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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 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 in Wisdom and in All Other Things.
4. And I know not whether the words, “They are one,” are ever found in Scripture as spoken of things of which the nature is different. But if there are more things than one of the same nature, and they differ in sentiment, they are not one, and that so far as they differ in sentiment. For if the disciples were already one by the fact of being men, He would not say, “That they may be one, as we are one,”599 John xvii. 11 when commending them to the Father. But because Paul and Apollos were both alike men, and also of like sentiments, “He that planteth,” he says, “and he that watereth are one.”600 1 Cor. iii. 8 When, therefore, anything is so called one, that it is not added in what it is one, and yet more things than one are called one, then the same essence and nature is signified, not differing nor disagreeing. But when it is added in what it is one, it may be meant that something is made one out of things more than one, though they are different in nature. As soul and body are assuredly not one; for, what are so different? unless there be added, or understood in what they are one, that is, one man, or one animal [person]. Thence the apostle says, “He who is joined to a harlot, is one body;” he does not say, they are one or he is one; but he has added “body,” as though it were one body composed by being joined together of two different bodies, masculine and feminine.601 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17 And, “He that is joined unto the Lord,” he says,” is one spirit:” he did not say, he that is joined unto the Lord is one, or they are one; but he added, “spirit.” For the spirit of man and the Spirit of God are different in nature; but by being joined they become one spirit of two different spirits, so that the Spirit of God is blessed and perfect without the human spirit, but the spirit of man cannot be blessed without God. Nor is it without cause, I think, that when the Lord said so much in the Gospel according to John, and so often, of unity itself, whether of His own with the Father, or of ours interchangeably with ourselves; He has nowhere said, that we are also one with Himself, but, “that they maybe one as we also are one.”602 John xvii. 11 Therefore the Father and the Son are one, undoubtedly according to unity of substance; and there is one God, and one great, and one wise, as we have argued.
5. Whence then is the Father greater? For if greater, He is greater by greatness; but whereas the Son is His greatness, neither assuredly is the Son greater than He who begat Him, nor is the Father greater than that greatness, whereby He is great; therefore they are equal. For whence is He equal, if not in that which He is, to whom it is not one thing to be, and another to be great? Or if the Father is greater in eternity, the Son is not equal in anything whatsoever. For whence equal? If you say in greatness, that greatness is not equal which is less eternal, and so of all things else. Or is He perhaps equal in power, but not equal in wisdom? But how is that power which is less wise, equal? Or is He equal in wisdom, but not equal in power? But how is that wisdom equal which is less powerful? It remains, therefore, that if He is not equal in anything, He is not equal in all. But Scripture proclaims, that “He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”603 Phil. ii. 6 Therefore any adversary of the truth whatever, provided he feels bound by apostolical authority, must needs confess that the Son is equal with God in each one thing whatsoever. Let him choose that which he will; from it he will be shown, that He is equal in all things which are said of His substance.
CAPUT III.
4. Unitatem essentiae Patris et Filii haberi ex verbis, Unum sumus. Filius et in sapientia et in caeteris aequalis Patri. Et nescio utrum inveniatur in Scripturis dictum, unum sunt, quorum est diversa natura. Si autem aliqua plura ejusdem naturae sint, et diversa sentiant, non sunt unum et quantum diversa sentiunt. Nam si jam unum essent ex eo quod homines erant, non diceret, Ut sint unum, sicut nos unum (Id. XVII, 11), cum suos discipulos Patri commendaret. At vero Paulus et Apollo, quia et ambo homines, et idem sentiebant: Qui plantat, inquit, et qui rigat, unum sunt (I Cor. III, 8). Cum ergo sic dicitur unum, ut non addatur quid unum, et plura unum dicantur, eadem natura atque essentia, non dissidens nec dissentiens significatur. Cum vero additur quid unum, potest aliquid significari ex pluribus unum factum, quamvis diversis natura. Sicut anima et corpus non sunt utique unum; quid enim tam diversum? nisi addatur aut subintelligatur quid unum, id est, unus homo, aut unum animal. Inde Apostolus: Qui adhaeret meretrici, inquit, unum corpus est: non dixit, Unum sunt, aut, Unum est; sed addidit, corpus, tanquam ex duobus diversis masculino et feminino unum corpus adjunctione compositum. Et, Qui adhaeret Domino, inquit, unus spiritus est (Id. VI, 16, 17): non dixit, Qui adhaeret Domino, unus est, aut, unum sunt; sed addidit, spiritus. Diversi sunt enim natura, spiritus hominis et spiritus Dei ; sed inhaerendo fit unus spiritus ex diversis duobus, ita ut sine humano spiritu beatus sit Dei spiritus atque perfectus, beatus autem hominis spiritus non nisi cum Deo. Nec frustra, ut existimo, cum tanta in Evangelio secundum Joannem et toties diceret Dominus de ipsa unitate, vel sua cum Patre, vel nostra invicem nobiscum; nusquam dixit, Ut nos et ipsi unum: sed, Ut unum sint, sicut et nos unum sumus (Joan. XVII). Pater ergo et Filius unum sunt, utique secundum unitatem substantiae, et unus Deus est, et unus magnus, et unus sapiens, sicut tractatum est.
5. Unde ergo major Pater? Si enim major, magnitudine major: cum autem magnitudo Filius ejus sit, nec ille utique major est eo qui se genuit, nec ille major est ea magnitudine qua magnus est: ergo aequalis. Nam unde aequalis, si non eo quo est, cui non est aliud esse, et aliud magnum esse? Aut si aeternitate Pater major est, non est aequalis Filius quacumque re. Unde enim aequalis? Si magnitudine dixeris, non est par magnitudo, quae minus aeterna est, atque ita caetera. An forte in virtute aequalis est, in sapientia vero non est aequalis? Sed quomodo est aequalis virtus 0927 quae minus sapit? An in sapientia aequalis est, in virtute autem non est aequalis? Sed quomodo aequalis est sapientia, quae minus potens est? Restat ergo ut si in ulla re aequalis non est, in omnibus non sit aequalis. At Scriptura clamat, Non rapinam arbitratus est esse aequalis Deo (Philipp. II, 6). Cogitur ergo quivis adversarius veritatis, qui modo tenetur apostolica auctoritate, in qualibet vel una re aequalem Deo Filium confiteri. Eligat quam voluerit: hinc ei ostendetur in omnibus esse aequalem, quae de substantia ejus dicuntur.