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.
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.
- There is, indeed, so closely conspiring a harmony in the same nature living and using reason, that although one knows not what the other wills, yet there are some wills of all which are also known to each; and although each man does not know what any other one man wills, yet in some things he may know what all will. And hence comes that story of the comic actor’s witty joke, who promised that he would say in the theatre, in some other play, what all had in their minds, and what all willed; and when a still greater crowd had come together on the day appointed, with great expectation, all being in suspense and silent, is affirmed to have said: You will to buy cheap, and sell dear. And mean actor though he was, yet all in his words recognized what themselves were conscious of, and applauded him with wonderful goodwill, for saying before the eyes of all what was confessedly true, yet what no one looked for. And why was so great expectation raised by his promising that he would say what was the will of all, unless because no man knows the wills of other men? But did not he know that will? Is there any one who does not know it? Yet why, unless because there are some things which not unfitly each conjectures from himself to be in others, through sympathy or agreement either in vice or virtue? But it is one thing to see one’s own will; another to conjecture, however certainly, what is another’s. For, in human affairs, I am as certain that Rome was built as that Constantinople was, although I have seen Rome with my eyes, but know nothing of the other city, except what I have believed on the testimony of others. And truly that comic actor believed it to be common to all to will to buy cheap and sell dear, either by observing himself or by making experiment also of others. But since such a will is in truth a fault, every one can attain the counter virtue, or run into the mischief of some other fault which is contrary to it, whereby to resist and conquer it. For I myself know a case where a manuscript was offered to a man for purchase, who perceived that the vendor was ignorant of its value, and was therefore asking something very small, and who thereupon gave him, though not expecting it, the just price, which was much more. Suppose even the case of a man possessed with wickedness so great as to sell cheap what his parents left to him, and to buy dear, in order to waste it on his own lusts? Such wanton extravagance, I fancy, is not incredible; and if such men are sought, they may be found, or even fall in one’s way although not sought; who, by a wickedness more than that of the theatre, make a mock of the theatrical proposition or declaration, by buying dishonor at a great price, while selling lands at a small one. We have heard, too, of persons that, for the sake of distribution, have bought corn at a higher price, and sold it to their fellow-citizens at a lower one. And note also what the old poet Ennius has said: that “all mortals wish themselves to be praised;” wherein, doubtless, he conjectured what was in others, both by himself, and by those whom he knew by experience; and so seems to have declared what it is that all men will. Lastly, if that comic actor himself, too, had said, You all will to be praised, no one of you wills to be abused; he would have seemed in like manner to have expressed what all will. Yet there are some who hate their own faults, and do not desire to be praised by others for that for which they are displeased with themselves; and who thank the kindness of those who rebuke them, when the purpose of that rebuke is their own amendment. But if he had said, You all will to be blessed, you do not will to be wretched; he would have said something which there is no one that would not recognize in his own will. For whatever else a man may will secretly, he does not withdraw from that will, which is well known to all men, and well known to be in all men.