[I 1] We seek, to be sure, a Trinity—not any trinity whatever, but that Trinity which is God, the true and supreme and only God. Wait, then, whoever you are who hear these things; for we are still seeking, and no one justly blames one who seeks such things, provided he seeks, most firm in faith, that which is most difficult either to know or to express. But whoever either better sees or teaches quickly and justly blames one who affirms. 'Seek the Lord,' He says, 'and your soul shall live.' And lest anyone rashly rejoice as though he had apprehended it: 'Seek His face,' He says, 'always.' And the apostle: 'If anyone,' he says, 'thinks he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But whoever loves God, the same is known by Him.'
He did not even say, 'he has known Him,' which is a perilous presumption, but, 'is known by Him.' So too elsewhere, when he had said: 'But now, knowing God,' he immediately corrects it: 'nay rather,' he says, 'known by God.' And most of all in that passage: 'Brethren,' he says, 'I do not reckon myself to have apprehended; but one thing—forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, according to my intention I follow on toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. As many of us therefore as are perfect, let us be thus minded.' By perfection in this life he means nothing other than to forget the things that are behind, and to reach forth, according to intention, unto the things that are before. For most safe is the intention of one who seeks, until that be apprehended toward which we tend and toward which we reach forth.
But that intention is right which proceeds from faith. For sure faith in some way begins knowledge; but sure knowledge shall not be perfected save after this life, when we shall see face to face. Let us therefore be thus minded, that we may know it to be a safer disposition to seek the truth than to presume upon things unknown as though known. So then let us seek as though about to find, and find as though about to seek. For 'when a man has finished, then he begins.' Concerning things to be believed, let us not doubt with any infidelity; concerning things to be understood, let us not affirm with any rashness: in the former, authority is to be held fast; in the latter, truth is to be sought out.
As far, then, as pertains to this question, let us believe that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, the maker and ruler of the whole creation; and that the Father is not the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son, but a Trinity of persons related to one another, and a unity of equal essence. And let us seek to understand this, praying for help from Him whom we wish to understand; and let us strive, with as much care and solicitude of piety as is granted, to explain what we understand, so that even if we say one thing for another, we may nonetheless say nothing unworthy. So that if, for example, we say something of the Father which does not properly belong to the Father, it may belong either to the Son or to the Holy Spirit or to the Trinity itself;
and if we say something of the Son which does not properly agree with the Son, let it at least agree with the Father or the Holy Spirit or the Trinity; likewise if we say something of the Holy Spirit which does not teach the property of the Holy Spirit, let it nonetheless not be alien from the Father or the Son or from the one God, the Trinity itself—as now we desire to see whether that most excellent charity is properly the Holy Spirit. And if it is not, then either the Father is charity, or the Son, or the Trinity itself; since we cannot resist the most certain faith and the most powerful authority of Scripture, which says: 'God is charity.' Yet we ought not to deviate by sacrilegious error, so as to say something of the Trinity which would befit not the Creator but rather the creature, or would be fashioned by empty imagining.
[II 2] Since these things are so, let us attend to those three things which we seem to ourselves to have found. We are not yet speaking of things above, not yet of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but of this unequal image—yet an image—that is, man; for perhaps the infirmity of our mind beholds it more familiarly and more easily. Behold, I who inquire into this, when I love something, there are three: I, and that which I love, and love itself. For I do not love love unless I love a lover, for there is no love where nothing is loved. There are therefore three: the lover, and that which is loved, and love. But what if I love nothing but myself—will there not be two, that which I love and love? For the lover and that which is loved are one and the same when one loves oneself, just as to love and to be loved are in the same way the selfsame thing when someone loves himself.
For the same thing is said twice when it is said, 'he loves himself,' and 'he is loved by himself.' Then to love and to be loved are not one thing and another, just as the lover and the beloved are not one person and another. But love and that which is loved are, even so, two. For no one who loves himself is love, unless love itself be loved. But it is one thing to love oneself, and another to love one's own love. For love is not loved unless it is already loving something, since where nothing is loved, there is no love. There are therefore two when someone loves himself: love, and that which is loved; for then the lover and that which is loved are one. Whence it seems not to follow that wherever there is love, three things are already to be understood.
For let us remove from this consideration the other things, which are many, of which man consists; and that we may clearly discover, as far as we can in these matters, what we now seek, let us treat of the mind alone. The mind, then, when it loves itself, displays two things—the mind, and love. But what is to love oneself, save to will to be present to oneself for the enjoyment of oneself? And when it wills itself to be as much as it is, the will is equal to the mind, and the love equal to the lover. And if love is some substance, it is surely not a body but a spirit; nor is the mind a body, but a spirit. Yet love and mind are not two spirits, but one spirit; nor two essences, but one; and yet these two are one—the lover and love, or, if you would so put it, that which is loved and love.
And these two indeed are said relatively to one another. For the lover is referred to love, and love to the lover; for the lover loves with some love, and love is of some lover. But mind and spirit are not said relatively, but denote the essence. For mind and spirit exist not because they are the mind and spirit of some man; for if you withdraw that which is man—which is said by the adjoining of a body—if, then, the body is withdrawn, mind and spirit remain. But if you withdraw the lover, there is no love; and if you withdraw love, there is no lover. And therefore, in so far as they are referred to one another, they are two; but in so far as they are said with respect to themselves, each singly is spirit, and both together one spirit; each singly is mind, and both together one mind. Where, then, is the Trinity?
Let us attend as much as we can, and let us invoke the eternal light, that it may illumine our darkness and that we may see in ourselves, as far as we are permitted, the image of God. [III 3] For the mind cannot love itself unless it also knows itself. For how does it love what it does not know? Or if anyone says that from a general or specific notion the mind believes itself to be such as it has experienced others to be, and therefore loves itself, he speaks most foolishly. For whence does the mind know some mind, if it does not know itself? For it is not as the eye of the body sees other eyes and does not see itself, that the mind thus knows other minds and is ignorant of itself.
For through the eyes of the body we see bodies, because the rays which shine forth through them and touch whatever we discern, we cannot refract and bend back upon the eyes themselves, save when we look into mirrors. This is discussed most subtly and most obscurely, until it be most plainly demonstrated whether the matter is so or not so. But however it may be with the power by which we discern through the eyes, that power itself—whether they be rays or something else—we are not able to discern with the eyes; but we seek it with the mind, and, if it can be done, we even comprehend this with the mind. The mind, therefore, just as it gathers the notions of corporeal things through the senses of the body, so it gathers those of incorporeal things through itself. Therefore it knows itself also through itself, since it is incorporeal.
For if it does not know itself, it does not love itself. [IV 4] But as there are two certain things, the mind and its love, when it loves itself; so there are two certain things, the mind and its knowledge, when it knows itself. Therefore the mind itself, and its love, and its knowledge, are three certain things, and these three are one; and when they are perfect, they are equal. For if the mind loves itself less than it is—as, for example, if the mind of man love itself only as much as the body of man is to be loved, whereas it is itself more than the body—it sins, and its love is not perfect. Likewise, if it love itself more than it is—as if it love itself as much as God is to be loved, whereas it is incomparably less than God—even so it sins by excess, and does not have a perfect love of itself.
But it sins with a greater perversity and iniquity when it loves the body as much as God is to be loved. Likewise, knowledge, if it is less than that which is known and can be fully known, is not perfect. But if it is greater, then the nature which knows is superior to that which is known; just as the knowledge of a body is greater than the body itself which is known by that knowledge. For that knowledge is a certain life in the reason of the knower; but a body is not life. And any life is greater than any body—not in bulk, but in power. But the mind, when it knows itself, does not surpass itself by its own knowledge, because it is itself that knows, itself that is known.
When therefore it knows itself wholly, and nothing else together with itself, its knowledge is equal to it, because its knowledge, when it knows itself, is not of another nature. And when it perceives itself wholly and nothing more, it is neither less nor greater. Rightly, therefore, did we say that these three, when they are perfect, are consequently equal. At the same time we are also admonished that, if in any way we can see these things existing in the soul, and, as it were, enfolded, to be unfolded so that they may be perceived and enumerated—substantially, or, so to speak, essentially, and not as in a subject, as color or figure in a body, or any other quality or quantity. For whatever is such does not exceed the subject in which it is.
For this color or figure of this body cannot be also of another body. But the mind, by the love with which it loves itself, can love also another besides itself. Likewise the mind does not know itself alone, but also many other things. Wherefore love and knowledge are not present in the mind as in a subject, but these too exist substantially, just as the mind itself; because, even if they are said relatively to one another, yet each single thing is in its own substance. It is not as color and the colored thing are said relatively to one another, such that color is in the colored subject, not having in itself its own substance—since the colored body is a substance, but that color is in a substance;
but as two friends are also two men, which are substances, since men are not said relatively, but friends are said relatively. Yet again, although the lover or the knower is a substance, and knowledge is a substance, and love is a substance, still the lover and love, or the knower and knowledge, are said relatively to each other, as friends are; but the mind or the spirit is not relative, just as men are not relative. Nevertheless, not as friends, who are men, can be apart from one another, so can the lover and love, or the knower and knowledge, be apart. Although friends too can seem to be separated in body, but not in mind, in so far as they are friends—yet it can come to pass that a friend begins even to hate his friend, and by that very fact ceases to be a friend, while the other knows it not and still loves.
But the love by which the mind loves itself, if it should cease to be, at the same time the mind also ceases to be a lover. Likewise the knowledge by which the mind knows itself, if it should cease to be, at the same time the mind also ceases to know itself. Just as the head of some headed thing is surely a head, and they are said relatively to one another, although they too are substances; for a head is a body, and so is a headed thing, and if there is no body, neither will there be a headed thing. But these can be separated from one another by cutting off; those cannot. But if there are certain bodies which cannot at all be cut and divided, still, unless they consisted of their parts, they would not be bodies. A part therefore is said relatively to the whole, because every part is a part of some whole, and the whole is a whole by all its parts.
But since both a part and the whole are body, these things are not said only relatively, but they also exist substantially. Perhaps, then, the mind is the whole, and, as though its parts, the love with which it loves itself and the knowledge by which it knows itself, and of these two parts that whole is composed? Or are there three equal parts by which the one whole is completed? But no part embraces the whole of which it is a part. The mind, however, when it knows itself wholly—that is, knows itself perfectly—its knowledge extends throughout the whole of it; and when it loves itself perfectly, it loves itself wholly, and its love extends throughout the whole of it. Is it then, as from wine and water and honey one drink is made, and the single elements pervade the whole and yet are three (for there is no part of the drink which does not have these three;
for they are not joined as if water and oil, but wholly commingled, and they are all substances, and that whole liquid is a single substance compounded of the three)—must we suppose that these three, mind, love, and knowledge, exist together in some such way? But water, wine, and honey are not of one substance, although out of their mingling one substance of the drink is produced. But how those three are not of the same essence I do not see, since the mind itself loves itself and itself knows itself, and these three are so constituted that the mind is neither loved nor known by any other thing.
Of one and the same essence, therefore, these three must be; and thus, if they had been fused as by a commingling, they would in no way be three, nor could they be referred to one another. Just as, if out of one and the same gold you should make three similar rings, although linked to one another, they are referred to one another because they are similar; for everything similar is similar to something, and there is a trinity of the rings and one gold. But if they be mixed together and each be scattered throughout its whole mass, that trinity will perish and altogether cease to be; and not only will it be called one gold, as was said of those three rings, but there will now be no three golden things. But in those three, when the mind knows itself and loves itself, there remains a trinity: mind, love, knowledge;
and it is confounded by no commingling, although each of them is in itself, and again all are mutually in all: whether each in the two, or the two in each, and so all in all. For the mind is indeed in itself, since it is called mind with reference to itself, although it is called relatively to its knowledge as knowing or known or knowable; the love too, and the loving and loved or lovable, is referred to the love by which it loves itself. And knowledge, although it is referred to the mind that knows or is known, is nevertheless called both known and knowing with reference to itself; for the knowledge by which the mind knows itself is not unknown to itself.
And love, although it is referred to the mind that loves, whose love it is, nevertheless is love also with reference to itself, so that it exists also in itself; for love too is loved, nor can it be loved by anything but love, that is, by itself. Thus each of these is in itself. In turn, moreover, they are so related because the loving mind is in the love, and the love in the knowledge of the lover, and the knowledge in the knowing mind. Each is in the two, since the mind that knows and loves itself is in its own love and knowledge; and the love of the mind that loves and knows itself is in the mind and its knowledge; and the knowledge of the mind that knows and loves itself is in the mind and in its love, because it loves itself as knowing and knows itself as loving.
And by this the two are also in each, since the mind that knows and loves itself is, with its knowledge, in its love, and, with its love, in its knowledge; and the love itself and the knowledge together are in the mind that loves and knows itself. And in what way the whole are in the whole we have already shown above, when the mind loves itself wholly and knows itself wholly, and knows its whole love and loves its whole knowledge, when these three are perfect with respect to themselves. In a wonderful manner, therefore, these three are inseparable from one another, and yet each single one of them is a substance, and all together are one substance or essence, although they are also said relatively to one another. But when the human mind knows itself and loves itself, it does not know and love something unchangeable.
In one way each man, in speaking, declares his own mind, attending to what takes place in himself; in another way he defines the human mind by a special or general cognition. And so, when anyone speaks to me of his own mind—whether he understands this or that or does not understand, and whether he wills or does not will this or that—I believe him; but when he speaks truth about the human mind specifically or generally, I recognize and approve it. Whence it is manifest that one thing each sees in himself, which another may believe on his statement though he does not see it; and another thing he sees in the truth itself, which another too can behold—of which the one is changed through the passage of time, while the other subsists in unchangeable eternity.
For it is not by seeing many minds with the bodily eyes that we gather through likeness a general or special knowledge of the human mind; rather, we contemplate the inviolable truth, from which we may as perfectly as we can define, not what the mind of each individual man is, but what it ought to be according to the eternal reasons. Whence also the phantasms of corporeal things, drawn in through the bodily sense and in a certain way infused into the memory—from which even those things that have not been seen are thought of by a feigned image, whether otherwise than they are or by chance just as they are—we are compelled either to approve or to disapprove within ourselves by other rules altogether, which abide unchangeably above our mind, whenever we rightly approve or disapprove of anything.
For when I recall the walls of Carthage which I have seen, and when I imagine those of Alexandria which I have not seen, and prefer some of these imaginary forms to certain others, I prefer them reasonably. The judgment of truth is vigorous and shines from above, and it is firm in its own right by the most incorruptible rules; and if it is overlaid as though by some cloud of corporeal images, it is nevertheless not enveloped and confounded. But it makes a difference whether I am shut off beneath or within that darkness, as though from a clear sky, or whether, as is wont to happen on the highest mountains, enjoying the free air between the two, I behold the most serene light above and the densest fogs below.
For whence is the fervor of brotherly love kindled in me when I hear that some man has borne fiercer torments for the beauty and firmness of the faith? And if that very man be pointed out to me with the finger, I am eager to join myself to him, to make myself known, to bind him to me in friendship. And so, if the opportunity is given, I approach, I address him, I hold converse, I express my affection toward him in whatever words I can, and in turn I desire that there be produced and expressed in him the affection which he has toward me; and I attempt a spiritual embrace by believing, since I cannot so quickly search out and see thoroughly his inner parts. I love, therefore, the faithful and brave man with a chaste and genuine love.
But if, in the course of our conversation, he should confess to me, or by some incautious manner should betray himself, that he believes something unfitting concerning God, and desires in Him too something carnal, and endured those torments for such an error, or out of desire for hoped-for money or the vain greed of human praise—then straightway that love with which I was borne toward him, offended and as it were repelled and taken away from an unworthy man, remains in that form according to which, believing him such, I had loved him. Unless perhaps the love remains such that it may still be so directed even when I have found he is not such. But in that man nothing is changed; yet he can be changed so as to become what I had already believed him to be.
But in my mind it is indeed my estimation itself that has been changed—that estimation which held itself one way and now holds itself another way; and the same love has been deflected from the intention of enjoying to the intention of counseling, at the command of unchangeable justice from above. But the very form of unshaken and stable truth—both that in which I would enjoy the man, believing him good, and that in which I counsel that he be good—suffuses with imperturbable eternity, by the same light of an incorruptible and most sincere reason, both the gaze of my mind and that cloud of phantasy which I behold from above when I think of the same man whom I had seen.
Likewise, when I revolve in my mind an arch beautifully and evenly curved which I saw, let us say, at Carthage, a certain thing, reported to the mind through the eyes and transfused into the memory, makes an imaginary view. But it is something else that I behold with my mind, according to which that work pleases me, and by which, even if it displeased me, I would correct it. And so we judge of these things according to that, and we discern that by the intuition of the rational mind.
But these things we either touch as present by the bodily sense, or we recall as images of absent things fixed in the memory, or from their likeness we feign such things as we ourselves, if we willed and were able, would even fashion by our work—forming in the mind the images of bodies in one way, or seeing bodies through the body, and in another way apprehending, by simple understanding, above the edge of the mind, the reasons and the ineffably beautiful art of such figures.
In that eternal truth, therefore, from which all temporal things were made, we behold with the mind's gaze the form according to which we exist and according to which we perform anything, whether in ourselves or in bodies, by true and right reason; and thence, having conceived a true knowledge of things, we have it with us as it were a word, and by speaking we beget it within, nor does it depart from us by being born. But when we speak to others, we apply to the word abiding within the ministry of the voice or of some corporeal sign, so that by a certain sensible reminding something of the same kind may be produced also in the mind of the hearer as does not depart from the mind of the speaker.
We therefore do nothing through the members of the body, in our deeds and words by which the conduct of men is approved or disapproved, that we do not anticipate by a word uttered within us. For no one willingly does anything which he has not first spoken in his heart. And this word is conceived by love, whether of the creature or of the Creator, that is, either of changeable nature or of unchangeable truth. Therefore either by cupidity or by charity—not that the creature is not to be loved, but if that love is referred to the Creator, it will no longer be cupidity but charity. For it is cupidity when the creature is loved for its own sake. Then it does not aid the one who uses it, but corrupts the one who enjoys it.
Since, therefore, the creature is either equal to us or inferior, the inferior must be used for the sake of God, but the equal is to be enjoyed, yet in God. For just as you ought to enjoy yourself, not in yourself, but in Him who made you, so also him whom you love as yourself. Let us therefore enjoy both ourselves and our brethren in the Lord, and let us not dare thence to let ourselves down even to ourselves, and as it were to relax downwards. But a word is born when what has been thought out is pleasing, whether for sinning or for acting rightly. Our word, therefore, and the mind of which it is begotten, a love as it were midway joins, and binds itself with them as a third by an incorporeal embrace without any confusion.
Now the word conceived and born is the very same when the will rests in the knowledge itself, which happens in the love of spiritual things. For he who, to give an example, perfectly knows and perfectly loves justice, is already just, even if there exist, according to it, no necessity of outward operation through the members of the body. But in the love of carnal and temporal things, as in the very offspring of animals, the conception of the word is one thing, the bringing forth another. For there, what is conceived by desiring is born by attaining, since it does not suffice for avarice to know and love gold unless it also possesses it, nor to know and love eating or lying together unless it also does it, nor to know and love honors and offices unless they come to pass. And yet all these things, even when attained, do not satisfy:
For whoever drinks, He says, of this water shall thirst again; and therefore also in the Psalms: He has conceived, it says, sorrow and brought forth iniquity. It calls sorrow or labor to be conceived when those things are conceived which to know and to will does not suffice, and the mind burns and grows sick with want until it arrives at them and as it were brings them forth. Whence elegantly in the Latin tongue things are said to be parta (brought forth) and reperta (found again) and comperta (ascertained), which words resound as though derived from partus (a birth), because concupiscence, when it has conceived, brings forth sin. Whence the Lord cries out: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened; and in another place: Woe to those who are with child and who give suck in those days. Since, therefore, He referred all things, whether rightly done or sins, to the birth of the word:
By your mouth, He says, you shall be justified, and by your mouth you shall be condemned—wishing 'mouth' to be understood, not as this visible one, but as the interior invisible mouth of thought and of the heart. Rightly, therefore, it is asked whether all knowledge is a word, or only loved knowledge. For we know also the things we hate, but the things that displease us are to be called neither conceived nor brought forth by the mind. For not all things that in any way touch us are conceived, so that they are only known but not called those words of which we now treat. For in one way are called words those that occupy spaces of time by syllables, whether they are pronounced or thought; in another way everything that is known is called a word impressed on the mind so long as it can be brought forth from the memory and defined, even though the thing itself displeases;
in yet another way, when what is conceived by the mind is pleasing. According to which kind of word is to be received that which the Apostle says: No one says, 'The Lord Jesus,' except in the Holy Spirit; whereas according to another notion of word, this is said also by those of whom the Lord Himself says: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, when even those things we hate rightly displease and are rightly disapproved, their disapproval is approved and pleases and is a word. Nor does the knowledge of vices displease us, but the vices themselves. For it pleases me that I know and define what intemperance is, and this is its word.