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| Augustin Dwells Still Further on the Disparity Between the Trinity Which is in Man, and the Trinity Which is God. The Trinity is Now Seen Through a Glass by the Help of Faith, that It May Hereafter Be More Clearly Seen in the Promised Sight Face to Face.
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Chapter 23.—Augustin Dwells
Still Further on the Disparity Between the Trinity Which is in Man,
and the Trinity Which is God. The Trinity is Now Seen Through a
Glass by the Help of Faith, that It May Hereafter Be More Clearly
Seen in the Promised Sight Face to Face.
43. A thing itself, then, which is
a trinity is different from the image of a trinity in some other
thing; by reason of which image, at the same time that also in
which these three things are is called an image; just as both the
panel, and the picture painted on it, are at the same time called
an image; but by reason of the picture painted on it, the panel
also is called by the name of image. But in that Highest Trinity,
which is incomparably above all things, there is so great an
indivisibility, that whereas a trinity of men cannot be called one
man, in that, there both is said to be and is one God, nor is that
Trinity in one God, but it is one God. Nor, again, as that image in
the case of man has these three things but is one person, so is it
with the Trinity; but therein are three persons, the Father of the
Son, and the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of both Father and
Son. For although the memory in the case of man, and especially
that memory which beasts have not—viz. the memory by which
things intelligible are so contained as that they have not entered
that memory through the bodily senses1039
| 1039 [The reader will observe that
Augustin has employed the term “memory” in a wider sense than
in the modern ordinary use. With him, it is the mind as including
all that is potential or latent in it. The innate ideas, in this
use, are laid up in the “memory,” and called into consciousness
or “remembered” by reflection. The idea of God, for example, is
not in the “memory” when not elicited by reflection. The same
is true of the ideas of space and time, etc.—W.G.T.S.] | —has in this image of the
Trinity, in proportion to its own small measure, a likeness of the
Father, incomparably unequal, yet of some sort, whatever it be: and
likewise the understanding in the case of man, which by the purpose
of the thought is formed thereby, when that which is known is said,
and there is a word of the heart belonging to no tongue, has in its
own great disparity some likeness of the Son; and love in the case
of man proceeding from knowledge, and combining memory and
understanding, as though common to parent and offspring, whereby it
is understood to be neither parent nor offspring, has in that
image, some, however exceedingly unequal, likeness of the Holy
Spirit: it is nevertheless not the case, that, as in that image of
the Trinity, these three are not one man, but belong to one man, so
in the Highest Trinity itself, of which this is an image, these
three belong to one God, but they are one God, and these are three
persons, not one. A thing certainly wonderfully ineffable, or
ineffably wonderful, that while this image of the Trinity is one
person, but the Highest Trinity itself is three persons, yet that
Trinity of three persons is more indivisible than this of one. For
that [Trinity], in the nature of the Divinity, or perhaps better
Deity, is that which it is, and is mutually and always unchangeably
equal: and there was no time when it was not, or when it was
otherwise; and there will be no time when it will not be, or when
it will be otherwise. But these three that are in the inadequate
image, although they are not separate in place, for they are not
bodies, yet are now in this life mutually separate in magnitude.
For that there are therein no several bulks, does not hinder our
seeing that memory is greater than understanding in one man, but
the contrary in another; and that in yet another these two are
overpassed by the greatness of love; and this whether the two
themselves are or are not equal to one another. And so each two by
each one, and each one by each two, and each one by each one: the
less are surpassed by the greater. And when they have been healed
of all infirmity, and are mutually equal, not even then will that
thing which by grace will not be changed, be made equal to that
which by nature cannot change, because the creature cannot be
equalled to the Creator, and when it shall be healed from all
infirmity, will be changed.
44. But when the sight shall have
come which is promised anew to us face to face, we shall see
this not only incorporeal but also absolutely indivisible and truly
unchangeable Trinity far more clearly and certainly than we now see
its image which we ourselves are: and yet they who see through this
glass and in this enigma, as it is permitted in this life to see,
are not those who behold in their own mind the things which we have
set in order and pressed upon them; but those who see this as if an
image, so as to be able to refer what they see, in some way be it
what it may, to Him whose image it is, and to see that also by
conjecturing, which they see through the image by beholding, since
they cannot yet see face to face. For the apostle does not say, We
see now a glass, but, We see now through a glass.1040
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