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.
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.
- And on this account, faith, by which men believe in God, is above all things necessary in this mortal life, most full as it is of errors and hardships. For there are no good things whatever, and above all, not those by which any one is made good, or those by which he will become blessed, of which any other source can be found whence they come to man, and are added to man, unless it be from God. But when he who is good and faithful in these miseries shall have come from this life to the blessed life, then will truly come to pass what now is absolutely impossible,—namely, that a man may live as he will. For he will not will to live badly in the midst of that felicity, nor will he will anything that will be wanting, nor will there be wanting anything which he shall have willed. Whatever shall be loved, will be present; nor will that be longed for, which shall not be present. Everything which will be there will be good, and the supreme God will be the supreme good and will be present for those to enjoy who love Him; and what altogether is most blessed, it will be certain that it will be so forever. But now, indeed, philosophers have made for themselves, according to the pleasure of each, their own ideals of a blessed life; that they might be able, as it were by their own power, to do that, which by the common conditions of mortals they were not able to do,—namely, to live as they would. For they felt that no one could be blessed otherwise than by having what he would, and by suffering nothing which he would not. And who would not will, that the life whatsoever it be, with which he is delighted, and which he therefore calls blessed, were so in his own power, that he could have it continually? And yet who is in this condition? Who wills to suffer troubles in order that he may endure them manfully, although he both wills and is able to endure them if he does suffer them? Who would will to live in torments, even although he is able to live laudably by holding fast to righteousness in the midst of them through patience? They who have endured these evils, either in wishing to have or in fearing to lose what they loved, whether wickedly or laudably, have thought of them as transitory. For many have stretched boldly through transitory evils to good things which will last. And these, doubtless, are blessed through hope, even while actually suffering such transitory evils, through which they arrive at good things which will not be transitory. But he who is blessed through hope is not yet blessed: for he expects, through patience, a blessedness which he does not yet grasp. Whereas he, on the other hand, who is tormented without any such hope, without any such reward, let him use as much endurance as he pleases, is not truly blessed, but bravely miserable. For he is not on that account not miserable, because he would be more so if he also bore misery impatiently. Further, even if he does not suffer those things which he would not will to suffer in his own body, not even then is he to be esteemed blessed, inasmuch as he does not live as he wills. For to omit other things, which, while the body remains unhurt, belong to those annoyances of the mind, without which we should will to live, and which are innumerable; he would will, at any rate, if he were able, so to have his body safe and sound, and so to suffer no inconveniences from it, as to have it within his own control, or even to have it with an imperishableness of the body itself; and because he does not possess this, and hangs in doubt about it, he certainly does not live as he wills. For although he may be ready from fortitude to accept, and bear with an equal mind, whatever adversities may happen to him, yet he had rather they should not happen, and prevents them if he is able; and he is in such way ready for both alternatives, that, as much as is in him, he wishes for the one and shuns the other; and if he have fallen into that which he shuns, he therefore bears it willingly, because that could not happen which he willed. He bears it, therefore, in order that he may not be crushed; but he would not willingly be even burdened. How, then, does he live as he wills? Is it because he is willingly strong to bear what he would not will to be put upon him? Then he only wills what he can, because he cannot have what he wills. And here is the sum-total of the blessedness of proud mortals, I know not whether to be laughed at, or not rather to be pitied, who boast that they live as they will, because they willingly bear patiently what they are unwilling should happen to them. For this, they say, is like Terence’s wise saying,—
“Since that cannot be which you will, will that which thou canst.”
That this is aptly said, who denies? But it is advice given to the miserable man, that he may not be more miserable. And it is not rightly or truly said to the blessed man, such as all wish themselves to be, That cannot be which you will. For if he is blessed, whatever he wills can be; since he does not will that which cannot be. But such a life is not for this mortal state, neither will it come to pass unless when immortality also shall come to pass. And if this could not be given at all to man, blessedness too would be sought in vain, since it cannot be without immortality.