Chapter 2.—Every Corporeal Conception Must Be Rejected, in Order that It May Be Understood How God is Truth.

3. But in respect to bodies, it may be the case that this gold and that gold may be equally true [real], but this may be greater than that, since magnitude is not the same thing in this case as truth; and it is one thing for it to be gold, another to be great. So also in the nature of the soul; a soul is not called great in the same respect in which it is called true. For he, too, has a true [real] soul who has not a great soul; since the essence of body and soul is not the essence of the truth [reality] itself; as is the Trinity, one God, alone, great, true, truthful, the truth. Of whom if we endeavor to think, so far as He Himself permits and grants, let us not think of any touch or embrace in local space, as if of three bodies, or of any compactness of conjunction, as fables tell of three-bodied Geryon; but let whatsoever may occur to the mind, that is of such sort as to be greater in three than in each singly, and less in one than in two, be rejected without any doubt; for so everything corporeal is rejected. But also in spiritual things let nothing changeable that may have occurred to the mind be thought of God. For when we aspire from this depth to that height, it is a step towards no small knowledge, if, before we can know what God is, we can already know what He is not. For certainly He is neither earth nor heaven; nor, as it were, earth and heaven; nor any such thing as we see in the heaven; nor any such thing as we do not see, but which perhaps is in heaven. Neither if you were to magnify in the imagination of your thought the light of the sun as much as you are able, either that it may be greater, or that it may be brighter, a thousand times as much, or times without number; neither is this God. Neither as655    Read si for sicut, if for as. Bened. ed.    [Augustin here begins his discussion of some ternaries that are found in the Finite, that illustrate the trinality of the Infinite. Like all finite analogies, they fail at certain points. In the case chosen—namely, the lover, the loved, and love—the first two are substances, the last is not. The mind is a substance, but its activity in loving is not. In chapter iv. 5, Augustin asserts that “love and knowledge exist substantially, as the mind itself does.” But no psychology, ancient or modern, has ever maintained that the agencies of a spiritual entity or substance are themselves spiritual entity or substances. The activities of the human mind in cognizing, loving, etc., are only its energizing, not its substance.   The ambiguity of the Latin contributes to this error. The mind and its loving, and also the mind and its cognizing, are denominated “duo quædam” the mind, love, and knowledge, are denominated “tria quædem.” By bringing the mind and its love and knowledge under the one term “quædam,” and then giving the meaning of “substance” to “thing,” in “something,” the result follows that all three are alike and equally “substantial.”   This analogy taken from the mind and its activities illustrates the trinality of the Divine essence, but fails to illustrate the substantiality of the three persons. The three Divine persons are not the Divine essence together with two of its activities (such, e.g., as creation and redemption), but the essence in three modes, or “forms,” as St. Paul denominates them in Phil. iii. 6   If Augustin could prove his assertion that the activities of the human spirit in knowing and loving are strictly “substantial,” then this ternary would illustrate not only the trinality of the essence, but the essentiality and objectivity of the persons. The fact which he mentions, that knowledge and love are inseparable from the knowing and loving mind, does not prove their equal substantiality with the mind.—W.G.T.S.]    Wine. we think of the pure angels as spirits animating celestial bodies, and changing and dealing with them after the will by which they serve God; not even if all, and there are “thousands of thousands,”656    Apoc. v. 11 were brought together into one, and became one; neither is any such thing God. Neither if you were to think of the same spirits as without bodies—a thing indeed most difficult for carnal thought to do. Behold and see, if thou canst, O soul pressed down by the corruptible body, and weighed down by earthly thoughts, many and various; behold and see, if thou canst, that God is truth.657    Wisd. ix. 15 For it is written that “God is light;”658    1 John i. 5 not in such way as these eyes see, but in such way as the heart sees, when it is said, He is truth [reality]. Ask not what is truth [reality] for immediately the darkness of corporeal images and the clouds of phantasms will put themselves in the way, and will disturb that calm which at the first twinkling shone forth to thee, when I said truth [reality]. See that thou remainest, if thou canst, in that first twinkling with which thou art dazzled, as it were, by a flash, when it is said to thee, Truth [Reality]. But thou canst not; thou wilt glide back into those usual and earthly things. And what weight, pray, is it that will cause thee so to glide back, unless it be the bird-lime of the stains of appetite thou hast contracted, and the errors of thy wandering from the right path?

CAPUT II.

3. Respuenda omnis corporalis cogitatio, ut Deus capiatur quomodo Deus est veritas. In corporibus autem fieri potest ut aeque verum sit hoc aurum atque illud, sed majus hoc sit quam illud, quia non eadem ibi est magnitudo quae veritas; aliudque illi est aurum esse, aliud magnum esse. Sic et in animi natura, secundum quod dicitur magnus animus, non secundum hoc dicitur verus animus. Animum enim verum habet etiam qui non est magnanimus: quandoquidem corporis et animi essentia, non est ipsius veritatis essentia, sicut est Trinitas Deus unus, solus, magnus, verus, verax, veritas. Quem si cogitare conamur, quantum sinit et donat, nullus cogitetur per locorum spatia contactus aut complexus, quasi trium corporum; nulla compago juncturae, sicut tricorporem Geryonem fabulae ferunt: sed quidquid animo tale occurrerit, ut majus sit in tribus quam in singulis, minusque in uno quam in duobus, sine ulla dubitatione respuatur: ita enim respuitur omne corporeum. In spiritualibus autem omne mutabile quod occurrerit, non putetur Deus. Non enim parvae notitiae pars est, cum de profundo isto in illam summitatem respiramus, si antequam scire possimus quid sit Deus, possumus jam scire quid non sit. Non est enim certe, nec terra, nec coelum, nec quasi terra et coelum, nec tale aliquid quale videmus in coelo, nec quidquid tale non videmus et est fortassis in coelo. Nec si augeas imaginatione cogitationis lucem solis, quantum potes, sive quo sit major, sive quo sit clarior, millies tantum, aut innumerabiliter, neque hoc est Deus. Nec sicut cogitantur Angeli mundi spiritus coelestia corpora inspirantes, atque ad arbitrium quo serviunt Deo mutantes atque versantes, nec si omnes, 0949 cum sint millia millium (I Apoc. V, 11), in unum collati unus fiant, nec tale aliquid Deus est. Nec si eosdem spiritus sine corporibus cogites, quod quidem carnali cogitationi difficillimum est. Ecce vide, si potes, o anima praegravata corpore quod corrumpitur, et onusta terrenis cogitationibus multis et variis; ecce vide, si potes: Deus Veritas est (Sap. IX, 15). Hoc enim scriptum est, Quoniam Deus lux est (I Joan. I, 5): non quomodo isti oculi vident, sed quomodo videt cor, cum audis , Veritas est. Noli quaerere quid sit veritas; statim enim se opponent caligines imaginum corporalium et nubila phantasmatum, et perturbabunt serenitatem, quae primo ictu diluxit tibi, cum dicerem, Veritas. Ecce in ipso primo ictu quo velut coruscatione perstringeris, cum dicitur, Veritas, mane si potes: sed non potes; relaberis in ista solita atque terrena. Quo tandem pondere, quaeso, relaberis, nisi sordium contractarum cupiditatis visco et peregrinationis erroribus?