文集 第 4 章 第 1/3 段

A BOOK TO OPTATUS. CHAPTER ONE. You have wrung from me, most beloved son, that, not unmindful of the priestly office, I should write something concerning the unity of the Trinity, which is the perfect God, ever and supreme: and this you have exacted from me in many ways, though I, conscious of my own littleness, often excused myself; asserting that the religious also receive the account of the common faith, and that priests ought not to deny it to the faithful: lest either they, while they do not receive it, begin to be easily deceived by the unbelievers, or, when those who desire it are not granted it by these priests, the heavenly treasure of Christ may seem not to be expended upon His members, but in a manner to be hidden in the earth of a barren skill.

And so I confess that I have been overcome by plausible reasons, lest I should seem to hand over unarmed men to the opposing evils, while against the unbelievers they are not equipped with the bulwark of truth. But because in questions of this kind a certain obscurity is frequently incurred by continuous discourse, therefore this has seemed best to me: that I should comprehend within the brevity of the present little book the conversation which was recently held between me and Felician, with the principal letters of the names noted beforehand for the distinction of the persons. CHAPTER II. For when, some days ago, we were sitting together, then he said:

'Among other things,' he said, 'which frequently offend me in your disputations, I think nothing worse than that you so hand over the precepts of faith to the untaught, that you prescribe to those who converse not from the reasoning of things to be understood, but rather from a certain ostentation of testimonies. That this is — not to say crafty — at least how boorish it is, no one is ignorant. First, because if he who is being instructed has already believed in the books, this man complies, he does not resist: otherwise it is necessary that he contradict not you any more than those same testimonies which are brought in for what is affirmed. And therefore this way seems to me better for teaching, by which first the reasoning of faith is rendered without testimonies: afterward, the reasoning having been established, that path is polished with the Scriptures answering to it.'

'And not without reason. For if these testimonies are approved by the fact that they are not lacking in reason, then that reason can suffice by itself, which even these testimonies seem to establish only through itself. But if the contrary: who can submit the neck of a rational faith to irrational testimonies, even though they be anointed as divine? And that way of disputing, I confess, I would tolerate in others, whom the necessity of inexperience, because they cannot stand by themselves, compels to take refuge in things outside: but in you I by no means tolerate it at all, because I see that you do not lack eloquence together with the knowledge of the faith.'

Then I said, 'Do you think me so far led by my own praises that I should do injury to the holy ones who have gone before, and presume ever to trust in the wisdom of word, lest the cross of Christ be made void (1 Cor. i, 17); but, content with the authority of the Scriptures, I strive rather to obey simplicity than pride. But you say, one is better taught by reason than by testimonies. What then? What reason can you bring forward, if you proclaim the childbirth of a virgin, if you do not deny that sight was restored to the blind, if you show that the buried have returned from the dead? If, therefore, both the incomprehensible reason and the truth of these things is at hand, then in matters of faith it is more easily believed by testimonies than the reason is investigated.'

'But because you distinguish these two not too inconsistently, since, reason being premised, you also do not omit the testimonies: therefore in this disputation I confess that I shall follow that which you yourself shall have approved.' CHAPTER III. Felician said. 'Therefore,' he said, 'since we are at leisure, let us come to the question of your homoousion, concerning which there has been frequent discussion not only among us but also among our forebears. And lest the discourse wander too far, do you yourself now, as you are wont, take up the part of one proposing it, and, as we ask from you the account of our faith, inquire in turn as one about to render it.' Then I said, 'Tell me,' I said, 'whether it is true, what I hear you say, that the Son is not at all homoousion to the Father.' Felician said.

'It is true, nor can I be persuaded that what is begotten is unbegotten, lest I should seem to proclaim the same to be Father whom I proclaim Son.' Augustine said. 'It is not so: for not even to me is it in mind that the same is unbegotten who is begotten, but rather that that is unbegotten which is begotten.' Felician said. 'And how do you say that the same is not unbegotten who is begotten, if you think each one to be, not the other, but one thing?' Augustine said. 'I observe that you have not at all attended to the force of the words: for while I say that each is one, I do not at all separate the substance of the true Father and the true Son. And while I proclaim that the Father is not the same as the Son, I distinguish the person of each, the property of each one being preserved. And so, if you ask for substance, the Trinity itself is one God:'

'if you ask for person, the Son is another.' Felician. 'And how do you say both that He is the same, and that the Son is another?' Augustine. 'The same,' I said, 'by the communion of substance; another, by the property of person.' Felician. 'I know not in what manner one substance is believed to be, when one person is not said to be.' Augustine. 'It is not,' I said, 'one person, because one is said to have begotten, and another to have been begotten: and yet the substance of the born and the begetting is not diverse, because the one arisen is taught to be not unlike the one generating.' Felician. 'I would wish, I pray, that you would make your words clear to me by an easier example.' Augustine. 'In incomprehensible matters, indeed, examples are not at hand to the one disputing; nevertheless, as far as it can be done, even in this part I shall not be wanting. Behold, then, a man as father has a man as son.'

'It is common to both that he is a man; yet to the one it seems proper that he is a son, to the other that he is a father. For in each the person is so distinguished that the common humanity is not denied; while the one begets, the other is begotten: but equally is he said to be a man both who begot and he who is begotten.' CHAPTER IV. Felician. 'I would wish that you would surely say this: whether the begotten is separated from the unbegotten by a beginning, or not?' Augustine. 'Not even that is received by the truth of spiritual understanding, that the Father should be separated from the Son by the interval — I do not say of time, which consists of days and nights, but of any age or span of years whatever.' Felician. 'If this is so, you confess two unbegotten ones.'

'And how is the one thought to be the person of the Father, the other of the Son, when, through the signification of the common unbegotten, each seems to be confounded?' Augustine. 'In this matter, indeed, a sophism of no slight calumny is woven by your forebears; nevertheless, through the help of the Trinity itself, it must needs be solved by catholic simplicity. For I say the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, and yet I do not therefore not proclaim the begotten coeternal with the unbegotten; teaching the Father unbegotten only in this, that He did not proceed from another; the Son begotten in this, that He did not exist from Himself. For it is not common to both to be born, it is not common not to be begotten: and yet it is common that the one is not torn away from the other by the interval of an intervening time.'

'And so, if we seek the property of the Father, it suffices that He alone does not have a Father; if of the Son, it is enough that He does not have offspring; but we say the deity of the Father and the Son to be one and coeternal.' Felician. 'As far as concerns me, I do not see what you are now gathering. For although you should contend with me with Aristotelian subtlety, yet it cannot come about that you distinguish Him who is begotten from Him who begot, by no antiquity of an intervening age.' Augustine. 'I know indeed, as he says, in how difficult a place the discourse is engaged: yet we have nothing to fear, who through the aid of the Holy Spirit bear witness to God. What then shall we say? Is there anything in the Father which is denied to be unbegotten, or not?'

'If there is, let Him be said to be unbegotten not in the whole, but rather in part; otherwise the Son did not begin to be from time. For if the paternity of the Father did not begin, the beginning of the offspring cannot be found. If a beginning is granted to the offspring, the paternity of the Father will not be taught to be eternal. And how will it stand, that you teach the whole in the Father to be unbegotten, you who think that the name of paternity itself has a beginning, since you say that the Son began from time, who cannot be said to have been named when the Father did not yet exist?' Felician. 'I am not so foolish as to set time before the Son, but it is certain that a beginning is given to the begotten.' Augustine. 'What then? Do you say that there was nothing in the middle between the Father and the Son?' Felician. 'Quite so.' CHAPTER V. Augustine.

How then do you deny that the Son is coeternal with the Father, you who confess that there is nothing intermediate between the Father and the Son, lest that very 'non-intermediate' should be established to be nothing other than a third? Fel. Since you box me in by the art of disputation, I will briefly explain what was said by our elders. For they say, whenever the beginning of the Son and the eternity of the Father is treated: 'There was a time when he was not, and before he was born he was not.' Aug. As far as I observe, the error of evil belief remaining, only the words have been changed. For you said, 'There was when he was not.' Did you mean that 'was' to pertain to the age, or to the Son?

If to the age — that is, as it were to a certain span of eternity before the Son's nativity — behold, you slide of necessity into the earlier blasphemy, since between Father and Son you insert a third something, time; and you say that before the Son there was God the Father and time. After these two, the Son. After these three, fourth the Spirit. But if we admit that the Son could not be begotten without time, see how widely these things we say extend. For if the Son is not without time, surely he must be said to be begotten only in a place. This being admitted, before the Son and the Spirit, time and place are taught to be in a manner coeval with the Father.

But if it is so, that the Son could not be born without place and time, in what place, or in what time, do you say place and time were made? If in none, behold, time and place could come to be without time and place. If in some, that very thing seems to be time and place, in whose origin likewise place and time are required. But if to that extent something could come to be without time and place, that you teach neither a place made in a place, nor a time made in time, I know not by what rashness you would contend that the Son could not be born without these — he who, as far as pertains to sound faith, is taught to have made both place and time. But enough of this. Now let us consider what you proclaim was said by your elders. 'There was,' you say, 'when he was not.'

If you refer that 'was' to time, behold, time is before the Son; if to the Son, the Son never was not — for the Son already was when there was not time, by whom time is said to be made. 'But before he was born,' you say, 'he was not.' Who, I ask, was not before he was born? If the Son, behold, by that very understanding time is said to have been before the Son. But if before the Son was born there was not time, it follows that the Son is said to be coeternal with the Father, between whom and the Father there is said to have been no time — especially since, among other things, with the evangelists attesting, the Son is said even to have made time. But perhaps someone may think it said of the Father: 'There was, when the Son was not.'

With which statement the following words do not harmonize, by which it is said: 'And before he was born he was not.' For according to you the Father, always existing, cannot even by you be said to be born — he who is not taught to have arisen from a beginning, and cannot fall under [the words]: 'There was when he was not begotten.' CHAPTER VI. Fel. Since you weary me not a little, contending with words of, as I think, unexpected subtlety, I therefore ask that, if it can be done, by the example of any thing you show that what you attempt to teach is possible. For I cannot otherwise believe, though crushed by the force of your speech, that the begotten is coeternal with the Father, unless you say either that both are begotten, or that both are each a Father to themselves. Aug.

Since you compel me to examples of incomparable things, let us therefore see what is the power of fire, from which there is always splendor, always heat. Each is born of it, nor yet is fire ever found in any degree without either of these. These three mutually beget one another, because not from splendor are fire and heat, nor from heat are fire and splendor, but from fire are splendor and heat always begotten. Since these things are so, do you not see that even in creatures something can be born, nor yet is there shown any time when that from which it is born could be found without the begotten?

If therefore we perceive these things by visible examples, why should we not proclaim similar things concerning the Father and the Son, or the Holy Spirit, at least as far as the common and undifferentiated eternity is concerned? For it is not therefore necessary that we call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit equally unbegotten, because we say that none is separated from another by an intervening age — since even from other things certain things are begotten, nor yet are they taught either to be equally begetting, or to exist without one another. But what profit is it to gather many of these, when by the testimonies of a few the rest also may be estimated? Fel. Since by a new art of disputation you disturb my opinion, founded on the authority of the preceding Fathers:

therefore I would have you tell me concerning the nature of the Son of God, that is, what you think of the substance itself. For if, as you are wont to say, he is of one substance (homoousios) with the Father, then he is in a manner Father to himself; otherwise he cannot be consubstantial with his begetter. For a certain one of us used to mock the doctrine of the Homoousion thus, saying: 'If the Son was brought forth not from without, but from the very same, then the one is in a manner divided into two, since the begetter is said to be no other than the begotten.' CHAPTER VII. Aug. While you say that we contend by Aristotelian art, you yourself seem to have fled to the snares of the dialecticians. But these things can in no way terrify us, who trust in the truth of faith. What therefore do you say? '[I believe] that the Son could not be born from the substance of the Father;

lest we should seem to divide the unbegotten Father by the generation of the Son.' But if it is so, then the Son is wrongly believed, who is proclaimed as not from the Father — that is, not begotten from the very same — but as made from without among other things. That this may be easier to understand, I will explain it as far as I can. For of sons, some are adoptive, others natural. Those who are begotten are from the beginning always sons and proper to him; the others are first strangers, afterward sons, when through adoption they seem to be received into the family. To which then is the Son of God to be compared? If to the adoptive, he will be with the Father similar to us. If to the proper, he must be said to have subsisted from the substance of his begetter. 'But,' you say, 'the paternal substance is divided into two, if the Son is substantially begotten from the Father alone.'

How foolish this is, even visible things themselves teach us. For who ever, even of carnal fathers, was divided by begetting? But if that division does not fall even within the condition of the body, and no one so begot a son that he lost half of himself, do you say the Son could not be born with the integrity of the Father preserved? But why more? To those examining the nativity and origin of the Son of God, these possibilities, unless I am mistaken, occur: namely, that he is either from the Father, or from nothing, or from another, or from himself. Let us, I pray, see the consequence of these. If from himself, he is not rightly called Son, who is proclaimed not as born but as unbegotten. If from nothing, he is shown to be a creature with the rest, not the author of creation. If from another,

then he is proclaimed the son not of him in whom we believe, but of some unknown father I know not whom. But if besides these four no fifth can be found, and of these four, three cannot at all be predicated because of the evident blasphemy, it remains that he was substantially begotten of the Father — because, as we said, neither can a fifth be found, nor besides the first can any mode of these be taught; as is clear, since he is neither a creature, nor the son of another father, nor, like the Father, called unbegotten. CHAPTER VIII. Fel. As if indeed I had either predicated a fifth besides these, or predicated something of these three — I who so say that the Son did not exist from the substance of the Father, that I nevertheless do not deny that he was begotten of his will. Aug.

By that very consequence you are thrust into one of the aforesaid. For when we inquire concerning the substance of the Son, whom you do not confess to be substantially begotten of the Father, you without doubt contend that he was made from nothing among other things — since we do not say that even corruptible creatures subsisted otherwise than that God both willed them through ineffable dispensation and was able to effect them through his singular power, inasmuch as we know there was both the will by which it pleased God, and the power by which to be able lies subject to the Lord. Fel. Then is the paternal power not sufficient for the existence of the Son? Aug. As if I were contending about the power of the Father, and not about the very truth of his fatherhood.

Or did he prefer to be called the Father of one whom he willed to be conformed not to himself, but to creatures? And therefore you must confess that the Son existed from the substance of the Father, if he is both born and God; or else deny equally that he is Son and God, if he was created not from the paternal substance but from nothing, only the will and power of the Father operating, as also in other creatures. Fel. Since you compel me by necessity to such a confession, I will not be silent about what is wont to be said by our elders. For they say that the Son is a creature, but a perfect one, and one able to have dominion over all creatures. Aug. I rejoice indeed that by manifest confession you have betrayed the inmost poison of an irreligious proclamation;

yet you bring forward nothing that may seem worthy of belief. For a creature is a substance made — from the fact that it either does not yet exist, or at some time was not — of some corruptible thing, as far as in it lies, through the will of the omnipotent God. Let us see whether this definition falls upon the Son of God. For the Son, in that which he is, has been brought forth in the truth of an identical nature, because from him who is, that is, from his begetter, he is born not dissimilar; and therefore between the Son and the creature this, unless I am mistaken, is the first distinction: that he is substantially begotten of the Father, whereas the creature is perfected not from the substance of its maker, but from will and power alone. The latter is corruptible by nature, unless it be preserved by grace.

The former is incorruptible, who by being born seems to have an incorruptible substance from the incorruptible Father. The Son is in all things similar to the Father, the creature dissimilar to its maker. The former comes not from that which is not into that which is, and therefore never from that which is into that which is not. The latter comes from that which is not into that which is, and therefore, as far as pertains to itself, returns from that which is into that which is not, by the condition of its own origin. CHAPTER IX. Fel. I do not see in what region of this obscurity you involve yourself; and therefore you will do rightly if you will explain more intelligibly what has been said by you, as I think, incomprehensibly. Aug. I said, I say, concerning the Son, when I was distinguishing him from the definition of a creature,

that he is not from that which is not into that which is — which is as if I should say, he was not made from nothing. And therefore never from that which is into that which is not; that is, he is never to be dissolved into nothing from that very thing which he is, by the property of his nature. But the creature is from that which is not into that which is, whereby it is shown to have been brought forth from nothing. And therefore, as far as pertains to itself, it is from that which is into that which is not, that is, into nothing — unless perpetual grace should have brought it about otherwise — it being subject to turning by the quality of its nature. Therefore the Son will never not be, who is taught to be substantially perpetual; and this, as by his own property, he is known not unjustly to be separated from the condition of all creatures which were made through him.

Fel. Although you press my understanding with the new subtlety of these matters, yet I know not by what manner you say that the Son is coeternal with the Father, since by the common manner of speaking and by the law of nature the begetter seems to be prior to the begotten. CHAPTER X. Aug. If we estimate the author of nature by the laws of creatures, while we proclaim the Father to be prior to the Son, why do we not by the same law of nature say the Son to be stronger than the Father through the advance of time — since increases are not lacking to this one being born, and old age inflicts the injury of weakness upon the Father? But if reason itself does not accept this, let us set aside in God the law of corporeal understanding, lest we say the maker is similar to his works;

especially since from what is evident among us, we are able to show also that which is hidden. For just as without precedent a mother bore her own author, so ineffably must the Father be believed to have begotten the coeternal Son. Of a mother was born he who already existed before; of the Father, he who at no time was lacking. Let faith believe this, let understanding not seek it out, lest it either think incredible what it does not find, or not believe singular what it does find. For behold, Christ was born of a mother, nor yet was the mother's modesty diminished by the contact of a man. The Virgin bore, because the Virgin conceived; and, the order of nature not being preserved, Christ took an intact body from the intact body of his mother.

If therefore in a new manner, with no precedent, he is taught to be born according to the flesh from a body, what wonder if he proceeded from the Father not according to the custom of human birth? The son begotten from her alone did not diminish the substance of the mother, and without harm to the body of the bearer we know the body of the offspring was born; and is the incorporeal substance of the Father then believed to have been diminished, when, brought forth from the very same substantially and incorporeally, he is said to be begotten? Therefore if we weigh the nature of things with understanding as guide, let us grant a beginning, if we do not deny an end. Otherwise let us say that the Son has no beginning, precisely because we confess him to be perpetual not through grace but through nature. In sum, greater and lesser can be said in three ways:

that is, by age, by form, by power. By age the elder is greater than the boy; by form the taller than the small; by power the stronger than the weak. Let us see whether any of these befalls the Son. For he is not lesser by age, who is established to have arisen as a beginning from the Father the beginning; nor by form, whom it is not lawful to proclaim other than God; nor by power, by whom we know all to be made perfect. CHAPTER XI. Fel. I desire to know by what manner the dignity of the Father passes to the Son, and the lowliness of the offspring does not recur to the Father. Aug. That these things are now said not according to nature, the daily examples of things teach us.

For behold, let us suppose some king and king's son who, having laid aside the insignia of royal majesty, take up the garments of a subject soldier, and on account of a certain dispensation of the father and the safety of his comrades, endure the insults of rebels. Now, because it is certain that a share of royal power descends to this son by nativity, is it therefore certain that the son's injury reaches him who begot — not by the affection of compassion, but by the very property of the suffering? It is not so, because it is certain that the father is not born of the son, but the son of the father. And therefore we say that all is similar between them which pertains to the communion of nature; that is proper which is known to have befallen one person by accident.

Therefore the Son by being born has with the Father all that the Father is, but the Father does not have it from the Son. Whatever he himself specially suffered is not common to both. That he was born a man from man is a special accident, which for the most part, without prejudice to the common nature, neither is taught to have in the other. One is the substance of the Father, one the person. This person, when it begot, brought forth from itself one without doubt known to be not diverse, but another — which is taught to be no other than the first, since it is taught both common and proper: common, I say, by the unity of substance, proper by the distinction of person. When therefore that which is born exists in itself, not whatever befalls this one necessarily passes to the begetter;

just as whatever proper and substantial belongs to the begetter, established by itself, comes to the one being born. For not as the divinity of the Father was conferred on the Son by the very generation, so are the sickness, poverty, death, and lowliness of the offspring referred to the Father. This does not happen because, although it was begotten similar from one substance, that is the father's, yet because it already exists in itself, whatever things are brought into this one from within are not said to be common, but proper. If therefore this is the condition of the human race — that the substance of a son is not so far changed into another from him who begot, that it cannot be the same but becomes another; while, with many things befalling the son from without, the common nature nonetheless remains —

what is it worthy for us to believe concerning God and his Son, what is fitting to proclaim? Of whom, although according to the simple glory of the undivided majesty their nature is not dissimilar, specially by the Son a body was assumed, that he might be humbled in the weakness of our flesh — he who could suffer nothing in the substance of the common divinity. The man, the Son of man, did not assume another nature. And although he suffers in the same nature which is common with the Father, yet he does not transmit the injury to the Father; nor is God the Father believed to be passibly humbled in the Son, since not in that very nature which is common to both, but rather in ours, which he alone assumed, he is believed to have endured the perfidy of the Jews.

In sum, what, I pray, is that which hung upon the cross? What is that which the lance is said to have wounded? Passible flesh, or the substance of deity? If, a profane preacher of the incorporeal, you should take it to be the majesty, you will be seen to believe a corruptible God. If passible flesh, this is not common with the Father, so that through it that cross could touch him. CHAPTER XII. Fel. While, in the manner of a torrent, you sweep away all the things said by us, you proclaim two Christs indeed, not one. And not without reason; for if the divinity suffered nothing at all in him, then Christ according to the man was another; otherwise, through the affection of the common deity, that passion also reached the Father. Aug. It is not so.