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| How There is a Trinity in the Very Simplicity of God. Whether and How the Trinity that is God is Manifested from the Trinities Which Have Been Shown to Be in Men.
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Chapter 6.—How There is a Trinity in the Very
Simplicity of God. Whether and How the Trinity that is God is
Manifested from the Trinities Which Have Been Shown to Be in
Men.
9. When, then, we say, Eternal,
wise, blessed, are these three the Trinity that is called God? We
reduce, indeed, those twelve to this small number of three; but
perhaps we can go further, and reduce these three also to one of
them. For if wisdom and might, or life and wisdom, can be one and
the same thing in the nature of God, why cannot eternity and
wisdom, or blessedness and wisdom, be one and the same thing in the
nature of God? And hence, as it made no difference whether we spoke
of these twelve or of those three when we reduced the many to the
small number; so does it make no difference whether we speak of
those three, or of that one, to the singularity of which we have
shown that the other two of the three may be reduced. What fashion,
then, of argument, what possible force and might of understanding,
what liveliness of reason, what sharp-sightedness of thought, will
set forth how (to pass over now the others) this one thing, that
God is called wisdom, is a trinity? For God does not receive wisdom
from any one as we receive it from Him, but He is Himself His own
wisdom; because His wisdom is not one thing, and His essence
another, seeing that to Him to be wise is to be. Christ, indeed, is
called in the Holy Scriptures, “the power of God, and the wisdom
of God.”955
But we have
discussed in the seventh book how this is to be understood, so that
the Son may not seem to make the Father wise; and our explanation
came to this, that the Son is wisdom of wisdom, in the same way as
He is light of light, God of God. Nor could we find the Holy Spirit
to be in any other way than that He Himself also is wisdom, and
altogether one wisdom, as one God, one essence. How, then, do we
understand this wisdom, which is God, to be a trinity? I do not
say, How do we believe this? For among the faithful this ought to
admit no question. But supposing there is any way by which we can
see with the understanding what we believe, what is that
way?
10. For if we recall where it was
in these books that a trinity first began to show itself
to our
understanding, the eighth book is that which occurs to us; since it
was there that to the best of our power we tried to raise the aim
of the mind to understand that most excellent and unchangeable
nature, which our mind is not. And we so contemplated this nature
as to think of it as not far from us, and as above us, not in
place, but by its own awful and wonderful excellence, and in such
wise that it appeared to be with us by its own present light. Yet
in this no trinity was yet manifest to us, because in that blaze of
light we did not keep the eye of the mind steadfastly bent upon
seeking it; only we discerned it in a sense, because there was no
bulk wherein we must needs think the magnitude of two or three to
be more than that of one. But when we came to treat of love, which
in the Holy Scriptures is called God,956
then a trinity began to dawn upon
us a little, i.e. one that loves, and that which is loved,
and love. But because that ineffable light beat back our gaze, and
it became in some degree plain that the weakness of our mind could
not as yet be tempered to it, we turned back in the midst of the
course we had begun, and planned according to the (as it were) more
familiar consideration of our own mind, according to which man is
made after the image of God,957
in order to relieve our
overstrained attention; and thereupon we dwelt from the ninth to
the fourteenth book upon the consideration of the creature, which
we are, that we might be able to understand and behold the
invisible things of God by those things which are made. And now
that we have exercised the understanding, as far as was needful, or
perhaps more than was needful, in lower things, lo! we wish, but
have not strength, to raise ourselves to behold that highest
Trinity which is God. For in such manner as we see most undoubted
trinities, whether those which are wrought from without by
corporeal things, or when these same things are thought of which
were perceived from without; or when those things which take their
rise in the mind, and do not pertain to the senses of the body, as
faith, or as the virtues which comprise the art of living, are
discerned by manifest reason, and, held fast by knowledge; or when
the mind itself, by which we know whatever we truly say that we
know, is known to itself, or thinks of itself; or when that mind
beholds anything eternal and unchangeable, which itself is
not;—in such way, then, I say, as we see in all these instances
most undoubted trinities, because they are wrought in ourselves, or
are in ourselves, when we remember, look at, or desire these
things;—do we, I say, in such manner also see the Trinity that is
God; because there also, by the understanding, we behold both Him
as it were speaking, and His Word, i.e. the Father and the
Son; and then, proceeding thence, the love common to both, namely,
the Holy Spirit? These trinities that pertain to our senses or to
our mind, do we rather see than believe them, but rather believe
than see that God is a trinity? But if this is so, then doubtless
we either do not at all understand and behold the invisible things
of God by those things that are made, or if we behold them at all,
we do not behold the Trinity in them; and there is therein somewhat
to behold, and somewhat also which we ought to believe, even though
not beheld. And as the eighth book showed that we behold the
unchangeable good which we are not, so the fourteenth reminded us
thereof, when we spoke of the wisdom that man has from God. Why,
then, do we not recognize the Trinity therein? Does that wisdom
which God is said to be, not perceive itself, and not love itself?
Who would say this? Or who is there that does not see, that where
there is no knowledge, there in no way is there wisdom? Or are we,
in truth, to think that the Wisdom which is God knows other things,
and does not know itself; or loves other things, and does not love
itself? But if this is a foolish and impious thing to say or
believe, then behold we have a trinity,—to wit, wisdom, and the
knowledge wisdom has of itself, and its love of itself. For so,
too, we find a trinity in man also, i.e. mind, and the
knowledge wherewith mind knows itself, and the love wherewith it
loves itself.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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