more dull of understanding, will imagine that scended in the form of a dove upon Jesus
20 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [Book I. nnn nT TN ttt know better; not with me by quarrellings and wranglings, that I may hold my peace. Let him, again, who says, when he reads my book, Certainly I understand what is said, but it is not true, assert, if he pleases, his own opinion, and refute mine if he is able. And if he do this with charity and truth, and take the pains to make it known to me (if I am still alive), I shall then receive the most abundant fruit of this my labor. And if he cannot inform myself, most willing and glad should I be that he should inform those whom he can, Yet, for my part, ''I meditate in the law of the Lord," if not ''day and night,'' at least such short times as I can; and I commit my meditations to writing, lest-they should escape me through forgetfulness; hoping by the mercy of God that He will make me hold steadfastly all truths of which I feel certain; **but if in anything I be otherwise minded, that He will himself reveal even this to me, whether through secret inspiration and admonition, or through His own plain utterances, or through the reasonings of my brethren. This I pray for, and this my trust and desire I commit to Him, who is sufficiently able to keep those things which He _ has given me, and to render those which He has promised.
that which the truth censures, nor the sentiment itself, which the truth also censures. Let us therefore essay the work which we have undertaken in the name of the Lord.
CHAP. 4.—WHAT THE DOCTRINE OF THE CATH-
OLIC FAITH IS CONCERNING THE TRINITY.
7. All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality;3 and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under
II 2
Pontius Pilate, and buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor, again, that this Trinity descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when He was baptized; nor that, on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, when '' there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind," 5 the same Trinity 'fsat upon each of them with cloven tongues like as of fire," but only the Holy Spirit. Nor yet that this Trinity said from heaven,
6. I expect, indeed, that some, who are more dull of understanding, will imagine that in some parts of my books I have held sentiments which I have not held, or have not held those whichI have. But their error, as none can be ignorant, ought not to be attributed to me, if they have deviated into false doctrine through following my steps without apprehending me, whilst Iam compelled to pick my way through a hard and obscure subject: seeing that neither can any one, in any way, rightly ascribe tne numerous and_ various errors of heretics to the holy testimonies themselves of the divine books; although all of them endeavor to defend out of those same Scriptures their own false and erroneous opinions. 'The law of Christ, that is, charity, admonishes me clearly, and commands me with a sweet constraint, that when men think that I have held in my books something false which I have not held, and that same falsehood displeases one and pleases another, I should prefer to be blamed by him who reprehends the falsehood, rather than praised by him
Thou art my Son,''® whether when He was baptized by John, or when the three disciples were with Him in the mount,' or when' the voice sounded, saying, *' I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again;''® but that it was a word of the Father only, spoken to the
Son; although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so work indivisibly.2 This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith,
3 [Augustin teaches the Nicene doctrine of a numerical unity of essence in distinction from a specific unity. 'The latter is that of mankind. In this case there is dz7/7s?om of substance—part after part of the specific nature being separated and formed, by propagation, into individuals, No human individual contains the whole specific nature. But in the caseof the numerical unity of the 'rinity, there is no division of essence. The whole divine nature is who praises it.
For although I, who never held the error, am not rightly blamed by the former, yet the error itself is rightly censured; whilst by the latter neither am I rightly praised, who am thought to have held each divine person. Thethree divine persons do not constitute species—that is, three divine individuals made by the division nd distribution of one common divine nature—but are three modes r '' forms'? (Phil. ii. 6) of one undivided substance, numerically identically the same in each.—-W. G. T. S.] 4 Matt. iii. 16. 5 Acts, ii. 2, 4. 6 Mark i. 11. 7 Matt. xvii. s. 8 John xii. 28. 9(The term Trinity denotes the Divine essence in all three modes. The term Father (or Son, or Spirit) denotes the essence in only one mode. Consequently, there is something in the t Ps, i. 2. 2 Phil. iii. xs.