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This can likewise be observed in a certain act of the will. For who is there to whom it would not be answered shamelessly, 'Perhaps you are deceived,' when he says: 'I will to be happy'? And if he says: 'I know that I will this, and I know that I know this,' he can already add to these two a third — that he knows these two; and a fourth — that he knows that he knows these two; and so proceed to an infinite number. Again, if someone says: 'I do not wish to err,' will it not be true, whether he errs or does not err, that nevertheless he does not wish to err? Who is there who would say to him most shamelessly, 'Perhaps you are deceived,' when assuredly, wherever he may be deceived, he is nevertheless not deceived in not wishing to be deceived? And if he says that he knows this, he adds as great a number of known things as he wishes, and perceives that the number is infinite.
For he who says: 'I do not wish to be deceived, and I know that I do not wish this, and I know that I know this' can from this, even if not by a convenient manner of expression, display an infinite number. And other things are found which avail against the Academics, who contend that nothing can be known by man. But a limit must be applied, especially because in this work we did not undertake this. There are on that subject three books of ours, written in the first period of our conversion, which whoever shall have been able and willing to read, and having read them shall have understood, will assuredly not be moved by any of the many arguments which they invented against the perception of truth.
For since there are two kinds of things which are known — one of those which the mind perceives through the sense of the body, the other of those which it perceives through itself — those philosophers prated much against the senses of the body; but the mind's certain most firm perceptions of true things through itself, such as that which I said, 'I know that I live,' they were in no way able to call into doubt. But far be it from us to doubt that the things which we have learned through the senses of the body are true. For through them we have learned heaven and earth, and the things in them which are known to us, so far as he who created both us and them willed them to be known to us. Far be it also that we should deny that we know the things which we have learned by the testimony of others; otherwise we do not know that there is an ocean;
we do not know that there are lands and cities which most celebrated fame commends; we do not know that there were men and their works which we have learned by the reading of history; we do not know the things which are daily reported from every quarter and are confirmed by consonant and constant evidences; finally, we do not know in what places or from what men we ourselves sprang — because all these things we have believed on the testimony of others. And if to say this is most absurd, it must be confessed that the senses not only of our own but even of others' bodies have added very much to our knowledge. All these things, therefore — both those which the human mind knows through itself, and those which it knows through the senses of its own body, and those perceived by the testimony of others — it holds stored up in the treasury of memory.
From these is begotten a true word when we speak what we know — but a word before all sound, before all thought of sound. For then the word is most like the known thing from which it is begotten and is its image, since from the vision of knowledge arises the vision of thought; it is a word of no language, a true word from a true thing, having nothing of its own but all from that knowledge from which it is born. Nor does it matter when he learned it who speaks what he knows (for sometimes he says this immediately as he learns it), provided only that the word be true, that is, sprung from known things.
[XIII] But surely God the Father, from whom the Word was born, God from God — surely then did God the Father, in that Wisdom which he himself is to himself, learn some things through the sense of his body, and others through himself? Who would say this, who thinks of God not as a rational animal, but as above the rational soul, so far as he can be thought of by those who set him above all animals and all souls — although they see him by conjecture through a mirror and in an enigma, not yet face to face as he is? Did God the Father learn from elsewhere, from someone, those very things which he knows not through a body (for he has none) but through himself, or did he need messengers or witnesses in order to know them? By no means. For that perfection suffices to him for knowing all things which he knows.
He has indeed messengers, that is, angels — yet not such as announce to him the things he does not know (for there are none which he does not know), but their good consists in consulting his truth concerning their own works; and this is what is meant when they are said to announce certain things to him: not that he himself may learn from them, but that they themselves may learn from him through his Word without bodily sound. They also announce whatever he has willed, being sent by him to those to whom he has willed, hearing all from him through that Word of his — that is, finding in his truth what they must do, what and to whom and when it must be announced. For we too pray to him, yet do not teach him our necessities. For 'your Father knows,' says his Word, 'what is needful to you before you ask him.'
Nor did he come to know these things from some point in time so as to know them, but he foreknew without beginning all future temporal things, and among them even what and when we were about to ask of him, and whom and concerning what things he would either hear or not hear. But all his creatures, both spiritual and corporeal, he does not know because they are; rather, they are because he knows them. For he was not ignorant of what he was about to create. Because, then, he knew, he created; not because he created, did he know. Nor did he know them created otherwise than as to-be-created; for nothing was added to his wisdom from them, but while they existed as it behooved and when it behooved, that wisdom remained as it was. So also it is written in the book of Ecclesiasticus:
'Before all things were created, they were known to him; so also after they were finished.' 'So,' it says, not otherwise; both before they were created and after they were finished, they are thus known to him. Far different, therefore, is our knowledge from this knowledge. But the knowledge of God is itself also his wisdom, and his wisdom is itself his essence or substance; for in the marvelous simplicity of that nature it is not one thing to be wise and another to be, but what it is to be wise is also to be, as we have often already said in the earlier books.
But our knowledge, in very many things, is for this reason both losable and recoverable, because for us to be is not the same as to know or to be wise; since we can be, even if we do not know or are not wise in the things which we have learned from elsewhere. On this account, just as our knowledge is unlike that knowledge of God, so also our word, which is born of our knowledge, is unlike that Word of God which was born of the Father's essence. (But it is as if I said, 'of the Father's knowledge, of the Father's wisdom';
or, what is more precise, 'from the Father who is knowledge, from the Father who is wisdom.') [XIV 23] The Word therefore of God the Father, the only-begotten Son, in all things like and equal to the Father, God from God, light from light, wisdom from wisdom, essence from essence, is altogether that which the Father is — yet not the Father, because this one is the Son, that one the Father. And through this he knows all things which the Father knows; but for him to know is from the Father, just as to be. For there to know and to be are one. And therefore, just as for him to be is not from the Son, so neither to know. Accordingly, as it were saying himself, the Father begot a Word equal to himself in all things. For he would not have said himself wholly and perfectly if there were anything less or more in his Word than in himself. Here supremely is that recognized: 'It is, it is;
no, no.' And therefore this Word is truly truth, since whatever is in that knowledge of which it is begotten is also in it; but what is not in that knowledge is not in it either. And this Word can never have anything false, because it holds itself unchangeably as that of which it is holds itself. For the Son cannot do anything of himself except what he shall have seen the Father doing. Powerfully he cannot do this, nor is this weakness but strength, because truth cannot be false. God the Father therefore knows all things in himself, knows them in the Son; but in himself as it were himself, in the Son as it were his Word, which is concerning all these things which are in himself.
The Son too knows all things in like manner: in himself, namely, as things which are born of those which the Father knows in himself; but in the Father, as those from which are born the things which the Son himself knows in himself. The Father and the Son, therefore, know each other mutually — but the one by begetting, the other by being born. And all the things which are in their knowledge, in their wisdom, in their essence, each one of them sees simultaneously — not part by part or singly, as with a gaze alternating from here to there and from there to here, and again from thence to one thing and another, so that he cannot see some things unless by not seeing others — but, as I said, he sees all things simultaneously, of which there is none that he does not always see.
But our word — that which has neither sound nor thought of sound, but of that thing which by seeing within we speak, and which therefore belongs to no language — thence in some way is like, in this enigma, that Word of God which is also God, since this too is born of ours in the same way as that was born of the Father's knowledge. Our word, then, which we find to be in some way like it, let it not be irksome to gaze upon how much it is also unlike, so far as it can be told by us. [XV] Is our word born only of our knowledge? Do we not say many things also which we do not know? And we say them not doubting, but supposing them to be true.
Which things, if perchance they are true, are true in the things themselves of which we speak, not in our word — because a word is not true unless it is begotten of a thing which is known. In this way, therefore, our word is false, not when we lie, but when we are mistaken. But when we doubt, there is not yet a word about the thing of which we doubt, but there is a word about the very doubt. For although we do not know whether what we doubt about is true, nevertheless we know that we doubt; and on this account, when we say this, it is a true word, since we say what we know. What of the fact that we can also lie? When we do this, willingly and knowingly of course, we have a false word, where the true word is that we lie; for this we know. And when we confess that we have lied, we speak the truth;
quodscimusenimdicimus. Scimusnamquenosessementitos. Verbumautemilludquodestdeusetpotentiusestnobishocnonpotest. Nonenimpotestfacerequidquamnisiquoduideritpatremfacientem. Etnonaseipsoloquitursedapatreilliestomnequodloquiturcumipsumpateruniceloquitur. Etmagnailliusuerbipotentiaestnonpossementiriquianonpotestesseillicestetnonsedest, est; non, non. 'Atenimnecuerbumdicendumestquoduerumnonest.' Sicitalibensassentior.
for we say what we know. For we know that we have lied. But that Word which is God, and is more powerful than we, cannot do this. For it cannot do anything except what it shall have seen the Father doing. And it does not speak of itself, but from the Father is all that it speaks, since the Father alone speaks that Word. And great is the power of that Word, not to be able to lie, because there cannot be there 'it is' and 'is not,' but 'it is, it is; no, no.' 'But indeed, neither ought that to be called a word which is not true.' Thus willingly I assent.
What of the fact that, when our word is true and therefore rightly called a word, may it be said, just as one may say 'vision from vision' or 'knowledge from knowledge,' so may it be said 'essence from essence,' as that Word of God is most of all said and most of all ought to be said? Why so? Because for us to be is not the same as to know. For we know many things which in a certain way live through memory, and thus in a certain way die through forgetfulness; and therefore, when those things are no longer in our knowledge, we nevertheless are; and when our knowledge, having slipped from the mind, has perished from us, we nevertheless live. Those things too which are so known that they can never fall away, since they are present and pertain to the very nature of the mind — as that which we know, that we live;
for this abides as long as the mind abides, and because the mind always abides, this too always abides — this, then, and whatever similar things are found in which the image of God is rather to be beheld, even if they are always known, yet because they are not also always thought, how of these an everlasting word may be spoken — since our word is spoken by our thought — is difficult to find. For it is everlasting for the mind to live, it is everlasting to know that it lives; yet it is not everlasting to think of its own life or to think of the knowledge of its own life, since when it has begun one thing and another, it will cease to think this, although it does not cease to know it.
From this it follows that, if there can be in the mind some everlasting knowledge, while the thought of that same knowledge cannot be everlasting, and our inmost true word is not spoken except by our thought, then God alone is understood to have an everlasting Word coeternal with himself. Unless perhaps it must be said that the very possibility of thought — since that which is known, even when it is not thought, can nevertheless be truly thought — is a word as perpetual as knowledge itself is perpetual. But how is that a word which is not yet formed in the vision of thought? How will it be like the knowledge from which it is born, if it does not have its form, and is therefore already called a word because it can have one?
For it is as if one should say that it must already be called a word because it can be a word. But what is it that can be a word and is therefore already worthy of the name of word? What is it, I say, this formable and not-yet-formed thing, except something of our mind which we toss about by this and that rolling motion, when now this, now that is thought by us, as it shall have been found or shall have occurred? And then it becomes a true word when that which I said we toss by a rolling motion arrives at that which we know and is thence formed, taking on its complete likeness, so that in whatever way each thing is known, so also it is thought — that is, without sound, without thought of sound, which assuredly belongs to some language — thus it is spoken in the heart.
And accordingly, even if we concede — lest we seem to labor over a controversy of terminology — that that something of our mind, which can be formed from our knowledge even before it is formed, is already to be called a word, because it is now, so to speak, formable: who does not see how great here is the unlikeness from that Word of God, which is in the form of God in such a way that it was not first formable and afterward formed, nor can it ever be formless, but is a simple form, and simply equal to that of which it is, and marvelously coeternal with it?
[XVI] Wherefore that Word of God is so spoken of that the thought of God is not spoken of, nor is anything as it were rolling believed to be in God, which now receives, now takes on a form so as to be a word, and can lose it and in a formless way in some manner roll about. For that eminent speaker had well known words and had examined the force of thought who said in his poem: 'and with himself he rolls over the varied outcomes of war,' that is, thinks. Not therefore is that Son of God called the thought of God, but the Word of God. For our thought, arriving at that which we know and thence formed, is our true word.
And therefore the Word of God ought to be understood without the thought of God, so that the form itself may be understood as simple, not having anything formable which could also be formless. Thoughts of God are indeed spoken of even in the Holy Scriptures, but in that manner of speech by which forgetfulness of God is also there spoken of — which assuredly, in strict propriety, is none in God. Wherefore, since so great in this enigma is the unlikeness of God and of the Word of God, in which nevertheless some likeness has been found, this also must be confessed: that even when we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is (which he who said this doubtless attended to this unlikeness which now exists), not even then shall we be equal to him in nature.
For a nature that has been made is always less than the one that makes it. And then indeed our word will not be false, because we shall neither lie nor be mistaken. Perhaps too our thoughts will not be rolling, going from some things to others and returning, but we shall see all our knowledge at once in a single glance. Nevertheless, when even this shall have come to pass — if indeed this shall come to pass — the creature which was formable will have been formed, so that nothing may now be lacking to that form to which it ought to have attained; but even so it will not have to be made equal to that simplicity where it is not something formable that has been formed or reformed, but form itself. Neither formless nor formed, but eternal and unchangeable, is that substance there.
[XVII 27] We have spoken enough concerning the Father and the Son, so far as we have been able to see through this mirror and in this riddle. Now we must discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, so far as it is granted us to see by God's gift. This Holy Spirit, according to the holy Scriptures, is neither of the Father alone nor of the Son alone, but of both; and therefore he intimates to us that common love by which the Father and the Son love one another. But that the divine word might exercise us, it caused those things to be sought with greater zeal which are not set ready at hand but are to be searched out in what is hidden and drawn forth from the hidden. Scripture therefore did not say, 'The Holy Spirit is love'—for had it said so it would have removed no small part of this question—but it said:
'God is love,' so that it remains uncertain, and therefore must be inquired into, whether God the Father is love, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, or God the Trinity himself. For we are not going to say that God is called love for this reason, that love itself is some substance worthy of the name of God, but because it is a gift of God, as it is said to God, 'For thou art my patience.' This is surely not said because our patience is the substance of God, but because it is from him, as we read elsewhere, 'For from him is my patience.' Indeed the very manner of speech in the Scriptures easily refutes this sense. For 'thou art my patience' is of the same kind as 'O Lord, my hope,' and 'my God, my mercy,' and many similar sayings.
But it is not said, 'O Lord, my love,' or 'thou art my love,' or 'O God, my love,' but rather it is said thus: 'God is love,' just as it is said, 'God is spirit.' Whoever does not discern this meaning, let him not seek an exposition from us, for we can say nothing more plainly. God therefore is love. But whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself—since it too is not three gods but one God—this is what is being asked.
But I have already argued above in this book that the Trinity which is God is not to be so understood, on the basis of those three things which we have shown in the trinity of our mind, as though the Father were the memory of all three, the Son the understanding of all three, and the Holy Spirit the love of all three—as if the Father did not understand for himself nor love for himself, but the Son understood for him and the Holy Spirit loved for him, while he himself only remembered both for himself and for them; and the Son neither remembered nor loved for himself, but the Father remembered for him and the Holy Spirit loved for him, while he himself only understood both for himself and for them;
and likewise the Holy Spirit neither remembered nor understood for himself, but the Father remembered for him and the Son understood for him, while he himself only loved both for himself and for them. Rather, it is to be so understood that all three, and each of them, possess these three in his own nature. Nor are these distinct in them, as in us memory is one thing, understanding another, and love or charity another; but let it be some one thing that has the power of them all, such as wisdom itself, and let it be so held in the nature of each that he who has it is what he has, as an immutable and simple substance.
If, therefore, these things have been understood, and it has become clear that they are true so far as it is granted us to see or conjecture in matters so great, I do not know why, just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are each called wisdom, and all together are not three but one wisdom, so also love should not be predicated of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and all together be one love. For thus the Father too is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and all together are one God. And yet not without reason is it that, in this Trinity, none is called the Word of God except the Son, none the Gift of God except the Holy Spirit, and none the one of whom the Word is begotten and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds except God the Father.
Now I added 'principally' because the Holy Spirit is found to proceed also from the Son. But this too the Father gave to him—not to one already existing and not yet having it, but whatever the Father gave to the only-begotten Word, he gave in begetting. He so begot him, therefore, that the common Gift should proceed also from him, and that the Holy Spirit should be the Spirit of both. This distinction in the inseparable Trinity is not to be received in passing, but to be diligently contemplated. For hence it comes about that the Word of God is also properly called the Wisdom of God, although both the Father and the Holy Spirit are wisdom. If, therefore, any one of these three is to be properly named love, what is more fitting than that this should be the Holy Spirit?
That is to say, in that simple and supreme nature substance is not one thing and love another, but substance itself is love and love itself is substance, whether in the Father or in the Son or in the Holy Spirit; and yet the Holy Spirit is properly named love. It is like the case where by the name of 'law' sometimes all the utterances of the holy Scriptures of the Old Testament are together signified. For the Apostle, in citing a testimony from the prophet Isaiah, where he says, 'In other tongues and with other lips will I speak to this people,' nevertheless prefaced it with: 'It is written in the law.' And the Lord himself says, 'In their law it is written that they hated me without cause,' though this is read in a psalm.
But sometimes 'law' is properly the name of what was given through Moses, according to which it is said: 'The law and the prophets were until John,' and: 'On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets.' Here indeed the law properly so called is that from Mount Sinai. Under the name of the prophets, however, the psalms too are signified; and yet in another place the Savior himself says, 'It was necessary that all things should be fulfilled which are written in the law and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me.' Here again he willed the name of the prophets to be understood apart from the psalms. Therefore 'law' is spoken of universally, together with the prophets and psalms, and it is spoken of also properly, as that which was given through Moses. Likewise 'the prophets' are spoken of jointly, together with the psalms, and they are spoken of also properly, apart from the psalms.
And it could be shown by many other examples that many terms for things are both used universally and applied properly to certain particular things—did not the length of discourse have to be avoided in a matter already clear. I have said this, therefore, lest anyone should on that account think it unfitting for us to call the Holy Spirit love, seeing that both God the Father and God the Son can be named love. As, then, we properly call the sole Word of God by the name of wisdom, although universally the Holy Spirit and the Father himself are wisdom, so the Spirit is properly named by the term love, although universally the Father and the Son are love. But the Word of God, that is, the only-begotten Son of God, was openly called the Wisdom of God by the apostolic mouth, where it says:
'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.' But where the Holy Spirit is called love, we find it if we diligently search the utterance of the apostle John, who, when he had said, 'Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God,' went on to add: 'And everyone that loveth is born of God. He that loveth not hath not known God, for God is love.' Here he made it manifest that he had called that love God which he said was of God. God, therefore, of God is love. But since both the Son is born of God the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, it is rightly asked which of them we ought rather to understand to be here called God love.
For the Father alone is God in such a way that he is not of God; and hence the love which is God in such a way that it is of God is either the Son or the Holy Spirit. But in what follows, when he had made mention of the love of God—not that by which we love him, but that by which he himself loved us and sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins—and had from this exhorted us that we too should love one another, and that thus God should abide in us, since indeed he had said that God is love, immediately, wishing to say something more plainly about this matter, he says: 'Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.' The Holy Spirit, therefore, of whom he has given us, makes us abide in God and him in us. But this is what love does.
He himself, then, is God love. Finally, a little afterwards, when he had repeated this very thing and had said, 'God is love,' he at once added: 'And he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him,' whence he had said above, 'Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.' It is he himself, therefore, who is signified where we read, 'God is love.' God the Holy Spirit, therefore, who proceeds from God, when he has been given to a man, kindles him to the love of God and of his neighbor, and he himself is love. For man has no means of loving God except from God. For this reason he says a little afterwards: 'Let us love, because he first loved us.' The apostle Paul also says:
'The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.' [XVIII 32] There is nothing more excellent than this gift of God. It alone is what divides between the sons of the eternal kingdom and the sons of eternal perdition. Other gifts too are given through the Spirit, but without charity they profit nothing. Unless, therefore, the Holy Spirit is so imparted to each as to make him a lover of God and of his neighbor, he is not transferred from the left hand to the right. Nor is the Spirit properly called Gift except on account of that love which whoever does not have, though he speak with the tongues of men and of angels, he is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal;
and if he have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith so as to remove mountains, he is nothing; and if he distribute all his substance, and if he deliver his body to be burned, it profits him nothing. How great a good, therefore, is that without which such great goods lead no one to eternal life?