On the Trinity 15.26–15.28

Further, in that supreme Trinity which is God there are no intervals of time by which it could be shown, or even asked, whether the Son was first born of the Father and afterwards the Holy Spirit proceeded from both; since holy Scripture calls him the Spirit of both. For he is the one of whom the apostle says, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts”; and he is the one of whom the Son himself says, “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” And by many other testimonies of the divine oracles it is proved that the Spirit who in the Trinity is properly called the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son; of whom likewise the Son himself says, “whom I shall send you from the Father,” and in another place, “whom the Father will send in my name.” And that he proceeds from both is taught thus: the Son himself says, “He proceeds from the Father”; and when he had risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” to show that he proceeds from him too. And this is the power that went out from him, as we read in the Gospel, and healed all.

As for the reason why after his resurrection he first gave the Holy Spirit on earth and afterwards sent him from heaven, I think it is this: that through this gift love is poured out in our hearts, by which we love God and neighbor, according to those two commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. Signifying this, the Lord Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit twice: once on earth, for love of neighbor, and again from heaven, for love of God. And if perhaps another reason is given for the Holy Spirit being given twice, still we must not doubt that the same Holy Spirit was given when Jesus breathed on them, of whom he soon said, “Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” where this Trinity is most clearly commended. He it is, then, who was also given from heaven on the day of Pentecost, that is, ten days after the Lord ascended into heaven. How, then, is he not God who gives the Holy Spirit? Rather, how great a God is he who gives God! For none of his disciples gave the Holy Spirit. They prayed that he might come upon those on whom they laid hands; they did not give him themselves. This custom the Church still keeps in its leaders. Finally, Simon Magus too, offering the apostles money, did not say, “Give me also this power, that I may give the Holy Spirit,” but, “that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” For neither had Scripture said above, “Now Simon, seeing that the apostles gave the Holy Spirit,” but it had said, “Now Simon, seeing that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given.” For this reason the Lord Jesus himself not only gave the Holy Spirit as God but also received him as man; therefore he was called full of grace and of the Holy Spirit. And more plainly it is written of him in the Acts of the Apostles: “Because God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.” Not, certainly, with visible oil, but with the gift of grace, which is signified by the visible ointment with which the Church anoints the baptized. Nor indeed was Christ anointed with the Holy Spirit at the time when the Spirit descended upon him as a dove after his baptism; for then he deigned to prefigure his body, that is, his Church, in which especially the baptized receive the Holy Spirit; but he is to be understood to have been anointed with that mystical and invisible anointing when the Word of God became flesh, that is, when human nature, without any preceding merits of good works, was joined to God the Word in the womb of the virgin, so as to become one person with him. For this reason we confess him born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. For it is most absurd to believe that he received the Holy Spirit when he was already thirty years old (for at that age he was baptized by John); rather, as he came to baptism without any sin at all, so he came not without the Holy Spirit. For if it was written of his servant and forerunner John himself, “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb,” since, though begotten by his father, he yet received the Holy Spirit when formed in the womb, what is to be understood or believed of the man Christ, the very conception of whose flesh was not carnal but spiritual? In what is written of him too, that he received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured it out, both natures are shown, the human and the divine: he received as man, he poured out as God. We can receive this gift according to our small measure, but we certainly cannot pour it out upon others; rather, that this may be done, we call upon God, by whom it is brought about, over them.

Can we, then, ask whether the Holy Spirit had already proceeded from the Father when the Son was born, or had not yet proceeded, and when the Son was born proceeded from both, where there are no times? We could ask this where we found times: whether will first proceeds from the human mind, so that something may be sought which, when found, is to be called offspring; and when this offspring has been brought forth or begotten, that will is completed, resting in that end, so that what had been the desire of the seeker becomes the love of the enjoyer, which now proceeds from both, that is, from the begetting mind and the begotten notion, as from parent and offspring. These things simply cannot be asked there, where nothing is begun in time so as to be completed in a following time. Therefore whoever can understand the generation of the Son from the Father without time, let him understand the procession of the Holy Spirit from both without time. And whoever can understand, in what the Son says, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself,” not that the Father gave life to a Son already existing without life, but that he so begot him without time that the life which the Father gave the Son by begetting him is coeternal with the life of the Father who gave it, let him understand that, as the Father has in himself that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him, so he has given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit proceeds from him, and both without time; and that the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father in such a way that it is understood that his proceeding also from the Son is something the Son has from the Father. For if whatever he has the Son has from the Father, he certainly has from the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him too. But let no times be thought of there, which have before and after, for there are none there at all. How, then, would he not most absurdly be called the son of both, when, as generation from the Father gives essence to the Son without beginning in time and without any change of nature, so procession from both gives essence to the Holy Spirit without any beginning in time and without any change of nature? For although we do not call the Holy Spirit begotten, we do not dare to call him unbegotten either, lest by this word anyone suspect either two fathers in that Trinity, or two who are not from another. For the Father alone is not from another, and therefore he alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of those who dispute and who utter what speech they can about so great a matter. But the Son is born of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds principally from the Father, and, since the Father gives this without any interval of time, in common from both. He would be called the son of the Father and the Son if (which is abhorrent to the sense of all sound minds) both had begotten him. He is not, then, begotten by both, but proceeds from both as the Spirit of both.

But since in that coeternal, equal, incorporeal, ineffably unchangeable and inseparable Trinity it is most difficult to distinguish generation from procession, let it suffice meanwhile, for those who cannot stretch further, to have what we said on this matter in a sermon delivered to the ears of the Christian people, and wrote down after saying it. For among other things, when I had taught by testimonies of the holy Scriptures that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, I said: “If, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, ‘He proceeds from the Father’? Why, do you think, except as he is accustomed to refer even what is his own to him from whom he himself is? Hence also is what he says, ‘My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.’ If, then, it is understood here to be his teaching, which he nevertheless said was not his but the Father's, how much more must it be understood there that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him too, where he says, ‘He proceeds from the Father,’ in such a way as not to say, ‘He does not proceed from me’? From whom the Son has it that he is God (for he is God from God), from him he certainly has it that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him too; and therefore the Holy Spirit has it from the Father himself that he proceeds also from the Son, as he proceeds from the Father. Here also it is understood in some way, as far as it can be understood by such as we are, why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born but rather to proceed: since if he too were called a son, he would certainly be called the son of both, which is most absurd. For no one is a son of two except of father and mother. Far be it that we should suspect anything of the kind between God the Father and God the Son. For not even a son of men proceeds at the same time from both father and mother; but when he proceeds from the father into the mother, he does not then proceed from the mother; and when he proceeds from the mother into this light, he does not then proceed from the father. But the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father into the Son, and from the Son proceed to sanctify the creature; but he proceeds from both at once, although the Father has given this to the Son, that as he proceeds from himself, so he proceeds from him too. For we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is not life, since the Father is life and the Son is life; and therefore, as the Father, having life in himself, has given to the Son also to have life in himself, so he has given him that life should proceed from him, as it also proceeds from himself.” This I have transferred from that sermon into this book, but there I was speaking to the faithful, not to unbelievers.

But if they are not fit to behold this image and to see how true are these things which are in their mind, which are not three in such a way as to be three persons, but all three belong to a man who is one person, why do they not believe about that supreme Trinity which is God what is found in the sacred Writings, rather than demand that a most clear reason be given them, which the human mind, slow and weak as it is, does not grasp? And surely, when they have believed the holy Scriptures unshakeably as most truthful witnesses, let them strive by praying and seeking and living well to understand, that is, so that what is held by faith may be seen by the mind as far as it can be seen. Who would forbid this? Indeed, who would not urge it? But if they think these things should be denied because they cannot discern them with blind minds, then those blind from birth ought to deny that the sun exists. The light, then, shines in the darkness; and if the darkness does not comprehend it, let them first be enlightened by God's gift to be faithful, and begin to be light in comparison with unbelievers; and with this foundation laid, let them be built up to see what they believe, so that at some time they may be able to see. For there are things so believed that they can no longer be seen at all. For Christ is not to be seen again on the cross; but unless this is believed, that it was so done and seen that it is not hoped to be done and seen again, one does not come to Christ as he is to be seen without end. But as for discerning in some way by understanding that supreme, ineffable, incorporeal, and unchangeable nature, the gaze of the human mind, provided only that the rule of faith guides it, exercises itself nowhere better than in that which man himself has in his nature better than the other animals, better also than the other parts of his own soul, which is the mind itself; to which a certain sight of invisible things has been granted, and to which, as it presides honorably in a higher and inner place, even the bodily senses report all things to be judged; and than which there is nothing higher, to which it is to be subject and by which it is to be ruled, except God.

But among these many things which I have now said, in which I dare not profess to have said anything worthy of the ineffability of that supreme Trinity, but rather confess that his knowledge is made wonderful from me and has prevailed, and that I cannot reach it: O my soul, where do you feel yourself to be, where do you lie, where do you stand, until he who has become merciful to all your iniquities heals all your diseases? You recognize, surely, that you are in that inn to which the Samaritan brought the man whom he found half dead from the many wounds inflicted by robbers. And yet you have seen many true things, not with these eyes by which colored bodies are seen, but with those for which he prayed who said, “Let my eyes see what is right.” Surely, then, you have seen many true things, and distinguished them from that light by whose shining you saw them: lift your eyes to the light itself and fix them on it, if you can. For so you will see how the birth of the Word of God differs from the procession of the Gift of God, for which reason the only-begotten Son said that the Holy Spirit is not begotten of the Father (otherwise he would be his brother) but proceeds. Hence, since the Spirit of both is a certain consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son, he is not called (far be it) the son of both. But you cannot fix your gaze there so as to discern this clearly and plainly; I know, you cannot. I speak the truth, I speak to myself, I know what I cannot do. Yet that light has shown you in yourself those three in which you might recognize an image of that supreme Trinity which you cannot yet contemplate with fixed eyes. It has shown you that there is a true word in you, when it is begotten from your knowledge, that is, when we speak what we know, although we neither utter nor think any significant sound in the language of any nation, but our thought is formed from what we know; and there is in the gaze of the one thinking an image most like that knowledge which memory contained, with a third, will or love, joining these two as parent and offspring. And that this will proceeds from thought (for no one wills what he does not know at all, what or of what kind it is), yet is not an image of thought, and that therefore some difference between birth and procession is suggested in this intelligible thing, since to behold by thought is not the same as to desire or even to enjoy by will: this he discerns and distinguishes who can. You too have been able to, though you have not been able, and are not able, to explain in adequate speech what you have scarcely seen amid the clouds of bodily likenesses, which never cease to rush into human thoughts. But that light which is not what you are showed you this also, that those incorporeal likenesses of bodies are one thing, and the truth which we behold by understanding when they are rejected is another: these and other things equally certain that light has shown to your inner eyes. What, then, is the cause why you cannot see it itself with fixed gaze, but surely weakness? And what made it so for you, but iniquity? Who, then, heals all your diseases, but he who becomes merciful to all your iniquities? I will, then, at last conclude this book better with prayer than with argument.

O Lord our God, we believe in you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Truth would not say, “Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” unless you were a Trinity. Nor would you, Lord God, command us to be baptized in the name of one who is not the Lord God. Nor would it be said by the divine voice, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God,” unless you were a Trinity in such a way as to be one Lord God. And if you, God, were yourself the Father, and were yourself the Son, your Word, Jesus Christ, and your Gift, the Holy Spirit, we would not read in the Writings of truth, “God sent his Son”; nor would you, O Only-begotten, say of the Holy Spirit, “whom the Father will send in my name,” and, “whom I shall send you from the Father.” Directing my attention to this rule of faith, as far as I could, as far as you made me able, I have sought you, and have desired to see with understanding what I believed, and I have argued much and labored. O Lord my God, my one hope, hear me, lest through weariness I be unwilling to seek you; but let me seek your face always, ardently. Give the strength to seek, you who have made me find you and have given the hope of finding you more and more. Before you are my strength and my weakness: preserve the one, heal the other. Before you are my knowledge and my ignorance: where you have opened to me, receive me as I enter; where you have shut, open to me as I knock. Let me remember you, understand you, love you. Increase these in me until you reform me wholly. I know it is written, “In much speaking you will not escape sin.” But would that I spoke only in preaching your word and praising you! Not only would I escape sin, but I would gain good merit, however much I spoke so. For a man blessed by you would not enjoin sin on his true son in the faith, to whom he wrote, saying: “Preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season.” Is it to be said that he did not speak much who kept not silent your word, Lord, not only in season but also out of season? But it was not much, because it was only what was necessary. Free me, O God, from the much speaking which I suffer inwardly in my soul, wretched in your sight and fleeing to your mercy. For I am not silent in thoughts, even when silent in words. And if I thought nothing but what pleased you, I would certainly not ask you to free me from this much speaking. But my thoughts are many, such as you know, the thoughts of men, since they are vain. Grant me not to consent to them, and even when they delight me, nevertheless to disapprove of them, and not to linger in them as if dozing. Nor let them have such power with me that anything in my works proceeds from them; but under your protection let at least my judgment be safe from them, and my conscience safe. A certain wise man, speaking of you in his book, which is now called by its own name Ecclesiasticus, says, “We say much, and do not attain; and the sum of our words is: He is all.” When, therefore, we have attained to you, these many things that we say without attaining will cease; and you will remain, one, all in all; and without end we shall say one thing, praising you in unity, made one in you ourselves too. O Lord, the one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of you, may your own also acknowledge; whatever is of me, may you and your own forgive. Amen.