On the Trinity 1.1–1.6

Whoever reads what we are about to discuss concerning the Trinity ought first to know that our pen is on guard against the false charges of those who despise the beginning of faith and are deceived by an untimely and perverse love of reason. Some of them try to carry over to incorporeal and spiritual things what they have learned of bodily things, whether by experience through the bodily senses, or by the natural quickness of human talent and diligence, or with the help of technical skill, so that they wish to measure and conceive of the former by the latter. There are others again who think of God, if they think at all, according to the nature or the feelings of the human mind; and from this error, when they argue about God, they fasten distorted and deceptive rules upon their speech. There is yet another class of men, those who strive indeed to rise above the whole creation, which is certainly changeable, so as to lift their attention to the unchangeable substance which is God; but, weighed down by the burden of mortality, since they both wish to seem to know what they do not know and cannot know what they wish to know, they shut off from themselves the paths of understanding by too boldly affirming the presumptions of their own opinions, choosing rather not to correct their perverse view than to change one they have defended. And this indeed is the disease of all the three classes I have set out: of those, namely, who think of God according to the body; of those who think of him according to a spiritual creature, such as the soul is; and of those who think of him neither according to the body nor according to a spiritual creature, and yet hold false opinions about God, being the further from the truth in that what they think is found neither in body, nor in a made and created spirit, nor in the Creator himself. For he who supposes God to be, for example, white or red is mistaken; yet these things are found in body. Again, he who supposes God now to forget and now to remember, or anything of this kind, is nonetheless in error; yet these things are found in the mind. But he who thinks that God is of such power that he begot himself errs the more, because not only is God not so, but neither is any spiritual or bodily creature: for there is no thing whatever that begets itself so as to exist. So, in order that the human mind might be cleansed of falsehoods of this kind, holy Scripture, suiting itself to little ones, has avoided words from no class of things, so that by them, as if by steps, our understanding, nourished as it were, might rise to divine and lofty things. For it has used words taken from bodily things when speaking of God, as when it says, "Protect me in the shelter of your wings." And from the spiritual creature it has transferred many expressions, to signify what is not so in fact but needed to be said so; such as, "I am a jealous God"; and, "I repent that I made man." But from things that do not exist at all it has drawn no terms with which to frame figures of speech or to weave riddles. Hence those who are shut out from the truth by that third kind of error, by suspecting of God what can be found neither in him nor in any creature, vanish into a more pernicious emptiness. For with things that are found in the creature divine Scripture is accustomed to fashion something like the amusements of children, so that the feelings of the weak might be moved, as it were step by step according to their small measure, to seek higher things and abandon lower ones. But what is said properly of God and is found in no creature divine Scripture rarely sets down; such as what was said to Moses, "I am who I am"; and, "He who is has sent me to you." For since both body and mind are said in some way to be, Scripture would certainly not have said this unless it wished it to be understood in a certain proper sense. So too what the Apostle says, "who alone has immortality": since the soul also is said to be, and is, in a certain way immortal, he would not say "alone has" unless true immortality were unchangeableness, which no creature can have, since it belongs to the Creator alone. James says this too: "Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of movement." So too David: "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same." Therefore it is difficult to behold and fully know the substance of God, which makes changeable things without any change in itself, and creates temporal things without any temporal movement of its own. And so the cleansing of our mind is necessary, by which that ineffable reality may be ineffably seen; not yet possessing this cleansing, we are nourished by faith and led along certain more bearable paths, so that we may be made fit and able to grasp it. Hence the Apostle says that in Christ indeed all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden; yet to those who, though already reborn by his grace, were still carnal and soulish, like little ones in Christ, he commended him not from the divine power in which he is equal to the Father, but from the human weakness from which he was crucified. For he says: "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Then he continues: "And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling." And a little later he says to them: "And I, brothers, could not speak to you as spiritual, but as carnal. As little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not able." When this is said to some people, they grow angry and think it is said to insult them; and very often they prefer to believe that those from whom they hear it have nothing to say, rather than that they themselves cannot grasp what those have said. And sometimes we offer them a reason, not the one they ask for when they inquire about God, since they are not able to take it in, and perhaps we are not able either to grasp it or to set it forth, but one by which it may be shown to them how unfit and unsuited they are to perceive what they demand. But because they do not hear what they want, they think either that we are acting cunningly to hide our ignorance, or maliciously because we begrudge them knowledge; and so they go away indignant and upset.

Therefore, with the help of the Lord our God, we will undertake, as far as we can, to give the very account they demand: that the Trinity is the one, only, and true God, and how rightly the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are said, believed, and understood to be of one and the same substance or essence; so that they may not be mocked, as it were, by our excuses, but may find by experience both that this is the highest good, which is seen by the most cleansed minds, and that it cannot be seen and grasped by them because the eye of the human mind is too weak to be fixed on so surpassing a light unless it is nourished and invigorated through the righteousness of faith. But first it must be shown, according to the authority of the holy Scriptures, whether the faith is so. Then, if God wills and helps, we will perhaps serve these talkative reasoners, who are more puffed up than capable and therefore suffer from a more dangerous disease, so that they may find something they cannot doubt, and for that reason, where they have been unable to find something, may complain of their own minds rather than of the truth itself or of our arguments; and so, if they have any love or fear toward God, they may return to the beginning and order of faith, now perceiving how wholesomely the medicine of the faithful has been established in the holy Church, so that godliness, faithfully kept, may heal the weak mind for the perception of unchangeable truth, lest disordered rashness hurl it into the opinion of harmful falsehood. Nor shall I be reluctant to inquire wherever I hesitate, nor ashamed to learn wherever I err.

Accordingly, whoever reads this, where he is equally certain, let him go on with me; where he equally hesitates, let him inquire with me; where he recognizes his own error, let him return to me; where he recognizes mine, let him call me back. So let us enter together on the way of love, making for him of whom it is said, "Seek his face always." And I would make this pious and safe agreement, before the Lord our God, with all who read what I write, in all my writings, and above all in these, where the unity of the Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is sought; for nowhere is error more dangerous, nor is anything sought with more labor, nor anything found with more profit. Whoever, then, says when he reads, "This is not well said, because I do not understand it," finds fault with my expression, not with the faith; and perhaps it could indeed have been said more plainly; yet no man has ever spoken so as to be understood by everyone in everything. Let him, then, who is displeased by this in my discourse see whether he understands others who have dealt with such matters and questions when he does not understand me; and if so, let him put down my book, or even throw it away if he likes, and spend his effort and time on those he understands. Yet let him not think that I ought therefore to have kept silent, because I could not express myself as readily and clearly as those he understands. For not everything that everyone writes comes into everyone's hands; and it may be that some who are able to understand even these writings of ours do not find those plainer books, and at least come upon these. And so it is useful that several books should be written by several authors, in different styles but not with a different faith, even on the same questions, so that the matter itself may reach as many as possible, some in this way and others in that. But if the one who complains that he has not understood these things has never been able to understand anything carefully and acutely argued on such matters, let him deal with himself by prayers and study so that he may make progress, not with me by complaints and abuse so that I may fall silent. But whoever, reading this, says, "I understand what has been said, but it has not been said truly," let him assert his own view, if he pleases, and refute mine if he can. If he does this with love and truth, and takes care to make it known to me as well (if I remain in this life), I shall have reaped the richest fruit of this labor. And if he cannot make it known to me, he will have done a service, with my good will and pleasure, to those to whom he can. I, however, meditate on the law of the Lord, if not day and night, at least in such small portions of time as I can; and I bind my meditations with the pen so that they may not slip away through forgetfulness, hoping in the mercy of God that he will make me persevere in all the truths that are certain to me; and if I think otherwise in anything, he himself will reveal that to me as well, whether by hidden inspirations and admonitions, or by his own plain words, or by conversations with the brothers. This I pray for, and this trust and desire of mine I keep with him who is well able to guard what he has given and to give back what he has promised. I suppose indeed that some slower readers will think, in some places in my books, that I held what I did not hold, or did not hold what I did hold. Who does not know that their error ought not to be laid to my charge, if, following me as it were but not grasping me, they have strayed into some falsehood while I am forced to pick my way through certain dense and dark places? For no one could rightly attribute to the holy authorities of the divine books themselves the many and various errors of the heretics, since they all try to defend their false and deceptive opinions from the same Scriptures. The law of Christ, that is, love, plainly admonishes me and commands me with a most gentle command that, when men think that I have held something false in my books which I did not hold, and that same falsehood displeases one and pleases another, I should prefer to be blamed by the one who blames the falsehood rather than praised by the one who praises it. For by the former, although I am not rightly blamed, since I did not hold it, yet the error itself is rightly censured; but by the latter neither am I rightly praised, being thought to have held what the truth censures, nor is the opinion itself that the truth censures. So in the name of the Lord let us take up the work we have undertaken.

All the catholic interpreters of the divine books of the Old and New Testaments whom I have been able to read, who wrote before me on the Trinity, which is God, intended to teach according to the Scriptures that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the inseparable equality of one and the same substance, imply a divine unity; and therefore they are not three gods but one God, although the Father has begotten the Son, and so the Son is not he who is the Father; and the Son is begotten of the Father, and so the Father is not he who is the Son; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, himself also coequal with the Father and the Son and belonging to the unity of the Trinity. Yet it was not that same Trinity that was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified and buried under Pontius Pilate, rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor was it that same Trinity that descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when he was baptized, or that on the day of Pentecost, after the Lord's ascension, when a sound came from heaven as of a mighty wind rushing, sat upon each one of them in divided tongues as of fire, but only the Holy Spirit. Nor was it that same Trinity that said from heaven, "You are my Son," whether when he was baptized by John, or on the mountain when the three disciples were with him, or when the voice sounded saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again"; but it was only the voice of the Father, addressed to the Son; although the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as they are inseparable, so also work inseparably. This is also my faith, since this is the catholic faith.

But some are troubled by this faith when they hear that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet this Trinity is not three gods but one God; and they ask how they are to understand it, especially when it is said that the Trinity works inseparably in everything that God works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father sounded which is not the voice of the Son; that only the Son was born in the flesh, suffered, rose again, and ascended into heaven; and that only the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. They want to understand how the Trinity made that voice which was the Father's alone; how the same Trinity created that flesh in which the Son alone was born of the Virgin; and how that very Trinity produced that form of a dove in which the Holy Spirit alone appeared. Otherwise, they say, the Trinity does not work inseparably, but the Father does some things, the Son others, and the Holy Spirit others; or if they do some things together and some without one another, then the Trinity is no longer inseparable. It also troubles them how the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity, whom neither the Father nor the Son nor both have begotten, though he is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. Since, then, people ask these things and weary us with them, let us, if our weakness has any wisdom on this from the gift of God, explain it to them as we can, and let us not travel with consuming envy. If we say that we are not accustomed to think about such matters at all, we lie; but if we confess that these things dwell in our thoughts, because we are carried away by the love of searching out the truth, they demand by the right of love that we show them what we have been able to think out on the matter: not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect (for if the apostle Paul did not think he had attained, how much less do I, lying far below his feet?), but according to my small measure, if I forget what lies behind and stretch forward to what lies ahead, and press on according to my aim toward the prize of the upward call. How much of that way I have traveled, and where I have arrived, from which the rest of the course to the end remains for me, I am asked to disclose by those whom free love compels me to serve. And it must be, and God will grant it, that in ministering to them what they may read I too may make progress, and that in desiring to answer those who ask, I too may find what I was seeking. So I have undertaken these things, at the command and with the help of the Lord our God, not so much to discuss with authority what is known, as to come to know it by discussing it with reverence.

Those who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or not true God, or not one and the only God with the Father, or not truly immortal because changeable, have been refuted by the most evident and harmonious voice of the divine testimonies. From these come the words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." For it is plain that by the Word of God we understand the only Son of God, of whom he says afterward, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," on account of the birth of his incarnation, which took place in time from the Virgin. And in this passage he declares not only that he is God but also that he is of the same substance as the Father; for after saying, "And the Word was God," he says, "He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made." For by "all things" he means only those things that were made, that is, the whole creation. Hence it clearly appears that he through whom all things were made was not himself made. And if he was not made, he is not a creature; and if he is not a creature, he is of the same substance as the Father. For every substance that is not God is a creature, and every substance that is not a creature is God. And if the Son is not of the same substance as the Father, then he is a made substance; if he is a made substance, then not all things were made through him; but all things were made through him; therefore he is of one and the same substance with the Father. And so he is not only God, but also true God. The same John says this most plainly in his Epistle: "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know the true God, and be in his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." From this it is also understood, in consequence, that the apostle Paul said "who alone has immortality" not only of the Father but of the one and only God, which is the Trinity itself. For eternal life itself is not mortal through any changeableness; and therefore the Son of God, because he is eternal life, is himself also understood together with the Father where it is said, "who alone has immortality." For we too, made partakers of his eternal life, are made immortal in our small measure. But the eternal life of which we are made partakers is one thing; we who by partaking of it shall live forever are another. For even if he had said, "whom at the proper time the blessed Father and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will reveal, who alone has immortality," not even so would the Son have to be understood as separated from this. For when the Son himself, speaking elsewhere with the voice of Wisdom (for he is himself the Wisdom of God), says, "I alone have compassed the circuit of heaven," he did not separate the Father from himself. How much less, then, is it necessary that what is said, "who alone has immortality," be understood of the Father only, apart from the Son, since it is said thus: "that you keep the commandment without stain, without reproach, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the blessed and only Sovereign will show at the proper time, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or can see; to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." In these words neither the Father is named specifically, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit; but "the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords," which is the one, only, and true God, the Trinity itself. Unless perhaps what follows will disturb this understanding, because he said, "whom no man has seen or can see," although this too is taken as belonging to Christ according to his divinity, which the Jews did not see, though they saw and crucified his flesh. But the divinity cannot in any way be seen by human sight; it is seen by that sight by which those who see are no longer men but beyond men. Rightly, then, God the Trinity himself is understood to be "the blessed and only Sovereign," who shows the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ at the proper time. For "alone has immortality" is said in the same way as it is said, "who alone does wonders." I should like to know of whom they take this to be said. If of the Father only, how then is it true what the Son himself says, "For whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise"? Is there anything among wonders more wonderful than to raise and give life to the dead? Yet the same Son says, "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will." How, then, does the Father alone do wonders, since these words allow us to understand neither the Father only nor the Son only, but certainly the one only true God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Again, when the same apostle says, "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him," who would doubt that he means all things that were created, as John does with "All things were made through him"? I ask, therefore, of whom he speaks in another place: "For from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen." For if of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that each phrase is assigned to each person, "from him" from the Father, "through him" through the Son, "in him" in the Holy Spirit, then it is plain that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, since he added in the singular, "to him be glory for ever and ever." For where he began this thought, he does not say, "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge" of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, but "of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, that it should be repaid to him? For from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen." But if they want this to be understood of the Father only, how then are all things through the Father, as is said here, and all things through the Son, as where he says to the Corinthians, "and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," and as in the Gospel of John, "All things were made through him"? For if some things were made through the Father and others through the Son, then not all things were made through the Father, nor all through the Son. But if all things were made through the Father and all through the Son, then the same things were made through the Father as through the Son. The Son, therefore, is equal to the Father, and the working of the Father and the Son is inseparable. For if the Father made even the Son, whom the Son himself did not make, then not all things were made through the Son; but all things were made through the Son; therefore he himself was not made, so that with the Father he might make all things that were made. And yet the Apostle has not kept silent even about the word itself, but has said most plainly, "who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God," here calling the Father "God" in the proper sense, as elsewhere, "and the head of Christ is God." Likewise testimonies have also been gathered concerning the Holy Spirit, which those who discussed these matters before us have used more fully, showing that he too is God and not a creature. And if he is not a creature, he is not only God (for men too have been called gods), but also true God. He is therefore wholly equal to the Father and the Son, and consubstantial and coeternal in the unity of the Trinity. But it is made especially clear that the Holy Spirit is not a creature by the passage where we are commanded to serve not the creature but the Creator: not in the way in which we are commanded to serve one another through love, which in Greek is douleuein, but in the way in which God alone is served, which in Greek is latreuein. Hence those who show to images the service that is owed to God are called idolaters. For it is according to this service that it is said, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." For this is found even more distinctly in the Greek Scripture, which has latreuseis. Now if we are forbidden to serve the creature with such service, since it is said, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve" (which is why the Apostle also condemns those who worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator), then the Holy Spirit is certainly not a creature, to whom such service is shown by all the saints, as the Apostle says, "For we are the circumcision, who serve the Spirit of God," which in the Greek is latreuontes. For many Latin manuscripts also have it thus, "who serve the Spirit of God," and all the Greek ones, or nearly all. But in some Latin copies we find not "we serve the Spirit of God" but "we serve God in the spirit." But those who err on this point and refuse to yield to the weightier authority, do they find a variant in the manuscripts here too: "Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" And what is more insane and more sacrilegious than for anyone to dare to say that the members of Christ are the temple of a creature which, according to them, is lesser than Christ? For in another place he says, "Your bodies are members of Christ." But if what are members of Christ are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not a creature; for to whom we offer our body as a temple, to him we must owe that service with which God alone is to be served, which in Greek is called latreia. Hence he says in consequence, "Glorify God, therefore, in your body."