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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.—Man Was to Be Rescued from the Power of the Devil, Not by Power, But by Righteousness.
17. But the devil was to be overcome, not by the power of God, but by His righteousness. For what is more powerful than the Omnipotent? Or what creature is there of which the power can be compared to the power of the Creator? But since the devil, by the fault of his own perversity, was made a lover of power, and a forsaker and assailant of righteousness,—for thus also men imitate him so much the more in proportion as they set their hearts on power, to the neglect or even hatred of righteousness, and as they either rejoice in the attainment of power, or are inflamed by the lust of it,—it pleased God, that in order to the rescuing of man from the grasp of the devil, the devil should be conquered, not by power, but by righteousness; and that so also men, imitating Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by righteousness, not by power. Not that power is to be shunned as though it were something evil; but the order must be preserved, whereby righteousness is before it. For how great can be the power of mortals? Therefore let mortals cleave to righteousness; power will be given to immortals. And compared to this, the power, how great soever, of those men who are called powerful on earth, is found to be ridiculous weakness, and a pitfall is dug there for the sinner, where the wicked seem to be most powerful. And the righteous man says in his song, “Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law: that Thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance, until righteousness return unto judgment, and all who follow it are upright in heart.”810 Ps. xciv. 12–15 At this present time, then, in which the might of the people of God is delayed, “the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance,” how bitter and unworthy things soever it may suffer in its humility and weakness; “until the righteousness,” which the weakness of the pious now possesses, “shall return to judgment,” that is, shall receive the power of judging; which is preserved in the end for the righteous when power in its due order shall have followed after righteousness going before. For power joined to righteousness, or righteousness added to power, constitutes a judicial authority. But righteousness belongs to a good will; whence it was said by the angels when Christ was born: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”811 Luke ii. 14 But power ought to follow righteousness, not to go before it; and accordingly it is placed in “second,” that is, prosperous fortune; and this is called “second,”812 Res secundœ from “following.” For whereas two things make a man blessed, as we have argued above, to will well, and to be able to do what one wills, people ought not to be so perverse, as has been noted in the same discussion, as that a man should choose from the two things which make him blessed, the being able to do what he wills, and should neglect to will what he ought; whereas he ought first to have a good will, but great power afterwards. Further, a good will must be purged from vices, by which if a man is overcome, he is in such wise overcome as that he wills evil; and then how will his will be still good? It is to be wished, then, that power may now be given, but power against vices, to conquer which men do not wish to be powerful, while they wish to be so in order to conquer men; and why is this, unless that, being in truth conquered, they feignedly conquer, and are conquerors not in truth, but in opinion? Let a man will to be prudent, will to be strong, will to be temperate, will to be just; and that he may be able to have these things truly, let him certainly desire power, and seek to be powerful in himself, and (strange though it be) against himself for himself. But all the other things which he wills rightly, and yet is not able to have, as, for instance, immortality and true and full felicity, let him not cease to long for, and let him patiently expect.
CAPUT XIII.
17. Non potentia, sed justitia eruendus homo fuit a diaboli potestate. Non autem diabolus potentia Dei, sed justitia superandus fuit. Nam quid Omnipotente potentius? Aut cujus creaturae potestas potestati Creatoris comparari potest? Sed cum diabolus vitio perversitatis suae factus sit amator potentiae, et desertor oppugnatorque justitiae; sic enim et homines eum tanto magis imitantur, quanto magis neglecta, vel etiam perosa justitia, potentiae student, ejusque vel adeptione laetantur, vel inflammantur 1027 cupiditate: placuit Deo, ut propter eruendum hominem de diaboli potestate, non potentia diabolus, sed justitia vinceretur; atque ita et homines imitantes Christum, justitia quaererent diabolum vincere, non potentia. Non quod potentia quasi mali aliquid fugienda sit; sed ordo servandus est, quo prior est justitia. Nam quanta potentia potest esse mortalium? Teneant ergo mortales justitiam, potentia immortalibus dabitur. Cui comparata quantalibet eorum hominum qui potentes vocantur in terra, ridicula infirmitas invenitur, et ibi foditur peccatori fovea, ubi videntur mali plurimum posse. Cantat autem justus et dicit: Beatus homo quem tu erudieris, Domine, et de lege tua docueris eum: ut mitiges ei a diebus malignis, donec fodiatur peccatori fovea. Quoniam non repellet Dominus plebem suam, et haereditatem suam non derelinquet: quoadusque justitia convertatur in judicium, et qui habent eam, omnes recto sunt corde (Psal. XCIII, 12-15). Hoc ergo tempore quo differtur potentia populi Dei, non repellet Dominus plebem suam, et haereditatem suam non derelinquet; quantalibet acerba et indigna ipsa humilis atque infirma patiatur, quoadusque justitia quam nunc habet infirmitas piorum, convertatur in judicium, hoc est, judicandi accipiat potestatem: quod justis in fine servatur, cum praecedentem justitiam ordine suo fuerit potentia subsecuta. Potentia quippe adjuncta justitiae, vel justitia accedens potentiae , judiciariam potestatem facit. Pertinet autem justitia ad voluntatem bonam: unde dictum est ab Angelis nato Christo, Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Luc. II, 14). Potentia vero sequi debet justitiam, non praeire: ideo et in rebus secundis ponitur, id est prosperis: secundae autem a sequendo sunt dictae. Cum enim beatum faciant, sicut superius disputavimus, duae res, bene velle, et posse quod velis, non debet esse illa perversitas, quae in eadem disputatione notata est, ut ex duabus rebus quae faciunt beatum, posse quod velit homo eligat, et velle quod oportet negligat; cum prius debeat habere voluntatem bonam, magnam vero postea potestatem. Bona porro voluntas purganda est a vitiis, a quibus si vincitur homo, ad hoc vincitur ut male velit, et bona jam voluntas ejus quomodo erit? Optandum est itaque ut potestas nunc detur, sed contra vitia, propter quae vincenda potentes nolunt esse homines, et volunt propter vincendos homines; utquid hoc, nisi ut vere victi falso vincant, nec sint veritate, sed opinione victores? Velit homo prudens esse, velit fortis, velit temperans, velit justus, atque ut haec veraciter possit, potentiam plane optet, atque appetat ut potens sit in seipso, et miro modo adversus se ipsum pro se ipso. Caetera vero quae bene vult, et tamen non potest, sicut est immortalitas, et vera ac plena felicitas, desiderare non cesset, et patienter exspectet.