Sentences, Books I–II

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.]