He, then, who is day by day renewed by making progress in the knowledge of God, and in righteousness and true holiness, transfers his love from things temporalto things eternal, from things visible to things intelligible, from things carnal to things spiritual; and diligently perseveres in bridling and lessening his desire for the former, and in binding himself by love to the latter. And he does this in proportion as he is helped by God. For it is the sentence of God Himself, " Without me ye can do nothing."^ And when the last day of life shall have found any one holding fast faith in the Mediator in such progress and growth as this, he will be welcomed by the holy angels, to be led to God, whom he has worshipped, and to be 1 Ps. ciiL 3. * 2 Cor. iv. 16. ^ John xv. 5.
CHAP. XVIII.] WE AEE TO BE LIKE THE SON OF GOD. 373 made perfect by Him; and so will receive in the end of the world an incorruptible body, in order not to punishment, but to glory. Tor the likeness of God will then be perfected in this image, when the sight of God shall be perfected. And of this the Apostle Paul speaks: " Now we see through a glass, in an enigma, but then face to face."^ And again: "But we with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."^ And this is what happens from day to day in those that make good progress.
Chap, xviii. — Whether the sentence of John is to he imderstood of our future likeness lo'ith the Son of God in the immortality itself also of the body.
24. But the Apostle John says, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."^ Hence it appears, that the full likeness of God is to take place in that image of God at that time when it shall receive the full sight of God.
And yet this may also possibly seem to be said by the Apostle John of the immortality of the body. For we shall be like to God in this too, but only to the Son, because He only in the Trinity took a body, in which He died and rose again, and which He carried with Him to heaven above. For this, too, is called an image of the Son of God, in which we shall have, as He has, an immortal body, being conformed in this respect not to the image of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, but only of the Son, because of Him alone is it read and received by a sound faith, that " the Word was made flesh." * And for this reason the apostle says, " Whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren." ^ " The firstborn" certainly "from the dead,"^ according to the same apostle; by which death His flesh was sown in dishonour, and rose again in glory. According to this image of the Son, to which we are conformed in the body by immortality, we also do that of which the same apostle speaks, " As we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we also bear the image of the 374 ON THE TEINITY. [BOOK XIV.
heavenly;"^ to wit, that we who are mortal after Adam, mayhold by a true faith, and a sure and certain hope, that we shaR be immortal after Christ. For so can we now bear the same image, not yet in sight, but in faith; not yet in fact, but in hope. For the apostle, when he said this, was speaking of the resurrection of the body.
Chap. xix. — John is rather to he understood of our perfect likeness with the Trinity in life eternal. Wisdom is perfected in happiness.
25. But in respect to that image indeed, of which it is said, " Let us make man after our image and likeness,"^ we believe, — and, after the utmost search we have been able to make, understand,— that man was made after the image of the Trinity, because it is not said. After my, or After thy image. And therefore that place too of the Apostle John must be understood rather according to this image, when he says, " We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is;" because he spoke too of Him of whom he had said, " We are the sons of God."^ And the immortality of the flesh will be perfected in that moment of the resurrection, of which the Apostle Paul says, " In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."* For in that very twinkling of an eye, before the judgment, the spiritual body shall rise again in power, in incorruption, in glory, which is now sown a natural body in weakness, in corruption, in dishonour. But the image which is renewed in the spirit of the mind in the knowledge of God, not outwardly but inwardly, from day to day, shall be perfected by that sight itseK; which then after the judgment shall be face to face, but now makes progress as through a glass in an enigma.^ And we must understand it to be said on account of this perfection, that " we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." For this gift will be given to us at that time, when it shall have been said, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you." ^ For then will the ungodly be taken away, so that he shall not see the glory of the Lord,^ when those on the left hand shall go into eternal punishment, while those on the right go into life eternal.^ But " this is eternal life," as the Truth CHAP. XIX.] CICEPtO'S WOPvDS ABOUT WISDOM. 375' tells US; " to know Thee/' He says, " the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." ^ 26. This contemplative wisdom, which I believe is properly called wisdom as distinct from knowledge in the sacred writings; but wisdom only of man, which yet man has not except from Him, by partaking of whom a rational and intellectual mind can be made truly wise; — this contemplative wisdom, I say, it is that Cicero commends, in the end of the dialogue Hortensius, when he says: " While, then, we consider these things night and day, and sharpen our understanding, which is the eye of the mind, taking care that it be not ever dulled, that is, while we live in philosophy; we, I say, in so doing, have great hope that, if, on the one hand, this sentiment and wisdom of ours is mortal and perishable, we shall still, when we have discharged our human ofi&ces, have a pleasant setting, and a not painful extinction, and as it were a rest from life: or if, on the other, as ancient philosophers thought, — and those, too, the greatest and far the most celebrated, — we have souls eternal and divine, then must we needs think, that the more these shall have always kept in their own proper course, i.e. in reason and in the desire of inquiry, and the less they shall have mixed and entangled themselves in the vices and errors of men, the more easy ascent and return they will have to heaven." And then he says, adding this short sentence, and finishing his discourse by repeating it: " Wherefore, to end my discourse at last, if we wish either for a tranquil extinction, after living in the pursuit of these subjects, or if to migrate without delay from this present home to another in no little measure better, we must bestow all our labour and care upon these pursuits." And here I marvel, that a man of such great ability should promise to men living in philosophy, which makes man blessed by contemplation of truth, " a pleasant setting after the discharge of human of&ces, if this our sentiment and wisdom is mortal and perishable;" as if that which we did not love, or rather which we fiercely hated, were then to die and come to nothing, so that its setting would be pleasant to us! But indeed he had not learned this from the philosophers, whom he extols with great praise; but this sentiment is redolent of that New Academy, * John xvii. 3.
wherein it pleased him to doubt of even the plainest things. But from the philosophers that were greatest and far most celebrated, as he himself confesses, he had learned that souls are eternal. For souls that are eternal are not unsuitably stirred up by the exhortation to be found in " their own proper course," when the end of this life shall have come, i.e. " in reason and in the desire of inquiry," and to mix and entangle themselves the less in the vices and errors of men, in order that they may have an easier return to God. But that course which consists in the love and investigation of truth does not suffice for the wretched, i.e. for all mortals who have only this kind of reason, and are without faith in the Mediator; as I have taken pains to prove, as much as I could, in former books of this work, especially in the fourth and thirteenth.
CHAP, l] mind and soul. 377 BOOK FIFTEENTH.
BEGINS BY SETTING FOnXH BRIEFLY AND IN SUM THE CONTENTS OF THE PREVIOUS FOURTEEN BOOKS. THE ARGUMENT IS THEN SHOWN TO HAVE REACHED SO FAR AS TO ALLOW OF OUR NOW INQUIRING CONCERNING THE TRINITY, WHICH IS GOD, IN THOSE ETERNAL, INCORPOREAL, AND UNCHANGEABLE THINGS THEMSELVES, IN THE PERFECT CONTEMPLATION OF WHICH A BLESSED LIFE IS PROMISED TO US. BUT THIS TRINITY, AS HE SHOWS, IS HERE SEEN BY US AS BY A MIRROR AND IN AN ENIGMA, IN THAT IT IS SEEN BY MEANS OF THE IMAGE OF GOD, WHICH WE ARE, AS IN A LIKENESS THAT IS OBSCURE AND HARD OF DISCERNMENT. IN LIKE MANNER, IT IS SHOWN, THAT SOME KIND OF CONJECTURE AND EXPLANATION MAY BE GATHERED RESPECTING THE GENERATION OF THE DIVINE WORD, FROM THE WORD OF OUR OWN MIND, BUT ONLY WITH DIFFICULTY, ON ACCOUNT OF THE EXCEEDING DISPARITY WHICH IS DISCERNIBLE BETWEEN THE TWO WORDS; AND, AGAIN, RE-SPECTING THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, FROM THE LOVE THAT IS JOINED THERETO BY THE WILL.
Chap. i. — God is above the mind.
1. Desiring to exercise the reader in the things that are made, in order that he may know Him by whom they are made, we have now advanced so far as to His image, which is man, in that wherein he excels the other animals, i.e. in reason or intelligence, and whatever else can be said of the rational or intellectual soul that pertains to what is called the mind.^ For by this name some Latin writers, after their own peculiar mode of speech, distinguish that which excels in man, and is not in the beast, from the soul,^ which is in the beast as well. If, then, we seek anything that is above this nature, and seek truly, it is God, — namely, a nature not created, but creating. And whether this is the Trinity, it is now our business to demonstrate not only to believers, by authority of divine Scripture, but also to such as understand, by some kind of reason, if we can. And why I say, if we can, the thing itself will show better when we have begun to argue about it in our inquiry.
* Mens or animus. ' Anima.
Chap. ii. — God, although incomprehensible^ is ever to besought. The traces of the Trinity are not vainly sought in the creature.
2. For God Himself, whom we seek, will, as I hope, help our labours, that they may not be unfruitful, and that we may understand how it is said in the holy Psalm, " Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord, and be strengthened: seek His face evermore." ^ For that which is always being sought seems as though it were never found; and how then will the heart of them that seek rejoice, and not rather be made sad, if they cannot find what they seek? For it is not said, The heart shall rejoice of them that find, but of them that seek, the Lord. And yet the prophet Isaiah testifies, that the Lord God can be found when He is sought, when he says: " Seek ye the Lord; and as soon as ye have found Him, call upon Him: and when He has drawn near to you, let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." ^ If, then, when sought. He can be found, why is it said, " Seek ye His face evermore "? Is He perhaps to be sought even when found? For things incomprehensible must so be investigated, as that no one may think he has found nothing, when he has been able to find how incomprehensible that is which he was seeking. Why then does he so seek, if he comprehends that which he seeks to be incomprehensible, unless because he may not give over seeking so long as he makes progress in the inquiry itself into things incomprehensible, and becomes ever better and better while seeking so great a good, which is both sought in order to be found, and found in order to be sought? For it is both sought in order that it may be found more sweetly, and found in order that it may be sought more eagerly. The words of Wisdom in the book of Ecclesiasticus may be taken in this meaning: " They who eat me shall still be hungry, and they who drink me shall still be thirsty." ^ For they eat and drink because they find; and they still continue seeking because they are hungry and thirst. Faith seeks, understanding finds; whence the prophet says, " Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand." * And yet, again, understanding still seeks Him, whom it finds; for " God looked down upon tlie sons of men," as it is sung in the holy CHAP. III.] TEACES OF THE TRINITY IN THE CEEATUEE. 379 Psalm, " to see if there were, any that would understand, and seek after God." ^ And man, therefore, ought for this purpose to have understanding, that he may seek after God.
3. We shall have tarried then long enough among those things that God has made, in order that by them He Himself may be known that made them. " For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." ^ And hence they are rebuked in the book of Wisdom, " who could not out of the good things that are seen know Him that is: neither by considering the works, did they acknowledge the workmaster; but deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world: with whose beauty if they, being delighted, took them to be gods, let them know how much better the Lord of them is; for the first Author of beauty hath created them. But if they were astonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them how much mightier He is that made them. Eor by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen." ^ I have quoted these words from the book of Wisdom for this.reason, that no one of the faithful may think me vainly and emptily to have sought first in the creature, step by step through certain trinities, each of their own appropriate kind, until I came at last to the mind of man, traces of that highest Trinity which we seek when we seek God.
Chap. hi. — A hrief recapitulation of all the previous hoohs.
4. But since the necessities of our discussion and argument have compelled us to say a great many things in the course of fourteen books, which we cannot view at once in one glance, so as to be able to refer them quickly in thought to that which we desire to grasp, I will attempt, by the help of God, to the best of my power, to put briefly together, without arguing, whatever I have established in the several books by argument as known, and to place, as it were, under one mental view, not the way in which we have been convinced of each point, but the points themselves of which we have been convinced; in order that what follows may not.be so far separated from that which precedes, as that the perusal of the former shall produce forgetfulness of the latter; or, at any rate, if it have produced such forgetfulness, that what has escaped the memory may be speedily recalled by reperusal.
5. In the first book, the unity and equality of that highest Trinity is shown from Holy Scripture. In the second, and third, and fourth, the same: but a careful handling of the question respecting the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has resulted in three books; and we have demonstrated, that He who is sent is not therefore less than He who sends, because the one sent, the other was sent; since the Trinity, which is in all things equal, being also equally in its own nature unchangeable, and invisible, and everywhere present, works indivisibly. In the fifth, — with a view to those who think that the substance of the Father and of the Son is therefore not the same, because they suppose everything that is predicated of God to be predicated according to substance, and therefore contend that to beget and to be begotten, or to be begotten and unbegotten, as being diverse, are diverse substances,— it is demonstrated that not everything that is predicated of God is predicated according to eubstauce, as He is called good and great according to substance, or anything else that is predicated of Him in respect to Himself, but that some things also are predicated relatively, i.e. not in respect to Himself, but in respect to something which is not Himself; as He is called the Father in respect to the Son, or the Lord in respect to the creature that serves Him; and that here, if anything thus relatively predicated, i.e. predicated in respect to something that is not Himself, is predicated also as in time, as, e.g., " Lord, Thou hast become our refuge," ^ then nothing happens to Him so as to work a change in Him, but He Himself continues altogether unchangeable in His own nature or essence. In the sixth, the question how Christ is called by the mouth of the apostle "the power of God and the wisdom of God,"^ is so far argued that the more careful handling of that question is deferred, viz. whether He from whom Christ is begotten is not wisdom Himself, but only CHAP. III.] SUMMARY OF THE PREVIOUS BOOKS. 381 the father of His own wisdom, or whether wisdom begat wisdom. But be it which, it may, the equality of the Trinity became apparent in this book also, and that God was not threefold, but a Trinity; and that the Father and the Son are not, as it were, a double as opposed to the single Holy Spirit: for therein three are not anything more than one. We considered, too, how to understand the words of Bishop Hilary, " Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift."
In the seventh, the question is explained which had been deferred: in such way that God, who begat the Son, is not only Father of His own power and wisdom, but is Himself also power and wisdom; so, too, the Holy Spirit; and yet that they are not three powers or three wisdoms, but one powder and one wisdom, as one God and one essence. It was next inquired, in what way they are called one essence, three persons, or by some Greeks one essence, three substances; and we found that the words were so used through the needs of speech, that there might be one term by which to answer, when it is asked what the three are, whom we truly confess to be three, viz. Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. In the eighth, it is made plain by reason also to those who understand, that not only the Father is not greater than the Son in the substance of truth, but that both together are not anything greater than the Holy Spirit alone, nor that any two at all in the same Trinity are anything greater than one, nor all three together anything greater than each severally. Next, I have pointed out, that by means of the truth, which is beheld by the understanding, and by means of the highest good, from which is all good, and by means of the righteousness for which a righteous mind is loved even by a mind not yet righteous, we might •understand, so far as it is possible to understand, that not only incorporeal but also unchangeable nature, which is God; and by means, too, of love, which in the Holy Scriptures is called God,^ by which, first of all, those who have understanding begin also, however feebly, to discern the Trinity, to wit, one that loves, and that which is loved, and love. In the ninth, the argument advances as far as to the image of God, viz. man in respect to his mind; and in this we found a kind of trinity, i.e. the mind, and the knowledge whereby the mind knows itself, and the love whereby it loves both itself and its knowledge of itself; and these three are shown to be mutually equal, and of one essence. In the tenth, the same subject is more carefully and subtly handled, and is brought to this point, that we found in the mind a still more manifest trinity of the mind, viz. in memory, and understanding, and will. But since it turned out also, that the mind could never be in such a case as not to remember, understand, and love itself, although it did not always think of itself; but that when it did think of itself, it did not in the same act of thought distinguish itself from things corporeal; the argument respecting the Trinity, of which this is an image, was deferred, in order to find a trinity also in the things themselves that are seen with the body, and to exercise the reader's attention more distinctly in that. Accordingly, in the eleventh, we chose the sense of sight, wherein that which should have been there found to hold good might be recognised also in the other four bodily senses, although not expressly mentioned; and so a trinity of the outer man first showed itself in those things which are discerned from without, to wit, from the bodily object which is seen, and from the form which is thence impressed upon the eye of the beholder, and from the purpose of the will combining the two.
But these three things, as was patent, were not mutually equal and of one substance. Next, we found yet another trinity in the mind itself, introduced into it, as it were, by the things perceived from without; wherein the same three things, as it appeared, were of one substance: the image of the bodily object which is in the memory, and the form thence impressed when the mind's eye of the thinker is turned to it, and the purpose of the will combining the two. But we found this trinity to pertain to the outer man, on this account, that it was introduced into the mind from bodily objects which are perceived from without. In the twelfth, we thought good to distinguish wisdom from knowledge, and to seek first, as beiog the lower of the two, a kind of appropriate and special trinity in that which is specially called knowledge; but that although we have got now in this to something pertaining to the inner man, yet it is not yet to be either called or thought an image CHAP. IV.] WHAT NATURE ITSELF TEACHES ABOUT GOD. 383 of God. And this is discussed in the thirteenth book by the commendation of Christian faith. In the fourteenth we discuss the true wisdom of man, viz. that which is granted him by God's gift in the partaking of that very God Himself, which is distinct from knowledge; and the discussion reached this point, that a trinity is discovered in the image of God, which is man in respect to his mind, which mind is " renewed in the knowledge " of God, " after the image of Him that created " man; -^ " after His own image; " ^ and so obtains wisdom, vv^herein is the contemplation of things eternal.
Chap. iv. — WJiat universal nature teaches us concerning God.
6. Let US, then, now seek the Trinity which is God, in the things themselves that are eternal, incorporeal, and unchangeable; in the perfect contemplation of which a blessed life is X^romised us, which cannot be other than eternal. For not only does the authority of the divine books declare that God is; but the whole nature of the universe itself which surrounds us, and to which we also belong, proclaims that it has a most excellent Creator, who has given to us a mind and natural reason, whereby to see that things living are to be preferred to things that are not living; things that have sense to things that have not; things that have understanding to things that have not; things immortal to things mortal; things powerful to things impotent; things righteous to things unrighteous; things beautiful to things deformed; things good to things evil; things incorruptible to things corruptible; things unchangeable to things changeable; things invisible to things visible; things incorporeal to things corporeal; things blessed to things miserable. And hence, since without doubt we place the Creator above things created, we must needs confess that the Creator both lives in the highest sense, and perceives and understands all things, and that He cannot die, or suffer decay, or be changed; and that He is not a body, but a spirit, of all the most powerful, most righteous, most beautiful, most good, most blessed.
Chap. v. — How difficult it is to demonstrate the Trinity by natural reason.
7. But all that I have said, and whatever else seems to be worthily said of God after the like fashion of human speech, applies to the whole Trinity, which is one God, and to the several Persons in that Trinity. For who would dare to say either of the one God, which is the Trinity itself, or of the Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit, either that He is not living, or is without sense or intelligence; or that, in that nature in which they are affirmed to be mutually equal, any one of them is mortal, or corruptible, or changeable, or corporeal? Or is there any one who would deny that any one in the Trinity is most powerful, most righteous, most beautiful, most good, most blessed? If, then, these things, and all others of the kind, can be predicated both of the Trinity itself, and of each several one in that Trinity, where or how shall the Trinity manifest itself? Let us therefore first reduce these numerous predicates to some limited number. For that which is called life in God, is itself His essence and nature. God, therefore, does not live, unless by the life which He is to Himself And this life is not such as that which is in a tree, wherein is neither understanding nor sense; nor such as is in a beast, for the life of a beast possesses the fivefold sense, but has no understanding. But the life which is God perceives and understands all things, and perceives by mind, not by body, because " God is a spirit."^ And God does not perceive through a body, as animals do, which have bodies, for He does not consist of soul and body. And hence