To the most blessed lord, to be venerated with most sincere charity, the holy brother and fellow-priest Pope Aurelius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. The books on the Trinity, which is the supreme and true God, I began as a young man and published as an old man. For I had laid aside this work after I learned that they had been snatched or stolen from me before I had completed them and, as had been my plan, polished them by revision. For I had resolved to publish them, not one by one, but all together, for this reason: that the following are linked to the preceding by an inquiry that advances step by step.
Since, then, through those men (who were able to reach some of those books before I wished) my plan could not be fulfilled, I had left the dictation interrupted, thinking to complain of this very thing in some of my writings, that those who could might know that these books had not been published by me, but taken away before they seemed to me worthy of my publication.
But compelled by the most vehement demand of many brethren, and especially by your command, I took care, with the Lord's help, to bring to an end so laborious a work, and having corrected them—not as I wished, but as I was able, lest they should differ too greatly from those which, having been purloined, had already gone forth into the hands of men—I have sent them to your Reverence through our dearest son the fellow-deacon, and have permitted them to be heard, copied, and read by whomsoever. In which, if my plan could have been preserved, they would surely, though having the same opinions, yet be far more disentangled and plainer, so far as the difficulty of explaining such great matters and our own ability would allow.
But there are some who have the first four, or rather even five, without the prefaces, and the twelfth without its final part, which is no small portion; but if this edition can become known to them, they will correct everything, if they will and are able. I ask indeed that you command this letter to be placed separately, yet at the head of those same books. Pray for me. Whoever is about to read these things which we discuss concerning the Trinity ought first to know that our pen keeps watch against the calumnies of those who, despising the beginning of faith, are deceived by an immature and perverse love of reason.
Some of these attempt to transfer to incorporeal and spiritual things those things which they have noted concerning corporeal things, whether experienced through the bodily senses, or which they have perceived by the nature of human ingenuity and the vivacity of diligence or by the aid of art, so that they wish to measure and form opinions of the former from the latter. There are likewise others who feel about God according to the nature or affection of the human mind, if they feel anything at all, and from this error, when they dispute about God, they fix distorted and fallacious rules for their discourse. There is likewise another kind of men, of those who indeed strive to transcend the whole creation, which is assuredly mutable, that they may raise their intention to the immutable substance which is God;
but weighed down by the burden of mortality, since they both wish to seem to know what they do not know, and cannot know what they wish to know, by too boldly affirming the presumptions of their own opinions they block up for themselves the ways of understanding, choosing rather not to correct their perverse opinion than to change what they have defended. And this indeed is the disease of all three kinds which I have proposed: namely, both of those who think of God according to the body; and of those who think according to the spiritual creature, such as the soul is; and of those who think falsely of God neither according to the body nor according to the spiritual creature, and are the further from the truth in that what they think is found neither in the body nor in the created and established spirit nor in the Creator himself.
For whoever imagines God to be, for example, white or ruddy is deceived; yet these qualities are found in a body. Again, whoever imagines God to be now forgetting, now remembering, or anything of this sort, is no less in error; yet these things are found in the mind. But those who suppose God to be of such power that He begot His own self err all the more, in that not only is God not so, but neither is a spiritual nor a bodily creature so. For there is no thing whatsoever that begets itself into being.
Therefore, in order that the human mind might be purged of such falsehoods, holy Scripture, accommodating itself to little ones, avoided the words of no class of things, so that from them our understanding might rise, as it were nourished by degrees, toward things divine and sublime. For it employed words drawn from bodily things when it spoke of God, as when it says: 「Under the shadow of Thy wings protect me.」 And from spiritual creation it borrowed many expressions to signify that which was not indeed such, yet needed to be so spoken of, as when it is said: 「I am a jealous God,」 and: 「It repenteth me that I made man.」 But from things which have no being at all it drew no terms with which to figure its utterances or to weave its riddles.
Whence more perniciously and more emptily do those vanish away who are cut off from the truth by that third kind of error, suspecting concerning God that which can be found neither in Him nor in any creature. For from things that are found in creation the divine Scripture is wont to fashion, as it were, childlike delights, by which the gaze of the weak might be moved, according to its own small measure, as if by steps, toward seeking things above and forsaking things below. But those things which are properly said of God, which are found in no creature, the divine Scripture sets down rarely, as is that which was said to Moses: 「I am who I am,」 and: 「He who is hath sent me to you.」 For since both body and mind are in some manner said to be, unless Scripture wished this to be understood in a certain proper sense, it would surely not have said it thus.
And there is that which the Apostle says: 「Who alone hath immortality.」 Since even the soul is in some manner said to be immortal, and is so, he would not have said 「alone hath it,」 except because true immortality is unchangeableness, which no creature can possess, since it belongs to the Creator alone. This also James says: 「Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of a moment.」 This too David: 「Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the selfsame.」 Accordingly, to behold and fully to know the substance of God, which makes changeable things without any change of itself, and creates temporal things without any temporal motion of itself, is difficult.
And therefore there is need of a purging of our mind, by which that ineffable thing may ineffably be seen; and not yet endowed with which, we are nourished by faith, and are led by more tolerable ways so that we may be made fit and able to grasp it. Whence the Apostle says that in Christ indeed all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. Yet He, to those already reborn by His grace but still carnal and animal, as it were little ones in Christ, He commended not out of the divine power in which He is equal to the Father, but out of the human weakness by which He was crucified. For he says: 「For I judged not myself to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.」 Then, continuing, he says:
「And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.」 And a little after he says to them: 「And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for hitherto you were not able, nor indeed are you yet able.」 When this is said to certain people, they grow angry and think it is spoken to them insultingly, and for the most part they prefer to believe that those from whom they hear these things have nothing to say, rather than that they themselves cannot grasp what has been said.
And sometimes we offer them a reason—not the one they ask for when they inquire about God, since they themselves are not able to take it in, nor perhaps are we able either to grasp or to set it forth, but one by which it may be shown to them how unsuited and least fit they are for perceiving what they demand. But because they do not hear what they wish, they think either that we act craftily so as to conceal our own ignorance, or maliciously that we begrudge them our own expertise; and so, indignant and disturbed, they depart.
[II 4] Wherefore, with the help of the Lord our God, we shall undertake to render even that very reason which they demand—as far as we are able—namely, that the Trinity is the one and only and true God, and how rightly the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are said, believed, and understood to be of one and the same substance or essence; so that they may not be mocked as if by our excuses, but may in the very thing experience both that that highest good exists which is discerned by the most purified minds, and that it cannot be discerned or comprehended by them for this reason, that the eye of the human mind, being too weak, is not fixed upon so excellent a light unless, nourished by the righteousness of faith, it be made vigorous. But first it must be demonstrated, according to the authority of the holy Scriptures, whether the faith so holds.
Then, if God shall will and help, we shall perhaps so serve these garrulous reasoners—who are more lofty than they are capacious, and therefore labor under a more dangerous disease—that they may find something about which they cannot doubt, and on this account, in that which they were unable to find, they may complain rather of their own minds than of the truth itself or of our disputations. And so, if they have any love or fear toward God, they may return to the beginning and order of faith, now perceiving how salutarily the medicine of the faithful has been established in the holy Church, so that observed piety may heal the feeble mind for the perception of unchangeable truth, lest disordered rashness cast it headlong into an opinion of hurtful falsehood.
But it will not irk me, wherever I hesitate, to inquire; nor will it shame me, wherever I err, to learn. [III 5] Accordingly, whoever reads these things: where he is equally certain, let him go on with me; where he equally hesitates, let him inquire with me; where he recognizes his own error, let him return to me; where he recognizes mine, let him call me back. Thus let us enter together upon the way of charity, striving toward Him of whom it was said: 「Seek His face evermore.」 And this pious and safe covenant I would enter, before the Lord our God, with all who read what I write, and in all my writings, but most of all in these where the unity of the Trinity is sought, of Father and Son and Holy Spirit; because nowhere is error more perilous, nor is anything sought with more toil, nor is anything found with more fruit.
Whoever, then, when he reads, says: 「This is not well said, because I do not understand it,」 reprehends my manner of speaking, not the faith; and perhaps it truly could have been said more plainly. Nevertheless, no man has ever spoken in such a way as to be understood by all in all things. Let him therefore who is displeased by this in my discourse see whether, when he understands others versed in such matters and questions, he does not understand me; and if it is so, let him lay aside my book, or even, if it seems good, cast it away, and rather expend his effort and time on those whom he does understand. Yet let him not on that account think that I ought to have kept silent because I could not speak as expeditiously and lucidly as those whom he understands.
For not all things that are written by all come into the hands of all, and it may happen that some who are even able to understand these our writings do not find those plainer books, and light at least upon these. And therefore it is useful that many things be made by many, in a different style but not a different faith, even concerning the same questions, so that the matter itself may reach very many—to some in this way, to others in that. But if he who complains that he did not understand these things has never been able to understand anything diligently and acutely disputed about such matters, let him deal with himself by prayers and studies that he may make progress, not with me by complaints and reproaches that I should keep silent. But he who, reading these things, says:
「I do indeed understand what has been said, but it is not truly said」—let him assert his own opinion, as he pleases, and refute mine if he can. And if he does this with charity and truth, and takes care to make it known to me also (if I remain in this life), I shall have reaped the most abundant fruit of this my labor. But if he cannot do so for me, may he grant it—with my willing and glad consent—to those for whom he can. As for me, I will meditate in the law of the Lord, if not day and night, at least in whatever little portions of time I can, and I bind fast my meditations with the pen, lest they flee away by forgetfulness, hoping from the mercy of God that He will make me persevering in all the true things that are certain to me;
but if I am otherwise minded in anything, that too He Himself will reveal to me, whether by hidden inspirations and admonitions, or by His manifest words, or by brotherly conversations. This I pray, and this deposit and desire of mine I hold in His keeping, who is sufficiently able both to guard what He has given and to render what He has promised. I judge indeed that some slower ones, in certain places of my books, will suppose me to have meant what I did not mean, or not to have meant what I did mean.
Who does not know that their error ought not to be imputed to me, if, as though following me but not grasping me, they have gone astray into some falsehood while I am compelled to make my way through certain dense and shadowy places—seeing that not even to the holy authorities of the divine books themselves would anyone rightly impute the so many and various errors of the heretics, since they all endeavor to defend their false and deceptive opinions out of the very same Scriptures?
The law of Christ, that is, charity, plainly admonishes me and, by its most sweet command, bids me: that when men think I have meant in my books something false which I did not mean, and that very falsehood displeases one and pleases another, I should prefer to be reprehended by the reprover of the falsehood than to be praised by its praiser. For by the former, although I am not rightly reprehended who did not mean this, yet the error itself is rightly censured; but by the latter, neither am I rightly praised—by one who thinks I meant what truth censures—nor is that very opinion which truth censures rightly praised. Therefore, in the name of the Lord, let us approach the work we have undertaken.
[IV 7] All those whom I have been able to read who wrote before me concerning the Trinity which is God—Catholic expositors of the divine books, old and new—have intended to teach, according to the Scriptures, this: that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, by the inseparable equality of one substance, present the divine unity; and therefore they are not three gods but one God—although the Father begot the Son, and therefore the Son is not He who is the Father; and the Son was begotten of the Father, and therefore the Father is not He who is the Son; and the Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also coequal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity.
Yet it was not the same Trinity that was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified and buried under Pontius Pilate, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor was it the same Trinity that descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus at His baptism, or that on the day of Pentecost, after the Lord's ascension, when a sound was made from heaven as if a mighty blast were being borne along, and with divided tongues as of fire, but only the Holy Spirit. Nor was it the same Trinity that said from heaven: 「Thou art my Son,」 whether when He was baptized by John, or on the mountain when the three disciples were with Him, or when the voice sounded saying: 「I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again,」 but it was only the voice of the Father made to the Son—
although the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as they are inseparable, so also work inseparably. This is my faith too, since this is the Catholic faith. [V 8] But in this some are troubled, when they hear God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and yet that this Trinity is not three gods but one God; and they ask how they may understand this, especially since it is said that the Trinity works inseparably in every thing that God works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father sounded, which is not the voice of the Son; and that in the flesh only the Son was born and suffered and rose and ascended; and that in the form of a dove only the Holy Spirit came.
They wish to understand how the Trinity made both that voice which was the Father's only, and how the same Trinity created that flesh in which only the Son was born of the Virgin, and how that very Trinity wrought that form of a dove in which only the Holy Spirit appeared. Otherwise the Trinity does not work inseparably, but the Father does some things, the Son others, the Holy Spirit others; or if some things they do together, some without one another, then the Trinity is no longer inseparable. It also perplexes them how the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity, whom neither the Father nor the Son nor both begot, since He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
Since, therefore, men ask these things, and it is a weariness to us, so that, if our weakness has any savor of this from the gift of God, we may expound it to them as we are able, and may not travel our road with wasting envy—if we say that we are not wont to think anything about such matters, we lie; but if we confess that these things dwell in our thoughts, since we are seized by the love of tracking out the truth, then by the right of charity they demand that we tell them what we have been able to think out concerning this.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect (for if Paul the Apostle—how much more I, lying far below beneath his feet—do not judge that I have laid hold?); but according to my small measure, if I forget the things that are behind and stretch forth to the things that are before, and according to my intention follow on toward the prize of the supernal calling: how much of that same way I have traversed, and to what point I have arrived whence in the end the remaining course lies before me, that I may open it up, is desired of me by those desiring it, whom free charity compels me to serve. And it behooves, and God will grant, that in ministering to them what they may read, I too may make progress, and in desiring to answer them who inquire, I too may find what I was seeking.
Therefore I have undertaken these things, at the command and with the help of the Lord our God, not so much to discourse with authority upon things known, as to come to know them by discoursing upon them with piety. [VI 9] Those who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or is not true God, or is not with the Father one and only God, or is not truly immortal because changeable, have been convicted by the most manifest and consonant voice of the divine testimonies. Whence are those words: 「In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.」 For it is manifest that we take the Word of God to be the only-begotten Son of God, of whom afterward he says: 「And the Word was made flesh,」 on account of the nativity of His incarnation which was made in time from the Virgin.
But in this he declares Him not only to be God, but also to be of the same substance with the Father, because, having said: 「And the Word was God,」 he says: 「The same was in the beginning with God; all things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.」 For he does not say 「all things」 except 「those that were made,」 that is, every creature. Whence it plainly appears that He Himself was not made, by whom all things were made. And if He was not made, He is not a creature; but if He is not a creature, He is of the same substance with the Father. For every substance that is not God is a creature, and that which is not a creature is God. And if the Son is not of the same substance of which the Father is, then His substance was made; if His substance was made, not all things were made by Him;
but if all things were made by Him, then He is of one and the same substance with the Father. And therefore He is not only God but also true God. This same John most openly says in his epistle: 「We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us understanding, that we may know the true One and may be in the true One, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.」 Hence too it is consequently understood that the Apostle Paul spoke not only of the Father: 「Who alone hath immortality,」 but of the one and only God, which is the Trinity itself. For neither is eternal life itself mortal according to any changeableness; and through this the Son of God, because He is eternal life, is understood together with the Father to be there where it is said:
「Alone hath immortality.」 For being made partakers of that eternal life, we too, according to our small measure, are made immortal. But it is one thing, that eternal life itself of which we are made partakers, and another we ourselves who by participation in it shall live forever. For if he had said: 「Whom in His own times the blessed and only Potentate shall show, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone hath immortality,」 not even so would the Son have to be understood as separated therefrom. For neither, because the Son Himself, speaking elsewhere in the voice of Wisdom (for He is the Wisdom of God), says: 「I alone compassed the circuit of heaven,」 did He separate the Father from Himself. How much more, therefore, is it not necessary that what is said should be understood only of the Father to the exclusion of the Son:
「Who alone hath immortality,」 since it was said thus: 「That thou keep,」 he says, 「the commandment without spot, blameless, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom in His own times the blessed and only Potentate shall show, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone hath immortality and dwelleth in light inaccessible; whom no man hath seen nor can see; to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever.」 In which words neither the Father is properly named, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, but 「the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,」 which is the one and only and true God, the Trinity itself. Unless perhaps what follows will disturb this understanding, because he said:
「Whom no man hath seen nor can see,」 since this too may be taken to pertain to Christ according to His divinity, which the Jews did not see, though they saw and crucified the flesh. But the divinity can in no way be seen by human sight; rather it is seen by that sight whereby those who now see are no longer men but beyond men. Rightly, therefore, is God Himself, the Trinity, understood as 「the blessed and only Potentate」 who shows the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in His own times. For 「alone hath immortality」 was said in the same way as it was said: 「Who alone doeth wonders.」 Of whom I would wish to know they take this to be said. If of the Father only, how then is it true what the Son Himself says:
「For whatsoever things the Father doeth, these same the Son also doeth likewise」? And what among wonders is more wonderful than to raise up and give life to the dead? Yet the same Son says: 「As the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom He will.」 How then does the Father alone do wonders, when these words permit neither the Father only nor the Son only to be understood, but assuredly the one true only God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Likewise the same Apostle says: 「To us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.」 Who can doubt that by 「all things」 he means those that are created, as John says: 「All things were made by Him」?
I ask, therefore, concerning whom he says in another place: 「For of Him and through Him and in Him are all things; to Him be glory for ever and ever.」 For if this is of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that to each single person single things be attributed—「of Him,」 of the Father; 「through Him,」 through the Son; 「in Him,」 in the Holy Spirit—it is manifest that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, since he inferred in the singular: 「To Him be glory for ever and ever.」 For whence he began this sense: he did not say: 「O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Spirit,」 but 「of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor?」
「Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him? For of Him and through Him and in Him are all things; to Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.」 But if they wish this to be understood of the Father only, how then are all things through the Father, as is here said, and all things through the Son, as in the passage to the Corinthians where he says: 「And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,」 and as in the Gospel of John: 「All things were made by Him」? For if some things are through the Father, others through the Son, then not all things are through the Father, nor all things through the Son. But if all things are through the Father and all things through the Son, then the same things are through the Father as through the Son. The Son, therefore, is equal to the Father, and the operation of the Father and of the Son is inseparable.
Because if the Father made even the Son, whom the Son Himself did not make, then not all things were made through the Son. But all things were made through the Son. Therefore He Himself was not made, so that with the Father He might make all things that were made. And yet the Apostle was not silent even about the Word itself, but most openly said: 「Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,」 here properly calling God the Father, as elsewhere: 「But the head of Christ is God.」 Likewise, concerning the Holy Spirit also, testimonies have been collected which those who disputed these matters before us have used more abundantly, because He too is God and not a creature. But if not a creature, then not only God (for men also have been called gods), but also true God.
Therefore He is altogether equal to the Father and the Son, and consubstantial and coeternal in the unity of the Trinity. But most of all it is sufficiently clear that the Holy Spirit is not a creature in that passage where we are bidden not to serve the creature but the Creator—not in that manner in which we are bidden through charity to serve one another, which in Greek is *douleuein, but in that manner in which God alone is served, which in Greek is *latreuein. Whence they are called idolaters who exhibit to images that service which is due to God. For according to this service it was said: 「Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.」 For this is found more distinctly in the Greek Scripture, for it has *latreuseis. Moreover, if by such service we are forbidden to serve the creature, since it was said: