Beginning now from this point to say things which cannot in every way be spoken as they are thought—whether by any man, or at any rate by us—although our very thought, when we think of God the Trinity, feels itself far unequal to Him of whom it thinks, and does not grasp Him as He is, but, as it is written, even by such men as the Apostle Paul was here, He is seen through a glass, in a riddle: first, from the Lord our God Himself, of whom we ought always to think and of whom we cannot think worthily, to whom in praise blessing is to be rendered at all times, and to whom in utterance no utterance is adequate, I implore both help for understanding and explaining what I intend, and pardon wherever I give offense.
For I am mindful not only of my will but also of my weakness. And from those who will read these things I ask that they pardon me where they notice that I have wished to say more than I have been able—where they either understand it better themselves, or do not understand it because of the difficulty of my language—just as I pardon them where, because of their slowness, they cannot understand. And we more easily pardon one another if we know, or at least firmly hold by believing, that the things said concerning a nature immutable and invisible and supremely living and sufficient unto itself must not be measured by the custom of things visible and mutable and mortal or needy.
But although we labor and are not able even to comprehend by knowledge those things which lie close to our bodily senses, or what we ourselves are in the inner man, nevertheless it is not with shamelessness that faithful piety burns toward those things above which are divine and ineffable—a piety not puffed up by arrogance of its own powers, but kindled by the grace of the Creator and Savior Himself. For by what understanding does man grasp God, who does not yet grasp his own understanding by which he wishes to grasp Him?
But if he does already grasp it, let him carefully attend to the fact that nothing in his nature is better than it, and let him see whether he sees there any lineaments of shapes, brightness of colors, expansive magnitude, distance of parts, extension of mass, any motions through intervals of place, or anything of the sort. Certainly we find none of these things in that in which we find nothing better in our nature—that is, in our understanding, by which we grasp wisdom to the measure that we are capable.
Therefore what we do not find in that which is better in us, we ought not to seek in Him who is far better than that which is best in us; so that thus we may understand God, if we can and to the extent we can, as good without quality, great without quantity, Creator without need, present without position, containing all things without possession, everywhere whole without place, everlasting without time, making mutable things without any change in Himself and suffering nothing. Whoever thinks of God in this way, even if he cannot yet in every way find out what He is, nonetheless piously takes care, as far as he can, not to think anything of Him which He is not. Yet He is without doubt a substance, or, if it is better so called, an essence, which the Greeks call 'ousia.'
For just as wisdom is so named from being wise, and knowledge from knowing, so essence is named from being. And who is more truly than He who said to His servant, 'I am who I am,' and 'You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you'? But other things which are called essences or substances admit of accidents, by which a change, whether great or of any degree, is wrought in them; but to God nothing of this kind can happen. And therefore the only immutable substance or essence is that which is God, to whom assuredly that very being, from which 'essence' is named, most greatly and most truly belongs.
For that which is changed does not keep its very being, and that which can be changed, even if it is not changed, is able not to be what it had been; and by this, that alone which not only is not changed but also cannot in any way be changed occurs to us without scruple as that which is most truly said to be. Wherefore, that we may now begin to answer the adversaries of our faith concerning these matters, which are neither spoken as they are thought nor thought as they are: among the many things which the Arians are accustomed to argue against the Catholic faith, they seem to put forward this as their most cunning device when they say: 'Whatever is said or understood of God is said not according to accident but according to substance.
Therefore to be unbegotten belongs to the Father according to substance, and to be begotten belongs to the Son according to substance. But to be unbegotten and to be begotten are different; therefore the substance of the Father and of the Son is different.' To these we reply: If whatever is said of God is said according to substance, then what was said—'I and the Father are one'—was said according to substance. The substance, therefore, of the Father and of the Son is one. Or if this was not said according to substance, then something is said of God not according to substance, and therefore we are no longer compelled to understand 'unbegotten' and 'begotten' according to substance. Again, it was said of the Son, 'He did not think it robbery to be equal with God.' We ask: equal according to what?
For if He is not said to be equal according to substance, they admit that something is said of God not according to substance; let them then admit that 'unbegotten' and 'begotten' are said not according to substance. But if they do not admit this, because they wish everything to be said of God according to substance, then according to substance the Son is equal to the Father. Now an accident is not usually spoken of except as that which can be lost by some change of the thing to which it happens. For although certain accidents are called inseparable, which in Greek are called 'achorista'—such as the black color of a crow's feather—yet it loses this, not indeed so long as it is a feather, but because it is not always a feather.
Wherefore the very matter is mutable, and from the fact that that animal or that feather ceases to be, and that whole body is changed and turned into earth, it likewise loses that color too. Although even an accident which is called separable is lost not by separation but by change, as is the blackness of human hair—since while there is hair it can grow white; it is called a separable accident, but to those who look carefully it is sufficiently apparent that nothing, as it were, migrates from the head by separation when it grows gray, so that the blackness departs thence with whiteness succeeding and goes off somewhere, but rather that quality of color is there turned and changed. Nothing therefore is an accident in God, because nothing in Him is mutable or losable.
But if it is also pleasing to call that an accident which, though it be not lost, is nevertheless diminished or increased—as is the life of the soul (for as long as it is a soul, so long does it live, and because it is always a soul it always lives; but because it lives more when it is wise and less when it is foolish, here too some change occurs, not so that life should be lacking, as wisdom is lacking to the foolish, but so that it should be less)—no such thing occurs in God, because He remains altogether immutable. Wherefore nothing is said of Him according to accident, because nothing happens to Him; yet not everything that is said of Him is said according to substance. For in things created and mutable, what is not said according to substance, it remains, is said according to accident.
For all things happen to them which can be either lost or diminished—both magnitudes and qualities, and what is said in relation to something, such as friendships, kinships, services, likenesses, equalities and any such things, and positions and possessions and places and times and works and passions. But in God nothing indeed is said according to accident, because nothing in Him is mutable; and yet not everything that is said of Him is said according to substance.
For something is said in relation to another, as Father in relation to Son and Son in relation to Father, which is not an accident, because both the one is always Father and the other always Son—and 'always' not in the sense that the Son does not cease to be Son from the time He was born, or that the Father does not cease to be Father because the Son never ceases to be Son, but in the sense that the Son was always born and never began to be Son. For if the Son had at some time begun to be, or would at some time cease to be, He would be spoken of according to accident. But if what is called 'Father' were said in relation to Himself and not to the Son, and what is called 'Son' were said in relation to Himself and not to the Father, then both the one would be called Father and the other Son according to substance.
But since the Father is not called Father except from the fact that He has a Son, and the Son is not called Son except from the fact that He has a Father, these things are not said according to substance, because neither of them is spoken of in relation to Himself, but in relation to one another and mutually; nor according to accident, because both what is called Father and what is called Son is eternal and unchangeable in them. Wherefore, although to be Father and to be Son is different, yet the substance is not different, because these things are said not according to substance but according to relation—which relation, however, is not an accident, because it is not mutable.
But if they think this argument is to be resisted on the ground that 'Father' is indeed said in relation to 'Son' and 'Son' in relation to 'Father,' yet 'unbegotten' and 'begotten' are said in relation to themselves and not to one another—for to say 'unbegotten' is not the same as to say 'Father,' since even if He had not begotten a Son, nothing would prevent calling Him unbegotten; and if anyone begets a son, he is not thereby himself unbegotten, since begotten men beget others from other men and themselves beget others—they say, therefore: 'Father is said in relation to Son and Son in relation to Father; but unbegotten is said in relation to itself and begotten in relation to itself. And therefore, if whatever is said in relation to itself is said according to substance, but to be unbegotten and to be begotten are different;
therefore the substance is different.' If they say this, they do not understand that they are indeed saying something about the 'unbegotten' which must be treated more carefully; for no one is Father because unbegotten, nor unbegotten because Father, and therefore 'unbegotten' is thought to be said not in relation to something but in relation to itself. But of 'begotten' they do not notice, with a strange blindness, that it cannot be said except in relation to something. For He is Son precisely because begotten, and because Son, certainly begotten. And as Son is referred to Father, so 'begotten' to 'begetter,' and as Father to Son, so 'begetter' to 'begotten.' And therefore the notion by which the begetter is understood is one, and that by which the unbegotten is understood is another.
For although both are said of God the Father, yet the one—namely 'begetter'—is said in relation to the begotten, that is, in relation to the Son, which they too do not deny; but the other, that He is called 'unbegotten,' they maintain is said in relation to Himself. They say, therefore: 'If something is said of the Father in relation to Himself which cannot be said of the Son in relation to Himself, and if whatever is said in relation to itself is said according to substance, and 'unbegotten' is said of Him in relation to Himself, which cannot be said of the Son, then 'unbegotten' is said according to substance; and since it cannot be said of the Son, the Son is not of the same substance.' To this cunning it is answered in such a way that they themselves are compelled to say according to what the Son is equal to the Father—whether according to that which is said in relation to Himself, or according to that which is said in relation to the Father.
For not according to that which is said in relation to the Father, since 'Son' is said in relation to the Father, but He is not Son but Father—because Father and Son are not said in relation to each other in the way that friends or neighbors are. For 'friend' is said relatively in relation to 'friend,' and if they love one another equally, the same friendship is in both; and 'neighbor' is said relatively in relation to 'neighbor,' and because they are equally neighbors to each other (for as much as this one is neighbor to that, so much is that one neighbor to this), the same neighborliness is in both. But because 'Son' is said relatively not in relation to 'Son' but in relation to 'Father,' the Son is not equal to the Father according to that which is said in relation to the Father. It remains, therefore, that He is equal according to that which is said in relation to Himself. But whatever is said in relation to itself is said according to substance.
It remains, therefore, that He is equal according to substance. The substance, therefore, of both is the same. But when the Father is called 'unbegotten,' it is said not what He is but what He is not. And when a relative term is negated, it is negated not according to substance, because the relative itself is not said according to substance. This must be made plain by examples. And first it must be seen that the same thing is signified when 'begotten' is said as is signified when 'Son' is said. For He is Son because begotten, and because Son, certainly begotten. What, therefore, is called 'unbegotten' shows that He is not a Son. But 'begotten' and 'unbegotten' are conveniently said; while 'Son' (filius) is said in Latin, but the custom of speech does not admit that 'un-son' (infilius) be said.
Yet nothing is taken away from the understanding if 'not Son' be said, just as also if 'not begotten' be said in place of what is called 'unbegotten,' nothing else is said. For thus both 'neighbor' and 'friend' are said relatively, and yet 'un-neighbor' (invicinus) cannot be said in the way that 'enemy' (inimicus) is said. Wherefore in matters we must consider not what the usage of our speech permits or does not permit to be said, but what understanding of the things themselves shines forth. Let us not, then, now say 'unbegotten,' although it can be said in Latin, but in its place let us say 'not begotten,' which means just as much. Do we then say anything other than 'not Son'?
Moreover, that negative particle 'not' does not bring it about that what without it is said relatively should, with the same particle prefixed, be said substantially; but only that is negated which without it was affirmed, as in the other categories. For instance, when we say 'He is a man,' we designate substance. He, therefore, who says 'He is not a man,' does not enunciate another kind of category but only negates it. As therefore I affirm according to substance, 'He is a man,' so I negate according to substance when I say, 'He is not a man.' And when it is asked how great he is, and I say 'He is four feet,' that is, of four feet, whoever says 'He is not four feet' negates according to quantity. 'He is white,' I affirm according to quality; 'He is not white,' I negate according to quality.
'He is near,' I affirm according to relation; 'He is not near,' I negate according to relation. I affirm according to position when I say 'He is lying down'; I negate according to position when I say 'He is not lying down.' I affirm according to possession when I say 'He is armed'; I negate according to possession when I say 'He is not armed'—and it means just as much if I say 'He is unarmed.' I affirm according to time when I say 'He is of yesterday'; I negate according to time when I say 'He is not of yesterday.' And when I say 'He is at Rome,' I affirm according to place; and I negate according to place when I say 'He is not at Rome.' I affirm according to that which is 'to do' when I say 'He strikes'; but if I say 'He does not strike,' I negate according to that which is 'to do,' so as to show that he is not doing this. And when I say:
'He is beaten,' I affirm according to the category which is called 'passion'; and I negate according to it when I say 'He is not beaten.' And there is altogether no kind of category according to which we wish to affirm anything but that we are shown to negate according to that same category if we choose to prefix the negative particle. Since these things are so, if I affirmed substantially by saying 'Son,' I would negate substantially by saying 'not Son.' But because I affirm relatively when I say 'He is Son'—for I refer it to the Father—I negate relatively if I say 'He is not Son'; for I refer the same negation to the parent, wishing to show that He has no parent.
But if what is called 'Son' means just as much as what is called 'begotten,' as we have said above, then what is called 'not begotten' means just as much as what is called 'not Son.' But we negate relatively by saying 'not Son'; therefore we negate relatively by saying 'not begotten.' And what is 'unbegotten' but 'not begotten'? Therefore we do not depart from the relative category when 'unbegotten' is said. For just as 'begotten' is said not in relation to itself but because He is from a begetter, so when 'unbegotten' is said, it is said not in relation to itself, but it is shown that He is not from a begetter. Yet within the same category which is called relative both significations are turned. But what is pronounced relatively does not indicate substance.
Thus, although 'begotten' and 'unbegotten' are different, this does not indicate a different substance, because just as 'Son' is referred to 'Father' and 'not Son' to 'not Father,' so 'begotten' must necessarily be referred to 'begetter' and 'not begotten' to 'not begetter.' Wherefore let us hold this above all: that whatever is said of that most excellent and divine sublimity in relation to itself is said substantially; but what is said in relation to something is said not substantially but relatively; and that so great is the power of the same substance in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that whatever is said of the individual persons in relation to themselves is to be taken, in the sum total, not plurally but in the singular.
For just as the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, which no one doubts is said according to substance, yet we do not say three Gods but one God, that very most excellent Trinity. So the Father is great, the Son great, and the Holy Spirit great; yet not three great ones but one great One. For it is written not of the Father alone, as they perversely suppose, but of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: 'You are the only God, great.' And the Father is good, the Son good, and the Holy Spirit good; yet not three good ones but one good One, of whom it was said: 'No one is good but one God.' For indeed the Lord Jesus, lest by him who had said:
'Good Master,' addressing Him as a man, be understood only according to man—therefore He did not say 'No one is good but the Father alone,' but 'No one is good but one God.' For in the name of the Father, the Father Himself alone is pronounced, but in the name of God, both He and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity is one God. But positions and possessions and places and times are said of God not properly but by transference and through likenesses. For He is said to 'sit upon the cherubim,' which is said with reference to position; and 'the deep as a garment is His clothing,' which refers to possession; and 'Your years shall not fail,' which refers to time; and 'If I ascend into heaven, You are there,' which refers to place. But as regards 'to do,' perhaps it may most truly be said of God alone;
for God alone acts, and Himself is not made, nor does He suffer, so far as pertains to His substance whereby He is God. And so the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; yet not three almighties but one almighty, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things; to Him be glory. Whatever, therefore, is said of God in relation to Himself is both said three times of the individual persons—of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—and at the same time said of the Trinity itself, not plurally but in the singular. For since to God to be is not one thing and to be great another, but for Him this same thing is to be which is to be great, therefore just as we do not say three essences, so we do not say three magnitudes, but one essence and one magnitude.
By 'essence' I mean that which in Greek is called 'ousia,' which we more usually call 'substance.' They indeed also say 'hypostasis,' but I do not know what difference they wish to be between 'ousia' and 'hypostasis,' so that most of ours who treat these matters in Greek speech have been accustomed to say 'mia ousia, treis hypostaseis,' which in Latin is 'one essence, three substances.' But because with us the custom of speaking has already prevailed that the same thing is understood when we say 'essence' as is understood when we say 'substance,' we do not dare to say 'one essence, three substances,' but 'one essence or substance.'
But 'three persons' many Latins, treating these matters and worthy of authority, have said, since they could find no more fitting way to express in words what they understood without words. For truly, since the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit—who is also called the Gift of God—is neither Father nor Son, they are indeed three. And therefore it was said in the plural, 'I and the Father are one.' For He did not say 'is one,' as the Sabellians say, but 'we are one.' Yet when it is asked 'three what?', human speech labors under a great poverty indeed. Nevertheless it was said 'three persons,' not that this might be said, but that we might not be silent.
As, therefore, we do not say three essences, so we do not say three magnitudes nor three great ones. For in things which are great by participation in magnitude, for which to be is one thing and to be great another—such as a great house and a great mountain and a great mind—in these things, then, magnitude is one thing and that which is great by that magnitude another, and 'a great house' is by no means the same as magnitude itself. But that is true magnitude by which not only the house that is great is great, and by which whatever mountain is great is great, but also by which whatever else is called great is great; so that magnitude itself is one thing, and those things which are called great by it another.
Which magnitude is assuredly great primarily, and far more excellently than those things which are great by participation in it. But God, because He is not great by that magnitude which is not what He Himself is, as though He were, as it were, a partaker of it when He is great (otherwise that magnitude would be greater than God; but there is nothing greater than God), is therefore great by that magnitude by which He Himself is that same magnitude. And therefore, just as we do not say three essences, so neither three magnitudes; for to God to be is the same as to be great. For the same reason we do not say three great ones, but one great One, because God is great not by participation in magnitude, but is great by Himself, being great, since He Himself is His own magnitude.
Let this same be said of the goodness and of the eternity and of the omnipotence of God, and of absolutely all the categories which can be predicated of God—namely, that what is said of Him in relation to Himself is said not by transference and through likeness, but properly, if indeed anything can be said properly of Him by the mouth of man. But that the individual things which are said properly in the same Trinity are in no way said in relation to themselves, but in relation to one another or to the creature, and that therefore they are said relatively, not substantially, is manifest. For just as the Trinity is called one God, great, good, eternal, almighty, and this same God can be called His own deity, His own magnitude, His own goodness, His own eternity, His own omnipotence;
yet the Trinity cannot be so called 'Father,' except perhaps by transference in relation to the creature, on account of the adoption of sons. For what is written, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one Lord,' must certainly not be understood with the Son or the Holy Spirit excepted—whom we rightly call our one Lord God, and also our Father, regenerating us by His grace. But the Trinity can in no way be called 'Son.' Yet the Holy Spirit, according to what is written, 'For God is Spirit,' can indeed be said universally, because both the Father is Spirit and the Son is Spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son is holy.
And so, since the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and God is surely holy, and God is Spirit, the Trinity can be called both 'Spirit' and 'holy.' Nevertheless, that Holy Spirit who is understood not as the Trinity but as in the Trinity, in that which He is properly called the Holy Spirit, is spoken of relatively, since He is referred both to the Father and to the Son, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. But the relation itself does not appear in this name; it appears, however, when He is called the Gift of God. For He is the Gift of the Father and of the Son, because He proceeds from the Father, as the Lord says, and what the Apostle says—'Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of His'—he says of the Holy Spirit Himself.
When, therefore, we say 'the gift of the giver' and 'the giver of the gift,' we speak of each in relation to the other. Therefore the Holy Spirit is a certain ineffable communion of the Father and the Son, and for this reason perhaps he is so called because the same title can be fitting to both the Father and the Son. For he himself is properly called by that which they are called in common; since both the Father is spirit and the Son is spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son is holy. In order, then, that from the name which belongs to both the communion of both may be signified, the Holy Spirit is called the gift of both. And this Trinity is one God, alone, good, great, eternal, almighty; himself to himself unity, deity, greatness, goodness, eternity, omnipotence.
Nor ought it to trouble us that we have said the Holy Spirit is spoken of relatively (not the Trinity itself, but him who is in the Trinity), on the ground that the term for him to whom he is referred does not seem to answer him in turn. For it is not as we say the servant of the master and the master of the servant, the son of the father and the father of the son (since these are said relatively) that we can also speak here. For we say the Holy Spirit of the Father, but we do not in turn say the Father of the Holy Spirit, lest the Holy Spirit be understood to be his Son. Likewise we say the Holy Spirit of the Son, but we do not say the Son of the Holy Spirit, lest the Holy Spirit be understood to be his Father.
For in many relative terms this happens: that no word is found by which the things that are referred to one another mutually answer each other. For what is spoken of so plainly as relative as a pledge? It is referred to that of which it is the pledge, and a pledge is always the pledge of some thing. When, then, we say the pledge of the Father and the Son, can we in turn say the Father of the pledge or the Son of the pledge? But indeed when we say the gift of the Father and the Son, we cannot indeed say the Father of the gift or the Son of the gift; yet so that these may correspond in turn we say the gift of the giver and the giver of the gift, because here a customary word could be found, whereas there it could not. It is therefore said relatively that he is Father, and likewise it is said relatively that he is beginning, and whatever else there may be;