which the human mind knows by itself, and For we too pray to Him, yet do not inform
ST. AUGUSTIN. [Book XV.
Pag hr. THE WORKS OF
He knows, not by the body, for He has none, but by Himself, from elsewhere from some one? or has stood in need of messengers or witnesses that He might know them? Certainly not; since His own perfection enables | Him to know all things that He knows. No-> doubt He has messengers, vz. the angels; but not to announce to Him things that He knows not, for there is nothing He does not know. But their good lies in consulting the truth about their own works. And this it is which is meant by saying that they bring Him word of some things, not that He may learn of them, but they of Him by His word without bodily sound. They bring Him word, too, of that which He wills, being sent by as He who created both us and them has willed them to be within our knowledge. Far be it from us too to deny, that we know what we have learned by the testimony of others: otherwise we know not that there is an ocean; we know not that the lands and cities exist which most copious report commends to us; we know not that those men were, and their works, which we have learned by reading history; we know not the news that is daily brought us from this quarter or that, and confirmed by consistent and conspiring evidence; lastly, we know not at what place or from whom we have been born: since in all these things we have believed the testimony of others. And if it is most absurd to say this, then we must confess, that not only our own senses, but those of other persons also, have added very much indeed to our knowledge.
Him to whomever He wills, and hearing all from Him by that word of His, z.e, finding in His truth what themselves are to do: what, to whom, and when, they are to bring word. For we too pray to Him, yet do not inform Him what our necessities are. '* For your Father knoweth," says His Word, *' what things ye have need of, before you ask Him.''* Nor did He become acquainted with them, so as to know them, at any definite time; but He knew beforehand, without any beginning, all things to come in time, and among them also both what we should ask of Him, and when; and to whom He would either listen or not listen, and on what subjects. And with respect to all His creatures, both spirit-: ual and corporeal, He does not know them because they are, but they are because He | knows them. For He was not ignorant of what He was about to create; therefore He created because He knew; He did not know because He created. Nor did He know them when created in any other way than He knew them when still to be created, for nothing accrued to His wisdom from them; but that wisdom remained as it was, while they came into existence as it was fitting and when it was fitting. So, too, it is written in the book of Ecclesiasticus: '' All things are known to Him ere ever they were created: so also after they were perfected.''? "'So,'' he says, not otherwise; so were they known to Him, both ere ever they were created, and after they were perfected. This knowledge, therefore, is far unlike our knowledge. And the knowl-| edge of God is itself also His wisdom, and'... His wisdom is itself His essence or substance. | — Because in the marvellous simplicity of that nature, it is not one thing to be wise and another to be, but to be wise is to be; as we have often said already also in the earlier books. But our knowledge is in most things
22. All these things, then, both those which the human mind knows by itself, and those which it knows by the bodily senses,
and those which it has received and knows by the testimony of others, are laid up and re-. tained in the storehouse of the memory; and from these is begotten a word that is true, when we speak what we know, but a word that is before all sound, before all thought of a sound, For the word is then most like to the thing known, from which also its image is begotten, since the sight of thinking arises from the sight of knowledge; when it is a word belonging to no tongue, but is a true word concerning a true thing, having nothing of its own, but wholly derived from that knowledge from which it is born. Nor does it signify when he learned it, who speaks what he knows; for sometimes he says it immediately upon learning it; provided only that the word is true, z.¢. sprung from things that are known.
CHAP. 13.— STILL FURTHER OF THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THE KNOWLEDGE AND WORD OF OUR MIND, AND THE KNOWLEDGE AND WORD
OF GOD,
But is it so, that God the Father, from whom is born the Word that is God of God, —is it so, then, that God the Father, in respect to that wisdom which He is to Himself, has learned some things by His bodily senses, and others by Himself? Who could say this, who thinks of God, not as a rational animal, but as One above the rational soul? So far at least as He can be thought of, by those who place Him above all animals and all souls, although they see Him by conjecture through a glass and in an enigma, not yet face to face as He is. Is it that God the Father has learned those very things which a: las
I Matt. vi. 8. 2 Ecclus. xxiii. 20,
Cuap. XV.] ON THE TRINITY. 213 oe eee eee ee ne Se ee ee ee ee ene capable both of being lost and of being recovone by begetting, the other by being born. And each of them sees simultaneously all things that are in their knowledge, in their wisdom, in their essence: not by parts or singly, as though by alternately looking from ered, because to us to be is not the same as to know or to be wise; since it is possible for us to be, even although we know not, neither are wise in that which we have learned from elsewhere. Therefore, as our knowledge is unlike that knowledge of God, so is our word also, which is born from our knowledge, unthis side to that, and from that side to this, and again from this or that object to this or that object, so as not to be able to see some things without at the same time not seeing others; but, as I said, sees all things simultaneously, whereof there is not one that He does not always see.
like that Word of God which is born from the essence of the Father. And this is as if I should say, born from the Father's knowledge, from the Father's wisdom; or still more exactly, from the Father who is knowledge, from the Father who is wisdom.
24. And that word, then, of ours which has neither sound nor thought of sound, but is of that thing in seeing which we speak inwardly, and which therefore belongs to no tongue; and hence is in some sort like, in this enigma, to that Word of God which is-also God; since this too is born of our knowledge, in such manner as that also is born of the knowledge of the Father: such a word, I say, of ours, which we find to be in some way like that Word, let us not be slow to consider how unlike also it is, as it may be in our, power to utter it.
CHAP. 14.— THE WORD OF GOD IS IN ALL THINGS EQUAL TO THE FATHER, FROM WHOM
1T IS,
23. The Word of God, then, the only-begotten Son of the Father, in all things like and equal to the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Wisdom of Wisdom, Essence of Essence, is altogether that which the Father is, 2 yet is not the Father, because the one is Son, the other is Father. And hence He knows 'all that the Father knows; but to Him to know, as to be, is from the Father, for to
CHAP. I5.—-HOW GREAT IS THE UNLIKENESS BETWEEN OUR WORD AND THE DIVINE WORD. OUR WORD CANNOT BE OR BE CALLED ETERknow and to be isthere one. And therefore, as to be is not to the Father from the Son, so neither is to know. Accordingly, as though \. uttering Himself, the Father begat the Word
NAL.
Is our word, then, born of our knowledge only? Do we not say many things also that we do not know? And say them not with doubt, but thinking them to be true; while if perchance they are true in respect to the things themselves of which we speak, they are yet not true in respect to our word, because a word is not true unless it is born of a thing that is known. In this sense, then, our word is false, not when we lie, but when we are deceived. And when we doubt, our word is not yet of the thing of which we doubt, but it is a word concerning the doubt itself. For although we do not know whether that is true of which we doubt, yet we do know that we doubt; and hence, when we say we doubt, we say a word that is true, for we say what we know. And what, too, of its being possible for us to lie? And when we do, certainly we both willingly and knowingly have a word that is false, wherein there is a word that is true, viz. that we lie, for this we know. And when we confess that we have lied, we speak that which is true; for we say what we know, for we know that we lied. But that Word which is God, and can do more than we, cannot do this, For it ''can do nothing except what it sees the Father do;'' and it ''speaks not of itself,'' but it has from the Father all that it
"equal to Himself in all things; for He would not. have uttered Himself wholly and _ perfectly, if there were in His Word anything more or less than in Himself. And here that is recognized in the highest sense, '*' Yea, yea; nay, nay."'* And therefore this Word is truly truth, since whatever is in that knowledge from which it is born is also in itself, and whatever is not in that knowledge is not in the Word. And this Word can never have anything false, because it is unchangeable, as He is from whom it is. For ''the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do."'? Through power He cannot do this; nor is it infirmity, but strength, by which truth cannot be false. Therefore God the Father knows all things in Himself, knows all things in the Son; but in Himself as though Himself, in the Son as though His own
Word which Word is spoken concerning all those things that are in Himself. Similarly the Son knows all things, vzz. in Himself, as things which are born of those which the Father knows in Himself, and in the Father, as those of which they are born, which the Son
Himself knows in Himself. The Father, ' then, and the Son know mutually; but the t Matt. v. 37. 2 John v. 19.