Holy Spirit is one God."
294 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS
10.1 find it most instructive that he doesn't say "Father and Son are two persons." There is no doubt at all that the word was already part of the Latin trinitarian vocabulary, and had been so for two centuries or so, ever since Tertullian (it would seem) introduced it. Augustine discusses it, and the problems it raises, at length in On the Trinity, VII, 7-11. But he clearly did not think it was a very useful term for explaining the mystery. And no doubt he was also aware that it had been regarded as suspect, its Greek equivalent prosopon even more so, because savoring of Sabellianism. This was because the primary meaning of both words was "theatrical mask," the mask which indicated the actor's role. So just as one actor can play several roles, wear several masks or personae', so God, it might be thought if one says three personae, can don as he wishes, now the persona of Father, now that of Son, now that of Holy Spirit.
The lesson for contemporary theologians of the Trinity should, to my mind, be plain: don't waste ink and time on discussing the meaning and value of the word "person" in the statement of the trinitarian dogma; or at least don't imagine that it explains anything, or in any way is essential to the statement of the dogma. It tells us nothing about the mystery, and is of no use whatever in trying to explain the mystery to the faithful.
11. In what follows he does not seem to answer this question very satisfactorily, because he is still preoccupied with "one." But at least the passage will show up the difficulties of trinitarian grammar; and the attempt to translate brings home to me how different the problems of Latin trinitarian grammar are from those of English trinitarian grammar! It all shows, you might say, how the divine mystery runs rings round the grammar, the articulation of any human language at all.
12. Though he is claiming to expound "are," sumus ("we are"), he suddenly shies away from it and substitutes "is," est; it's as though he were more afraid of the Arian Charybdis than of the Sabellian Scylla. As for the "trinitarian grammar or syntax," the previous sentence could, perhaps should, have been translated "Because Father and Son is one God." But while that may be good Latin, it's bad English. I cannot quite fathom why Augustine felt averse to saying "Father and Son are (sunt) one God," seeing that he is claiming to explain Jesus saying "I and the Father are (sumus) one."
Then at the end of the paragraph he rather swings in the opposite direction, and gives an "ex¬ planation" of the divine unity that the Arians would have been perfectly happy with, in terms of the unifying power of the infinite divine love; a moral unity, that is to say, instead of a metaphysical or ontological one in terms of substance; though he has used that word, just once.
13. What can this be referring to, I wonder? To their refusing to hear the truth when Pilate said Behold your king, and Shall I crucify your king? (Jn 19:14-15)?
14. The only point of this repetition that I can think of is to explain the ungrammatical phrase of his text, which talks of tria millia animae\ millia being a neuter plural noun, treated as an adjective qualifying animae, a feminine plural noun.
15. See Rom 5:5.
16. The Latin says esr, but again, I cannot bring myself to say in English, "Father and Son and Holy Spirit is one God."
17. Reading, hoc fecit Verbum, quod erat in principio, instead of the text's hoc fecit Verbum. Quid erat in principio?: "that's what the Word made. What was in the beginning?"