Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (145).

1. The opinion of some who say that person and essence or nature are not the same, and that the same essence cannot belong to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To what was said above must be added that certain people of perverse understanding have rushed into such madness as to say that the nature of God and the person or hypostasis are not the same, claiming that the same essence cannot be the Father and the Son without confusion of persons. For, they say, if the essence which is the Father is the Son, the same thing is father and son to itself. If we grant that this thing is both essence and person or hypostasis, the same essence which is the Father is the Son; but if you say that the essence which is the Father is one and the essence which is the Son another, the same thing has begotten and is begotten. For these and similar reasons they divide nature and person, so that they do not accept one nature of the Godhead and three persons who are simple.

2. He sets out an authority which seems to support them *. They try to defend this by the testimony of Hilary, who in Book VII of The Trinity¹, asking whether the Apostle, when he names the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, signified the same thing by both expressions, says: «The preacher to the nations, wishing to teach the unity of nature in the Father and the Son, said²: The Spirit of God is in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ and so on. We are all spiritual if the Spirit of God is in us. But this is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. And when the Spirit of Christ is in us, the Spirit of him who raised Christ is in us. And when the Spirit of him who raised Christ is in us, the Spirit of Christ is also in us; yet the Spirit who is in us is not therefore not the Spirit of God. Distinguish, then, heretic, the Spirit of Christ from the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ who was raised from the dead from the Spirit of God who raised Christ from the dead: although the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead is only the Spirit of God who raised Christ from the dead. And now I ask: in the Spirit of God, do you think that nature is signified, or a thing belonging to nature? For nature is not the same as a thing belonging to nature, just as a human being is not the same as what belongs to a human being, nor fire the same as what belongs to fire itself; and accordingly God is not the same as what belongs to God».

3. Here he shows what sense they draw from those words *. On the occasion of this statement the aforementioned heretics formulated the doctrine that person and the nature of God are not the same, asserting that the nature of God is not the three persons. In the preceding words of Hilary they understand ‘a thing belonging to nature’ as person, and the name ‘nature’ as the divine nature. Therefore they say that Hilary asked the heretic whether by the Spirit of God he thought ‘nature’ or ‘a thing belonging to nature’ was signified, so that he might thereby show that a distinction must be made between nature and a thing belonging to nature, that is, person.

4. That the context of Scripture opposes them and how the foregoing must be understood, and that the Holy Spirit is a thing of the one nature of the Father and the Son, and is the nature itself.

¹ Pater... Filius... Sp. Sancti CLX. 15 prosilierunt] prosiluerunt MOPRW, quod corr. OP.]

²

³

⁴ “And that” OP, “And what” M, “that which” N, “that indeed” X. 11 Spiritales] “spiritual,” LV (cf. Rech. de Théol. anc. et méd. 2 [1930] 98). 13 spiritus] “who,” added in BC; “indeed,” added in N. 13–14 Et... Christum omitted in BC, added in the margin of V. 16 ergo] “therefore,” LNWX. 20 Et] “and certain words of Hilary,” rubric in the margin of LO. 21 existimes] “you think,” BCLNV, corrected in V. 23 Dei] “is,” added in LPTV (Hilary). 24 Rubrica omitted in RVW. 25 dogmatizantur] “they formulate a doctrine,” LNVWX. 32 Quod] “Here it is shown,” prefixed in MNTW. 33 debeant] “must,” MTVW.]

⁵

They say this because they do not understand, with devout care, the context of Scripture; when it is considered, one can perceive how Hilary spoke the foregoing. For subsequently, in the same sequence¹, he shows that in the Spirit of God the Father is sometimes signified, as when it is said²: «The Spirit of the Lord is upon me»; sometimes the Son, as when he says³: «In the Spirit of God I cast out demons», demonstrating that he casts out demons by the power of his nature; sometimes the Holy Spirit, as there⁴: «I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh», which he says was fulfilled when the Apostles, after the Spirit had been sent, spoke in all languages⁵.

Next he shows both that the same Spirit is signified in the Apostle’s preceding words and that he is a thing belonging to the nature of the Father and the Son, plainly saying⁶: «The Spirit who is from the Father, and is sent by the Son, and receives from the Son. But all things which the Father has are mine. Therefore I said: because he will receive from what is mine⁷. All things whatever the Father has are mine». He is both the Spirit of God who raises Christ from the dead and the Spirit of Christ who was raised from the dead. Does the nature of Christ differ in anything from God’s, so that it is possible for the Spirit who is God’s not also to be Christ’s? «The Spirit of God is therefore in us, and the Spirit of Christ is in us; and when the Spirit of Christ is in us, the Spirit of God is present. Thus, since what is God’s is Christ’s, and what is Christ’s is God’s, Christ cannot be anything different from God. Christ God is therefore one with God the Father; the Spirit of Christ who was raised from the dead is the same Spirit as the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead; and the nature is the same, if this can be granted».

«According to that saying⁴: I and the Father are one. In this Truth teaches that there is unity of nature, not the loneliness of union». Behold, if you attend carefully to these words, you find that the Holy Spirit is called a thing belonging to the nature of the Father and the Son, and is likewise said to be the nature of God, where it is said⁵: «Through the nature of God, nature itself dwells in us», if Christ is in us through the Holy Spirit.

6. He discusses the foregoing words and teaches that the distinction in the Trinity is not to be made as it is among creatures *. Therefore in the Trinity one must not distinguish between nature and a thing belonging to nature as one does among created things, because, as Hilary says⁶, «there is no comparison between earthly things and God; and if examples of comparison are sometimes brought forward, no one should think that they contain in themselves the perfection of an absolute rational account»: «for one must not speak of God according to human understanding».

7. That he said ‘nature is not the same as a thing belonging to nature’ with created things in view. Looking, therefore, to the nature of created things, he says⁷: «Nature is not the same as a thing belonging to nature», adding examples from creatures themselves. Then, showing that it is an error to measure the Creator according to the measure of creatures, he adds⁸: «And accordingly God is not the same as what belongs to God»; as though he said: If you think of the Creator after the likeness of creatures, you will be forced to confess that God is not the same as what belongs to God. This is impious to say, since the Spirit of God is God and the Son of God is God.

8. That God and what belongs to him are not different in such a way that the latter are in him; for some things belonging to him are in him and others are not *. These things said of God must not therefore be understood according to bodily modes, as he adds in the same sequence. There, overturning the opinion of those who think that God is one thing and what belongs to God another, and likewise that the nature of God and a thing belonging to nature are different as they are among creatures, he plainly teaches that God and what belongs to him are not different insofar as the latter are in him, saying⁹: «A human being, or anything like him, when he is somewhere, is not elsewhere, because what is there is contained in the form in which it exists, so that he is not everywhere who is present in one place. But God, a living power of immeasurable strength, who is absent nowhere and present everywhere, teaches that he is wholly through what belongs to him, and signifies that what belongs to him is nothing other than himself: so that where what belongs to him is present, he himself is understood to be present through it. This is not in a bodily manner, as though, when he is somewhere, he were not also everywhere; for he does not cease to be in all things through what belongs to him, and what belongs to him is nothing other than what he himself is. These things have been said for the understanding of nature».

By these words he plainly signifies, if you understand, heretic, that the divine nature is not different from those things which belong to it insofar as they are in it, and that through them it is in all its own things which are not in it. — Augustine¹⁰. For those which are not in him are also his, namely, all creatures; and those which are in him are his, namely, the three persons, who are of one nature and are one nature, as we established above by Augustine’s testimony¹¹, when he says that «the three persons are of the same essence, or the same essence, but not from the same essence, lest essence be understood as one thing and person as another».

⁶ is add. M, his add. W, illis add. M. 10 Rubrica (inauthentia) om. V, etiam TX, etiam add. M², om. alii. 17–18 ha-bit et] habitat BCN. 28 et] etiam TX, etiam add. M².]

⁷

⁸ “they learn” CT, “he discusses” L, “they discuss” X. 7 tradit] NV, omitted in the other witnesses. 10 existimet] “he may think,” CLNRTW. 12 est omitted in BCM. 13 etc.] “and a thing belonging to nature,” LNVW; “a thing of nature,” M. 25 aliquid] “something else as well,” L; “something else” NO; “something else too” P. 31 significat] “it signifies,” with “ita” added in BCNWX and interlinearly in LV.]

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9. That there is a distinction in the account of understanding when ‘hypostasis’ is said and when ‘essence’ is said. Nevertheless, we do not deny that a distinction must be made according to the account of understanding when ‘hypostasis’ is said and when ‘essence’ is said: there, what is common is signified, whereas here it is not. Yet hypostasis is essence, and conversely. Let us therefore confess that the three persons are one and the same according to essence, but differ by their properties. — Hence Augustine says, on the passage from the Psalm mentioned above¹: «You ask what the Father is; the answer is: God. You ask what the Son is; the answer is: God. You ask what the Father and Son are; the answer is: God. Asked about each separately, answer ‘God’. Asked about two, answer not ‘gods’ but ‘God’. For it is not so among human beings: there the unity of substance admits equality but not plurality. If, then, someone says to you: ‘When you say that the Son is what the Father is, surely the Son is the Father’, answer: I said to you that the Son is what the Father is according to substance, not according to person. One thing is said in one relation: God is said with reference to himself, and Son with reference to the Father; and again the Father is called God with reference to himself and Father with reference to the Son. What the Father is said to the Son and the Son to the Father, that is not the Father; what the Father is with reference to himself and the Son with reference to himself, this is the Father and the Son, that is, God».

Chapter 2 (146).

Whether it can be soundly said that there is one God of three persons or three persons of one God, just as one essence of three persons and three persons of one essence are said. Here it must be considered: since God is the divine essence, and one God is said to be three persons just as one essence is said to be three persons, whether it can likewise properly be said, ‘one God of three persons’ or ‘three persons of one God’, just as one says ‘one essence of three persons’ and ‘three persons of one essence’. — In these expressions we seem to have to imitate the usage of Scripture, where one often finds it said¹: ‘there is one essence of the three’ and ‘there are three persons of one essence’; but nowhere do we seem to read ‘one God of three persons’ or ‘three persons of one God’. I think the holy teachers avoided this so that it might not perhaps be understood in the divine persons as something similar is understood when it is said of creatures. For God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob² and the God of every creature³; and this is said on account of the principle of creation, or the privilege of grace, and the creature’s subjection or servitude. Since, then, there is nothing created, servile, or subject in the Trinity, faith did not admit this mode of expression in the Trinity. Conversely, the essence of God is not called the essence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or of any creature, lest we seem to confuse the nature of the Creator and the creature.

Chapter 3 (147).

That although power, wisdom, and goodness are said of God according to substance, in Scripture these names are nevertheless customarily referred distinctly to the persons. are sometimes referred distinctly. From the foregoing¹ it is clear that, just as essence, so power, wisdom, and goodness are said of God according to substance. What is said of God according to substance belongs equally to the three persons. There is therefore one power, wisdom, and goodness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and these three have the same power, the same wisdom, and the same goodness. Hence the supreme perfection in the Trinity is revealed. For if power, wisdom, or goodness were lacking there, it would not be the supreme good; but because there is perfect power, infinite wisdom, and incomprehensible goodness there, it is rightly said and believed to be the supreme good. Although power, wisdom, and goodness are wholly one and the same in God, in sacred Scripture² these names are nevertheless often referred distinctly to the persons, so that power is attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and goodness to the Holy Spirit. It is not pointless to inquire why this is done.

¹⁰ sint BCL (Hil.). 12–13 Rubrica om. NRVW. 13 aliquam add. NTW, add. interl. L. 28–29 dic. Pater ad Fil. W, ad Fil. dic. Pater LMR (Augustinus).]

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¹² “in the use of Scripture,” rubric in the margin of LNV. || nobis] transposed to the previous page in OP. 9 est omitted in OPX. 10 trium] “of persons,” added in LV, in the margin of M, and interlinearly in T².]

¹³

Chapter 4 (148).

1. Why this is done, namely, why power is attributed to the Father and wisdom to the Son. Wisdom took care to do this so that we would not measure God’s immensity by likeness. For Scripture had said that God the Father is powerful and that God the Son is wise; and a human being heard this, a human being who had seen a human father but had not seen God the Father. He began to think that the matter was in the Creator as he had seen it in creatures, from which these names had been transferred to the Creator: among creatures the father is prior to the son and the son posterior to the father; and from priority in the father defect is customarily signified, while from posteriority in the son imperfection of understanding is signified. Scripture therefore intervened by calling the Father powerful, lest he seem prior to the Son and therefore less powerful; and by calling the Son wise, lest he seem posterior to the Father and therefore less wise.

¹⁴ metiretur BVX.] ^{1516 17}

2. Why goodness is attributed to the Holy Spirit *. God the Spirit was also named, and God was said to have a spirit¹, and this seemed almost a name of inflation and swelling. Hence the human conscience feared to approach God as though he were severe and cruel. Scripture therefore tempered its speech by calling the Spirit good², lest he who was gentle be thought cruel. This is not because the Father alone is powerful or more powerful, the Son alone wise or more wise, or the Holy Spirit alone good or more good. The power, wisdom, and goodness of the three are therefore one, just as their essence is one; and so, just as the Son is called homoousios, that is, consubstantial with the Father, he is also called co-omnipotent.

Chapter 5 (149).

1. On the name homoousion, where it is established and what it signifies. Here it must not be passed over that Augustine says in Book II of Against Maximinus³ concerning the name ‘homoousion’, which Latin writers frequently use: «The Father and the Son are of one and the same substance. This is that ‘homoousion’ which at the Council of Nicaea was established by the authority of truth by the Catholic Fathers against the Arian heretics. Later, at the Council of Ariminum, because the novelty of the word was understood less fully than it could have been—although the ancient faith had produced it—heretical impiety, under the heretical emperor Constantius, tried to weaken it after many had been deceived by the fraud of a few. But after a short time, when the freedom of the Catholic faith prevailed and the force of the word was understood as it ought to be, that ‘homoousion’ was defended and spread far and wide in the soundness of the Catholic faith. For what is ‘homoousion’ except one and the same substance? What, I ask, is ‘homoousion’ except I and the Father are one⁴? Therefore this word must not be avoided among profane novelties of words⁵».

¹⁸ spiritus sanctus (sit add. PX) LMPVWX. bonitas] tribuatur add. VW. Spiritus] sanctus add. BCLNRVW. 13 benignitas] bonitas CNTV. 14 homousios] homousyon BCMVX. 17 firmatur] confirmatur BCX, in auctoritatem receptum est RTVW. 26 Constantio] Constantino LNOPRTVX, quod corr. VX.]

¹⁹

2. On names said of God metaphorically and by way of likeness. Moreover, it should be known that, in assigning the names, among the other matters we have carefully treated above, we said that certain things are said of God metaphorically and by way of likeness, such as mirror, splendor, character, figure, and the like. About these I briefly impart to the devout reader what I think: namely, that, once the likeness has been considered, he may derive an understanding of the things said from their grounds for being said, yet in a Catholic sense.

3. He says that he has not handed down anything worthy of the excellence of the ineffable Trinity, as he is about to pass to other matters. We have already said much about the mystery of the supreme and ineffable Unity and Trinity; yet we profess that we have handed down nothing worthy of its ineffability, but rather that its knowledge has been made wonderful through us, and that we have been unable to attain to it.