27. Cf. 1 Jn 4.16. 28. Cf. Rom 5.5.
202 ST. AUGUSTINE the Son is to be understood with them also; and when I say three each, I proclaim the Trinity itself more clearly."
8. Therefore whoever names the Father and the Son ought to understand therein the mutual love, as it were, of the Father and the Son, which is the Holy Spirit. For perhaps an examination of the Scriptures (and I do not say this with the idea that I can teach it today, or, as if some other explanation cannot be found), but still perhaps a thorough investigation of the Scriptures does show that the Holy Spirit is love.
(2) And do not think that love is cheap. On the contrary, how is it cheap when all things which are not cheap are called dear? Therefore, if things which are not cheap are dear, what is dearer than dearness itself Furthermore, love is so commended by the Apostle that he says, "I show to you a more excellent way. If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have prophecy and all faith so as to move mountains, yet do not have love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my goods to the poor and deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing." -*' How great, then, is love which, if it is missing, all the rest is held in vain, but if it is present, all things are held rightly? Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul, while praising love most copiously and richly, said less about it than what the Apostle John, whose gospel this is, said briefly. For he did not hesitate to say, "God is love."^^ Also it has been written, "Because the love of God has been poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."2« (3) Who, therefore, would name the Father and the Son and not understand therein the love of the Father and the Son? And when a person begins to have that, he will have the Holy Spirit; and, if he does not have that, he will be without the Holy Spirit. And as your body, if it is without spirit, that is,
25. The Latin words carus and caritas have the same double meaning as English dear and dearness, referring to both "affection" and "expensiveness."
26. Cf. 1 Cor 12.31-13.3 (NAB and CCD 13.1-3). 27. Cf. 1 Jn 4.16. 28. Cf. Rom 5.5.