36. Trin. 8.4.7–5.7 (CCL 50:275–77); trans. McKenna, FOTC 45:251–52 (modified). (continued)
On the Trinity 297 set out for and run to heavens' heights or to the earth's depths in search of Him who is within us?
(8.12) Let no one say: "I do not know what I should love." Let him love his brother, and he will love the very same love. For he knows the love by which he loves more than the brother whom he loves. And so now God can become more known to him than his brother, more known because more present, more known because more interior, more known because more certain. Embrace God, who is love, and embrace God by love. It is love itself that unites all the good angels and all the servants of God by the bond of holiness and that unites us and them mutually with ourselves and makes us subject to God Himself. Therefore, the more we are cured of the swelling of pride, the more we are filled with love, and with what, if not with God, is one filled when one is filled with love? But one may object: "I see love, and I conceive it in my mind as best I can, and I believe the Scripture when it says: 'God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God' (1 Jn 4:16), but when I see it I do not see the Trinity in it." But as a matter of fact you do see the Trinity if you see love. But I will give you a proof, if I can, in order that you may see that you see the Trinity. Only let love itself be present that we may be moved by it to something good. For when we love love, then we love that which loves something, precisely because it loves something. What, therefore, does love love, that love itself may also be loved? For in loving, there is nothing that is not love. But if it loves itself, it must love something in order that it may love itself as love. For just as a word both indicates something and also indicates itself (though it does not indicate itself as a word unless it indicates that it is indicating something), so too does love indeed love itself. But unless it loves itself as loving something, then it does not love itself as love. What, therefore, does love love, except what we love with love? . . .
(10.14) But what is love or charity, which the holy Scripture praises and proclaims so highly, but love of the good? Now love includes someone who loves and something loved with love. So then there are three: the lover, the beloved, and the love. What else is love, therefore, but a kind of life which binds and seeks to bind a certain two together, namely, the lover and the beloved? And this is so even in external and carnal love. But that we may draw from a purer and clearer source, let us tread the flesh under foot and rise up to the spirit. What does the spirit love in a friend but spirit? And, therefore, even here there are three: the lover, the beloved, and the love.37
37. Trin. 8.7.10–10.14 (CCL 50:284–91); my trans., based on McKenna, FOTC 45:260–66.