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Augustine of Hippo, On the Trinity
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Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus,
Chapter 2.—In What Manner This Work Proposes to Discourse Concerning the Trinity.
Chapter 4.—What the Doctrine of the Catholic Faith is Concerning the Trinity.
Chapter 7.—In What Manner the Son is Less Than the Father, and Than Himself.
Chapter 9.—All are Sometimes Understood in One Person.
Chapter 11.—By What Rule in the Scriptures It is Understood that the Son is Now Equal and Now Less.
Chapter 4.—The Glorification of the Son by the Father Does Not Prove Inequality.
Chapter 6.—The Creature is Not So Taken by the Holy Spirit as Flesh is by the Word.
Chapter 7.—A Doubt Raised About Divine Appearances.
Chapter 8.—The Entire Trinity Invisible.
Chapter 11.—Of the Same Appearance.
Chapter 12.—The Appearance to Lot is Examined.
Chapter 13.—The Appearance in the Bush.
Chapter 14.—Of the Appearance in the Pillar of Cloud and of Fire.
Chapter 16.—In What Manner Moses Saw God.
Chapter 18.—The Vision of Daniel.
Chapter 1.—What is to Be Said Thereupon.
Chapter 2.—The Will of God is the Higher Cause of All Corporeal Change. This is Shown by an Example.
Chapter 3.—Of the Same Argument.
Chapter 5.—Why Miracles are Not Usual Works.
Chapter 6.—Diversity Alone Makes a Miracle.
Chapter 7.—Great Miracles Wrought by Magic Arts.
Chapter 8.—God Alone Creates Those Things Which are Changed by Magic Art.
Chapter 9.—The Original Cause of All Things is from God.
Chapter 10.—In How Many Ways the Creature is to Be Taken by Way of Sign. The Eucharist.
Preface.—The Knowledge of God is to Be Sought from God.
Chapter 2.—How We are Rendered Apt for the Perception of Truth Through the Incarnate Word.
Chapter 7.—In What Manner We are Gathered from Many into One Through One Mediator.
Chapter 8.—In What Manner Christ Wills that All Shall Be One in Himself.
Chapter 9.—The Same Argument Continued.
Chapter 10.—As Christ is the Mediator of Life, So the Devil is the Mediator of Death.
Chapter 11.—Miracles Which are Done by Demons are to Be Spurned.
Chapter 12.—The Devil the Mediator of Death, Christ of Life.
Chapter 2.—God the Only Unchangeable Essence.
Chapter 4.—The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.
Chapter 7.—The Addition of a Negative Does Not Change the Predicament.
Chapter 9.—The Three Persons Not Properly So Called [in a Human Sense].
Chapter 11.—What is Said Relatively in the Trinity.
Chapter 12.—In Relative Things that are Reciprocal, Names are Sometimes Wanting.
Chapter 13.—How the Word Beginning (Principium) is Spoken Relatively in the Trinity.
Chapter 14.—The Father and the Son the Only Beginning (Principium) of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter 15.—Whether the Holy Spirit Was a Gift Before as Well as After He Was Given.
Chapter 16.—What is Said of God in Time, is Said Relatively, Not Accidentally.
Chapter 2 .—What is Said of the Father and Son Together, and What Not.
Chapter 4.—The Same Argument Continued.
Chapter 5.—The Holy Spirit Also is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things.
Chapter 6.—How God is a Substance Both Simple and Manifold.
Chapter 7.—God is a Trinity, But Not Triple (Triplex).
Chapter 8.—No Addition Can Be Made to the Nature of God.
Chapter 9.—Whether One or the Three Persons Together are Called the Only God.
Chapter 5.—In God, Substance is Spoken Improperly, Essence Properly.
Chapter 1.—It is Shown by Reason that in God Three are Not Anything Greater Than One Person.
Chapter 4.—God Must First Be Known by an Unerring Faith, that He May Be Loved.
Chapter 5.—How the Trinity May Be Loved Though Unknown.
Chapter 6.—How the Man Not Yet Righteous Can Know the Righteous Man Whom He Loves.
Chapter 10.—There are Three Things in Love, as It Were a Trace of the Trinity.
Chapter 1.—In What Way We Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.
Chapter 5.—That These Three are Several in Themselves, and Mutually All in All.
Chapter 8.—In What Desire and Love Differ.
Chapter 10.—Whether Only Knowledge that is Loved is the Word of the Mind.
Chapter 2.—No One at All Loves Things Unknown.
Chapter 3.—That When the Mind Loves Itself, It is Not Unknown to Itself.
Chapter 4.—How the Mind Knows Itself, Not in Part, But as a Whole.
Chapter 6.—The Opinion Which the Mind Has of Itself is Deceitful.
Chapter 8.—How the Soul Inquires into Itself. Whence Comes the Error of the Soul Concerning Itself.
Chapter 9.—The Mind Knows Itself, by the Very Act of Understanding the Precept to Know Itself.
Chapter 12.—The Mind is an Image of the Trinity in Its Own Memory, and Understanding, and Will.
Chapter 1.—A Trace of the Trinity Also In the Outer Man.
Chapter 4.—How This Unity Comes to Pass.
Chapter 6.—Of What Kind We are to Reckon the Rest (Requies), and End (Finis), of the Will in Vision.
Chapter 7.—There is Another Trinity in the Memory of Him Who Thinks Over Again What He Has Seen.
Chapter 8.—Different Modes of Conceiving.
Chapter 9.—Species is Produced by Species in Succession.
Chapter 11.—Number, Weight, Measure.
Chapter 1.—Of What Kind are the Outer and the Inner Man.
Chapter 6. —Why This Opinion is to Be Rejected.
Chapter 8.—Turning Aside from the Image of God.
Chapter 9.—The Same Argument is Continued.
Chapter 10.—The Lowest Degradation Reached by Degrees.
Chapter 11.—The Image of the Beast in Man.
Chapter 12.—There is a Kind of Hidden Wedlock in the Inner Man. Unlawful Pleasures of the Thoughts.
Chapter 3.—Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The Poet Ennius.
Chapter 8.—Blessedness Cannot Exist Without Immortality.
Chapter 11.—A Difficulty, How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God.
Chapter 12.—All, on Account of the Sin of Adam, Were Delivered into the Power of the Devil.
Chapter 13.—Man Was to Be Rescued from the Power of the Devil, Not by Power, But by Righteousness.
Chapter 14.—The Unobligated Death of Christ Has Freed Those Who Were Liable to Death.
Chapter 15.—Of the Same Subject.
Chapter 17.—Other Advantages of the Incarnation.
Chapter 18.—Why the Son of God Took Man Upon Himself from the Race of Adam, and from a Virgin.
Chapter 19.—What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to Wisdom.
Chapter 3.—A Difficulty Removed, Which Lies in the Way of What Has Just Been Said.
Chapter 5.—Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.
Chapter 9.—Whether Justice and the Other Virtues Cease to Exist in the Future Life.
Chapter 10.—How a Trinity is Produced by the Mind Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Itself.
Chapter 11.—Whether Memory is Also of Things Present.
Chapter 13.—How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.
Chapter 16.—How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.
Chapter 1.—God is Above the Mind.
Chapter 3.—A Brief Recapitulation of All the Previous Books.
Chapter 4.—What Universal Nature Teaches Us Concerning God.
Chapter 5.—How Difficult It is to Demonstrate the Trinity by Natural Reason.
Chapter 8.—How the Apostle Says that God is Now Seen by Us Through a Glass.
Chapter 9.—Of the Term “Enigma,” And of Tropical Modes of Speech.
Chapter 12.—The Academic Philosophy.
Chapter 14.—The Word of God is in All Things Equal to the Father, from Whom It is.
Chapter 16.—Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even When We Shall Be Like God.
Chapter 18.—No Gift of God is More Excellent Than Love.
Chapter 24.—The Infirmity of the Human Mind.
Chapter 28.—The Conclusion of the Book with a Prayer, and an Apology for Multitude of Words.
Chapter 13.—The Appearance in the Bush.
23. But when Moses was sent to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, it is written that the Lord appeared to him thus: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”281 Ex. iii. 1–6 He is here also first called the Angel of the Lord, and then God. Was an angel, then, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Therefore He may be rightly understood to be the Saviour Himself, of whom the apostle says, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.”282 Rom. ix. 5 He, therefore, “who is over all, God blessed for ever,” is not unreasonably here understood also to be Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But why is He previously called the Angel of the Lord, when He appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush? Was it because it was one of many angels, who by an economy [or arrangement] bare the person of his Lord? or was something of the creature assumed by Him in order to bring about a visible appearance for the business in hand, and that words might thence be audibly uttered, whereby the presence of the Lord might be shown, in such way as was fitting, to the corporeal senses of man, by means of the creature made subject? For if he was one of the angels, who could easily affirm whether it was the person of the Son which was imposed upon him to announce, or that of the Holy Spirit, or that of God the Father, or altogether of the Trinity itself, who is the one and only God, in order that he might say, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” For we cannot say that the Son of God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and that the Father is not; nor will any one dare to deny that either the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, whom we believe and understand to be the one God, is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he who is not God, is not the God of those fathers. Furthermore, if not only the Father is God, as all, even heretics, admit; but also the Son, which, whether they will or not, they are compelled to acknowledge, since the apostle says, “Who is over all, God blessed for ever;” and the Holy Spirit, since the same apostle says, “Therefore glorify God in your body;” when he had said above, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?”283 1 Cor. vi. 20, 19 and these three are one God, as catholic soundness believes: it is not sufficiently apparent which person of the Trinity that angel bare, if he was one of the rest of the angels, and whether any person, and not rather that of the Trinity itself. But if the creature was assumed for the purpose of the business in hand, whereby both to appear to human eyes, and to sound in human ears, and to be called the Angel of the Lord, and the Lord, and God; then cannot God here be understood to be the Father, but either the Son or the Holy Spirit. Although I cannot call to mind that the Holy Spirit is anywhere else called an angel, which yet may be understood from His work; for it is said of Him, “And He will show you284 Annuntiabit things to come;”285 John xvi. 13 and “angel” in Greek is certainly equivalent to “messenger”286 Nuntius in Latin: but we read most evidently of the Lord Jesus Christ in the prophet, that He is called “the Angel of Great Counsel,”287 Isa. ix. 6 while both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is God and Lord of the angels.
CAPUT XIII.
23. Visio in rubo. Moyses autem quando ad populum Israel ex Aegypto educendum missus est, sic ei Dominum apparuisse scriptum est: Pascebat, inquit, oves Jethro soceri sui sacerdotis Madian, et egit oves in desertum, et venit in montem Dei Horeb. Apparuit autem illi angelus Domini in flamma 0860ignis de rubo. Et vidit quia in rubo arderet ignis, rubus vero non comburebatur. Et ait Moyses: Ibo, et videbo visum istud, quod tam magnum vidi, quoniam non comburitur rubus. Cum ergo vidit Dominus quia venit videre, clamavit eumDominus de rubo dicens: Ego sum Deus patris tui, Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob. (Exod. III, 1-6). Et hic primo angelus Domini dictus est, deinde Deus. Numquid ergo angelus est Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob? Potest ergo recte intelligi ipse Salvator, de quo dicit Apostolus: Quorum patres, et ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula (Rom. IX, 5). Qui ergo super omnia est Deus benedictus in saecula, non absurde etiam hic ipse intelligitur Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob. Sed cur prius angelus Domini dictus est, cum de rubo in flamma ignis apparuit? utrum quia unus ex multis Angelis erat, sed per dispensationem personam Domini sui gerebat; an assumptum erat aliquid creaturae, quod ad praesens negotium visibiliter appareret, et unde voces sensibiliter ederentur, quibus praesentia Domini per subjectam creaturam corporeis etiam sensibus hominis, sicut oportebat, exhiberetur? Si enim unus ex Angelis erat, quis facile affirmare possit utrum ei Filii persona nuntianda imposita fuerit, an Spiritus sancti, an Dei Patris, an ipsius omnino Trinitatis, qui est unus et solus Deus, ut diceret, Ego sum Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob? Neque enim possumus dicere Deum Abraham, et Deum Isaac, et Deum Jacob, Filium Dei esse, et Patrem non esse; aut Spiritum sanctum, aut ipsam Trinitatem, quam credimus et intelligimus unum Deum, audebit aliquis negare Deum Abraham, et Deum Isaac, et Deum Jacob. Ille enim non est illorum patrum Deus, qui non est Deus. Porro si non solum Pater Deus est, sicut omnes etiam haeretici concedunt; sed etiam Filius, quod, velint nolint, coguntur fateri, dicente Apostolo, Qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula; et Spiritus sanctus, dicente ipso Apostolo, Clarificate ergo Deum in corpore vestro; cum supra diceret, Nescitis quia corpora vestra templum in vobis est Spiritus sancti, quem habetis a Deo (I Cor. VI, 20, 19)? et hi tres unus Deus, sicut catholica sanitas credit: non satis elucet quam in Trinitate personam, et utrum aliquam, an ipsius Trinitatis gerebat ille angelus, si unus ex caeteris Angelis erat. Si autem in usum rei praesentis assumpta creatura est, quae et humanis oculis appareret, et auribus insonaret, et apellaretur angelus Domini, et Dominus, et Deus; non potest hic Deus intelligi Pater, sed aut Filius, aut Spiritus sanctus. Quanquam Spiritum sanctum alicubi angelum dictum non recolam, sed ex opere possit intelligi: dictum enim de illo est, Quae ventura sunt annuntiabit vobis (Joan. XVI, 13); et utique Angelus graece, latine Nuntius interpretatur: de Domino autem Jesu Christo evidentissime legimus apud prophetam, quod magni consilii Angelus dictus sit (Isai. IX, 6): cum et Spiritus 0861 sanctus, et Dei Filius, sit Deus et Dominus angelorum.