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| Of the Attributes Assigned by Hilary to Each Person. The Trinity is Represented in Things that are Made.
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Chapter 10.—Of the Attributes Assigned by Hilary to
Each Person. The Trinity is Represented in Things that are
Made.
11. A certain writer, when he would
briefly intimate the special attributes of each of the persons in
the Trinity, tells us that “Eternity is in the Father, form in
the Image, use in the Gift.” And since he was a man of no mean
authority in handling the Scriptures, and in the assertion of the
faith, for it is Hilary who put this in his book (On the
Trinity, ii.); I have searched into the hidden meaning of these
words as far as I can, that is, of the Father, and the Image, and
the Gift, of eternity, and of form, and of use. And I do not think
that he intended more by the word eternity, than
that the Father has not a father from whom He is; but the Son is
from the Father, so as to be, and so as to be co-eternal with Him.
For if an image perfectly fills the measure of that of which it is
the image, then the image is made equal to that of which it is the
image, not the latter to its own image. And in respect to this
image he has named form, I believe on account of the quality of
beauty, where there is at once such great fitness, and prime
equality, and prime likeness, differing in nothing, and unequal in
no respect, and in no part unlike, but answering exactly to Him
whose image it is: where there is prime and absolute life, to whom
it is not one thing to live, and another to be, but the same thing
to be and to live; and prime and absolute intellect, to whom it is
not one thing to live, another to understand, but to understand is
to live, and is to be, and all things are one: as though a perfect
Word (John i. 1), to which
nothing is wanting, and a certain skill of the omnipotent and wise
God, full of all living, unchangeable sciences, and all one in it,
as itself is one from one, with whom it is one. Therein God knew
all things which He made by it; and therefore, while times pass
away and succeed, nothing passes away or succeeds to the knowledge
of God. For things which are created are not therefore known by
God, because they have been made; and not rather have been
therefore made, even although changeable, because they are known
unchangeably by Him. Therefore that unspeakable conjunction of the
Father and His image is not without fruition, without love, without
joy. Therefore that love, delight, felicity, or blessedness, if
indeed it can be worthily expressed by any human word, is called by
him, in short, Use; and is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, not
begotten, but the sweetness of the begetter and of the begotten,
filling all creatures according to their capacity with abundant
bountifulness and copiousness, that they may keep their proper
order and rest satisfied in their proper place.
12. Therefore all these things
which are made by divine skill, show in themselves a certain unity,
and form, and order; for each of them is both some one thing, as
are the several natures of bodies and dispositions of souls; and is
fashioned in some form, as are the figures or qualities of bodies,
and the various learning or skill of souls; and seeks or preserves
a certain order, as are the several weights or combinations of
bodies and the loves or delights of souls. When therefore we regard
the Creator, who is understood by the things that are made624
we must
needs understand the Trinity of whom there appear traces in the
creature, as is fitting. For in that Trinity is the supreme source
of all things, and the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed
delight. Those three, therefore, both seem to be mutually
determined to each other, and are in themselves infinite. But here
in corporeal things, one thing alone is not as much as three
together, and two are something more than one; but in that highest
Trinity one is as much as the three together, nor are two anything
more than one. And They are infinite in themselves. So both each
are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and
all are one. Let him who sees this, whether in part, or “through
a glass and in an enigma,”625
rejoice in knowing God; and let him
honor Him as God, and give thanks; but let him who does not see it,
strive to see it through piety, not to cavil at it through
blindness. Since God is one, but yet is a Trinity. Neither are we
to take the words, “of whom, and through whom, and to whom are
all things,” as used indiscriminately [i.e., to denote a
unity without distinctions]; nor yet to denote many gods, for “to
Him, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”626
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