On the Trinity 12.39–12.57

But the word of God and the teaching of true wisdom speaks perfect things and signifies complete things, teaching that she is prior not to temporal things but to infinite ones. For when the heaven was being prepared, she was present with God. Is the preparing of heaven temporal for God, so that a sudden movement of thought crept into a mind before torpid and dull, and he sought in human fashion the cost and instruments of building heaven? Yet the sense of another prophet about God's workings is this, when he says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth." Yet the heavens needed God's command to be made firm; for their furnishing and power, in this firmness of their undisturbed constitution, exist not from the tempering and mixing of some material, but from the breath of the divine mouth. What, then, does it mean that the Wisdom begotten by him was present with God preparing the heaven, when neither does the creation of heaven consist in preparation, nor is it of the nature of God to linger in the preparation of a planned work? For nothing that exists in things has not always been with God; things which, though they began as to their creation, were not begun as to God's knowledge or power. And the prophet is our witness, saying: "God, who made all things that are to be." For the things that are to be, though, in that they are to be created, they will still be made, are already made for God, for whom nothing in creating things is new or sudden: since there is a dispensation of times for their being created, and they have already been created in the foreknowing working of divine power. And therefore Wisdom, now teaching that she was born before the ages, teaches that she is prior not only to the things that have been created, but co-eternal with eternal things, namely the preparing of heaven and the setting apart of God's throne. For the throne was not set apart when it was made, because to set apart a throne is one thing and to arrange it another. Nor was the heaven prepared when it was prepared: for she was with the one preparing and setting apart. But afterwards she arranged together with the one making ready: showing her eternity when she is present with the one preparing, and her ministry when she arranges together with the one making ready. Therefore she now said also that she was begotten before earth, mountains, and hills, because she was teaching that she was present also at the preparing of heaven: to show that these things were already then made with God, when heaven was being prepared, through the fact that nothing is new to God.

For the preparation of things to be created is perpetual and eternal; and the body of this universe was not made by parts of thoughts, so that first heaven was thought of, then afterwards the care and handling of the earth entered God's mind, and it was thought out piece by piece: that it would first be spread out in a plain, then afterwards by better counsel be raised into mountains, again varied with hills, fourthly be made habitable even on the very heights; and heaven be prepared and God's throne set apart, and strong clouds on high hold the breathings of the winds; and then sure fountains flow under heaven, and lastly the earth be made firm with strong foundations. For Wisdom professes herself prior to each of all these. But since all things under heaven were made through God, and Christ was present at the setting in order of heaven, and precedes even the eternity of the prepared heaven, this does not allow piecemeal thoughts of small things to be supposed in God, because the whole preparation of these things is co-eternal with God. For although, according to Moses, the making firm of the firmament, the uncovering of the dry land, the gathering of the sea, the establishing of the stars, and the bringing forth of living creatures by the waters and the earth have their own dispensation, yet the creation of heaven, earth, and the other elements is not distinguished by even a slight moment of working; because their preparation stood with God in an equal infinity of eternity.

When Christ, then, was present with God in these infinite and eternal things, he allowed us only the knowledge of his birth: so that, as far as the understood birth of God would profit faith, so far the known eternity of the birth would avail for the religion we have taken up: because from the Father who is eternal neither reason nor sense admits anything but that an eternal Son be preached.

But the name and profession of creation disturbs us. Let the name of creation disturb us, by all means, if birth before the ages and creation for the beginning of God's ways and for his works are not both proclaimed. For birth cannot be taken for creation, since birth is before cause, but creation is through cause. For he who was created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works existed before the preparing of heaven and was founded before the age. Or is it of the same meaning to be created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works, and to be born before all things? Of these the one has time in its deeds, but the other contains a timeless understanding.

Or perhaps you would have "created for the works" understood to mean that it was created on account of the works: that is, that Christ was created for the sake of works to be done, so that he would remain rather a servant and workman of the world, not born the Lord of glory; and would be created for the service of making the age, not always be the Son of love and King of the ages? But although common understanding extinguishes this most impious sense of yours, because to be created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works is one thing, and to be born before the ages another, yet this same passage meets you, so that you would not falsely say that the Lord Christ was created for the working of the world, since it shows God the Father as the maker and worker of the universe. Safely so, indeed, because he himself was present with him who prepared all things, setting them in order. But although all Scripture would speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as the creator of the world, yet now Wisdom, to kill the occasion of impiety, professed God the Father as maker of the world, and taught that she was not absent from him as he made it, since she was present even with him preparing; and since the Father was making ready and Wisdom was setting in order with the one making ready, and was present also with the one preparing, through this very thing she would be understood not to have been created on account of the works, since she had been present at the eternal preparing of the future works; nor would she make Scripture a liar, since she set in order with the one making ready.

But at last, by the revelation of catholic teaching, learn, heretic, at the beginning, what it is that Christ was created for the beginning of God's ways and for his works; and learn from Wisdom's own words the folly of your impious dullness. For she began thus: "If I declare to you the things that are daily, I will remember to recount the things that are from the age"; for she had said before: "To you, O men, I appeal, and I send forth my voice to the sons of men. Understand cleverness, you simple; and you unlearned, apply your heart"; and again: "By me kings reign, and the powerful write justice. By me princes are magnified, and tyrants by me hold the earth"; and again: "I walk in the ways of equity, and I go about in the midst of the paths of justice, to divide substance to those who love me and fill their treasures with good things." Wisdom does not keep silent about her daily work. And first, appealing to all, she warns both the simple to understand cleverness and the unlearned to apply their heart, so that the earnest and diligent reader might weigh the distinct and separate force of the words. She teaches, then, that all things are done, understood, praised, and held by her own ways and ordinances; and shows that within her are contained the kingdoms of kings, the prudence of the powerful, the famous works of princes, and the right of tyrants who hold the earth; and that she herself is not mixed with iniquities nor present in injustices; and this so that, by intervening in all the works of equity and justice, she may supply to those who love her the wealth of eternal goods and incorrupt treasures. Having professed, then, that she would recount the things that are done daily, she promises that she will also remember to enumerate the things that are from the age. And now, what dullness of sense is it to think that things recalled as being "from the age" were done before the age? Because among the things that are from the age every work is after the age; but the things that are before the age precede the constitution of the age that is later than them. Having professed, then, that she would remember to tell the things that are from the age, Wisdom says: "The Lord created me for the beginning of his ways, for his works." This, then, is the signification of things done from the age; and it is the teaching not of a generation proclaimed before the ages, but of a dispensation begun from the age.

And we must ask what it is for God, born before the ages, to be created again for the beginning of God's ways and for his works. For where there is birth before the age, there is the eternity of an infinite generation; but where there is creation from the age, the same for the ways of God and for his works, the cause of creation is fitted to the works and ways. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether he himself is the beginning of the way of God's works. Nor, I think, is it doubted; for he says: "I am the way"; and: "No one goes to the Father except through me." A way is the guide of those who go, the course of those who hasten, the security of the ignorant, and a kind of teacher of things unknown and desired. He is created, then, for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God, because he is both the way and leads to the Father. But the reason of this creation, which is from the age, must be sought. For it is the mystery of the last dispensation, by which, created even in the body, he professed himself the way of God's works. And he was created for the ways of God from the age when, made subject to the creature for a visible appearance, he took up the condition of creation.

Let us see, then, for what ways of God and for what works the Wisdom born from God before the ages was created from the ages. Adam heard the voice of one walking in paradise. Do you think the step of one walking was heard except in the appearance of a creation taken up, so that he who was heard walking stood in some created form? I do not ask in what form he spoke to Cain and Abel and Noah, and in what form he was present blessing Enoch. An angel speaks to Hagar; and surely the same is God. Is he of the same appearance when he is seen as an angel as he is in that nature by which he is God? Certainly the appearance of an angel is shown where afterwards the nature of God is mentioned. But why should I speak of the angel? A man came to Abraham. Does Christ stand there, in the condition of this creation as a man, such as he is as God? But a man speaks, stands in a body, is fed with food; and yet God is worshipped. Certainly he who before was an angel is now also a man, so that the very diversity of this creation taken up would not allow this to be understood as the natural appearance of God. He is present also to Jacob in human condition, even to the grip of wrestling; he joins hands, strains with limbs, bends with his sides, and stands in every movement and step of ours. But the same is afterwards shown to Moses as fire, so that you might learn that faith in a created nature was then for the appearance rather than for the substance of the nature. He had in himself then the power of burning, yet did not take up the natural necessity of consuming, because the blazing of fire appeared without harm to the bush.

Run through the times and understand how he was seen: by Joshua son of Nun, the prophet of his name; by Isaiah, who proclaims, with the testimony of the Gospel too, that he was seen; by Ezekiel, taken up even to the knowledge of the resurrection; by Daniel, confessing the Son of Man in the eternal kingdom of the ages; and by all the others, to whom he showed himself in the condition of a varied creation, for the ways of God and for the works of God, that is, for the knowledge of God and the advance of our eternity. Why now does this dispensation of human salvation work so impious an insult to the eternal birth? This creation is from the ages; but the infinite birth is before the ages. Contend, by all means, that we do violence to the sayings, if a prophet, if the Lord, if the apostle, if any word has referred the name of creature to the birth of eternal divinity. For in all these God, who is a consuming fire, is present as created in such a way as to consume the creation by that power by which he took it up: able to abolish again what had come to exist only for the purpose of being seen.

But that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin, because then the nature and appearance of our creatureliness was being born, the apostle named a creature and a thing made. And certainly, with him, this is the name of a true birth according to man, when he says: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." He is, then, his own Son, who is, in man and from man, a thing made; and not only a thing made but also a creature, as it is said: "As the truth is in Jesus, to put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deceit; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who has been created according to God." That new man, then, is to be put on who has been created according to God. For he who was Son of God had been born also Son of Man. Because it was not the birth of divinity but the creature of the flesh, the new man received the signification of his kind, created according to God born before the ages. And why the new man was created according to God he shows, adding after this: "In righteousness and holiness and truth." For there was no deceit in him; and he was made for us righteousness and sanctification, and he himself is the truth. We put on, then, this Christ, who is created as the new man according to God. [And he is created according to God because, according to God's righteousness, sanctification, and truth, he was created a man who knew no sin.]

If, then, Wisdom, saying that she remembered the things done from the age, said that she was created for the works of God and for the ways of God; and was so created as to teach that she was founded before the ages, so that the mystery of that varied and frequent creation she took up might not seem to have changed her nature, since the firmness of a foundation would not receive the disturbance of a shaken state; but so that the founding might not seem to show anything other than birth, she professed that she was begotten before all things: why now is creation assigned to birth, when she who was begotten before all things was herself founded before the ages, and she who was founded before the age was herself created from the ages for the beginning of God's ways and for his works; so that the creation from the ages would be understood to differ from the birth which is before the ages and before all things? Impiety does not even have the excuse of pleading the error of impiety.

For even if weakness of understanding hindered the sense of a religious opinion, so that it could not now attain what the property of creation is, yet, at least according to the apostle's saying, which assigns "made" to a true birth, it ought to have thought that creation too, though unlearnedly, yet not impiously, served faith in the generation. For the apostle seems, about to preach the birth of one from one, that is, of the Lord from the Virgin without the conception of human passions, to have said "made of a woman" not without reason, of one whom he knew to be born and had often said so: so that the birth would show the truth of the generation, and "made" would declare the birth of one from one; because the name "made" would exclude the conception of human intercourse, since he who was rather without doubt born would be learned to have been made from the Virgin. But see how impious you are, heretic. No prophetic, gospel, or apostolic word has said that Jesus Christ was created from God rather than born; but you deny the birth and affirm a creature, not according to the apostle's meaning, who says "made" so that it might not be doubted that one was born from one, but for the most impious sense that God would not subsist by a natural birth, having rather subsisted as a creature from nothing. This is the first poison of your unhappy mind: not to call the birth a creature, but to fit faith in creation in place of birth. Although it would be the mark of a poor wit, yet not a greatly irreligious one, to have said "created" so that the impassible birth from God might be known as of one from one.

But the steadfast apostolic faith allows none of these things. For it knows in what dispensation of time Christ was created, and in what eternity of times he was born. He is God born from God, and in him is the unambiguous divinity of a true birth and a perfect generation. For in the things of God we confess nothing but what is born and eternal. Born, however, not after anything, but before all things: so that the birth only testifies to an author, and does not signify in itself anything coming after from the author. And indeed, by common confession, the birth is second from the author, because it is from God; yet not separable from the author, because as far as our sense tries to go beyond the understanding of the birth, so far it must go beyond that of the generation too. This alone, then, is pious speech about God: to know the Father, and to know with him him who is the Son from him. Nor are we taught anything else about God than that he is the Father of the only-begotten God and Creator. Let human weakness, then, not stretch beyond itself, and let it say this only, in which alone is its salvation: that before the mystery of the flesh it always knows this in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was born.

I, at least, as long as I have strength in this spirit granted me by you, holy Father, almighty God, will confess you eternal God and also eternal Father. Nor will I ever break out into such folly and impiety as to make myself judge of your omnipotence and mysteries, raising this sense of my weakness beyond the religious opinion of your infinity and the faith of eternity signified to me, so as to lay down that you were at some time without your Wisdom, Power, and Word, the only-begotten God, my Lord Jesus Christ. For the weak and imperfect speech of our nature does not prejudge my sense about you, so that poverty of expression should strangle faith in silence. For although word, wisdom, and power in us are our own work, of our inner movement, in the case of the perfect God, who is your Word, Wisdom, and Power, it is a complete generation; so that he who is shown to be born from you under these names of your eternal properties is always inseparable from you: born, however, in such a way as to signify nothing other than you as his author; not, however, so as to lose faith in his infinity through his being recalled as born before eternal times.

For you have provided many such things in human affairs, whose cause is unknown though their effect is not. And faith is religious where there is also natural ignorance. For when I have raised these weak eyes of my light to your heaven, I have believed it to be nothing other than your heaven. For seeing in it these starry circles, the yearly returns, the Pleiades, the Great Bear, and the morning star, each allotted the different duties of its service, I understand you as God in these things, whose understanding I do not grasp. And when I have seen the wonderful swellings of your sea, not having grasped either the origin of the waters or the movement of this measured alternation, yet laying hold of faith in a reason, though impenetrable to me, I do not fail to know you also in the things of which I am ignorant. And when I turn my mind to the earth, which by the power of hidden causes dissolves all seeds it receives, gives life to them dissolved, multiplies them when alive, and strengthens them when multiplied, I have found nothing in these that I could understand by my sense: but my ignorance serves to understand you, since, unskilled in the nature that serves me, I understand you only by the use of my benefit. Not knowing even myself, I so perceive myself that I admire you the more because I am ignorant of myself. For I perceive, without understanding, the movement or reason or life of my judging mind; and perceiving it I owe it to you, who impart, beyond the understanding of natural beginning, the sense of a nature that delights. And since, ignorant of my own things, I understand you, and understanding I venerate you, I will not loosen faith in your omnipotence in your own things because I do not know them; so that my sense should seize upon the origin of your Only-begotten and subject it to itself, and there should be something in me which I could stretch beyond my Creator and my God.

His birth is before eternal times. If there is anything in things that comes before eternity, there will truly be something that surpasses the sense of eternity. For he is your own, and he is your Only-begotten: not a portion, not an extension, not some empty name according to an opinion of workings; but Son, Son from you, God the Father, true God, begotten by you in the unity of your nature; to be confessed after you in such a way as to be with you, because you are the eternal author of his eternal origin. For while he is from you, he is second from you; but while he is yours, you are not to be separated from him; because you are never to be confessed to have been without your own, lest you be charged with being either imperfect without the generation or superfluous after it. And so the eternal birth serves only this purpose, that we know you as the eternal Father of the only-begotten Son from you before eternal times.

And for me it is too little, by the office of my faith and voice, to deny that my Lord and God, your Only-begotten, Jesus Christ, is a creature: I will not allow the fellowship of this name even in your Holy Spirit, who proceeded from you and was sent through him. For I have great reverence toward your things. Nor, because, knowing you alone as unbegotten and the Only-begotten born from you, I will not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten, will I ever say that he is created. I fear the insults of this word, which I share with the rest of the things established by you, creeping even up to you. Your Holy Spirit, according to the apostle, searches and knows your depths, and, your intercessor for me, speaks to you for me things unspeakable: and shall I not only speak of, but even defame, the power of his nature, abiding from you through your Only-begotten, by the name of creation? Nothing penetrates you but what is your own; nor does the cause of a strange power, foreign to you, measure the depth of your immense majesty. Whatever enters you is yours; nor is anything foreign to you that is in you by the power of searching.

But to me he is unspeakable whose groanings for me are unspeakable to me. For as, in your Only-begotten's being born from you before eternal times, all ambiguity of speech and difficulty of understanding ceasing, there remains only that he was born: so I hold in my conscience, though I do not perceive it by sense, that your Holy Spirit is from you through him. For in your spiritual things I am dull, as your Only-begotten says: "Do not wonder that I said to you, You must be born again. The Spirit breathes where he wills, and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from and where he goes. So is everyone who is born of water and the Holy Spirit." Holding faith in my regeneration, I do not know it; and what I am ignorant of, I already hold. For I am reborn without my sense, with the effect of being reborn. And there is no measure for the Spirit, who speaks when he wills, what he wills, where he wills. And shall I place among creatures the nature of him the cause of whose coming and going is unknown, though under the consciousness of one present, and shall I bound him by a definition of his origin? John, yours, says that all things were made through the Son, who was in the beginning God the Word with you, God. And Paul lists all things created in him, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. And while he recalled that all things were created in Christ and through Christ, of the Holy Spirit he thought it a sufficient signification to say that he was your Spirit. With these men, specially chosen by you, I will so think these things that, as I will say nothing else about your Only-begotten, beyond the sense of my understanding, according to them, than that he was born, so I will also say nothing else, according to them, beyond the opinion of human wit, about your Holy Spirit than that he is your Spirit. And may there be for me no useless battle of words, but the steadfast profession of an unhesitating faith.

Keep, I pray, this religion of my faith undefiled, and to the departing of my spirit grant me this voice of my conscience: that I may always hold what I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: namely, that I may adore you our Father, and your Son together with you; that I may be worthy of your Holy Spirit, who is from you through your Only-begotten. For he is a sufficient witness to my faith who says: "Father, all mine are yours, and yours are mine," my Lord Jesus Christ, abiding in you and from you and with you, always God: who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.