Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
who worked out the first metaphysical exposition of the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His very vigor Ous statement of the Spirit as consubstantial with the Father and Son was not a widely prevalent position before this. One can also see from the hymns authored by Marius Victorinus that the Spirit was not as present in his own personal piety as were the Father and Son.
Augustine, however, developed a Trinitarian spirituality in which the Trinity to which the New Testament centrally witnessed became a reality in his religious consciousness. We see Augustine in dialogue with Father, Son, and Spirit throughout the Confessions.
Augustine's Experience
Since the Confessions were begun in A.D. 397, more than ten years after Augustine's conversion, it was inevitable that he should record there the religious understanding not yet possessed in 386. He naturally evaluated many of his youthful actions in the light of his more mature understanding of the Christian faith. That is the-significance of the Scriptural quotations generously scattered throughout this work. Although he made a distinct effort to speak frankly of his actions and attitudes in the days before his baptism, his faith only later enabled him to realize what God was doing to draw him to Himself through the people, the actions, and the circumstances that were part of his life.
The Confessions open with an expression of hope that the God] who is everywhere may be responsive to Augustine's prayer for God to come within his soul to save him by enabling him to fulfill the great commandment to love God. This began the dialogue with God that unites all parts of the Confessions.
The content of the prayer is significant. Augustine praised and thanked God for the providence, conversion, and illumination that had brought his soul's journey to a happy ending. When he declared: "You have made us to be toward Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You,"' he was declaring creation to be a call to union with God, a conviction he only dimly
6. Marius Victorinus, Theological Treatises on the Trinity, trans. M. T. Clark (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1981).
7. Augustine, Confessions, 1.1 (hereafter Conf.).