correction of sins.

2. For the exercise and proving of righteousness.

3. To show the misery of this life, so that the life where true and unending blessedness will be may be desired more ardently and sought more earnestly.

3. Kept on account of the elect

These evils are still kept in being for the sake of those of whom the apostle says: "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:28–30, ESV).

Of those who are predestined, not one will perish with the devil. Not one will stay, even until death, under the devil's power. And then follows what I have already quoted: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31–32, ESV).

4. Why this death was the one chosen

So why should the death of Christ not have come to pass? Better to ask, why should that death not have been chosen above all others? God, who is almighty, could have used innumerable other ways to free us. He passed them by. In that death nothing was taken away or changed in his divinity, and a great benefit came to men from the humanity he took. A temporal death, which was not owed, was paid by the eternal Son of God, who was also the Son of man. By it he freed them from an eternal death which was owed.

The devil was holding fast our sins and by them was fixing us, deservedly, in death. The one who had none of his own, and was led by the devil to death undeservedly, cancelled them. That blood was of such price that the one who killed Christ for a time, by a death that was not owed, can no longer hold as his due, in the eternal death that was owed, anyone who has put on Christ.

5. "Justified in his blood" and "saved from wrath"

So Paul says: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:8–9, ESV).

"Justified by his blood" means plainly that we are freed from all sin. And we are freed from all sin because the Son of God, who knew no sin, was killed for us. So "we shall be saved from the wrath of God." That is the wrath of God, which is nothing other than just retribution. God's wrath is not like man's, a disturbance of the mind. It is the wrath of the one to whom Scripture says in another place that, though master of his strength, he judges with mildness.

Editor's note: Augustine's words, "mastering Thy power, judgest with calmness," are from the Wisdom of Solomon (12:18). That book is not in the ESV, so no ESV wording can be given. His sense is kept: God's judgment is never driven by passion.

If God's just retribution has been given that name, what can reconciliation with God rightly mean, except that such wrath comes to an end? We were not enemies to God except in the way sins are enemies to righteousness. When sins are forgiven, those enmities come to an end, and those whom God himself justifies are reconciled to the Just One.

And yet he certainly loved them even while they were still enemies, since he is the one "who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Romans 8:32, ESV) when we were still enemies.

6. Saved by his life, who were reconciled by his death

So the apostle rightly adds: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son," and by that death forgiveness was made, "much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:10, ESV).

We who were reconciled by death are saved in life. Who can doubt that he will give his life to his friends, when he gave his death for them while they were enemies? Paul goes on: "More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (Romans 5:11, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "atonement" where the ESV has "reconciliation." The ESV is printed; Augustine's argument, which is about reconciliation, is unchanged.

Notice that "not only shall we be saved" but "we also rejoice." And we rejoice not in ourselves but "in God," and not through ourselves but "through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

Then Paul says: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned" (Romans 5:12, ESV), and he goes on at some length about two men.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "in whom all have sinned," which he takes as meaning that all sinned in Adam. The ESV has "because all sinned." His fuller point about the one man and the other still rests on the text of Paul as a whole.

The first is Adam. Through his sin and death we, his descendants, are bound as by hereditary evils. The other is the second Adam, who is not only man but also God. He paid for us what he did not owe, and so we are freed from the debts both of our first father and of ourselves.

And since on account of that one the devil held all who were begotten through his corrupted, fleshly desire, it is just that on account of this one he should let go of all who are born again through his spotless, spiritual grace.

Chapter 17: Other Benefits of the Incarnation

Other advantages of the incarnation.

1. What the incarnation teaches, which the proud dislike

There are many other things in the incarnation of Christ, though the proud dislike it, that are worth observing and thinking over. Let me list them.

1. It shows man his place among the things God has made. Human nature could be joined to God so that one person was made of two substances, and so of three: God, soul and flesh. The proud and malicious spirits who set themselves up as mediators, to deceive while seeming to help, do not dare to put themselves above man simply because they have no flesh. And the Son of God deigned to die in that same flesh, so that these spirits, because they seem to be immortal, should not succeed in getting themselves worshipped as gods.

2. It commends grace in the man Christ, apart from any earlier merit. Not even he earned by earlier merit that he should be joined in such great unity with the true God and become the Son of God, one person with him. From the moment he began to be man, he was also God. That is why it is said, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14, ESV).

3. It heals pride. The pride of man is the chief hindrance to his cleaving to God. It can be refuted and healed by so great a humility in God.

4. It shows man how far he has gone from God. And it shows what it is worth to him, as a pain that cures, when he returns by such a Mediator, who as God helps men by his divinity and as man fits in with men by his weakness.

5. It gives the example of obedience. What greater example of obedience could be given to us, who had perished through disobedience, than God the Son obeying God the Father, "to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8, ESV)?

6. It shows the reward of obedience. Where could the reward of obedience be better shown than in the flesh of so great a Mediator, which rose again to eternal life?

7. It suits the justice and goodness of the Creator. The devil was to be conquered by the same rational creature that he rejoiced to have conquered, and by one from the same race which he held altogether through the corruption of its origin in one man.

Chapter 18: Why the Son Was Born of Adam's Race and of a Virgin

Why the Son of God took man upon himself from the race of Adam, and from a virgin.

1. God could have done it another way

God could assuredly have taken manhood from some other source, to be Mediator between God and men in that manhood. He did not have to take it from the race of Adam, who bound the human race by his sin. He did not create the first man of anyone else's race. So he was able, in that way or in any other way he chose, to create one other man, by whom the conqueror of the first might be conquered.

But God judged it better to take the man by whom he would conquer the enemy of the human race from the very race that had been conquered. And he judged it better to do it from a virgin, in whose conception faith went first and not flesh, spirit and not lust.

2. The conception without desire

Fleshly desire did not come into it. That is how the rest of men, who inherit original sin, are propagated and conceived. A holy virgin became pregnant, not by marriage union but by faith, with lust entirely absent.

So what was born from the root of the first man took from it only the origin of the race, not the origin of guilt. A nature corrupted by the contagion of transgression was not born. The one and only remedy for all such corruptions was born. A man was born who had nothing of sin, and was to have nothing of sin. Through him those who could not be born without sin were to be born again and freed from sin.

3. Why desire had to be absent

Married chastity makes a right use of the fleshly desire that is in our members. But it is still liable to movements that are not voluntary. These show either that it could not have existed at all in paradise before sin, or that if it did, it was not then such as to resist the will at times.

Now we feel it to be so. Against the law of the mind, even when there is no question of having children, it stirs up in us the urge to the marriage act. If men give in to it in this, it is satisfied by an act of sin. If they do not, it is held in check by an act of refusal. Who could doubt that both were foreign to paradise before sin? The chastity of that time did nothing unseemly, and the pleasure of that time suffered nothing restless.

So it was necessary that this fleshly desire should be wholly absent when the offspring of the Virgin was conceived. In him the author of death was to find nothing worthy of death, and yet was to kill him, in order that he might be conquered by the death of the Author of life.

4. The conqueror of Adam conquered by Adam

Think of the order of it. The conqueror of the first Adam, who held the human race fast, was conquered by the second Adam. He lost the Christian race, freed out of the human race from human guilt, through one who was not in the guilt although he was of the race. The deceiver was to be conquered by the race which he had conquered by guilt.

And this was done so that man might not be puffed up, but, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord." The meaning is the same as the ESV's.

Look at who conquered and who was conquered. The one who was conquered was only man, and he was conquered because he lusted proudly to be a god. The one who conquered was both man and God. He conquered in this way, born of a virgin, because God in his humility did not govern that Man as he governs other saints. He bore him as his Son. These great gifts of God, and whatever others there are that it would take too long to inquire into and discuss here, could not exist unless the Word had been made flesh.

Chapter 19: What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge and What to Wisdom

What in the incarnate Word belongs to knowledge, and what to wisdom.

1. Everything he did in time belongs to knowledge

All these things which the Word made flesh did and bore for us in time and place belong, by the distinction I have undertaken to show, to knowledge and not to wisdom. As the Word is without time and without place, he is co-eternal with the Father and everywhere in his wholeness. If anyone can speak truly of this Word, and as far as he can, his discourse will belong to wisdom.

2. Both treasures in Christ

So the Word made flesh, who is Christ Jesus, has the treasures both of wisdom and of knowledge. The apostle writes to the Colossians: "For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:1–3, ESV).

How far the apostle knew all those treasures, how deeply he had entered them and how great the things he reached, who can know? For my part, I take the words of Scripture, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:7–8, ESV). If these two are to be distinguished in such a way that wisdom is given to divine things and knowledge to human things, then I acknowledge both in Christ, and so do all his faithful with me.

When I read, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV), I understand by the Word the true Son of God. I acknowledge in the flesh the true Son of man. And I acknowledge both joined together in one person of God and man, by an inexpressible abundance of grace.

3. "Grace and truth"

That is why the apostle goes on: "and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14, ESV). If we apply grace to knowledge and truth to wisdom, I think we shall not wander from the distinction we have recommended.

In things that began in time, the highest grace is that man is joined to God in unity of person. In things eternal, the highest truth is rightly assigned to the Word of God. And that the same one is the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, took place so that he himself, in the things done for us in time, should be the same one for whom we are cleansed by the same faith, so that we might gaze on him steadfastly in the things eternal.

4. The philosophers who had no Mediator

Now think of the distinguished philosophers of the nations. Some of them were able to understand and discern the invisible things of God by the things that are made. Yet it is said of them that they "suppress the truth" (Romans 1:18, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "held down the truth in iniquity." The ESV has "by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." The meaning is the same.

Why? Because they philosophized without a Mediator, that is, without the man Christ. They did not believe he would come, at the word of the prophets, and they did not believe he had come, at the word of the apostles.

Placed as they were among these lowest things, they could not help seeking some go-betweens through whom they might reach the lofty things they had understood. So they fell in with deceitful spirits. The result was that they "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles" (Romans 1:23, ESV). In such forms they set up and worshipped idols.

5. Christ is both

So Christ is our knowledge, and the same Christ is our wisdom. He himself plants in us faith about temporal things. He himself shows forth the truth about eternal things. Through him we reach on to himself. We stretch through knowledge to wisdom, and yet we never leave the one and the same Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3, ESV).

For now we speak of knowledge. We shall speak of wisdom afterwards, as much as he himself grants.

Let us not take these two terms to mean it is forbidden to speak of the wisdom that is in human things, or of the knowledge that is in divine. In a looser way of speaking, both can be called wisdom and both can be called knowledge. Yet the apostle could not have written, "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge," unless these two had also been rightly called by their own names, in the distinction we are now discussing.

Chapter 20: What This Book Has Done, and the Trinity in Faith

A review of what has been treated in this book. How we have reached by steps a certain trinity, which is found in practical knowledge and true faith.

1. Where we have got to

Let me now see what this long discussion has accomplished. What has it gathered, and where has it reached?

1. All men will to be blessed. Yet not all men have the faith by which the heart is cleansed and by which blessedness is reached. So it comes about that we have to reach the blessedness which everyone wills by means of a faith which not everyone wills.

2. Everyone sees in his own heart that he wills to be blessed. Human nature is in such agreement on this that a man who guesses it of another's mind, from his own, is not deceived. In short, we know from ourselves that all will this.

3. Many despair of being immortal. Yet nobody can be what all will, that is, blessed, in any other way. They also will to be immortal, if they could be. But they do not believe they can, and so they do not live in a way that lets them.

4. So faith is necessary, that we may reach blessedness in all the good things of human nature, soul and body both.

5. And the same faith requires that it be fixed in Christ. He rose in the flesh from the dead, to die no more (Romans 6:9, ESV). No one is freed from the dominion of the devil through the forgiveness of sins except through him. And in the devil's dwelling place, life must needs be both miserable and never-ending, which should be called death rather than life.

I have argued all this, as far as space allowed, in this book. I also said much on the subject in the fourth book. There I spoke for one purpose and here for another. There I showed why and how Christ was sent by the Father in the fullness of time, against those who say that the one who sent and the one who was sent cannot be equal in nature. Here I have spoken to distinguish practical knowledge from contemplative wisdom.

2. Why we climb by steps

I wanted us to ascend as by steps. I wanted to seek in the inner man, both in knowledge and in wisdom, a trinity of its own special kind, as we sought one before in the outer man. The aim is that we may come, with a mind more practised in these lower things, to the contemplation of that Trinity which is God. We do it according to our small measure, if indeed we can do even this, at least "in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "in a riddle and as through a glass." The ESV has "in a mirror dimly." "Riddle" (aenigma) is the word he leans on in the later books; the ESV is printed here.

3. A trinity in the man who has only the sounds

Suppose someone has committed to memory the words of this faith in their sounds alone, without knowing what they mean. That is how people who don't know Greek keep Greek words in memory, or Latin words, or the words of any language they don't know. Has he got a kind of trinity in his mind? I say yes.

1. First, the sounds of the words are in his memory, even when he is not thinking about them.

2. Next, the mental sight of his remembering is formed from them when he thinks of them.

3. Then, the will of the man who remembers and thinks joins the two together.

Yet we should not say that this man is busy with a trinity of the interior man. It belongs rather to the exterior. He remembers and, when he wills, contemplates only what belongs to the bodily sense called hearing. In such an act of thought he deals only with images of bodily things, that is, of sounds.

4. When the meaning is held too

But suppose he holds and recalls what the words mean. Now something of the inner man is set to work. Still, he ought not yet to be said or thought to live according to a trinity of the inner man, unless he loves the things that are declared, commanded and promised there. A man can hold and think these things as if they were false, in order to try to disprove them.

So in that case the will unites what is kept in memory with what is stamped on the mind's eye in thought. It does complete a kind of trinity, as a third added to two others. But the man does not live according to this, when the things he thinks of are taken to be false and not accepted.

When those things are believed to be true, and what ought to be loved in them is loved, then at last the man does live according to a trinity of the inner man. Everyone lives according to what he loves.

5. How can we love what we only believe?

But how can things be loved that are not known but only believed? I treated this in earlier books. We found that nobody loves what he is wholly ignorant of. When unknown things are said to be loved, they are loved from things that are known.

6. Closing the book

Now I close this book by urging the just to live by faith (Galatians 3:11, ESV), the faith which works through love (Galatians 5:6, ESV). All the virtues by which one lives prudently, bravely, temperately and justly should be referred to that same faith. Otherwise they cannot be true virtues.

Even so, in this life they are not of such worth that the forgiveness of sins, of one kind or another, is never necessary here. And this forgiveness comes about only through him who by his own blood conquered the prince of sinners.

Whatever thoughts are in the mind of the faithful man from this faith and from such a life, when they are held in memory, looked at in recollection and pleasing to the will, set out a kind of trinity of their own sort. But the image of God, of which we shall speak afterwards with his help, is not yet in that trinity. This will be clearer when it has been shown where the image is. The reader may look for that in the next book.

Book Fourteen: The True Wisdom of Man, and the Image of God Renewed

In this book Augustine speaks of the true wisdom of man. He shows that the image of God in the mind is not to be found in passing things, such as the memory, understanding and love of faith while it lasts in time, or even of the mind busy with itself. It is to be found in things that last. This wisdom is made perfect when the mind is renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of the one who made man in his own image, and so comes to a wisdom whose object is eternal.

Chapter 1: What Wisdom Are We Talking About?

What the wisdom is that we are about to treat. Where the name "philosopher" came from. A reminder of what has already been said about the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Two kinds of wisdom

We have to speak now about wisdom. I don't mean the wisdom of God. That wisdom is God himself, because his only-begotten Son is called the wisdom of God. I mean the wisdom of man. But I mean true wisdom, the kind that is according to God. It is his true and chief worship.

The Greeks have a single word for it, theosebeia. Our own writers tried to put it into a single Latin word and chose piety. The trouble is that piety more commonly translates a different Greek word, eusebeia. Since no single word does the job, it is better to use two: "the worship of God."

Here is the proof that this is the wisdom of man. In the book of Job, the Wisdom of God speaks to man, and in the Latin Bible that Augustine used it says, "Behold, piety, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is knowledge."

Editor's note: Augustine's text reads "piety" here, which is why the whole chapter turns on that word. The ESV reads "the fear of the Lord." Augustine's meaning, the worship of God, is kept in the lines around the quotation and not forced into it. The ESV also has "understanding" where Augustine had "knowledge." For that reason the line above is given in his wording, without a label, and the ESV is quoted next.

So "the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding" (Job 28:28, ESV). Some translators render the Greek word for the second term as "learning," which takes its name from being learned. That fits, because everything is learned in order that it may be known.

A word that also means discipline

That same word is used in another sense when someone suffers for his sins so that he may be corrected. You can see this in the Letter to the Hebrews: "For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" (Hebrews 12:7, ESV). It is even clearer a little later: "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11, ESV).

So I put it like this. God himself is the highest wisdom. The worship of God is the wisdom of man, and that is the wisdom I am speaking of now. As Paul says, "the wisdom of this world is folly with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19, ESV). It is of this wisdom, the worship of God, that Scripture says, "the multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world."

Editor's note: Augustine takes this line from the Book of Wisdom, which is one of the apocryphal books and is not in the ESV. It is given as he gave it, without a verse label.

Who is allowed to talk about wisdom?

But if only wise men may discuss wisdom, what are we to do? Are we shameless to try it? Shall we not be afraid when we remember Pythagoras? He did not dare to call himself a wise man. He said he was a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. The name stuck, so that however far someone's learning went, in his own opinion or in other people's, he was still only called a philosopher.

Perhaps these men held back because they pictured the wise man as someone without any sin. Our Scriptures don't say that. They say, "reprove a wise man, and he will love you" (Proverbs 9:8, ESV). Whoever thinks a man ought to be reproved judges that he has sin.

For my part, I won't call myself a wise man even in that sense. It is enough for me to take what the philosophers themselves can't deny: discussing wisdom belongs to the lover of wisdom as well. They never stopped discussing it just because they called themselves lovers of wisdom and not wise men.

Knowledge and wisdom, once more

When philosophers discuss wisdom they define it this way: wisdom is the knowledge of things human and divine. So in the last book I did not refuse to say that knowing both, divine and human, can be called both knowledge and wisdom.

But the apostle draws a line: "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:8, ESV). So the definition is to be divided. Knowledge of divine things is called wisdom. Knowledge of human things keeps the name knowledge for itself.

I dealt with the second in the thirteenth book. I did not mean everything that a person can know about human affairs, because much of that is empty vanity and mischievous curiosity. I meant only the things by which that most wholesome faith is begotten, nourished, defended and strengthened. It is the faith that leads to true blessedness. Most believers are not strong in this knowledge, however strong they are in faith itself.

It is one thing to know only what a person ought to believe in order to reach the blessed life, which has to be eternal. It is another thing to know how that belief helps the godly and is defended against the ungodly. The apostle seems to give this second thing the special name of knowledge.

What the last book established

Let me remind you of what I was doing in that book. I was commending faith. I briefly separated eternal things from temporal ones, and I discussed the temporal ones, while putting off the eternal ones to this book. Three points came out of it.

1. Faith about eternal things is itself temporal. It lives in time in the hearts of believers. Yet it is necessary for reaching the eternal things themselves.

2. Faith about the temporal things that the Eternal One did and suffered for us as man is also useful for gaining eternal things. He bore that manhood in time and carried it on into eternity.

3. The virtues by which people live wisely, bravely, temperately and justly in this mortal life are not true virtues unless they are referred to that same faith. It is temporal, but it leads on to the eternal.

Chapter 2: A Trinity in Faith, but Not Yet the Image

There is a kind of trinity in holding, contemplating and loving temporal faith. But it does not yet reach the point of being properly an image of God.

Why faith is not the place to look

Scripture says, "while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:6–7, ESV). So as long as the righteous man lives by faith, he lives according to the inner man. He aims at truth, and by this same temporal faith he reaches on toward eternal things.

Even so, when we hold, contemplate and love this temporal faith, we have not yet reached a trinity that can be called the image of God. If we said it had, the image would seem to be made of temporal things, when it ought to be made of eternal ones.

Think about it. When the human mind sees its own faith, by which it believes what it does not see, it is not seeing something eternal. That faith will not always exist. It will not exist when this pilgrimage ends, the pilgrimage in which we are away from God and must walk by faith. Sight will take its place, and we will see face to face. Because we believe now, although we do not see, we will deserve to see then, and we will rejoice that faith brought us to sight.

Then there will be no more faith, which believes what is not seen. There will be sight, which sees what was believed. We will still remember this past mortal life. We will call to mind that we once believed what we did not see. But that faith will be counted among things finished, not among things that stand and go on.

So the trinity that now consists in remembering, contemplating and loving this faith while it is present and lasting will turn out to be over and gone. And here is the conclusion. If that trinity were the image of God, then the image would be counted among things that pass, not among things that always are.

Chapter 3: An Objection Answered

A difficulty that stands in the way of what has just been said is removed.

The best thing in the soul cannot be something that ends

It would be unthinkable to suppose that, while the soul's nature is immortal and never ceases to be from the first moment of its creation, the best thing it has should not last forever with it. And what is there in its nature, as created, better than that it was made after the image of its Creator?

So we have to look for what can rightly be called the image of God. We must not look in holding, contemplating and loving faith, which will not always exist. We must look in what will always exist.

But won't the same trinity continue by memory?

Let us look more carefully and deeply to see whether this is really so. Someone may object that this trinity does not perish even when faith itself has passed away. Now we hold it in memory, discern it by thought and love it by will. Then we will hold in memory, and will recollect, that we once had it, and we will join the two by the third, which is will. So the same trinity will go on. If faith left no trace in us as it passed, we would have nothing of it in memory to go back to.

The person who says this does not see something. When we now hold, see and love our present faith, we are dealing with one trinity, and it exists now. When we later look back, we will not contemplate the faith itself. We will contemplate a kind of imagined trace of it, stored in the memory. And we will join by will, as by a third, what was in the memory of the one who retains it and what is impressed from it on the mind's eye of the one who recollects. That is a different trinity.

An example from bodies

Let me make this plain by an example from bodily things. I spoke about them at length in the eleventh book. As we climb from the lower to the higher, or move inward from outer to inner, we first find a trinity in the bodily thing that is seen, in the sight of the one who sees it, which is shaped by it, and in the purpose of the will that joins the two.

Now imagine that our present faith is fixed in our memory the way that bodily thing was fixed in a place. From that faith the thought in recollection is formed, as from that bodily thing the sight of the beholder was formed. And as a third that completes the trinity, there is will, which joins the faith established in the memory and a kind of likeness of it stamped on the sight of recollection. In the bodily trinity, the form of the visible object and the matching form made in the beholder's sight are joined by the purpose of the will.

Suppose that bodily object were dissolved and perished, with nothing left anywhere for the gaze to go back to. Is the trinity that comes from the image of the vanished object, kept in the memory, the same as the first trinity, when the object stood in place and was seen? Certainly not. It is entirely different. For one thing, the first was from outside, and this is from inside. The first was produced by the appearance of a present bodily object. The second is produced by the image of an object now past.

The same holds for faith

It is the same with the case we are treating. The faith that is in our mind now stands as that bodily object stood in place. As it is held, looked at and loved, it produces a kind of trinity. That trinity will no longer exist when this faith in the mind no longer exists, just as the first trinity ended when the bodily object ceased to exist.

What will exist then, when we remember that faith was in us but is not now, will be a different one. The trinity of today is made by the thing itself, actually present and joined to the mind of the believer. The trinity of that day will be made by an imagination of a past thing left in the memory of the one who recollects.

Chapter 4: Where the Image of God Is to Be Sought

The image of God is to be sought in the immortality of the rational soul. How a trinity is shown in the mind.

The image is in the rational soul

So neither the trinity of faith that exists now is the image of God, nor is the one that will exist then. We must find the image of the Creator in the soul of man, the rational or intellectual soul. It is planted in the soul's immortality, and it is as lasting as that immortality.

The soul's immortality has to be spoken of with a qualification. The soul has its own death, when it is without the blessed life. That is the true life of the soul. It is called immortal because it never ceases to live with some life or other, even when it is most miserable.

In the same way, reason or intellect may be dull in the soul at one time, small at another, great at another. Yet the human soul is never anything but rational or intellectual. If it is made after the image of God in this respect, that it can use reason and intellect to understand and behold God, then from the moment that wonderful nature began to be, that image has always been there. It may be so worn down that it is almost nothing. It may be dim and defaced. It may be bright and beautiful. Either way, it is there.

"Man walks in an image"

Scripture pities the defaced state of its dignity. It says, "although man walks in an image, yet he disquiets himself in vain; he heaps up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them." It would not call the image of God vain unless it saw it defaced. But it shows that defacing does not take away the fact of being an image, when it says, "Although man walks in an image."

Editor's note: Augustine read Psalm 39:6 with the Latin word for "image" where the ESV reads "shadow": "Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!" (Psalm 39:6, ESV). Augustine's argument depends on the word "image," so his reading is kept and the ESV sentence is given as the closest parallel.

So the sentence can be rightly said in both directions. "Although man walks in an image, yet he disquiets himself in vain." And, "Although man disquiets himself in vain, yet he walks in an image."

Think about what that means. The soul's nature is great, and yet it can be corrupted, because it is not the highest. And although it can be corrupted because it is not the highest, it is still a great nature, because it can share in the highest nature.

A trinity of a special kind

Let us look in this image of God for a trinity of a special kind. We shall do it with the help of him who made us after his own image. There is no other way to examine this subject safely, or to reach any result according to wisdom, which is from him.

If the reader will either keep in mind what we have said about the human soul in the earlier books, especially the tenth, or look it over again where it stands, he won't need a longer discussion here.

Among other things, I said in the tenth book that the mind of man knows itself. The mind knows nothing so well as what is close to it, and nothing is closer to the mind than the mind itself. I gave other proofs as well, as many as seemed enough to make it quite certain.

Chapter 5: Does the Mind of an Infant Know Itself?

The question whether the mind of infants knows itself.

What about a baby?

What are we to say of the mind of an infant? It is so small and sunk in such deep ignorance of things that the mind of a grown man who knows anything shrinks from the darkness of it. Do we believe that it too knows itself? Perhaps it is too intent on the things it has begun to perceive through the bodily senses, and takes more delight in them for being new. So it cannot be ignorant of itself, but it cannot think of itself either.

Notice how intently it is bent on outside things. Here is a sign. It is so greedy for visible light that if someone carelessly puts a lamp at night by a baby's bed, on the side where the child's eyes can turn but not its neck, the child's gaze will be so fixed in that direction that some, as we have known, have come to squint. The eyes kept the shape that habit pressed on them while they were tender and soft.

It is the same with the other senses. The souls of infants, as far as their age allows, narrow themselves and fix on them. They fiercely hate or fiercely desire only what hurts or pleases through the flesh. They do not think of their own inner self, and you can't make them think of it by telling them to, because they don't yet know the signs that carry a warning, words above all. Of words, as of everything else, they are wholly ignorant.

And, as I showed in the same book, it is one thing not to know yourself and another not to think of yourself.

Let the infant years pass

Let us leave the age of infancy alone. We can't question it about what goes on within, and we ourselves have more or less forgotten it. It is enough to be sure of this. When a person has come to be able to think about the nature of his own mind and find the truth about it, he will find it nowhere else than in himself. And he will find, not something he did not know, but something he did not think about. For what do we know, if we do not know what is in our own mind? We can know nothing at all of what we know, except by the mind.

Chapter 6: A Trinity in the Mind Thinking of Itself

How a kind of trinity exists in the mind when it thinks of itself. What part thought plays in this trinity.

The power of thought

The work of thought is so great that the mind cannot even set itself in its own sight except by thinking of itself. Nothing is in the sight of the mind except what is being thought of. Even the mind, by which we think whatever we do think, can't be in its own sight except by thinking of itself.

But how is it not in its own sight when it is not thinking of itself, when it can never be without itself, as if itself were one thing and the sight of itself another? I can't work that out. It makes sense to say this about the eye of the body. The eye is fixed in its own place in the body, but its sight reaches out to things outside it, as far as the stars. The eye does not see itself, unless in a mirror. That does not happen when the mind places itself in its own sight by thinking of itself.

Does the mind look at itself with a part of itself?

Does it see one part of itself with another part, when it looks at itself in thought, as we look at some of our limbs with other limbs, such as our eyes? What could be more absurd to say or think? What takes the mind away, except itself? Where is it placed to be in its own sight, except before itself? It would not be where it was when it was not in its own sight, because it has been put down in one place after being moved from another.

If it moved in order to be looked at, where would it stay in order to look? Is it doubled, so that it is in both places at once, where it can look and where it can be looked at, so that in itself it looks and before itself it is looked at? If we ask the truth, it will tell us nothing like that. Only invented pictures of bodies make us think like this, and the mind is not like that. A few minds are able to see that, minds fit to inquire into the truth on such a subject.

So it appears that the beholding of the mind belongs to its nature. When it thinks of itself, it is recalled to its nature, not as if by moving through space, but by an incorporeal turning. When it is not thinking of itself, it is not in its own sight and its own perception is not formed from itself. Yet it knows itself, as though it were a remembrance of itself to itself.

Consider a person who is skilled in many branches of learning. What he knows is held in his memory, but nothing of it is in the sight of his mind except what he is thinking of. All the rest is stored in a kind of secret knowledge called memory.

The trinity we set out

Here is the trinity we were laying out. First, in the memory we placed the object by which the perception of the one perceiving was formed. Next came the shape, or the image, stamped by it. Last came love or will, which joins the two.

When the mind looks at itself in thought, it understands and recognizes itself. So it begets this understanding and recognition of itself. An incorporeal thing is understood when it is looked at, and recognized when it is understood. But the mind does not beget this knowledge of itself, when it looks at itself as understood in thought, as though it had been unknown to itself before. It was known to itself, in the way things are known that are held in the memory when we are not thinking of them. A man is said to know letters even when he is thinking about something else.

These two, the one who begets and the one begotten, are joined together by love as by a third. Love is nothing other than will, seeking or holding on to the enjoyment of something. So we held that a trinity of the mind is also shown by three terms: memory, understanding, will.

A question to settle

But the mind, as I said near the end of that tenth book, always remembers itself, always understands itself and always loves itself, even though it does not always think of itself as distinct from things that are not itself. So we have to ask in what way understanding belongs to thinking, when the notion of each thing in the mind, even when we aren't thinking of it, is said to belong only to the memory.

If that is how it is, then the mind did not have these three things, remembrance, understanding and love of itself, all along. It only remembered itself. Then, when it began to think of itself, it understood and loved itself.

Chapter 7: An Example to Make It Plain

The matter is made plain by an example, and the way it is handled is meant to help the reader.

Not knowing and not thinking of

Let us look more carefully at the example we used before. It showed that not knowing a thing is different from not thinking of it. A man can know something he is not thinking of, because he is thinking of something else.

Take a person skilled in two or more branches of knowledge. When he is thinking about one, he is not thinking about the other, but he knows it. Can we say, "This musician certainly knows music, but does not understand it at the moment, because he is not thinking about it; but he does understand geometry, because he is thinking about that"? That is plainly absurd. What if we said, "He knows music, but doesn't love it now, because he isn't thinking about it; but he loves geometry, because that is what he is thinking about"? Equally absurd.

But we can say quite correctly, "The person you see arguing about geometry is also a perfect musician. He remembers music, understands it and loves it. He knows and loves it, though he isn't thinking about it now, because he is thinking about geometry, the subject he is arguing."

Stored knowledge that steps out into the open

This warns us that we have knowledge of some things stored in the hidden places of the mind. When it is thought of, it steps out into public view and is set openly in the sight of the mind. Then the mind finds that it remembers, understands and loves itself, even though it wasn't thinking of itself when it was thinking of something else.

What about something we haven't thought of for a long time, and can't think of unless someone reminds us? In some wonderful way, I don't know how, we don't know that we know it. And so the person who reminds us says to the person he reminds: "You know this, but you don't know that you know it. I will remind you, and you will find that you know what you thought you didn't."

Books work the same way, I mean those written on subjects the reader, guided by reason, finds to be true. Not those he believes on the word of the narrator, as with history, but things he finds to be true himself, either in himself or in that truth which is the light of the mind. But someone who cannot see these things, even when reminded, is buried too deep in the darkness of ignorance. He is blind of heart, and needs divine help in a wonderful way if he is ever to reach true wisdom.

Why I took this detour

I wanted to give some proof, whatever it might be, about the act of thinking. I wanted to show how, out of what is held in the memory, the eye of the mind is shaped when it recollects, and how something is begotten when a man thinks, something that was already in him when, before he thought, he remembered. It is easier to tell apart things that happen at different times, where the parent comes before the offspring.

If we refer ourselves instead to the inner memory by which the mind remembers itself, the inner understanding by which it understands itself, and the inner will by which it loves itself, then these three are always together, and have always been together since they began, whether they were being thought of or not. The image of this trinity would then seem to belong to the memory alone. But a word cannot exist without a thought, for we think everything we say, even if it is said by that inner word which belongs to no particular language. So the image is better seen in these three: memory, understanding and will.

By understanding I mean now that by which we understand in thought. That is, our thought is formed by finding the things that were at hand in the memory but were not being thought of. By will, or love, or preference, I mean what joins parent and offspring, and is in some way common to both.

The road we have walked

That is why in the eleventh book I tried to lead on the slow reader by outward things seen with the eyes of the flesh. Then I went in with him to that power of the inner man by which he reasons about temporal things. I put off the higher power, by which he contemplates eternal things. I discussed these in two books. In the twelfth I told the two apart, one higher and one lower, and the lower ought to be subject to the higher. In the thirteenth I discussed, as truthfully and briefly as I could, the work of the lower, in which the wholesome knowledge of human things lies, so that we may act in this temporal life in a way that gains the eternal.

I covered in a single book a subject that is large and well known from the many great arguments of many great men. In it I showed that a trinity exists there too, but not yet one that can be called the image of God.

Chapter 8: The Trinity That Is the Image of God

The trinity which is the image of God is now to be sought in the noblest part of the mind.

Where we have arrived

We have reached the argument I set out to make. I undertook to look at the noblest part of the human mind, the part by which it knows God or can know him, so that we may find the image of God there. The human mind is not of the same nature as God. But the image of that nature, than which none is better, has to be sought and found in what is best in us.

First, though, we must consider the mind as it is in itself, before it shares in God, and find his image in it. As I said, the image of God remains in it even though it is worn down and defaced by losing that sharing. It is his image in this very point: it is capable of him, and can share in him. So great a good is made possible only because it is his image.

So the mind remembers itself, understands itself and loves itself. If we see this, we see a trinity. It is not God yet, but it is at last an image of God.

What is different about this trinity

Look at how it differs from the others we have studied.

1. Nothing comes in from outside. The memory does not receive from outside what it is to hold. The understanding does not find outside what it is to look at, as the eye of the body does. The will does not join the two from outside, as it joins the form of a bodily object and what is made from it in the sight of the beholder. Nor has thought, in turning to its object, found an image of something seen outside and laid up in memory, with will as a third joining the two. That was the pattern in the trinities we found in bodily things, in the eleventh book.

2. It is not like the trinities of learned knowledge. In the later books we dealt with knowledge, which belongs to the workings of the inner man and is to be distinguished from wisdom. Its subject matter comes to the mind from outside, in a sense. It comes through history, the deeds and words that are done in time and pass away. Or it comes from things that are fixed in nature in their own times and places. Or it arises in the man himself where it was not before, whether by the word of others or by his own thinking, as faith did in the thirteenth book, or the virtues, by which, if they are true, a person lives well in this mortal life so as to live blessedly in the immortality God promises.

3. Those trinities have an order in time. That is why we could see more easily a trinity of memory, sight and love in them. Some of these things come before the knowledge of the learner. They can be known before they are known, and they beget knowledge of themselves in the learner. Some exist in their places. Some have happened in the past, and the things that are past no longer exist, but only certain signs of them, by seeing or hearing which we learn that they have been and are gone. Those signs are placed in the places themselves, like the monuments of the dead. Or they are in trustworthy books, as all weighty history is. Or they are in the minds of those who already know them, because what is known to them can be known to others, whose knowledge it comes before, on the word of those who know.

Learning all of these things produces a kind of trinity. There is the thing itself, which could be known before it was known. There is the knowledge of the learner, which begins when he learns. And there is will as a third, which joins them. When they are known, another trinity arises in recollecting, now inside the mind itself, from the images stamped on the memory when they were learned, from the shaping of thought when the gaze turns to them in recollection, and from the will which joins those two.

Faith is different again

Things that arise in the mind where they were not before, like faith, seem to come in from outside, since they are planted by teaching. But they are not placed outside, nor done outside, as the things we believe are. They began altogether inside the mind itself. For faith is not what is believed but that by which it is believed. The first is believed. The second is seen.

Still, because faith began in a mind that was already a mind before faith, it seems somewhat added. It will be counted among past things when sight comes and faith itself has ceased. For now, by its presence, held, looked at and loved, it makes a different trinity from the one it will make then, through whatever trace of itself it leaves in the memory. I said this above.

Chapter 9: Will Justice and the Other Virtues End?

The question whether justice and the other virtues cease in the life to come.

A question about the virtues

Here is a question. The virtues by which we live well in this mortal life also begin to be in the mind, which was a mind before it had them. Do they cease when they have brought us to eternal things? Some have thought so. For three of them, prudence, fortitude and temperance, that has some plausibility. But justice is immortal, and will be made perfect in us then, not cease.

Yet Tullius, the great master of eloquence, says in his dialogue Hortensius that all four will cease. He writes: "If we were allowed, when we migrated from this life, to live forever in the islands of the blessed, as fables tell, what need would there be of eloquence when there would be no trials, or indeed of the very virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude when no toil or danger was set before us. We should not need justice, when there was nothing of anyone else's to covet. We should not need temperance to govern lusts that would not exist. Nor should we need prudence, when there was no choice to be made between good and evil. We should be blessed, therefore, solely by learning and knowing nature, by which alone the life of the gods is also praiseworthy. And from this we may see that everything else is a matter of necessity, but this is one of free choice."

This great orator, praising philosophy and going over all he had learned from philosophers, has said that all four virtues are needed only in this life, which is full of troubles and mistakes. When we leave this life, he says, if we are allowed to live where the life is blessed, none of them will be needed. Blessed souls are blessed only in learning and knowing, that is, in the contemplation of nature, than which nothing is better or more lovable. That nature created and ordered all other natures.

What I say to Cicero

If it belongs to justice to be subject to the rule of that nature, then justice is certainly immortal. It will not cease in that blessedness. It will be so great that it cannot be more perfect.

And perhaps the other three virtues will be there too: prudence without any risk of error, fortitude without the pain of bearing evils, temperance without any lust to resist. Then it will be the part of prudence to put no good thing before God or on a level with him. It will be the part of fortitude to cling to him most steadily. It will be the part of temperance to be pleased by no harmful flaw.

But what justice now does in helping the wretched, what prudence does in guarding against treachery, what fortitude does in bearing troubles patiently and what temperance does in controlling evil pleasures, will not exist there, where there will be no evil at all. So the acts of the virtues that are needed for this mortal life will be counted among past things, like the faith they are to be referred to.

They make one trinity now, while we hold, look at and love them as present. They will make a different one then, when we find them not to be, but to have been, by traces they leave in the memory as they pass. There will be a trinity then too, when that trace, whatever it is, is kept in the memory, and truly recognized, and the two are joined by will as a third.

Chapter 10: The Trinity of a Mind That Remembers, Understands and Loves Itself

How a trinity is produced by the mind remembering, understanding and loving itself.

Knowing before and knowing together

In the knowledge of all these temporal things, some knowable things come before our knowing them by a stretch of time. That is true of the things our senses meet, which were real before they were known, and of everything we learn from history. Other things begin at the same moment as the knowing of them. If a visible thing arose before our eyes that had not existed at all, it would not precede our knowing it. If a sound is made where someone is listening, the sound and the hearing begin and end together.

Either way, whether the knowable thing comes first or begins together with knowing, it produces knowledge and is not produced by it. And once the knowledge has come, whenever the things known and stored in memory are looked over again in recollection, who can fail to see that the keeping of them in memory comes before the sight of them in recollection, and before the joining of the two by will as a third?

The mind is not like that

But the mind is not like that. The mind is not added to itself, as if the same self, not yet existing, came to itself already existing from somewhere else. It is not as if the mind were born in itself while it was already there. That is how faith comes, arising in a mind that already was.

The mind also does not see itself set up in its own memory, by recollection, after knowing itself, as though it were not there before it knew itself. From the time it began to be, it has never stopped remembering, understanding and loving itself, as we have shown.

So when it turns to itself by thought, a trinity arises, and in it we can now see a word. The word is formed from the thought itself, with will joining both. Here we can recognize, more than before, the image we are looking for.

Chapter 11: Can We Remember What Is Present?

The question whether memory is also of things present.

An objection about the word "memory"

Someone will say that this is not memory, because the mind is always present to itself, and memory is of things past, not of things present. Some writers, Cicero among them, have divided prudence into three parts: memory, understanding and foresight. They give memory to past things, understanding to present things and foresight to future things.

Foresight is certain only for those who know the future ahead of time. That is no human gift unless it is granted from above, as to the prophets. So the Book of Wisdom says of men, "The thoughts of mortals are fearful, and our foresight uncertain."

Editor's note: Augustine again takes this from the Book of Wisdom, which is one of the apocryphal books and is not in the ESV. It is given in his sense, without a verse label.

But memory of past things and understanding of present things are certain, I mean for incorporeal things that are present. Bodily things are present to the sight of bodily eyes.

What the poets say

Anyone who denies that there is memory of present things should listen to the language of secular literature, where exactness of words was valued more than truth of things. Virgil wrote of Ulysses, "Nor did the Ithacan forget himself in so great a peril." What did Virgil mean when he said that Ulysses did not forget himself, but that he remembered himself? And since Ulysses was present to himself, he could not have remembered himself unless memory could belong to present things.

So just as memory in past things is what makes it possible to recall and remember them, in a present thing, as the mind is to itself, it is no strain to call it memory. It is what makes the mind to be at hand to itself, so that it can be understood by its own thought, and then both be joined together by love of itself.

Chapter 12: The Trinity in the Mind Is the Image of God Because It Can Remember, Understand and Love God

The trinity in the mind is the image of God in that it remembers, understands and loves God, which is wisdom.

Why this trinity is the image

Now here is the point. This trinity of the mind is not the image of God merely because the mind remembers itself, understands itself and loves itself. It is the image because the mind can also remember, understand and love him by whom it was made. When it does this, it becomes wise. If it doesn't, even when it remembers, understands and loves itself, it is foolish.

So let it remember its God, after whose image it was made, and let it understand and love him. Or to say the same thing more briefly, let it worship God, who is not made, by whom it was made, and so is capable of him and can share in him. That is why it is written, "Behold, the worship of God, that is wisdom."

Editor's note: This is the same sentence from Job 28:28 that Augustine used at the opening of the book, in his Latin reading "piety." The ESV reads "the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." His wording is kept here unlabeled, as before.

Then it will be wise, not by its own light, but by sharing in that highest Light. And in what in it is eternal, it will reign in blessedness.

Human wisdom that is also God's

This wisdom is called the wisdom of man in such a way that it is also of God. Only then is it true wisdom. If it were merely human, it would be vain. But it is not God's in the way that the wisdom by which God is wise is God's. He is not wise by sharing in himself, as the mind is wise by sharing in God.

Compare the way we speak of "the righteousness of God." We mean not only that by which he himself is righteous, but also that which he gives to man when he justifies the ungodly. The apostle commends this second righteousness when he says of some that, "being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:3, ESV). (Augustine's Latin reads "the righteousness of God," and the double sense of "of God" is his point; the ESV's "that comes from God" names only one of the two senses.) In the same way it may be said of some that, not knowing the wisdom of God and trying to establish their own wisdom, they are not subject to the wisdom of God.

A nature that was not made

There is a nature that was not made. It made all other natures, great and small. It is without doubt better than the ones it made, and so better than the one we are talking about: the rational and intellectual nature, which is the mind of man, made after the image of him who made it. That more excellent nature is God.

And "he is actually not far from each one of us," as the apostle says, who adds, "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:27–28, ESV). If this were said about the body, it could be understood of this bodily world, because in the body too we live and move and have our being. So it ought to be taken in a better way, a spiritual way, not visible, in respect to the mind, which is made after his image.

For what is not in him, of whom it is written, "For from him and through him and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36, ESV)? If all things are in him, in whom can anything live that lives, or move that moves, except in him in whom it is?

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "of him, and through him, and in him, are all things." The ESV has "to him" for his "in him," and his inference, "If all things are in him," needs "in him." The ESV is printed, and his argument is given from his wording.

Being in him is not the same as being with him

Yet not all are with him in the way it is said to him, "I am continually with you" (Psalm 73:23, ESV). Nor is he with all in the way we say, "The Lord be with you."

So this is the special wretchedness of man: not to be with him, without whom he cannot be. A man is not without him in whom he is. Yet if he does not remember, understand and love him, he is not with him. And when someone has utterly forgotten a thing, it is impossible even to remind him of it.

Chapter 13: How Anyone Can Forget God and Remember Him

How a person can forget God, and how he can remember him.

An example from daily life

Take an example from visible things. Someone you don't recognize says to you, "You know me." To remind you, he tells you where, when and how he became known to you. If, after every sign that might bring you back to remembrance, you still don't recognize him, then you have forgotten so thoroughly that the whole of that knowledge is blotted out of your mind. All that remains is to take his word for it that you once knew him, or not even that, if you don't think the speaker trustworthy. But if you do remember him, then you go back to your own memory and find there what forgetfulness had not completely wiped out.

Now let us return to what made us bring in this example. The ninth Psalm says, "The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God" (Psalm 9:17, ESV). And the twenty-second says, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD" (Psalm 22:27, ESV).

These nations, then, will not have forgotten God so completely that they can't remember him when reminded. But by forgetting God, as though forgetting their own life, they were turned toward death, that is, to hell. When they are reminded they turn to the Lord, as though they were coming back to life by remembering the life that was properly theirs and had been forgotten.

We read also in the ninety-fourth Psalm, "Understand, O dullest of the people! Fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?" (Psalm 94:8–9, ESV). That is said to people who say empty things about God because they don't understand him.

Chapter 14: The Mind Loves God When It Loves Itself Rightly

The mind loves God in rightly loving itself. If it does not love God, it must be said to hate itself. Even a weak and erring mind is always strong in remembering, understanding and loving itself. Let it be turned to God, that it may be blessed by remembering, understanding and loving him.

Love is where the other two are found

There are yet more testimonies in Scripture about the love of God. Love includes the other two, memory and understanding, because no one loves what he doesn't remember or is wholly ignorant of. So we have that well-known and first commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God" (Matthew 22:37, ESV).

The human mind is so made that it never fails to remember, understand and love itself. But whoever hates someone wants to hurt him. So it is not undeservedly said that the mind of man hates itself when it hurts itself. It wills ill to itself through ignorance, because it does not think that what it wills is harmful. But it does will ill to itself when it wills what is harmful.

That is why it is written, "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul."

Editor's note: Augustine took this from the Latin Psalm 11:5. The ESV reads, "The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence" (Psalm 11:5, ESV), which has the Lord hating the wicked. Augustine's sense, that loving evil is a kind of self-hatred, is kept in the lines around the quotation.

Self-love that is really self-hatred

So the one who knows how to love himself loves God. But the one who does not love God, even if he loves himself, which is planted in him by nature, is not wrongly said to hate himself. He does what is against himself and attacks himself as though he were his own enemy.

That is a terrible delusion. All want to benefit themselves, and yet many do nothing but what is most destructive to themselves. When the poet described a similar sickness of dumb animals, he said, "May the gods grant better things to the pious, and assign that delusion to enemies. They were tearing with bare teeth their own torn limbs." It was a sickness of the body he was describing. Why did he call it a delusion, unless because nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can of itself, while this disease made the animals tear the very limbs they wanted to keep safe and sound?

Loving God makes self-love right

But when the mind loves God, and so, as I said, remembers and understands him, it is rightly told also to love its neighbor as itself (Mark 12:31, ESV). For it has now come to love itself rightly, and not in a twisted way. By sharing in God, that image not only exists but is renewed so as to be no longer old, restored so as to be no longer defaced, and made happy so as to be no longer unhappy.

Even so, the mind loves itself so much that if it were given the choice, it would lose everything it loves less than itself rather than perish. Still, by leaving the one above it, in dependence on whom alone it could guard its own strength and enjoy him as its light, it has been made so weak and dark that it falls away from itself too. It falls to things that are not what it is and are beneath it, by desires it can't conquer and delusions it sees no way to come back from.

Editor's note: Augustine here quoted two lines from the Latin Psalms: "I will guard my strength in dependence upon you" and "Draw near to him, and be enlightened." The ESV's wording is different: "O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress" (Psalm 59:9, ESV), and "Those who look to him are radiant" (Psalm 34:5, ESV). His point is the same, that strength and light come from drawing near to God, and that is what is kept here.

When it repents by God's mercy, it cries out in the Psalms, "my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me" (Psalm 38:10, ESV).

Even then the image is not gone

In the middle of these evils of weakness and delusion, great as they are, the mind could not lose its natural memory, understanding and love of itself. And so what I quoted above can rightly be said: "Although man walks in an image, surely he disquiets himself in vain; he heaps up treasures and does not know who will gather them." (See the editor's note on Psalm 39:6 in chapter 4.)

Why does he heap up treasures? Because his strength has deserted him, the strength by which he would have God and so lack nothing. And why can't he tell for whom he is gathering them? Because the light of his eyes has been taken from him. So he does not see what the Truth says: "Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Luke 12:20, ESV).

Yet because even that man walks in an image, and his mind has remembrance, understanding and love of itself, think what would happen if it were made plain to him that he could not have both. Suppose he could choose one and lose the other, either the treasures he has heaped up or the mind. Who is so empty of mind as to prefer to keep the treasures rather than the mind? Treasures can often ruin the mind. But a mind not ruined by treasures lives more easily, and without trouble, without any treasures. And who can possess treasures except through the mind? An infant born as rich as you like, lord of everything that rightly belongs to him, still possesses nothing if his mind is unconscious. How can anyone possess anything whose mind is wholly lost?

Treasure, eyes and mind

I say this about treasures, but no one prefers, or even compares, treasures to the lights of the body, by which not just one man here and there, as with gold, but every man possesses the very heavens. Everyone owns by the eyes of his body whatever he gladly sees. Who, if he could not keep both but must lose one, would not rather lose his treasures than his eyes?

Yet if the choice were between eyes and mind, who with a mind does not see that he would rather lose the eyes? A mind without the eyes of the flesh is still human. The eyes of the flesh without a mind are bestial. And who would not rather be a man, even blind in fleshly sight, than a beast that can see?

Why I said all this

I have said this much so that even the slower reader who comes across this book may be reminded, however briefly, how greatly even a weak and erring mind loves itself while wrongly loving and chasing things beneath it. It could not love itself if it were wholly ignorant of itself, that is, if it did not remember or understand itself. By this image of God within itself it has such power that it is able to cling to him whose image it is. In the order, not of place but of natures, there is nothing above it but him.

When at last it clings to him completely, it will be one spirit. The apostle testifies, "he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (1 Corinthians 6:17, ESV). That comes by drawing near to share his nature, truth and blessedness, and not by any increase in his nature, truth and blessedness. In that nature, once it has happily clung to it, it will live unchangeably and will see as unchangeable all that it sees.

Then, as Scripture promises, its desire will be satisfied with good things: unchangeable good things, the very Trinity itself, its own God, whose image it is. And so that it may never again suffer wrong, it will be in the hidden place of his presence, filled with so great a fullness of him that sin will never again delight it. But now, when it sees itself, it sees something that is not unchangeable.

Chapter 15: What the Soul Remembers

Although the soul hopes for blessedness, it does not remember its lost blessedness. It remembers God and the rules of righteousness. The unchangeable rules of right living are known even to the ungodly.

It knows it is wretched

Of this the mind has no doubt: it is wretched, and it longs to be blessed. It can only hope that this is possible because it can change. If it could not change, then as it could not become wretched after being blessed, so it could not become blessed after being wretched.

What made it wretched under an almighty and good God? Its own sin, and the righteousness of its Lord. What will make it blessed? Its own merit, and its Lord's reward. But even its merit is his grace, whose reward will be its blessedness. It cannot give itself the righteousness it lost and no longer has. It received that righteousness when man was created, and lost it by sinning. So it receives righteousness so that on account of it, it may deserve to receive blessedness.

That is why the apostle says to it, when it begins to be proud of its own good, "What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV). When the mind rightly remembers its own Lord and has received his Spirit, it is taught inwardly. It feels completely that it cannot rise except by his freely given love, and that it could only fall by its own freely chosen turning away.

What it remembers and what it doesn't

It does not remember its own blessedness. That has been, and is not, and the mind has utterly forgotten it, and so cannot even be reminded of it. But it believes what the trustworthy Scriptures of its God say about that blessedness, written by his prophet. They tell of the blessedness of Paradise and hand down an account of that first good and evil of man.

And it remembers the Lord its God. He always is. He has not been and ceased to be. He is not now but was not before. As he will never not be, so he never was not. And he is whole everywhere. So the mind lives and moves and is in him, and therefore it can remember him.

I don't mean that it recalls having known him in Adam or anywhere else before the life of this present body, or when it was first made to be planted in this body. It remembers nothing at all of that. Whatever there was has been blotted out by forgetfulness. But it is reminded, so that it may be turned to God, as to that light by which it was in some way touched even when turned away from him.

The rules that even the ungodly see

This is why even the ungodly think about eternity, and rightly blame and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. By what rules do they judge, except those in which they see how men ought to live, even if they themselves do not live that way? And where do they see those rules? Not in their own nature. These things are seen by the mind, and their minds are changeable, but these rules are seen as unchangeable by anyone who sees them at all. Nor do they see them in the character of their own mind, because these rules are rules of righteousness, and their minds are admittedly unrighteous.

Where, then, are these rules written, in which even the unrighteous recognizes what is righteous, and sees that he ought to have what he himself does not have? They are written in the book of that Light which is called Truth. From there every righteous law is copied and carried over to the heart of the man who does righteousness. It does not travel there by moving. It is impressed, as the mark of a ring passes into wax without leaving the ring.

The person who doesn't work righteousness and yet sees how he ought to work is the man turned away from that light, which still touches him. The person who doesn't even see how he ought to live sins with more excuse, because he is not breaking a law he knows. But even he is sometimes touched by the splendor of the truth that is everywhere present, when he confesses on being warned.

Chapter 16: How the Image of God Is Formed Again in Man

How the image of God is formed anew in man.

He who made it must remake it

Some people are reminded, and so turned to the Lord from that deformity by which they were shaped to this world through worldly lusts. They are formed again out of the world when they listen to the apostle: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Romans 12:2, ESV). The aim is that the image may begin to be formed again by him by whom it was formed at first. The image can't form itself again, though it could deform itself.

The apostle says again elsewhere, "be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and ... put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:23–24, ESV). Augustine's Latin has "created after God," where the ESV has "after the likeness of God." What is meant by "created after God" is said in another place as "after the image of God." The mind lost righteousness and true holiness by sinning, and so the image was defaced and tarnished. It recovers them when it is formed again and renewed.

What "the spirit of your mind" means

When Paul says "in the spirit of your minds" he doesn't mean two things, as though the mind were one thing and the spirit of the mind another. He speaks like this because every mind is spirit, but not every spirit is mind. Let me show you why that matters. The word "spirit" has many meanings.

1. There is a Spirit that is God. That Spirit can't be renewed, because it can't grow old.

2. There is a spirit in man that is distinct from the mind. The images formed after the likeness of bodies belong to it. Paul speaks of this to the Corinthians: "if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful" (1 Corinthians 14:14, ESV). He speaks like that when what is said is not understood. It could not even be said unless images of articulate bodily sounds came before the spoken sound, in the thought of the spirit.

3. The soul of man is also called spirit. In the Gospel it is written that Jesus "bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30, ESV). That signifies the death of the body, as the spirit leaves it.

4. We also speak of the spirit of a beast. In Ecclesiastes: "Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:21, ESV). In Genesis, all flesh died in the flood that "had in it the spirit of life" (Augustine's wording; the ESV says, "in whose nostrils was the breath of life," Genesis 7:22, ESV).

5. We also say "spirit" for the wind, a thing quite plainly bodily. So in the Psalms: "fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word" (Psalm 148:8, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text of Psalm 148:8 has "the spirit of the storm" where the ESV has "stormy wind." The two lines in Genesis 7:22 also differ in wording. In Genesis his wording is given with the ESV beside it, and in the Psalm the ESV is quoted. The word "spirit" that Augustine lays weight on is named in the sentence around it.

So because "spirit" means so many things, the apostle meant by "the spirit of the mind" the spirit which is called the mind.

Another example from Paul

Paul does the same with another phrase. When he says "putting off the body of the flesh" (Colossians 2:11, ESV), he didn't mean two things, as though flesh were one thing and the body of the flesh another. Body is the name of many things that are not flesh. Besides flesh, there are many heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. So he said "the body of the flesh" to name that body which is flesh. In the same way, "the spirit of the mind" names that spirit which is mind.

Paul says it again, plainly

Elsewhere he calls it an image, making the same point in different words: "have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV).

Compare the two passages.

1. "Created after God" in one place, and "after the image of its creator" in the other.

2. "In true righteousness and holiness" in the first, and "in knowledge" in the second.

So this renewal and re-forming of the mind is done either after God or after the image of God. It is said to be "after God" so that no one thinks it is after some other creature. It is said to be "after the image of God" so that we understand the renewal takes place in the part where the image of God is, that is, the mind.

We speak the same way of other things. We say a faithful and righteous man who has left the body is dead "after the body," not "after the spirit." What do we mean by dead after the body, except as to the body, in the body, and not dead as to the soul? If we say someone is handsome or strong "after the body," not "after the mind," we mean handsome or strong in body, not in mind. There are numberless examples like this.

So we shouldn't take "after the image of its creator" to mean a different image from the one being renewed. It is the very same one that is itself renewed.

Chapter 17: How the Image Is Renewed Until the Likeness Is Complete

How the image of God in the mind is renewed until the likeness of God is perfected in it in blessedness.

Two cures, not one

This renewal does not happen in a single moment of conversion. The renewal in baptism does happen in a single moment, by the forgiveness of all sins. Not one sin, however small, is left unforgiven.

But it is one thing to be free from a fever, and another to grow strong again after the weakness the fever left. It is one thing to pull out a weapon that has been thrust into the body, and another to heal the wound it made. So the first cure is to take away the cause of the weakness, and this is done by the forgiveness of all sins. The second cure is to heal the weakness itself. That happens gradually, as the image is renewed.

You can see both in the Psalm: "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" (Psalm 103:3, ESV). Forgiveness comes in baptism. Healing comes by daily additions while the image is being renewed.

Renewed day by day

The apostle speaks of this most directly: "Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16, ESV). And it is renewed "in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10, ESV), that is, in righteousness and true holiness, according to the testimonies from Paul we just heard.

Notice what the person does who is renewed day by day, growing in the knowledge of God and in righteousness and true holiness.

1. He moves his love. He turns it from temporal things to eternal things, from visible to intelligible, from fleshly to spiritual.

2. He keeps at it. He holds his desire for the first in check, and lessens it, and binds himself by love to the second.

3. He does it only as God helps. It is the Lord's own word: "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5, ESV).

The end of the road

And when the last day of this life finds someone holding firm to faith in the Mediator in this progress and growth, the holy angels will receive him and lead him to the God he has worshipped, and he will be made perfect by him. At the end of the world he will receive an incorruptible body, not for punishment but for glory.

For the likeness of God will be perfected in this image when the sight of God is perfected. Paul speaks of this: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). And again: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV). This is what happens day by day in those who make good progress.

Chapter 18: What John Means by "We Shall Be Like Him"

Whether John's sentence is to be understood of our future likeness to the Son of God, in the immortality of the body also.

A first possible reading

The apostle John says: "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

From this it seems that the full likeness of God will take place in the image of God at the time it receives the full sight of God. But there is another way John's words might be taken, as being about the immortality of the body. We will be like God in this too. But then it is only like the Son, because in the Trinity only the Son took a body, in which he died, rose again and carried it with him into heaven above.

This also is called an image of the Son of God. In it we will have an immortal body as he has, conformed in this respect not to the image of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, but only to the Son. Of him alone is it read, and held by sound faith, that "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14, ESV).

The apostle on the image of the Son

That is why the apostle says, "those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29, ESV). He is "the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18, ESV), as the same apostle says. His flesh was sown in dishonor and raised in glory.

By this image of the Son, to which we are made like in the body by immortality, we also do what the same apostle says: "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven" (1 Corinthians 15:49, ESV). We who are mortal after Adam can hold by a true faith and a sure hope that we will be immortal after Christ. We can bear the same image now, not yet by sight but by faith, not yet in fact but in hope. For the apostle was speaking of the resurrection of the body when he said this.

Chapter 19: The Perfect Likeness to the Trinity in Eternal Life

John's words must rather be understood of our perfect likeness to the Trinity in eternal life. Wisdom is made perfect in happiness.

The image of the Trinity

But about the other image, the one of which God says "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26, ESV), we believe, and after the most careful search we have been able to make we understand, that man was made after the image of the Trinity. It isn't said "after my image" or "after your image." It is "our."

So John's words must rather be understood according to this image: "we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV). John was speaking of God, of whom he had said, "we are God's children now."

The body, and then the sight

The immortality of the flesh will be completed at the moment of resurrection, of which Paul says, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52, ESV).

In that very twinkling of an eye, before the judgment, the spiritual body will rise in power, in incorruption and in glory. It is now sown a natural body, in weakness, in corruption and in dishonor. (Augustine is alluding here to 1 Corinthians 15:43–44.)

But the image that is renewed in the spirit of the mind, in the knowledge of God, not outwardly but inwardly, day by day, will be perfected by that sight itself. After the judgment the sight will be face to face. Now it makes progress as through a mirror, dimly. And we must understand it to be said on account of this perfection, "we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

When the gift is given

This gift will be given at the time when it is said, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you" (Matthew 25:34, ESV). For then the ungodly will be taken away, so that he "does not see the majesty of the LORD" (Isaiah 26:10, ESV), when those on the left go into eternal punishment and those on the right go into eternal life.

"And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, ESV).

Contemplative wisdom, and what Cicero hoped

This contemplative wisdom is, I believe, what is properly called wisdom in the sacred writings, as distinct from knowledge. It is wisdom only of man, and man has it only from him, by sharing in whom a rational and intellectual mind can be made truly wise.

Cicero praises this same contemplative wisdom at the end of his dialogue Hortensius. He says:

"While, then, we consider these things night and day, and sharpen our understanding, which is the eye of the mind, taking care that it is never dulled, that is, while we live in philosophy, we have great hope. If this sentiment and wisdom of ours is mortal and perishable, we shall still, when we have finished our human duties, have a pleasant setting, a painless extinction, and a kind of rest from life. Or if, as the ancient philosophers thought, and these the greatest and by far the most celebrated, we have souls eternal and divine, then we must think that the more these have always kept to their own proper course, that is, to reason and the desire of inquiry, and the less they have mixed and entangled themselves in the vices and errors of men, the easier ascent and return to heaven they will have."

Then he adds a short sentence and ends his discourse by repeating it: "So, to end my discourse at last, if we wish either for a tranquil extinction after a life spent in the pursuit of these subjects, or to migrate without delay from this present home to another much better, we must give all our labor and care to these pursuits."

Where I think Cicero went wrong

I marvel, I admit, that a man of such great ability should promise to people living in philosophy, which makes man blessed by the contemplation of truth, "a pleasant setting after the discharge of human duties, if this our sentiment and wisdom is mortal and perishable." As if what we did not love, or rather what we fiercely hated, were then to die and come to nothing, so that its setting would be pleasant to us!

He did not learn that from the philosophers he praises so highly. It smells of the New Academy, where he was pleased to doubt even the plainest things. From the greatest and most celebrated philosophers, as he himself confesses, he learned that souls are eternal. Eternal souls are rightly stirred by the exhortation to be found "in their own proper course" when the end of this life comes, that is, "in reason and the desire of inquiry," and to mix and entangle themselves less in the vices and errors of men, so that they may return more easily to God.

But a course that consists in the love and search for truth is not enough for the wretched. I mean for all mortals who have only this kind of reason and are without faith in the Mediator. I have taken pains to prove this, as well as I could, in earlier books of this work, especially in the fourth and the thirteenth.

Book Fifteen: Seeing the Trinity in a Mirror

Augustine begins by gathering up the whole argument of the first fourteen books in one short summary. He then shows that the inquiry has now reached the point where we may ask about the Trinity who is God, in those eternal, bodiless and unchangeable things the perfect sight of which is the blessed life promised to us. But he shows that here we see this Trinity only as in a mirror and in a riddle, because we see him through the image of God that we ourselves are, a likeness that is dim and hard to read. He also shows that some kind of guess about the begetting of the divine Word can be drawn from the word of our own mind, though only with difficulty, because the two words are so unlike. And he shows that some guess about the Holy Spirit's proceeding can be drawn from the love that the will joins to the mind.

Chapter 1: God Is Above the Mind

We have climbed from the creature up to the image of God in man. Now we ask about what lies above even that.

Let me remind you where we are. My aim all along has been to train you in the things that are made, so that you may come to know the One who made them. Step by step we have come as far as his image, which is man. And we have looked at that in the part of man which sets him above the other animals. That is his reason, or intelligence, and whatever else can be said of the rational, thinking soul that belongs to what is called the mind. Some Latin writers use that word in their own way. They use it for what is highest in man and is not found in the beast, and they distinguish it from the soul, which the beast has too.

Now, if we seek anything above this nature, and seek it truly, we are seeking God. He is a nature that is not created but creating. And whether he is a Trinity is what I have to show you now. I don't want to show it only to believers, by the authority of Scripture. I want to show it also, if I can, to people who want to understand, by some kind of reason. Why do I say "if I can"? The thing itself will show you better, once we begin to argue about it.

Chapter 2: God Is Beyond Our Grasp, and We Are Still to Seek Him

Though God cannot be fully comprehended, he is always to be sought. And the traces of the Trinity are not looked for in the creature to no purpose.

1. How can seeking be a joy?

God himself, whom we are seeking, will help us in this labor, as I hope. That is my prayer, so that our work is not fruitless, and so that we may understand what the holy Psalm says: "Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!" (Psalm 105:3–4, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "Seek the Lord, and be strengthened: seek his face evermore." The ESV has "seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!" The meaning of the last clause is the same. The ESV is printed here.

Notice a puzzle. What is always being sought seems never to be found. So how can the heart of those who seek rejoice? Wouldn't they be sad if they couldn't find what they seek? And look at the words. The Psalm does not say, "Let the heart of those who find rejoice." It says, "of those who seek the LORD."

2. Yet he can be found

The prophet Isaiah says that the Lord God can be found when he is sought: "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts" (Isaiah 55:6–7, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text of Isaiah ran: "Seek the Lord, and as soon as you have found him, call upon him; and when he has drawn near to you, let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." The ESV has "while he may be found; call upon him while he is near." His point survives in the ESV, which is printed here: God can be found by those who seek.

So if he can be found when he is sought, why does the Psalm say, "Seek his presence continually"? Is he to be sought even after he is found?

3. The answer: things beyond our grasp are searched like this

Here is what I think. Things that cannot be comprehended have to be searched out in a particular way. No one should think he has found nothing, when what he has found is how incomprehensible the thing is that he was seeking. If he knows that what he seeks is beyond his grasp, why does he still seek? Because he must not give up seeking as long as he is making progress in the inquiry itself. He is searching into things that cannot be fully comprehended, and he becomes better and better in the searching. He is looking for a great good. It is sought so that it may be found, and found so that it may be sought.

It is sought so that it may be found more sweetly. And it is found so that it may be sought more eagerly.

You can hear the same thing in the words of Wisdom in the book of Ecclesiasticus: "They who eat me shall still be hungry, and they who drink me shall still be thirsty." They eat and drink because they find. And they go on seeking because they are hungry and thirsty.

Editor's note: this saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 24:21), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

4. Faith seeks, understanding finds

Let me put it in one line. Faith seeks, and understanding finds. That is why the prophet says, "Unless you believe, you shall not understand."

Editor's note: this is the Greek (Septuagint) form of Isaiah 7:9, which Augustine's Latin copies follow. The ESV, translating the Hebrew, has "If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all" (Isaiah 7:9, ESV). The ESV cannot carry the saying as Augustine uses it, so his sense is kept: believing comes first, and understanding follows.

And yet understanding goes on seeking the one it finds. Listen to the holy Psalm: "The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God" (Psalm 14:2, ESV). That is why man must have understanding. It is given him so that he may seek God.

5. Why I have lingered among the creatures

I have tarried a long time among the things God has made. My reason is that through them he himself may be known who made them. As Paul says, "his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:20, ESV).

The book of Wisdom rebukes those "who could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is." They did not acknowledge the workmaster by looking at his works. They took fire, wind, swift air, the circle of the stars, the raging water or the lights of heaven to be the gods that govern the world. If they were delighted by the beauty of these things and took them for gods, let them know how much better is the Lord of them, since the first Author of beauty made them. And if they were astonished at their power and strength, let them understand from them how much mightier is the one who made them. For by the greatness and beauty of creatures, in proportion, their Maker is seen.

Editor's note: this passage is from the book of Wisdom (13:1–5), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

Why do I quote this? So that no believer may think I have searched in the creature to no purpose, going step by step through trinity after trinity, each of its own proper kind, until I reached the mind of man. I was looking for traces of that highest Trinity whom we seek when we seek God.

Chapter 3: The Whole Argument So Far, in Short

A brief recapitulation of all the previous books.

Why I am doing this

The needs of the argument have made me say a great many things in fourteen books. You can't view them all at one glance. So I will try, with God's help and as well as I can, to put them briefly together. I won't argue them again. I want to set before your mind's eye not the way we were convinced of each point, but the points themselves of which we have been convinced.

My reason is simple. I don't want what follows to be so far from what went before that reading the one makes you forget the other. And if you have forgotten something, you can quickly call it back by reading it over again.

Books One to Four: the Trinity is one, and sending does not make anyone less

Book One. The unity and equality of the highest Trinity is shown from Holy Scripture.

Books Two, Three and Four. The same. The question of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit needed careful handling, and so it took three books. We showed that the one who is sent is not therefore less than the one who sends, simply because one sent and the other was sent. For the Trinity is equal in all things. It is equally unchangeable in its own nature, equally invisible, equally present everywhere. And it works indivisibly.

Book Five: what is said of God, and how

Book Five. I had in mind those who think that the substance of the Father and of the Son is not the same. They suppose that everything said of God is said according to his substance. So they argue that to beget and to be begotten, or to be begotten and unbegotten, being different, must be different substances.

We showed that not everything said of God is said according to substance. Some things are said according to substance, as he is called good and great, or anything else said of him in respect to himself. But some things are said relatively. That is, they are said not in respect to himself but in respect to something that is not himself. He is called Father in respect to the Son. He is called Lord in respect to the creature that serves him.

And if something said in this relative way is said "in time," as in "Lord, you have been our dwelling place" (Psalm 90:1, ESV), then nothing happens to him so as to change him. He remains entirely unchangeable in his own nature or essence.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "Lord, you have become our refuge," and his argument leans on the word "become," which marks a relation that begins in time. The ESV has "you have been our dwelling place." His sense is kept: the Lord is called our refuge from the time we take refuge in him, and nothing in God changes.

Book Six: power and wisdom

Book Six. We argued how Christ is called by the apostle "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV). We argued it far enough to put off the closer handling of one question. Is the one from whom Christ is begotten not himself wisdom, but only the father of his own wisdom? Or did wisdom beget wisdom?

But whichever it is, the equality of the Trinity became plain in this book also. God is not triple, but a Trinity. The Father and the Son are not a double set over against the single Holy Spirit, for in this Trinity three are not any more than one. We also looked at how to understand Bishop Hilary's words: "Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift."

Book Seven: the question put off is answered

Book Seven. The deferred question was explained. The God who begat the Son is not only the Father of his own power and wisdom. He is himself power and wisdom. So also the Holy Spirit. Yet they are not three powers or three wisdoms, but one power and one wisdom, as they are one God and one essence.

Then we asked how they are called one essence and three persons, or, by some Greeks, one essence and three substances. We found that the words are used because of the needs of speech. We needed one term to answer with when someone asks, "Three what?" and we truly confess that they are three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Book Eight: the truth, the good, and love

Book Eight. It was made plain, by reason also, to those who understand, that the Father is not greater than the Son in the substance of truth. Both together are not anything greater than the Holy Spirit alone. No two in this Trinity are anything greater than one. And all three together are not anything greater than each one.

Next I pointed to the truth that the understanding sees, to the highest good from which every good comes, and to the righteousness for which a righteous mind is loved even by a mind not yet righteous. By these we might understand, so far as it can be understood, that nature which is not only bodiless but unchangeable, and which is God.

I pointed also to love, which the Holy Scriptures call God. It is by love, first of all, that those who have understanding begin, however faintly, to see the Trinity: the one who loves, the one who is loved, and the love.

Books Nine and Ten: the image in the mind

Book Nine. The argument reached the image of God, which is man in respect to his mind. We found in it a kind of trinity: the mind, the knowledge by which the mind knows itself, and the love by which it loves both itself and its knowledge of itself. And these three were shown to be equal to each other and of one essence.

Book Ten. The same subject was handled more carefully and with more subtlety. It brought us to a still clearer trinity of the mind, in memory, understanding and will. But we found also that the mind can never be in a condition where it does not remember, understand and love itself, even when it is not thinking of itself. And when it does think of itself, it does not, in the same act of thought, tell itself apart from bodily things. So the argument about the Trinity, of which this is an image, was put off. I wanted first to find a trinity in the very things we see with the body, and to train the reader's attention more clearly there.

Book Eleven: the outer man

Book Eleven. I chose the sense of sight, since what holds good there will hold good in the other four bodily senses too, though I did not say so. A trinity of the outer man first showed itself in things perceived from outside. It is made of the bodily object that is seen, the form impressed from it on the eye of the one who looks, and the purpose of the will that joins the two. But these three, as was plain, are not equal to each other, and they are not of one substance.

Then we found another trinity in the mind itself, brought into it, as it were, by the things perceived from outside. In this one the three things appeared to be of one substance: the image of the bodily object in the memory, the form impressed when the mind's eye of the thinker turns toward it, and the purpose of the will that joins the two. But we found that this trinity belongs to the outer man, because it was brought into the mind from bodily things perceived from outside.

Books Twelve to Fourteen: wisdom, faith, and the image renewed

Book Twelve. I thought it good to tell wisdom apart from knowledge. I sought first, as the lower of the two, a particular trinity in what is specially called knowledge. Though this belongs now to the inner man, it is not yet to be called or thought an image of God.

Book Thirteen. The trinity in knowledge was discussed here, by way of commending the Christian faith.

Book Fourteen. We took up the true wisdom of man, the wisdom given by God's gift in sharing in God himself, which is different from knowledge. The discussion reached this point: a trinity is found in the image of God, which is man in respect to his mind. That mind is "being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10, ESV). So it obtains wisdom, in which is the contemplation of things eternal.

Chapter 4: What the Whole Creation Teaches About God

What the nature of the universe tells us about God.

Now we seek the Trinity in eternal things

So now let us seek the Trinity who is God in the things themselves that are eternal, bodiless and unchangeable. A blessed life is promised us in the perfect contemplation of them. And that life cannot be anything but eternal.

It is not only the authority of the divine books that declares that God is. The whole nature of the universe around us, to which we also belong, proclaims it. It proclaims that it has a most excellent Creator. He has given us a mind and a natural reason, so that we can see certain things. See if you agree with me on each one.

What reason sees at once

1. Things that live are better than things that do not live.

2. Things that have feeling are better than things that have none.

3. Things that have understanding are better than things that have none.

4. Things immortal are better than things mortal.

5. Things powerful are better than things weak.

6. Things righteous are better than things unrighteous.

7. Things beautiful are better than things ugly.

8. Things good are better than things evil.

9. Things incorruptible are better than things corruptible.

10. Things unchangeable are better than things changeable.

11. Things invisible are better than things visible.

12. Things without body are better than things with body.

13. Things blessed are better than things miserable.

And so, since we place the Creator above the things he created, we have to confess several things. The Creator lives in the highest sense. He perceives and understands all things. He cannot die, or decay, or be changed. He is not a body but a spirit. And he is of all beings the most powerful, the most righteous, the most beautiful, the most good, and the most blessed.

Chapter 5: Why It Is Hard to Show the Trinity by Reason Alone

How difficult it is to prove the Trinity from natural reason.

1. The problem: everything we have said fits all three equally

Everything I have just said applies to the whole Trinity, who is one God. It applies as well to each Person in the Trinity. Everything else that can be worthily said of God in human speech applies in the same way.

Think about it. Who would dare to say that the one God, the Trinity himself, is not living? Or that he has no sense or understanding? Who would say that the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit is mortal, or corruptible, or changeable, or has a body, in that nature in which they are equal to each other? And who would deny that each of the three is most powerful, most righteous, most beautiful, most good and most blessed?

So here is my difficulty. If all of these things can be said both of the Trinity itself and of each Person in it, where and how will the Trinity show itself? We cannot tell the three apart by any of these words.

2. Reducing the many words to a few

So let us first cut this long list down to a smaller number. I'll show you how it can be done.

Life. What is called life in God is his very essence and nature. God does not live except by the life that he is to himself. This life is not like the life in a tree, which has neither understanding nor feeling. It is not like the life of a beast either. A beast has the fivefold sense but no understanding. The life that God is perceives and understands all things. It perceives by the mind, not by the body, because "God is spirit" (John 4:24, ESV). He does not perceive through a body as animals do, for he is not made up of soul and body. So that one nature perceives as it understands and understands as it perceives. In him, sense and understanding are one and the same.

Eternal, immortal, incorruptible, unchangeable. He neither begins nor ceases to be. He is immortal, and it is not said of him for nothing that he "alone has immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV). For immortality is true immortality in the one whose nature admits no change. That is also true eternity: to be unchangeable, with no beginning and no end. And so he is incorruptible. These four names are one thing. To call God eternal, or immortal, or incorruptible, or unchangeable is to say the same thing four times.

Living and wise. It is the same thing to say that he lives and that he understands, which in truth means that he is wise. He did not receive wisdom in order to be wise. He is himself wisdom. And this is his life. It is also his power, and again his beauty, which is why he is called powerful and beautiful. For what is more powerful and more beautiful than wisdom, which "reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and orders all things well"?

Editor's note: this saying is from the book of Wisdom (8:1), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

Good, righteous, blessed. Do goodness and righteousness differ in God's nature, as they differ in his works? Is goodness one quality of God and righteousness another? Certainly not. What is righteousness is also goodness. What is goodness is also blessedness.

Incorporeal. God is called bodiless so that he may be believed and understood to be a spirit and not a body.

3. Substance and quality are not two things in God

Now someone may notice a difference. In the list eternal, immortal, incorruptible, unchangeable, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, righteous, good, blessed, spirit, only the last, "spirit," seems to tell us a substance. The rest seem to tell us qualities of that substance.

But it is not so in that ineffable and simple nature. Whatever seems to be said there according to quality must be understood according to substance, or essence. Far be it from us to say that God is a spirit according to substance and good according to quality. He is both according to substance. And so with all the others we have named, of which I spoke at length in the earlier books.

4. Three words to stand for twelve

So let me pick one from each group, to keep our attention from being scattered over many things.

From the first four I choose eternal, which I named first.

From the next four, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, I choose wise. Life of a sort belongs to a beast, who has no wisdom. Wisdom and might are compared in man, as when Scripture says wisdom is better than might (Ecclesiastes 9:16, ESV). Beauty is also commonly credited to bodies. Yet I am not saying these four are unequal in God. They are four names for one thing.

Editor's note: Augustine's text read "Better is he that is wise than he that is strong." The ESV has "wisdom is better than might" (Ecclesiastes 9:16). His source text gives no chapter and verse, so that reference is the editor's best match. The meaning is the same, and the ESV is printed here.

From the last four, righteous, good, blessed, spirit, I choose blessed. In God, to be righteous, good, blessed and a spirit are all one. But in men a spirit can exist that is not blessed. And someone can be righteous and good and not yet blessed. Yet whoever is blessed is surely also righteous, good and a spirit. So I choose the one that cannot exist even in men without the other three: blessed.

Chapter 6: A Trinity in the Simplicity of God

How there is a trinity in the very simplicity of God. Whether and how the Trinity that is God is shown by the trinities we have found in men.

1. Down to one word

So when we say eternal, wise, blessed, are these three the Trinity that is called God?

We have brought twelve names down to three. But perhaps we can go further and bring the three down to one. If wisdom and might, or life and wisdom, can be one and the same thing in the nature of God, why can't eternity and wisdom be one, or blessedness and wisdom? It made no difference whether we spoke of the twelve or of the three. In the same way it makes no difference whether we speak of the three or of the one to which the other two can be reduced.

Now, what manner of argument, what force of understanding, what liveliness of reason, what sharpness of thought will show how this one thing, that God is called wisdom, is a trinity? To pass over the others for the moment.

2. The difficulty stated

Think of what we have already said. God does not receive wisdom from anyone, as we receive it from him. He is his own wisdom. His wisdom is not one thing and his essence another. For him, to be wise is to be.

Christ is called in Holy Scripture "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV). But we discussed in the seventh book how to understand this so that the Son does not seem to make the Father wise. We came to this: the Son is wisdom of wisdom, just as he is light of light and God of God. And we could not find the Holy Spirit to be anything else than wisdom also, altogether one wisdom, as he is one God and one essence.

So how do we understand this wisdom, which is God, to be a trinity? I am not asking, "How do we believe it?" Among the faithful that should not be in question. I am asking whether there is any way by which we can see with the understanding what we believe. And if there is, what is that way?

3. Where we began to see a trinity

Think back to where in these books a trinity first began to show itself to our understanding. It was in the eighth book. There we tried, as well as we could, to lift the aim of the mind to that most excellent and unchangeable nature, which our mind is not. We thought of it as not far from us, and yet above us. Not above us in place, but in its own awesome and wonderful excellence. It seemed to be with us by its own present light.

Yet no trinity was clear to us even then. In that blaze of light we did not keep the eye of the mind steadily fixed on looking for one. We caught only a sense of it, because there was no bulk in which two or three must be thought larger than one.

But when we came to love, which the Holy Scriptures call God, a trinity began to dawn on us a little: one who loves, one who is loved, and love. But the unspeakable light beat our gaze back. It became plain that the weakness of our mind could not yet bear it. So we turned back in the middle of the course we had begun. We planned to look at our own mind, where man is made in the image of God, to ease our overstrained attention. And from the ninth book to the fourteenth we stayed with the creature that we are, so that we might understand and see the invisible things of God by the things that are made.

4. Now we want to rise, and we cannot

We have exercised the understanding in lower things as far as was needed, perhaps more than was needed. And now, look, we want to lift ourselves to behold that highest Trinity, who is God. And we do not have the strength.

Here is why. We see certain trinities with complete certainty:

- those worked from outside by bodily things;
- the same things when we think of them after we have perceived them;
- those that arise in the mind and do not belong to the bodily senses, such as faith, or the virtues that make up the art of living, which are seen by clear reason and held by knowledge;
- the mind itself, by which we know whatever we truly say we know, when it knows itself or thinks of itself;
- the mind when it beholds something eternal and unchangeable that it is not itself.

We see all of these trinities with no doubt, because they are worked in us or are in us when we remember, look at or desire these things.

So do we see in the same way the Trinity that is God? Do we see, by the understanding, him who as it were speaks, and his Word, that is, the Father and the Son? And then, proceeding from them, the love common to both, the Holy Spirit?

5. We see these, but we believe that

Notice the difference. The trinities that belong to our senses or to our mind, we rather see than believe. But that God is a Trinity, we rather believe than see. If that is so, then either we do not at all understand and see the invisible things of God by the things that are made, or, if we see them at all, we do not see the Trinity in them. There is something there to see, and something we must believe even though we do not see it.

6. A trinity in the wisdom that is God?

But wait. The eighth book showed that we behold the unchangeable good which we are not. The fourteenth reminded us of it, when we spoke of the wisdom that man has from God. Why, then, do we not recognize the Trinity there?

Think about the wisdom that God is said to be. Does it not perceive itself? Does it not love itself? Who would say that? And who does not see that where there is no knowledge, there is in no way any wisdom? Are we to think that the Wisdom who is God knows other things and does not know himself? Or loves other things and does not love himself?

If that is a foolish and impious thing to say or believe, then look, we have a trinity: wisdom, the knowledge wisdom has of itself, and its love of itself. So too in man we found a trinity: the mind, the knowledge by which the mind knows itself, and the love by which it loves itself.

Chapter 7: Why It Is Not Easy to Find the Trinity That Is God

That the Trinity that is God cannot be discovered easily from the trinities we have spoken of.

1. These three are in man, but they are not the man

But I must not move too fast. These three things are in man in such a way that they are not themselves the man.

Man, as the ancients defined him, is a rational mortal animal. These three are the chief things in man, but they are not man himself. And one person, each individual man, has these three in his mind. Suppose we defined man differently, as a rational substance made of mind and body. Then without doubt man has a soul which is not body and a body which is not soul. And again these three things are not man. They belong to man, or are in man.

Suppose we put the body aside and think of the soul by itself. Then the mind is something belonging to the soul, as though it were its head, or its eye, or its face. We must not think of these as bodies. It is not the soul but what is chief in the soul that is called the mind.

Now can we say that the Trinity is in God in this way, as something that belongs to God and is not itself God? Of course not. Each individual man, who is called the image of God not in all that belongs to his nature but in his mind alone, is one person. And he is an image of the Trinity in his mind. But the Trinity he is the image of is nothing else, in its whole, than God. It is nothing else, in its whole, than the Trinity. Nothing belongs to the nature of God without belonging to that Trinity. And the three Persons are of one essence in a way that is quite unlike a single man being one person.

2. A second great difference: memory, understanding and will

There is another wide difference. Take the mind in a man, with its knowledge and its love. Or take memory, understanding and will. We remember nothing of the mind except by memory. We understand nothing except by understanding. We love nothing except by will.

But in that Trinity, who would dare to say that the Father understands neither himself nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit except by the Son? Or that he loves them only by the Holy Spirit? Or that he remembers himself, the Son and the Holy Spirit only by himself? Who would say that the Son remembers neither himself nor the Father except by the Father, and loves them only by the Holy Spirit, and understands the Father, Son and Spirit by himself alone? And that the Holy Spirit remembers by the Father, understands by the Son, and loves by himself alone?

That would be to say the Father is the memory of all three, the Son is the understanding of all three, and the Holy Spirit is the love of all three. Who would presume to think or say that of the Trinity?

3. Why that cannot be

Think about what follows if it were true.

1. If the Son alone understands for himself, for the Father and for the Holy Spirit, then we are back at the old absurdity. The Father would not be wise from himself but from the Son. Wisdom would not have begotten wisdom. Rather the Father would be said to be wise by the wisdom that he begat.

2. Where there is no understanding there can be no wisdom. So if the Father does not understand himself for himself, but the Son understands for the Father, then the Son makes the Father wise.

3. But if to God to be is to be wise, and his essence is the same as wisdom, then it would not be the Son who has his essence from the Father, which is the truth. It would be the Father who has his essence from the Son, which is a most absurd falsehood. I have already discussed, disproved and rejected this in the seventh book.

So here is the truth. God the Father is wise by that wisdom by which he is his own wisdom. The Son is the wisdom of the Father from the wisdom which is the Father, from whom the Son is begotten. It follows that the Father also understands by that understanding which he is. He could not be wise if he did not understand. And the Son is the understanding of the Father, begotten of the understanding which is the Father.

The same can be said of memory. How is anyone wise who remembers nothing, or does not remember himself? Since the Father is wisdom and the Son is wisdom, so, as the Father remembers himself, the Son also remembers himself. As the Father remembers both himself and the Son, not by the Son's memory but by his own, so the Son remembers both himself and the Father, not by the Father's memory but by his own.

And where there is no love, who would say there was wisdom? So we must conclude that the Father is his own love, just as he is his own understanding and memory.

4. Each of the three has all three

This means something remarkable. These three, memory, understanding and love or will, in that highest and unchangeable essence which is God, are not the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are the Father alone.

And because the Son too is wisdom begotten of wisdom, neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit understands for him. He understands for himself. Neither does the Father remember for him, nor the Holy Spirit love for him. He remembers and loves for himself. He is his own memory, his own understanding and his own love. But that he is so comes to him from the Father, from whom he is born.

And because the Holy Spirit is also wisdom proceeding from wisdom, he does not have the Father for a memory, the Son for an understanding, and himself alone for love. He would not be wisdom if another remembered for him, and another understood for him, and he only loved for himself. He has all three himself, and has them in such a way that they are himself. But that he is so comes to him from where he proceeds.

5. The wisdom by which God knows all things is beyond us

Who can comprehend that wisdom by which God knows all things? In it, what we call things past are not past. What we call things future are not waited for as though they were absent. Things past and future and present are all present. He does not think things one by one, so that thought passes from one to another. All things are at hand together in one glance.

Who comprehends that wisdom, and that prudence and that knowledge, when even our own wisdom is beyond our grasp?

Look at what we can do. We somehow behold things that are present to our senses or our understanding. The things that are absent but once were present, we know by memory, if we have not forgotten them. We guess the future, but we do it from the past, and by unstable knowledge. Some thoughts, though they are about the future, we look toward with greater plainness and certainty, as being very near. And we do this by means of memory, as far as we are able, though memory seems to belong not to the future but to the past.

You can test it with words or a song. We would not say each part in order unless we saw in thought what comes next. Yet it is not foresight that lets us see ahead, but memory. Right up to the end of the words or the song, nothing is uttered that is not foreseen and looked for. And yet we are not said to speak or sing by foresight, but by memory. If someone can say many pieces in this way, we praise his memory, not his foresight.

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 closely we look, the more our very words break down. Our purpose itself fails, when by our understanding, if not our tongue, we try to reach any clearness.

And do such people as we are think that, in so great a weakness of mind, we can comprehend whether the foresight of God is the same as his memory and his understanding? He does not look at each thing in thought. He embraces all he knows in one eternal, unchangeable and unspeakable vision.

6. A cry of the heart

In this difficulty and narrow place, we may well cry out to the living God: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it" (Psalm 139:6, ESV). I understand from myself how wonderful and incomprehensible your knowledge is, by which you made me. I cannot even comprehend myself, whom you made! And yet "as I mused, the fire burned" (Psalm 39:3, ESV), so that I "seek his presence continually" (Psalm 105:4, ESV).

Chapter 8: How Paul Says We See God Now, Through a Mirror

How the apostle says that God is now seen by us through a glass.

1. What the "glass" is

I know that wisdom is a bodiless substance. It is the light by which things are seen that are not seen by fleshly eyes. And yet a man so great and so spiritual as Paul says, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "We see now through a glass, in an enigma." The ESV has "in a mirror dimly." The ESV's "mirror" is exactly his point, and "dimly" stands for his "enigma," a word he explains in the next chapter. The ESV is printed here.

If we ask what and what sort of "mirror" this is, one thing at once comes to mind. In a mirror nothing is seen but an image. So this is what we have tried to do. We have tried to see, in some way, by this image which we are, the One by whom we were made, as in a mirror.

Paul says the same in another place: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).

2. A word about "mirror" and "watch-tower"

Here I make a point that depends on Latin.

Editor's note: in the Latin Bibles Augustine used, the word for "beholding as in a mirror" (speculantes) could be mistaken for a word meaning "looking from a watch-tower" (specula). He says that in the Greek the two words sound wholly different, so there is no confusion there. The ESV's "beholding" does not carry this wordplay, and it also leaves out "as in a mirror" (its footnote offers "or reflecting"). His Latin read "beholding as in a mirror," and that reading is kept below.

"Beholding as in a mirror," Paul says. That means seeing by means of a mirror. It does not mean looking out from a watch-tower. In Greek there is no ambiguity. A mirror, in which the images of things are seen, sounds wholly different from a watch-tower, from the height of which we have a longer view. It is plain that the apostle used the word speculantes of the glory of the Lord as coming from speculum, a mirror, and not from specula, a watch-tower.

3. "The same image"

Now look at the words, "being transformed into the same image." Paul surely means the image of God. By saying "the same," he means that very image we see in the mirror. For that same image is also the glory of the Lord, as he says elsewhere, "For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God" (1 Corinthians 11:7, ESV). We looked at that text in the twelfth book.

So "we are transformed" means that we are changed from one form to another. We pass from a form that is dim to a form that is bright. For the dim form is also the image of God. And if it is an image, then it is also "glory," in which we are created as men, being better than the other animals. So it is said of human nature itself, "He is the image and glory of God."

And this nature, the most excellent among created things, is changed from a form that is defaced to a form that is beautiful, when its own Creator makes it righteous from its ungodliness. Even in ungodliness itself, the more the fault is to be condemned, the more certainly the nature is to be praised.

4. "From glory to glory"

That is why Paul adds, "from one degree of glory to another." That is: from the glory of creation to the glory of justification.

These words may also be understood in other ways. They may mean from the glory of faith to the glory of sight. Or from the glory by which we are sons of God to the glory by which we shall be like him, "because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV).

And in that he adds "this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit," he declares that the blessing of so desirable a change is given to us by the grace of God.

Chapter 9: What a "Riddle" Is

About the term "enigma," and about figures of speech.

1. Allegory, and the kind of allegory called an enigma

So far I have been speaking about Paul's words "now we see in a mirror." But he adds "dimly," which in the Latin I use is in an enigma, a riddle. Anyone who does not know the books on figures of speech will not know what that addition means. The Greeks call these figures tropes, and we use the Greek word in Latin too. It is hard to give Latin names to the different tropes, so that each has its own. That is why some Latin translators, unwilling to use a Greek word where the apostle says "these things are an allegory," wrote instead, "these things signify one thing by another."

Now there are several kinds of the trope called allegory, and the one called enigma is one of them. A general name must take in all its kinds. In the same way every horse is an animal, but not every animal is a horse. So every enigma is an allegory, but not every allegory is an enigma.

What then is an allegory? It is a figure in which one thing is understood from another. Take what Paul says to the Thessalonians: "So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober" (1 Thessalonians 5:6–8, ESV). That is an allegory, but it is not an enigma. Its meaning is plain to everyone except the very dull.

An enigma, to put it shortly, is an obscure allegory. An example is "The leech has two daughters," and other sayings like it (Proverbs 30:15, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin text read "The horseleech has three daughters." The ESV has "two daughters." The saying is only an example of a riddle, so nothing in the argument depends on the number. The ESV is printed here.

2. An allegory in a fact

When Paul spoke of an allegory, he did not find it in words. He found it in a fact. He showed that the two Testaments are to be understood through the two sons of Abraham, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. That was something not only said but done. As Paul says, "Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants" (Galatians 4:24, ESV). (Augustine's Latin reads "which things are an allegory"; the ESV has "may be interpreted allegorically.")

Before that was explained it was obscure. So an allegory of that sort, though its general name is allegory, could be called by its particular name, an enigma.

3. One meaning for both phrases

Some people ask what Paul means when he says we see "in an enigma." These are not only people who do not know the doctrine of tropes. They are also people who know it and want to know what that enigma is in which we now see. We have to find one meaning for the two phrases together, "through a mirror" and "in an enigma." For the whole thing is one sentence: "We see now through a mirror in an enigma."

Here is my judgment. By "mirror" Paul meant an image. By "enigma" he meant any likeness at all, but one that is obscure and hard to see through. So any likenesses whatever that fit us to understand God, so far as he can be understood, may be what the apostle means by a mirror and an enigma. Yet nothing fits that purpose better than what is not for nothing called his image.

4. A greater riddle: we do not see what we cannot help seeing

So let no one be surprised that we work to see God in any way at all, even in the manner of seeing that is given us in this life, through a mirror, in a riddle. We would not hear about an enigma here if the sight were easy.

And here is a still greater riddle. We do not see what we cannot help seeing. Who does not see his own thought? And yet who sees his own thought, I do not say with the fleshly eye, but with the inner sight itself? Who does not see it, and who does see it?

For thought is a kind of sight of the mind. It may be a sight of things that are present, which the bodily eyes also see or the other senses perceive. Or it may be a sight of things that are not present, whose likenesses are seen in thought. Or it may be neither of these: things thought of that are neither bodies nor likenesses of bodies, such as the virtues and vices, or thought itself when it is thought about. Or it may be the things we learn in the liberal sciences. Or it may be the higher causes and reasons of all these things in the unchangeable nature. Or it may even be evil, vain and false things, when the sense does not consent to them, or errs in its consent.

Chapter 10: The Word of the Mind

About the word of the mind, in which we see the Word of God as in a mirror and a riddle.

1. What we are going to talk about

Let us now speak of things that we think of as known. These are things we have in our knowledge even when we are not thinking of them. They may belong to the contemplative knowledge, which I have argued is properly called wisdom. Or they may belong to the active, which is properly called knowledge. Both belong to one mind, and together they are one image of God. When I treat the lower of the two by itself, it is not to be called an image of God. Even then, though, some likeness of the Trinity may be found in it, as we showed in the thirteenth book.

So we are speaking now of all of a man's knowledge together, in which whatever is known to us is known. I mean at least what is true, since otherwise it would not be known. No one knows what is false, except when he knows it to be false. And if he knows that, he knows what is true. For it is true that it is false.

We are speaking, then, of things we think of as known, which are known to us even when we are not thinking of them. If we wanted to utter them in words, we could do so only by thinking them. For even if no words are spoken, the one who thinks speaks in his heart.

2. The Scriptures say that thinking is speaking in the heart

That is why the book of Wisdom says, "They said within themselves, thinking not aright." The words "They said within themselves" are explained by the word that follows: thinking.

Editor's note: this saying is from the book of Wisdom (2:1), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

There is a like passage in the Gospel. Certain scribes heard the Lord say to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." And "some of the scribes said to themselves, 'This man is blaspheming.'" How did they "say to themselves," except by thinking? Then it goes on: "But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, 'Why do you think evil in your hearts?'" (Matthew 9:2–4, ESV).

Luke tells the same event this way: "The scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, 'Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?' When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, 'Why do you question in your hearts?'" (Luke 5:21–22, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "began to think, saying" and "What do you think in your hearts?" The ESV has "began to question" and "Why do you question in your hearts?" His point depends on the word "think": they spoke by thinking. The ESV is printed here.

What is "said, thinking" in the one place is "thought, saying" in the other. Both show that they spoke within themselves and in their own heart, which means they spoke by thinking. And the Lord says of the rich man whose ground produced plentifully, "he thought to himself" (Luke 12:17, ESV).

3. The Lord speaks of two mouths

Some thoughts, then, are speeches of the heart. And the Lord shows that there is a mouth there, when he says, "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person" (Matthew 15:11, ESV). In one sentence he has included two different mouths of a man, one of the body and one of the heart.

What they thought defiled a man goes into the mouth of the body. What the Lord said defiled a man comes out of the mouth of the heart. He explained this himself. A little later he says to his disciples, "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?" (Matthew 15:16–17, ESV). There he points to the mouth of the body. But in what follows he speaks plainly of the mouth of the heart: "But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts" (Matthew 15:18–19, ESV). What could be clearer?

4. Thought is also a seeing

Now 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. When these things are done outwardly through the body, speech and sight are different. But when we think inwardly, the two are one. In the bodily senses, sight and hearing are two distinct things. In the mind, to see and to hear are the same.

So although speech is not seen but heard outwardly, the inward speeches, the thoughts, are said by the holy Gospel to have been seen, not heard, by the Lord. "Some of the scribes said to themselves, 'This man is blaspheming,'" says the Gospel. And then it adds, "But Jesus, knowing their thoughts." He saw what they said. By his own thought he saw their thoughts, which they supposed no one saw but themselves.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "when Jesus saw their thoughts," which makes his point about seeing. The ESV has "knowing their thoughts." His sense is kept in the explanation above.

5. A word before any language

Now listen carefully. Whoever can understand a word, not only before it is uttered in sound, but even before the images of its sounds are turned over in thought, is able to see something here. (That word belongs to no language, of the kind called the tongues of nations, of which our Latin is one.) Such a person can see, through this mirror and in this riddle, 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" (John 1:1, ESV).

Here is how. Whenever we say what is true, that is, say what we know, a word is born from the very knowledge that the memory holds. It is a word altogether of the same kind as that knowledge from which it is born. The thought formed by the thing we know is the word we speak in the heart. That word is neither Greek nor Latin, nor of any other tongue.

But when we need to bring it to the knowledge of those we are speaking to, we take up some sign by which to show it. Usually that is a sound, and sometimes a nod. The first is shown to the ears and the second to the eyes, so that the word we carry in our mind may become known by bodily signs to the bodily senses. What is a nod or a beckoning but a way of speaking to the sight?

Holy Scripture bears this out. In John's Gospel Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." Then "the disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke." One of them, whom Jesus loved, was reclining close to Jesus, "so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking" (John 13:21–24, ESV). Peter said by a beckoning what he did not dare to say by sounds.

We show such bodily signs to the ears or eyes of people present when we speak to them. For people who are absent, letters were invented. But letters are signs of words, as words themselves are signs, in our conversation, of the things we think.

Chapter 11: Where to Look for a Likeness of the Divine Word

The likeness of the divine Word, such as it is, is to be sought not in our outer, audible word but in the inner, mental one. And the unlikeness is as great as can be between our word and knowledge and the divine Word and knowledge.

1. The outer word is a sign of the inner word

So the word that sounds outwardly is a sign of the word that gives light inwardly. The inner one has the better right to be called a word. What is uttered with the mouth of the flesh is the articulate sound of a word. It too is called a word, because of what it was taken up to make plain outwardly.

Our word is made, in a way, into the articulate sound of the body. It takes on that sound so that it may be shown to men's senses. In the same way the Word of God was made flesh, by taking on that flesh so that he might be shown to men's senses (John 1:14, ESV).

And notice what does not happen. Our word becomes an articulate sound, but is not changed into one. So the Word of God became flesh, and far be it from us to say he was changed into flesh. Our word became a sound, and that other Word became flesh, by taking it on, not by using himself up so as to be changed into it.

2. Don't look in the spoken word

So whoever wants to reach any likeness of the Word of God, however unlike it will be in many respects, must not look at our word that sounds in the ears. That goes for the word when it is uttered in a sound and also when it is silently thought. Words of all languages that are uttered in sound are also silently thought. The mind can run over verses while the mouth of the body is quiet.

It is not only the number of syllables. The tunes of songs also, though they are bodily things and belong to the sense of the body that is called hearing, are present to those who think of them. They are there by certain bodiless images that fit them, even as the thinker silently turns them over.

But we must pass this by, in order to reach that word of man by whose likeness, such as it may be, the Word of God may be somehow seen as in a riddle.

3. Not the word spoken to the prophets

I do not mean the word that was spoken to this prophet or that, of which Scripture says, "the word of God increased and multiplied" (Acts 12:24, ESV). I do not mean "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17, ESV). And I do not mean "when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God" (1 Thessalonians 2:13, ESV). There are countless sayings like these in the Scriptures about the word of God. That word is spread in the sounds of many different languages through the hearts and mouths of men. It is called the word of God because the teaching handed on is not human but divine.

But here we are seeking to see, in any way we can, by means of this likeness, that Word of God of whom it is said, "the Word was God." Of whom it is said, "All things were made through him." Of whom it is said, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:1, 3, 14, ESV). And of whom it is said, "The Word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom."

Editor's note: this last saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 1:5), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

4. The word of the image: true to what is known

So we go on to the word of man, the word of the rational creature, the word of that image of God, which is not born of God but made by God. It cannot be uttered in sound. It cannot be thought of under the likeness of sound, as the word of any language must be. It comes before all the signs by which it is shown. It is begotten from the knowledge that stays in the mind, when that same knowledge is spoken inwardly just as it really is.

The sight of thinking is very like the sight of knowledge. When it is uttered by sound or any bodily sign, it is not uttered as it really is. It is uttered as the body can see or hear it. But when what is in the knowledge is also in the word, then there is a true word, and the truth, such as is looked for from man. What is in the knowledge is also in the word. What is not in the knowledge is not in the word. Here we recognize what the Lord said: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:37, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "Yea, yea; nay, nay." The ESV has "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No.'" The sense is the same, and the ESV is printed here.

So this likeness of the image that is made comes as near as can be to the likeness of the image that is born, by which God the Son is declared to be like the Father in all things, in substance.

5. A second likeness: every work begins with a word

We must notice in this riddle another likeness of the Word of God. Of that Word it is said, "All things were made through him" (John 1:3, ESV). God is declared to have made the universe by his only-begotten Son. In the same way, there are no works of man that are not first spoken in his heart. That is why it is written, "A word is the beginning of every work."

Editor's note: this saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 37:16), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

Here too, a word is the beginning of a good work when it is true. And a word is true when it is begotten from the knowledge of how to do good works. In that way the "Yes" and the "No" can be kept. Whatever is in the knowledge by which we are to live is also in the word by which we are to work, and whatever is not in the one is not in the other. Otherwise the word is a lie and not the truth. And what comes of it will be a sin and not a good work.

6. A third likeness: a word without a work, but never a work without a word

There is one more likeness. There can be a word of ours with no work following. But there can be no work unless a word goes before it. In the same way, the Word of God could have existed though no creature existed. But no creature could exist except by that Word through whom all things are made.

7. Only the Son was made flesh

And so it was not God the Father, not the Holy Spirit, not the Trinity itself, but the Son alone, who is the Word of God, who was made flesh. Yet the Trinity was the maker of that flesh. He was made flesh so that we might live rightly, by our word following and imitating his example. That means having no lie in either the thought or the work of our word.

8. This perfection is still to come

But the perfection of this image is something for a time hereafter. To bring us to it, the good Master teaches us by Christian faith and by godly teaching. By that we are to be "with unveiled face," unveiled from the veil of the law, which is the shadow of things to come, "beholding the glory of the Lord," that is, in the Latin I use, "beholding as in a mirror," gazing at it through a mirror. (The ESV omits "as in a mirror.") And so we "are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV). I explained that above.

9. Face to face

When this image has been made perfect by this change, we shall be like God, because we shall see him not through a mirror but "as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV). That is what the apostle Paul calls "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV).

But for now, in this mirror and this riddle, with this likeness such as it is, who can say how great the unlikeness is? Still, I will touch on some points, as well as I can, to show it.

Chapter 12: What We Truly Know, and Why Doubt Cannot Touch It

The Academic philosophy.

1. How great the knowledge is from which a true word is born

Let me start with a question. What sort of knowledge is it, and how great, that a man can reach, however skillful and learned he is, by which his thought is formed with truth when he speaks what he knows?

Pass over for the moment the things that come into the mind through the bodily senses. Many of those are otherwise than they seem. A person who is pressed too hard by how much they resemble the truth seems sane to himself and is not. That is how the Academic philosophy came to prevail. It became still more wretchedly mad by doubting everything.

Pass those by. How much is still left of things we know in the way we know that we are alive?

2. "I know that I am alive"

About this we have no fear at all that we may be deceived by some likeness of the truth. It is certain that a man who is deceived still lives. And this does not count among those objects of sight that are presented from outside, in which the eye can be deceived. It is not like an oar that looks bent in the water, or towers that seem to move as you sail past, or a thousand other things that are otherwise than they seem. This is not something seen by the eye of the flesh. The knowledge by which we know that we live is the most inward of all knowledge. Even the Academic cannot suggest to it: "Perhaps you are asleep and do not know it, and you are seeing things in your sleep."

For who does not know that what people see in dreams is exactly like what they see awake? But the man who is certain of his knowledge of his own life does not say, "I know that I am awake." He says, "I know that I am alive." So whether he is asleep or awake, he is alive. He cannot be deceived in that knowledge by dreams, since it belongs to a living man both to sleep and to see in sleep.

Nor can the Academic say in reply, "Perhaps you are mad and do not know it." What madmen see is exactly like what the sane see. But the madman is alive. And the man does not answer the Academic, "I know I am not mad." He answers, "I know I am alive."

So the one who says he knows he is alive can be neither deceived nor lying. Let a thousand kinds of deceiving sights be set before him. He fears none of them, for the one who is deceived is still alive.

3. One piece of knowledge opens into endless ones

Now if only things like these belonged to human knowledge, they would be very few. But they can be multiplied in each kind, until they are not only not few but run to infinity.

Look. The man who says "I know that I am alive" says he knows one thing. If he says, "I know that I know that I am alive," that is two. And his knowing these two is a third thing to know. So he can add a fourth, a fifth, and countless others, if he keeps going. But he cannot take in an innumerable number by adding units, and he cannot say a thing an innumerable number of times. So at least he takes in this, with perfect certainty: that this is true, and that it is so innumerable that he cannot truly take in or state its infinite number.

4. The same with the will

You can notice the same in the case of a certain will. It would be a shameless answer to someone who says, "I want to be happy," to say, "Perhaps you are deceived." And if he says, "I know that I want this, and I know that I know it," he can add a third thing to the two, that he knows these two. A fourth, that he knows that he knows these two. And so on without end.

Or suppose someone says, "I do not want to be mistaken." Will it not be true, whether he is mistaken or not, that he still wills not to be mistaken? Would it not be most shameless to say to him, "Perhaps you are deceived"? Wherever he may be deceived, he is certainly not deceived in thinking that he wills not to be deceived. And if he says he knows this, he adds as many known things as he likes, and sees that the number is infinite. He can say, "I do not want to be deceived, and I know that I do not want it, and I know that I know it." He can already set out an infinite number here too, however clumsy the saying of it may be.

5. What I will not go into

Other things can also be found to refute the Academics, who say that man can know nothing. But we must hold ourselves back, since this is not the subject of the present work. I wrote three books about it in the early days of my conversion. Whoever can and will read them, and understands them, will not be much shaken by the many arguments the Academics have found against discovering the truth.

There are two kinds of knowable things. One kind is what the mind perceives through the bodily senses. The other is what it perceives by itself. These philosophers have babbled a great deal against the bodily senses. But they have never been able to cast doubt on those most certain perceptions of true things which the mind knows by itself, such as the one I have mentioned: I know that I am alive.

6. We do not doubt the senses, nor what others tell us

But far be it from us to doubt the truth of what we have learned through the bodily senses. By them we have come to know heaven and earth, and the things in them that are known to us, so far as the One who made both us and them has willed that they be within our knowledge.

And far be it from us to deny that we know what we have learned by the testimony of others. Otherwise we would not know that there is an ocean. We would not know that the lands and cities exist which many reports commend to us. We would not know that those men lived, or what they did, whom we have learned of by reading history. We would not know the news brought to us daily from this place or that, and confirmed by agreeing evidence. And last of all, we would not know where, or from whom, we were born. In all these things we have believed the testimony of others.

If it is most absurd to say that, then we must confess that not only our own senses, but those of other people too, have added very much to our knowledge.

7. All of it is stored, and from it a true word is born

All these things, then, are laid up and kept in the storehouse of the memory. They include what the human mind knows by itself, what it knows through the bodily senses, and what it has received and knows from the testimony of others. And from these is begotten a true word, when we speak what we know. It is a word that comes before all sound and before all thought of a sound.

For then the word is most like the thing known, from which its image is also begotten, since the sight of thinking arises from the sight of knowledge. It is a word belonging to no tongue. It is a true word about a true thing, having nothing of its own, but wholly drawn from the knowledge from which it is born.

And it does not matter when the speaker learned it. Sometimes he says it right when he learns it. All that matters is that the word is true, that is, that it springs from things that are known.

Chapter 13: Our Knowledge and Word Are Not Like God's

Still further about the difference between the knowledge and word of our mind and the knowledge and word of God.

1. God does not learn

Now consider God the Father, from whom the Word is born, God of God. In respect to the wisdom which he is to himself, has he learned some things by bodily senses and others by himself? Who could say that, who thinks of God not as a rational animal but as One above the rational soul? I mean so far as he can be thought of by those who place him above all animals and all souls, though they see him only by guessing, through a mirror and in a riddle, not yet face to face as he is.

Has God the Father learned the things he knows, not by a body, for he has none, but by himself, from some other source, from someone else? Or has he needed messengers or witnesses in order to know them? Certainly not. His own perfection makes him able to know everything he knows.

2. What the angels are for

He does have messengers, the angels. But they are not there to announce to him things he does not know. There is nothing he does not know. Their good lies in consulting the truth about their own works. When we say they "bring him word" of some things, we do not mean that he learns from them. We mean that they learn from him, by his word, without any bodily sound.

They bring word also of what he wills, being sent by him to whomever he wills. They hear everything from him by that Word of his. They find in his truth what they themselves are to do: what to bring, to whom, and when.

3. Our prayers

We also pray to him, and yet we do not inform him of what we need. For "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:8, ESV). He did not come to know our needs at some particular time. He knew beforehand, without any beginning, all things that would come in time. Among them were what we would ask of him, and when, and to whom he would listen or not listen, and about what.

4. He does not know creatures because they are; they are because he knows

And in regard to all his creatures, spiritual and bodily, he does not know them because they are. They are because he knows them. He was not ignorant of what he was about to create. So he created because he knew. He did not know because he created.

Nor did he know them in any other way when they were made than when they were yet to be made. Nothing was added to his wisdom by them. That wisdom stayed as it was, while the creatures came into being as it was fitting and when it was fitting.

It is written in Ecclesiasticus: "All things are known to him before they were created, and so also after they were finished."

Editor's note: this saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 23:20), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

"So," it says, and not otherwise. That is how they were known to him, both before they were created and after they were perfected.

5. Why this knowledge is unlike ours

This knowledge, then, is very different from ours. God's knowledge is itself his wisdom, and his wisdom is itself his essence or substance. In the wonderful simplicity of that nature, it is not one thing to be wise and another to be. To be wise is to be, as we have said often in the earlier books.

But our knowledge, in most things, can be lost and recovered again. For us, to be is not the same as to know or to be wise. We can be even when we do not know, and are not wise in what we have learned from elsewhere.

So, as our knowledge is unlike God's knowledge, so also is our word, which is born from our knowledge, unlike that Word of God, who is born from the essence of the Father. I could put that as: born from the Father's knowledge, from the Father's wisdom. Or still more exactly, born from the Father who is knowledge, from the Father who is wisdom.

Chapter 14: The Word Is Equal to the Father in Everything

The Word of God is in all things equal to the Father, from whom he is.

1. What the Word is

The Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, is in all things like and equal to the Father. He is God of God, Light of Light, Wisdom of Wisdom, Essence of Essence. He is altogether what the Father is, yet he is not the Father, because the one is Son and the other is Father.

So he knows all that the Father knows. But to him, to know, as to be, is from the Father. For there, to know and to be are one. And just as to be is not from the Son for the Father, so neither is to know.

2. The Father uttering himself

So, as if uttering himself, the Father begat the Word equal to himself in all things. He would not have uttered himself wholly and perfectly if there were anything more or less in his Word than in himself.

And here you can see in the highest sense what the Lord said: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:37, ESV). So this Word is truly truth. Whatever is in the knowledge from which he is born is also in him. And whatever is not in that knowledge is not in the Word. He can never have anything false in him, because he is unchangeable, as he is from whom he comes.

For "the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19, ESV). This is not from lack of power. It is not weakness but strength, by which truth cannot be false.

3. How the Father and the Son know

So God the Father knows all things in himself, and knows all things in the Son. In himself, he knows them as himself. In the Son, he knows them as in his own Word, which is spoken about all the things that are in himself.

In the same way the Son knows all things in himself, as things born of those which the Father knows in himself. And he knows them in the Father, as the things of which they are born, which the Son himself knows in himself.

So the Father and the Son know each other. But the Father knows by begetting, and the Son by being born. And each of them sees all things at once that are in their knowledge, in their wisdom, in their essence. They do not see by parts or one at a time, as if looking this way and then that, and again from this object to that, so that they could not see some things without not seeing others. They see all things at once, and there is not one thing that they do not always see.

4. A likeness, and then the unlikeness

Our word has no sound and no thought of a sound. It is the word of the thing we see as we speak inwardly. It belongs to no tongue. And so it is in some way like, in this riddle, the Word of God, who is also God. For this word is born of our knowledge, as that Word is born of the Father's knowledge.

Such a word of ours, which we find to be in some way like that Word, let us not be slow to consider how unlike it is as well, as far as we can put it into words.

Chapter 15: How Great Is the Unlikeness

How great the unlikeness is between our word and the divine Word. Our word cannot be, or be called, eternal.

1. Our words are not always true

Is our word born only of our knowledge? Do we not also say many things that we do not know? We say them not doubtfully but thinking them true. Suppose they happen to be true about the things themselves. They are still not true as our word, because a word is not true unless it is born from a thing that is known.

So in this sense our word is false, not when we lie but when we are deceived.

And when we doubt, our word is not yet a word of the thing we doubt. It is a word about the doubt itself. We may not know whether what we doubt is true, but we do know that we doubt. So when we say we doubt, we say a true word, for we say what we know.

And what about the fact that we are able to lie? When we lie, we willingly and knowingly have a word that is false. And in it there is a true word, that we are lying, for this we know. When we confess that we have lied, we speak what is true, for we say what we know. We know that we lied.

2. The Word of God cannot do this

But that Word who is God, and can do more than we can, cannot do this. For he can do "only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19, ESV). He "speaks not of himself." He has from the Father everything he says, since the Father speaks it, in a special way. The Word's great power is just this, that he cannot lie. For there cannot be "Yes and No" in him. There is only "Yes, yes, no, no."

Editor's note: the saying "he speaks not of himself" is not an exact ESV wording. The ESV has Jesus say, "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (John 12:49, ESV), which gives Augustine's sense. And the ESV's "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:37, ESV) stands for his "Yea, yea; nay, nay."

"Well," someone may say, "something that is not true is not even to be called a word." I willingly agree, if that is how it is. But suppose our word is true, and so is rightly called a word. Can we say "essence of essence," as we can say "sight of sight" and "knowledge of knowledge"? Can we say it as that Word of God is specially said to be, and ought to be said to be?

No. And here is why. To us, to be is not the same as to know. We know many things which in a way live by memory, and in a way die by being forgotten. When those things are no longer in our knowledge, we still are. Our knowledge has slipped away and perished out of the mind, and we are still alive.

3. Even things we always know are not always thought

Take things known in such a way that they can never escape the memory, because they are present and belong to the nature of the mind itself. For example, knowing that we are alive. That lasts as long as the mind lasts. And because the mind lasts always, so does this. Take that and other cases like it, in which we are rather to contemplate the image of God.

It is difficult to see how an eternal word can be spoken about them. They are always known. But they are not always thought of, and our word is spoken in our thought. It is eternal to the soul to live. It is eternal to know that it lives. But it is not eternal to it to be thinking about its own life, or about its own knowledge of its own life. When it takes up this or that occupation, it stops thinking about this, though it does not stop knowing it.

So here is the result. Suppose there can be some knowledge in the mind that is eternal, while the thought of that knowledge cannot be eternal. And suppose any true inner word of ours is spoken only by our thought. Then God alone can be understood to have a Word that is eternal, and co-eternal with himself.

4. A possible objection

Perhaps someone will say this. The mere possibility of thought constitutes a word as everlasting as the knowledge. A thing that is known can be truly thought even at a time when it is not being thought. So there is a word already.

But how is that a word which is not yet formed in the sight of thought? How can it be like the knowledge it is born of, if it does not yet have the form of that knowledge, and is called a word only because it can have it? It is like saying that a word is called a word because it can be a word.

What is this thing that can be a word, and is already thought worthy of the name? What is it, this thing that can be formed but is not yet formed? It is something in our mind that we toss to and fro, turning it this way and that, as we think of first one thing and then another, as they are found by us or come to us. The true word comes into being when what we toss about reaches what we know, and is formed by that, taking its whole likeness. Then as each thing is known, so it is thought, that is, so it is said in the heart, without articulate sound and without thought of a sound belonging to some particular tongue.

5. Even if we allow it

To avoid arguing laboriously about a name, let us grant it. Let this something in our mind, which can be formed from our knowledge, be called a word even before it is formed, because it is, so to speak, already formable. Even so, who would not see how great the unlikeness is between that and the Word of God?

The Word of God is so in the form of God that he was never formable before he was formed. He was never at any time capable of being formless. He is a simple form, simply equal to the One from whom he is, and wonderfully co-eternal with him.

Chapter 16: Our Word Is Never to Be Made Equal to the Divine Word

Not even when we shall be like God.

1. The Word is not called the Thought of God

So that Word of God is called by that name in such a way that he is not called the thought of God. We must not believe there is anything in God that can be turned over and revolved, so that at one time it receives a form and at another recovers it, in order to be a word, and again can lose that form and be turned over, in a way, formlessly.

The poet knew well the force of words, and had looked into the nature of thought, when he wrote of one who "revolves with himself the varying issues of war," that is, thinks about them. So the Son of God is not called the Thought of God but the Word of God. For our own thought, when it reaches what we know and is formed by it, is our true word. So the Word of God must be understood without any thought on God's part. He is the simple form itself, containing nothing formable that could also be unformed.

There are passages of Holy Scripture that speak of God's thoughts. But that is by the same manner of speech by which Scripture also speaks of God's forgetting, though in strict language there is certainly no forgetting in him.

2. Not even in glory will we be his equal

We have found, in this riddle, so great an unlikeness to God and to the Word of God, even where we first found some likeness. So we must admit this too. Even when we shall be like him, "when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, ESV), not even then shall we be equal to him in nature. The man who said this knew very well, no doubt, our present unlikeness. A nature that is made is always less than the nature that makes.

At that time our word will not be false, because we shall neither lie nor be deceived. Perhaps also our thoughts will no longer revolve, passing back and forth from one thing to another. We shall see all our knowledge at once, in one glance.

Even when this has happened, if it happens, the creature that was formable will have been formed. Nothing will be wanting of the form it ought to reach. Yet it will still not be equal to that simplicity in which there is nothing formable that has been formed or reformed, but only form. That simplicity is neither formless nor formed. It is itself eternal and unchangeable substance.

Chapter 17: The Holy Spirit Is Called Love

How the Holy Spirit is called Love, and whether he alone is so called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures properly called by the name of Love.

1. Where we stand

We have said enough about the Father and the Son, so far as we could see through this mirror and in this riddle. Now we must speak of the Holy Spirit, so far as God's gift lets us see him.

According to the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is neither of the Father alone nor of the Son alone, but of both. So he shows us a mutual love, with which the Father and the Son love each other.

But God's Word, in order to train us, has made us search with greater eagerness for things that do not lie on the surface. They have to be examined in hidden depths and drawn out from there. So the Scriptures do not say, "The Holy Spirit is love." If they had said so, they would have saved us a good part of this inquiry. What they say is "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16, ESV). And so it is uncertain, and remains to be asked, whether it is God the Father who is love, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself which is God.

2. Not "love" as a gift only

Someone may say, "We are not going to say that God is called Love because love itself is a substance worthy of the name of God, but because love is a gift of God," as it is said to God, "Thou art my patience." That is said not because our patience is God's substance, but because he gives it to us. Elsewhere we read, "from him comes my patience."

Editor's note: both of these sayings come from the Latin Psalter Augustine used (Psalm 70[71]:5 and Psalm 61[62]:5), which read "patience" where the ESV reads "hope." The ESV has "you, O Lord, are my hope" (Psalm 71:5, ESV) and "my hope is from him" (Psalm 62:5, ESV). The point he draws is the same and is kept: the phrase tells us what God gives, not what his substance is.

The use of words in Scripture itself refutes that reading. "You are my patience" is of the same kind as "you, O Lord, are my hope" (Psalm 71:5, ESV), and "the Lord my God is my mercy," and many texts like these.

Editor's note: the second saying, "the Lord my God is my mercy," is how Augustine's Latin Psalter read Psalm 58[59]:17. The ESV has "you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love" (Psalm 59:17, ESV). His sense is kept.

But it is not said, "O Lord my love," or "You are my love," or "God, my love." What is said is, "God is love," just as it is said, "God is spirit" (John 4:24, ESV). And whoever cannot see this must ask understanding from the Lord, not explanation from us, for we cannot say it more clearly.

3. The question: which Person is "love"?

"God is love." But is it the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself? The Trinity is not three Gods but one God.

I argued earlier in this book that the Trinity cannot be understood, from the three things in our mind, as though the Father were the memory of all three, the Son the understanding of all three, and the Holy Spirit the love of all three. I mean as though the Father neither understood nor loved for himself, but the Son understood for him and the Spirit loved for him, while he himself only remembered, both for himself and for them. Or as though the Son neither remembered nor loved for himself, but the Father remembered for him and the Spirit loved for him, while he alone understood for himself and for them. Or as though the Holy Spirit neither remembered nor understood for himself, while he alone loved for himself and for them.

Rather, all three, and each one, have all three, each in his own nature. And these three do not differ in them, as in us memory is one thing, understanding another and love or charity another. They are one thing that is equal to all, as wisdom itself is. And they are held in each one's nature in such a way that the one who has it is what he has, being an unchangeable and simple substance.

If all this has been understood, and so far as we are allowed to see or guess in things so great it has been made plain, then I do not know why the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit should not each be called Love, and all together one love. Just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are each called Wisdom, and all together not three but one wisdom. So also the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and all three together are one God.

4. Why, then, is the Spirit specially called Love?

And yet it is not for nothing that in this Trinity the Son and no other is called the Word of God. It is not for nothing that the Holy Spirit and no other is called the Gift of God. And God the Father alone is the one from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds.

Why do I add "principally"? Because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also. But the Father gave him this too. He did not give it to one who already existed and did not yet have it. Whatever the Father gave to the only-begotten Word, he gave by begetting him. So he begat him in such a way that the common Gift proceeds from him also, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both.

This distinction of the inseparable Trinity is not to be merely taken in passing. It is to be considered with care. It is for this reason that the Word of God was specially called also the Wisdom of God, though the Father and the Holy Spirit are wisdom too.

So if any one of the three is to be specially called Love, what is more fitting than that it be the Holy Spirit? In that simple and highest nature, substance is not one thing and love another. Substance itself is love, and love itself is substance, whether in the Father, or in the Son, or in the Holy Spirit. And yet the Holy Spirit is specially called Love.

5. How a name can be both general and special

Scripture does this with other names too. Sometimes all the sayings of the Old Testament together are called by the name of the Law. When Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah, "By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people," he says first, "In the Law it is written" (1 Corinthians 14:21, ESV). And the Lord himself says, "the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause'" (John 15:25, ESV), although that is read in a Psalm.

Sometimes, again, what was given by Moses is specially called the Law. As it is said, "all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John" (Matthew 11:13, ESV). And "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40, ESV). Here the Law is specially the one from Mount Sinai.

The Psalms, too, are included under the name of the Prophets. Yet in another place the Savior himself says, "everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled" (Luke 24:44, ESV). Here he meant the name of Prophets to be taken as not including the Psalms.

So the Law, with the Prophets and the Psalms taken together, is called the Law in general, and the Law given by Moses is also specially so called. The Prophets, likewise, are called so in common along with the Psalms, and also specially, apart from the Psalms.

I could give many other examples to teach us that many names of things are used in a general sense and also applied specially to particular things. But I want to avoid a long discussion of a plain matter. I have said this much so that no one may think it unsuitable for us to call the Holy Spirit Love, merely because God the Father and God the Son can also be called Love.

6. Wisdom and love, special and general

So, as we call the only Word of God specially by the name of Wisdom, though in the general sense both the Holy Spirit and the Father himself are wisdom, so the Holy Spirit is specially called by the name of Love, though in the general sense both the Father and the Son are love.

The Word of God, the only-begotten Son of God, is expressly called the Wisdom of God by the apostle's mouth: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV). But where the Holy Spirit is called Love is found only by careful search of the words of John the apostle.

7. John's argument

John says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7–8, ESV). Here, plainly, he has called that love God which he said is from God. So love is God of God.

But because the Son is born of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, it is rightly asked which of them we ought here to think is rather called the love that is God. For the Father alone is God in such a way that he is not of God. So the love which is God of God is either the Son or the Holy Spirit.

Now follow John further. He mentions the love of God, not the love with which we love him, but the love with which he "loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10, ESV). He then urges us to love one another, so that God abides in us. Because he had called God Love, he immediately wanted to speak still more expressly: "By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit" (1 John 4:13, ESV).

So the Holy Spirit, of whom he has given us, makes us abide in God and God in us. And this is what love does. So he is the God who is love.

A little later, when John has repeated the same thing and said "God is love," he adds at once: "and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16, ESV). And he had said above, "By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit." So it is the Spirit who is meant where we read that God is love.

8. The Spirit sets us on fire with love

So God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, when he is given to a man, inflames him to the love of God and of neighbor, and is himself love. For man has nowhere to get his love for God except from God. That is why John says a little after, "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19, ESV). And the apostle Paul says, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5, ESV).

Chapter 18: No Gift of God Is Greater Than Love

There is no gift of God more excellent than love.

1. The gift that divides the sons of the kingdom from the sons of perdition

There is no gift of God more excellent than this one. It alone separates the sons of the eternal kingdom from the sons of eternal perdition. Other gifts are given by the Holy Spirit too. But without love they profit nothing.

So unless the Holy Spirit is imparted to each person to such an extent that he becomes one who loves God and his neighbor, he is not moved from the left hand to the right. And the Spirit is not specially called the Gift except on account of love.

2. Paul's hymn

The person without this love, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1–3, ESV).

How great a good that must be, without which such great goods bring no one to eternal life!

3. Love alone brings a person to the kingdom

Now take love, or charity, which are two names for one thing. Suppose a man has it but does not speak with tongues, has no gift of prophecy, does not know all mysteries and all knowledge. Suppose he does not give all his goods to the poor, either because he has none to give or because some necessity hinders him. Suppose he does not deliver up his body to be burned, because no trial of such suffering overtakes him. That man is brought by love to the kingdom. So even faith is made profitable only by love. Faith without love can exist, but it cannot profit.

That is why the apostle Paul says, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6, ESV). He is setting it apart from that faith by which "even the demons believe—and shudder!" (James 2:19, ESV).

4. Why the Spirit is called the Gift

So love, which is of God and is God, is specially the Holy Spirit. By him the love of God is poured into our hearts, and by that love the whole Trinity dwells in us. That is why the Holy Spirit, though he is God, is most rightly called also the gift of God.

And by that gift, what else can properly be understood but love? It brings us to God, and without it no other gift of God brings us to God.

Chapter 19: The Holy Spirit Is the Gift of God

The Holy Spirit is called the gift of God in the Scriptures. By the gift of the Holy Spirit is meant the gift which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is specially called Love, though he is not the only one in the Trinity who is love.

1. Is it proved that the Spirit is called a gift?

Someone may ask me to prove this too: that the Holy Spirit is called in the sacred books the gift of God. If anyone looks for that, we have in John's Gospel the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" And the evangelist goes on to add, "Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive" (John 7:37–39, ESV). And Paul the apostle says, "all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The ESV has "out of his heart." The meaning is the same, and the ESV is printed here.

2. The living water is also called the gift

The question then is whether that water is called the gift of God which is the Holy Spirit. We have found here that the water is the Holy Spirit. And elsewhere in the same Gospel we find that this water is called the gift of God.

The Lord was talking with the woman of Samaria at the well. He said to her, "Give me a drink." She answered that Jews do not deal with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said that he had nothing to draw with, and the well was deep. Where then did he get this living water? Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:10–14, ESV).

Because this living water, as the evangelist has explained to us, is the Holy Spirit, then without doubt the Spirit is the gift of God of which the Lord says here, "If you knew the gift of God." What is said in one passage, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water," is said in the other, "a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

3. The gift of Christ, and the captives

Paul the apostle says, "But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift." Then, to show that by the gift of Christ he means the Holy Spirit, he goes on, "Therefore it says, 'When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men'" (Ephesians 4:7–8, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "he led captivity captive" where the ESV has "he led a host of captives." The ESV is printed here. His Latin of the Psalm read "received in men," and his argument turns on that: he received gifts in men, as in his own members. The ESV's "among men" does not carry it. His next point, that the Psalm has "received gifts," is in the ESV also: "You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men" (Psalm 68:18, ESV).

Everyone knows that after his resurrection from the dead, the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven and gave the Holy Spirit. Those who believed were filled with him, and spoke with the tongues of all nations.

4. "Gifts," plural, and "received" and "gave"

Let no one object that Paul says gifts and not gift. He was quoting the Psalm. In the Psalm it is read, "You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men" (Psalm 68:18, ESV). That is how it stands in many manuscripts, especially the Greek ones, and how it has been translated from the Hebrew. So the apostle said gifts, as the prophet did.

But the prophet says "receiving gifts among men," and the apostle prefers "he gave gifts to men." Why? So that the fullest sense may be gathered from both sayings, the one prophetic and the other apostolic. Both carry the authority of a divine utterance. Both are true: that he gave to men, and that he received among men.

He gave to men as the head gives to his own members. And he who gave, received in men, as in his own members. On account of these members he cried from heaven, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4, ESV). And of these members he says, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40, ESV). So Christ himself both gave from heaven and received on earth.

5. Why "gifts"

Both prophet and apostle say gifts for this reason. Many gifts, each of them proper to some one person, are divided out in common to all the members of Christ by the Gift, which is the Holy Spirit. No one person has them all. Some have these, some have those. But all have the Gift itself, by which each one's own gift is divided to him, that is, the Holy Spirit.

Elsewhere Paul mentions many gifts and says, "All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills" (1 Corinthians 12:11, ESV). The same word is found in the letter to the Hebrews: "God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (Hebrews 2:4, ESV).

6. The gifts of Christ to his Church

And so, when Paul has said "he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men," he goes on: "In saying, 'He ascended,' what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers" (Ephesians 4:9–11, ESV).

This is why gifts are spoken of in the plural. As he says elsewhere, "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?" (1 Corinthians 12:29, ESV). And here he adds, "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12, ESV).

This is the house that the Psalm sings of as built up after the captivity. The house of Christ, which is called his Church, is built up of those who have been rescued from the devil, by whom they were held captive. And he himself led this captivity captive (in Augustine's Latin, "he led captivity captive"; see the note above), he who conquered the devil. So that he would not draw into eternal punishment those who were to become the members of the holy Head, he bound the devil first by the bonds of righteousness and then by those of might. The devil himself is called "captivity," the captivity which he led captive who ascended on high and gave gifts to men, or received gifts in men.

7. Peter on the gift

The apostle Peter, in the book of Acts, speaks to the Jews whose hearts were troubled as he spoke of Christ. They said, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:37–38, ESV).

In the same book we read that Simon the magician wanted to give money to the apostles, so that by the laying on of his hands he might have power to give the Holy Spirit. And Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!" (Acts 8:20, ESV).

In another place of that book, Peter was speaking to Cornelius and those with him, and preaching Christ. Scripture says, "While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God" (Acts 10:44–46, ESV).

Afterwards Peter gave an account to the brothers at Jerusalem of baptizing those who were not circumcised. The Holy Spirit, to cut the knot of the question, had come on them before they were baptized. The brothers were moved when they heard it. Peter said, after the rest of his words, "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" (Acts 11:15–17, ESV).

There are many other testimonies of the Scriptures that agree in saying that the Holy Spirit is the gift of God, in so far as he is given to those who by him love God. But it is too long a task to collect them all. And what could satisfy those who are not satisfied by what I have given?

8. "The gift of the Holy Spirit" means the Holy Spirit

Now they must be warned of something. They now see that the Holy Spirit is called the gift of God. So when they hear of "the gift of the Holy Spirit," they should recognize the way of speaking found in the words "putting off the body of the flesh" (Colossians 2:11, ESV). As the body of the flesh is nothing other than the flesh, so the gift of the Holy Spirit is nothing other than the Holy Spirit.

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "in the spoiling of the body of the flesh." The ESV has "by putting off the body of the flesh." The phrase "the body of the flesh" is the same, which is all that his comparison needs. The ESV is printed here.

9. He is the gift, and he is God before he is given

So he is the gift of God so far as he is given to those to whom he is given. But in himself he is God, even if he were given to no one. He was God, co-eternal with the Father and the Son, before he was given to anyone.

Nor is he less than they because they give and he is given. He is given as a gift of God in such a way that he also gives himself, as being God. It cannot be said that he is not in his own power, of whom it is said, "The wind blows where it wishes" (John 3:8, ESV). (Augustine's Latin reads "The Spirit breathes where he wills." The ESV's "wind" hides his reading, which is his proof that the Spirit is in his own power.) And the apostle says, as I mentioned above, "All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills" (1 Corinthians 12:11, ESV). We do not have here the making of the one who is given, and the rule of those who give. We have the agreement of the given and the givers.

10. So the Spirit is love, and is God

So if Holy Scripture proclaims that God is love, and that love is from God, and that it works in us so that we abide in God and he in us, and that we know this because he has given us of his Spirit, then the Spirit himself is God, who is love.

Next, if among the gifts of God there is none greater than love, and no gift of God is greater than the Holy Spirit, what follows more naturally than that he himself is love, who is called both God and of God?

And if the love by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father shows in a way no words can describe the communion of both, what is more fitting than that he should be specially called love who is the Spirit common to both?

11. Not alone love, and not alone Spirit or holy

For this is the sounder thing to believe and to understand. The Holy Spirit is not the only one in that Trinity who is love. But he is not specially called Love for nothing, for the reasons I have given. In the same way he is not the only one in that Trinity who is a Spirit, or who is holy. For the Father is a Spirit, and the Son is a Spirit. The Father is holy and the Son is holy, as no godly person doubts. Yet it is not for nothing that he is specially called the Holy Spirit. Because he is common to both, he is specially called what both are in common.

12. If the Spirit alone were love, the Son would be the Spirit's Son

Here is one more argument. Suppose that in that Trinity the Holy Spirit alone is love. Then without doubt the Son turns out to be the Son not of the Father only but of the Holy Spirit too. For he is said and read in countless places to be the Son, the only-begotten Son of God the Father. And what the apostle says of God the Father would be true too: "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love."

Editor's note: Augustine's reading is "the kingdom of the Son of his love." The ESV has "the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13, ESV). Augustine's argument depends on the exact words "Son of his love," which the ESV does not preserve. So his sense is kept: the phrase "Son of his love" is used below.

Notice that Paul did not say, "of his own Son." If he had, it would be most true, as it is often said. But he says, "the Son of his love." So the Son would be the Son also of the Holy Spirit, if in that Trinity there were no love in God except the Holy Spirit.

And if that is most absurd, then it remains that the Holy Spirit is not the only one in the Trinity who is love. He is specially so called for the reasons I have given. And the words "Son of his love" mean nothing other than "his own beloved Son," the Son, in short, of his own substance. For the love that is in the Father, in his ineffably simple nature, is nothing other than his very nature and substance. As we have often said, and are not ashamed of repeating it. So the "Son of his love" is none other than the one who is born of his substance.

Chapter 20: Against Eunomius, Who Said the Son Is Son by Will

Against Eunomius, who said that the Son of God is the Son not of God's nature but of his will. A closing summary of what has been said so far.

1. The folly of Eunomius

So the reasoning of Eunomius, from whom the Eunomian heretics sprang, is ridiculous. He could not understand, and would not believe, that the only-begotten Word of God, through whom all things were made, is the Son of God by nature, that is, born of the substance of the Father. So he said that the Son was not the Son of God's own nature or substance or essence, but the Son of God's will.

He meant to say that the will by which God begat the Son was something accidental and optional to God. That is the way we sometimes will something we did not will before. But that is just the sign that our nature is changeable. And far be it from us to believe it of God.

2. God's counsel does not change

It is written, "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand" (Proverbs 19:21, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "Many are the thoughts in the heart of man, but the counsel of the Lord abides for ever." The ESV has "plans in the mind of a man" and "the purpose of the LORD that will stand," and both stand for the same contrast. The ESV is printed here, and his word "counsel" is kept in what follows.

Why is this written? For no other reason than that we may understand and believe that, as God is eternal, so his counsel is eternal, and so unchangeable, as he is. What is said of thoughts can most truly be said of the will. There are many wills in the heart of man, but the will of the Lord lasts for ever.

3. A better answer than "the Son is the will"

To avoid saying that the only-begotten Word is the Son of the counsel or will of God, some have affirmed that the Word is himself the counsel or will of the Father. But in my judgment it is better to say counsel of counsel and will of will, as we say substance of substance and wisdom of wisdom. Then we will not be led into the absurdity I have already refuted, of saying that the Son makes the Father wise or willing, as if the Father did not have counsel or will in his own substance.

4. A sharp answer to a sharp question

Someone gave a sharp answer once to the heretic, who had very subtly asked him whether God begat the Son willingly or unwillingly. The heretic's plan was this. If the man said "unwillingly," it would follow, absurdly, that God was miserable. If he said "willingly," the heretic would at once conclude, as if by an unbeatable reason, what he was aiming at: that the Son is the Son not of his nature but of his will.

The other man, very much awake, asked him in return whether God the Father was God willingly or unwillingly. If he answered "unwillingly," misery would follow, which to believe of God is sheer madness. If he said "willingly," the answer would be, "Then he is God too by his own will, not by his nature." What was left for him but to be silent, and to see that he was tied up by his own question in a knot he could not undo?

And if any Person in the Trinity is also to be specially called the will of God, this name, like Love, is better fitted to the Holy Spirit. For what else is love but will?

5. A summary of the book so far

Let me gather up what I have done in this book on the Holy Spirit. According to Holy Scripture, what I have said in this book about the Holy Spirit is quite enough for faithful men who already know that the Holy Spirit is God, and not of another substance, and not less than the Father and the Son. We showed this in the former books, from the same Scriptures.

I have also reasoned from the creature that God made. As far as I could, I have urged those who demand a reason on such subjects to look at his invisible things and understand them as far as they can, through the things that are made. I have urged them especially to look at the rational or intellectual creature that is made in the image of God. Through that glass, so to say, they might see as far as they can, if they can, the Trinity that is God, in our own memory, understanding and will.

If anyone considers these three things with understanding, as appointed by God in his own mind by nature, and as remembered by memory, looked at by understanding and embraced by love, how great a thing it is in the mind, by which even the eternal and unchangeable nature can be recalled, seen and desired! Surely that man finds an image of that highest Trinity. And he ought to refer the whole of his life to remembering, seeing and loving that highest Trinity, so that he may recall it, contemplate it and be delighted by it.

But I have warned him, as much as seemed enough, that he must not compare this image with that Trinity as if it were like it in every point. This image was made by that Trinity, and by man's own fault it has been changed for the worse. He should see in that likeness, whatever sort of likeness it is, a great unlikeness as well.

Chapter 21: Memory and Understanding as Father and Son, Will as the Spirit

Of the likeness of the Father and of the Son that is alleged to be in our memory and understanding. Of the likeness of the Holy Spirit in our will or love.

1. What I have tried to do with memory and understanding

I have taken pains, as far as I could, not that the thing might be seen face to face, but that it might be seen by this likeness in a riddle, even if only slightly and by guesswork. In our memory and understanding I have tried to point to God the Father and God the Son.

God the Father is the one who begets. He has spoken, in a way, by his own co-eternal Word, all that he has in his substance. God his Word has nothing more or less in his substance than is in the Father. He not falsely but truly begot the Word.

2. How I assigned memory and understanding

I assigned to memory everything that we know, even when we are not thinking of it. I assigned to understanding the forming, in a special way, of the thought. We are usually said to understand what we have found to be true by thinking of it. And that again we leave in the memory.

But there is a still more hidden depth in our memory, where we found this too when we first thought of it. In that depth an inner word is begotten that belongs to no tongue. It is, as it were, knowledge of knowledge, sight of sight, and understanding that shows itself in thought. It is an understanding that had existed before in the memory but was hidden there. Even so, unless the thought had some sort of memory of its own, it would not return to the things which it left in the memory while it turned to think of other things.

3. The will, which is like the Holy Spirit

But in this riddle I have shown nothing that might seem to be like the Holy Spirit except our own will, or love, or affection, which is a stronger will. Our will, which we have by nature, is moved in different ways as various things lie near or come to it, which attract or offend us.

So what are we to say? That our will, when it is right, does not know what to desire and what to avoid? If it knows, then it has a kind of knowledge of its own, which cannot be without memory and understanding. Or are we to listen to anyone who says that love does not know what it does, when it does not do wrongly?

So there are both understanding and love in that first memory, where we find stored up what we can come to in thought. We find those two things there when, by thinking, we find that we understand and love something. They were there too when we were not thinking of them. And there are memory and love in that understanding which is formed by thought. This is the true word we say inwardly, with the tongue of no nation, when we say what we know. The gaze of our thought does not return to anything except by remembering it, and does not care to return unless it loves it.

So love combines the sight brought about in the memory and the sight of the thought formed by it, as if they were parent and offspring. And love would not know what to love rightly unless it had a knowledge of what it desired. That knowledge it cannot have without memory and understanding.

Chapter 22: How Great the Unlikeness Is

How great the unlikeness is between the image of the Trinity we have found in ourselves and the Trinity itself.

1. An objection from the one person

These three things are in one person, as man is. So someone may say to us: "Memory, understanding and love are mine. They do not do what they do for themselves, but for me. Or rather I do it by them. It is I who remember by memory, understand by understanding and love by love."

This is true. When I direct the mind's eye to my memory and say in my heart the thing I know, a true word is begotten of my knowledge. Both are mine, the knowledge certainly and the word. It is I who know, and I who say in my heart the thing I know.

And when I find in my memory, by thinking, that I understand and love something, which understanding and love were there before I thought of them, it is my own understanding and my own love that I find in my memory. It is I that understand by it, and I that love, and not those things themselves.

In the same way, when my thought is mindful and wills to return to the things it had left in the memory, to understand and look at them and say them inwardly, it is my own memory that is mindful, and it is my own will, not the memory's, by which it wills. When my very love remembers and understands what it ought to desire and what to avoid, it remembers by my memory, not its own. It understands what it loves intelligently by my understanding, not its own.

2. The conclusion

In short, by all these three things it is I who remember, I who understand, I who love. I am neither memory, nor understanding, nor love. I have them.

So these things can be said by a single person who has these three but is not these three. But in the simplicity of the Highest Nature, which is God, though there is one God, there are three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 23: The Trinity Seen Through a Mirror Now, and Face to Face Later

Augustine dwells still further on the difference between the trinity in man and the Trinity that is God. The Trinity is now seen through a mirror by the help of faith, so that it may hereafter be seen more clearly in the promised sight face to face.

1. The thing itself and its image

A thing which is itself a trinity is different from the image of a trinity in something else. It is by reason of that image that the thing in which these three are is also called an image. Think of a panel and the picture painted on it. Both are called an image. But it is because of the picture painted on it that the panel too gets the name of image.

2. The indivisibility of the highest Trinity

But in that Highest Trinity, which is incomparably above all things, there is so great an indivisibility that a trinity of men cannot be called one man, whereas there it is said, and it is, that there is one God. The Trinity is not in one God, but is one God.

And again, the image in man has these three things but is one person. It is not so with the Trinity. There are three Persons: the Father of the Son, the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of Father and Son.

3. The likeness, in each case, very unequal

The memory in man has, in this image of the Trinity, a likeness of the Father. This is especially the memory that beasts do not have: the memory in which things understood are held in such a way that they never came into it through the bodily senses. In proportion to its small measure, it has a likeness of the Father, an incomparably unequal one, but of some sort.

Likewise the understanding in man, formed by the purpose of the thought, when what is known is said and there is a word of the heart that belongs to no tongue, has some likeness of the Son, with great disparity.

And love in man, which proceeds from knowledge and joins memory and understanding, as if common to parent and offspring, and so is understood to be neither parent nor offspring, has some likeness of the Holy Spirit, though exceedingly unequal.

4. And still the image is one person

Nevertheless it is not so that, as in the image of the Trinity these three are not one man but belong to one man, so in the Highest Trinity itself, of which this is an image, these three belong to one God. They are one God. And they are three Persons, not one.

This is a thing wonderfully beyond words, or beyond words wonderfully. The image of the Trinity is one person, and the Highest Trinity itself is three Persons. And yet that Trinity of three Persons is more indivisible than this of one.

For that Trinity, in the nature of the Divinity, or perhaps better the Deity, is what it is. It is always and unchangeably equal in itself. There was no time when it was not, or when it was otherwise. There will be no time when it will not be, or when it will be otherwise.

5. The three in us are unequal

But these three in the imperfect image, though they are not separate in place, for they are not bodies, are in this life separate from each other in magnitude. It is no obstacle that there are no separate bulks in them. We can still see that in one man memory is greater than understanding, and in another it is the other way round. In yet another, both are surpassed by the greatness of love. And this holds whether the two are equal to each other or not. So each two by each one, and each one by each two, and each one by each one: the less are surpassed by the greater.

And when they have been healed of every weakness and are equal to each other, not even then will that which is not changed by grace be made equal to that which by nature cannot change. For the creature cannot be made equal to the Creator, and when it has been healed of all weakness, it will be changed.

6. The sight that is promised

But when the sight that is promised to us anew comes, face to face, we shall see this Trinity, not only bodiless but absolutely indivisible and truly unchangeable, far more clearly and certainly than we now see its image, which we ourselves are.

And yet those who see through this mirror and in this riddle, as is allowed in this life, are not those who look in their own mind at the things we have set in order and pressed upon them. They are those who see it as an image. They are able to refer what they see, in some way, whatever it be, to the One whose image it is. And they see by conjecture what they see through the image by looking, since they cannot yet see face to face.

For the apostle does not say, "We see now a mirror." He says, "We see now through a mirror."

Chapter 24: The Weakness of the Human Mind

1. Seeing the mirror but not seeing through it

Some people see their own mind, in whatever way that is possible. They see in it the Trinity I have treated as well as I could, in many ways. And yet they do not believe or understand it to be an image of God. They see a mirror, but they do not see through the mirror the One who is now to be seen through it. They do not even know that the mirror they see is a mirror, that is, an image.

If they knew it, perhaps they would feel that the One whose mirror it is should be sought by it, and somehow seen for the time being. An unfeigned faith would cleanse their hearts, so that he who is now seen through a mirror might be able to be seen face to face.

2. What it profits to despise the faith

And if they despise this faith that purifies the heart, what do they gain by understanding the most subtle arguments about the nature of the human mind? Only that they are condemned also by the witness of their own understanding.

And they would certainly not fail so badly in understanding, and hardly arrive at anything certain, if they were not caught in a penal darkness, and weighed down by the corruptible body that presses down the soul.

Editor's note: the phrase "the corruptible body that presses down the soul" is from the book of Wisdom (9:15), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

For what fault but sin has this evil been laid on them? So they should be warned by the size of so great an evil. They ought to follow the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, ESV).

Chapter 25: Why the Spirit Is Not Begotten Will Be Understood Only in Bliss

The question why the Holy Spirit is not begotten, and how he proceeds from the Father and the Son, will only be understood when we are in bliss.

1. The Lamb has conquered

Now suppose some belong to him who are far duller in understanding than those I have just spoken of. When they are freed from the body at the end of this life, the envious powers have no right to hold them. For the Lamb who was slain by those powers without any debt of sin has conquered them. But he did not conquer by the might of power before he had done so by the righteousness of blood.

So they are set free from the power of the devil. They are carried up by holy angels, and freed from all evils by the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV). For all the Divine Scriptures, Old and New, those that foretold Christ and those that announced him, agree that "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12, ESV).

2. Their waiting, and their bodies again

When they are cleansed of every contagion of corruption, they are put in peaceful dwellings until they take their bodies again. These will be their own bodies, but incorruptible, to adorn them and not to burden them. For this is the will of the best and wisest Creator, that the spirit of a man, when it is piously subject to God, should have a body that is happily subject, and that this happiness should last for ever.

3. There we shall see without difficulty

There we shall see the truth without any difficulty. We shall enjoy it to the full, most clear and most certain. We shall not be inquiring into anything with a reasoning mind. We shall discern it with a mind that contemplates, why the Holy Spirit is not a Son, though he proceeds from the Father. In that light there will be no place for inquiry.

4. My own experience of the difficulty

But here, by experience itself, it has seemed to me so hard. And it will without doubt seem hard to those who read what I have written with care and understanding. In the second book I promised that I would speak of this in another place. Yet as often as I have wanted to illustrate it by the created image of it which we ourselves are, then, whatever my meaning was, adequate speech completely failed me. Even in my very meaning I felt that I had reached striving, not accomplishment.

I had indeed found in one person, such as a man is, an image of that Highest Trinity. I wanted, especially in the ninth book, to make clearer, by something subject to time and change, the relation of the Three Persons. But three things belonging to one person cannot suit those Three Persons as man's purpose requires. We have shown this in this fifteenth book.

Chapter 26: The Spirit Given Twice, and Proceeding Without Time

The Holy Spirit twice given by Christ. The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son is apart from time, and he cannot be called the Son of both.

1. No intervals of time in the Trinity

In that Highest Trinity, which is God, there are no intervals of time. So we cannot show, or even ask, whether the Son was first born of the Father and the Holy Spirit afterwards proceeded from both. For Holy Scripture calls him the Spirit of both.

He is the one of whom the apostle says, "because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts" (Galatians 4:6, ESV). He is the one of whom the Son says, "it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10:20, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin of Galatians 4:6 read "into your hearts." The ESV has "into our hearts." The ESV is printed here, since nothing in the argument turns on it.

Many other testimonies of the divine Word prove that the Spirit, who in the Trinity is specially called the Holy Spirit, is of the Father and of the Son. The Son himself says of him, "whom I will send to you from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV). And in another place, "whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26, ESV).

2. He proceeds from both

So we are taught that he proceeds from both, because the Son himself says that he proceeds from the Father. When Christ had risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples, "he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22, ESV). That shows he proceeded from himself also. And the Spirit himself is that very power which went out from him, as we read in the Gospel, "power came out from him and healed them all" (Luke 6:19, ESV).

3. Why the Spirit was given twice

Here is why, in my judgment, after his resurrection Christ both gave the Holy Spirit first on earth and afterwards sent him from heaven. It is that "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5, ESV). By that Gift we love God and our neighbors, according to the two commandments on which "depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40, ESV).

To show this, Jesus Christ gave the Holy Spirit once upon earth, for the love of our neighbor, and a second time from heaven, for the love of God. If some other reason can be given for this double gift of the Holy Spirit, we still should not doubt that it was the same Holy Spirit who was given when Jesus breathed on them. Of him he soon says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19, ESV), where this Trinity is specially set before us.

So it is he who was given also from heaven on the day of Pentecost, ten days after the Lord ascended into heaven.

4. He who gives the Spirit is God

How then is he not God who gives the Holy Spirit? No, how great a God he is who gives God! None of his disciples gave the Holy Spirit. They prayed that he might come on those on whom they laid their hands. They did not give him themselves. The Church keeps this custom even now in the case of her leaders.

Simon the magician, when he offered the apostles money, did not say, "Give me also this power, that I may give the Holy Spirit." He said, "Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:19, ESV). And Scripture had not said, "Simon saw that the apostles gave the Holy Spirit." It said, "Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands" (Acts 8:18, ESV).

5. Christ gave the Spirit as God and received him as man

So the Lord Jesus Christ himself not only gave the Holy Spirit as God, but also received him as man. And so he is said to be "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14, ESV), and "full of the Holy Spirit" (Luke 4:1, ESV). In the Acts of the Apostles it is written more plainly of him, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38, ESV).

Certainly this was not with visible oil, but with the gift of grace which is signified by the visible ointment with which the Church anoints the baptized. And Christ was certainly not anointed with the Holy Spirit at the time when the Spirit came down on him like a dove at his baptism (Matthew 3:16, ESV). At that time he chose to prefigure his body, that is, his Church, in which the baptized especially receive the Holy Spirit.

We must understand that he was anointed with that mystical and invisible anointing when the Word of God was made flesh. That is, when human nature, without any earlier merit of good works, was joined to God the Word in the womb of the Virgin, so that it became one person with him. That is why we confess him as born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

It would be most absurd to believe that he received the Holy Spirit when he was about thirty years old (Luke 3:23, ESV), when he was baptized by John. He came to baptism without any sin at all, and so not without the Holy Spirit.

Think of what is written about his servant and forerunner John himself: "he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15, ESV). John was generated by his father, and yet he received the Holy Spirit when he was formed in the womb. What then must we understand and believe of the man Christ, whose very conception in the flesh was not carnal but spiritual?

6. Both natures show in what is written

Both natures, the human and the divine, show in what is written of him: that "having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this" (Acts 2:33, ESV). He received as man, and poured out as God.

We too can receive that gift in our small measure. But we certainly cannot pour it out on others. For that to be done, we call upon God, by whom it is accomplished.

7. No time between begetting and proceeding

So can we ask whether the Holy Spirit had already proceeded from the Father when the Son was born, or had not yet? And whether, when the Son was born, the Spirit then proceeded from both? In that Trinity there is no such thing as distinct times.

We can ask this where we do find times. Take the will in a human mind. The will proceeds from the mind first, so that something may be sought which, when found, may be called offspring. When the offspring is already brought forth or born, that will is made perfect, resting in that end. What had been its desire when seeking becomes its love when enjoying. Now this love proceeds from both, from the mind that begets and from the knowledge that is begotten, as if from parent and offspring.

None of this can be asked where nothing begins in time so as to be completed in a later time.

8. Life given without time

So let whoever can understand the Son's generation from the Father without time understand also the Holy Spirit's procession from both without time.

And let whoever can understand what the Son says, "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26, ESV), understand it rightly. The Father did not give life to a Son who already existed without life. He so begat him apart from time that the life the Father gave to the Son by begetting him is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave it.

Let him understand, then, that as the Father has it in himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed from him, so he has given it to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from him, and both are apart from time. The Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father in such a way that his proceeding also from the Son is understood to be a property that the Son has from the Father. If the Son has from the Father whatever he has, then certainly he has from the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from him.

But let no one think of any times in this, with a sooner and a later. They are not there at all.

9. Why the Spirit is not "the Son of both"

How then would it not be most absurd to call him the Son of both? Generation from the Father, without any change of nature, gives to the Son his essence without a beginning in time. In the same way, procession from both, without any change of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit his essence without a beginning in time.

We do not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten. Yet we do not dare to say that he is unbegotten, lest anyone suspect in this word two Fathers in that Trinity, or two who are not from another. The Father alone is not from another. So he alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the language of those who debate, using such words as they can on so great a subject.

The Son is born of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, the Father giving the procession without any interval of time, and yet in common from both Father and Son. But he would be called the Son of the Father and of the Son if both had begotten him, which every sound mind abhors. So the Spirit of both is not begotten of both, but proceeds from both.

Chapter 27: What Is Enough Here, and What the Slow Should Do

What it is that suffices here to solve the question why the Spirit is not said to be begotten, and why the Father alone is unbegotten. What they ought to do who do not understand these things.

1. A sermon I preached to the people

Because it is most difficult to tell generation from procession in that co-eternal, equal, bodiless, and unspeakably unchangeable and indivisible Trinity, let this be enough for now. For those who cannot be led further, I will set down what I said on this subject in a sermon given in the hearing of Christian people, which I then wrote down.

After teaching them by testimonies of Holy Scripture that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, I went on:

"If then the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, 'he proceeds from the Father'? Why, do you think, but because he is accustomed to refer to the Father even what is his own, since he himself is from the Father? Think of what he says: 'My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me' (John 7:16, ESV). If it is his teaching that is understood here, which yet he said was not his own but his who sent him, how much more must we understand that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from himself, where he says that he proceeds from the Father, and does not say that he does not proceed from him!

"From him from whom the Son has his divine nature, for he is God of God, he has also this: that from him the Holy Spirit proceeds too. So the Holy Spirit has it from the Father himself that he should proceed from the Son also, as he proceeds from the Father.

"Here too, in some way, so far as it can be understood by such as we are, we may understand why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born but rather to proceed. If he too were called a Son, he would certainly be called the Son of both, which is most absurd. No one is the son of two, except of a father and a mother. And far be it from us to imagine any such thing between God the Father and God the Son. Not even the son of men proceeds at the same time from both father and mother. When he proceeds from the father into the mother, he does not at that time proceed from the mother. When he proceeds from the mother into this present light, he does not at that time proceed from the father.

"But the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father into the Son, and from the Son go out to sanctify the creature. He proceeds from both at once, though the Father has given this to the Son, that he should proceed from the Son as he proceeds from the Father. For we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is not life, while the Father is life and the Son is life. So as the Father, who has life in himself, has given the Son also to have life in himself, so he has given him also that life should proceed from him, as it also proceeds from the Father."

Editor's note: the sermon quotes John 7:16, and Augustine's Latin read "My doctrine is not mine." The ESV has "My teaching." The ESV is printed here, as in Book Two.

I have moved this from the sermon into this book. But I was speaking there to believers, not to unbelievers.

2. What to do if you cannot see this

But suppose they are not able to look at this image, or to see how true those things are that are in their own mind, which are not three in such a way as to be three persons, but all three belong to one man who is one person. Why do they not believe what they find in the sacred books about that highest Trinity which is God? Why do they insist on a clear reason being given, which the human mind, so dull and weak, cannot take in?

Let them, once they have firmly believed the Holy Scriptures as most true witnesses, work hard, by praying and seeking and living well, so that they may understand. That is, so that what is held fast by faith may be seen, as far as it can be seen, by the mind. Who would forbid this? No, who would not urge them to it?

3. The blind and the sun

But suppose they think they ought to deny that these things are, because they cannot see them with their blind minds. Then those who are blind from birth ought to deny that there is a sun.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5, ESV). So, if the darkness has not overcome it, let them first be enlightened by the gift of God, so that they may become believers. Editor's note: Augustine's Latin reads "if the darkness comprehend it not," a conditional that the ESV loses. Let them begin to be light, in comparison with unbelievers. When this foundation has been laid, let them be built up to see what they believe, so that at some time they may be able to see.

4. Some things are believed that cannot be seen at all

Some things are believed in such a way that they cannot be seen at all. Christ is not to be seen a second time on the cross. Unless this is believed, as something that has been done and seen, and not hoped for as something to come and be seen, there is no coming to Christ, such as he is to be seen without end.

5. Where the mind's sight can best exercise itself

But when it comes to discerning in some way, by the understanding, that highest, unspeakable, bodiless and unchangeable nature, the sight of the human mind cannot exercise itself better anywhere, provided only that the rule of faith governs it. Where? In that which man has in his own nature better than the other animals, and better than the other parts of his own soul. That is the mind itself.

To the mind a certain sight of invisible things has been given. To it, as if honorably presiding in a higher and inner place, the bodily senses bring word of all things, so that they may be judged. There is nothing higher than the mind to which it is to be subject and by which it is to be governed, except God.

6. A word to my own soul

But among these many things that I have now said, there is nothing that I dare claim to have said worthy of the unspeakable greatness of that highest Trinity. I rather confess that "such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it" (Psalm 139:6, ESV).

So O my soul, where do you feel yourself to be? Where do you lie? Where do you stand? Until all your diseases are healed by him "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" (Psalm 103:3, ESV). You are, surely, in that inn to which the Samaritan brought the man he found with many wounds from thieves, half dead (Luke 10:34, ESV).

And yet you have seen many true things. You saw them not with the eyes by which colored objects are seen, but with those eyes for which he prayed who said, "Let your eyes behold the right!" (Psalm 17:2, ESV).

Editor's note: Augustine's Latin read "Let my eyes behold the things that are equal." The ESV has "Let your eyes behold the right!" The ESV is printed here. His point is that the mind has eyes of its own, by which it sees what is right and true.

Certainly then you have seen many true things, and you have told them apart from that light by whose light you saw them. Lift up your eyes to that light itself, and fix them on it if you can. Then you will see how the birth of the Word of God differs from the procession of the Gift of God. That is why the only-begotten Son did not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten of the Father, since then he would be his brother. He said that he proceeds from him. So the Spirit of both is a kind of consubstantial fellowship of Father and Son, and, far be it from us to say so, he is not called the Son of both.

7. What my soul cannot yet do

But you cannot fix your sight there so as to see this clearly and plainly. I know you cannot. I am telling the truth. I say to myself what I know I cannot do. Yet that same light shows you three things in yourself, in which you can recognize an image of the highest Trinity, which you cannot yet look at with a steady eye.

It shows you that there is in you a true word, when it is born of your knowledge, that is, when we say what we know. We neither utter nor think of any articulate word that has meaning in the tongue of any nation. Our thought is formed by what we know. And in the mind's eye of the thinker there is an image resembling that thought which the memory contained. And the will, or love, is a third thing that joins these two, as parent and offspring.

Whoever can, sees and discerns that this will proceeds indeed from thought. For no one wills what he is entirely ignorant of, as to what it is or what it is like. Yet the will is not an image of the thought. So there is slipped into this thing of the mind a kind of difference between birth and procession. To behold by thought is not the same as to desire, or even to enjoy by will.

8. What you could see, and could not say

You have been able to see this too. But you have not been able, and are not able, to set it out in adequate speech. Among the clouds of bodily likenesses that never cease to flit up and down before human thoughts, you have scarcely seen it.

But that light which is not yourself shows you this also: that these bodiless likenesses of bodies are different from the truth, which we look at with the understanding by rejecting them. These things, and other things like them that are certain, that light has shown to your inner eyes.

9. Why you cannot see the light itself

What reason is there that you cannot see that light itself with a steady eye? Certainly only weakness. And what has produced that in you, except iniquity? So who is it that heals all your weaknesses, unless it is he who forgives all your iniquities?

And therefore I will now at last finish this book with a prayer rather than with an argument.

Chapter 28: The Closing Prayer

The conclusion of the book with a prayer, and an apology for a multitude of words.

1. What we believe

O Lord our God, we believe in you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Truth would not have said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19, ESV), unless you were a Trinity. And you, O Lord God, would not bid us be baptized in the name of one who is not the Lord God.

Nor would the divine voice have said, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4, ESV), unless you were a Trinity in such a way as to be one Lord God.

And if you yourself, O God, were yourself the Father, and were yourself the Son, your Word Jesus Christ, and were yourself the Holy Spirit, your gift, then we would not read in the book of truth, "God sent his only Son into the world" (1 John 4:9, ESV). And you, O Only-begotten, would not say of the Holy Spirit, "whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26, ESV), and "whom I will send to you from the Father" (John 15:26, ESV).

2. A prayer for strength to keep seeking

Directing my purpose by this rule of faith, so far as I have been able, so far as you have made me able, I have sought you. I have wanted to see with my understanding what I believed. I have argued and labored much.

O Lord my God, my one hope, hear me. Do not let me, through weariness, be unwilling to seek you. Let me always ardently "seek his presence continually" (Psalm 105:4, ESV). You, who have made me find you, give me strength to seek. You have given me the hope of finding you more and more.

My strength and my weakness are in your sight. Keep the one, and heal the other. My knowledge and my ignorance are in your sight. Where you have opened to me, receive me as I enter. Where you have closed, open to me as I knock.

May I remember you. May I understand you. May I love you. Increase these things in me, until you renew me wholly.

3. Against too many words

I know it is written, "When words are many, transgression is not lacking" (Proverbs 10:19, ESV). But if only I could speak just in preaching your word and in praising you! Then I would not only flee from sin, but I would earn good desert, however much I spoke.

A man blessed by you would not have commanded a sin to his own true son in the faith, to whom he wrote, "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2, ESV). Are we to say that he did not speak much, who was not silent about your word, O Lord, not only in season but out of season? But it was not much, because it was only what was necessary.

4. Set me free from the multitude of words in the soul

Set me free, O God, from that multitude of speech that I suffer inwardly in my soul, wretched as it is in your sight, and flying for refuge to your mercy. For I am not silent in my thoughts, even when I am silent in words.

And if I thought of nothing but what pleased you, I certainly would not ask you to set me free from such a multitude of speech. But many are my thoughts, such as you know: "the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath" (Psalm 94:11, ESV). Grant that I do not consent to them. And if they ever delight me, let me still condemn them, and not stay in them as though I were asleep.

Do not let them so prevail in me that anything in my deeds comes from them. But let my opinions, let my conscience, be safe from them, under your protection.

5. The wise man's word

When the wise man spoke of you in his book, which is now called by the special name of Ecclesiasticus, he said, "We speak much, and yet come short; and in sum of words, he is all."

Editor's note: this saying is from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 43:27), which is not in the ESV, so it is given in Augustine's sense.

So when we have come to you, these very many things that we speak and yet fall short in will cease. And you, as One, will remain "all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28, ESV). We shall say one thing without end, in praising you in One, ourselves also made one in you.

6. The last words

O Lord, the one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of yours, may those who are yours acknowledge it. If there is anything of my own, may it be pardoned both by you and by those who are yours. Amen.

Argument

This book is about one question: who is the God Christians worship, and how can he be one and yet Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Augustine answers it in fifteen books, and they fall into three parts. First he proves the doctrine from Scripture and answers the objections raised against it. Then he looks at the words we use, and at the first traces of the Trinity in love. Finally he searches the human mind, made in God's image, for a likeness of the God who made it.

The first part: Scripture (Books 1 to 4). Book 1 shows from the Bible that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God and equal. The next three books deal with the objection that the Son must be less than the Father because the Father sent him. Book 2 answers it, Book 3 asks what the appearances of God to the patriarchs really were, and Book 4 explains why the Son was sent. Augustine's answer is that being sent does not make anyone less. The Trinity is equal in every way, unchangeable, present everywhere, and it works as one.

The second part: the language of faith (Books 5 to 8). Book 5 asks what we mean when we say something of God. Some things are said of his substance, such as that he is good and great. Others are said of how the persons stand toward each other, as Father is said in relation to Son. Book 6 asks whether the Father is himself wisdom, or only the begetter of it. Book 7 answers that he is, and explains why we say "one essence and three persons": we need some word to answer the question "Three what?" Book 8 then turns from argument to truth, goodness and love. Love, Augustine says, is where we first begin to glimpse the Trinity: the one who loves, the one who is loved, and the love.

The third part: the image of God in us (Books 9 to 15). Books 9 and 10 find a kind of trinity in the mind, first in the mind, its knowledge of itself, and its love, then more exactly in memory, understanding and will. Book 11 looks for likenesses in the outer man, in seeing and the things we see, and finds they are not equal and not of one substance. Book 12 separates wisdom from knowledge. Book 13 treats the trinity in knowledge and uses it to commend the Christian faith. Book 14 comes to true wisdom, in which the mind is renewed after the image of its Creator, and so the image of God is found. Book 15 gathers up the whole argument, then turns to the Trinity who is God, which these images can only point to and never match. It ends in a prayer.

Augustine never claims that the mind explains God. His claim is smaller and truer: the image is real, it is broken, it is being mended, and a God who can be only partly understood is still always to be sought.

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