it goes to show that the personality of God depends upon the trinality of the Divine Essence
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 7 from thought—when the ternaries from nature and the human mind are introduced to elucidate the Trinity—nothing more is done than when by other well-known and commonly adopted analogies the Divine unity, or omniscence, or omnipresence, is sought to be illustrated. There is no analogy taken from the finite that will clear up the mystery of the in- | finite—whether it be the mystery of the eternity of God, or that of his trinity. But, at the same time, by the use of these analogies the mind is kept close up to the Biblical term or statement, and is not allowed tocontent itself with only a half-way understanding of it. Such a method brings thoroughness and clearness into the interpretation of the Word of God.
2, A second advantage in this method is, that it shows the doctrine of the Trinity to be inseparable from that of the Unity of God. The Deistical conception of the Divine unity is wholly different from the Christian. The former is that of natural religion, formed by the unassisted human mind in its reflection upon the Supreme Being. The latter is that of revealed religion, given to the human mind by inspiration. The Deistical unity is mere singleness. The Christian unity is a trinality. The formerisa unit. The latter a true unity, and union. The former is meagre, having few contents. The latter is a plenitude—what St. Paul denominates ''the fullness of the Godhead "' (xiyjpwpa tis bedtyTOS). Coloss, 1. 9.
It follows, consequently, that the Divine unity cannot be discussed by itself without reference to trinality, as the Deist and the Socinian endeavor to do.' Trinality belongs as necessarily and intrinsically to the Divine unity as eternity does to the Divine essence.
says Athanasius (Oration I, 17) "there was not a Blessed Trinity from eternity, but only a unity existed first, which at length became a Trinity, it follows that the Holy Trinity must have been at one time imperfect, and at another time entire: imperfect until the Son came to be created, as the Arians maintain, and then entire afterwards.'' If we follow the teachings of Revelation, and adopt the revealed idea of God, we may not discuss mere and simple unity, nor mere and simple trinality; but we must discuss unity zz trinality, and trinality zz unity. We may not think of a monad which originally, and in the order either of nature or of time, is not trinal, but becomes so, The instant there is a monad, there is a triad; the instant there is a unity, there are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Christian Trinity is not that of Sabellius: namely, an original untrinal monad that subsequently, in the order of nature if not of time, becomes a triad; whereby four factors are introduced into the problem. God is not one amd three, but one zmthree. There is no primary monad, as such, and without ttinality, to which the three distinctions are secondary adjuncts. The monad, or essence, never exists in and by itself as untrinalized, as in the Sabellian scheme. It exists only as in the three Persons; only as trinalized. The Essence, consequently, is not prior to the Persons, either in the order of nature or of time, nor subsequent to them, but simultaneously and eternally in and with them.
The Primitive church took this ground with confidence. Unity and trinality were inseparable in their view. The term God meant for them the Trinity. <A '"' theologian," in their nomenclature, was a trinitarian. They called the Apostle John 6 @eéddoyos, because he was enlightened by the Holy Spirit to make fuller disclosures, in the preface to his Gospel, concerning the deity of the Logos and the doctrine of the Trinity, than were the other evangelists. And they gave the same epithet to Gregory Nazianzum, because of the acumen and insight of his trinitarian treatises. This work of Augustin adopts the same position, and defends it with an ability second to none.
3. A third advantage of this method of illustrating the doctrine of the Trinity is, that it goes to show that the personality of God depends upon the trinality of the Divine Essence t The Mohammedan conception of the Divine Unity, also, is deistic. In energetically rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, the Mohammedan is the Oriental Unitarian.
8 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
if there are no interior distinctions in the Infinite Being, he cannot be self-contemplative, self-cognitive, or self-communing.
This is an important and valuable feature of the method in question, when viewed in its bearing upon the modern assertion that an Infinite Being cannot be personal. This treatise of Augustin does not develope the problem upon this point, but it leads to it. In illustrating the Trinity by the ternaries in nature, and especially in the human mind, he aims only to show that trinality of a certain kind does not conflict with wazty of a certain kind. Memory, understanding, and will are three faculties, yet one soul. Augustin is content with elucidating the Divine unity by such illustrations. The elucidation of the Divine. personality by them, was not attempted in his day nor in the Medieval and Reformation churches. The conflict with pantheism forced this point upon the attention of the Modern church.
At the same time, these Christian fathers who took the problem of the Trinity into the centre of the Divine essence, and endeavored to show its necessary grounds there, prepared the way for showing, by the same method, that trinality is not only consistent with personality, but is actually indispensable to it. In a brief essay like this, only the briefest hints can be indicated.
If God is personal, he is self-conscious. Self-consciousness is, (1), the power which a rational spirit, or mind, has of making itself its own object; and, (2), of knowing that it has done so. If the first step is taken, and not the second, there is no self-consciousness. For the subject would not know that the object is the seéf. And the second step cannot be taken, if the first has not been. These two acts of a rational spirit, or mind, involve three distinctions in it, or three modes of it. The whole mind as a subject contemplates the very same whole mind as an object. Here are two distinctions, or modes of one mind. And the very same whole mind perceives that the contemplating subject and the contemplated object are one and the same essence or being. Here are three modes of one mind, each distinct from the others, yet all three going to make up the one self-conscious spirit. Unless there were these three distinctions, there would be no self-knowledge. Mere singleness, a mere subject without an object, is incompatible with self-consciousness.
In denying distinctions in the Divine Essence, while asserting its personality, Deism, with Socinianism and Mohammedanism, contends that God can be self-knowing and selfcommuning asa single subject without an object. The controversy, consequently, is as much between the deist and the psychologist, as it is between him and the trinitarian. It is as much a question whether his view of personality and self-consciousness is correct, as whether his interpretation of Scripture is. For the dispute involves the necessary conditions of personality. Ifa true psychology does not require trinality in a spiritual essence in order to its own self-contemplation, and self-knowledge, and self-communion, then the deist is correct; but if it does, then he is in error. That the study of self-consciousness in modern metaphysics nas favored trinitarianism, is unquestionable. Even the spurious trinitarianism which has grown up in the schools of the later pantheism goes to show, that a trinal constitution is requisite in an essence, in order to explain self-consciousness, and that absolute singleness, or the absence of all interior distinctions, renders the problem insoluble.
But the authority of Scripture is higher than that of psychology, and settles the matter. Revelation unquestionably discloses a deity who is '' blessed forever;'" whose blessedness is ¢ndependent of the universe which he has made from nonentity, and who must therefore find all the conditions of blessedness within himself alone. He is blessed from eternity, in his own self-contemplation and self-communion. He does not need the universe in order eee ES TOY RRL IC MOTE TMs Caml la a NS « Seiad ibe thw! in ole S008
view of the divine nature which makes it inconsistent with the Incarnation and Trinity is pAzlosophically imperfect, as well as scripturally incorrect.'' H.B. Smith: Fazth and Philosophy, p. 191.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 9 that he may have an object which he can know, which he can love, and over which he can rejoice. '' The Father knoweth the Son," from all eternity (Matt. xi. 27); and ''loveth the Son,"' from all eternity (John iii. 35); and "' glorifieth the Son," from all eternity (John xvii. 5). Prior to creation, the Eternal Wisdom '' was by Him as one brought up with Him, and was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him" (Prov. vili. 20); and the Eternal Word *' was in the beginning with God" (John i. 2); and ''the Only Begotten Son (or God Only Begotten, as the uncials read) was eternally in the bosom of the Father" (John i. 18).
Here is society within the Essence, and wholly independent of the universe; and communion and blessedness resulting therefrom. But this is impossible to an essence without personal distinctions. Not the singular Unit of the deist, but the plural Unity of the trinitarian, explains this. A subject without an object could not know. What is there to be known? Could not love. What is there to be loved? Could not rejoice. What is there to rejoice over? And the object cannot be the universe. The zuftnite and eternal object of God's infinite and eternal knowledge, love, and joy, cannot be his creation: because this is neither eternal, nor infinite. There was a time when the universe was not; and if God's selfconsciousness and blessedness depends upon the universe, there was a time when God was neither self-conscious nor blessed. The objective God for the subjective God must, therefore, be very God of very God, begotten not made, the eternal Son of the eternal Father.
The same line of reasoning applies to the third trinitarian person, but there is no need of going through with it. The history of opinion shows, that if the first two eternal distinctions are conceded, there is no denial of the reality and eternity of the third. *
The analogue derived from the nature of finite personality and self-consciousness has one great advantage—namely, that it illustrates the independence of the Divine personality and self-consciousness, The later pantheism (not the earlier of Spinoza) constructs a kind of trinity, but it is dependent upon the universe. God distinguishes Himself from the world, and thereby finds the object required for the subject. But this implies either that the world is eternal, or else, that God is not eternally self-conscious. The Christian trinitarianism, on the contrary, finds all the media and conditions of self-consciousness within the Divine Essence. God distinguishes himself from /zmse/f, not from the universe. The eternal Father beholds himself in the eternal Son, his alter ego, the '' express image of his own person " (Heb. i, 3). God does not struggle gradually into self-consciousness, as in the
Hegelian scheme, by the help of the universe. Before that universe was in existence, and in the solitude of his own eternity and self-sufficiency, he had within his own essence all the media and conditions of self-consciousness. And after the worlds were called into being, the Divine personality remained the same immutable and infinite self-knowledge, unaffected by anything in his handiwork.
Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest, Sole knowest thyself, and known unto thyself, And knowing, lovest and smilest on thyself !"—DANTE: Paradise xxxiii. 125.
While, however, this analogue from the conditions of finite personality approaches nearer to the eternal distinctions in the Godhead than does that ternary which Augustin employs—namely, memory, understanding, and will—yet like all finite analogies to the Infinite it is inadequate. For the subject-ego, object-ego, and ego-percipient, are not so essentially distinct and completely objective to each other, as are the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. They cannot employ the personal pronouns in reference to each other. They cannot reciprocally perform acts and discharge functions towards each other, like the t Upon the necessary conditions of self consciousness in God, see Miiller: On Sin, 11. 136 sq. (Urwick's Trans.); Dorner: Christian Doctrine, 1. 412-465; Christlieb: Modern Doubt, Lecture III.; Kurtz: Sacred History, §2; Billroth: Religions Philosophie, $ 89, 90;
Wilberforce: Jncarnation, Chapter III; Kidd: Ox the Trinity, with Candlish's Jutroduction; Shedd: History of Doctrine, 1. 365-368.
10 THE WORKS OF ST, AUGUSTIN.
Divine Three. Revelation is explicit upon this point. It specifies at least the following twelve actions and relatioms, that incontestably prove the conscious distinctness and mutual objectivity of the persons of the Trinity. One divine person loves another (John iti. 35); dwells in another (John xiv. 10, 11); knows another (Matt. xi. 27); sends another (Gen.
i. 7); syffers from another (Zech. xiii. 7-13); addresses another (Heb. i. 8); is the way to laa (John xiv. 6); speaks of another (Luke iii. 22;) glorifies another (John xvii. 5); confers with another (Gen. i. 26; xi. 7); plans with another (Is. ix. 6); rewards another (Phil. ii. 5-11; Heb. ii. 9).
Such are some of the salient features of this important treatise upon the Trinity. It.. has its defects; but they pertain to the form more thar to the matter; to arrangement and style more than to dogma. Literary excellence is no} the forte of the patristic writers. Hardly any of them are literary artists. Lactantius among the Latins, and Chrysostom among the Greeks, are almost the only fathers that have rhetorical grace. And none of them approach the beauty of the classic writers, as seen in the harmonious flow and diction of Plato, and the exquisite finish of Horace and Catullus.
Augustin is prolix, repetitious, and sometimes leaves his theme to discuss cognate but distantly related subjects. This appears more in the last eight chapters, which are speculative, than in the first seven, which are scriptural. The material in this second division is capable of considerable compression. The author frequently employs two illustrations when one would suffice, and three or more when two are enough. He discusses many themes which are not strictly trinitarian.
Yet the patient student will derive some benefit from this discursiveness. He will find, for example, in this treatise on the Trinity, an able examination of the subject of miracles (Book III); of creation ex milo (III. ix); of vicarious atonement (IV. vii-xiv); of the faculty of memory (XI. x); and, incidentally, many other high themes are touched upon. Before such a contemplative intellect as that of Augustin, all truth lay spread out like the ocean, with no limits and no separating chasms. Everything is connected and fluid. Consequently, one doctrine inevitably leads to and merges in another, and the eager and intense inquirer rushes forward, and outward, and upward, and downward, in every direction. The only atm is to see all that can be seen, and state all that can be stated. The neglect of the form, and the anxiety after the substance, contribute to the discursiveness. Caring little for proportion in method, and nothing for elegance in diction, the writer, though bringing forth a vast amount of truth, does it at the expense of clearness, conciseness, and grace. Such is the case with the North African father—one of the most voluminous and prolix of authors, yet one of the most original, suggestive, and fertilizing of any.
And this particular treatise is perhaps as pregnant and suggestive as any that Augustin, or any other theologian, ever composed. The doctrine of the Trinity is the most zmmense of all the doctrines of religion. It is the foundation of theology. Christianity, in the last analysis, is Trinitarianism. Take out of the New Testament the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and there is no God left. Take out of the Christian consciousness the thoughts and affections that relate to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and there is no Christian consciousness left. The Trinity is the constitutive idea of the evangelical theology, and the formative idea of the evangelical experience. The immensity of the doctrine makes it of necessity a mystery; but a mystery which like night enfolds in its unfathomed depths the bright stars—points of light, compared with which there is no light so keen and so glittering. Mysterious as it is, the Trinity of Divine Revelation is the doctrine that holds in it all the hope of man; for it holds within it the infinite pity of the Incarnation and the infinite mercy of the Retionvptions
And it shares its mysteriousness with the doctrine of the Divine Eternity. Itis diffi-
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. II cult to say which is most baffling to human comprehension, the all-comprehending, simultaneous, successionless consciousness of the Infinite One, or his trinal personality. Yet no theist rejects the doctrine of the Divine eternity because of its mystery. The two doctrines are antithetic and correlative. On one of the Northern rivers that flows through a narrow chasm whose depth no plummet has sounded, there stand two cliffs fronting each other, shooting their pinnacles into the blue ether, and sending their roots down to the foundations of the earth. They have named them Trinity and Eternity. So stand, antithetic and confronting, in the Christian scheme, the trinity and eternity of God.
The translation of this treatise is the work of the Rev. Arthur West Haddan, Hon. Canon of Worcester, who, according to a note of the publisher, died while it was passing through the press. It has been compared with the original, and a considerable number of alterations made. The treatise is exceedingly difficult to render into English—probably the most so of any in the author's writings. The changes in some instances were necessary from a misconception of the original; but more often for the purpose of making the meaning of the translator himself more clear. It is believed that a comparison between the original and revised translation will show that the latter is the more intelligible. At the same time, the reviser would not be too confident that in every instance the exact meaning of Augustin has been expressed, by either the translator or reviser.
The annotations of the reviser upon important points in the treatise, it is hoped, will assist the reader in understanding Augustin's reasoning, and also throw some light upon the doctrine of the Trinity.
WiLuiaM G. T. SHEDD. New York, feb. 1, 1887.
TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
THE history of St. Augustin's treatise on the Trinity, as gathered by Tillemont and others from his own allusions to it, may be briefly given. It is placed by him in his Re¢ractations among the works written (which in the present case, it appears, must mean begun)in A.D. goo. In letters of A.D. 410, 414, and at the end of a.p. 415 (Ad Consentium, Ep. 120, and two Ad Evodium, Epp. 162, 169), it is referred to as still unfinished and unpublished. Buta letter of A.D. 412 (dd Marcellinum, Ep. 143) intimates that friends were at that time importuning him, although without success, to complete and publishit. And the letter to Aurelius, which was sent to that bishop with the treatise itself when actually completed, informs us that a portion of it, while it was still unrevised and incomplete, was in fact surreptitiously made public,—a proceeding which the letters above cited postpone apparently until at least after A.D. 415. It was certainly still in hand in A.D. 416, inasmuch as in Book XIII. a quotation occurs from the 12th Book of the De Civitate Dei, and another quotation in Book XV., from the goth lecture on St. John, indicates most probably a date of at least a year later, viz. A.D. 417. The Retractations, which refer to it, are usually dated not later than A.D. 428. The letter to Bishop Aurelius also informs us that the work was many years in progress, and was begun in St. Augustin's early manhood, and finished in his old age. We may infer from this evidence that it was written by him between A.D. 400, when he was forty-six years old, and had been Bishop of Hippo about four years, and A.D. 428 at the latest; but probably it was published ten or twelve years before this date. He writes of it, indeed, himself, as if the '* zonzum prematur in annum " very inadequately represented the amount of deliberate and patient thought which a subject so profound and so sacred demanded, and which he had striven to give to it; and as if, even at the very last, he shrank from publishing his work, and was only driven to dosoin order to remedy the mischief of its partial and unauthorized publication.
His motive for writing on the subject may be learned from the treatise itself. It was not directed against any individual antagonist, or occasioned by any particular controversial emergency. In fact, his labors upon it were, he says, continually interrupted by the distraction of such controversies. Certain ingenious and subtle theories respecting types or resemblances of the Holy Trinity, traceable in human nature as being the image of God, seemed to him to supply, not indeed a logical proof, but a strong rational presumption, of the truth of the doctrine itself; and thus to make it incumbent upon him to expound and unfold them in order to meet rationalizing objectors upon (so to say) their own ground. He is careful not to deal with these analogies or images as if they either constituted a purely argumentative proof or exhausted the full meaning of the doctrine, upon both which assumptions such speculations have at all times been the fruitful parent both of presumptious theorizing and of grievous heresy. But he nevertheless employs them more affirmatively than would perhaps have been the case. While modern theologians would argue negatively, from the triplicity of independent faculties,— united, nevertheless, in the unity of a single human person,—that any presumption of reason against the Trinity of persons in the Godhead is thereby, if not removed, at least materially and enormously lessened, St. Augustin seems to argue positively from analogous grounds, as though they constituted a direct intimation of the doctrine itself. But he takes especial pains, at the same time, to dwell upon the incapacity of human thought to fathom the depths of the nature of God; and he carefully prefaces his reasonings by a statement of the Scripture evidence of the catholic doctrine as a matter of faith and not of reason, and by an explanation of difficult texts upon the subject. One of the most valuable portions, indeed, of the treatise is the eloquent and profound exposition given in this part of it of the rule of interpretation to be applied to Scripture language respecting the person of our Lord. It should be noticed, however, that a large proportion of St. Augustin's scriptural exege-
14 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
sis is founded upon a close verbal exposition of the old Latin version, and is frequently not borne out by the original text. And the rule followed in rendering Scripture texts in the present translation has been, accordingly, wherever the argument in the context rests upon the variations of the old Latin, there to translate the words as St. Augustin gives them, while adhering otherwise to the language of the authorized English version. The reader's attention may allowably be drawn to the language of Book V. c.x., and to its close resemblance to some of the most remarkable phrases of the Athanasian Creed, and again to the striking passage respecting miracles in Book III. c.v., and to that upon the nature of God at the beginning of Book V.; the last named of which seems to have suggested one of the profoundest passages in the profoundest of Dr. Newman's Universtty
Sermons (p. 353, ed. 1843). It may be added, that the writings of the Greek Fathers on the subject were, if not wholly unknown, yet unfamiliar to Augustin, who quotes directly only the Latin work of Hilary of Poictiers.
It remains to say, that the translation here printed was made about four years since by a friend of the writer of this preface, and that the latter's share in the work has been that of thoroughly revising and correcting it, and of seeing it through the press. He is therefore answerable for the work as now published.
A. W. HADDAN, Nov. 5, 1872.
In the Retractations (ii. 15) Augustin speaks of this work in the following terms:—
T spent some years in writing fifteen books concerning the Trinity, which is God. When, however, I had not yet finished the thirteenth Book, and some who were exceedingly anxious to have the work were kept waiting longer than they could bear, it was stolen from me in a less correct state than it either could or would have been had it appeared when I intended. And as soon as I discovered this, having other copies of it, I had determined at first not to publish it myself, but to mention what had happened in the matter in some other work; but at the urgent request of brethren, whom I could not refuse, I corrected it as much as I thought fit, and finished and published it, with the addition, at the beginning, of a letter that I had written to the venerable Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, in which I set forth, in the way of prologue, what had happened, what I had intended to do of myself, and what love of my brethren had forced me to do."
The letter to which he here alludes is the following :— '*To the most blessed Lord, whom he reveres with most sincere love, to his holy brother and fellowpriest, Pope Aurelius, Augustin sends health in the Lord.
began as a very young man, and have published in my old age, some books concerning the Trinity, who is the supreme and true God. I had in truth laid the work aside, upon discovering that it had been prematurely, or rather surreptitiously, stolen from me before I had completed it, and before I had revised and put the finishing touches to it, as had been my intention. For I had not designed to publish the Books one by one, but all together, inasmuch as the progress of the inquiry led me to add the later ones to those which precede them. When, therefore, these people had hindered the fulfillment of my purpose (in that some of them had obtained access to the work before I intended), I had given over dictating it, with the idea of making my complaint public in some other work that I might write, in order that whoso could might know that the Books had not been published by myself, but had been taken away from my possession before they were in my own judgment fit for publication. Compelled, however, by the eager demands of many of my brethren, and above all by your command, I have taken the pains, by Gud's help, to complete the work, laborious as it is; and as now corrected (not as I wished, but as I could, lest the Books should differ very widely from those which had surreptitiously got into people's hands), I have sent them to your Reverence by my very dear son and fellow-deacon, and have allowed them to be heard, copied, and read by every one that pleases. Doubtless, if I could ha fulfilled my original intention, although they would have contained the same sentiments, they would have been worked out much more thoroughly and clearly, so far as the difficulty of unfolding so profound a subject, and so far, too, as my own powers, might have allowed. There are some.persons, however, who have the first four, or rather five, Books without the prefaces, and the twelfth with no small part of its later chapters omitted. But these, if they please and can, will amend. the whole, if they become acquainted with the present edition. At any rate, I have to request that you will order this letter to be prefixed separately, but at the beginning of the Books, Farewell. Pray for me."
CONTENTS OF THE TRINITY.
SEOs ORV OTURSA Ym cu ees fe Ob e t gigs fy) get a) Met ee AGUA Set REVACK. cute iell seis er ett ptmet shat ree eis) tele 0,20 6. 6) ee: 0 Lene: eh 23
BOOK I.
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son, . . ..... =. #%&I7
BOOK II.
The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sendTeer Ura NOtOttne ELON OPILieg | ad) ik es Meee wt we) eke feels we ie ya°s ey es) 8 37
BOOK III.
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed, . «6 . . © © © « © © «© © « 55
BOOK IV.
Augustin explains for what the Son of God was sent; but, however, that the Son of God, although made less by being sent, is not therefore less because the Father sent Him; nor yet the Holy Spirit less bealeripothanerlhathersentallim-and theison,: hiihals! Henicel steele aes) o) jie) oli es Piste ea wre ace! wo 69
BOOK V.
He proceeds to refute those arguments which the heretics put forward, not out of the Scriptures, but from their own conceptions. And first he refutes the objection, that to beget and to be begotten, or that to be begotten and not-begotten, being different, are therefore different substances, and shows that these things are spoken of God relatively, and not according to substance, . . « 2. « «+ 2.» » « + 8
BOOK VI.
In reply to the argument alleged against the equality of the Son from the apostle's words, saying that Christ is the '' power of God and the wisdom of God," he propounds the question whether the Father Himself is not wisdom. But deferring for a while the answer to this, he adduces further proof of the unity and equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that God ought to be said and believed to be a Trinity, not triple (¢7ip/cem). And he adds an explanation of the saying of Hilary—Eternity iecuesatner-on Obearance: in ine image, and) Usein the Gilt on eek ea on uae 63 ade, ae) OF
BOOK VII.
He resolves the question he had deferred, and teaches us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one power and one wisdom, no otherwise than one God and one essence. And he then inquires how it is that, in speaking of God, the Latins say, One essence, three persons; but the Greeks, One essence, Pers SI DOCES OTE MIMStASCS WWM eile Sieur | Seileds ve tis Fetiekive. tee inedice (fs). 0b felt foc, otter sip ey ire, LO4
BOOK VIII.
He advances reasons to show not only that the Father is not greater than the Son, but that neither are both together anything greater than the Holy Spirit, nor any two together in the same Trinity anything greater than one, nor all three together anything greater than each singly. He also intimates that the nature of God may be understood from our understanding of truth, from our knowledge of the supreme good, and from our implanted love of righteousness; but above all, that our knowledge of God is to be sought through love, in which he notices a trio of things which contains a trace of the Trinity, . . . II5
16 CONTENTS.
BOOK IX.
PAGE
He instructs us that there is a kind of trinity discernible in man, who is the image of God, vz. the mind, and the knewledge by which the mind knows itself, and the love wherewith it loves both itself and its own knowledge; these three being mutually equal and of one essence, . . . © «© «© «© © © © « 125
BOOK X.
That there is yet another and a more manifest trinity to be found in the mind of man, vz. in his memory, understanding, 'andiwill} C7 aie Fe ae ee ee ee le ee 6 te Beet 0) fo) one mee
BOOK XI.
That even in the outer man some traces of a trinity may be detected, as ¢.g., in the bodily sight, and in the recollection.of objects seen with the bodily sight, 107 0 2) (i) Ve ei ete 6 ite erent tre eee
BOOK XII.
After premising the difference between wisdom and knowledge, he points out a kind of trinity in that which is properly called knowledge; but one which, although we have reached in it the inner man, is not yet to be called the image'of God re ee ere ot tee ee ee Mal im. Wal) re caiaign enna Stn
BOOK XIII.
He expounds this trinity that he has found in knowledge by commending Christian faith, . . . . . + 166
BOOK SUL,
He speaks of the true wisdom of man, vzz. that by which he remembers, understands, and loves God; and shows that it is in this very thing that the mind of man is the image of God, although his mind, which is here renewed in the knowledge of God, will only then be made the (perfect likeness of God in that image when there shall beia perfect sight of. God) ig omy st on ert ee
BOOK XV.
He embraces ina brief compendium the contents of the previous books; and finally shows that the Trinity, in the perfect sight of which consists the blessed life that is promised us, is here seen by us as in a glass and in an enigma, so long as it is seen through that image of God which we ourselves are, . . . . 199