Book XV.

Begins by setting forth briefly and in sum the contents of the previous fourteen books. The argument is then shown to have reached so far as to allow of our now inquiring concerning the Trinity, which is God, in those eternal, incorporeal, and unchangeable things themselves, in the perfect contemplation of which a blessed life is promised to us. But this Trinity, as he shows, is here seen by us as by a mirror and in an enigma, in that it is seen by means of the image of God, which we are, as in a likeness that is obscure and hard of discernment. In like manner, it is shown, that some kind of conjecture and explanation may be gathered respecting the generation of the divine Word, from the word of our own mind, but only with difficulty, on account of the exceeding disparity which is discernible between the two words; and, again, respecting the procession of the Holy Spirit, from the love that is joined thereto by the will.

LIBER QUINTUS DECIMUS. Principio, quid in singulis quatuordecim superioribus libris dictum sit, exponit breviter ac summatim, eoque demum pervenisse disputationem docet, ut Trinitas quae Deus est, jam in ipsis rebus aeternis, incorporalibus et immutabilibus, in quarum perfecta contemplatione nobis beata vita promittitur, inquiratur. Hanc vero Trinitatem ostendit hic videri a nobis tanquam per speculum et in aenigmate, dum videtur per imaginem Dei, quod nos sumus, ut in similitudine obscura et ad perspiciendum difficili. Sic et ex verbo mentis nostrae Verbi divini generationem, nonnisi difficulter, propter eam quae inter utrumque verbum interesse observatur disparitas quam maxima; et ex dilectione quae a voluntate adjungitur, Spiritus sancti processionem conjici utcumque et explicari posse demonstrat.

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