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.
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.
- Return then with me, and let us consider why we love the apostle. Is it at all on account of his human kind, which we know right well, in that we believe him to have been a man? Assuredly not; for if it were so, he now is not him whom we love, since he is no longer that man, for his soul is separated from his body. But we believe that which we love in him to be still living, for we love his righteous mind. From what general or special rule then, except that we know both what a mind is, and what it is to be righteous? And we say, indeed, not unfitly, that we therefore know what a mind is, because we too have a mind. For neither did we ever see it with our eyes, and gather a special or general notion from the resemblance of more minds than one, which we had seen; but rather, as I have said before, because we too have it. For what is known so intimately, and so perceives itself to be itself, as that by which also all other things are perceived, that is, the mind itself? For we recognize the movements of bodies also, by which we perceive that others live besides ourselves, from the resemblance of ourselves; since we also so move our body in living as we observe those bodies to be moved. For even when a living body is moved, there is no way opened to our eyes to see the mind, a thing which cannot be seen by the eyes; but we perceive something to be contained in that bulk, such as is contained in ourselves, so as to move in like manner our own bulk, which is the life and the soul. Neither is this, as it were, the property of human foresight and reason, since brute animals also perceive that not only they themselves live, but also other brute animals interchangeably, and the one the other, and that we ourselves do so. Neither do they see our souls, save from the movements of the body, and that immediately and most easily by some natural agreement. Therefore we both know the mind of any one from our own, and believe also from our own of him whom we do not know. For not only do we perceive that there is a mind, but we can also know what a mind is, by reflecting upon our own: for we have a mind. But whence do we know what a righteous man is? For we said above that we love the apostle for no other reason except that he is a righteous mind. We know, then, what a righteous man also is, just as we know what a mind is. But what a mind is, as has been said, we know from ourselves, for there is a mind in us. But whence do we know what a righteous man is, if we are not righteous? But if no one but he who is righteous knows what is a righteous man, no one but a righteous man loves a righteous man; for one cannot love him whom one believes to be righteous, for this very reason that one does believe him to be righteous, if one does not know what it is to be righteous; according to that which we have shown above, that no one loves what he believes and does not see, except by some rule of a general or special notion. And if for this reason no one but a righteous man loves a righteous man, how will any one wish to be a righteous man who is not yet so? For no one wishes to be that which he does not love. But, certainly, that he who is not righteous may be so, it is necessary that he should wish to be righteous; and in order that he may wish to be righteous, he loves the righteous man. Therefore, even he who is not yet righteous, loves the righteous man. But he cannot love the righteous man, who is ignorant what a righteous man is. Accordingly, even he who is not yet righteous, knows what a righteous man is. Whence then does he know this? Does he see it with his eyes? Is any corporeal thing righteous, as it is white, or black, or square, or round? Who could say this? Yet with one’s eyes one has seen nothing except corporeal things. But there is nothing righteous in a man except the mind; and when a man is called a righteous man, he is called so from the mind, not from the body. For righteousness is in some sort the beauty of the mind, by which men are beautiful; very many too who are misshapen and deformed in body. And as the mind is not seen with the eyes, so neither is its beauty. From whence then does he who is not yet righteous know what a righteous man is, and love the righteous man that he may become righteous? Do certain signs shine forth by the motion of the body, by which this or that man is manifested to be righteous? But whence does any one know that these are the signs of a righteous mind when he is wholly ignorant what it is to be righteous? Therefore he does know. But whence do we know what it is to be righteous, even when we are not yet righteous? If we know from without ourselves, we know it by some bodily thing. But this is not a thing of the body. Therefore we know in ourselves what it is to be righteous. For I find this nowhere else when I seek to utter it, except within myself; and if I ask another what it is to be righteous, he seeks within himself what to answer; and whosoever hence can answer truly, he has found within himself what to answer. And when indeed I wish to speak of Carthage, I seek within myself what to speak, and I find within myself a notion or image of Carthage; but I have received this through the body, that is, through the perception of the body, since I have been present in that city in the body, and I saw and perceived it, and retained it in my memory, that I might find within myself a word concerning it, whenever I might wish to speak of it. For its word is the image itself of it in my memory, not that sound of two syllables when Carthage is named, or even when that name itself is thought of silently from time to time, but that which I discern in my mind, when I utter that dissyllable with my voice, or even before I utter it. So also, when I wish to speak of Alexandria, which I never saw, an image of it is present with me. For whereas I had heard from many and had believed that city to be great, in such way as it could be told me, I formed an image of it in my mind as I was able; and this is with me its word when I wish to speak of it, before I utter with my voice the five syllables which make the name that almost every one knows. And yet if I could bring forth that image from my mind to the eyes of men who know Alexandria, certainly all either would say, It is not it; or if they said, It is, I should greatly wonder; and as I gazed at it in my mind, that is, at the image which was as it were its picture, I should yet not know it to be it, but should believe those who retained an image they had seen. But I do not so ask what it is to be righteous, nor do I so find it, nor do I so gaze upon it, when I utter it; neither am I so approved when I am heard, nor do I so approve when I hear; as though I have seen such a thing with my eyes, or learned it by some perception of the body, or heard it from those who had so learned it. For when I say, and say knowingly, that mind is righteous which knowingly and of purpose assigns to every one his due in life and behavior, I do not think of anything absent, as Carthage, or imagine it as I am able, as Alexandria, whether it be so or not; but I discern something present, and I discern it within myself, though I myself am not that which I discern; and many if they hear will approve it. And whoever hears me and knowingly approves, he too discerns this same thing within himself, even though he himself be not what he discerns. But when a righteous man says this, he discerns and says that which he himself is. And whence also does he discern it, except within himself? But this is not to be wondered at; for whence should he discern himself except within himself? The wonderful thing is, that the mind should see within itself that which it has seen nowhere else, and should see truly, and should see the very true righteous mind, and should itself be a mind, and yet not a righteous mind, which nevertheless it sees within itself. Is there another mind that is righteous in a mind that is not yet righteous? Or if there is not, what does it there see when it sees and says what is a righteous mind, nor sees it anywhere else but in itself, when itself is not a righteous mind? Is that which it sees an inner truth present to the mind which has power to behold it? Yet all have not that power; and they who have power to behold it, are not all also that which they behold, that is, they are not also righteous minds themselves, just as they are able to see and to say what is a righteous mind. And whence will they be able to be so, except by cleaving to that very same form itself which they behold, so that from thence they may be formed and may be righteous minds; not only discerning and saying that the mind is righteous which knowingly and of purpose assigns to every one that which is his due in life and behavior, but so likewise that they themselves may live righteously and be righteous in character, by assigning to every one that which is his due, so as to owe no man anything, but to love one another. And whence can any one cleave to that form but by loving it? Why then do we love another whom we believe to be righteous, and do not love that form itself wherein we see what is a righteous mind, that we also may be able to be righteous? Is it that unless we loved that also, we should not love him at all, whom through it we love; but whilst we are not righteous, we love that form too little to allow of our being able to be righteous? The man therefore who is believed to be righteous, is loved through that form and truth which he who loves discerns and understands within himself; but that very form and truth itself cannot be loved from any other source than itself. For we do not find any other such thing besides itself, so that by believing we might love it when it is unknown, in that we here already know another such thing. For whatsoever of such a kind one may have seen, is itself; and there is not any other such thing, since itself alone is such as itself is. He therefore who loves men, ought to love them either because they are righteous, or that they may become righteous. For so also he ought to love himself, either because he is righteous, or that he may become righteous; for in this way he loves his neighbor as himself without any risk. For he who loves himself otherwise, loves himself wrongfully, since he loves himself to this end that he may be unrighteous; therefore to this end that he may be wicked; and hence it follows next that he does not love himself; for, “He who loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.”