and in so far as in ineffable mercy, by a temporal dispensation, he took upon himself changeable man—namely, a creature to be changed for the better—many things are found said concerning him in the Scriptures in such a way that they have driven into error the impious minds of heretics, who wished to teach before they knew, so that they thought him not equal to the Father nor of the same substance—such as these: Because the Father is greater than I; and: The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God; and: Then shall he himself also be subject unto him who put all things under him; and: I go to my God and your God; and several of this kind: all of which are set down not to signify an inequality of nature and substance—lest those passages be false:
I and the Father are one; and: He that hath seen me hath seen also my Father; and: The Word was God—for he was not made God, since all things were made through him—and: He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, and other such things. Rather, those passages are set down partly on account of the administration of the manhood he assumed, by reason of which it is said: He emptied himself—not because that Wisdom was changed, since it is altogether unchangeable, but because he willed thus humbly to make himself known to men—partly therefore on account of this administration are those things written about which the heretics raise calumny; partly for this reason, that the Son owes to the Father what he is, owing this also to the Father, namely that he is equal or co-equal to that same Father; whereas the Father owes whatever he is to no one.
But concerning the Holy Spirit there has not yet been so copious and careful a discussion by the learned and great expositors of the divine Scriptures, that his property—that property by which it comes about that we can call him neither Son nor Father, but only Holy Spirit—can easily be understood; except that they proclaim him to be the gift of God, so that we may believe that God gives no gift inferior to himself.
They maintain, however, that the Holy Spirit is to be proclaimed as not begotten of the Father as a Son—for Christ is the only one—nor as a grandson of the most high Father from the Son; nor yet as owing what he is to no one, but to the Father, of whom are all things, lest we set up two beginnings without a beginning, which is most false and most absurd, and proper not to the catholic faith but to the error of certain heretics. Yet some have dared to believe that the Holy Spirit is that very communion of the Father and the Son and, so to speak, the deity which the Greeks call theotēs: so that, since the Father is God and the Son is God, the deity itself, by which they are joined to each other—the one by begetting the Son, the other by cleaving to the Father—is made equal to him by whom he is begotten.
This deity, therefore, which they would also have understood as the mutual love and charity of the two toward each other, they say is called the Holy Spirit, and they support this opinion of theirs by many testimonies of the Scriptures: whether by that which is said: Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us, or by many other such testimonies, and by this very fact, that through the Holy Spirit we are reconciled to God: whence also, when he is called the gift of God, they would have it sufficiently signified that the love of God is the Holy Spirit.
For we are not reconciled to him except through love, by which also we are called sons of God, no longer under fear like servants, because perfect love casts out fear, and we have received the spirit of liberty, in which we cry: Abba, Father. And because, being reconciled and recalled into friendship through charity, we shall be able to know all the secrets of God, therefore it is said concerning the Holy Spirit: He shall lead you into all truth; therefore also the confidence in proclaiming the truth, with which the apostles were filled at his coming, is rightly attributed to charity, because diffidence too is assigned to fear, which the perfecting of charity excludes. And therefore he is called the gift of God, because no one enjoys that which he knows unless he love it.
Now to enjoy the wisdom of God is nothing other than to cleave to it by love, nor does anyone abide in that which he perceives except by love; and therefore he is called the Holy Spirit, since whatever things are ratified are ratified for abiding, and there is no doubt that holiness (sanctitas) is named from ratifying (sanciendo). And the asserters of this opinion make especial use of that testimony which is written: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, because God is Spirit. For here he speaks of our regeneration, which is not according to Adam from the flesh, but according to Christ from the Holy Spirit.
Wherefore, if in this passage mention has been made of the Holy Spirit, when it is said: Because God is Spirit, they say it must be observed that it was not said 'because the Spirit is God,' but: because God is Spirit—so that the very deity of the Father and the Son should in this passage be called God, which is the Holy Spirit. To this is added another testimony which the apostle John gives, that God is love. Here too he does not say 'love is God,' but: God is love—so that the very deity should be understood to be love. And as to the fact that in that enumeration of things connected with one another, where it is said: All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's, and:
The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God—where no mention is made of the Holy Spirit—they say this is because, in those things which are connected to one another, the connection itself is not generally reckoned among them. Whence in that very passage too those who read more attentively seem to recognize the Trinity itself, when it is said: Because of him, and through him, and in him are all things: 'of him,' as of him who owes to no one what he is; 'through him,' as through the mediator; 'in him,' as in him who contains, that is, joins by coupling. To this opinion those are opposed who think that this communion, which we call either deity or love or charity, is not a substance;
and they demand that the Holy Spirit be expounded to them according to substance, and do not understand that it could not otherwise have been said: God is love, unless love were a substance. For they are led astray by the habit of bodily things, since, if two bodies be coupled together so as to be placed beside each other, that coupling itself is not a body, inasmuch as, when those bodies which had been coupled are separated, no coupling is found; nor yet is it understood to have departed and migrated, as those bodies are. But let such men make their heart clean, as far as they are able, that they may be strong to see that in the substance of God there is no such thing—as though there were one thing there which is substance, another which is an accident of substance, and is not substance;
but whatever can be understood there is substance. These things indeed can easily be said and believed; but how they truly stand can in no wise be seen except by a pure heart. Wherefore, whether this opinion be true, or whether it be something else, the faith must be held unshaken, that we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, neither three gods, but that Trinity one God; nor diverse natures, but of the same substance; nor that the Father should at any time be the Son, at any time the Holy Spirit, but the Father always Father, and the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always Holy Spirit.
Nor let us rashly affirm anything concerning invisible things as though we knew them, but as though believing, since they cannot be seen except by a cleansed heart. And if anyone sees these things in this life in part, as it has been said, and in an enigma, he cannot bring it about that the one to whom he speaks should also see, if that one is hindered by the filth of his heart. But blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is the faith concerning God, our Creator and Renewer. But since love is enjoined upon us not only toward God, when it is said:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, but also toward our neighbor—for, Thou shalt love, he says, thy neighbor as thyself—and unless this faith hold fast the congregation and society of men in which brotherly charity is at work, it is less fruitful: we believe also in the holy Church, namely the catholic. For heretics and schismatics call their congregations churches. But heretics, by thinking falsely concerning God, violate the faith itself; while schismatics, by wicked divisions, leap apart from brotherly charity, although they believe what we believe. Wherefore neither do heretics belong to the catholic Church, because she loves God, nor schismatics, because she loves her neighbor.
And therefore she easily forgives the sins of her neighbor, because she prays that forgiveness be granted to herself by him who reconciled us to himself, blotting out all things past and calling us to a new life: which life, until we receive it in perfection, we cannot be without sins; yet it matters what kind they are. Nor must we now treat of the difference of sins, but it must be believed that in no way at all are those things forgiven us which we commit, if we are inexorable in forgiving sins. And so we believe also in the remission of sins. And since there are three things of which man consists: spirit,
soul, and body—which again are spoken of as two, because the soul is often named together with the spirit (for a certain part of the same rational soul, which the beasts lack, is called spirit)—our principal part is the spirit; next, the life by which we are joined to the body is called the soul; lastly, the body itself, since it is visible, is the lowest part of us. But this whole creation groans and travails until now; yet it has given the firstfruits of the Spirit, because it has believed God and is now of good will. For this spirit is also called the mind, concerning which the Apostle says: With the mind I serve the law of God, who likewise in another place says: For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit.
But the soul, when it still craves carnal goods, is named flesh, and resists the spirit, not by nature, but by the habit of sins. Whence it is said: With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. This habit has turned into nature according to the mortal generation by the sin of the first man. And therefore it is written: And we also were by nature once children of wrath—that is, of vengeance—through which it came about that we serve the law of sin. But the nature of the soul is perfect when it is made subject to its own spirit, and when it follows God who follows after. Therefore the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God.
But the soul is not so quickly brought under to the spirit for good working as the spirit is to God for true faith and good will; rather, sometimes more slowly is its impulse, by which it flows away into carnal and temporal things, reined in. But since it too is cleansed, receiving the stability of its own nature while the spirit rules—the spirit which is its head, the head of which head is Christ—we must not despair that the body too is restored to its own proper nature; but certainly not so quickly as the soul, just as neither is the soul so quickly as the spirit, but at the fitting time, at the last trumpet, when the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
And therefore we believe also in the resurrection of the flesh—not only because the soul, which is now named flesh on account of carnal affections, is restored, but also this visible flesh, which is naturally flesh, whose name 'soul' it received not on account of its nature, but on account of carnal affections; this therefore, the visible flesh which is properly called flesh, must without doubt be believed to rise again. For the Apostle Paul seems to point it out as it were with his finger when he says: This corruptible must put on incorruption. For when he says 'this,' he as it were directs his finger at it. But that which is visible can be pointed at with the finger, since the soul too can be called corruptible; for it is corrupted by the vices of morals.
And when it is read, And this mortal must put on immortality, the same visible flesh is signified, because at it, again and again, the finger as it were is pointed. For the soul too, just as it can be called corruptible on account of the vices of morals, so also can be called mortal. For the death of the soul is to apostatize from God: which, as its first sin in paradise, is contained in the sacred letters. The body therefore shall rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. And to whomsoever this seems incredible, he attends to what the flesh now is, but does not consider what it shall be: because in that time of the angelic transformation it will no longer be flesh and blood, but only body.
For when the Apostle was speaking of flesh, he says: One is the flesh of cattle, another of birds, another of fishes, another of serpents. And there are heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies. For he did not say 'and heavenly flesh,' but he said: and heavenly and earthly bodies. For all flesh is also body, but not every body is also flesh: first, in these earthly things, since wood is a body, but not flesh; whereas of a man or of cattle there is both body and flesh; but in heavenly things there is no flesh, but simple and shining bodies, which the Apostle calls spiritual, while some call them ethereal. And therefore that which he says is not contrary to the resurrection of the flesh:
Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God—rather, he proclaims what that which is now flesh and blood shall become. Whoever does not believe that this flesh can be converted into such a nature must be led by degrees to faith. For if you ask him whether earth can be converted into water, because of their nearness it does not seem to him incredible. Again, if you ask whether water can be converted into air, neither does he answer that this is absurd; for they are near to each other. And if you ask concerning air, whether it can be changed into an ethereal body, that is, into a heavenly one, the very nearness now persuades him.
That, then, which he concedes can come about through these degrees—that earth be converted into an ethereal body—why does he not believe that, when the will of God comes to its aid (the will by which a human body was able to walk upon the waters), it can come about most swiftly, as it was said: in the twinkling of an eye, without any such degrees—just as very often smoke is converted into flame with wondrous swiftness? For our flesh is indeed from earth; but the philosophers, by whose arguments the resurrection of the flesh is rather often opposed—those by which they assert that no earthly body can be in heaven—concede that every body can be converted and changed into every body.
And when this resurrection of the body has been accomplished, we, freed from the condition of time, shall fully enjoy eternal life with ineffable charity and stability [without corruption]. For then shall come to pass that which is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is thy sting? where, O death, is thy strife? This is the faith which, to be held in few words, is given in the creed to new Christians. Which few words are known to the faithful, that by believing they may be made subject to God, that being made subject they may live rightly, that by living rightly they may cleanse the heart, and that with a cleansed heart they may understand what they believe. PASSAGES FROM THE BOOK OF RETRACTATIONS. On Faith and the Creed, page 30, lines 16 and following. Retractations I 17. In this book, when the subject was the resurrection:
The body, I say, shall rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. And to whomsoever this seems incredible, he attends to what the flesh now is, but does not consider what it shall then be, because at that time of the angelic transformation it will no longer be flesh and blood, but only body—and the other things which I there discussed concerning the change of earthly bodies into heavenly bodies, since the Apostle said, when speaking of this matter: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.
But whoever so takes these things as to suppose that the earthly body, such as we now have, is so changed in the resurrection into a heavenly body that neither these members nor the substance of flesh shall be in the future, must without doubt be corrected, being reminded of the body of the Lord, who after the resurrection appeared in the same members, not only to be beheld with the eyes but also to be handled with the hands, and confirmed by his very speech that he had flesh, saying: Handle and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have.
Hence it is clear that the Apostle did not deny that the substance of the flesh would exist in the kingdom of God, but that either he designated by the name of flesh and blood those men who live according to the flesh, or else the very corruption of the flesh, which then surely will be no more. For when he had said, 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God,' it is rightly understood that, as if to explain what he had said, he straightway added, 'Neither shall corruption possess incorruption.' On this matter, difficult as it is to persuade the unbelieving, whoever shall read my volume On the City of God will find that I have, as carefully as I could, treated it at length.