Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus,
Chapter 1.—This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning
Chapter 2.—In What Manner This Work Proposes to Discourse Concerning the Trinity.
Chapter 3.—What Augustin Requests from His Readers. The Errors of Readers Dull of Comprehension Not to Be Ascribed to the Author.
Chapter 4.—What the Doctrine of the Catholic Faith is Concerning the Trinity.
Chapter 5.—Of Difficulties Concerning the Trinity: in What Manner Three are One God, and How, Working Indivisibly, They Yet Perform Some Things Severa
Chapter 6.—That the Son is Very God, of the Same Substance with the Father. Not Only the Father, But the Trinity, is Affirmed to Be Immortal. All Thin
Chapter 7.—In What Manner the Son is Less Than the Father, and Than Himself.
Chapter 8.—The Texts of Scripture Explained Respecting the Subjection of the Son to the Father, Which Have Been Misunderstood. Christ Will Not So Give
Chapter 9.—All are Sometimes Understood in One Person.
Chapter 10.—In What Manner Christ Shall Deliver Up the Kingdom to God, Even the Father. The Kingdom Having Been Delivered to God, Even the Father, Chr
Chapter 11.—By What Rule in the Scriptures It is Understood that the Son is Now Equal and Now Less.
Chapter 12.—In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form o
Chapter 13.—Diverse Things are Spoken Concerning the Same Christ, on Account of the Diverse Natures of the One Hypostasis [Theanthropic Person]. Why I
Book II.
Preface.
Chapter 1.—There is a Double Rule for Understanding the Scriptural Modes of Speech Concerning the Son of God. These Modes of Speech are of a Threefold
Chapter 2.—That Some Ways of Speaking Concerning the Son are to Be Understood According to Either Rule.
Chapter 3.—Some Things Concerning the Holy Spirit are to Be Understood According to the One Rule Only.
Chapter 4.—The Glorification of the Son by the Father Does Not Prove Inequality.
Chapter 5.—The Son and Holy Spirit are Not Therefore Less Because Sent. The Son is Sent Also by Himself. Of the Sending of the Holy Spirit.
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 9.—Against Those Who Believed the Father Only to Be Immortal and Invisible. The Truth to Be Sought by Peaceful Study.
Chapter 10—Whether God the Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Sa
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 15.—Of the Appearance on Sinai. Whether the Trinity Spake in that Appearance or Some One Person Specially.
Chapter 16.—In What Manner Moses Saw God.
Chapter 17.—How the Back Parts of God Were Seen. The Faith of the Resurrection of Christ. The Catholic Church Only is the Place from Whence the Back P
Chapter 18.—The Vision of Daniel.
Book III.
Preface.—Why Augustin Writes of the Trinity. What He Claims from Readers. What Has Been Said in the Previous Book.
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 4.—God Uses All Creatures as He Will, and Makes Visible Things for the Manifestation of Himself.
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.
Chapter 11.—The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from
Book IV.
Preface.—The Knowledge of God is to Be Sought from God.
Chapter 1.—We are Made Perfect by Acknowledgement of Our Own Weakness. The Incarnate Word Dispels Our Darkness.
Chapter 2.—How We are Rendered Apt for the Perception of Truth Through the Incarnate Word.
Chapter 3.—The One Death and Resurrection of The Body of Christ Harmonizes with Our Double Death and Resurrection of Body and Soul, to the Effect of S
Chapter 4.—The Ratio of the Single to the Double Comes from the Perfection of the Senary Number. The Perfection of The Senary Number is Commended in t
Chapter 5.—The Number Six is Also Commended in the Building Up of the Body of Christ and of the Temple at Jerusalem.
Chapter 6.—The Three Days of the Resurrection, in Which Also the Ratio of Single to Double is Apparent.
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 13.—The Death of Christ Voluntary. How the Mediator of Life Subdued the Mediator of Death. How the Devil Leads His Own to Despise the Death of
Chapter 14.—Christ the Most Perfect Victim for Cleansing Our Faults. In Every Sacrifice Four Things are to Be Considered.
Chapter 15.—They are Proud Who Think They are Able, by Their Own Righteousness, to Be Cleansed So as to See God.
Chapter 16.—The Old Philosophers are Not to Be Consulted Concerning the Resurrection and Concerning Things to Come.
Chapter 17.—In How Many Ways Things Future are Foreknown. Neither Philosophers, Nor Those Who Were Distinguished Among the Ancients, are to Be Consult
Chapter 18.—The Son of God Became Incarnate in Order that We Being Cleansed by Faith May Be Raised to the Unchangeable Truth.
Chapter 19.—In What Manner the Son Was Sent and Proclaimed Beforehand. How in the Sending of His Birth in the Flesh He Was Made Less Without Detriment
Chapter 20.—The Sender and the Sent Equal. Why the Son is Said to Be Sent by the Father. Of the Mission of the Holy Spirit. How and by Whom He Was Sen
Chapter 21.—Of the Sensible Showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the Coeternity of the Trinity. What Has Been Said, and What Remains to Be Said.
Book V.
Chapter 1.—What the Author Entreats from God, What from the Reader. In God Nothing is to Be Thought Corporeal or Changeable.
Chapter 2.—God the Only Unchangeable Essence.
Chapter 3.—The Argument of the Arians is Refuted, Which is Drawn from the Words Begotten and Unbegotten.
Chapter 4.—The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.
Chapter 5.—Nothing is Spoken of God According to Accident, But According to Substance or According to Relation.
Chapter 6.—Reply is Made to the Cavils of the Heretics in Respect to the Same Words Begotten and Unbegotten.
Chapter 7.—The Addition of a Negative Does Not Change the Predicament.
Chapter 8.—Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in Go
Chapter 9.—The Three Persons Not Properly So Called [in a Human Sense].
Chapter 10.—Those Things Which Belong Absolutely to God as an Essence, are Spoken of the Trinity in the Singular, Not in the Plural.
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.
Book VI.
Chapter 1.—The Son, According to the Apostle, is the Power and Wisdom of the Father. Hence the Reasoning of the Catholics Against the Earlier Arians.
Chapter 2 .—What is Said of the Father and Son Together, and What Not.
Chapter 3.—That the Unity of the Essence of the Father and the Son is to Be Gathered from the Words, “We are One.” The Son is Equal to the Father Both
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 10.—Of the Attributes Assigned by Hilary to Each Person. The Trinity is Represented in Things that are Made.
Book VII.
Chapter 1.—Augustin Returns to the Question, Whether Each Person of the Trinity by Itself is Wisdom. With What Difficulty, or in What Way, the Propose
Chapter 2.—The Father and the Son are Together One Wisdom, as One Essence, Although Not Together One Word.
Chapter 3.—Why the Son Chiefly is Intimated in the Scriptures by the Name of Wisdom, While Both the Father and the Holy Spirit are Wisdom. That the Ho
Chapter 4.—How It Was Brought About that the Greeks Speak of Three Hypostases, the Latins of Three Persons. Scripture Nowhere Speaks of Three Persons
Chapter 5.—In God, Substance is Spoken Improperly, Essence Properly.
Chapter 6.—Why We Do Not in the Trinity Speak of One Person, and Three Essences. What He Ought to Believe Concerning the Trinity Who Does Not Receive
Book VIII.
Preface.—The Conclusion of What Has Been Said Above. The Rule to Be Observed in the More Difficult Questions of the Faith.
Chapter 1.—It is Shown by Reason that in God Three are Not Anything Greater Than One Person.
Chapter 2.—Every Corporeal Conception Must Be Rejected, in Order that It May Be Understood How God is Truth.
Chapter 3.—How God May Be Known to Be the Chief Good. The Mind Does Not Become Good Unless by Turning to God.
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 7.—Of True Love, by Which We Arrive at the Knowledge of the Trinity. God is to Be Sought, Not Outwardly, by Seeking to Do Wonderful Things wit
Chapter 8.—That He Who Loves His Brother, Loves God Because He Loves Love Itself, Which is of God, and is God.
Chapter 9.—Our Love of the Righteous is Kindled from Love Itself of the Unchangeable Form of Righteousness.
Chapter 10.—There are Three Things in Love, as It Were a Trace of the Trinity.
Book IX.
Chapter 1.—In What Way We Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.
2. And this being so, let us direct our attention to those three things which we fancy we have found. We are not yet speaking of heavenly things, nor
Chapter 3.—The Image of the Trinity in the Mind of Man Who Knows Himself and Loves Himself. The Mind Knows Itself Through Itself.
Chapter 4.—The Three are One, and Also Equal, Viz The Mind Itself, and the Love, and the Knowledge of It. That the Same Three Exist Substantially, and
Chapter 5.—That These Three are Several in Themselves, and Mutually All in All.
Chapter 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
Chapter 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 Cre
Chapter 8.—In What Desire and Love Differ.
Chapter 9.—In the Love of Spiritual Things the Word Born is the Same as the Word Conceived. It is Otherwise in the Love of Carnal Things.
Chapter 10.—Whether Only Knowledge that is Loved is the Word of the Mind.
Chapter 11.—That the Image or Begotten Word of the Mind that Knows Itself is Equal to the Mind Itself.
Chapter 12.—Why Love is Not the Offspring of the Mind, as Knowledge is So. The Solution of the Question. The Mind with the Knowledge of Itself and the
Book X.
Chapter 1.—The Love of the Studious Mind, that Is, of One Desirous to Know, is Not the Love of a Thing Which It Does Not Know.
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 5.—Why the Soul is Enjoined to Know Itself. Whence Come the Errors of the Mind Concerning Its Own Substance.
Chapter 6.—The Opinion Which the Mind Has of Itself is Deceitful.
Chapter 7.—The Opinions of Philosophers Respecting the Substance of the Soul. The Error of Those Who are of Opinion that the Soul is Corporeal, Does N
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 10.—Every Mind Knows Certainly Three Things Concerning Itself—That It Understands, that It Is, and that It Lives.
Chapter 11.—In Memory, Understanding [or Intelligence], and Will, We Have to Note Ability, Learning, and Use. Memory, Understanding, and Will are One
Chapter 12.—The Mind is an Image of the Trinity in Its Own Memory, and Understanding, and Will.
Book XI.
Chapter 1.—A Trace of the Trinity Also In the Outer Man.
Chapter 2.—A Certain Trinity in the Sight. That There are Three Things in Sight, Which Differ in Their Own Nature. In What Manner from a Visible Thing
Chapter 3.—The Unity of the Three Takes Place in Thought, Viz Of Memory, of Ternal Vision, and of Will Combining Both.
Chapter 4.—How This Unity Comes to Pass.
Chapter 5.—The Trinity of the Outer Man, or of External Vision, is Not an Image of God. The Likeness of God is Desired Even in Sins. In External Visio
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 10.—The Imagination Also Adds Even to Things We Have Not Seen, Those Things Which We Have Seen Elsewhere.
Chapter 11.—Number, Weight, Measure.
Book XII.
Chapter 1.—Of What Kind are the Outer and the Inner Man.
Chapter 2.—Man Alone of Animate Creatures Perceives the Eternal Reasons of Things Pertaining to the Body.
Chapter 3.—The Higher Reason Which Belongs to Contemplation, and the Lower Which Belongs to Action, are in One Mind.
Chapter 4.—The Trinity and the Image of God is in that Part of the Mind Alone Which Belongs to the Contemplation of Eternal Things.
Chapter 5.—The Opinion Which Devises an Image of the Trinity in the Marriage of Male and Female, and in Their Offspring.
Chapter 6. —Why This Opinion is to Be Rejected.
Chapter 7.—How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of Go
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 13.—The Opinion of Those Who Have Thought that the Mind Was Signified by the Man, the Bodily Sense by the Woman.
Chapter 14.—What is the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge. The Worship of God is the Love of Him. How the Intellectual Cognizance of Eternal Thi
Chapter 15.—In Opposition to the Reminiscence of Plato and Pythagoras. Pythagoras the Samian. Of the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge, and of S
Book XIII.
Chapter 1.—The Attempt is Made to Distinguish Out of the Scriptures the Offices of Wisdom and of Knowledge. That in the Beginning of John Some Things
Chapter 2.—Faith a Thing of the Heart, Not of the Body How It is Common and One and the Same in All Believers. The Faith of Believers is One, No Othe
Chapter 3.—Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The Poet Ennius.
Chapter 4.—The Will to Possess Blessedness is One in All, But the Variety of Wills is Very Great Concerning that Blessedness Itself.
Chapter 5.—Of the Same Thing.
Chapter 6.—Why, When All Will to Be Blessed, that is Rather Chosen by Which One Withdraws from Being So.
Chapter 7.—Faith is Necessary, that Man May at Some Time Be Blessed, Which He Will Only Attain in the Future Life. The Blessedness of Proud Philosophe
Chapter 8.—Blessedness Cannot Exist Without Immortality.
Chapter 9.—We Say that Future Blessedness is Truly Eternal, Not Through Human Reasonings, But by the Help of Faith. The Immortality of Blessedness Bec
Chapter 10.—There Was No Other More Suitable Way of Freeing Man from the Misery of Mortality Than The Incarnation of the Word. The Merits Which are Ca
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 16.—The Remains of Death and the Evil Things of the World Turn to Good for the Elect. How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen, that We Might
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 20.—What Has Been Treated of in This Book. How We Have Reached by Steps to a Certain Trinity, Which is Found in Practical Knowledge and True F
Book XIV.
Chapter 1.—What the Wisdom is of Which We are Here to Treat. Whence the Name of Philosopher Arose. What Has Been Already Said Concerning the Distincti
Chapter 2.—There is a Kind of Trinity in the Holding, Contemplating, and Loving of Faith Temporal, But One that Does Not Yet Attain to Being Properly
Chapter 3.—A Difficulty Removed, Which Lies in the Way of What Has Just Been Said.
Chapter 4.—The Image of God is to Be Sought in the Immortality of the Rational Soul. How a Trinity is Demonstrated in the Mind.
Chapter 5.—Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.
Chapter 6.—How a Kind of Trinity Exists in the Mind Thinking of Itself. What is the Part of Thought in This Trinity.
Chapter 7.—The Thing is Made Plain by an Example. In What Way the Matter is Handled in Order to Help the Reader.
Chapter 8.—The Trinity Which is the Image of God is Now to Be Sought in the Noblest Part of the Mind.
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 12.—The Trinity in the Mind is the Image of God, in that It Remembers, Understands, and Loves God, Which to Do is Wisdom.
Chapter 13.—How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.
Chapter 14.—The Mind Loves God in Rightly Loving Itself And If It Love Not God, It Must Be Said to Hate Itself. Even a Weak and Erring Mind is Always
Chapter 15.—Although the Soul Hopes for Blessedness, Yet It Does Not Remember Lost Blessedness, But Remembers God and the Rules of Righteousness. The
Chapter 16.—How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.
Chapter 17.—How the Image of God in the Mind is Renewed Until the Likeness of God is Perfected in It in Blessedness.
Chapter 18.—Whether the Sentence of John is to Be Understood of Our Future Likeness with the Son of God in the Immortality Itself Also of the Body.
Chapter 19.—John is Rather to Be Understood of Our Perfect Likeness with the Trinity in Life Eternal. Wisdom is Perfected in Happiness.
Book XV.
Chapter 1.—God is Above the Mind.
Chapter 2.—God, Although Incomprehensible, is Ever to Be Sought. The Traces of the Trinity are Not Vainly Sought in the Creature.
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 6.—How There is a Trinity in the Very Simplicity of God. Whether and How the Trinity that is God is Manifested from the Trinities Which Have B
Chapter 7.—That It is Not Easy to Discover the Trinity that is God from the Trinities We Have Spoken of.
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 10.—Concerning the Word of the Mind, in Which We See the Word of God, as in a Glass and an Enigma.
Chapter 11.—The Likeness of the Divine Word, Such as It Is, is to Be Sought, Not in Our Own Outer and Sensible Word, But in the Inner and Mental One.
Chapter 12.—The Academic Philosophy.
Chapter 13.—Still Further of the Difference Between the Knowledge and Word of Our Mind, and the Knowledge and Word of God.
Chapter 14.—The Word of God is in All Things Equal to the Father, from Whom It is.
Chapter 15.—How Great is the Unlikeness Between Our Word and the Divine Word. Our Word Cannot Be or Be Called Eternal.
Chapter 16.—Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even When We Shall Be Like God.
Chapter 17.—How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly Called by the Na
Chapter 18.—No Gift of God is More Excellent Than Love.
Chapter 19.—The Holy Spirit is Called the Gift of God in the Scriptures. By the Gift of the Holy Spirit is Meant the Gift Which is the Holy Spirit. Th
Chapter 20.—Against Eunomius, Saying that the Son of God is the Son, Not of His Nature, But of His Will. Epilogue to What Has Been Said Already.
Chapter 21.—Of the Likeness of the Father and of the Son Alleged to Be in Our Memory and Understanding. Of the Likeness of the Holy Spirit in Our Will
Chapter 22.—How Great the Unlikeness is Between the Image of the Trinity Which We Have Found in Ourselves, and the Trinity Itself.
Chapter 23.—Augustin Dwells Still Further on the Disparity Between the Trinity Which is in Man, and the Trinity Which is God. The Trinity is Now Seen
Chapter 24.—The Infirmity of the Human Mind.
Chapter 25.—The Question Why the Holy Spirit is Not Begotten, and How He Proceeds from the Father and the Son, Will Only Be Understood When We are in
Chapter 26.—The Holy Spirit Twice Given by Christ. The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son is Apart from Time, Nor Can He B
Chapter 27.—What It is that Suffices Here to Solve the Question Why the Spirit is Not Said to Be Begotten, and Why the Father Alone is Unbegotten. Wha
Chapter 28.—The Conclusion of the Book with a Prayer, and an Apology for Multitude of Words.
Chapter 6.—The Three Days of the Resurrection, in Which Also the Ratio of Single to Double is Apparent.
10. Scripture again witnesses that the space of those three days themselves was not whole and entire, but the first day is counted as a whole from its last part, and the third day is itself also counted as a whole from its first part; but the intervening day, i.e. the second day, was absolutely a whole with its twenty-four hours, twelve of the day and twelve of the night. For He was crucified first by the voices of the Jews in the third hour, when it was the sixth day of the week. Then He hung on the cross itself at the sixth hour, and yielded up His spirit at the ninth hour.480 Matt. xxvii. 23–50 But He was buried, “now when the even was come,” as the words of the evangelist express it;481 Mark xv. 42–46 which means, at the end of the day. Wheresoever then you begin,—even if some other explanation can be given, so as not to contradict the Gospel of John,482 John xix. 14 but to understand that He was suspended on the cross at the third hour,—still you cannot make the first day an entire day. It will be reckoned then an entire day from its last part, as the third from its first part. For the night up to the dawn, when the resurrection of the Lord was made known, belongs to the third day; because God (who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,483 2 Cor. iv. 6 that through the grace of the New Testament and the partaking of the resurrection of Christ the words might be spoken to us “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord”484 Eph. v. 8) intimates to us in some way that the day takes its beginning from the night. For as the first days of all were reckoned from light to night, on account of the future fall of man;485 Gen. i. 4, 5 so these on account of the restoration of man, are reckoned from darkness to light. From the hour, then, of His death to the dawn of the resurrection are forty hours, counting in also the ninth hour itself. And with this number agrees also His life upon earth of forty days after His resurrection. And this number is most frequently used in Scripture to express the mystery of perfection in the fourfold world. For the number ten has a certain perfection, and that multiplied by four makes forty. But from the evening of the burial to the dawn of the resurrection are thirty-six hours which is six squared. And this is referred to that ratio of the single to the double wherein there is the greatest consonance of co-adaptation. For twelve added to twenty-four suits the ratio of single added to double and makes thirty-six: namely a whole night with a whole day and a whole night, and this not without the mystery which I have noticed above. For not unfitly do we liken the spirit to the day and the body to the night. For the body of the Lord in His death and resurrection was a figure of our spirit and a type of our body. In this way, then, also that ratio of the single to the double is apparent in the thirty-six hours, when twelve are added to twenty-four. As to the reasons, indeed, why these numbers are so put in the Holy Scriptures, other people may trace out other reasons, either such that those which I have given are to be preferred to them, or such as are equally probable with mine, or even more probable than they are; but there is no one surely so foolish or so absurd as to contend that they are so put in the Scriptures for no purpose at all, and that there are no mystical reasons why those numbers are there mentioned. But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.
CAPUT VI.
10. Triduum resurrectionis, in quo etiam apparet ratio simpli ad duplum. Ipsum autem triduum non totum et plenum fuisse, Scriptura testis est: sed primus dies a parte extrema totus annumeratus est; dies vero tertius a parte prima, et ipse totus; medius autem inter eos, id est, secundus dies absolute totus viginti quatuor horis suis, duodecim nocturnis et duodecim diurnis. Crucifixus est enim primo Judaeorum vocibus hora tertia, cum esset dies sexta sabbati. Deinde in ipsa cruce suspensus est hora sexta, et spiritum tradidit hora nona (Id. XXVII, 23-50). Sepultus est autem cum jam sero factum esset, sicut sese habent verba Evangelii (Marc. XV, 42-46); quod intelligitur, in fine diei. Undelibet ergo incipias, etiam si alia ratio reddi potest, quomodo non sit contra Evangelium Joannis (Joan. XIX, 14), ut hora tertia ligno suspensus intelligatur; totum diem primum non comprehendis. Ergo a parte extrema totus computabitur, sicut tertius a parte prima. Nox enim usque ad diluculum, quo Domini resurrectio declarata est, ad tertium diem pertinet: quia Deus qui dixit de tenebris lucem clarescere (II Cor. IV, 6), ut per gratiam Novi Testamenti et participationem resurrectionis Christi audiremus, Fuistis enim aliquando tenebrae nunc autem lux in Domino (Ephes. V, 8); insinuat nobis quodam modo quod a nocte dies sumat initium. Sicut enim primi dies propter futurum hominis lapsum a luce in noctem (Gen. I, 4, 5); ita isti propter hominis reparationem a tenebris ad lucem computantur. Ab hora ergo mortis usque ad diluculum resurrectionis 0895 horae sunt quadraginta, ut etiam ipsa hora nona connumeretur. Cui numero congruit etiam vita ejus super terram post resurrectionem in quadraginta diebus. Et est iste numerus frequentissimus in Scripturis ad insinuandum mysterium perfectionis in quadripartito mundo . Habent enim quamdam perfectionem decem, et ea quater multiplicata faciunt quadraginta. A vespere autem sepulturae usque ad diluculum resurrectionis triginta sex horae sunt, qui est quadratus senarius. Refertur autem ad illam rationem simpli ad duplum, ubi est coaptationis maxima consonantia. Duodecim enim ad viginti quatuor simplo ad duplum conveniunt, et fiunt triginta sex: nox tota cum die toto et nocte tota, neque hoc sine illo sacramento quod supra memoravi. Non absurde quippe spiritum diei comparamus; corpus autem, nocti. Dominicum enim corpus in morte ac resurrectione, et spiritus nostri figuram, et corporis gerebat exemplum. Etiam sic ergo apparet illa ratio simpli ad duplum in horis triginta sex, cum duodecim conferuntur ad viginti quatuor. Et horum quidem numerorum causas, cur in Scripturis sanctis positi sint , potest alius alias indagare, vel quibus istae quas ego reddidi, praeponendae sint, vel aeque probabiles, vel istis etiam probabiliores: frustra tamen eos esse in Scripturis positos, et nullas causas esse mysticas cur illic isti numeri commemorentur, nemo tam stultus ineptusque contenderit. Ego autem quas reddidi, vel ex Ecclesiae auctoritate a majoribus traditas , vel ex divinarum testimonio Scripturarum, vel ex ratione numerorum similitudinumque collegi. Contra rationem nemo sobrius, contra Scripturas nemo christianus, contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit.
