among those things that God has made, in 5. In the first book, the unity and equality"
200 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. | Book XV.
incomprehensible, and becomes ever better and better while seeking so great _a good, which is both sought in order to be found, and found in order to be sought? For it is both sought in order that it may be found more sweetly, and found in order that it may be sought more eagerly. The words of Wisdom in the book of Ecclesiasticus may be taken in this meaning: '* They who eat me shall still be hungry, and they who drink me shall still be thirsty."'* For they eat and drink because they find; and they still continue seeking because they are hungry and thirst. Faith seeks, understanding finds; whence the prophet says, °° Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand." And yet, again, understanding still seeks Him, whom it finds; for '*God looked down upon the sons of men," as itis sung in the holy Psalm, °' to see if there were any that would understand, and seek after God.''?3 And man, therefore, ought for this purpose to have understanding, that he may seek after God,
CHAP. 3.—A BRIEF RECAPITULATION OF ALL THE PREVIOUS BOOKS,
4. But since the necessities of our discussion and argument have compelled us to say a great many things in the course of fourteen books, which we cannot view at once in one glance, so as to be able to refer them quickly in thought to that which we desire to grasp, I will attempt, by the help of God, to the best of my power, to put briefly together, without arguing, whatever I have established in the several books by argument as known, and to place, as it were, under one mental view, not the way in which we have been convinced of each point, but the points themselves of which we have been convinced; in order that what follows may not be so far separated from that which precedes, as that the perusal of the former shall produce forgetfulness of the latter; or at any rate, if it have produced such forgetfulness, that what has escaped the memory may be speedily recalled by reperusal.
3. We shall have tarried then long enough among those things that God has made, in order that by them He Himself may be known that made them. '' For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.''4+ And hence they are rebuked in the book of Wisdom, '*' who could not out of the good things that are seen know Him that is: neither by considering the works, did they acknowledge the workmaster; but deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world: with whose beauty if they, being delighted, took them to be gods, let them know how much better the Lord of them is; tor the first Author of beauty hath created them. But if they were astonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them how much mightier He is that made them. For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen''5 I have quoted these words from the book of Wisdom for this reason, that no one of the faithful may think me vainly and emptily to have sought first in the creature, step by step through certain trinities, each of their own appropriate kind, until I came at last to the mind of man, traces of that highest Trinity which we seek when we seek God.
5. In the first book, the unity and equality" of that highest Trinity i is shown from Holy Scripture. C fourth, the same: but a careful - -handling of the question respecting the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has resulted in three books; and we have demonstrated, that He> who is sent is not therefore less than He who sends because the one sent, the other was sent; since the Trinity, which is in all things equal, being also equally in its own nature unchangeable, and invisible, and everywhere present, works indivisibly. In the fifth,—
In the second, and third, and 7-1
1 with a view to those who think that the sub- ~ stance of the Father and of the Son is therefore not the same, because they suppose everything that is predicated of God to be predicated according to substance, and therefore contend that to beget and to be begotten, or to be begotten and unbegotten, as being diverse, are diverse substances,—it is demonstrated that not everything that is predicated of God is predicated according to substance, as He is called good and great according to substance, or anything else that is predicated of Him in respect to Himself, but that some things also are predicated relatively, z.e. not in respect to Himself, but in respect to something which is not Himself; as He is called the Father in respect to the Son, or the Lord in respect to the creature that serves Him; and that here, if anything thus relatively predicated, z.e. predicated in respect to something that is not Himself, is predicated also as in time, as, ¢.g., '' Lord, Thou hast become our a ae ala ee ne iS a a a ig rae RR le Sel De a oe raced Neca eels, Sree eee bien, SLi Dente a
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2 Isa, vii. 9. 4 Rom. i. 20,
t Ecclus. xxiv. 29. SPs. xivae,
Wisd. xili. 1-5.
Ccuap. III.] ON THE TRINITY. 207 refuge, * then nothing happens to Him so as to work a change in Him, but He Himself continues altogether unchangeable i in His own nature or essence. In the sixth, the question how Christ is called by the mouth of the apostle ''the power of God and the wisdom of God,''? is so far argued that the more careful handling of that question is deferred, véz. whether He from whom Christ is begotten is not wisdom Himself, but only the father of His own wisdom, or whether wisdom begat wisdom. But be it which it may, the equality of the Trinity became apparent in this book also, and that God was not triple, but a Trinity; and that the Father and the Son are not, as it were, a double as opposed to the single Holy Spirit: for therein three are not anything more than one. We considered, too, how to understand the words of Bishop loves, and that which is loved, and love. In the ninth, the argument advances as far as to the image of God, véz..man in respect to his mind; and in this we found a kind of trinity, we: the mind, and the knowledge whereby the mind knows itself, and the love whereby' it loves both itself and its knowledge of itself; and these three are shown to be mutually equal, and of one essence. In the tenth, the same subject is more carefully and subtly handled, and is brought to this point, that we » found in the mind a still more manifest trinity of the mind, vzz. in memory, and understanding, and will. But since it turned out also, that the mind could never be in such a case. as not to remember, understand, and love itself, although it did not always think of itself; but that when it did think of itself, it did not in the same act of thought distinguish itself from things corporeal; the argument respecting the Trinity, of which this is an image, was deferred, in order to find a trinity also in the things themselves that are seen with the body, and to exercise the reader's attention more distinctly in that. Accord- | ingly, in the eleventh, we chose the sense of ~ sight, wherein that which should have been there found to hold good might be recognized also in the other four bodily senses, although not expressly mentioned; and so a trinity of the outer man first showed itself in those things which are discerned from without, to wit, from the bodily object which is seen, and
Hilary, *' Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift,'' In the seventh, the question is explained which had been deferred: in what way that God who begat the Son is not only Father of His own power and wisdom, but is Himself also power and wisdom; so, too, the Holy Spirit; and yet that they are not three powers or three wisdoms, but one power and one wisdom, as one God and one essence. It was next inquired, in what way they are called one essence, three or by some Greeks one essence,
persons, three substances; and we found that the words were so used through the needs of speech, that there might be one term by from the form which is thence impressed upon the eye of the beholder, and from the purpose of the will combining the two. But these three things, as was patent, were not mutually equal and of one substance. Next, we found yet another trinity in the mind itself, introduced into it, as it were, by the things perceived from without; wherein the same three things, as it appeared, were of one substance: the image of the bodily object which is in the memory, and the form thence impressed when the mind's eye of the thinker is turned to it, and the purpose of the will combining the two. But we found this trinity to pertain to the outer man, on this account, that it was7. introduced into the mind from bodily objects which are perceived from without. twelfth, we thought good to distinguish wisdom from knowledge, and to seek first, as being the lower of the two, a kind of appropriate and special trinity in that which Is specially called knowledge; but that although we have got now in this to something pertaining to the inner man, yet it is not yet to be either called or thought an image of God. And this is discussed in the thirteenth book by the commendation of Christian faith. In the which to answer, when it is asked what the three are, whom we truly confess to be three, viz. Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. In the eighth, it is made plain by reason also to those who understand, that not only the Father is not greater than the Son in the substance of truth, but that both together are not anything greater than the Holy Spirit alone, nor that any two at all inthe same Trinity are anything greater than one, nor all three together anything greater than each severally.
Next, I have pointed out, that by means of the truth, which is beheld by the understanding, and by means of the highest good, from which is all good, and by means of the righteousness for which a righteous mind is loved even by a mind not yet righteous, we might
In the 4a understand, so far as it is possible to understand, that not only incorporeal but also unchangeable nature which is God; and by means, too, of love, which in the Holy Scriptures is called God, 3 by which, first of all, those ;who have understanding begin also, however ray z Lcebly: to discern the Trinity, to wit, one that
Led *
rst G se
Fa. xc. x! 21 Cor. i. 24. 3 x John iv. 16, mee