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 or Love.

40. I have undoubtedly taken pains so far as I could, not indeed so that the thing might be seen face to face, but that it might be seen by this likeness in an enigma,1030    1 Cor. xiii. 12 in how small a degree soever, by conjecture, in our memory and understanding, to intimate God the Father and God the Son: i.e. God the begetter, who has in some way spoken by His own co-eternal Word all things that He has in His substance; and God His Word Himself, who Himself has nothing either more or less in substance than is in Him, who, not lyingly but truly, hath begotten the Word; and I have assigned to memory everything that we know, even if we were not thinking of it, but to understanding the formation after a certain special mode of the thought. For we are usually said to understand what, by thinking of it, we have found to be true; and this it is again that we leave in the memory. But that is a still more hidden depth of our memory, wherein we found this also first when we thought of it, and wherein an inner word is begotten such as belongs to no tongue,—as it were, knowledge of knowledge, vision of vision, and understanding which appears in [reflective] thought; of understanding which had indeed existed before in the memory, but was latent there, although, unless the thought itself had also some sort of memory of its own, it would not return to those things which it had left in the memory while it turned to think of other things.

41. But I have shown nothing in this enigma respecting the Holy Spirit such as might appear to be like Him, except our own will, or love, or affection, which is a stronger will, since our will which we have naturally is variously affected, according as various objects are adjacent or occur to it, by which we are attracted or offended. What, then, is this? Are we to say that our will, when it is right, knows not what to desire, what to avoid? Further, if it knows, doubtless then it has a kind of knowledge of its own, such as cannot be without memory and understanding. Or are we to listen to any one who should say that love knows not what it does, which does not do wrongly? As, then, there are both understanding and love in that primary memory wherein we find provided and stored up that to which we can come in thought, because we find also those two things there, when we find by thinking that we both understand and love anything; which things were there too when we were not thinking of them: and as there are memory and love in that understanding, which is formed by thought, which true word we say inwardly without the tongue of any nation when we say what we know; for the gaze of our thought does not return to anything except by remembering it, and does not care to return unless by loving it: so love, which combines the vision brought about in the memory, and the vision of the thought formed thereby, as if parent and offspring, would not know what to love rightly unless it had a knowledge of what it desired, which it cannot have without memory and understanding.

CAPUT XXI.

40. De proposita similitudine Patris et Filii in memoria et intelligentia nostra. De similitudine Spiritus sancti in voluntate seu amore nostro. Sane Deum Patrem, et Deum Filium, id est, Deum genitorem qui omnia quae substantialiter habet, in coaeterno sibi Verbo suo dixit quodam modo, et ipsum Verbum ejus Deum, qui nec plus nec minus aliquid habet etiam ipse substantialiter, quam quod est in illo qui Verbum non mendaciter sed veraciter genuit; quemadmodum potui, non ut illud jam facie ad faciem, sed per hanc similitudinem in aenigmate (I Cor. XIII, 12) quantulumcumque conjiciendo videretur in memoria et intelligentia mentis nostrae, significare curavi: memoriae tribuens omne quod scimus, etiamsi non inde cogitemus, intelligentiae vero proprio modo quodam cogitationis informationem. Cogitando enim quod verum invenerimus, hoc maxime intelligere dicimur, et hoc quidem in memoria rursus relinquimus. Sed illa est abstrusior profunditas nostrae memoriae, ubi hoc etiam primum cum cogitaremus invenimus, et gignitur intimum verbum, quod nullius linguae sit, tanquam scientia de scientia, et visio de visione, et intelligentia quae apparet in cogitatione, de intelligentia quae in memoria jam fuerat, sed latebat: quanquam et ipsa cogitatio quamdam suam memoriam nisi haberet, non reverteretur 1089 ad ea quae in memoria reliquerat, cum alia cogitaret.

41. De Spiritu autem sancto nihil in hoc aenigmate quod ei simile videretur ostendi, nisi voluntatem nostram, vel amorem seu dilectionem quae valentior est voluntas: quoniam voluntas nostra quae nobis naturaliter inest, sicut ei res adjacuerint vel occurrerint, quibus allicimur aut offendimur, ita varias affectiones habet. Quid ergo, est? Numquid dicturi sumus voluntatem nostram, quando recta est, nescire quid appetat, quid evitet? Porro si scit, profecto inest ei sua quaedam scientia, quae sine memoria et intelligentia esse non possit. An vero audiendus est quispiam dicens, charitatem nescire quid agat, quae non agit perperam? Sicut ergo inest intelligentia, inest dilectio illi memoriae principali, in qua invenimus paratum et reconditum ad quod cogitando possumus pervenire; quia et duo ista invenimus ibi, quando nos cogitando invenimus et intelligere aliquid et amare, quae ibi erant et quando inde non cogitabamus: et sicut inest memoria, inest dilectio huic intelligentiae quae cogitatione formatur; quod verbum verum sine ullius gentis lingua intus dicimus, quando quod novimus dicimus; nam nisi reminiscendo non redit ad aliquid, et nisi amando redire non curat nostrae cogitationis intuitus: ita dilectio quae visionem in memoria constitutam, et visionem cogitationis inde formatam quasi parentem prolemque conjungit, nisi haberet appetendi scientiam, quae sine memoria et intelligentia non potest esse, quid recte diligeret ignoraret.