knows itself isnot unknown toitself. And al- and loves itself, it does not know and love
ON THE TRINITY. 129
Cuap. VI.]
loving, and loved, or lovable, it is referred to love, by which it loves itself. And knowledge, although it is referred to the mind that knows or is known, nevertheless is also predicated both as known and knowing in respect to itself: for the knowledge by which the mind
CHAP, 6.—THERE IS ONE KNOWLEDGE OF THE THING IN THE THING ITSELF, AND ANOTHER
IN ETERNAL TRUTH ITSELF. THAT CORPOREAL THINGS, TOO, ARE TO BE JUDGED BY THE RULES OF ETERNAL TRUTH.
9. But when the human mind knows itself and loves itself, it does not know and love anything unchangeable: and each individual man declares his own particular mind by one manner of speech, when he considers what takes place in himself; but defines the human mind abstractly by special or general knowledge. And so, when he speaks to me of his own individual mind, as to whether he understands this or that, or does not understand it, or whether he wishes or does not wish this or that, I believe; but when he speaks the truth of the mind of man generally or specially, I recognize and approve. Whence it is manifest, that each sees a thing in himself, in such way that another person may believe what he says of it, yet may not see it; but another [sees a thing] in the truth itself, in such way that another person also can gaze upon it; of which the former undergoes changes at successive times, the latter consists in an unchangeable eternity. For we do not gather a generic or specific knowledge of the human mind by means of knows itself isnot unknown toitself. And although love is referred to the mind that loves, whose love it is; nevertheless it is also love in respect to itself, so as to exist also in itself: since love too is loved, yet cannot be loved with anything except with love, that is with itself. So these things are severally in themselves. But so are they in each other; because both the mind that loves is zz love, and love is zz the knowledge of him that loves, and knowledge is zz the mind that knows. And each severally is in like manner in each two, because the mind which knows and loves itself, is in its own love and knowledge: and the love of the mind that loves and knows itself, is in the mind and in its knowledge: and the knowledge of the mind that knows and loves itself is in the mind and in its love, because it loves itself that knows, and knows itself that loves. And hence also each two is in each severally, since the mind which knows and loves itself, is together with its own knowledge in love, and together with its own love in knowledge; and resemblance by seeing many minds with the eyes of the body: but we gaze upon indestructible truth, from which to define perfectly, as far as we can, not of what sort is the mind of any one particular man, but of what sort it ought to be upon the eternal plan.
love too itself and knowledge are together in the mind, which loves and knows itself. But in what way all are in all, we haye already shown above; since the mind loves itself as a whole, and knows itself as a whole, and knows its own love wholly, and loves its own knowledge wholly, when these three things are perfect in respect to themselves. Therefore these three things are marvellously inseparable from each other, and yet each of them is severally a substance, and all together are one substance or essence, whilst they are mutually predicated relatively.'
10. Whence also, even in the case of the images of things corporeal which are drawn in through the bodily sense, and in some way infused into the memory, from which also those things which have not been seen are thought under a fancied image, whether otherwise than they really are, or even perchance as they are;—even here too, we are proved either to accept or reject, within ourselves, by other rules which remain altogether unchangeable above our mind, when we approve or reject anything rightly. For both when I recall the walls of Carthage which I have seen, and imagine to myself the walls of Alexandria which I have not seen, and, in preferring this to that among forms which in both cases are imaginary, make that preference upon grounds of reason; the judgment of truth from above is still strong and clear, and rests firmly upon the utterly indestructible rules of its own right; and if it is covered as it were by cloudiness of corporeal images, yet is not wrapt up and confounded in them.
1 [Augustin here illustrates, by the ternary of mind, love, and knowledge,what the Greek Trinitarians denominate the reptxwpyows of the divine essence. By the figure of a circulation, they describe the eternal inbeing and indwelling of one person in another. This is founded on John xiv. 10, 11; xvil. 21, 23.' Believest thou not that I amin the Father, and the Father in Me? I pray that they all may be one, as thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee."' Athanasius (Ora?7o, iii. 21) remarks that Christ here prays that the disciples '' may imitate the trinitarian unity of essence, in their unity of affectzon. Had it been possible for the disciples to be in the essence of the Father as the Son is, he would have prayed that they all may be ''one in 7%ee,"' instead of '' one in Us."
The Platonists, also, employed this figure of circulatory movement, to explain the self-reflecting and self-communing nature of the human mind. ''It is not possible for us to know what our souls are, but only by their cuvyoecs kuxAcxal, their circularand reflex motions and converse with themselves, which only can steal from them their own secrets." J. Smith: /v2mortality of the Soul, Ch. ii.
Augustin's illustration, however, is imperfect, because '' the three things'' which circulate are ot '' each of them severally a Sati i ine one of them, namely, the mind, is a substance.
11. But it makes a difference, whether,
130 THE WORKS OF
ST. AUGUSTIN. [Book IX.
to my mind some arch, turned beautifully and symmetrically, which, let us say, I saw at Carthage; a certain reality that had been made known to the mind through the eyes, and transferred to the memory, causes the imaginary view. But I behold in my mind yet another thing, according to which that work of art pleases me; and whence also, if under that or in that darkness, I am shut off as it were from the.clear heaven; or whether (as usually happens on lofty mountains), enjoying the free air between both, I at once look up above to the calmest light, and down below upon the densest clouds. For whence is the ardor of brotherly love kindled in me, when I hear that some man has borne bitter torments for the excellence and steadfastness of faith? And if that manis shown to me with the finger, I am eager to join myself to him, to become acquainted with him, to bind him to myself in friendship. And accordingly, if opportunity offers, I draw near, I address him, I converse with him, I express my goodwill towards him in what words I can, and wish that in him too in turn should be brought to pass and expressed goodwill towards me; and I endeavor after a spiritual embrace in the way of belief, since I cannot search out so quickly and discern altogether his innermost heart. I love therefore the faithful and courageous man with a pure and genuine love. But if he were to confess to me in the course of conversation, or were through unguardedness to show in any way, that either he believes something unseemly of God, and desires also something carnal in Him, and that he bore these torments on behalf of such an error, or from the desire of money for which he hoped, or from empty greediness of human praise: immediately it follows that the love with which I was borne towards him, displeased, and as it were repelled, and taken away from an unworthy man, remains in that form, after which, believing him such as I did, I had loved him; unless perhaps I have come to love him to this end, that he may become such, while I have found him not to be such in fact. And in that man, too, nothing is changed: although it can be changed, so that he may become that which I had believed him to be already. But in my mind there certainly is something changed, vzz., the estimate I had formed of him, which was before of one sort, and now is of another: and the same love, at the bidding from above of unchangeable righteousness, is turned aside from the purpose of enjoying, tothe purpose of taking counsel. But the form itself of unshaken and stable truth, wherein I should have enjoyed the fruition of the man, believing him to be good, and wherein likewise I take counsel that he may be good, sheds in an immoveable eternity the same light of incorruptible and most sound reason, both upon the sight of my mind, and upon that cloud of images, which I discern from above, when I think of the same man whom I had seen. Again, when I call back it displeased me, I should correct it. We judge therefore of those particular things according to that [form of eternal truth], and discern that form by the intuition of the rational mind. But those things themselves we either touch if present by the bodily sense, or if absent remember their images as fixed in Our memory, or picture, in the way of likeness to them, such things as we ourselves also, if we wished and were able, would laboriously build up: figuring in the mind after one fashion the images of bodies, or seeing bodies through the body; but after another, grasping by simple intelligence what is above the eye of the mind, vzz., the reasons and the unspeakably beautiful skill of such forms,
CHAP. 7.—WE CONCEIVE AND BEGET THE WORD
WITHIN, FROM THE THINGS WE HAVE BEHELD
IN THE ETERNAL TRUTH. THE WORD, WHETHER OF THE CREATURE OR OF THE CREATOR, IS CONCEIVED BY LOVE.
12. We behold, then, by the sight of the mind, in that eternal truth from which all things temporal are made, the form according to which we are, and according to which we do anything by true and right reason, either in ourselves, or in things corporeal; and we have the true knowledge of things, thence conceived, as it were as aword within us, and by speaking we beget it from within; nor by being born does it depart from us. And when we speak to others, we apply to the word, remaining within us, the ministry of the voice or of some bodily sign, that by some kind of sensible remembrance some similar thing may be wrought also in the mind of him that hears,—similar, I say, tothat which does not depart from the mind of him that speaks. We do nothing, therefore, through the members of the body in our words and actions, by which the benavior of men is either approved or blamed, which we do not anticipate by a word uttered within ourselves. For no one willingly does anything, which he has not first said in his heart.
13. And this word is conceived by love, either of the creature or of the Creator, that is, either of changeable nature or of unchangeable truth.
t [The inward production of a thought in the finite essence of the human spirit which is expressed outwardly in a spoken word,