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.
Caput XIV: Of the Appearance in the Pillar of Cloud and of Fire.
- Also in the going forth of the children of Israel from Egypt it is written, “And the Lord went before them, by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” Who here, too, would doubt that God appeared to the eyes of mortal men by the corporeal creature made subject to Him, and not by His own substance? But it is not similarly apparent whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, the one God. Nor is this distinguished there either, in my judgment, where it is written, “The glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel,” etc.