On the Trinity 11.7–12.5

Now in the other trinity, which is indeed more inward than this one in sensible things and the senses, but yet is conceived from it, when it is no longer the bodily sense that is formed from the body but the mind's gaze that is formed from the memory, the appearance of the body which we perceived outside having fastened itself in the memory, we call that appearance which is in the memory, as it were, the parent of the one that comes about in the imagination of one thinking. For it was in the memory even before it was thought of by us, just as the body was in its place even before it was perceived so that vision came about. But when it is thought of, it is expressed from the one which the memory holds in the gaze of the one thinking, and by remembering that appearance is formed which is, as it were, the offspring of the one the memory holds. But neither is that a true parent nor this a true offspring. For the mind's gaze, which is formed from the memory when we think of something by recollecting it, does not proceed from that appearance which we remember having seen; for we could not remember those things unless we had seen them; but the mind's gaze which is formed by remembering existed even before we saw the body we remember; how much more before we committed it to memory? Although, then, the form which comes about in the gaze of the one remembering comes about from that which is in the memory, yet the gaze itself does not arise from it but existed before it. And it follows that, if that is not a true parent, neither is this a true offspring. But both that “as it were parent” and this “as it were offspring” suggest something by which inner and truer things may be seen with more practice and more certainty. It is now plainly harder to discern whether the will which joins the vision to the memory is not either the parent or the offspring of one of them; and this difficulty of distinguishing is caused by the parity and equality of the same nature and substance. For it cannot be done here as it was outside, where the formed sense was easily distinguished from the sensible body, and the will from both, because of the difference of nature in all three from one another, of which we have spoken enough above. For although this trinity which is now being examined was brought into the mind from outside, yet it is carried on within, and nothing of it is outside the nature of the mind itself. How, then, can it be shown that the will is neither as it were the parent nor as it were the offspring, either of the bodily likeness contained in the memory or of the one expressed from it when we remember, since in thinking it so joins the two that they appear as one, singly, and cannot be distinguished except by reason? And this must first be seen: there cannot be a will to remember unless we hold in the recesses of the memory either the whole or some part of the thing we want to remember. For of what we have forgotten in every way and in every part, not even the will to remember arises; since whatever we want to recall, we have already recalled that it is or was in our memory. For example, if I want to recall what I had for supper yesterday, either I have already recalled that I had supper, or, if not even this yet, I have certainly recalled something about that time, if nothing else, at least the day of yesterday itself, and that part of it in which one usually has supper, and what having supper is. For if I had recalled nothing of the kind, I could not want to recall what I had for supper yesterday. From this it can be understood that the will to remember proceeds indeed from those things which are contained in the memory, together with those which are expressed from there by seeing them in recollection; that is, from the joining of some thing which we have recalled and of the vision which was made from it in the gaze of the one thinking when we recalled it. But the will itself which joins the two seeks also something else which is, as it were, neighboring and adjacent to the one remembering. There are, then, as many trinities of this kind as there are recollections; for there is none of them in which these three are not present: that which is stored in the memory even before it is thought of, and that which comes about in thought when it is seen, and the will joining the two and, from the two and itself as the third, completing one thing. Or is there rather one trinity recognized in this kind, so that we speak of whatever bodily appearances lie hidden in the memory as, in general, one thing, and again of the vision of the mind recalling and thinking of such things as, in general, one thing, and to the joining of these two the will is added as the third, the one that joins, so that this whole is one thing made of three?

But since the mind's gaze cannot behold at once, with one look, all that the memory holds, the trinities of thoughts alternate, giving way to and succeeding one another in turn; and so this trinity becomes innumerably numerous, yet not infinite, if the number of things stored in the memory is not exceeded. For from the time each person began to perceive bodies by any bodily sense, even if he could add those he has forgotten, there would certainly be a fixed and determinate number, although innumerable. For we call innumerable not only things that are infinite but also things so finite that they exceed the ability of the one counting. But from this it can be noticed somewhat more clearly that what the memory holds stored is one thing, and what is expressed from it in the thought of the one remembering is another, although when the two are joined they seem one and the same; for we can remember the appearances of bodies only as many as we perceived, and as large as we perceived, and as we perceived them; for the mind drank them into the memory from the bodily sense; yet those visions of those who think, though drawn from the things that are in the memory, are multiplied and varied innumerably and altogether without limit. For I remember one sun, because, as it is, I saw one; but if I wish, I think of two, or three, or as many as I wish; yet the gaze of the one thinking of many is formed from the same memory by which I remember one. And I remember it as large as I saw it. For if I remember it larger or smaller than I saw it, I no longer remember what I saw, and so I do not remember. But because I remember, I remember it as large as I saw it; yet I think of it larger, at will, or smaller; and I remember it as I saw it, but I think of it as I wish, running, and standing where I wish, coming from where I wish and to where I wish. It is easy for me to think of it as square, though I remember it as round; and of any color, though I have never seen a green sun and so do not remember one; and as with the sun, so with other things. But since these forms of things are bodily and sensible, the mind errs when we suppose them to be outside in the same way as it thinks them within, whether when they have already perished outside and are still retained in memory, or when what we remember is formed otherwise, not by the faithfulness of recollection but by the variety of thinking. Very often, however, we also believe people who tell us true things which they themselves have perceived by the senses. When we think of these things in the very hearing as they are told, the gaze does not seem to be turned back to the memory so that the visions of thinkers come about; for we think of them not as we remember them but as another tells them; and that trinity does not seem to be completed here which comes about when the appearance hidden in the memory and the vision of the one remembering are joined by the will as the third. For when something is told me, I think not of what lay hidden in my memory but of what I hear. I do not mean the very sounds of the speaker, lest anyone think I have gone off into that trinity which is carried on outside in sensible things and in the senses; but I think of those appearances of bodies which the narrator signifies by words and sounds; which I certainly think of not by remembering but by hearing. But if we consider more carefully, even then the limit of memory is not exceeded. For I could not even understand the narrator if I did not remember, in a general way, each of the things he says, even if I were hearing them put together for the first time. For whoever tells me, for example, of some mountain stripped of its forest and clothed with olive trees, tells it to one who remembers the appearances of mountains and forests and olive trees; and if I had forgotten these, I would not know at all what he was saying, and so I could not think of that narrative. So it is that everyone who thinks of bodily things, whether he makes something up himself, or hears or reads someone narrating past things or foretelling future ones, runs back to his own memory and finds there the limit and measure of all the forms he looks at in thinking. For no one can think at all of a color he has never seen, or a shape of body, or a sound he has never heard, or a taste he has never tasted, or a smell he has never smelled, or any touching of a body he has never felt. But if no one thinks of anything bodily except what he has perceived, because no one remembers anything bodily except what he has perceived, then, as the limit of perceiving is in bodies, so the limit of thinking is in the memory. For the sense receives the appearance from the body we perceive, and the memory from the sense, and the gaze of the one thinking from the memory. And the will, as it joins the sense to the body, so it joins the memory to the sense, and the gaze of the one thinking to the memory. And the same thing that brings these together and joins them also disjoins and separates them, that is, the will. But it separates the bodily senses from the bodies to be perceived by a movement of the body, so that we may not perceive something or may cease to perceive it: as when we turn our eyes away from what we do not want to see, or close them; so the ears from sounds, so the nostrils from smells. So too, either by closing the mouth or by spitting something out of the mouth, we turn away from tastes. In touch also we either withdraw the body so as not to touch what we do not want, or, if we were already touching it, we throw it off or push it away. So the will acts by a movement of the body so that the bodily sense may not be joined to sensible things. And it does this as far as it can; for when in this action it suffers difficulty because of the condition of servile mortality, torment follows, so that nothing is left to the will but endurance. And the will turns the memory away from the sense when, intent on something else, it does not let things present cling to it. This is easy to notice, since often, when someone is speaking in our presence and we are thinking of something else, we seem to ourselves not to have heard. But that is false: for we heard, but we do not remember, since the words slipped at once through the sense of the ears while the inclination of the will, by which they are usually fixed in the memory, was turned elsewhere. So when something of this kind happens, we would more truly say, “We do not remember,” than, “We did not hear.” For it also happens to readers, and very often to me, that when I have read through a page or a letter I do not know what I have read, and read it again. For since the inclination of the will was intent on something else, the memory was not applied to the bodily sense in the way that the sense itself was applied to the letters. So too people walking with their will intent on something else do not know where they have passed; whereas if they had not seen, they would not have walked, or would have walked feeling their way with greater attention, especially if they were going through unknown places; but because they walked easily, they certainly saw; yet because the memory was not joined to the sense itself as the sense of the eyes was joined to the places wherever they went, they could in no way remember what they saw, even very recently. And further, to wish to turn the mind's gaze away from what is in the memory is nothing else than not to think of it.

In this arrangement, then, when we begin from the appearance of the body and come as far as the appearance which comes about in the gaze of the one thinking, four appearances are found, born as it were by steps one from another: the second from the first, the third from the second, the fourth from the third. For from the appearance of the body that is seen arises that which comes about in the sense of the one seeing; and from this, that which comes about in the memory; and from this, that which comes about in the gaze of the one thinking. Therefore the will joins, as it were, parent with offspring three times: first the appearance of the body with that which it begets in the bodily sense; and that again with the one which comes about from it in the memory; and this too, thirdly, with the one which is born from it in the gaze of the one thinking. But the middle joining, which is the second, although it is nearer, is not so like the first as the third is. For there are two visions: one of the one perceiving, the other of the one thinking. But in order that there may be a vision of the one thinking, something like it comes about in the memory from the vision of the one perceiving, to which the mind's gaze may turn in thinking as the gaze of the eyes turns to a body in seeing. For this reason I wanted to commend two trinities of this kind: one, when the vision of the one perceiving is formed from the body; the other, when the vision of the one thinking is formed from the memory. But I did not want to commend the middle one, because it is not usually called vision when the form which comes about in the sense of the one seeing is committed to memory. Yet everywhere the will appears only as the one joining, as it were, parent and offspring. And so, from wherever it proceeds, it can be called neither parent nor offspring.

But if we remember only what we have perceived, and think only of what we remember, why do we often think false things, although we certainly do not remember falsely what we have perceived? Is it not because that will, which I have already taken care to show as far as I could to be what joins and separates things of this kind, leads the gaze of the one thinking, to be formed, through the hidden places of memory as it pleases, and drives it, in order to think of things we do not remember, to take from the things we do remember one thing from here and another from there; and these, coming together into one vision, make something which is called false because either it does not exist outside in the nature of bodily things, or it does not seem to be expressed from the memory, since we remember having perceived nothing of the kind? For who has seen a black swan? And so no one remembers one; yet who cannot think of one? For it is easy to pour a black color over that shape which we have come to know by seeing, a color we have nevertheless seen in other bodies; and because we have perceived both, we remember both. Nor do I remember a four-footed bird, because I have not seen one; but I behold such an image very easily, when to some winged form such as I have seen I add two more feet such as I have likewise seen. Therefore, when we think of things joined together which we remember having perceived separately, we seem not to think of what we remember, although we do it under the governance of the memory, from which we take everything that we put together in many and various ways according to our will. For we do not think even of the very sizes of bodies which we have never seen without the help of memory. For as much space as our gaze usually takes in across the greatness of the world, so far do we extend any masses of bodies when we think of them as very great. And reason indeed goes on to greater things, but imagination does not follow. For reason declares even the infinity of number, which no vision of one thinking of bodily things grasps. The same reason teaches that even the tiniest bodies are infinitely divisible; yet when we have come to those fine and minute things which we remember having seen, we can no longer behold slenderer and more minute images, although reason does not cease to pursue and divide. So we think of no bodily things except either those we remember or those made from what we remember.

But since things that have been impressed on the memory one by one can be thought of in great numbers, measure seems to belong to the memory and number to the vision. For although the multiplicity of such visions is innumerable, yet for each one in the memory a limit has been prescribed which cannot be passed. Measure, then, appears in the memory, number in the visions; just as in visible bodies themselves there is a certain measure, to which the sense of those who see is fitted in very great numbers, and from one visible thing the gaze of many who see it is formed; so that even one person, because of the number of the two eyes, often sees one thing with a doubled appearance, as we showed above. In the things, then, from which visions are expressed there is a certain measure; but in the visions themselves, number. And the will, which joins and orders these, and binds them by a certain unity, and which places the desire of perceiving or thinking, resting it nowhere but in the things from which the visions are formed, is like weight. Therefore I would have given a foretaste of these three, measure, number, weight, as things to be noticed in all other things as well. For now, I have shown as I was able, and by what means I was able, that the will which joins the visible thing and the vision, as it were parent and offspring, whether in perceiving or in thinking, can be called neither parent nor offspring. So the time reminds us to seek this same trinity in the inner man, and to move inward from this animal and carnal man, of whom I have spoken so long, who is called the outer man. There we hope we may be able to find the image of God according to the trinity, with our efforts helped by him who, as the things themselves show, so also holy Scripture testifies, has ordered all things in measure and number and weight.

Come now, let us see where there is, as it were, a kind of boundary between the outer and the inner man. For whatever we have in the mind in common with the beasts is still rightly said to belong to the outer man. For not the body alone will be reckoned the outer man, but joined with it a certain life of its own, by which the structure of the body and all the senses are active, with which it is equipped for perceiving outward things; and when the images of these perceptions, fixed in the memory, are seen again by recollection, it is still a matter that belongs to the outer man. And in all these things we do not differ from the beast, except that in the shape of the body we are not bent down but upright. In this we are admonished by him who made us not to be like the beasts in the better part of ourselves, that is, the mind, since we differ from them by the uprightness of the body. Not that we should throw the mind upon the things that are lofty among bodies; for to seek the rest of the will even in such things is to prostrate the mind. But just as the body is by nature raised upright toward the things that are highest among bodies, that is, toward the heavenly bodies, so the mind, which is a spiritual substance, is to be raised toward the things that are highest among spiritual things, not by the elation of pride but by the godliness of righteousness.

Now beasts too can both perceive bodily things outside through the senses of the body, and remember them when fixed in the memory, and among them seek what is advantageous and flee what is harmful. But to note them, and to retain them, not only as caught up naturally but also as deliberately committed to memory, and to impress them again by recollecting and thinking when they are already slipping into forgetfulness, so that, as thought is formed from what the memory bears, so too what is in the memory may be strengthened by thought; to compose imaginary visions as well, by taking things recalled from here and there and, as it were, sewing them together; to examine how in this kind of thing what is like the truth is distinguished from what is true, not in spiritual things but in bodily things themselves: these and suchlike things, although they are done and carried on among sensible things and among those which the mind has drawn from them through the bodily sense, are nevertheless not without reason, nor are they common to men and beasts. But it belongs to a higher reason to judge of these bodily things according to incorporeal and eternal reasons; which, unless they were above the human mind, would certainly not be unchangeable; and unless something of ours were placed beneath them, we could not judge of bodily things according to them. And we judge of bodily things by the reason of dimensions and figures, which the mind knows to remain unchangeably.

But that part of ours which is so engaged in the action of handling bodily and temporal things that it is not common to us with the beast is indeed rational, but it has been, as it were, drawn off from that rational substance of our mind by which we cling to the intelligible and unchangeable truth, and assigned to handling and governing lower things. For just as among all the beasts no helper like the man was found for him unless one taken from him were formed to be his wife, so for our mind, by which we consult the higher and inner truth, there is no helper like it, for the use of bodily things, as much as suffices for man's nature, among the parts of the soul which we have in common with the beasts. And so something rational of ours, not separated so as to divorce the unity but, as it were, drawn off to help the partnership, is divided off for the duty of its own work. And as there is one flesh of two in male and female, so one nature of the mind embraces our understanding and action, or counsel and execution, or reason and rational appetite, or whatever other more expressive way they can be named; so that, as it was said of those, “The two shall be in one flesh,” so it may be said of these, “Two in one mind.”

When, therefore, we discuss the nature of the human mind, we discuss one single thing, and we do not make it double in these two things I have mentioned except by their functions. And so, when we seek a trinity in it, we seek it in the whole, not separating rational action in temporal things from the contemplation of eternal things, so as to seek some third thing by which the trinity may be completed. But the trinity must be found in the whole nature of the mind in such a way that, even if the action concerned with temporal things were lacking, for which work a helper is necessary, for which reason something of the mind is drawn off to administer these lower things, a trinity would be found in the one mind, nowhere divided; and, once this distribution has been made, in that alone which belongs to the contemplation of eternal things there is found not only a trinity but also the image of God; whereas in that which has been drawn off into the action of temporal things, even if a trinity can be found, yet the image of God cannot.

Accordingly, those do not seem to me to put forward a likely opinion who think that the trinity of the image of God in three persons, as far as human nature is concerned, can be found in such a way that it is completed in the marriage of male and female and in their offspring: as though the man himself suggested the person of the Father, and the person of the Son that which proceeded from him so as to be born; and so they say that the third person, as of the Spirit, is the woman, who proceeded from the man in such a way that she was not herself a son or daughter, although it was by her conceiving that the offspring was born. For the Lord said of the Holy Spirit that he proceeds from the Father, and yet he is not a son. In the error of this opinion, then, this alone is put forward plausibly: that in the origin of the woman as she was made, according to the faith of holy Scripture, it is sufficiently shown that not everything that comes into being from some person in such a way as to make another person can be called a son; since the person of the woman came into being from the person of the man, and yet she was not called his daughter. The rest is indeed so absurd, or rather so false, that it is very easily refuted. For I pass over what it means to think the Holy Spirit the mother of the Son of God and the wife of the Father; for perhaps it may be answered that these things give offense only in carnal matters, while bodily conception and birth are thought of. Although even these very things are thought of most chastely by those to whom all things are pure; but to the impure and unbelieving, whose mind and conscience are defiled, nothing is pure, so much so that some of them are offended even that Christ was born of a virgin according to the flesh. But yet, in those highest spiritual things, where there is nothing that can be violated or corrupted, nothing born in time, nothing formed from the formless, if any such things are spoken of, after whose likeness even these kinds of the lower creation have been made, though at a very remote distance, they ought not to disturb anyone's sober prudence, lest, while he avoids a vain horror, he run into a pernicious error. Let him accustom himself so to find traces of spiritual things in bodily things that, when he has begun to ascend upward from there under the guidance of reason, so as to arrive at the unchangeable truth itself through which these things were made, he may not drag with him to the highest things what he despises in the lowest. For a certain man was not ashamed to choose wisdom for his wife, because the name of wife, in begetting offspring, suggests to the one thinking a corruptible union; nor indeed is wisdom itself of the female sex because it is expressed by a word of feminine gender in both the Greek and the Latin language.