Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1.

1. All teaching concerns either things or signs. As we have considered again and again, with careful inquiry, the contents of the Old and New Law, with God's grace going before us, it has become clear that the treatment of sacred Scripture is chiefly concerned with things or signs. For, as the excellent teacher Augustine says in On Christian Teaching¹, “All teaching concerns either things or signs. But things too are learned through signs. Properly speaking, things are what are not employed to signify something; signs are those whose use consists in signifying.” Some things have no use except to signify, not to justify, that is, we use them only for the sake of signifying something, as with certain legal sacraments; others not only signify but also confer what inwardly assists us, as do the sacraments of the Gospel. “From this² it is plainly understood what are here called signs: namely, those things which are employed to signify something. Therefore every sign is also some thing: for, as Augustine says in the same place, what is no thing is absolutely nothing. But not conversely is every thing a sign,” since it is not employed to signify something.

2. When the diligent and modest speculation of theologians has attended to these matters, it will perceive that divine Scripture follows the prescribed form of teaching.

3. Therefore, as we wish, with God as our guide, to open a way for ourselves toward some understanding of divine things, we must discuss these matters; and “first³ we shall discuss things, then signs.”

⁴ Sententiarum Petri added by C, Sent. Mag. Petri Novariensis added in M, Sent. Magistri Petri; Cap. 1. Liber primus de trinitate added in X.]

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Chapter 2.

1. Treats things in general. “With regard to things, then, we must consider, as Augustine says in the same place, that some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and others both enjoy and use. Those things to be enjoyed make us blessed; by those to be used we are helped and, as it were, supported as we strive toward blessedness, so that by them we may reach and cling to those things which make us blessed.”

2. Things that both enjoy and use. “The things that both enjoy and use are we ourselves, as though placed between the other two kinds,” and the holy angels.

3. What it is to enjoy and to use. “To enjoy⁷ is to cling to something by love for its own sake; to use is to refer what has come into use toward attaining that which is to be enjoyed. Otherwise it is abuse, not use, for illicit use ought to be called abuse or misuse.”

4. Things to be enjoyed. “The things to be enjoyed, then, are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet this same Trinity is a certain supreme thing, common to all who enjoy it—if indeed it ought to be called a thing, and not the cause of all things, if it is a cause. For it is not easy to find a name befitting such excellence, except that this is better called the Trinity, one God.”

5. Things to be used. The world and the things created in it are to be used. Hence Augustine says in the same place⁸: “This world is to be used, not enjoyed, so that the invisible things of God may be discerned, understood through the things that have been made,” that is, so that eternal things may be grasped from temporal ones. — Likewise, in the same place⁹: “Among all things, only those that are eternal and unchangeable are to be enjoyed; the rest are to be used, so that we may attain the enjoyment of those.” Hence Augustine, in Book X of On the Trinity¹⁰, says: “We enjoy things known, in which the will, delighted in them for their own sake, comes to rest; but we use those things which we refer to something else that is to be enjoyed.”

Chapter 3.

1. Again, the difference between enjoying and using, stated otherwise than above. We must note that Augustine, in Book X of On the Trinity¹¹, taking “use” and “enjoyment” in a sense different from the one above, says: “To use is to take something into the power of the will; to enjoy is to use it with delight, not in hope of it still to come, but in possession of it already. Therefore everyone who enjoys also uses: for he takes something into the power of his will with delight as his end. But not everyone who uses also enjoys, if he desires what he takes into the power of his will not for its own sake but for the sake of something else.” — Observe that Augustine seems to say that only those who rejoice in possession, not those who still hope, enjoy; and so in this life we seem to enjoy nothing, but only to use, since we rejoice in hope, whereas above it was said that enjoyment is “to cling to something by love for its own sake,” as many also cling to God here.

2. Resolution of what seem to conflict. We resolve these statements, which seem to contradict one another, by saying that we enjoy both here and in the future, but properly, perfectly, and fully there, where we shall see face to face what we enjoy; here, while we walk by hope¹², we do enjoy, but not so fully. Hence, in Book X of On the Trinity: “We enjoy things known, in which the will rests.” The same author says in On Christian Teaching¹³: “The angels, enjoying whom they are already blessed, are what we too desire to enjoy; and insofar as they are already blessed by enjoying him whom we desire to enjoy, and insofar as we already enjoy him in this life, either through a mirror or in a riddle, to that extent we both endure our pilgrimage more tolerably and desire more ardently to bring it to an end.”

— Another resolution. It may also be said that one who enjoys even in this life has not only the joy of hope, but also joy in possession, because he already takes delight in what he loves, and thus already possesses the thing to some degree.

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3. It is therefore established that we ought to enjoy God, not use him. “For you enjoy him,” as Augustine says²¹, “by whom you are made blessed and in whom you place your hope of attaining him.” On this same matter he says in On Christian Teaching: “We say that we enjoy a thing which we love for its own sake, and that we ought to enjoy only that thing by which we are made blessed, while the rest are to be used.” — Yet it is often said that one enjoys when one uses something with delight. For when what is loved is present, it brings delight with it. But if you pass through it and refer it to that in which one must remain, you use it, and are said to enjoy it abusively, not properly. But if you cling to it and remain in it, placing the end of your joy in it, then you are truly and properly said to enjoy it—which must be done only in that Trinity, that is, in the supreme and unchangeable Good.

4. Whether human beings are to be used or enjoyed. Since human beings, who enjoy and use other things, are themselves things, the question is raised “whether we ought to enjoy them, or use them, or both.” — Augustine answers this in On Christian Teaching: “If a human being is to be loved for his own sake, we enjoy him; if for the sake of something else, we use him. It seems to me, however, that he is to be loved for his own sake. For what is to be loved for its own sake is where the blessed life is established, the hope of which also consoles us at this time. But hope must not be placed in a human being, for ‘cursed is the one who does this’²². Therefore, if you reflect on it, no one ought to enjoy even himself, since he ought not to love himself for his own sake, but for the sake of that which is to be enjoyed.”

5. But this seems contrary to what the Apostle says when addressing Philemon: Yes, brother, may I enjoy you in the Lord. — Augustine²³ resolves this as follows: “Had he said only ‘may I enjoy you,’ and not added ‘in the Lord,’ he would seem to have set the end of his love and his hope in him; but by adding that phrase he showed that he had set his end in the Lord and enjoyed him there.” “For when,” as Augustine says²⁴, “you enjoy a human being in God, you enjoy God rather than the human being.”

6. Here it is asked whether God enjoys or uses us. But since God loves us, as Scripture often says²⁵, and thereby “greatly commends his love toward us,” Augustine asks how he loves us: whether by using us or enjoying us. — He proceeds thus: “If he enjoys us, he needs our good—which no sane person would say. For the Prophet says: ‘You have no need of my goods’; every good of ours is either himself or from him. Therefore he does not enjoy us, but uses us. For if he neither enjoys nor uses us, I cannot see how he loves us. Yet he does not use us as we use other things. We refer the things we use to this end, that we may enjoy God's goodness; God, however, refers our use to his own goodness. He has mercy on us for the sake of his goodness, while we have mercy on one another for the sake of his goodness. He has mercy on us so that we may enjoy him; we have mercy on one another so that we may enjoy him. For when we have mercy on someone and provide for his welfare, we act for his benefit; but our benefit too follows, since God does not leave without reward the mercy we show others. This reward is supreme: that we may enjoy him.”

7. Whether the virtues are to be enjoyed or used. Here we must consider whether the virtues are to be used or enjoyed. — Some think they are to be used, not enjoyed. They support this with Augustine's authority, for, as stated above, he says that only the Trinity, that is, the supreme and unchangeable Good, is to be enjoyed. — They also say that the virtues are not to be enjoyed because they are not to be loved for their own sake, but only for eternal blessedness; yet that which is to be enjoyed must be loved for its own sake. — They prove that the virtues are not to be loved for their own sake, but only for blessedness, by Augustine's authority. In On Christian Teaching he says: “Perhaps the virtues, which we love only for the sake of blessedness, may try to persuade us not to love blessedness itself; if they do, we shall certainly cease to love them too, since we loved them only for the sake of that which we do not love.”

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²⁷ MOP, omitted in the other manuscripts; 4 nos frui transposed in BCLT; 5 esse] est in OP; 8 eam omitted in OP; 13 utendum vel fruendum transposed in BCLNV; 15 se debeant transposed in OP.]

²⁸ alii in BNVW, alicui in X; 20 sit transposed in P; 27 sunt] sint in NRTWX; 34 sint] sunt in BCWX.]

8. To others, however, the opposite seems true: the virtues are to be enjoyed, since they are to be sought and loved for their own sake. They support this with the authority of Ambrose²⁹, who says on that passage of the Epistle to the Galatians, The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, etc.: “He does not call these works, but fruit, because they are to be sought for their own sake.” But if they are to be sought for their own sake, then they are to be loved for their own sake.

9. Wishing to remove from our midst the apparent conflict between these authorities, we say that the virtues are to be sought and loved for their own sake, and yet only for blessedness. They are to be loved for their own sake because they delight their possessors with pure and holy delight, and bring spiritual joy forth in them. Nevertheless, we must not stop here, but proceed further. The end of love must not remain fixed here; rather, this must be referred to that supreme Good alone, to which one must cling completely, because it alone is to be loved for its own sake, and nothing beyond it is to be sought: for it is the highest end. — Augustine therefore says that we love the virtues only for the sake of blessedness, not because we do not love them for their own sake, but because we refer the very fact that we love them to that supreme Good alone, to which one must cling, in which one must remain, and in which the end of joy must be placed. Therefore the virtues are not to be enjoyed.

10. Someone may say: “To enjoy is to cling to something by love for its own sake,” as stated above; therefore, if the virtues are to be loved for their own sake, they are to be enjoyed. — We reply that in that definition, where it says “for its own sake,” we must understand “for its own sake alone”: that is, it is loved for its own sake alone, not referred to anything else, but made the end. Augustine showed this above, placing the end in joy and saying: “If you cling to it and remain in it, placing the end of your joy in it, then you are truly and properly said to enjoy it—which must be done only in that Trinity, that is, in the supreme and unchangeable Good.” The virtues, then, are to be used, and through them we enjoy the supreme Good. We say the same of a good will; hence Augustine says in Book X of On the Trinity: “The will is that by which we enjoy.”

11. Summary. “The summary, then, of all that has been said since we began to treat things in particular is this: some things are to be enjoyed, others used, and others both enjoy and use; among those to be used are some through which we enjoy, such as the virtues and powers of the soul, which are natural goods. Before treating signs, we must discuss all these things, and first those things to be enjoyed, namely the holy and undivided Trinity.”

1. On the mystery of Trinity and Unity. This, then, must be held in true and devout faith: “The Trinity is one, sole, and true God, as Augustine says in Book I of On the Trinity¹, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This Trinity is said, believed, and understood to be of one and the same substance or essence; it is the supreme Good, which is seen by the purest minds. For the sight of the human mind is too weak to fix itself upon such surpassing light unless it is cleansed by the righteousness of faith.”

2. The same author, in the same work², says: “I do not approve what I said in my prayer³: ‘God, who did not will that any but the pure should know the truth’; for one may answer that many who are not pure also know many truths.”

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3. This supreme and most excellent matter must be treated with modesty and fear, and heard with the most attentive and devout ears, “for nowhere is error more dangerous, inquiry more laborious, or discovery more fruitful than where the unity of the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is sought.” — Therefore everyone who hears or reads what is said about the ineffable and inaccessible light of the Godhead should strive to imitate and observe what the venerable teacher Augustine says of himself in Book I of On the Trinity: “I shall not be ashamed, he says, to seek wherever I hesitate, nor shall I be ashamed to learn wherever I err. Whoever, then, hears or reads these things, let him proceed with me where he is equally certain; where he hesitates as I do, let him seek with me; where he recognizes his own error, let him return to me; where he recognizes mine, let him call me back. Thus let us enter together upon the way of charity, tending toward him of whom it is said: ‘Seek his face always.’”

Chapter 2 (5).

1. What the writers on the Trinity intended. “All Catholic interpreters who have written about the Trinity that is God, as Augustine says in the same book, intended to teach from Scripture that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one substance and, in inseparable equality, are one God,” so that there is unity in essence and plurality in persons. “Therefore they are not three gods, but one God, although the Father begot the Son and therefore the Son is not the one who is the Father; and the Son was begotten by the Father and therefore the Father is not the one who is the Son; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son, equal to each and belonging to the unity of the Trinity.”

2. Augustine says in The Retractions: “Where I said of the Father and the Son, ‘The begetter and the begotten are one thing,’ I ought to have said ‘are one,’ as Truth itself plainly says: ‘I and the Father are one.’”

Chapter 3 (6).

3. “Let us therefore hold that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are naturally one God, as Augustine says in On Faith to Peter, yet that the Father himself is not the Son, nor the Son himself the Father, nor the Holy Spirit himself either the Father or the Son. For the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one essence, which the Greeks call homoousion; in it the Father is not one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, although personally the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another.”

What order should be followed when treating the Trinity. Moreover, as Augustine teaches in Book I of On the Trinity, “first it must be shown from the authorities of Holy Scripture whether the faith is as we hold it. Then, against loquacious reasoners, more arrogant than capable,” we must use Catholic arguments and fitting likenesses in defense and affirmation of the faith, so that by answering their inquiries we may instruct the meek more fully, and so that those others, “if they are unable to find what they seek, may complain of their own minds rather than of the truth itself or of our discussion.”

Chapter 4 (7).

1. Testimonies of the saints concerning the Trinity. Let us therefore set forth testimonies from the Old and New Testaments by which the truth of divine unity and Trinity may be demonstrated. First let us consider the very beginning of the Law, where Moses says: Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God; and again: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt; you shall have no other gods besides me. Here he signified the unity of the divine nature: “For ‘God’ and ‘Lord,’ as Ambrose says in Book I of On the Trinity, are names of nature and names of power.” — Elsewhere, when God spoke to Moses, he said: I am who I am; and, if they ask my name, I am—not We are; and He who is, not They who are. He most plainly declared that there is one God alone. — The Song of Exodus also reads: The Lord is his name, Almighty; it does not say Lords, wishing to signify unity.

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¹⁹ observandus M, sit add. BMV, est add. CTWX. || ut om. MO, interl. P². 9 libro I trp. LPRWX. 12 adversus] apud OP. 23 eduxi te trp. BCMW.]

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2. The Lord also showed the plurality of persons and unity of nature together in Genesis, saying⁴: Let us make man in our image and likeness. By saying Let us make and our, he showed the plurality of persons; by saying image, he showed the unity of essence. For, as Augustine says in On Faith to Peter⁵, “if in the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there were only one person, it would not be said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness.’ In saying ‘in the image,’ he shows that there is one nature, in whose image man was to be made; in saying ‘our,’ he shows that the same God is not one person but several.”

3. He plainly shows that there is neither solitude, diversity, nor singularity there, but likeness. Hilary too says in Book III of On the Trinity⁶ that these words signify that in the Trinity there is neither diversity nor singularity or solitude, but likeness and plurality, or distinction. He says: “By saying ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness,’ he showed that they are like one another, in saying ‘our image and likeness.’ For an image is not alone, and likeness is not likeness to itself; nor does likeness permit diversity in relation to another.” — The same author says in Book IV⁷: “He wished this meaning to be understood more fully as referring not to himself alone, when he said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness.’ For the declaration of fellowship removed the idea of singularity, since fellowship cannot belong to one solitary being; nor does ‘Let us make’ suit a solitary being, nor does anyone speak of another as ‘ours’ if that other is alien to him. Each expression, namely ‘let us make’ and ‘our,’ just as ‘I shall make’ and ‘mine’ suit a solitary being, so ‘let us make’ and ‘our’ suit one who is not solitary. Both expressions signify that he is not only non-solitary, but also not different or diverse from himself or alien. ‘I shall make’ and ‘mine’ suit a solitary being; but ‘let us make’ and ‘our’ suit one who is not solitary. Both expressions signify that he is not only non-solitary, but also not different or diverse. We too must confess that he is neither solitary nor diverse. Thus God is found to make man in the image and likeness common to himself with God, so that neither the language of the maker admits the idea of solitude, nor does the work made in that same image and likeness allow diversity in the Godhead.”

4. What should be understood from those words. In these words Hilary intended the plurality of persons to be understood by the term “fellowship”; and by the term “fellowship” or plurality he signified not that something is posited, but that something is denied. For when plurality or fellowship of persons is spoken of, solitude and singularity are denied; when we say that there are several persons, we mean that there is not only one. Therefore Hilary, wishing this to be understood subtly and soundly, says: “The declaration of fellowship removed the idea of singularity”; he does not say, “it posited something.” Likewise, when we say that there are three persons, we remove singularity and solitude, signifying that the Father is not alone, nor the Son alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone; and that neither only the Father and Son, nor only the Father and Holy Spirit, nor only the Son and Holy Spirit are there. — This will be treated more fully below¹, where it will also be shown in what respect the three persons are said to be alike, and whether there is any diversity or difference there in any sense.

5. He returns to the point he had begun, namely to adduce other authorities. Let us now return to our subject and bring forward other testimonies of the saints to show the plurality of persons and unity of the divine essence. — Moses says²: In the beginning God created heaven and earth, signifying the Father by “God” and the Son by “beginning.” For what is rendered God in our language, the Hebrew text has Elohim, the plural of the singular El. Since, then, it does not say El, meaning “God,” but Elohim, which can be interpreted “gods or judges,” this is referred to the plurality of persons. — This also seems to pertain to what the devil said through the serpent³: You shall be like gods; the Hebrew has Elohim for this, as if he were saying, “You shall be like divine persons.”

6. David too, greatest among the prophets and kings, who sets his understanding above that of others, says⁴: I have understood more than the aged; by this he shows the unity of the divine nature, when he says¹: The Lord is his name; he does not say Lords. — Elsewhere, showing at once its unity and eternity, he says in God's person²: Israel, if you will hear me, there shall be no new god among you, nor shall you worship a foreign god. “One of these,” as Ambrose says in Book I of On the Trinity³, “signifies eternity, the other the unity of an undifferentiated substance, so that we may believe neither that the Son or Holy Spirit is later than the Father, nor that they have another divinity. For if the Son or Holy Spirit is later than the Father, he is new; and if he does not share one divinity, he is foreign. But he is neither later, since he is not new, nor foreign, since the Son is born from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.”

Printed p. 64 — critical variants: 1 alii] alieni BCMN. 4 de trinitate add. OP. 8 nomen] est add. OP. 12 dicit] ait BCL. 27 libro] de trinitate add. OP. 29-30 singularitatis] singularis BCLNRVX, quod corr. V.

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7. Elsewhere, hinting at the distinction of persons, he says⁴: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their host. — Elsewhere he says⁵: May God bless us, our God; may God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him. For the threefold confession of God expresses the Trinity of persons, while the unity of essence is shown by the singular pronoun him. Isaiah too says⁶ he heard the Seraphim crying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God; by saying holy three times, he signifies the Trinity; by adding Lord God, the unity of essence.

8. David too clearly intimates the eternal generation of the Son, speaking⁷ in the person of the Son: The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Of this ineffable generation Isaiah says⁸: Who shall declare his generation? — In the Book of Wisdom too the eternity of the Son with the Father is shown, where Wisdom speaks thus⁹: The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways, before he made anything from the beginning. From eternity I was established, before the earth came to be. The depths did not yet exist, and I had already been conceived; neither springs nor mountains nor hills yet existed, and I was already being brought forth. He had not yet made the earth or the boundaries of the world: when he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he established the foundations of the earth, I was with him, arranging all things, and I delighted each day, playing before him.

She also says elsewhere¹⁰: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before every creature. — The prophet Micah likewise intimated both the eternal generation of the Word and his temporal birth from Mary, saying¹¹: And you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, from you shall come forth one who is to rule in Israel; and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.

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9. Special testimonies concerning the Holy Spirit. We also have explicit testimonies concerning the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. For in Genesis it is read: *The Spirit of the Lord was borne over the waters.*¹ David says: *Where shall I go from your Spirit?*² And in the Book of Wisdom it is said: *The holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, for the spirit of wisdom is benevolent.*³ Isaiah too says: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me⁴, etc.

Chapter 5 (8).

1. Testimonies from the New Testament. Now, after the testimonies of the Old Testament concerning faith in the holy Trinity and Unity, let us turn to the authorities of the New Testament, so that the truth may be known “in the midst of two animals”⁵ and a coal⁶ may be taken from the altar with tongs, to touch the lips of the faithful.

2. The Lord Christ plainly intimates the unity of the divine essence and the Trinity of persons when he says to the Apostles: *Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.*⁷ “He says ‘in the name,’” Ambrose says in Book I of On the Trinity, “not ‘in the names,’” to show the unity of essence; by the three names that follow, he declared that there are three persons. — “He also says: I and the Father are one. He said ‘one,’ as Ambrose says in the same book, lest there be a division of power or nature; but he added ‘are,’ so that you may recognize the Father and the Son: namely, that the perfect Father is believed to have begotten the perfect Son, and that the Father and Son are one not by confusion, but by unity of nature.”

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3. John too says in his canonical Epistle: There are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. At the beginning of his Gospel he also says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; here he plainly shows that the Son was always and eternally with the Father, as distinct from one another. 4. The Apostle also plainly distinguishes the Trinity, saying: God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts; and elsewhere: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus dwells in you, etc. — Elsewhere he most clearly commends the Trinity and unity, saying: For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory. “He says ‘from him,’” as Augustine says in On the Trinity, “with reference to the Father; ‘through him’ with reference to the Son; ‘in him’ with reference to the Holy Spirit.”

5. But since nearly every syllable of the New Testament concordantly intimates this ineffable truth of unity and Trinity, let us set aside further adducing testimonies on this matter and demonstrate it, as far as our weakness allows, by arguments and fitting likenesses.

Chapter 1 (9).

1. He begins to show how the Creator could be known through created things. For the Apostle says that the invisible things of God are clearly seen, understood through the things that have been made since the creation of the world, as are also his eternal power and divinity. “The creation of the world” is understood to mean man, “because of the excellence by which he excels among the other creatures, or because of the affinity he has with every creature.” Man, then, could perceive—or did perceive—the invisible things of God by the understanding of the mind, through the things that have been made, that is, through visible and invisible creatures. He was helped in two ways: by his nature, which was rational, and by works made by God in order to manifest truth to man. Therefore the Apostle says that God revealed it to them, namely by making works in which some indication of their maker shines forth.

2. The first reason or mode by which God could be known. For, as Ambrose says, “so that God, who is invisible by nature, might also be known through visible things, he made a work which, by its visibility, manifested its maker, so that what is unknown might be known through what is certain, and so that he might be believed to be the God of all who made what man is unable to make.” They could therefore know—or did know—that he who made things that no creature can make or destroy is above every creature. Let any creature come and make such a heaven and such an earth, and I shall say that it is God. But since no creature can make such things, it is clear that the one who made them is above every creature; and thus the human mind could know that he is God.

3. The second reason by which God could be known, or the mode by which they knew him. They could also know—or did know—the truth of God in another way, by the guidance of reason. For, as Augustine says in The City of God, the greatest philosophers saw that no body is God, and therefore, seeking God, they transcended all bodies. They also saw that whatever is changeable is not the supreme God and principle of all things, and therefore they transcended every soul and changeable spirit. Then they saw that whatever is changeable can exist only from him who is immutable and exists simply. Thus they understood that he made all these things and could not have been made by anyone.

4. The third reason or mode. “They also considered that whatever exists among substances is either body or spirit, that spirit is better than body, and that the one who made both spirit and body is far better.”

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⁶ nobis LNW. 15 ineffabilem] ineffabilis BCLNR. 21 potuit] potuerit NRTV.]

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5. The fourth mode or reason. “They also understood that the form of body is sensible, and the form of spirit intelligible, and they preferred the intelligible form to the sensible. We call sensible things those which can be perceived by bodily sight and touch; intelligible things are those which can be understood by the mind's vision. Since, then, in their view both body and soul possessed beauty to a greater or lesser degree, and if they could be wholly without beauty they would not exist at all, they saw that there is something by which they were made beautiful, in which is the first and immutable form, and therefore the incomparable one. They rightly believed this to be the principle of things, since it was not made and all things were made from it.”

6. Behold, the truth of God could be known in so many ways. Although God is one and simple essence, consisting of no diversity of parts or accidents, the Apostle¹ nevertheless speaks in the plural of the invisible things of God, because the truth of God is known in many ways through the things that have been made. From the permanence of creatures the eternal Creator is understood; from their greatness, the all-powerful one; from their order and arrangement, the wise one; from their governance, the good one. All these things pertain to demonstrating the unity of the Godhead.

7. How the trace of the Trinity appears in creatures. It remains now to show whether some indication, however slight, of the Trinity could be found through the things that have been made. Augustine says of this in Book VI of On the Trinity²: “As we perceive the Creator intellectually³ through the things that have been made, we ought to understand the Trinity. For a trace of this Trinity appears in creatures. Things made by divine art display in themselves a certain unity, form, and order.” Each of these created things is one thing, as are the natures of bodies and souls; some are formed by a particular form, as are the figures or qualities of bodies and the teachings or arts of souls; and some seek or maintain a certain order, as do the weights or positions of bodies and the loves or delights of souls. Thus the trace of the Trinity shines forth in creatures. For in that supreme Trinity are the highest source of all things, the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed delight.

8. The highest source, as Augustine shows in On True Religion⁴, is understood to be God the Father, from whom all things are, and from whom is the Son and the Holy Spirit. The most perfect beauty is understood to be the Son, namely “the truth of the Father, in no respect unlike him, which we worship with the Father and in the Father; it is the form of all things made by the one and referred to the one. Yet all these things would neither be made by the Father through the Son nor remain within their proper bounds unless God were supremely good: he begrudged no nature the good it had from him, and gave to other things, as far as they could receive it, that they might remain in the Good itself. This goodness is understood to be the Holy Spirit, who is the gift of the Father and the Son. Therefore we ought to worship and hold fast to this Gift, equally immutable with the Father and the Son.” — By considering creatures, then, we understand the Trinity of one substance: one God the Father, from whom we are; the Son, through whom we are; and the Holy Spirit, in whom we are. That is, the source to which we return, the form that we follow, and the grace by which we are reconciled; the one by whose authorship we were made, his likeness by which we are refashioned toward unity, and the peace by which we cling to unity; namely, God, who said Let it be¹, and the Word through whom all things came to be² that exist substantially and naturally, and the Gift of his goodness by which it pleased him that what was made by him through the Word should be reconciled to its author, so that it might not perish.

9. Behold how it has been shown that the image of the Trinity is indicated to some extent in creatures. A sufficient knowledge of the Trinity could not, and cannot, be attained through contemplation of creatures without revelation through teaching or inward inspiration. Hence those ancient philosophers saw the truth as if through a shadow and from afar, failing to perceive the Trinity, like Pharaoh's magicians at the third sign³. Yet through the things that have been made we are helped in faith concerning invisible things.

Chapter 2 (10).

1. How the image of the Trinity is in the soul. “Let us now come to the discussion in which we find the image of the Trinity in the human mind, which knows God or can know him.” For, as Augustine says in Book XIV of On the Trinity¹², “although the human mind is not of the same nature as God, the image of him ‘than whom nothing is better’ must be sought and found there—in that which is better than anything in our nature, namely the mind. For God's image is found in the mind itself even before it shares in God; although it is disfigured when it has lost participation in God, God's image nevertheless remains. The mind is God's image precisely insofar as it is capable of him and can share in his being.” Let us therefore inquire into the Trinity that is God in the mind.

¹³ incomparabile W, incorporabile OP, incorporalis BCLXz. 23 Heading omitted in MRW. 25 quodque] quidquid COP, quidquid BL, corrected to quod in L’s margin. 28 vel] et OP. || locationes] collocationes LNW. 30 est transposed and omitted in OP.] ^{14 15 16 17}

¹⁸ reconciliatum C, corrected to reconciliatum in LT. 22 doctrinae] doctrina LOPV. 28 iam transposed before vero BCT.] ^{19 20 21 22}

2. He shows that there are three things in the soul which are spoken of relationally and are equal: memory, understanding, and love. “Behold²³, then, the mind remembers itself, understands itself, and loves itself; if we see this, we see a trinity—not yet God, but the image of God.” For a certain trinity of memory, understanding, and love appears here. “Let us therefore treat these²⁴ three especially: memory, understanding, and will.”

3. A most subtle consideration and fitting likeness.* “These three, as Augustine says in Book X of *On the Trinity*²⁵, are not three lives, but one life; not three minds, but one mind, one essence. Memory is spoken of in relation to something; understanding and will, or love, are likewise spoken of in relation to something. Life, however, is spoken of in relation to itself, as are mind and essence. These three, then, are one insofar as they are one life, one mind, one essence; and whatever else each is said to be in itself, they are also said to be together, not in the plural but in the singular. They are three, however, insofar as they are referred to one another.”

4. How they are equal, since each comprehends all and the whole. “They are also equal not only individually, each to each, but each to all; otherwise they would not comprehend one another, but they do comprehend one another. Each is comprehended individually by each, and all are comprehended by each.” — Here he shows how all things are comprehended by each.* “For I remember that I have memory, understanding, and will; and I understand that I understand and will and remember; and I will that I will, remember, and understand.” — Here he shows how memory comprehends all three as a whole.* “I remember my whole memory, understanding, and will at once. For what I do not remember of my memory is not in my memory; but nothing is so much in my memory as memory itself. Therefore I remember it all. Likewise, whatever I understand, I know that I understand, and I know that I will whatever I will; but whatever I know, I remember: therefore I remember my entire understanding and my entire will.” — How the intellect comprehends all three as a whole. “Likewise, when I understand these three, I understand them all together. For there is nothing intelligible that I do not understand, except what I do not know; but what I do not know I neither remember nor will. Therefore, whatever intelligible things I do not understand, I consequently neither remember nor will. Whatever intelligible things, then, I remember and will, I consequently understand.” — How the will comprehends all three as a whole. “My will, too, comprehends my entire understanding and my entire memory while I make use of all that I understand and remember. Since, then, each comprehends all and the whole, these three are equal: each as a whole to each as a whole, and each as a whole together to all as a whole; and these three are one, one life, one mind, one essence.”

5. Behold, the human mind is the image of that supreme Unity and Trinity, where there is one essence and three persons, although it is unequal²⁶. — “Mind here is taken for soul, where that image of the Trinity is; properly, however, ‘mind’ means, as Augustine says²⁷, not the soul itself, but what excels in the soul.” — “It should also be known that memory is not only of absent and past things, but also of present things, as Augustine says in Book XIV of On the Trinity²⁸; otherwise it would not grasp itself.”

6. The sense in which these three are said to be one and one essence is questioned. Here we must carefully consider in what sense we should understand what he said above²⁹: that those three, namely memory, understanding, and will, are one, one mind, one essence. This certainly does not seem true according to the proper meaning of the words. For the mind, that is, the rational spirit, is a spiritual and incorporeal essence; but those three are natural properties or powers of the mind itself, and they differ from one another, since memory is not understanding or will, nor is understanding will or love.

7. They are also spoken of relationally with respect to one another. These three are also referred to one another, as Augustine says in Book IX of On the Trinity³⁰: “For the mind cannot love itself unless it also knows itself; for how does it love—or remember—what it does not know?” “In a wonderful way³¹ then these three are inseparable from one another, and yet each of them individually and all of them together are one essence, although they are spoken of relationally with respect to one another.”

³² consideratione OP, interrogatio M, comparatio T. || congruaque] et congrua MNV. l. 30 capiat] capit NO. p. 73, l. 5 nec] non OP. l. 9 eo toto MOP, transposed by other manuscripts. l. 15 vero] OP vera BC, autem LR. l. 16 ipsa anima OPR, transposed by other manuscripts. l. 23 dixit] dixi N, diximus OP.]

8. Here is explained what was asked above, namely, how these three are said to be one. But now we must see how these three are said to be one substance: namely, because they exist substantially in the soul or mind itself, not as accidents in subjects, which can be present or absent. Hence Augustine says in Book IX of On the Trinity: “We are admonished, if we can somehow see it, that these things exist substantially in the mind, not as in a subject, as color exists in a body; for although they are spoken of relationally with respect to one another, each nevertheless exists substantially in its own substance.” Behold the sense in which these three are said to be one or one substance.

9. “Whoever keenly perceives these three, as Augustine says in Book XV of On the Trinity, naturally established in the mind by God, and how great is that in the mind by which the eternal and immutable nature can be remembered, contemplated, and desired, will remember through memory, behold through understanding, and embrace through love, and will surely find the image of that supreme Trinity.”

Chapter 3 (11).

1. How there is dissimilarity in that likeness. “Nevertheless, let him beware of comparing this image, made by the same Trinity, to it as though he thought it altogether like; rather, let him discern a great dissimilarity even within whatever likeness there is.” — The first dissimilarity. “This can be shown briefly. One man remembers, understands, and loves by means of those three; he is neither memory, understanding, nor love, but has them. Thus there is one man who has these three; he is not these three. In the supreme simplicity of the nature that is God, however, although God is one, there are nevertheless three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and these three are one God.” “The Trinity itself is one thing, then, and the image of the Trinity in the soul another; but because the human being is what is more excellent in the soul, the human being is called the image. Just as both the tablet and the picture on it are called an image, the tablet is named ‘image’ because of the picture on it.”

Another dissimilarity. “Again, this image, which is a man possessing those three, is one person; that Trinity, however, is not one person but three: the Father of the Son, the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Thus in this image of the Trinity those three do not constitute one man but belong to one man; in the supreme Trinity, however, of which this is the image, those three do not belong to one God, but are one God; and they are three, not one person.” “Those three are not man, but belong to man or are in man. But can we say that the Trinity is in God in such a way that something belongs to God and is not itself God? God forbid that we should believe this! Let us say, then, that the image of the Trinity in our mind is small and of some sort, bearing a likeness to the supreme Trinity while being for the most part unlike it.”

2. We must know that “this trinity of the mind, as Augustine says in Book XV of On the Trinity, is the image of God not only because the mind remembers, understands, and loves itself, but also because it can remember, understand, and love him by whom it was made.”

3. Another description of the trinity in the soul, namely mind, knowledge, and love. The trinity in the soul, which is the image of that supreme and ineffable Trinity, can also be distinguished in another way and by other names. For, as Augustine says in Book IX of On the Trinity: “The mind, its knowledge, and its love are three things. For the mind knows and loves itself, and cannot love itself unless it also knows itself. The mind and its knowledge are two things; likewise the mind and its love are two things. When, then, the mind knows and loves itself, a trinity remains: mind, love, and knowledge.” Here “mind” means not the soul, but what is more excellent in the soul.

4. How they are said to be one. These three, although distinct from one another, are nevertheless said to be one because they exist substantially in the mind.

^{33 34 35 36 37 38}

³⁹ utrumque MOPRV. 20 ita] et transposed in MNV. 21 aestimet] existimet MN. 22 dissimilitudo (o) similitudo (o) OP. 25 non] nec OP.]

⁴⁰ “Quod per [propter L.N.] illa tria homo dicitur ymago” (“By these three man is called an image”), rubric added in the margin by manuscripts here or a little below. 2–3 in ea est transposed in BCTX. 4 Altera] alia CNVX. 11 non homo] “or a little below.” 15 gerit] ingerit OP. 19 meminerit] meminerit R (Augustine). 28 amor] et added in BCCMNVW.]

⁴¹

5. The mind is taken as the Father, its knowledge as the Son, and love as the Holy Spirit. The mind itself is, as it were, the parent, and its knowledge as its offspring: “For when the mind knows itself, it begets knowledge of itself, and it alone is the parent of its knowledge.” The third is love, which proceeds from the mind itself and its knowledge, when the mind, knowing itself, loves itself; for it could not love itself unless it knew itself. It also loves its pleasing offspring, that is, its knowledge; and so love is a kind of bond between parent and offspring.

6. Knowledge is not less than the mind, nor love than either. “The offspring is not less than its parent, since the mind knows itself to be as great as it is; nor is love less than its parent and offspring, that is, the mind and its knowledge, since the mind loves itself as much as it knows itself and is.”

7. How these three are in themselves. “Each of these is also in itself, because the loving mind is in love, love is in the knowledge of the one who loves, and knowledge is in the mind that knows.” Behold, some trace of the Trinity appears in these three.

8. How the mind advances through these things toward understanding God. The rational mind, then, considering these three and that one essence in which they exist, extends itself to the contemplation of the Creator, and sees unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity. For it understands that there is one God, one essence, one principle. It understands that if there were two, either each would be insufficient or one would be superfluous. If one lacked something that the other had, supreme perfection would not be there; but if one lacked nothing that the other had, since everything would be in one, the other would be superfluous. It therefore understood that there is one God, one author of all things. It saw that he cannot be without wisdom, as though foolish; and thus it understood that he has wisdom begotten by him. And because he loves his wisdom, it understood that love is also there.

Chapter 4 (12).

On the unity of the supreme Trinity. Therefore, in keeping with this consideration, as Augustine says in Book IX of On the Trinity, “let us believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, creator and ruler of all creation; that the Father is not the Son, nor the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son, but that they are a Trinity of persons related to one another.” — For, as he says in On Faith to Peter, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one nature or essence, but not one person: “For if there were one person, just as there is one substance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity would not truly be said to exist. Again, the Trinity would be real, but the Trinity itself would not be one God, if, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another by the property of their persons, so they were separated by a diversity of natures.” “The faith of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles proclaims that the Trinity is one God.”

“In that holy Trinity, then, there is one God the Father, who alone essentially begot from himself one Son; one Son, who alone was essentially born from the one Father; and one Holy Spirit, who alone proceeds essentially from the Father and the Son. Yet all of this cannot be done by one person, that is, to beget oneself, to be born from oneself, and to proceed from oneself.” For, as Augustine says in Book I of On the Trinity, “there is no thing that begets itself so as to exist.”

Chapter 1 (13).

1. Here it is asked whether it should be granted that God begot himself. Here arises a quite necessary question. It is established and is irrefragably true that God the Father begot the Son; therefore it is asked whether it should be granted that God begot God. For if God begot God, it seems that he either begot himself or another God.

^{1 2 3}

⁴ Quod in LNV. 6 etiam] enim in OPV. 26–27 etiam ibi transposed in BCMN. 30 libro IX transposed in LMT.]

⁵ est added in MOV. 17 I libro transposed in OPW. 22 constat] enim added in BCRV.]

⁶

⁷

Solution. In reply, we say that it may rightly and in Catholic fashion be granted that one begot one, and that God begot God, because God the Father begot God the Son. The Creed⁸ also says: “Light from Light, true God from true God.” — We say that neither of the conclusions added—“therefore he begot himself as God, or another God”—should be granted. It is clear that he did not beget another God, because there is only one God. Augustine shows in Book I of On the Trinity⁹ that he did not beget himself, saying: “Those who think it belongs to God's power that God begot himself err all the more, because not only is God not such, but no spiritual or bodily creature is either. For there is no thing that begets itself so as to exist.” Therefore we must not believe or say that God begot himself.

2. Another question on the same subject. But loquacious reasoners¹⁰ still object: If God the Father begot God, did he beget God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father? If he begot God who is not God the Father, then there is a God who is not God the Father; therefore there is not only one God. But if he begot God who is God the Father, then he begot himself. — Reply. We answer by making a distinction in the proposition they put forward: “If God the Father begot God, he begot either God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father.” This can be understood soundly or unsoundly. We should reply as follows: “God the Father begot God who is himself the Father”—this we say is false; and we grant the other proposition, namely, “he begot God who is not the Father.” Yet he did not beget another God, nor is the one begotten another God than the Father, but one God with the Father. — If the additional phrase is, “He begot God who is not God the Father,” we distinguish, for it can be understood in two ways: “He begot God who is not God the Father,” namely, God the Son, who is Son and not the Father who is God; this sense is true. But if it is understood as “He begot God who is not God the Father,” that is, who is not the God who is the Father, this sense is false. For the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and the same God; and conversely, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God.

Chapter 2 (14).

1. The opinion of certain people who say that the three persons are one God and one substance, but not conversely, namely, that one God or one substance is three persons. Certain adversaries of the truth grant that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or the three persons, are one God and one substance, but do not wish to grant that one God or one substance is three persons. They say that the divine substance is predicated of the three persons, but the three persons are not predicated of the divine substance.

2. He adduces authorities against them. The Catholic faith holds and proclaims that the three persons are one God, one substance, essence, or divine nature, and that one God or divine essence is three persons. Hence Augustine says in Book I of On the Trinity¹¹: “God himself, the Trinity, is rightly understood to be blessed and alone powerful”¹². See how explicitly he says “God himself, the Trinity,” to show that God himself is the Trinity and the Trinity is God himself. — Again, in the same work: “In those words of the Apostle,” where, speaking of Christ's coming, he says, Whom the blessed and only powerful one will show, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality, etc., “neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit is named specifically, but ‘the blessed and only powerful one,’ that is, the one and only true God, who is the Trinity itself.” Here too he plainly says that the one and only true God is the Trinity itself; and if the Trinity is one God, then one God is three persons.

3. Likewise, in Book V of On the Trinity¹³: “We say that this most excellent Trinity itself is not three gods, but one God.” — Likewise, in the book On On Faith to Peter¹⁴, in his exposition of the Creed: “It is enough for a Christian to believe that the cause of created things, visible and invisible, is nothing other than the goodness of the Creator, who is the one and true God; that no nature exists which is not either he himself or from him; and that he is the Trinity, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” — Again, Augustine says in his sermon On Faith¹⁵: “We believe in one God, that there is one Trinity of the divine name.” — Likewise, in Book VI of On the Trinity¹⁶: “We say that God alone is the Trinity itself.” By these and many other authorities it is clearly shown that we must say and grant that the one God is the Trinity, and that one substance is three persons; just as, conversely, the Trinity is said to be one God, and the three persons are said to be one substance.

¹⁷ et added in OP.] ¹⁸

¹⁹ “if it were spoken relatively or a relative term were substituted” added in O (margin), P. 8 genuit] genuit BCV. 9 quia] quod OP. 10 esse potentiae transposed in NRTX. 13 credendum vel dicendum transposed in OP. 17 aut] genuit added in OP. 25 Nec non] Nec BMC. 26 ille omitted in LMNX. 32 et² omitted in BCTV. 33 et¹ omitted in BMW.]

4. He returns to the question proposed above, namely, whether the Father begot himself as God or another God. Let us now return to the question proposed above, where it was asked whether the Father begot himself as God or another God. We say that neither should be granted. — Nevertheless, Augustine says in his letter To Maximus²⁰ that the Father begot another self from himself, in these words: “The Father, in order to have a Son from himself, did not diminish himself, but so begot another self from himself that he remained wholly in himself and was as great in the Son as he was alone.” — This can be understood as follows: he begot another from himself, not another God, but another person; or “he begot another self,” that is, he begot another who is what he himself is. For although the Father is another than the Son, he is not another thing, but one.

Chapter 1 (15).

1. Here it is asked whether the Father begot the divine essence or the essence begot the Son, whether essence begot essence, or whether the essence neither begot nor was begotten. After this it is asked whether it should be granted that the Father begot the divine essence, or that the divine essence begot the Son, or that essence begot essence, or whether the divine essence neither begot nor was begotten at all. — In agreement with Catholic interpreters, we say that neither did the Father beget the divine essence, nor did the divine essence beget the Son, nor did the divine essence beget essence. Here by “essence” we mean the divine nature, which is common to the three persons and wholly present in each.

2. The first reason why this is so. We must not say that the Father begot the divine essence because, if the Father were said to have begotten the divine essence, the divine essence would be spoken of relatively to the Father or substituted for a relative term. But if it were spoken of relatively or substituted for a relative term, it would not signify substance. For, as Augustine says in Book V of On the Trinity¹, “what is spoken of relatively does not signify substance.”

3. The second reason. Again, since God the Father is the divine essence, if the essence were his offspring, he would be the begetter of the very thing that he is; thus the same thing would beget itself, which Augustine denies, as we showed above².

4. The third and stronger reason. Again, if the Father is the begetter of the divine essence, and the divine essence exists and is God, then by begetting it the Father exists and is God. Thus it is not what is begotten that is God from the Father; rather, the Father is God because he begets and exists. If this is so, then the begotten is the cause of the begetter—not the begetter of the begotten—so that he may exist and be God. — By a similar argument Augustine proves in Book VII of On the Trinity³ that the Father is not wise by the wisdom he begot, for if he is wise by it, then he exists by it: “For there to be there is the same as to be wise. If existing there is the same as being wise, the Father is not wise through the wisdom he begot. For what else do we mean when we say, ‘for him to be is the same as to be wise,’ except that ‘he exists by that by which he is wise’? Therefore, the cause by which he is wise is also the cause by which he exists. If, then, the wisdom he begot is the cause by which he is wise, it is also the cause by which he exists. But no one would say that wisdom begotten by the Father is the cause by which the Father exists. For what could be more absurd?” Thus, if the Father begot the essence by which he exists, the essence he begot would be the cause of his existence; therefore he did not beget the essence by which he exists. “For in that simplicity,” Augustine says⁴, “since to be wise is no different from to be, the wisdom there is the same as the essence.” Therefore what we say of wisdom we also say of essence. Just as he did not beget the wisdom by which he is wise, so he did not beget the essence by which he exists.

⁵

⁶

5. This seems to conflict with what was said. What Augustine says in On Faith to Peter⁷ seems contrary to this: “When God begot the Word, he begot what he himself is—not from nothing, nor from some already made and formed matter, but from himself, what he himself is.” Likewise: “God the Father, who both willed and was able most truly to reveal himself to minds that would know him, begot for the purpose of revealing himself that which he himself is, who begot it.” Behold, in these words he plainly says that God the Father begot that which he himself is. But what he himself is can only be the divine essence; it therefore seems that he begot the divine essence. — We reply that these words are to be understood as follows: “The Father begot from himself that which he himself is,” that is, the Son, who is that which the Father is. For the Son is what the Father is, but the Son is not the one who is the Father.

6. He treats the other parts of the question. Likewise, we must not say that the divine essence begot the Son: since the Son is the divine essence, the Son would already be the thing from which he is begotten, and thus the same thing would beget itself. — We likewise say that the divine essence did not beget essence: since the divine essence is one supreme thing, if the divine essence begot essence, the same thing would beget itself, which is altogether impossible. But the Father alone begot the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

7. What seems contrary to what has been said. What Augustine says in Book VII of On the Trinity⁸ seems contrary to the foregoing: “For to God, to be is the same as to be wise; hence the Father and Son together are one wisdom, because they are one essence; and each individually is wisdom from wisdom, as essence from essence.” Behold, in these words Augustine plainly says “wisdom from wisdom” and “essence from essence,” where he seems to signify that wisdom begot wisdom and essence begot essence. — The same author says in On Faith to Peter⁹: “Believe Christ, the Son of God, that is, one person of the Trinity, to be true God, and do not doubt that his divinity was born from the nature of the Father.” Here he seems to say that the Son's nature was born from the Father's nature. — The same author also says in Book XV of On the Trinity¹⁰: “The Son is said to be counsel from counsel and will from will, just as substance from substance and wisdom from wisdom.” Here too he seems to say that substance is begotten from substance and wisdom from wisdom.

¹¹

8. Resolution of what seems to conflict. We resolve these statements as follows: “Wisdom is from wisdom and substance from substance,” that is, the Son, who is wisdom and substance, is from the Father, who is that same substance and wisdom; and the Son, who is divinity, was born from the Father, who is the divine nature. To express it more clearly, we say that the Son, who is wisdom, is from the Father who is wisdom, and that the Son, who is substance, was begotten from the Father and by the Father who is substance. — Augustine shows in Book VII of On the Trinity¹² that this is how it should be understood, saying: “The Father himself is wisdom, and the Son is called the wisdom of the Father just as he is called the light of the Father: that is, just as light is from light and both are one light, so wisdom from wisdom is to be understood, and both are one wisdom and one essence.” — Likewise: “Christ is called the power and wisdom of God”¹³ because, being from the Father who is power and wisdom, he himself is also power and wisdom, just as he is light from the Father who is light, and himself the fountain of life with God the Father, the fountain of life. The Son, then, is wisdom from the Father who is wisdom, just as the Son is light from the Father who is light, and God the Son from God the Father; each individually is light, God, and wisdom, and together they are one light, one God, and one wisdom.” Behold, in these words Augustine plainly explains the sense in which the foregoing and similar statements are to be understood, such as “substance from substance” or “substance begot substance.”

9. What seems contrary to the foregoing explanation. What Hilary says in Book IV of On the Trinity¹⁴ also seems contrary to this: “The Son possesses nothing that is not born; and the wonder of the honor of the begotten belongs to the honor of the begetter.” Since the Son possesses essence—for the whole divine essence is in him—it therefore seems that the divine essence itself was born. — The same author says in Book V¹⁵: “The birth of God cannot fail to retain the nature from which it proceeded; for what subsists is nothing other than God, since it subsists from no one other than God.” Here he says that God's birth proceeded from the nature, and thus from these words and the foregoing ones it seems that God's nature was both begotten and begetting. — That God's nature, remaining in its own form, assumed the form of bodily weakness.

¹⁶

10. How the foregoing words of Hilary are to be understood. But because he wishes these words to be understood soundly, he himself says in Book IV: «The meaning of what is said must be gathered from the causes of the speaking, for the thing is not subject to the word, but the word to the thing». These words, then, can be understood thus: «The Son has nothing except what is born», that is, according to his being God, he has nothing except what he received by being born; and by being born he had within himself the nature of the Father, subsisting in him.

11. He confirms the exposition with words of the same author. Hence the same Hilary adds in Book V¹⁷: «The begotten has the same nature as the one who begot him, yet the one who was born is not the one who begot him: for how can he be the same, since he was begotten? But let the one who was begotten subsist in those very things in which the one who begot him is wholly himself, because the one who was begotten is not from elsewhere. And therefore that which subsists in one from one is not referred to another. Thus, in the generation of the Son, immutable God, begetting immutable God, follows his own nature, so to speak; nor does the perfect birth of immutable God from immutable God abandon its nature. Let us therefore understand the nature of God as subsisting in him, since God is in God, and there is no other God besides him who is God, because God himself is God and God is in him». It is therefore taught that the truth of the nature of God the Father is in God the Son, when it is understood that the one who is God is in him. For one is in one, and one is from one.

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12. What is read concerning the Father’s begetting the Son from his substance and the Son’s being of the Father’s substance. It is also said, and frequently read in Sacred Scripture, that the Father begot the Son from his substance. Hence Augustine says in De fide ad Petrum¹⁹: «God the Father, begotten by no God, once begot God the Son from his own nature, without beginning, equal to himself and coeternal in the same divinity by which he himself is naturally eternal». Behold, Augustine here says that the Son was begotten from the Father’s nature. But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one nature. If, then, the Son was begotten from the Father’s nature, he was begotten from the nature of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—or rather, from the nature of the three persons.

13. Augustine also says in Book XV of De Trinitate²⁰ that Christ is the Son of the Father’s substance and begotten from the Father’s substance. He is discussing the Apostle’s words about God the Father: Who rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love²¹: «By “the Son of his love,” he says, let nothing else be understood than his beloved Son, the Son of his substance. For the Father’s love, which is ineffably simple in his nature, is nothing other than that very nature and substance, as we have often said and do not weary of repeating; and therefore the Son of his love is none other than the one begotten from his substance». Behold, Augustine here plainly says that the Son was begotten from the Father’s substance and is the Son of the Father’s substance.

14. Augustine likewise asserts that God’s substance begot the Son and that the Son was begotten from the Father’s substance, in Book II Against Maximinus the heretic²², saying: «Full of carnal thoughts, you do not think that God’s substance begets the Son from itself unless it suffers what bodily substance suffers when it begets. You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God»²³. For you cannot think of the true Son of God at all if you deny that he was born from the Father’s substance. For he was not already the Son of man and then, by God’s gift, became the Son of God, born from God by grace and not by nature. Or perhaps, although he was not the Son of man, he was nevertheless already some sort of creature, and was changed into the Son of God by God? But none of this is so. Therefore he was born either from nothing or from some substance. But lest we think that you suppose the Son of God to be from nothing, you have affirmed that you do not say the Son of God is from nothing. He is therefore from some substance. And if not from the Father’s, tell us from what. But you cannot find one. Therefore do not hesitate to confess with us that the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, is of the Father’s substance».

²⁴

15. The same author, in the same work²⁵: «We both read²⁶: That we may be in his true Son, Jesus Christ. Tell us, then, whether this true Son of God, distinguished by a certain property from those who are sons by grace, is from no substance or from some substance. “I do not say,” you reply, “that he is from none, lest I say he is from nothing”; therefore he is from some substance. I ask: from which? If he is not from the Father’s substance, seek another. If you find no other, acknowledge the Father’s substance and confess the Son to be homoousios with the Father».

16. Likewise in the same work²⁷: «I confess that God the Father begot wholly incorruptibly, but begot what he himself is. Again I say what must often be said: either the Son of God was born from some substance, or from none. If from none, then from nothing—which you now deny. But if from some substance, and yet not from the Father’s substance, he is not the true Son. If from the Father’s substance, then the Father and Son are of one and the same substance». «You, however, neither wish the Son to be begotten from the Father’s substance, nor yet concede that he is from nothing or from some matter, but from the Father. You do not see how necessary it is that one who is from neither nothing nor any other thing, but from God, can be from nothing other than God’s substance; and that he is what God is, from whom he is—that is, God born from God, because there was no other before him, but he is by nature coeternal with God»²⁸

17. Gathering up the foregoing, he explains the sense in which it should be understood. By the foregoing words it seems to be implied that the divine substance begot the Son, that the Son was begotten from the Father’s substance, that he is a nature coeternal with God, and that the Father begot what he himself is. What he himself is, however, is the divine essence; and thus it can be thought that the divine essence begot. — These words greatly trouble us; I would rather hear from others how they are to be understood than set it forth myself. Yet, to speak without prejudice or rashness, the words can be taken in this sense: «A nature coeternal with God is from God», that is, the Son, coeternal with the Father, is from the Father in such a way that he has the same nature as he, or is of the same nature. — Augustine confirms this sense in the same place²⁹, adding what he had said as an explanation: after saying «A nature coeternal with God is from God», he added: «The Son is no other than that from which he is, that is, he is of one and the same substance».

Then he makes clearer that such an understanding is to be drawn from the foregoing words, in the same book Against Maximinus³⁰, saying: «This Trinity is of one and the same substance, because the Son is from neither some matter nor nothing, but from him from whom he was begotten; and likewise the Holy Spirit is from neither some matter nor nothing, but is from him from whom he proceeds». By these words he plainly shows that «the Son is from the Father’s substance» because he is begotten from the Father and is of the same substance as he; and that «the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and Son» because he proceeds from both and is of the same substance.

Chapter 2 (16).

1. That neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit is from nothing, but from something, though not from matter. It is also shown from those words that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not from nothing, but from something, though not from any matter. Hence Hilary too says in Book XII of De Trinitate³¹: «Since God the Only-begotten was born, he bears witness to the Father as his source; since he was born from one who remains, he was not born from nothing; and since he was born before time, by being born he surpasses all understanding»³². Here it is plainly said that the Son was not born from nothing.

2. Similarly, the Holy Spirit must not be said to be or proceed from nothing, because «the Son was born from the Father’s substance»³³, that is, he is from the Father, with whom he is of the same substance and is the same substance. In this sense, too, that saying³⁴ is to be understood: «The Father begot what he himself is», that is, the Son who is what the Father is. — Augustine makes clear that this is how it should be understood, saying in Book I Against Maximinus³⁵: «The Father begot what he is; otherwise the Son is not true, if the Son is not what the Father is».

3. Likewise, «God’s substance begot the Son» means that the Father, who is substance, begot the Son³⁶, who is the same substance and of the same substance. — Augustine shows that this is how it should be understood, saying to Maximinus³⁷: «As you say, “Spirit begot Spirit,” so say: Spirit of the same nature or substance begot Spirit. Likewise, as you say, “God begot God,” so say: God of the same nature or substance begot God. If you believe and say this, you will no longer be accused about this matter». For by these words he makes clear how the foregoing should be understood.

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4. Similarly, «the Son was born from the Father’s substance» or «the Father begot the Son from his nature or essence»⁴⁰ means that from himself, as nature and essence, he begot the Son, who is of the same essence and nature and is that same essence and nature. Explain «the Son of the Father’s substance»⁴¹ in the same way: the Son belonging to the Father’s substance, that is, the Son who is substance, with whom the Son is the same substance, because the Son is consubstantial with the Father. — This sense is also supported by Augustine’s words. In Book VII of De Trinitate⁴² he says: «We speak of three persons of one essence, or of three persons as one essence. We do not, however, say that the three persons are from one essence, as though there were there one thing that is essence and another that is person». By these words he shows that one must not say that a person is from the essence except in the sense already stated. — The same sense is also confirmed by what he says in Book XV of De Trinitate⁴³: «As our knowledge differs from God’s knowledge, so our word, which is born from our knowledge, differs from God’s Word, which was born from the Father’s essence. It is as though I said: from the Father’s knowledge, from the Father’s wisdom; or, more expressly, from the Father as essence, from the Father as knowledge, from the Father as wisdom». From this understanding, then, God’s Word, the only-begotten Son, wholly like and equal to the Father, is rightly called God from God, light from light, wisdom from wisdom, essence from essence: because he is altogether what the Father is, yet is not the Father, because this one is the Son and that one is the Father.

Chapter 3 (17).

Why the Word of the Father is called a Son by nature. This is why only God’s Only-begotten is called a Son by nature: he is of the same nature as the Father and is the same nature with him. Hence Hilary, speaking of Christ in De Trinitate⁴⁴, says: «He is the Son by nature, because he has the same nature as the one who begot him».

⁴⁵

Sole chapter (18).

1. Whether the Father begot the Son by will or by necessity, and whether God is willing or unwilling. Further, it is commonly asked whether the Father begot the Son by will or by necessity. On this Orosius says to Augustine¹: «Did the Father beget the Son by will or by necessity? Neither by will nor by necessity, because there is no necessity in God; will cannot precede wisdom». «Therefore, as Augustine says in Book XV of De Trinitate², the dialectic of Eunomius, from whom the heretics called Eunomians arose, deserves ridicule. Unable to understand, and unwilling to believe, that God’s only-begotten Word is the Son of God by nature—that is, begotten from the Father’s substance—he said that he was not the Son of nature or substance, but the Son of God’s will. He meant to assert that a will had accrued to God by which he would beget the Son, as we sometimes will something that we did not previously will, a circumstance by which our nature is understood to be mutable. God forbid that we believe this to be in God».

2. A Catholic’s reply. Let us say, then, that the Word of God is the Son of God by nature, not by will, as Augustine teaches in Book XV of De Trinitate³. There he commends a certain Catholic replying to a heretic, saying: «A certain man answered with great acuity a heretic who asked with great cunning whether God begot the Son willingly or unwillingly. If he had answered “unwillingly,” the most absurd misery would have followed for God; if “willingly,” the heretic would at once have drawn the conclusion he intended, namely that the Son was a son not by nature but by will. But the Catholic, with great vigilance, in turn asked him whether God the Father is God willingly or unwillingly. If he answered “unwillingly,” there would follow a great absurdity and misery, which it is sheer madness to believe of God; if he said “willingly,” the reply would be: then he too is God by his will, not by nature. What remained, then, except that he fall silent, seeing himself bound by his own question in an unbreakable knot?» From what has been said it is taught that one must not concede that God is God by will or necessity, willingly or unwillingly; likewise, that he begot the Son by will or necessity, willingly or unwillingly.

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3. An objection to the foregoing. An objection is raised against this as follows: God’s will is God’s nature or essence, because for God to be and to will are not two things; and therefore, just as the three persons have one essence, so they have one will. If, then, God is God by nature, he is also God by will; and if the Word of God is the Son of God by nature, he is also the Son of God by will. — Reply. This is easy to refute. For God’s foreknowledge or knowledge, by which he knows or foreknows good and evil, is also the divine nature or essence; his predestination or will is likewise that same divine essence; and for God to know or to will is no other than for him to be. Although God’s knowledge and will are one and the same, however, not everything said of knowledge is said of will, or conversely; nor does God will by his will all that he knows by his knowledge, since his knowledge knows both good and evil, whereas his will wills only good. For God’s knowledge and foreknowledge concern good and evil, while his will and predestination concern good alone; yet in God knowledge and will, foreknowledge and predestination, are one and the same. Thus, although God’s nature and will are one, we say that the Father begot the Son by nature, not by will, and is God by nature, not by will.

4. How the words are to be understood: the Father is God neither willingly nor unwillingly, and he begot the Son neither willingly nor unwillingly. Still, I think that the foregoing words—wisely stating that God the Father is God neither willingly nor unwillingly, and begot the Son neither willingly nor unwillingly, either by will or necessity—should be understood in this sense: that we are to understand a will that precedes or accrues, as Eunomius understood it⁶. For he is not God by a will that precedes or produces him, as though he were willing before he was God; nor did he beget the Son by a will that preceded or accrued, or beget him as one who willed before he begot. Yet he begot willingly, just as he begot powerfully, well, wisely, and in such ways. For if the Father is said to have begotten the Son as wise and good, why not also as willing? For in God to be willing is just the same as to be God, as to be wise is just the same as to be God.

Let us therefore say that the Father begot the Son as willing, just as he did as wise, but not by a will that preceded or accrued. Augustine explains and confirms this sense, saying in his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians: «Of the Son of God, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, it is written⁷ that he was always with the Father, and the Father’s will never preceded so that he might exist. He, indeed, is the Son by nature».

5. Hilary says in De synodo⁸: «Holy Church anathematizes those who say that the Son of God is from things that do not exist, and likewise those who say that the Father begot the Son neither by counsel nor by will». — Likewise: «If anyone says that the Son was born against the Father’s will, let him be anathema. For the Father did not beget the Son against his will, as though compelled or led by natural necessity when unwilling; rather, as soon as he willed, without time and without suffering, he manifested the Only-begotten from himself».⁹

Chapter 1 (19).

1. Here it is asked whether the Father was able or willing to beget the Son. Some commonly ask whether the Father was able or willing to beget the Son. For, they say, if he was able and willing to beget the Son, then he was able and willing to do something that the Son was neither able nor willing to do, since the Son was neither able nor willing to beget the Son. — We readily answer this sophistry by saying that being able or willing to beget the Son is not being able or willing to do some object subject to the will or power; nevertheless, there is a certain power or will, namely, the ability or will to beget the Son. Therefore the meaning of the preceding verb must be distinguished. To be able or willing to beget the Son is to be able or willing to do something; yet the Son’s generation is none of the things subject to divine power and will, nor is it one thing among all things or one of all things, but it is above all and before all. For he did not will or have the power before he begot. — just as he did not exist before he begot, since he existed from eternity and begot from eternity. — We can see this also from a similar case: the Father can be Father and wills to be Father, whereas the Son can neither be nor wills to be the Father; therefore the Father can or wills to be something that the Son cannot or does not will to be. The inference does not follow, because being the Father is not being something, as will be shown below¹.

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2. He cites certain words of Augustine that may trouble the reader. But we are greatly troubled by what Augustine says in Book I Against Maximinus⁴. Maximinus asserted that the Father was more powerful than the Son because the Father begot God the Creator, but the Son did not; he said that the Father could beget, but the Son could not, and therefore the Father was more powerful than the Son. — In reply, Augustine seems to say that the Son too could beget, in order to show that the Father is not more powerful than the Son, in these words: «Far be it that the Father be more powerful than the Son for the reason you suppose: that the Father begot the Creator, whereas the Son did not. For it is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting». — Look carefully at these words and attend to them: «It is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting». He seems to say that the Son could beget, but that it was not fitting, and thus that he could do what it was not fitting to do. He adds why it was not fitting, saying⁵: «Divine generation would be immoderate if the begotten Son were to beget a grandson for the Father; for according to your astonishing wisdom that grandson too would be called powerless unless he begot a great-grandson for his grandfather. Likewise, if that one did not beget a grandson for his grandfather and a great-grandson for his great-grandfather, you would not call him almighty. Nor would the series of generation be fulfilled if one were always born from another; and none would complete it if one did not suffice. The Almighty therefore begot the Almighty, the Son of the Father by nature, not by creation».

3. An objection is raised against Augustine’s foregoing words. Some think that this cannot stand, namely, that the Son could have begotten. For if the Son could beget, he could be a father; and if he could be a father, then he could be the father either of himself, or of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of someone else. Not of someone else, because no other has always existed; not of the Father, because the Father is unbegotten and unborn; not of himself, because no thing can beget itself⁶; nor of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit could not be born. For if he could be born, he could be a Son, and thus could be mutable.

4. Here it is asked how these words are to be understood. How, then, should what was said above be understood: «It is not that he could not beget, but that it was not fitting», as if it meant: he could, but it was not fitting? It is not clear to us how this is true, and so it would be better to pass over it in silence, were I not compelled to say something about it by the urgency of those who ask.

5. Here he explains in what sense they should be understood. It can therefore be understood thus: «It is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting», that is, the Son’s not begetting was not due to an inability in himself, but it was not proper to him; just as God the Son is not God the Father, yet this is not due to an inability in him. Likewise the Father is not the Son, and this is not due to an inability in the Father. But Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, asks: Why, then, can the Father not be the Son, or the Son the Father? Certainly not through inability; rather, the Father is Father by the property of generation, by which he must not be the Son, and the Son is Son by the property of birth, by which he must not be the Father. These properties will be treated more fully later⁷.

Chapter 2 (20).

1. Whether the Father has by nature the power to beget the Son, and whether this is a power that is in the Son. Some also ask⁸ whether the Father has by nature the power to beget the Son, and whether this is a power that is in the Son. — We answer that he has power only by nature, for his power is his nature or essence.

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2. But, they say, if he has the power to beget, then he has a power of begetting; whereas the Son does not have the power to beget, if he cannot beget. Therefore the Father has some power that the Son does not have. — The inference does not follow. For the Son has exactly the same power as the Father, by which the Father could beget and the Son could be begotten. The power by which the Son could be begotten is the very same power by which the Father could beget.

3. But an objection is raised against this: being able to beget is one thing, and being able to be begotten another, because begetting and being begotten are different. — Here a distinction must be made. If by saying «being able to beget is one thing, and being able to be begotten another» you mean one power by which the Father can beget and another by which the Son can be begotten, the interpretation is false. But if you mean that the Father can have one property or notion by which he is begetter, and the Son another by which he is begotten, the interpretation is true. For the Father has one property by which he is Father, and the Son another by which he is Son.

4. How it is to be understood that the Son has or does not have the power of generation. Likewise, when it is said that the Son does not have the power of generation that the Father has, this can be understood in two ways. If one says, «The Son does not have the power of generation that the Father also has», that is, the power by which he is able to generate, so as to have begotten or beget as the Father does, this is true. But if it is understood thus: he does not have the power by which he can be begotten or be generated, the same power by which the Father was able to beget or to beget, this is false. Thus one says: the Father has the power by which he can be Father, whereas the Son does not have the power by which he can be Father; and conversely, the Son has the power by which he can be Son, whereas the Father does not have the power by which he can be Son. Does the Father, then, have some power that the Son does not, and conversely? Far from it! For the power by which the Father can be Father and the Son can be Son is one and the same. So too the will by which the Father wills to be Father, not Son, and the Son wills to be Son, not Father, is one and the same; likewise the Son’s will to be begotten and to have the Father begetter is the very same will as the Father’s will to be begetter and to have the Son begotten.

¹¹ est add. OP. 10 et om. LMNV. 26 ergo] potentiam add. CT, add. mg. V.]

Chapter 1 (21).

1. On the truth, immutability, and simplicity of God’s essence. We must now treat the truth or proper nature, immutability, and simplicity of the divine nature, substance, or essence.

2. «God, then, as Augustine says in Book V of De Trinitate¹, is without doubt a substance—or, if this is a better name, an essence, which the Greeks call ousia. For just as “wisdom” is named from “being wise,” and “knowledge” from “knowing,” so “essence” is named from “being.” And who is more than the one who said to his servant Moses²: I am who I am, and, “You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you”».

3. He alone is truly and properly called essence whose essence knows neither past nor future. Hence Jerome, writing to Marcella, says³: «God alone, who has no beginning, truly holds the name of essence, because in comparison with him who truly is, since he is immutable, mutable things are as though they were not. For what is said to “have been” is not, and what is said “will be” is not yet. God, however, alone is, who knows neither “having been” nor “being about to be.” God alone, therefore, truly is, and compared with his essence our being is not».

4. One must ask how Jerome’s words are to be understood. We must carefully consider how Jerome’s words are to be understood, namely, «God alone is, and does not know having been», as if one could not say of God «he was» or «he will be», but only «he is»; for we frequently find it written of him⁴: «He was from eternity, he was always, and he will be forever», and the like. Hence it seems that one should not say of God only «he was», «he is», or «he will be». For if one said only «he was», one would think that he had ceased to be; if only «he is», one would think that he had not always existed but had begun to exist; if only «he will be», one would think he does not exist now. Therefore let it be said that he always was, is, and will be, so that it is understood that he neither began nor ceased, neither ceases nor will cease to be.

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5. Augustine says this in his commentary on John⁶: «Although “is” is properly said of an everlasting thing, in our usage “was” and “will be” are also rightly said. “Was,” because it never ceased; “will be,” because it will never be absent; “is,” because it always is. It did not pass away, as though it did not remain; it will not arise, as though it did not exist. Since our speech varies according to tenses, words of every tense are truly said of him who was absent from no time, is absent from no time, and will be absent from no time. It is therefore no wonder that Truth, speaking of the Spirit of truth, used the future tense⁷: Whatever he will hear, he will speak. He will hear, that is, from him from whom he proceeds. For him, hearing is knowing; it is also being: therefore from him from whom his essence comes comes his hearing, that is, his knowledge, which is nothing other than his essence. He therefore said “he will hear” of what he heard and hears, that is, what he always knew, knows, and will know». Behold, Augustine here says that words of every tense are said of God, but «is» properly.

6. Here he explains how these words are to be understood. What Jerome says, then, is to be understood thus: «He does not know having been or being about to be, but only being»; that is, when it is said of God that he was or will be, we must not understand that he has passed away or is still to come, but that he simply is, without any temporal change. Although verbs of being in different tenses are said of God, such as «was», «will be», «is», and «was being», they do not then distinguish temporal changes—past, future, imperfect past, perfect past, or pluperfect past—but simply indicate the essence or existence of divinity.

7. God alone, then, is properly called essence or being. Hence Hilary says in Book VII of De Trinitate⁸: «Being is not an accident in God, but subsisting truth, abiding cause, and the property of natural kind».

⁹ quod LVWX. 11 legitur] ergo CLRTVW. 15 etiam] est COPV. 20 Rubrica omitted in MPRW. 27 praeteritum] Hilarius. Quia non coepit esse sed Deus semper vere fuit, rubric added in the margin by CLWX.]

Chapter 2 (22).

On immutability here. The essence of God alone is also properly called immutable, because it neither changes nor can be changed. Hence Augustine says in Book V of De Trinitate¹⁰: «Other essences or substances admit accidents, by which great or any other change may occur in them; nothing of this kind can happen to God. Therefore the only substance or essence that is God is immutable, and being belongs to it most truly and supremely. For what changes does not preserve its very being; and what can be changed, even if it is not changed, can cease to be what it was. Therefore only what not merely does not change, but cannot change at all, is most truly said to be», that is, the substance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hence the Apostle, speaking of God, says¹¹: Who alone has immortality.

2. What true immortality is, which belongs to the Creator alone. For as Augustine says in De Trinitate¹², «since the soul is said, and is, to be immortal in a certain way, the Apostle would not say “he alone has immortality” unless true immortality were immutability, which no creature can possess, since it belongs to the Creator alone». Hence James says¹³: With whom there is no change or shadow of alteration; and David¹⁴: You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same. Therefore Augustine, in Super Genesim¹⁵, says that God is moved neither through places nor through times, whereas a creature is moved through times and places. To be moved through time is to be changed through affections. God, however, cannot be changed by place or affection; through the Prophet he says¹⁶: I am God, and I do not change. He alone is immutable, and therefore is rightly said alone to have immortality.

3. «For in every mutable nature, as Augustine says in Against Maximinus¹⁷, death is change itself, because it makes something in it no longer be what it was. Hence the human soul itself, which is called immortal because in its own manner it never ceases to live, nevertheless has a certain death of its own. If it lived justly and sins, it dies to justice; if it was sinful and is justified, it dies to sin, to say nothing of its other changes, which it would take too long to discuss now. The nature of the heavenly creatures could also die, because it could sin. For angels sinned and became demons, whose prince is the devil; and those who did not sin could have sinned. If grace is bestowed on any rational creature so that it cannot sin, this is not proper to its own nature, but is God’s grace. And therefore God alone, as the Apostle says¹⁸, has immortality: by his own nature, not by anyone’s grace, he neither could nor can be changed by any conversion, nor could nor will he sin through any change».

¹⁹ of God L, omitted in P, added in O², transposed before De in MN. 7 est Deus transposed in BCMNW. 9 etiam] et LNX. 12 and therefore] therefore LRX. 14 Rubric omitted in LRW. || For as] Hence and LNX. 16 he would say] it would truly be said P, the Apostle added in BCRV, added in the margin in O²W². 24 I am God] I am added in OP.]

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4. «Therefore, as Augustine says in Book I of De Trinitate²¹, it is necessary, though difficult, to contemplate and know God’s substance making mutable things without any change in itself, and creating temporal things without any temporal movement in itself». The divine essence alone, then, is truly and properly immutable: without changing itself, it established all natures.

Chapter 3 (23).

Here he treats simplicity.—Why a creature is manifold and not simple. That same essence alone is properly and truly simple, with no diversity, variation, or multiplicity of parts, accidents, or any forms whatsoever. To learn how that substance is simple, as Augustine teaches in Book VI of De Trinitate²², «consider first why every creature is manifold and in no way truly simple», first the bodily creature, then the spiritual.

Chapter 4 (24).

1. Here he shows why the bodily creature is manifold. «A bodily creature certainly consists of parts, so that one part is larger and another smaller, and the whole is greater than any part. In every body, size is one thing, color another, and shape another. For its color and shape can remain the same even when its size is reduced; and its shape and size can remain the same when its color changes. Thus the nature of a body is shown to be manifold and in no way simple».

²³ cuique OP. 8–9 rationabili] rationali LMNRX. 22–23 te docet transposed in OPX. 23 primo] primum LNRX.]

2. Here he shows how the spiritual creature is manifold and not simple. «A spiritual creature, such as the soul, is simple in comparison with a body, but without comparison with a body it is manifold and not simple. It is called simple in relation to the body because it is not spread by its bulk through space, but is wholly in each body and wholly in the whole body and in each of its parts. Therefore, when something happens in any small part of the body that the soul perceives, even if it does not happen in the whole body, the whole soul perceives it, because nothing of it is hidden from the whole soul. Yet there is no true simplicity even in the soul itself. For since being skillful is one thing and being dull another, being keen another and being retentive another, desire one thing, fear another, joy another, and sorrow another; and since these and innumerable other such things can be found in the nature of the soul, some without others and some to a greater or lesser degree, it is clear that its nature is not simple but manifold. For nothing simple is mutable, whereas every creature is mutable»; therefore no creature is truly simple.

3. «God, however, though he is spoken of in many ways, is truly and supremely simple. For he is called great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatever else it seems fitting to call him; but his greatness is the same as his wisdom, for he is great not in bulk but in power; and his goodness is the same as his wisdom, greatness, and truth. In him, being blessed is not one thing and being great, wise, true, or good another, nor is being itself another thing».

Chapter 5 (25).

How God, though simple, is nevertheless spoken of in many ways. Here we must carefully note why Augustine says that God alone is truly simple, yet is spoken of in many ways. — He says this not because of a diversity of accidents or parts, but because of the diversity and multitude of the names said of God. Though these names are many, they signify one thing, namely, the divine nature. When they are said of that immutable and eternal substance, incomparably simpler than the human mind, they are not understood in the same way as when they are said of creatures. Hence Augustine says in Book VI of De Trinitate²⁴: «For God, being is the same as being strong and being wise; whatever you say of that simple multiplicity or multiple simplicity signifies his substance. But for the human mind, being is not the same as being strong, prudent, or just: for the mind can exist without having any of these virtues».

²⁵ est added in OPR. 3 minuta] mutata BCW. 11 fit] sit LOW. 16 possintque] possuntque NOPR. 23 indigne dici transposed in OP. 29 sit simplex transposed in BCLMTVW.]

Chapter 6 (26).

God’s simplicity is so great that he is subject to none of the categories. That there is no diversity of accidents or any mutability at all in the nature of divinity, but perfect simplicity, Augustine shows in Book V of De Trinitate²⁶, saying: «Let us understand God, as far as we can, as good without quality, great without quantity, creator without need, present without position, containing all things without possession, everywhere without place, everlasting without time, making mutable things without any change in himself, and suffering nothing. Whoever thinks of God in this way, even if he cannot yet discover entirely what he is, should nevertheless piously beware, as far as he can, of thinking anything about him that is not so». If you attend closely, these words and the foregoing show that the categories of dialectical art do not at all apply to God’s nature, which is subject to no accidents.

Chapter 7 (27).

God is called substance improperly, not properly. Hence God is not properly called substance, as Augustine shows in Book VII of De Trinitate²⁷: just as essence is named from being, so we call something substance from subsisting, if indeed it is fitting to say that God subsists. This is rightly understood of things in which what is said to be in a subject is contained in a subject, as color or shape is in a body. A body subsists and is therefore a substance. Mutable things, then, are not properly called substances, nor are simple things. But if God subsists, so that he can properly be called substance, something inheres in him as in a subject, and he is not simple. It is impious to say that God subsists and is subject to his goodness, so that this goodness is not substance, or rather essence, and God himself is not his goodness but has it in him as in a subject. It is therefore clear that God is called substance improperly, so that a more familiar term may convey essence, which is truly and properly said; perhaps only God ought to be called essence. For he alone truly is, because he is immutable».

Chapter 8 (28).

1. That there is nothing in God that is not God. The simplicity and purity of this essence are so great that there is nothing in it that is not itself; what has and what is had are the same. Hence Hilary says in Book VII of De Trinitate²⁸: «God, who is life, does not subsist from composites; he who is power is not held together from weakness; he who is light is not joined from darkness; he who is spirit is not formed from unlike things. Everything that is in him is one». — The same author in Book VII of De Trinitate²⁹ says: «God is not made in the human way from composites, so that one thing in him is what he has and another the one who has it; rather, he is wholly life, that is, perfect and infinite nature, not composed of unlike things, but living throughout himself». On this same matter Boethius says in Book I of De Trinitate³⁰ says: «Therefore that is truly one in which there is no number, nothing in itself other than what it is; for it cannot become a subject». ...nothing in itself other than what it is; for it cannot become a subject». Augustine also says in De fide ad Petrum³¹: «There is nothing that is not substance, as though one thing there were that underlies and another that accrues to substance; rather, whatever can be understood there is substance. These things can indeed be said and readily believed, but they cannot be seen at all». — The same author in Book XV of De Trinitate³²: «The nature of each thing is such that what has something is itself what it has, as in an immutable and simple substance». Hence Isidore says³³: «God is called simple either because he does not lose what he has, or because he is not one thing and what is in him another».

³⁴ aut OP. 19 formalis] formabilis BHil. 21 Sicut] Sicuti OP.]

³⁵

³⁶

2. Although the divine nature is of such great simplicity and purity, there is nevertheless a Trinity of persons in it. Hence Augustine says in Book XI of De civitate Dei³⁷: «We do not call the nature of the highest good simple because only the Father is in it, or only the Son, or only the Holy Spirit—that is, because this is merely a trinity of names, without the subsistence of persons, as the Sabellians thought. Rather, it is called simple because it is what it has, except that each person is spoken of relatively to another and is not that other. For the Father has the Son, to whom he is spoken of relatively, yet he is not the Son; and the Son has the Father, yet he is not the Father. But in what is said of itself, and not of another, it is what it has: as it is said to be living in itself by having life, and that same life is in it. This nature is therefore called simple because it is not one thing that has and another thing that it has, as is the case with other things. For what has a liquid is not itself a liquid, nor is a body color, nor is a soul wisdom».

³⁸ accidit BCLM. 22 in se] ipse LNRV (Augustinus), corr. in ipse T. 25 est sapientia trp. VWX.]

3. Behold, according to the measure of our infirmity, we have assigned to the divine substance its identity, unity, immutability, simplicity, and purity.

Chapter 1 (29).

On the distinction of the persons. Let us now turn to the distinction of the persons. «Let us hold, then, as Augustine teaches in De fide ad Petrum¹, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are naturally one God, and yet that the Father is not the one who is the Son, nor the Son the one who is the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the one who is the Father or the Son. For the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one essence, in which the Father is not one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, although personally the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another».

Chapter 2 (30).

1. Here he treats the Son’s coeternity with the Father. The Son was begotten by the Father, and therefore is another; yet the Father did not exist before the Son, for the three persons are coeternal with one another.

2. The Arians’ argument. Against this, the heretic says, as Ambrose relates in Book I of De Trinitate²: «Everything that is born is a son, has a beginning, and began to exist; and therefore, because he is a son, he has a beginning; and because he is a son, he has a beginning and began to exist». «For Arius himself, as Augustine recalls in Book VI of De Trinitate³, is reported to have said: If he is a son, there was a time when he was not a son».

3. Augustine’s Catholic reply. Whoever says this «does not understand that being born can also be everlasting for God, so that the Son is coeternal with the Father, just as splendor generated and spread from a fire would be coeval and coeternal with it, if the fire were eternal».

⁴ ergo CLX. 12 Pater aliud om. BCOX, add. interl. PR, add. mg. MT.]

⁵

4. Augustine’s objection to the heretic. Again: «If the Son of God, as Augustine says⁶, is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never without power and wisdom, the Son is coeternal with God the Father. The Apostle says⁷ that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Therefore either there was a time when the Son did not exist, or God at some time lacked power and wisdom; to say this is madness». For it is certain that he always had wisdom; therefore he always had the Son.

5. Ambrose’s reply to the same, supported by authority. Ambrose⁸ also answers the same Arian question in this way: «I confess, I say, that the Son was born; I shudder at what remains of impiety». «For it is written in the Old Testament⁹, to cite just one among many passages: Before me no other God existed, and after me there will be none. Who says this, then, the Father or the Son? If the Son, he says, “Before me there was no other God”; if the Father, he says, “After me there will be none.” The former has no one before him, the latter no one after him».

6. Ambrose argues against the heretic. «Each is known in the other, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father¹⁰. For when you name the Father, you have also indicated his Son, since no one is father to himself; when you name the Son, you also confess the Father, since no one is son to himself. Thus neither can the Son be without the Father, nor the Father without the Son; therefore the Father always is, and so is the Son».

7. Ambrose denounces the heretic. Again: «Tell me, heretic, I ask: was there a time when God the Father was not almighty, though he was God? For if he began to be Father, then he was God first and afterward became Father. How, then, is God immutable? If he was God before and Father afterward, he was surely changed by the addition of generation. But may God avert this madness»¹¹.

Chapter 3 (31).

1. It is ineffable how the Son exists without the Father being prior, just as the mode of generation is intelligible yet ineffable. «But you ask me, says Ambrose¹², how, if he is the Son, the Father is not prior. I ask you in turn how you think the Son was generated. For it is impossible for me to know the secret of generation. The mind fails; the voice falls silent—not mine alone, but that of the angels too. It is above the Powers, above the Angels, above the Cherubim, above the Seraphim, and above all understanding, because it is written¹³: The peace of Christ is above all understanding. If the peace of Christ is above all understanding, how much more is such a generation above all understanding? Therefore put your hand to your mouth; it is not permitted to scrutinize heavenly mysteries¹⁴. We may know that he was born; we may not investigate how he was born. I may not deny the former; fear forbids me to ask the latter». For that generation is ineffable; hence Isaiah¹⁵: Who shall declare his generation?

2. Some presume to investigate the order of generation. Yet some, relying on their own ingenuity, say that this generation and the like can be understood, following that authority of Jerome’s commentary on Ecclesiastes¹⁶: «In Sacred Scripture “who” is very often used not for what is impossible, but for what is difficult, as in “Who shall declare his generation?”» Jerome did not say this because the Son’s eternal generation can be fully understood or explained by any mortal, but because something about it can be understood or said. Some, however, take this saying to refer to Christ’s temporal generation.

¹⁷ corr. interl. in inintelligibilis. 5 abs] ab OPR, a V. 9 supra] super LPX.]

¹⁸

Chapter 4 (32).

1. Whether one ought to say «the Son is always being begotten» or «the Son has always been begotten». Since the Son’s generation by the Father has neither beginning nor end, because it is eternal, one may ask whether one ought to say: the Son is always being begotten, has always been begotten, or will always be begotten.

2. Gregory says on Job¹⁹: «The Lord God Jesus, in that he is the power and wisdom of God²⁰, was born from the Father before times—or rather, since he neither began to be born nor ceased, let us say more truly: he was always born. We cannot say “he is always being born,” lest he seem imperfect. But so that he may be shown to be both eternal and perfect, let us say “always born,” since “born” pertains to perfection and “always” to eternity; although by calling him “perfect” we stray far from expressing that truth, since what was not made cannot properly be called perfect». We stammer, as best we can, in echoing God’s heights²¹, and «the Lord speaks in the words of our weakness: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”»²².

3. Commenting on the Psalm’s passage²³, I have begotten you today, Augustine speaks of this generation of the Son as follows²⁴: «Although “today” can also be understood as the day on which Christ was born according to his humanity, yet because “today” signifies the present, and in eternity nothing is past, as though it had ceased to be, nor future, as though it were not yet, but only present—because whatever is eternal always is—it is more divinely understood of the everlasting generation of God’s Wisdom». Behold, Augustine shows here that the Son’s generation is always, neither past nor future, because it is eternal. He said I have begotten so that it would not be thought new, that is, as though it had begun; he said today so that the generation would not seem past. — From the Prophet’s words, then, as John Chrysostom says²⁵, «nothing else is made clear except that the Son has always been begotten from the very essence of the Father».

²⁶ imperfectus PT. 17 locum etiam trp. Gregorius.]

²⁷

4. Origen seems to say the contrary, for he says that the Son is always being generated by the Father. Origen says in his commentary on Jeremiah²⁸ that the Son is always generated by the Father, in these words: «Our Savior is the wisdom of God; wisdom is the splendor of eternal light; our Savior, therefore, is the splendor of glory. Splendor is not born once and then ceases; whenever the light from which splendor arises comes forth, the splendor of glory also comes forth. Thus the Savior is always being born. Hence he says in the Book of Wisdom²⁹: Before all the hills he begets me; not, as some wrongly read, he begot me». Origen plainly shows in these words that one can and should rightly say, The Son is always being born. This seems contrary to Gregory’s foregoing statement³⁰, namely, «We cannot say: he is always being born».

5. Augustine, discussing one who is always born in Book 84 of the Questions, says³¹: «“Always born” is better than “always being born,” because one who is always being born has not yet been born and will never be born if he is always being born. For to be born is one thing, to have been born another; and thus the Son never exists if he was never born. But he is the Son because he was born, and he is always the Son; therefore he has always been born».

6. He explains Gregory’s foregoing words, lest the teachers appear to contradict one another. So that such great authorities do not seem to contradict each other in so important a matter, let us interpret Gregory’s words kindly. «The Lord», he says³², «Jesus was born from the Father before times—or rather, since he neither began to be born nor ceased, let us say more truly: he was always born».

³³ dominus add. 14–18 Notula om. MP. 19 inter] in BCOP. 21 interpretemur] interpretemus OPR, quod corr. R.]

³⁴

Question about Gregory’s own words. But why is this said more truly—that the Son has always been born—than that he was born from the Father before times? — He resolves this. Why, then, did Gregory say this, since both are equally true? Only because he wished the former to be understood as expressing the truth more clearly and fully than the latter. For these words close every avenue of attack to cunning heretics, showing that Christ’s generation according to his divinity is without beginning or end and is perfect. But the truth is not made so clear when one says, «The Son was begotten from the Father before times». For that reason, Gregory says «he is always being born»—not, I say, so appropriately as «his birth is eternal»; yet it can be said if you understand, as Origen says, that the Son is born from the Father because that generation always is. And because it always is, his birth is eternal.

7. He confirms from Hilary’s words that the Son is always being generated. Hilary too says that the Son is born from the Father, in Book VII of De Trinitate³⁵, in these words: «The living God is the power of an eternal living nature; and what was born with the mystery of his knowledge could be nothing other than God. For you are to understand that both the Father and the Son have in themselves every living life: “I live through the Father,” and the one who sent me lives, so that the Father is known to be in the Son, and likewise the Son in the Father». Behold, you have here that the Son is generated as living from the living.

Likewise in the same work³⁶: «When Christ says, As the Father has life in himself, so he gave the Son to have life in himself³⁷, he attested that all his life comes from the living one. What is born living from the living has the perfection of birth without novelty of nature. For what is born from the living into the living is not new, since it is not from nothing; and life that receives birth from life must, through the unity of nature and the mystery of perfect birth, live in the living one and have in itself living life». Here too you have that the Son is generated as living from the living. (Observe: everything that is in God lives.) Again, in the same work³⁸: «In God everything that exists lives: for God is life, and from life nothing can be except what lives; birth is not by derivation but by power. Thus, since everything that exists lives and everything born from him is power, the Son has birth, not alteration». Here too he says that the Son is born.

Again, in Book IX³⁹: «The Father grants the Son to be as much as he himself is, imparting to him through the mystery of birth the image of being unbegotten». Here he says that the Father begets the Son.

8. He briefly teaches what should be conceded on this matter. Let us therefore say that the Son was born from the Father before times and is always being born from the Father, but more fittingly that he has always been born; and let us confess that he exists from eternity and is coeternal with the Father, that is, with his source. For by generation the Father is the Son’s source, as he is in himself; the Son too is eternal, but the Father is without a source whereas the Son is not, because the Father is unbegotten and the Son born. — As Hilary says in Book XII of De Trinitate⁴⁰: «It is one thing to be eternal always without a source, another to be coeternal with the Father, that is, with one’s source. Where the Father is the source, there is birth; where the source is eternal, there is also the eternity of birth. For just as birth from an eternal source is eternal, so it is from an eternal source. Everything that is from eternity is also eternal; yet not everything eternal is unbegotten. Since what was born from eternity cannot be in doubt as having been absent: if begetting is without limit for the begetter, being born is also without limit for the one born. The mind admits no interval between the birth of God the Son and the generation of God the Father; for generation includes birth and birth includes generation, since neither exists without the other. Therefore both are without any interval between them».

Chapter 5 (33).

1. The heretic’s argument. «But the heretic will object⁴¹: Everything that was born did not always exist, since it was born in order to exist».

2. Hilary’s reply. «No one doubts that things born among human beings once did not exist. But it is one thing to be born from one who did not exist— to be born from one who did not exist, another to be born from one who always exists. In the former case, the one who is father did not always exist, nor was he always father; and one who was not always father did not always beget. But where he is always Father, the Son is always. If it is proper to God the Father always to be Father, then it must be proper to the Son always to be Son. How, then, can it enter our understanding that he was not always, whose property is always to be what he was born as?» — «We therefore confess⁴² that God the Only-begotten was born, but born before times; neither did he exist before he was born, nor was he born before he existed. For to be born as what one already was is no longer to be born, but to alter oneself by being born. This exceeds human sense and the understanding of the world; human reason cannot grasp it, but it is a confession of faithful wisdom».

⁴³ de mutatione BCL. 10 semper] aperte LNRTVWX. 14–15 at... est? suppl. ex Hil. 18 etiam] et OP. 25 et? om. MOPVX. 31 add. interl. L², add. mg. O²T². 32 non?] semper add. NVWX.]

Chapter 1 (34).

1. Here he treats the Holy Spirit and first says that he is the love of the Father and Son. «Now», after treating the eternity of the Son, «let us discuss the Holy Spirit, as far as God grants us to see».

2. The Holy Spirit is the love, charity, or affection of the Father and Son. Hence Augustine says in Book XV of De Trinitate¹: «The Holy Spirit belongs neither to the Father alone nor to the Son alone, but to both; and therefore he makes known to us the charity common to them, by which the Father and Son love one another».

3. The Holy Spirit is properly called Love, and yet the Trinity is Love. John says in his canonical Epistle²: God is love. «He did not say, “The Holy Spirit is love”—if he had, the statement would have been more complete and a not insignificant part of the question settled. But because he said, “God is love,” it is uncertain, and therefore we must ask whether God the Father is love, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or God as the Trinity itself, since the Trinity too is not three gods but one God»³.

4. Just as the Word of God is properly called Wisdom, yet the whole Trinity is called wisdom, so the Holy Spirit is properly called Love, yet the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are called love. To this Augustine says in the same book⁴: «I do not know why, just as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are each called wisdom, and all together are not three wisdoms but one wisdom, the Father and Son and Holy Spirit should not likewise each be called love, and all together one love». «Yet no one should think that we improperly call the Holy Spirit love because God the Father and God the Son can also be called love», just as «the Word of God is properly called the Wisdom of God, although the Father and Holy Spirit are also wisdom. If one of these three is to be called love in a proper sense, who is more fitting than the Holy Spirit»⁵? «So that in that simple and supreme nature substance is not one thing and love another; rather, substance itself is love, and love itself is substance, whether in the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit»⁶, «and yet the Holy Spirit is properly called love». — Augustine plainly shows in these words⁷ that in the Trinity love is sometimes referred to the substance, which is common to the three persons and wholly present in each, and sometimes specifically to the person of the Holy Spirit; just as God’s wisdom is sometimes understood as the divine substance and sometimes properly as the Son. The same usage is found in many cases.

Chapter 2 (35).

1. He confirms with examples that the same names are used both properly and universally. «Many examples can show that many names of things are used universally and also applied properly to certain things. For example, the word Law sometimes signifies together all the sayings of the Old Testament, while sometimes Law properly names what was given through Moses». Many other examples are available, but «in an obvious matter one should avoid a lengthy discussion». «Therefore, just as we properly call God’s only Word by the name Wisdom, although the Father and Holy Spirit are also wisdom universally, so the Holy Spirit is properly named by the word Love, although the Father and Son are also love universally».

2. He gives an authority for calling the Son Wisdom properly. «But the Word of God, that is, God’s only-begotten Son, was plainly called the Wisdom of God by the Apostle, who says⁸: Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God».

⁹ rubric “What is proper to the Father and Son” added in BCNTVX. 15 quod] quid CMOPV. 18 dilectio] corrected from delectatio in OPT, from dilectio in M. 26 quaerendum] est added in MOPR. 28 Deus est unus] unus Deus BCL, unus est Deus RT, unus Deus est V. 29–1 (p. 111) rubric omitted in MPRW.]

¹⁰ confirmat LOPW. 28 et] omitted in BCM. 30 rubric omitted in NRW.]

3. He seeks and finds testimony that the Holy Spirit is called Love. «We find where the Holy Spirit¹¹ is called Love if we carefully examine the words of the Apostle John. After saying¹², “Let us love one another, because love is from God,” he added, “Everyone who loves is born of God, because God is love.” Here he showed that he had called that love which he said is from God “God”; therefore Love is God from God. But since the Son too was born from God the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, it is rightly asked which of them should here be understood to have been called Love. For the Father alone is God in such a way that he is not from God; therefore the Love which is God in such a way that it is from God is not the Father himself, but either the Son or the Holy Spirit. In what follows, however, when John recalled the love of God¹³ by which he loved us and urged us to love one another so that God might thus remain in us—since he had indeed called Love God—he immediately wished to explain the matter more clearly and said¹⁴: By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. Therefore the Holy Spirit, of whom he gave us, makes us remain in God and God in us; love does this; therefore he is God Love. Thus God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God, is signified where we read, “God is love” and “Love is from God». By these words Augustine plainly says that the Holy Spirit is the charity of the Father and Son; he carries the discussion so far that he seems to have said the Holy Spirit is not only the love of the Father and Son, by which they love one another and us, but also the love by which we love God. Whether he is the charity by which we love God will be explained below¹⁵.

4. He returns to show what he had proposed, namely, that the Holy Spirit is the love by which the Father is loved by the Son and the Son by the Father. Let us now take care to show what we began: that the Holy Spirit is the love or affection of the Father and Son, by which the Father loves the Son and the Son the Father. — On this Jerome says in his commentary on Psalm XIV¹⁶: «The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the love that the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father».

¹⁷ et add. BCNVW. 16 suo] sancto OP. || Sanctus... Spiritus trp. BCLRV.]

5. Here he explains what the Holy Spirit is. Augustine also says in Book VI of De Trinitate¹⁸: «In all things the Son is equal to the Father and is of one and the same substance. Therefore the Holy Spirit too exists in that same unity and equality. Whether it is the unity of the two, or holiness, or love, it is clear that it is not one of the two by whom each is joined to the other, by whom the begotten is loved by the begetter and loves his begetter, and by whom they preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace¹⁹ not by participation but by their own essence, nor by the gift of anyone superior, but by what is their own». Behold, here you have that the Holy Spirit is he by whom the Son is loved by the Father and the Father by the Son, and by whom the two preserve the unity of peace. — «The Holy Spirit, then, as Augustine says in the same work²⁰, is something shared by the Father and Son, whatever it may be; but this communion itself is consubstantial and coeternal. If it can properly be called friendship, let it be called that; but charity is a more fitting name, and this too is substance, because God is substance and God is love²¹. Therefore there are three, and no more: one who loves the one who is from him, one who loves the one from whom he is, and Love itself. If Love is nothing, how is God love? If it is not substance, how is God substance?»

Chapter 3 (36).

Just as the Holy Spirit is common to the Father and Son, so he has a name proper to him that is common to them. Here one must note that just as the Holy Spirit is specially called the charity in the Trinity that is the union of the Father and Son, so he properly holds a name that in a certain way belongs to the Father and Son in common. Hence Augustine says in Book XV of De Trinitate 5: «If charity by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father ineffably shows the communion of both, what is more fitting than that the one who is the Spirit common to both be properly called Charity? It is more soundly believed and understood that not only is the Holy Spirit charity in that Trinity, but that he is not without reason properly called Charity, for the reasons stated. For in that Trinity the Father is not the only spirit or the only holy one, since the Father is spirit and the Son spirit, and the Father holy and the Son holy;» and yet he is not without reason called the Holy Spirit. For the one who is common to both is properly called what belongs to both in common. Otherwise, if only the Holy Spirit is Love in that Trinity, then the Son is found to be the Son not only of the Father but also of the Holy Spirit. For the Apostle says of God the Father²²: He transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. If, then, the Holy Spirit alone is God’s Love in that Trinity, the Son is also the Son of the Holy Spirit. But since this is utterly absurd, it remains that the Holy Spirit is not the only Love there, but is properly so called for the reasons I have adequately discussed²³».

²⁴ substantiae added in NW and interlinearly in RT; essentiae vel substantiae added in V. 24 ait] omitted in LMRX, transposed in P.]

Chapter 1 (37).

1. That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son. Here it must be said that the Holy Spirit is from the Father and Son and proceeds from the Father and Son, which many heretics have denied.

2. That he proceeds from both is proved by many testimonies of the divine writings. For the Apostle says¹: God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. Behold, here he is called the Spirit of the Son. And elsewhere²: Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. The Son himself also says of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel³: «Whom I send to you from the Father». — «He is called the Spirit of the Father where we read⁴: If the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. Christ himself also says⁵: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you”».

⁶ solus NRTV (Augustine). 17 sui] om. OP. 19 mitto] mittam LVX (Vulg.). 22 in vobis] om. BCWX.]

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And elsewhere¹³: «Whom the Father will send in my name». Elsewhere the Son himself says of the Holy Spirit¹⁴: «He proceeds from the Father». By these and many other authorities it is shown that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son.

3. The Greeks do not concede that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. The Greeks, however, say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and not from the Son. — Why they say this: first cause. They say this because the Truth, speaking in the Gospel that fully contains the faith about the procession of the Spirit, mentions the Father alone, saying¹⁵: «The Spirit who proceeds from the Father». — Second cause. They also say this because in the principal councils held among them¹⁶ their creeds were sanctioned with attached anathemas, so that no one may teach or preach anything else about the faith of the Trinity, or preach it otherwise, than what is contained there. Since these creeds mention the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and not from the Son, they say that whoever adds that he proceeds from the Son incurs an anathema; hence they accuse us too of being under anathema. — Third cause. They also add, to support their view and as evidence of our condemnation, the Creed that Leo III, in accordance with the tradition of the councils just named, transcribed on a silver tablet and left for posterity, placing it behind the altar of blessed Paul at Rome, for the love and safeguard of the orthodox faith, as he himself says¹⁷. In this Creed the Father alone is mentioned in the procession of the Spirit, in these words¹⁸: «And in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life, proceeding from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified together», and so forth. This is the Creed sung at Mass, issued at the Council of Nicaea, at the end of which is added: «Whoever teaches or preaches otherwise, let him be anathema». Therefore the Greeks say we are anathematized because we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, which is not contained there. For what is said according to us there, «who proceeds from the Father and the Son», was added by the Latins, namely «and the Son».

¹⁹ trp. post causa OP. || quia] quod NOP. 8–9 Secunda] Spiritus secunda causa OP, om. MRW. 9 ideo etiam trp. BCMRTVWX. 15 Tertia om. MPRVW. || Addunt] enim add. BMOPT, exp. T. 22 conglorificandum] glorificandum LMPRX, quod corr. R.]

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4. A reply that determines the foregoing. We interpret those words as follows: «Whoever teaches anything else or preaches otherwise», that is, teaches the contrary or preaches in a contrary manner, let him be anathema. He therefore used «anything else» to mean «the opposite», as the Apostle does in his Epistle to the Galatians²⁷: If anyone preaches another gospel, that is, a contrary one, let him be anathema. He does not say, «If anyone adds to it»; for if he had said that, he would, as Augustine says²⁸, have prejudged his own case, since he wished to come to some people to whom he was writing, such as the Thessalonians, «to supply what was lacking in their faith»²⁹. But one who supplies adds what was lacking; he does not remove what was already there. Whoever goes beyond the rule of faith does not advance along the way but departs from it». — Another reply. We answer the objection they raise from the Gospel as follows: when the Truth says there³⁰ that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, it does not add «alone», and therefore does not deny that he also proceeds from the Son; rather, it names the Father alone «because he is accustomed to refer to him even what belongs to the Son»³¹, because the Son has it from him.

Chapter 2 (38).

1. The Greeks agree with us in meaning, even if they differ in words. It must nevertheless be understood that the Greeks confess that the Holy Spirit belongs to the Son as he does to the Father, since the Apostle calls him the Spirit of the Son³² and the Truth in the Gospel calls him the Spirit of truth³³. But since the Holy Spirit’s being of the Father or the Son means nothing other than his being from the Father and the Son, they seem to agree with us in this too, in the same judgment of faith, although they differ in words.

2. He shows by Greek authorities that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well. Hence certain Catholic teachers among them, understanding that the foregoing words—by which the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Son and to belong to the Son—have one and the same meaning, professed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well. Hence the Athanasian Creed says: «The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, nor begotten, but proceeding». Behold, it plainly says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

³⁴ add. LRWX. 8 ipse] ipsi BCM. 12–13 Rubric] NTX, omitted in the other manuscripts. 24 licet] in add. LNRVWX.]

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3. Didymus too, their greatest teacher, says in his book De Spiritu Sancto³⁹ that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son: «The Savior, who is the Truth⁴⁰, says: “He will not speak on his own,” that is, not without me and without the judgment of me and the Father, because he is inseparable from me and from the Father’s will, since he is not from himself but from the Father and me. For the very fact that he subsists and speaks comes to him from the Father and me». — Again⁴¹: «The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of wisdom, cannot hear from the Son speaking what he does not know, since he is himself what is spoken forth from the Son, that is, God proceeding from God, the Spirit of truth proceeding from the Truth, the Consoler flowing from Consolation».

4. Cyril, bishop, says in his letter to Nestorius⁴²: «The Spirit is understood in himself, insofar as he is Spirit and not the Son, yet he is not alien to him. For he is named the Spirit of truth and flows forth from him as from God the Father».

5. John Chrysostom too says in a homily on the exposition of the Creed: «This is the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, who distributes his own gifts as he wills»⁴³. The same author, in another homily⁴⁴, says: «We must believe that the Holy Spirit belongs to the Father and the Son. We say that this Holy Spirit is coequal with the Father and Son and proceeds from the Father and the Son. Believe this, lest evil conversations corrupt good habits»⁴⁵. — Behold, we have clear testimonies from Greek teachers showing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son. Therefore let every tongue confess⁴⁶ that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son.

⁴⁷ nec RVX. || nec] non OP. 5 dicit] dixit LVX. 8 loquetur] loquitur NVX. 15 manans] manens LOPM. 25 colloquia mala] prava colloquia OP.]

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