On the Trinity

Augustine of Hippo

On the Trinity

Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

First published 428

Augustine's De Trinitate, staged here in the public-domain NPNF English translation by Arthur West Haddan, revised by W. G. T. Shedd.

Book 1

Caput I: This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning God Err from a Threefold Cause. Holy Scripture, Removing What is False, Leads Us on by Degrees to Things Divine. What True Immortality is. We are Nourished by Faith, that We May Be Enabled to Apprehend Things Divine.

Caput II: In What Manner This Work Proposes to Discourse Concerning the Trinity.

Caput III: What Augustin Requests from His Readers. The Errors of Readers Dull of Comprehension Not to Be Ascribed to the Author.

Caput IV: What the Doctrine of the Catholic Faith is Concerning the Trinity.

Caput V: Of Difficulties Concerning the Trinity: in What Manner Three are One God, and How, Working Indivisibly, They Yet Perform Some Things Severally.

Caput VI: That the Son is Very God, of the Same Substance with the Father. Not Only the Father, But the Trinity, is Affirmed to Be Immortal. All Things are Not from the Father Alone, But Also from the Son. That the Holy Spirit is Very God, Equal with the Father and the Son.

Caput VII: In What Manner the Son is Less Than the Father, and Than Himself.

Caput VIII: The Texts of Scripture Explained Respecting the Subjection of the Son to the Father, Which Have Been Misunderstood. Christ Will Not So Give Up the Kingdom to the Father, as to Take It Away from Himself. The Beholding Him is the Promised End of All Actions. The Holy Spirit is Sufficient to Our Blessedness Equally with the Father.

Caput IX: All are Sometimes Understood in One Person.

Caput X: In What Manner Christ Shall Deliver Up the Kingdom to God, Even the Father. The Kingdom Having Been Delivered to God, Even the Father, Christ Will Not Then Make Intercession for Us.

Caput XI: By What Rule in the Scriptures It is Understood that the Son is Now Equal and Now Less.

Caput XII: In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge.

Caput XIII: Diverse Things are Spoken Concerning the Same Christ, on Account of the Diverse Natures of the One Hypostasis [Theanthropic Person]. Why It is Said that the Father Will Not Judge, But Has Given Judgment to the Son.

Book 2

Caput I: Preface

Caput I: There is a Double Rule for Understanding the Scriptural Modes of Speech Concerning the Son of God. These Modes of Speech are of a Threefold Kind.

Caput II: That Some Ways of Speaking Concerning the Son are to Be Understood According to Either Rule.

Caput III: Some Things Concerning the Holy Spirit are to Be Understood According to the One Rule Only.

Caput IV: The Glorification of the Son by the Father Does Not Prove Inequality.

Caput V: The Son and Holy Spirit are Not Therefore Less Because Sent. The Son is Sent Also by Himself. Of the Sending of the Holy Spirit.

Caput VI: The Creature is Not So Taken by the Holy Spirit as Flesh is by the Word.

Caput VII: A Doubt Raised About Divine Appearances.

Caput VIII: The Entire Trinity Invisible.

Caput IX: Against Those Who Believed the Father Only to Be Immortal and Invisible. The Truth to Be Sought by Peaceful Study.

Caput X: Whether God the Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Same Appearance. The Vision to Abraham.

Caput XI: Of the Same Appearance.

Caput XII: The Appearance to Lot is Examined.

Caput XIII: The Appearance in the Bush.

  1. But when Moses was sent to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, it is written that the Lord appeared to him thus: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He is here also first called the Angel of the Lord, and then God. Was an angel, then, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Therefore He may be rightly understood to be the Saviour Himself, of whom the apostle says, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.” He, therefore, “who is over all, God blessed for ever,” is not unreasonably here understood also to be Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But why is He previously called the Angel of the Lord, when He appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush? Was it because it was one of many angels, who by an economy [or arrangement] bare the person of his Lord? or was something of the creature assumed by Him in order to bring about a visible appearance for the business in hand, and that words might thence be audibly uttered, whereby the presence of the Lord might be shown, in such way as was fitting, to the corporeal senses of man, by means of the creature made subject? For if he was one of the angels, who could easily affirm whether it was the person of the Son which was imposed upon him to announce, or that of the Holy Spirit, or that of God the Father, or altogether of the Trinity itself, who is the one and only God, in order that he might say, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” For we cannot say that the Son of God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and that the Father is not; nor will any one dare to deny that either the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, whom we believe and understand to be the one God, is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he who is not God, is not the God of those fathers. Furthermore, if not only the Father is God, as all, even heretics, admit; but also the Son, which, whether they will or not, they are compelled to acknowledge, since the apostle says, “Who is over all, God blessed for ever;” and the Holy Spirit, since the same apostle says, “Therefore glorify God in your body;” when he had said above, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?” and these three are one God, as catholic soundness believes: it is not sufficiently apparent which person of the Trinity that angel bare, if he was one of the rest of the angels, and whether any person, and not rather that of the Trinity itself. But if the creature was assumed for the purpose of the business in hand, whereby both to appear to human eyes, and to sound in human ears, and to be called the Angel of the Lord, and the Lord, and God; then cannot God here be understood to be the Father, but either the Son or the Holy Spirit. Although I cannot call to mind that the Holy Spirit is anywhere else called an angel, which yet may be understood from His work; for it is said of Him, “And He will show you things to come;” and “angel” in Greek is certainly equivalent to “messenger” in Latin: but we read most evidently of the Lord Jesus Christ in the prophet, that He is called “the Angel of Great Counsel,” while both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is God and Lord of the angels.

Caput XIV: Of the Appearance in the Pillar of Cloud and of Fire.

Caput XV: Of the Appearance on Sinai. Whether the Trinity Spake in that Appearance or Some One Person Specially.

Caput XVI: In What Manner Moses Saw God.

Caput XVII: How the Back Parts of God Were Seen. The Faith of the Resurrection of Christ. The Catholic Church Only is the Place from Whence the Back Parts of God are Seen. The Back Parts of God Were Seen by the Israelites. It is a Rash Opinion to Think that God the Father Only Was Never Seen by the Fathers.

Caput XVIII: The Vision of Daniel.

Book 3

Caput I: Preface

Caput I: What is to Be Said Thereupon.

Caput II: The Will of God is the Higher Cause of All Corporeal Change. This is Shown by an Example.

Caput III: Of the Same Argument.

Caput IV: God Uses All Creatures as He Will, and Makes Visible Things for the Manifestation of Himself.

Caput V: Why Miracles are Not Usual Works.

Caput VI: Diversity Alone Makes a Miracle.

Caput VII: Great Miracles Wrought by Magic Arts.

Caput VIII: God Alone Creates Those Things Which are Changed by Magic Art.

Caput IX: The Original Cause of All Things is from God.

Caput X: In How Many Ways the Creature is to Be Taken by Way of Sign. The Eucharist.

Caput XI: The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from the Mode of Speech Removed. That the Appearing of God to Abraham Himself, Just as that to Moses, Was Wrought by Angels. The Same Thing is Proved by the Law Being Given to Moses by Angels. What Has Been Said in This Book, and What Remains to Be Said in the Next.

Book 4

Caput I: Preface

Caput I: We are Made Perfect by Acknowledgement of Our Own Weakness. The Incarnate Word Dispels Our Darkness.

Caput II: How We are Rendered Apt for the Perception of Truth Through the Incarnate Word.

Caput III: The One Death and Resurrection of The Body of Christ Harmonizes with Our Double Death and Resurrection of Body and Soul, to the Effect of Salvation. In What Way the Single Death of Christ is Bestowed Upon Our Double Death.

Caput IV: The Ratio of the Single to the Double Comes from the Perfection of the Senary Number. The Perfection of The Senary Number is Commended in the Scriptures. The Year Abounds in The Senary Number.

Caput V: The Number Six is Also Commended in the Building Up of the Body of Christ and of the Temple at Jerusalem.

Caput VI: The Three Days of the Resurrection, in Which Also the Ratio of Single to Double is Apparent.

Caput VII: In What Manner We are Gathered from Many into One Through One Mediator.

Caput VIII: In What Manner Christ Wills that All Shall Be One in Himself.

Caput IX: The Same Argument Continued.

Caput X: As Christ is the Mediator of Life, So the Devil is the Mediator of Death.

Caput XI: Miracles Which are Done by Demons are to Be Spurned.

Caput XII: The Devil the Mediator of Death, Christ of Life.

Caput XIII: The Death of Christ Voluntary. How the Mediator of Life Subdued the Mediator of Death. How the Devil Leads His Own to Despise the Death of Christ.

Caput XIV: Christ the Most Perfect Victim for Cleansing Our Faults. In Every Sacrifice Four Things are to Be Considered.

Caput XV: They are Proud Who Think They are Able, by Their Own Righteousness, to Be Cleansed So as to See God.

Caput XVI: The Old Philosophers are Not to Be Consulted Concerning the Resurrection and Concerning Things to Come.

Caput XVII: In How Many Ways Things Future are Foreknown. Neither Philosophers, Nor Those Who Were Distinguished Among the Ancients, are to Be Consulted Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead.

Caput XVIII: The Son of God Became Incarnate in Order that We Being Cleansed by Faith May Be Raised to the Unchangeable Truth.

Caput XIX: In What Manner the Son Was Sent and Proclaimed Beforehand. How in the Sending of His Birth in the Flesh He Was Made Less Without Detriment to His Equality with the Father.

Caput XX: The Sender and the Sent Equal. Why the Son is Said to Be Sent by the Father. Of the Mission of the Holy Spirit. How and by Whom He Was Sent. The Father the Beginning of the Whole Godhead.

Caput XXI: Of the Sensible Showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the Coeternity of the Trinity. What Has Been Said, and What Remains to Be Said.

Book 5

Caput I: What the Author Entreats from God, What from the Reader. In God Nothing is to Be Thought Corporeal or Changeable.

Caput II: God the Only Unchangeable Essence.

Caput III: The Argument of the Arians is Refuted, Which is Drawn from the Words Begotten and Unbegotten.

Caput IV: The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.

Caput V: Nothing is Spoken of God According to Accident, But According to Substance or According to Relation.

Caput VI: Reply is Made to the Cavils of the Heretics in Respect to the Same Words Begotten and Unbegotten.

Caput VII: The Addition of a Negative Does Not Change the Predicament.

Caput VIII: Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in God, and Three, in Greek, Hypostases, in Latin, Persons.

Caput IX: The Three Persons Not Properly So Called [in a Human Sense].

Caput X: Those Things Which Belong Absolutely to God as an Essence, are Spoken of the Trinity in the Singular, Not in the Plural.

Caput XI: What is Said Relatively in the Trinity.

Caput XII: In Relative Things that are Reciprocal, Names are Sometimes Wanting.

Caput XIII: How the Word Beginning (Principium) is Spoken Relatively in the Trinity.

Caput XIV: The Father and the Son the Only Beginning (Principium) of the Holy Spirit.

Caput XV: Whether the Holy Spirit Was a Gift Before as Well as After He Was Given.

Caput XVI: What is Said of God in Time, is Said Relatively, Not Accidentally.

Book 6

Caput I: The Son, According to the Apostle, is the Power and Wisdom of the Father. Hence the Reasoning of the Catholics Against the Earlier Arians. A Difficulty is Raised, Whether the Father is Not Wisdom Himself, But Only the Father of Wisdom.

Caput II: What is Said of the Father and Son Together, and What Not.

Caput III: That the Unity of the Essence of the Father and the Son is to Be Gathered from the Words, ‘We are One.’ The Son is Equal to the Father Both in Wisdom and in All Other Things.

Caput IV: The Same Argument Continued.

Caput V: The Holy Spirit Also is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things.

Caput VI: How God is a Substance Both Simple and Manifold.

Caput VII: God is a Trinity, But Not Triple (Triplex).

Caput VIII: No Addition Can Be Made to the Nature of God.

Caput IX: Whether One or the Three Persons Together are Called the Only God.

Caput X: Of the Attributes Assigned by Hilary to Each Person. The Trinity is Represented in Things that are Made.

Book 7

Caput I: Augustin Returns to the Question, Whether Each Person of the Trinity by Itself is Wisdom. With What Difficulty, or in What Way, the Proposed Question is to Be Solved.

Caput II: The Father and the Son are Together One Wisdom, as One Essence, Although Not Together One Word.

Caput III: Why the Son Chiefly is Intimated in the Scriptures by the Name of Wisdom, While Both the Father and the Holy Spirit are Wisdom. That the Holy Spirit, Together with the Father and the Son, is One Wisdom.

Caput IV: How It Was Brought About that the Greeks Speak of Three Hypostases, the Latins of Three Persons. Scripture Nowhere Speaks of Three Persons in One God.

Caput V: In God, Substance is Spoken Improperly, Essence Properly.

Caput VI: Why We Do Not in the Trinity Speak of One Person, and Three Essences. What He Ought to Believe Concerning the Trinity Who Does Not Receive What is Said Above. Man is Both After the Image, and is the Image of God.

Book 8

Caput I: Preface.—The Conclusion of What Has Been Said Above. The Rule to Be Observed in the More Difficult Questions of the Faith.

Caput I: It is Shown by Reason that in God Three are Not Anything Greater Than One Person.

Caput II: Every Corporeal Conception Must Be Rejected, in Order that It May Be Understood How God is Truth.

Caput III: How God May Be Known to Be the Chief Good. The Mind Does Not Become Good Unless by Turning to God.

Caput IV: God Must First Be Known by an Unerring Faith, that He May Be Loved.

Caput V: How the Trinity May Be Loved Though Unknown.

Caput VI: How the Man Not Yet Righteous Can Know the Righteous Man Whom He Loves.

Caput VII: Of True Love, by Which We Arrive at the Knowledge of the Trinity. God is to Be Sought, Not Outwardly, by Seeking to Do Wonderful Things with the Angels, But Inwardly, by Imitating the Piety of Good Angels.

Caput VIII: That He Who Loves His Brother, Loves God; Because He Loves Love Itself, Which is of God, and is God.

Caput IX: Our Love of the Righteous is Kindled from Love Itself of the Unchangeable Form of Righteousness.

Caput X: There are Three Things in Love, as It Were a Trace of the Trinity.

Book 9

Caput I: In What Way We Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.

Caput II: The Three Things Which are Found in Love Must Be Considered.

Caput III: The Image of the Trinity in the Mind of Man Who Knows Himself and Loves Himself. The Mind Knows Itself Through Itself.

Caput IV: The Three are One, and Also Equal, Viz. The Mind Itself, and the Love, and the Knowledge of It. That the Same Three Exist Substantially, and are Predicated Relatively. That the Same Three are Inseparable. That the Same Three are Not Joined and Commingled Like Parts, But that They are of One Essence, and are Relatives.

Caput V: That These Three are Several in Themselves, and Mutually All in All.

Caput VI: There is One Knowledge of the Thing in the Thing Itself, and Another in Eternal Truth Itself. That Corporeal Things, Too, are to Be Judged the Rules of Eternal Truth.

Caput VII: We Conceive and Beget the Word Within, from the Things We Have Beheld in the Eternal Truth. The Word, Whether of the Creature or of the Creator, is Conceived by Love.

Caput VIII: In What Desire and Love Differ.

Caput IX: In the Love of Spiritual Things the Word Born is the Same as the Word Conceived. It is Otherwise in the Love of Carnal Things.

Caput X: Whether Only Knowledge that is Loved is the Word of the Mind.

Caput XI: That the Image or Begotten Word of the Mind that Knows Itself is Equal to the Mind Itself.

Caput XII: Why Love is Not the Offspring of the Mind, as Knowledge is So. The Solution of the Question. The Mind with the Knowledge of Itself and the Love of Itself is the Image of the Trinity.

Book 10

Caput I: The Love of the Studious Mind, that Is, of One Desirous to Know, is Not the Love of a Thing Which It Does Not Know.

Caput II: No One at All Loves Things Unknown.

Caput III: That When the Mind Loves Itself, It is Not Unknown to Itself.

Caput IV: How the Mind Knows Itself, Not in Part, But as a Whole.

Caput V: Why the Soul is Enjoined to Know Itself. Whence Come the Errors of the Mind Concerning Its Own Substance.

Caput VI: The Opinion Which the Mind Has of Itself is Deceitful.

Caput VII: The Opinions of Philosophers Respecting the Substance of the Soul. The Error of Those Who are of Opinion that the Soul is Corporeal, Does Not Arise from Defective Knowledge of the Soul, But from Their Adding There to Something Foreign to It. What is Meant by Finding.

Caput VIII: How the Soul Inquires into Itself. Whence Comes the Error of the Soul Concerning Itself.

Caput IX: The Mind Knows Itself, by the Very Act of Understanding the Precept to Know Itself.

Caput X: Every Mind Knows Certainly Three Things Concerning Itself—That It Understands, that It Is, and that It Lives.

Caput XI: In Memory, Understanding [or Intelligence], and Will, We Have to Note Ability, Learning, and Use. Memory, Understanding, and Will are One Essentially, and Three Relatively.

Caput XII: The Mind is an Image of the Trinity in Its Own Memory, and Understanding, and Will.

Book 11

Caput I: A Trace of the Trinity Also In the Outer Man.

Caput II: A Certain Trinity in the Sight. That There are Three Things in Sight, Which Differ in Their Own Nature. In What Manner from a Visible Thing Vision is Produced, or the Image of that Thing Which is Seen. The Matter is Shown More Clearly by an Example. How These Three Combine in One.

Caput III: The Unity of the Three Takes Place in Thought, Viz. Of Memory, of Ternal Vision, and of Will Combining Both.

Caput IV: How This Unity Comes to Pass.

Caput V: The Trinity of the Outer Man, or of External Vision, is Not an Image of God. The Likeness of God is Desired Even in Sins. In External Vision the Form of the Corporeal Thing is as It Were the Parent, Vision the Offspring; But the Will that Unites These Suggests the Holy Spirit.

Caput VI: Of What Kind We are to Reckon the Rest (Requies), and End (Finis), of the Will in Vision.

Caput VII: There is Another Trinity in the Memory of Him Who Thinks Over Again What He Has Seen.

Caput VIII: Different Modes of Conceiving.

Caput IX: Species is Produced by Species in Succession.

Caput X: The Imagination Also Adds Even to Things We Have Not Seen, Those Things Which We Have Seen Elsewhere.

Caput XI: Number, Weight, Measure.

Book 12

Caput I: Of What Kind are the Outer and the Inner Man.

Caput II: Man Alone of Animate Creatures Perceives the Eternal Reasons of Things Pertaining to the Body.

Caput III: The Higher Reason Which Belongs to Contemplation, and the Lower Which Belongs to Action, are in One Mind.

Caput IV: The Trinity and the Image of God is in that Part of the Mind Alone Which Belongs to the Contemplation of Eternal Things.

Caput V: The Opinion Which Devises an Image of the Trinity in the Marriage of Male and Female, and in Their Offspring.

Caput VI: Why This Opinion is to Be Rejected.

Caput VII: How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of God, But the Woman is the Glory of the Man, is to Be Understood Figuratively and Mystically.

Caput VIII: Turning Aside from the Image of God.

Caput IX: The Same Argument is Continued.

Caput X: The Lowest Degradation Reached by Degrees.

Caput XI: The Image of the Beast in Man.

Caput XII: There is a Kind of Hidden Wedlock in the Inner Man. Unlawful Pleasures of the Thoughts.

Caput XIII: The Opinion of Those Who Have Thought that the Mind Was Signified by the Man, the Bodily Sense by the Woman.

Caput XIV: What is the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge. The Worship of God is the Love of Him. How the Intellectual Cognizance of Eternal Things Comes to Pass Through Wisdom.

Caput XV: In Opposition to the Reminiscence of Plato and Pythagoras. Pythagoras the Samian. Of the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge, and of Seeking the Trinity in the Knowledge of Temporal Things.

Book 13

Caput I: The Attempt is Made to Distinguish Out of the Scriptures the Offices of Wisdom and of Knowledge. That in the Beginning of John Some Things that are Said Belong to Wisdom, Some to Knowledge. Some Things There are Only Known by the Help of Faith. How We See the Faith that is in Us. In the Same Narrative of John, Some Things are Known by the Sense of the Body, Others Only by the Reason of the Mind.

Caput II: Faith a Thing of the Heart, Not of the Body; How It is Common and One and the Same in All Believers. The Faith of Believers is One, No Otherwise than the Will of Those Who Will is One.

Caput III: Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The Poet Ennius.

Caput IV: The Will to Possess Blessedness is One in All, But the Variety of Wills is Very Great Concerning that Blessedness Itself.

Caput V: Of the Same Thing.

Caput VI: Why, When All Will to Be Blessed, that is Rather Chosen by Which One Withdraws from Being So.

Caput VII: Faith is Necessary, that Man May at Some Time Be Blessed, Which He Will Only Attain in the Future Life. The Blessedness of Proud Philosophers Ridiculous and Pitiable.

Caput VIII: Blessedness Cannot Exist Without Immortality.

Caput IX: We Say that Future Blessedness is Truly Eternal, Not Through Human Reasonings, But by the Help of Faith. The Immortality of Blessedness Becomes Credible from the Incarnation of the Son of God.

Caput X: There Was No Other More Suitable Way of Freeing Man from the Misery of Mortality Than The Incarnation of the Word. The Merits Which are Called Ours are the Gifts of God.

Caput XI: A Difficulty, How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God.

Caput XII: All, on Account of the Sin of Adam, Were Delivered into the Power of the Devil.

Caput XIII: Man Was to Be Rescued from the Power of the Devil, Not by Power, But by Righteousness.

Caput XIV: The Unobligated Death of Christ Has Freed Those Who Were Liable to Death.

Caput XV: Of the Same Subject.

Caput XVI: The Remains of Death and the Evil Things of the World Turn to Good for the Elect. How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen, that We Might Be Justified in His Blood. What the Anger of God is.

Caput XVII: Other Advantages of the Incarnation.

Caput XVIII: Why the Son of God Took Man Upon Himself from the Race of Adam, and from a Virgin.

Caput XIX: What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to Wisdom.

Caput XX: What Has Been Treated of in This Book. How We Have Reached by Steps to a Certain Trinity, Which is Found in Practical Knowledge and True Faith.

Book 14

Caput I: What the Wisdom is of Which We are Here to Treat. Whence the Name of Philosopher Arose. What Has Been Already Said Concerning the Distinction of Knowledge and Wisdom.

Caput II: There is a Kind of Trinity in the Holding, Contemplating, and Loving of Faith Temporal, But One that Does Not Yet Attain to Being Properly an Image of God.

Caput III: A Difficulty Removed, Which Lies in the Way of What Has Just Been Said.

Caput IV: The Image of God is to Be Sought in the Immortality of the Rational Soul. How a Trinity is Demonstrated in the Mind.

Caput V: Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.

Caput VI: How a Kind of Trinity Exists in the Mind Thinking of Itself. What is the Part of Thought in This Trinity.

Caput VII: The Thing is Made Plain by an Example. In What Way the Matter is Handled in Order to Help the Reader.

Caput VIII: The Trinity Which is the Image of God is Now to Be Sought in the Noblest Part of the Mind.

Caput IX: Whether Justice and the Other Virtues Cease to Exist in the Future Life.

Caput X: How a Trinity is Produced by the Mind Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Itself.

Caput XI: Whether Memory is Also of Things Present.

Caput XII: The Trinity in the Mind is the Image of God, in that It Remembers, Understands, and Loves God, Which to Do is Wisdom.

Caput XIII: How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.

Caput XIV: The Mind Loves God in Rightly Loving Itself; And If It Love Not God, It Must Be Said to Hate Itself. Even a Weak and Erring Mind is Always Strong in Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Itself. Let It Be Turned to God, that It May Be Blessed by Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Him.

Caput XV: Although the Soul Hopes for Blessedness, Yet It Does Not Remember Lost Blessedness, But Remembers God and the Rules of Righteousness. The Unchangeable Rules of Right Living are Known Even to the Ungodly.

Caput XVI: How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.

Caput XVII: How the Image of God in the Mind is Renewed Until the Likeness of God is Perfected in It in Blessedness.

Caput XVIII: Whether the Sentence of John is to Be Understood of Our Future Likeness with the Son of God in the Immortality Itself Also of the Body.

Caput XIX: John is Rather to Be Understood of Our Perfect Likeness with the Trinity in Life Eternal. Wisdom is Perfected in Happiness.

Book 15

Caput I: God is Above the Mind.

Caput II: God, Although Incomprehensible, is Ever to Be Sought. The Traces of the Trinity are Not Vainly Sought in the Creature.

Caput III: A Brief Recapitulation of All the Previous Books.

Caput IV: What Universal Nature Teaches Us Concerning God.

Caput V: How Difficult It is to Demonstrate the Trinity by Natural Reason.

Caput VI: How There is a Trinity in the Very Simplicity of God. Whether and How the Trinity that is God is Manifested from the Trinities Which Have Been Shown to Be in Men.

Caput VII: That It is Not Easy to Discover the Trinity that is God from the Trinities We Have Spoken of.

Caput VIII: How the Apostle Says that God is Now Seen by Us Through a Glass.

Caput IX: Of the Term ‘Enigma,’ And of Tropical Modes of Speech.

Caput X: Concerning the Word of the Mind, in Which We See the Word of God, as in a Glass and an Enigma.

Caput XI: The Likeness of the Divine Word, Such as It Is, is to Be Sought, Not in Our Own Outer and Sensible Word, But in the Inner and Mental One. There is the Greatest Possible Unlikeness Between Our Word and Knowledge and the Divine Word and Knowledge.

Caput XII: The Academic Philosophy.

Caput XIII: Still Further of the Difference Between the Knowledge and Word of Our Mind, and the Knowledge and Word of God.

Caput XIV: The Word of God is in All Things Equal to the Father, from Whom It is.

Caput XV: How Great is the Unlikeness Between Our Word and the Divine Word. Our Word Cannot Be or Be Called Eternal.

Caput XVI: Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even When We Shall Be Like God.

Caput XVII: How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly Called by the Name of Love.

Caput XVIII: No Gift of God is More Excellent Than Love.

Caput XIX: The Holy Spirit is Called the Gift of God in the Scriptures. By the Gift of the Holy Spirit is Meant the Gift Which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Specially Called Love, Although Not Only the Holy Spirit in the Trinity is Love.

Caput XX: Against Eunomius, Saying that the Son of God is the Son, Not of His Nature, But of His Will. Epilogue to What Has Been Said Already.

Caput XXI: Of the Likeness of the Father and of the Son Alleged to Be in Our Memory and Understanding. Of the Likeness of the Holy Spirit in Our Will or Love.

Caput XXII: How Great the Unlikeness is Between the Image of the Trinity Which We Have Found in Ourselves, and the Trinity Itself.

Caput XXIII: Augustin Dwells Still Further on the Disparity Between the Trinity Which is in Man, and the Trinity Which is God. The Trinity is Now Seen Through a Glass by the Help of Faith, that It May Hereafter Be More Clearly Seen in the Promised Sight Face to Face.

Caput XXIV: The Infirmity of the Human Mind.

Caput XXV: The Question Why the Holy Spirit is Not Begotten, and How He Proceeds from the Father and the Son, Will Only Be Understood When We are in Bliss.

Caput XXVI: The Holy Spirit Twice Given by Christ. The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son is Apart from Time, Nor Can He Be Called the Son of Both.

Caput XXVII: What It is that Suffices Here to Solve the Question Why the Spirit is Not Said to Be Begotten, and Why the Father Alone is Unbegotten. What They Ought to Do Who Do Not Understand These Things.

Caput XXVIII: The Conclusion of the Book with a Prayer, and an Apology for Multitude of Words.

↑ Top of work