On the Trinity 2.16–3.2

There is also something by which many are usually troubled: that it is written, "And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend," while a little later the same Moses says, "If, then, I have found favor before you, show me yourself plainly, that I may see you, that I may find favor before you, and that I may know that this nation is your people"; and a little later again Moses said to the Lord, "Show me your majesty." What is this? In all the things that were done above, God was thought to be seen through his substance, which is why the Son of God was believed by wretched men to be visible not through a creature but through himself; and Moses' going into the dark cloud seemed to have been for this purpose, that a cloudy darkness should be shown to the eyes of the people while he, within, heard the words of God as though contemplating his face; and so it is said, "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." And see, the same man says, "If I have found favor before you, show me yourself plainly." He certainly knew what he was seeing bodily, and he was seeking the true vision of God spiritually. For that speech which took place in voices was so tempered as if it were a friend speaking to a friend. But who sees God the Father with bodily eyes? And who sees with bodily eyes the Word that was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, through whom all things were made? And who sees with bodily eyes the Spirit of wisdom? And what is "Show me yourself plainly, that I may see you," except "Show me your substance"? If Moses had not said this, the fools who think that through the things said or done above the substance of God was visible to his eyes might be borne with somehow; but since it is shown most plainly here that this was not granted even to him who desired it, who would dare to say that through similar forms, which had appeared visibly to him too, not a creature serving God but the very thing that God is appeared to the eyes of any mortal? And there is also what the Lord afterward says to Moses: "You cannot see my face and live; for man shall not see my face and live. And the Lord said: Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand upon the rock, as soon as my majesty passes by; and I will put you in a lookout of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by; and I will take away my hand, and then you will see my back parts; for my face will not appear to you."

This is usually understood, not unfittingly, as a prefiguring in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that his back parts are taken to be his flesh, in which he was born of the Virgin, and died, and rose again; whether they are called back parts on account of the posteriority of mortality, or because he deigned to take it near the end of the age, that is, later; while his face is that form of God in which he did not think it robbery to be equal to God the Father, which certainly no one can see and live: whether because after this life, in which we are away from the Lord and where the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, we shall see face to face, as the Apostle says (for of this life it is said in the Psalms, "Surely every living man is altogether vanity," and again, "For no living man shall be justified before you"; in which life also, according to John, "it has not yet appeared what we shall be. But we know," he says, "that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"; which he certainly wished to be understood of after this life, when we have paid the debt of death and received the promise of the resurrection); or because even now, insofar as we understand spiritually the Wisdom of God through which all things were made, so far do we die to carnal affections, so that, counting this world dead to us, we too die to this world and say what the Apostle says, "The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." For of this death he also said, "If you have died with Christ, why do you still decide, as though living, about this world?" Not without reason, then, will no one be able to see the face, that is, the very manifestation of the Wisdom of God, and live. For this is the beauty for whose contemplation everyone sighs who aspires to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; and to whose contemplation he who loves his neighbor as himself also builds up his neighbor as far as he can; on which two commandments the whole Law and the Prophets depend. This is signified also in Moses himself. For when, out of the love of God with which he chiefly burned, he had said, "If I have found favor in your sight, show me yourself plainly, that I may find favor before you," he at once added, out of the love of neighbor too, "and that I may know that this nation is your people." That, then, is the beauty which ravishes every rational soul with desire for it, the more ardent the purer it is, and the purer the more it rises to spiritual things, and the more it rises to spiritual things the more it dies to carnal ones. But while we are away from the Lord and walk by faith, not by sight, we ought to see the back parts of Christ, that is, his flesh, by that very faith; that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, and looking at it from such a most safe lookout, namely in the catholic Church, of which it is said, "And upon this rock I will build my Church." For the more surely we love the face of Christ that we desire to see, the more we recognize in his back parts how much Christ first loved us. But in that flesh it is faith in his resurrection that saves and justifies: "For if you believe in your heart," he says, "that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved"; and again, "Who was handed over," he says, "for our offenses, and rose again for our justification." And so the reward of our faith is the resurrection of the Lord's body. For even his enemies believe that that flesh died on the cross of the passion, but they do not believe that it rose again. Believing this most firmly, we look upon it as from the solidity of the rock; from which with sure hope we await the adoption, the redemption of our body, because we hope for this in the members of Christ, which we ourselves are, which by soundness of faith we know to be perfected in him as in our head. Hence he does not want his back parts to be seen except when he has passed by, so that his resurrection may be believed. For Pascha is said to be a Hebrew word, which is translated "passing over." Hence John the evangelist too says, "Before the feast of the Pascha, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should pass from this world to the Father." But those who believe this, yet believe it not in the Catholic Church but in some schism or heresy, do not see the Lord's back parts from the place that is by him. For what does the Lord mean when he says, "Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand upon the rock"? What earthly place is by the Lord, unless that is by him which reaches him spiritually? For what place is not by the Lord, who reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly, and of whom it is said, "Heaven is his throne, and the earth the footstool of his feet," and who said, "What house will you build for me? Or what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?" But clearly the place by him, in which one stands upon the rock, is understood to be the catholic Church itself, where he who believes in his resurrection sees savingly the Pascha of the Lord, that is, the passing over of the Lord, and his back parts, that is, his body. "And you shall stand," he says, "upon the rock, as soon as my majesty passes by." For in truth, as soon as the majesty of the Lord passed by in the glorification of the Lord, by which, rising again, he ascended to the Father, we were made firm upon the rock. And Peter himself was then made firm, so that he preached with confidence him whom, before he was made firm, he had denied three times out of fear; already indeed placed by predestination in the lookout of the rock, but still with the Lord's hand laid over him so that he should not see. For he was going to see his back parts, and he had not yet passed by, that is, from death to life; he had not yet been glorified by the resurrection. For as to what follows in Exodus, where it says, "I will cover you with my hand until I pass by, and I will take away my hand, and then you will see my back parts": many Israelites, of whom Moses was then a figure, believed in him after the Lord's resurrection, as if now seeing his back parts, his hand having been removed from their eyes. Hence the evangelist also recalls this prophecy of Isaiah: "Make the heart of this people fat, and stop their ears, and make their eyes heavy." Finally, in the Psalm it is not absurdly understood to be said in their person, "For day and night your hand was heavy upon me." By day perhaps, when he was doing manifest miracles and was not recognized by them; but by night, when he was dying in his passion, when they thought more surely that he had been destroyed and extinguished like any man. But since, when he had passed by so that his back parts might be seen, they were pierced with the sorrow of repentance as the apostle Peter preached to them that the Christ had to suffer and rise again, so that there came to pass in the baptized what is said at the head of that Psalm, "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered"; therefore, after it had been said, "Your hand was heavy upon me," as if the Lord were passing by, so as now to remove his hand and his back parts to be seen, there follows the voice of one grieving and confessing and receiving the forgiveness of sins from faith in the Lord's resurrection: "I was turned," he says, "in my distress, while the thorn was fixed in me. I acknowledged my sin, and my unrighteousness I did not cover. I said, I will declare my unrighteousness against myself to the Lord; and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart." For we ought not to be wrapped in such a cloud of the flesh as to think that the face of the Lord is invisible but his back visible, since in the form of a servant both appeared visibly; but in the form of God far be it that any such thing be thought; far be it that the Word of God and the Wisdom of God should have a face on one side and a back on the other, like a human body, or be changed at all in any appearance or motion, whether in place or in time. Therefore, if in those voices that were made in Exodus, and in all those bodily manifestations, the Lord Jesus Christ was shown, or sometimes Christ, as consideration of this passage persuades, and sometimes the Holy Spirit, as what we said above suggests, it does not follow from this that God the Father never appeared to the fathers in any such form. For many such appearances took place in those times without the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit being evidently named and designated in them, yet with certain indications present through some very probable significations, so that it would be too rash to say that God the Father never appeared to the fathers or the prophets through any visible forms. For that opinion was produced by those who could not understand in the unity of the Trinity what is said, "Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God," and "whom no man has seen or can see"; which by sound faith is understood of that highest and supremely divine and unchangeable substance itself, where the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and only God. But those visions were made through a changeable creature subject to the unchangeable God, showing God not as he properly is, but by way of signification, as the causes and times of things required.

And yet I do not know how these people understand that the Ancient of Days appeared to Daniel, from whom the Son of Man, which he deigned to be for our sake, is understood to have received the kingdom; from him, namely, who says to him in the Psalms, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance," and who has put all things under his feet. If, then, both the Father giving the kingdom and the Son receiving it appeared to Daniel in bodily form, how do these people say that the Father was never seen by the prophets, and that therefore he alone ought to be understood as invisible, whom no man has seen or can see? For Daniel narrated thus: "I beheld," he says, "until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat; and his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire, his wheels burning fire, and a river of fire flowed before him. And a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. And he set the judgment, and the books were opened," and so on. And a little later: "I beheld," he says, "in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there was one coming like a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of Days and was brought before him. And to him was given dominion and honor and the kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him. His power is an everlasting power, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be corrupted." See, the Father giving and the Son receiving an everlasting kingdom, and both are in the sight of the prophet in visible form. It is not unfitting, then, to believe that God the Father too was accustomed to appear to mortals in this way. Unless perhaps someone will say that the Father is not visible because he appeared in the sight of one dreaming, but that the Son and the Holy Spirit are visible because Moses saw all those things awake. As though Moses had seen the Word and Wisdom of God with carnal eyes, or as though even the human spirit that gives life to this flesh could be seen, or even that bodily spirit which is called wind; how much less that Spirit of God which surpasses the minds of all men and angels by the ineffable excellence of the divine substance! Or would anyone be hurled into such an error as to dare to say that the Son and the Holy Spirit are visible even to men awake, but the Father only to men dreaming? How, then, do they take "whom no man has seen or can see" of the Father alone? Or when men sleep, are they not then men? Or can he who can form a likeness of a body to signify himself through the visions of dreamers not form the bodily creature itself to signify himself to the eyes of those awake, when his very substance, by which he is what he is, cannot be shown by any likeness of body to one asleep, nor by any bodily appearance to one awake? And this holds not only of the Father but also of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And certainly those who are moved by the visions of men awake to believe that not the Father but only the Son or the Holy Spirit appeared to the bodily sight of men (to pass over the great breadth of the holy pages and the so manifold understanding of them, from which no one of sound mind ought to affirm that the person of the Father was nowhere shown to the eyes of men awake through some bodily appearance; but to pass over this, as I said), what do they say of our father Abraham, to whom, certainly awake and serving, after Scripture had said by way of preface, "The Lord appeared to Abraham," not one or two but three men appeared, none of whom is said to have stood out above the others more loftily, none to have shone with more honor, none to have acted with more authority? Therefore, since in that threefold division of ours we set out first to ask whether it was the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit; or sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit; or without any distinction of persons, as God is called one and only, that is, the Trinity itself, that appeared to the fathers through those forms of the creature: having examined such passages of the holy Scriptures as we could, as far as seemed sufficient, nothing else, I think, is urged by a modest and cautious consideration of the divine mysteries than that we should not rashly say which person of the Trinity appeared to any of the fathers or prophets in some body or likeness of a body, except when the context of the reading supplies some probable indications. For the very nature, or substance, or essence, or by whatever other name that which God is is to be called, whatever it is, cannot be seen bodily; but it must be believed that through a subject creature not only the Son or the Holy Spirit but also the Father could give a signification of himself to mortal senses in bodily form or likeness. Since this is so, lest the length of this second volume should run on too immoderately, let us look at what remains in the books that follow.

Let those who wish believe that I would rather labor at reading than at dictating things to be read. But let those who do not wish to believe this, and are able and willing to make the trial, give me what may be read in answer either to my own inquiries or to the questions of others, which, on account of the role I bear in the service of Christ and the zeal with which I burn that our faith be defended against the error of carnal and soulish men, I must needs endure; and let them see how readily I would refrain from this labor, and with how much joy I could let my pen rest. But if what we have read on these matters either has not been sufficiently set forth in the Latin language, or is not to be found, or at least can be found by us only with difficulty, and we have not so much familiarity with the Greek language as to be found in any way fit to read and understand books on such matters in it (though from the few things of that kind of literature that have been translated for us, I do not doubt that it contains everything that we can usefully seek); and if I am not able to resist the brothers who demand, by the right by which I have been made their servant, that I serve their praiseworthy studies in Christ above all with my tongue and pen, the two horses of the chariot that love drives in me, and I myself confess that by writing I have learned many things I did not know: then this labor of mine ought not to seem superfluous to anyone idle or to anyone very learned, since it is necessary, in no small part, to many who are diligent and to many who are unlearned, among whom I count myself. Greatly supported and helped, then, by what we have already read that others have written on this subject, I have undertaken those things concerning the Trinity, the one supreme and supremely good God, which I think can be piously inquired into and discussed, with him exhorting me to inquire and helping me to discuss; so that, if there are no other writings of this kind, there may be something for those who wish and are able to have and read; and if there are already, then some may be found the more easily, the more such writings there can be. Indeed, while in all my writings I desire not only a devout reader but also a free corrector, I desire this most of all in these, where the very greatness of the question would that it could have as many discoverers as it has opponents! Yet just as I do not want my reader to be devoted to me, so I do not want my corrector to be devoted to himself. Let the one not love me more than the catholic faith; let the other not love himself more than the catholic truth. As I say to the one, "Do not defer to my writings as if they were the canonical Scriptures; but in those, when you have found what you did not believe, believe it without hesitation, while in these, what you did not hold as certain, do not hold firmly unless you have understood it to be certain"; so I say to the other, "Do not correct my writings from your own opinion or contentiousness, but from the divine reading or unshaken reason. If you grasp anything true in them, it is not mine by existing, but by understanding and loving it let it be both yours and mine; but if you convict anything false, it was mine by erring, but now by guarding against it let it be neither yours nor mine." Let this third book, then, take its beginning from where the second had reached. For when we had come to the point of wishing to show that the Son is not less than the Father because the one sent and the other was sent, nor the Holy Spirit less than both because he is read in the Gospel to have been sent by the one and by the other, we undertook to ask this: since the Son was sent to where he was, because he came into this world and was in this world, and since the Holy Spirit too was sent to where he himself was, since "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of the voice," whether the Lord was sent because he was born in the flesh from hiddenness and appeared, as if going out from the bosom of the Father, to the eyes of men in the form of a servant; and the Holy Spirit too for this reason, because he too was seen in bodily form as a dove and in divided tongues as of fire; so that for them to be sent was to proceed from spiritual secrecy into the sight of mortals in some bodily form; and since the Father did not do this, he is said only to have sent, not also to have been sent. Then it was asked why the Father too is not sometimes said to have been sent, if he himself was shown through those bodily appearances that appeared to the eyes of the ancients. But if the Son was shown then, why would he be said to be sent so long afterward, when the fullness of time came, that he should be born of a woman, since he was being sent before too, when he appeared bodily in those forms? Or if he could not rightly be said to be sent except when the Word became flesh, why is the Holy Spirit read to have been sent, of whom no such incarnation took place? But if through those ancient manifestations neither the Father nor the Son but the Holy Spirit was shown, why would he too now be said to be sent, when he was being sent in those ways before as well? Then we subdivided it, so that these things might be treated most carefully, and made the question threefold, one part of which has been unfolded in the second book; two remain, which I shall now proceed to discuss. For it has already been asked and treated that in those ancient bodily forms and visions it was not only the Father, nor only the Son, nor only the Holy Spirit that appeared, but either the Lord God without distinction, who is understood to be the Trinity itself, or any person of the Trinity whom the text of the reading might signify by the surrounding indications.

Now, then, let us first inquire into what comes next. For in that division the second place was given to this: whether a creature was formed only for this work, in which God might be shown to human sight as he then judged fitting; or whether angels, who already existed, were sent in such a way as to speak in the person of God, taking a bodily appearance from bodily creation for the use of their ministry, or changing and turning their own body, to which they are not subject but which they rule as subject to them, into whatever appearances they wished, suited and fit for their actions, according to the power given them by the Creator. When this part of the question has been treated, as far as the Lord grants, we must finally see what we had set out to inquire into: whether the Son and the Holy Spirit were sent before as well; and if so, what difference there is between that sending and the one we read of in the Gospel; or whether neither of them was sent except when either the Son was made of the Virgin Mary or the Holy Spirit appeared in visible form, whether in the dove or in fiery tongues. But I confess that it exceeds the powers of my attention whether the angels, while the spiritual quality of their body remains, working more hiddenly through it, take from the lower, more corpulent elements something which, fitted to themselves like a garment, they change and turn into any bodily appearances they please, even real ones, as real water was turned into real wine by the Lord; or whether they transform their own proper bodies into what they will, suited to what they are doing. But whichever of these it is, it does not concern the present question. And although, since I am a man, I cannot grasp these things by any experience, as the angels who do them can, and they know them better than I know how far my body is changed by the affection of my will, whether from what I have experienced in myself or from others, yet which of these I believe on the authority of the divine Scriptures there is no need to say now, lest I be forced to prove it and the discussion grow longer on a matter the present question does not need. What must now be seen is whether it was angels who then produced both those appearances of bodies seen by the eyes of men and those voices sounding in their ears, when the perceptible creature itself, serving the Creator at his bidding, was turned into what was needed for the time; as it is written in the book of Wisdom: "For the creation, serving you its maker, is strained to punish the unrighteous, and is relaxed to do good to those who trust in you. Therefore then too, transforming itself into all things, it served your grace that nourishes all, according to the will of those who longed for you." For the power of the will of God reaches through the spiritual creature even to the visible and perceptible effects of the bodily creature. For where does the wisdom of almighty God not work what it wills, which reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly?

But there is a natural order in the conversion and changeableness of bodies, which, although it too serves at the bidding of God, has lost the power to cause wonder through the constancy of custom: such are the things that change in heaven, on earth, and in the sea at very short or at least not long intervals of time, whether things being born, or perishing, or appearing now in one way and now in another. Other things, though they too come from that order, are less usual because of longer intervals of time. Although many are amazed at these, they have been understood by the investigators of this world, and the more often they are repeated in the course of generations and known by more people, the less wonderful they are. Such are eclipses of the luminaries, certain appearances of stars that occur rarely, earthquakes, monstrous births of living creatures, and anything of the kind; none of which happens except by the will of God, but to most people this does not appear. And so the vanity of the philosophers was free to attribute them to other causes as well: either true ones, but proximate, since they could not at all see the cause above all the others, that is, the will of God; or false ones, put forward not even from the investigation of bodily things and motions, but from their own suspicion and error. I will state something, if I can, by way of example, so that these things may be clearer. There is certainly in the human body a certain mass of flesh, a form and appearance, an order and distinction of members, and a balance of health. This body is ruled by a soul breathed into it, and that a rational one; and therefore, although changeable, it is one that can partake of that unchangeable Wisdom, so that its participation is "in the selfsame," as it is written in the Psalm of all the saints, of whom, as of living stones, that Jerusalem is built, our eternal mother in the heavens. For thus it is sung: "Jerusalem, which is built as a city, whose participation is in the selfsame." For "the selfsame" is understood in this place as that highest and unchangeable good which God is, and his wisdom and will. To him it is sung in another place: "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the selfsame."