Chapter 8.—The Trinity Which is the Image of God is Now to Be Sought in the Noblest Part of the Mind.

11. But we have come now to that argument in which we have undertaken to consider the noblest part of the human mind, by which it knows or can know God, in order that we may find in it the image of God. For although the human mind is not of the same nature with God, yet the image of that nature than which none is better, is to be sought and found in us, in that than which our nature also has nothing better. But the mind must first be considered as it is in itself, before it becomes partaker of God; and His image must be found in it. For, as we have said, although worn out and defaced by losing the participation of God, yet the image of God still remains.870    Supra, c. iv. For it is His image in this very point, that it is capable of Him, and can be partaker of Him; which so great good is only made possible by its being His image. Well, then, the mind remembers, understands, loves itself; if we discern this, we discern a trinity, not yet indeed God, but now at last an image of God. The memory does not receive from without that which it is to hold; nor does the understanding find without that which it is to regard, as the eye of the body does; nor has will joined these two from without, as it joins the form of the bodily object and that which is thence wrought in the vision of the beholder; nor has conception, in being turned to it, found an image of a thing seen without, which has been somehow seized and laid up in the memory, whence the intuition of him that recollects has been formed, will as a third joining the two: as we showed to take place in those trinities which were discovered in things corporeal, or which were somehow drawn within from bodily objects by the bodily sense; of all which we have discoursed in the eleventh book.871    Cc. 2 sq. Nor, again, as it took place, or appeared to do so, when we went on further to discuss that knowledge, which had its place now in the workings of the inner man, and which was to be distinguished from wisdom; of which knowledge the subject-matter was, as it were, adventitious to the mind, and either was brought thither by historical information,—as deeds and words, which are performed in time and pass away, or which again are established in the nature of things in their own times and places,—or arises in the man himself not being there before, whether on the information of others, or by his own thinking,—as faith, which we commended at length in the thirteenth book, or as the virtues, by which, if they are true, one so lives well in this mortality as to live blessedly in that immortality which God promises. These and other things of the kind have their proper order in time, and in that order we discerned more easily a trinity of memory, sight, and love. For some of such things anticipate the knowledge of learners. For they are knowable also before they are known, and beget in the learner a knowledge of themselves. And they either exist in their own proper places, or have happened in time past; although things that are past do not themselves exist, but only certain signs of them as past, the sight or hearing of which makes it known that they have been and have passed away. And these signs are either situate in the places themselves, as e.g. monuments of the dead or the like; or exist in written books worthy of credit, as is all history that is of weight and approved authority; or are in the minds of those who already know them; since what is already known to them is knowable certainly to others also, whose knowledge it has anticipated, and who are able to know it on the information of those who do know it. And all these things, when they are learned, produce a certain kind of trinity, viz. by their own proper species, which was knowable also before it was known, and by the application to this of the knowledge of the learner, which then begins to exist when he learns them, and by will as a third which combines both; and when they are known, yet another trinity is produced in the recollecting of them, and this now inwardly in the mind itself, from those images which, when they were learned, were impressed upon the memory, and from the informing of the thought when the look has been turned upon these by recollection, and from the will which as a third combines these two. But those things which arise in the mind, not having been there before, as faith and other things of that kind, although they appear to be adventitious, since they are implanted by teaching, yet are not situate without or transacted without, as are those things which are believed; but began to be altogether within in the mind itself. For faith is not that which is believed, but that by which it is believed; and the former is believed, the latter seen. Nevertheless, because it began to be in the mind, which was a mind also before these things began to be in it, it seems to be somewhat adventitious, and will be reckoned among things past, when sight shall have succeeded, and itself shall have ceased to be. And it makes now by its presence, retained as it is, and beheld, and loved, a different trinity from that which it will then make by means of some trace of itself, which in passing it will have left in the memory: as has been already said above.

CAPUT VIII.

11. Trinitas quae imago Dei, jam quaerenda in principali mentis parte. Nunc vero ad eam jam pervenimus disputationem, ubi principale mentis humanae, quo novit Deum vel potest nosse, considerandum suscepimus, ut in eo reperiamus imaginem Dei. Quamvis enim mens humana non sit ejus naturae cujus est Deus: imago tamen naturae ejus qua natura melior nulla est, ibi quaerenda et invenienda est in nobis, quo etiam natura nostra nihil habet melius. Sed prius mens in se ipsa consideranda est antequam sit particeps Dei, et in ea reperienda est imago ejus. Diximus enim eam etsi amissa Dei participatione obsoletam atque deformem, Dei tamen imaginem permanere (Supra, cap. 4). Eo quippe ipso imago ejus est, quo ejus capax est, ejusque particeps esse potest; quod tam magnum bonum, nisi per hoc quod imago ejus est, non potest . Ecce ergo mens meminit sui, intelligit se, diligit se: hoc si cernimus, cernimus trinitatem; nondum quidem Deum, sed jam imaginem Dei. Non forinsecus accepit memoria quod teneret, nec foris invenit quod aspiceret intellectus, sicut corporis oculus: nec ista duo, velut formam corporis, et eam quae inde facta est in acie contuentis, voluntas foris junxit: nec imaginem rei quae foris visa est, quodam modo raptam et in memoria reconditam cogitatio cum ad eam converteretur, invenit, et inde formatus est recordantis obtutus, jungente utrumque tertia voluntate: sicut in eis ostendebamus trinitatibus fieri, quae in rebus corporalibus reperiebantur, vel ex corporibus per sensum corporis introrsus quodam modo trahebantur; de quibus omnibus in libro 1045 undecimo disseruimus (Capp. 2 et seqq.): nec sicut fiebat vel apparebat, quando de illa scientia disserebamus, jam in hominis interioris operibus constituta, quae distinguenda fuit a sapientia; unde quae sciuntur, velut adventitia sunt in animo, sive cognitione historica illata, ut sunt facta et dicta, quae tempore peraguntur et transeunt, vel in natura rerum suis locis et regionibus constituta sunt, sive in ipso homine quae non erant oriuntur, aut aliis docentibus aut cogitationibus propriis, sicut fides, quam plurimum in libro tertio decimo commendavimus; sicut virtutes, quibus, si verae sunt, in hac mortalitate ideo bene vivitur, ut beate in illa quae divinitus promittitur immortalitate vivatur. Haec atque hujusmodi habent in tempore ordinem suum, in quo nobis trinitas memoriae visionis et amoris facilius apparebat. Nam quaedam eorum praeveniunt cognitionem discentium. Sunt enim cognoscibilia, et antequam cognoscantur, suique cognitionem in discentibus gignunt. Sunt autem vel in locis suis, vel quae tempore praeterierunt: quamvis quae praeterierunt, non ipsa sint, sed eorum quaedam signa praeteritorum, quibus visis vel auditis cognoscantur fuisse atque transisse. Quae signa vel in locis sita sunt, sicut monumenta mortuorum, et quaecumque similia: vel in litteris fide dignis, sicut est omnis gravis et approbandae auctoritatis historia: vel in animis eorum qui ea jam noverunt; eis quippe jam nota, et aliis utique sunt noscibilia, quorum scientiam praevenerunt, et qui ea nosse, illis quibus nota sunt docentibus, possunt. Quae omnia, et quando discuntur, quamdam faciunt trinitatem, specie sua quae noscibilis fuit etiam antequam nosceretur, eique adjuncta cognitione discentis quae tunc esse incipit quando discitur, ac tertia voluntate quae utrumque conjungit. Et cum cognita fuerint, alia trinitas, dum recoluntur, fit jam interius in ipso animo, ex iis imaginibus quae cum discerentur sunt impressae in memoria, et informatione cogitationis ad ea converso recordantis aspectu, et ex voluntate quae tertia duo ista conjungit. Ea vero quae oriuntur in animo ubi non fuerunt, sicut fides, et caetera hujusmodi, etsi adventitia videntur, cum doctrina inseruntur; non tamen foris posita vel foris peracta sunt, sicut illa quae creduntur; sed intus omnino in ipso animo esse coeperunt. Fides enim non est quod creditur, sed qua creditur: et illud creditur, illa conspicitur. Tamen quia esse coepit in animo, qui jam erat animus antequam in illo ista esse coepisset, adventitium quiddam videtur, et in praeteritis habebitur, quando succedente specie jam esse destiterit: aliamque nunc trinitatem facit per suam praesentiam, retenta, conspecta, dilecta; aliam tunc faciet per quoddam sui vestigium, quod in memoria praeteriens de reliquerit, sicut jam supra dictum est.