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But love or charity itself (for both are the name of one thing)—if a man has it who does not speak with tongues, nor has prophecy, nor knows all mysteries and all knowledge, nor distributes all his goods to the poor (either through having nothing to distribute or being hindered by some necessity), nor delivers his body to be burned (if there is no trial of such suffering)—it leads him to the kingdom, so that faith itself is made profitable by nothing but charity. For without charity faith can indeed exist, but not also profit. On which account the apostle Paul also says:
'In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh through love'—thus distinguishing it from that faith by which even the demons believe and tremble. Love, therefore, which is of God and is God, is properly the Holy Spirit, through whom the charity of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and through whom the whole Trinity dwells in us. Wherefore most rightly the Holy Spirit, since he is God, is also called the Gift of God. And what is that Gift properly to be understood but the charity which leads to God, and without which any other gift of God whatsoever does not lead to God? [XIX 33] But is this too to be proved, that in the sacred writings the Holy Spirit has been called the Gift of God?
If this too is awaited, we have in the Gospel according to John the words of the Lord Christ, saying: 'If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' Then the evangelist, following on, added: 'But this he said of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive.' Whence the apostle Paul also says: 'And we have all drunk of one Spirit.' But whether this water, which is the Holy Spirit, has been called the Gift of God—this is asked. But just as here we have found this water to be the Holy Spirit, so we find elsewhere, in the same Gospel, this water called the Gift of God. For the same Lord, when he was speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom he had said:
'Give me to drink'—when she had answered that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans, Jesus answered and said to her: 'If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.' The woman says to him: 'Lord, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Whence then hast thou living water?'—and the rest. Jesus answered and said to her: 'Everyone that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but he that drinketh of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever; but the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life eternal.' Since, therefore, this living water is, as the evangelist explained, the Holy Spirit, without doubt the Spirit is the Gift of God, of which the Lord here says:
'If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.' For what he says there, 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,' this in that place he says: 'It shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life eternal.' The apostle Paul also says: 'To every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ'; and that he might show the Holy Spirit to be the gift of Christ, following on he added: 'Wherefore he saith, He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men.'
Now it is most well known that the Lord Jesus, when after his resurrection from the dead he had ascended into heaven, gave the Holy Spirit, filled with whom those who had believed spoke in the tongues of all nations. Nor let it disturb anyone that he says 'gifts,' not 'gift'; for he adduced that testimony from a psalm. But in the psalm it is read thus: 'Thou hast ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts among men.' For thus many manuscripts have it, and especially the Greek ones, and we have it thus translated from the Hebrew. The apostle therefore said 'gifts,' just as the prophet did, not 'gift';
but whereas the prophet said 'thou hast received among men,' the apostle preferred to say 'he gave to men,' so that from both words—the one prophetic, the other apostolic, since in both there is the authority of the divine word—the fullest sense might be rendered. For both are true: both that he gave to men and that he received among men. He gave to men as a head to his members; he himself, the very same, received among men, that is, in his members, on account of which members of his he cried from heaven, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?', and of which members of his he says, 'Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of mine, ye did it to me.' Christ himself, therefore, both gave from heaven and received on earth.
Furthermore, both the prophet and the apostle said 'gifts' for this reason: because through the one Gift which is the Holy Spirit, many gifts, which are each proper to certain persons, are distributed in common to all the members of Christ. For it is not that each one has all, but these have those things, others other things, although all have that very Gift from which their own proper gifts are distributed to each, that is, the Holy Spirit. For elsewhere too, when he had enumerated many gifts, he says: 'All these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.' This saying is found also in the epistle which is to the Hebrews, where it is written: 'God bearing witness with signs and wonders and divers miracles and distributions of the Holy Spirit.'
And here, when he had said, 'He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men,' he says: 'Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some indeed apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.' Behold why 'gifts' were spoken of. Because, as he says elsewhere, 'Are all apostles? are all prophets?'—and the rest; but here he added: 'For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ.'
This is the house which, as the psalm sings, is built after the captivity; for from those who have been rescued from the devil, by whom they were held captive, the body of Christ is built, which house is called the Church. But this captivity he himself led captive who conquered the devil. And lest he should drag with him into eternal punishment those who were to be members of the holy Head, he bound him first with the chains of justice, then with those of power. That very devil, therefore, is called the captivity which he led captive who ascended up on high and gave gifts to men, or received among men. But the apostle Peter—as is read in that canonical book where the Acts of the Apostles are written—speaking of Christ, when the Jews were pricked in heart and said:
'What then shall we do, brethren? Show us,' he said to them: 'Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' Likewise, in the same book, it is read that Simon Magus wished to give money to the apostles, that he might receive from them the power by which, through the laying on of his hand, the Holy Spirit would be given. To whom the same Peter says: 'Thy money be with thee unto perdition, because thou hast thought to possess the gift of God through money.' And in another place of the same book, when Peter was speaking to Cornelius and to those who were with him, announcing and preaching Christ, the Scripture says:
'While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word, and they of the circumcision that had come with Peter were astonished, because on the Gentiles also the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out. For they heard them speaking with tongues and magnifying God.' Concerning this deed of his, that he had baptized the uncircumcised—because, before they were baptized, the Holy Spirit had come upon them, so as to remove the knot of this question—when Peter afterwards rendered account to the brethren who were at Jerusalem, and who upon hearing this were disturbed, he says, after other things: 'But when I had begun to speak to them, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as also on us at the beginning; and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said:
"John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." If then God gave them the like gift as he did also to us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God, that he should not give them the Holy Spirit?' And there are many other testimonies of the Scriptures which harmoniously attest that the Holy Spirit is the Gift of God, insofar as he is given to those who through him love God. But it would be too long to collect them all. And what will suffice for those for whom what we have said does not suffice? Yet they must certainly be admonished—since they now see that the Holy Spirit has been called the Gift of God—that when they hear 'the gift of the Holy Spirit,' they should recognize that kind of expression which was used in 'the putting off of the body of the flesh.'
For just as 'the body of the flesh' is nothing else than the flesh, so 'the gift of the Holy Spirit' is nothing else than the Holy Spirit. He is therefore the Gift of God insofar as he is given to those to whom he is given. But in himself he is God, even if he be given to no one, because he was God, coeternal with the Father and the Son, before he was given to anyone. Nor, because they give him, is he therefore less than they. For he is so given as the Gift of God that he also gives himself as God. For it cannot be said that he is not in his own power, of whom it is said: 'The Spirit breatheth where he will'; and in the apostle, which I have already mentioned above: 'But all these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.'
There is there no condition of the thing given and lordship of the givers, but concord of the given and of the givers. Wherefore, as holy Scripture proclaims, 'God is love'; and that love is of God, and works in us to this end, that we should abide in God and he in us; and this we know from this, that he has given us of his Spirit; that very Spirit of his is God, love. Then, if among the gifts of God there is nothing greater than charity, and there is no gift of God greater than the Holy Spirit, what more consequent than that he himself is the love which is called both God and of God? And if the love by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, ineffably demonstrates the communion of both, what is more fitting than that he should properly be called love who is the Spirit common to both?
For this is more soundly believed or understood: not that the Holy Spirit alone is love in that Trinity, but that not without reason is he properly named love, on account of those things which have been said. Just as it is not the Holy Spirit alone in that Trinity who is either Spirit or Holy—since the Father too is Spirit and the Son is Spirit, and the Father is Holy and the Son is Holy, which piety does not doubt—and yet he himself is not without reason properly called the Holy Spirit. For because he is common to both, he is himself properly called by that name which both are in common. Otherwise, if in that Trinity the Holy Spirit alone is love, then indeed the Son too is found to be the Son not of the Father alone, but also of the Holy Spirit.
For the only-begotten Son of God the Father is so spoken of and read in innumerable places, that nevertheless that also is true which the apostle says of God the Father: 'Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.' He did not say 'of his Son'—which, had he said it, he would have said most truly, just as, because he often said it, he said it most truly—but he said, 'of the Son of his love.' The Son, therefore, is also the Son of the Holy Spirit, if in that Trinity there is no love of God except the Holy Spirit. But since this is most absurd, it remains that the Holy Spirit is not there love alone, but that, on account of those things which I have sufficiently discussed, he is properly so called.
But as for what is said, 'the Son of his love,' let nothing else be understood than 'his beloved Son,' than, in short, the Son of his substance. For the love of the Father, which is in his ineffably simple nature, is nothing else than his very nature and substance, as we have often already said and are not loath often to repeat. And through this the Son of his love is none other than he who is begotten of his substance. [XX 38] Wherefore the dialectic of Eunomius, from whom the Eunomian heretics arose, is to be refuted.
He, since he could not understand, and would not believe, that the only-begotten Word of God, through whom all things were made, is the Son of God by nature—that is, begotten of the substance of the Father—said that he is the Son not of nature or substance or essence, but the Son of the will of God, this will being, forsooth, an accident in God; wishing to assert a will by which he might beget the Son, evidently for this reason: because we ourselves sometimes will something which we did not will before—as though it were not on account of such things that our nature is understood to be mutable, which God forbid that we should believe to be the case in God. For it is not for any other reason that it is written: 'Many are the thoughts in the heart of a man;
nevertheless the counsel of the Lord abideth for ever'—unless it be that we may understand or believe that, as God is eternal, so his counsel is eternal, and through this immutable, as he himself is. But what is said of thoughts can also be said most truly of wills: 'Many are the wills in the heart of a man; but the will of the Lord abideth for ever.' Certain persons, lest they should call the only-begotten Word the Son of the counsel or will of God, said that the same Word is the very counsel or will of the Father.
But it is better said, as I judge, 'counsel of counsel' and 'will of will,' just as 'substance of substance' and 'wisdom of wisdom,' lest by that absurdity which we have already refuted the Son should be said to make the Father wise or willing, if the Father does not have in his substance counsel or will. Acutely indeed did a certain man answer the heretic who was most craftily asking whether God begot the Son willing or unwilling, so that if it were said 'unwilling,' a most absurd misery of God would follow; but if 'willing,' he would at once conclude, as by irrefutable reasoning, what he intended—namely, that the Son is not of nature but of will.
But that man most vigilantly asked him in turn whether God the Father is God willing or unwilling, so that if he answered 'unwilling,' that misery would follow which to believe of God is great insanity; but if he said 'willing,' it would be answered to him: 'Then he too is God by his own will, not by nature.' What, then, remained but that he should be struck dumb and see himself bound by his own questioning with an insoluble bond? But the will of God, if some person in the Trinity is also properly to be so called, this name befits the Holy Spirit rather, just as love does. For what is love other than will?
I see that in this book I have discoursed concerning the Holy Spirit, according to the holy Scriptures, in a way that suffices for the faithful who already know that the Holy Spirit is God, of no other substance nor less than the Father and the Son—which in the preceding books, according to the same Scriptures, we have taught to be true. Concerning the creature also, which God has made, we have, so far as we were able, admonished those who demand a reason concerning such matters, that they should behold his invisible things, understood, as they might be able, through the things that are made; and especially through the rational or intellectual creature, which was made to the image of God, through which, as through a mirror, so far as they could—if they could—they might discern God the Trinity in our memory, understanding, and will.
Whoever vividly perceives these three, naturally and divinely instituted in his own mind, and how great a thing there is in it whereby even the sempiternal and immutable nature can be recalled, beheld, and desired (recalled through memory, beheld through understanding, embraced through love)—he assuredly finds the image of that highest Trinity. To the remembering, seeing, and loving of which highest Trinity he ought to refer all that he lives, that he may remember it, contemplate it, and take delight in it.
But lest he should so compare this image—made by that same Trinity, and by its own fault changed for the worse—to that Trinity, as to deem it in every way similar, but should rather discern in this likeness, of whatever kind it be, a great unlikeness also—this I admonished so far as seemed sufficient.
[XXI 40] Assuredly, as best I could, I have taken care to show that God the Father and God the Son — that is, the God who begets, who in his Word coeternal with himself has in a certain manner uttered all things that he possesses substantially, and that very Word of his, God, who himself likewise possesses substantially neither more nor less than what is in him who begot the Word, not falsely but truly — appear to be signified in the memory and understanding of our mind; not indeed so as to be seen face to face, but through this likeness, conjecturing in a riddle however little we may. To memory I attributed everything we know, even when we are not thinking of it; but to understanding, in its proper mode, a certain forming of thought.
For when by thinking we discover what is true, we are said most properly to understand it, and this too we again leave behind in memory. But there is a more hidden depth of our memory, where we found this very thing when first we thought of it, and where is begotten that inmost word belonging to no tongue — as it were knowledge from knowledge, vision from vision, and understanding that appears in thought from an understanding that was already in memory but lay concealed; although unless thought itself had a certain memory of its own, it would not return to those things which it had left in memory when it was thinking of other things.
But concerning the Holy Spirit I showed nothing in this riddle that might seem like him except our will, or the love or affection which is a stronger will; since our will, which is naturally in us, has various affections according as the things by which we are allured or offended lie near to it or come upon it. What then? Are we going to say that our will, when it is right, does not know what it seeks, what it shuns? Further, if it does know, surely there is in it a certain knowledge of its own, which cannot exist without memory and understanding. Or is anyone to be heeded who says that love does not know what it is doing, when it does nothing amiss?
Just as understanding, then, is present, so love is present in that principal memory, in which we find ready and stored up that which by thinking we can attain — since both of these we find there when by thinking we find that we both understand something and love things which were there even when we were not thinking of them. And just as memory is present, so love is present in this understanding which is formed by thought — the true word which we utter within, in the tongue of no nation, when we utter what we know. For unless by remembering, the gaze of our thought does not return to anything, and unless by loving, it does not care to return.
Thus love, which joins the vision established in memory and the vision formed thence in thought, as parent and offspring, would not know what it rightly loves unless it had a knowledge of what to seek, which cannot exist without memory and understanding. [XXII 42] But since these are in one person, as a man is, someone may say to us: 'These three — memory, understanding, and love — are mine, not their own; nor do they do what they do for themselves but for me; rather, I do it through them. For I remember through memory, I understand through understanding, I love through love.
And when I turn the gaze of thought to my memory, and so in my heart say what I know, and the true word is begotten of my knowledge, both are mine, both the knowledge and the word. For I know, I say in my heart what I know. And when by thinking I find in my memory that I already understand, that I already love something — which understanding and love were there even before I thought of them — I find my understanding and my love in my memory, whereby I understand, I love, not they themselves. Likewise, when my thought is mindful and wills to return to those things it had left in memory, and to behold them understood and to say them within, it is my memory that is mindful and by my will that it wills, not by its own.
My love too, when it remembers and understands what it ought to seek, what to shun, remembers through my memory, not through its own. And through my understanding, not its own, it understands whatever it lovingly understands.' This can be said briefly: 'I through all those three remember, I understand, I love — I who am neither memory nor understanding nor love, but who possess these.' These things, then, can be said by one person who possesses these three and is not himself these three. But in the supreme simplicity of that nature which is God, although he is one God, there are nevertheless three persons, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And so the Trinity as a thing in itself is one matter, and the image of the Trinity in another thing is another.
On account of which image, that also in which these three are is likewise called an image; just as an image is the name given both to a panel and to what is painted upon it, but it is on account of the picture upon it that the panel too is called by the name of image. [XXIII] But in that supreme Trinity, which incomparably surpasses all things, there is such inseparability that, whereas a trinity of men cannot be called one man, that Trinity both is and is called one God; nor is that Trinity in one God, but is one God. Nor again, as this image which is man, possessing those three, is one person, is that Trinity so; but there are three persons: the Father of the Son, the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
For although the memory of man — and especially that memory which beasts do not have, namely that by which intelligible things are so contained that they did not enter into it through the senses of the body — has, according to its own small measure, in this image of the Trinity a likeness of the Father, incomparably unequal indeed yet a likeness of some sort; and likewise the understanding of man, which is formed thence by the intention of thought when what is known is uttered and is a word of the heart belonging to no tongue, has in its great disparity some likeness of the Son; and the love of man, proceeding from knowledge and joining memory and understanding as though common to parent and offspring — whence it is understood to be neither parent nor offspring — has in this image some likeness, though very unequal, of the Holy Spirit;
nevertheless, just as in this image of the Trinity these three are not one man but belong to one man, so it is not the case that in that supreme Trinity of which this is the image those three belong to one God; rather there is one God, and those three are three, not one person. This indeed is wonderfully unspeakable, or unspeakably wonderful: that whereas this image of the Trinity is one person, the supreme Trinity itself is three persons, that Trinity of the three persons is nevertheless more inseparable than this of the one. For that Trinity, in the nature of divinity, or as it is better said, of deity, is what it is, and is immutably equal within itself and always so; nor was there ever a time when it was not, or was otherwise, nor will there ever be a time when it will not be, or will be otherwise.
But these three, which are in the unequal image, even though not by places — since they are not bodies — are nevertheless separated among themselves, now in this life, by magnitudes. For not because there are no masses there is it therefore the case that we do not see in one man memory greater than understanding, and in another the contrary; and in another these two surpassed by the magnitude of love, whether the two themselves are equal to one another or not. And thus, the two by the single and the single by the two, and the single by the single, the lesser are overcome by the greater. And when they shall have been equal among themselves, healed of all weakness, not even then will that thing which is not changed through grace be made equal to the nature immutable in its being, since the creature is not made equal to the Creator; and when it shall be healed of all weakness, it will be changed.
But this Trinity — not only incorporeal but supremely inseparable and truly immutable — we shall see far more clearly and certainly than we now see its image, which we ourselves are, when that vision comes which is promised to us face to face. Yet those who now see through this mirror and in this riddle, as far as it is granted to see in this life, are not those who behold in their own mind the things we have set forth and commended; but those who see it as an image, so that they can somehow refer what they see to him whose image it is, and, through the image which they see by beholding, also see that reality by conjecturing, since they cannot yet see it face to face. For the Apostle did not say, 'We now see a mirror,' but:
'We see through a mirror.' [XXIV] Those, then, who see their mind — in the way it can be seen — and in it that Trinity of which I have discoursed in many ways as best I could, yet do not believe or understand it to be the image of God: they see indeed the mirror, but they so far fail to see through the mirror him who is now to be seen through the mirror, that they do not even know the very mirror they see to be a mirror, that is, an image. And if they knew this, perhaps they would perceive that he whose mirror this is must be sought through it, and must meanwhile be somehow seen through it, by a faith unfeigned that cleanses the heart, so that he who is now seen through a mirror may be seen face to face.
But when this faith that cleanses hearts is despised, what do they accomplish by understanding the most subtle disputations about the nature of the human mind, except that they are condemned by the testimony of their very own understanding? In which understanding they surely would not labor, and would scarcely arrive at anything certain, were they not wrapped in punitive darkness and burdened by a corruptible body which weighs down the soul. And by what deserving at last was this evil inflicted, if not that of sin? Whence, admonished by the greatness of so great an evil, they ought to follow the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. [XXV] For those belonging to him — even those far duller in mind than these — when at the end of this life they are released from the body, the envious powers have no right in retaining them.