Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (87).

1. How can it be said: the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone, since they are inseparable? A question arises here from what was said above. It was said that the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone is as great as the three together, and that two or three persons together are not something greater than one alone. Augustine therefore asks in book VI of On the Trinity: “How can these things rightly be said, since neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit is alone, but always and inseparably the Son is with the Father, the Father with the Son, and the Holy Spirit with both? For these three persons are inseparable.”

2. Augustine’s answer. Augustine replies: “We say ‘the Father alone,’ not because he is separated from the Son” or the Holy Spirit, but to signify that “those who are with him are not Father.” The Father alone is Father—not because he is alone, that is, without the Son or Holy Spirit, but because the Son and Holy Spirit are excluded from sharing the property of fatherhood. Likewise, when it is said that the Son alone is Son or the Holy Spirit alone is Holy Spirit, the Son is not divided from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from both; rather, the Father and Holy Spirit are excluded from sharing sonship, and the Father and Son from sharing the property of procession. Thus, when it is said that the Father alone is as great as the three together, “alone” does not separate him from the others; it means: the Father, who is Father in such a way that neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit is Father, is as great, and so forth. Understand “the Son alone” and “the Holy Spirit alone” in the same way. “The Father alone is said,” Augustine says, “because only he there is Father”; the Son alone because only he there is Son; and the Holy Spirit alone because only he there is Holy Spirit.

Chapter 2 (88).

1. Whether it can be said that the Father alone is God, the Son alone is God, and the Holy Spirit alone is God, or that the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit is the only God. After this it is asked whether, just as the Father alone is called Father and the Son alone Son, we may say that the Father alone is God, the Son alone God, and likewise of the Holy Spirit; or that the Father is the only God and the Son the only God. We answer that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are and are called one God, and that this Trinity together is properly called the only God, as the only wise and only powerful. But, using our own words, we should not seem to say “the Father alone is God” or “the Father is the only God” except where the language of an authority occurs. The same applies to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

¹ trp. MWX. 17 quo] quod LNRW. 2 sola] persona OP. 4 possint] possunt BNOP, quod corr. O. 5 et] om. BOPX. 7 Rubrica] om. RW; Augustini] om. MTX.]

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2. It is not said that the Father alone is God. Augustine says: “Since we have shown how it can be said ‘the Father alone’ or ‘the Son alone,’ we must consider the statement that the Father is not the only true God, but that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the only true God.” Thus the Father alone must not be called the only true God.

3. The Father is not the only God, but the Trinity. Again: “If someone asks whether the Father alone is God, how shall we answer that he is not? Unless perhaps we say that the Father is God, but not the only God, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the only God.” Thus again the Father should not be called “the only God.”

Some wish to take “only” here as belonging solely to the subject; if it belongs to the predicate, they grant that the Father is the only God. But Augustine’s words seem to show that properly the whole Trinity should be called “the only God.” Augustine says that this Trinity is understood when the Apostle says, “Blessed and only powerful,” “To the only wise God,” and “To the invisible only God.” These are not to be understood of the Father alone, as Maximinus and other heretics claimed, but of the Trinity, as is also the saying, “He alone has immortality.” According to the right faith, the Trinity itself is one only God, blessed, powerful, wise, and invisible. Augustine therefore says: “Since the one God is Trinity, this is our answer to the question: we must understand that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is one and only God, is the only wise and only powerful God.”

5. Augustine, addressing Maximinus: “Therefore neither the Father alone, nor the Son alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone is God, but the Trinity itself is one only God.”

Chapter 3 (89).

1. How the Trinity is called the only God, although it exists with the holy spirits and souls. But it is asked again how we call the Trinity itself “the only God,” although it exists with the holy spirits and souls. Augustine answers this in Book VI of On the Trinity, saying: “We call the Trinity the only God, although it is always with the holy spirits and souls; but we call it ‘only’ because nothing other than the Trinity itself is God. For they are not God together with it,” nor is anything else; rather, the Trinity itself alone, not they or anything else, is God.

2. Even if the foregoing were said of the Father alone, the Son and Holy Spirit would not thereby be excluded. “Nevertheless, as Augustine says, even if the foregoing were said of the Father alone, the Son or the Holy Spirit would not thereby be excluded, because these three are one. Thus in the Apocalypse it is read of the Son that he has a name written which no one knows but himself; the Father or the Holy Spirit is not thereby separated. And when it is said, ‘No one knows the Father except the Son,’ the Father and the Holy Spirit are not thereby separated, because they are inseparable.” At times, too, the Father and Son are named while the Holy Spirit is left unmentioned. Thus Truth, speaking to the Father, says: “That they may know you, and Jesus Christ whom you sent, to be the one true God.” “Why, then,” Augustine says, “did he say nothing of the Holy Spirit? Because it follows that wherever one is named—as the Father and the Son, who cleaves to him in such great peace—the Peace itself is also understood, although it is not mentioned.” When one of them is named, therefore, the others are also understood, as occurs in many passages of Scripture.

⁴ “nevertheless” LMWX. 14 “not”] “nevertheless” added TVW. 18 “as”] “just as” LMNRX.]

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⁶ “of” added LRW. 4 Rubric] omitted MRW. 5 “VI”] “seventh” LNOP. 10 Rubric] omitted MRW. 20–30 “Augustine … is”] LNW; omitted by the other codices and V.]

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