Letters 239.1–242.5

If you say that you told me your faith and I would not tell you mine, as I hear you keep saying, remember, I beg you, how false both are. For you did not wish to tell me your faith, and I was not unwilling to tell you mine; but I wished to tell it in such a way that no one could say that I had said something I did not say, or had not said what I did say. You would have told me your faith if you had said where you differ from us, if you had said: “I believe in God the Father, who made the Son the first creature before all other creatures, and in the Son himself, neither equal to the Father nor like him nor true God, and in the Holy Spirit made through the Son after the Son”; for I hear that you people say this. Or, if perhaps it is false that you say these things, that rather I do not wish to learn from you; but if it is true that you say them, I want to know how you defend them from the holy Scriptures. But now you said that you believe “in God the Father almighty, invisible, immortal, begotten by no one, and from whom are all things, and in his Son Jesus Christ, God born before the ages, through whom all things were made, and in the Holy Spirit.” This faith is not yours but both of ours, as it would be if you added that the Virgin Mary bore this same Son of God, Jesus Christ, which we believe alike, and whatever else we confess in common. If, then, you had wished to state your own faith, you would not have stated this one, which is common to us, but rather the one in which we differ from you.

I would say these things in person too, if our words were taken down as had been agreed. But since you refused this, saying you feared a false charge from us, and after lunch withdrew from the agreement you had consented to in the morning, why should I say anything that you could report I had said in whatever way you wished, while I would have nothing by which to show what I had said or how? Do not, then, boast any longer that you stated your faith and I did not state mine, for there are people who will consider that I rather had confidence in my faith, since I wished it to be written, and you did not, since you dreaded a so-called false charge. So you were ready to deny it, if it were put to you that you had said something against my faith. See, then, what you have made people think of you. But if you were not going to deny it when it was put to you, why did you not want what was said to be written, especially when you had so much wanted men of rank to be present at our conversation? Why, then, wishing to avoid a false charge, did you fear the stenographers' pen and not fear the testimony of the most distinguished men?

But if you want me too to state my faith in the way you say you stated yours, I can say even more briefly that I believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But if you want to hear something distinctive, where you differ from me, I believe in God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not calling the Son the Father nor the Father the Son, nor the Spirit of both either the Father or the Son; and yet the Father is God and the Son God and the Holy Spirit God, and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, alone eternal and immortal by his own substance, as God alone is eternal and immortal by that divinity which is before the ages. If this displeases you, and you would like to hear from me how it is asserted from the holy Scriptures, read also what I have sent to your kindness written at greater length. But if you have no leisure to read, neither have I leisure to toss words about in vain. Yet I can, as far as God gives me ability, whether you dictate or write, myself reply by dictating or writing to whatever you dislike. I, Augustine, have signed this writing of mine, dictated and reread by me.

I had hoped, dearest brother, that you would lay aside the opinion of your former error; now I am surprised that you still persist in it, as the letter you sent me proclaims. For Your Excellency is like a thirsty man burning with great heat who finds muddy water and gulps it down; afterwards, even if he finds and drinks clear cold water, it can do him little good, since his heart and soul have once been overwhelmed with mud. In short, if I may say so with your leave, Your Eminence's opinion is like a crooked and knotty tree that has nothing straight in it and distorts the eyesight. Your Holiness writes back to me: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but one God. Which one of the three is the one God? Or perhaps it is one three-formed person that is called by this name? If you had wished, and had confidence in your profession, you would sit down with me, with your fellow bishops, with a pure and peaceful mind and spirit, and confer about the things of God and those that pertain to spiritual glory and grace. What need is there, then, to write and write back what does not edify us?

Your letter could neither provoke me to return insults nor call me back from returning a letter. What you wrote would move me if it were said by the truth of God, not by the power of man. You called my opinion a crooked and knotty tree that has nothing straight in it and distorts the eyesight. What would you say of me if I had withdrawn from the agreement we made between us in the morning, and in a very easy matter that had rightly pleased us both had put crooked opposition and knots of difficulty? You would judge me not gulped full of muddy water but drowned in the drunkenness of bad faith, which is much worse, if I had not come back after lunch the same as I had gone away before lunch. But see, did you not write back what you wished, and did you fear no false charge? So you can do the rest too, so that there is something that we or others can consider and judge. As for your saying that I believe in a three-formed person of God, if you had deigned to read what else I sent at somewhat greater length and had been willing to answer what is written there, perhaps you would not say this. But still, look: this very thing, that I speak of a three-formed person of God, you have both dictated and sent in writing, and feared no false charge. See, you have shown that what I say is true: that you refused to dictate your words, as had been agreed when we were together, not because you feared a false charge but because you lacked confidence in the truth. And now, since it has pleased you to dictate whether I believe in a three-formed person of God, I answer that I do not believe so; for there is one form, because there is, so to speak, one deity, and therefore the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God.

But please deign to answer briefly how you understand what the apostle says: “He who joins himself to a harlot is one body; but he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit.” For he called bodies of different sexes joined to each other one body; and although the human spirit could in no way say, “I and the Lord are one,” yet when it joins itself to the Lord it is one spirit. How much more is he who said most truly, “I and the Father are one,” because he is inseparably joined to the Father, one God with the Father, if indeed even this word “joined” is admissible in that divinity, which never has been nor could be separated by any distance! Answer this: whether you would have the spirit called two-formed when he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit. If you would not, neither did I call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit a three-formed God, but one God. But if you want us to confer in person, I am grateful for your courtesy and goodwill; but as you have already deigned to write me back something else you wished, so deign to write back that we will dictate what we are going to say, and I will not fail your wish, as far as the Lord helps me. For if you say, “writing and writing back does not edify us,” how do you say it edifies us when, after the din of words, we find nothing to review by reading? I, Augustine, dictated this and, having reread it, signed it. Let us refrain from insults, so as not to spend time in vain, and let us rather attend to what is at issue between us.

Which of us errs in faith or in knowledge of the Trinity is another question. I am indeed grateful that, though I am unknown to you by face, you tried to call me back from error because you believed I was erring. May God repay you for this goodwill and make you know what you think you know; for it is, I think, an arduous matter. And I beg you not to take it as any insult that I have wished you the gift of so great a knowledge. For I fear lest the prejudgment of a supposed knowledge drive from your ears, if not true precepts, which I would by no means presume to offer you, at least our good wishes, which even I, unlearned, may have for you (for they are to be shown not skillfully but in friendship), and lest you be angry with me for not congratulating you already as a wise man rather than thank me for praying that you may have wisdom. Yet if I, carrying the burden of the name of bishop, most gladly embrace your goodwill in deigning, as you write, to send me even across the sea to the most learned men Bonosus and Jason, to bring back rich fruits from their discussions, and in finally taking care with anxious kindness to have brought to me a little book worked out with the talent and strength of one of your bishops to wipe away all the fog of error, how much fairer it is that you take in good spirit my wish that the Lord God may grant you what can be given by no human help or strength! For the apostle says: “We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things given us by God; which we also speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.”

I would rather, then, if it were possible, inquire with you how far one is to be called the natural man, so that, if we have already passed beyond him, we may perhaps rightly rejoice that we have in some measure reached those things that abide unchangeably above the human mind and understanding. For we must take care that it does not seem foolish to us, when we hear that the Son is equal to the Father, because we are still living as the natural man, of whom it was said that the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to him. Although that majesty, exalted above all things, may be thought of by the spiritual but uttered by no one, yet it is easy to see, I think, that he was not made, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. For if he was made through himself, he existed before he was made, so that he could be made through himself, which is certainly the more absurd to say the emptier it is to think. But if he was not made through himself, he was not made at all, since whatever was made was made through him; for all things were made through him and without him nothing was made.

I am surprised that so little attention is paid to what the evangelist wished to state so expressly that he allowed no one to ignore it; for it was not enough to say, “All things were made through him,” unless he added, “and without him nothing was made.” And I, though slow and still bearing a wounded eye of the mind, its fog not yet wiped away, for gazing on the incomparable and ineffable excellence of the Father and the Son, nevertheless grasp this with complete ease: that it was sown beforehand for us in the Gospel, not so that we might comprehend that divinity from it, but so that we might be warned by it not to boast of a rash comprehension. For if all things were made through him, whatever was not made through him was not made. But he was not made through himself; therefore he was not made. And we are compelled by the evangelist to believe that all things were made through him; by the same evangelist, therefore, we are compelled not to believe that he was made. Again, if without him nothing was made, then he himself is nothing, because he was made without himself. But if it is sacrilege to think this, it remains that we confess either that he was not made without himself or that he was not made. But we cannot say that he was not made without himself. For if he made himself, he already existed before he was made; and if he gave help to another, by whom he was made, in making himself, nonetheless, for him to be made with his own help, he already existed before he was made. So it remains that he was made without himself. But whatever was made without him is nothing. Therefore he is either nothing or not made; but he is not nothing; therefore he was not made. But if he was not made, and yet is the Son, without doubt he was born.

“How,” you say, “could a Son equal to him be born of the Father alone, of whom he was born?” This I cannot declare, and I yield to the prophet who says, “Who shall declare his generation?” But if you think this should be taken of the human generation by which he was born of the Virgin, examine yourself and ask your soul whether, if it fails in the human generation, it dares to declare the divine. “Do not, then,” you say, “call him equal.” Why should I not say what the apostle said? “He did not think it robbery,” he says, “to be equal to God.” For although he did not explain that equality to the human mind not yet purified, he put it in a word, so that the purified mind could find it in reality. Let us therefore give our effort to cleansing our hearts, so that from there may arise the sight by which we can see these things; for “blessed are the pure in heart,” he says, “for they shall see God.” So, going beyond the foggy images of the natural man, we shall come to that serenity and clarity in which we can see what we see cannot be said.

As for the little book you deigned to send, if I had leisure and the opportunity were given me to answer it point by point, I think you would learn that each man is clothed with the light of truth the less, the more he thinks he is setting forth the naked truth. For who could bear it (to pass over other things and mention only this for now, which made me groan most) that, when the apostle Paul says, “We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face,” these people now say that, every covering removed, they set forth the naked truth? If they said, “We see the naked truth,” nothing would be blinder than that arrogance of vision; but they did not say “we see” but “we set forth,” so that truth seems not only to lie open to the gaze of the mind but also to be subject to the power of the tongue. There are many things said about the ineffability of the Trinity, not so that it may be said (otherwise it is not ineffable), but so that by those sayings it may be understood that it cannot be said. But my letter has now, I think, exceeded the limit, since you warned me in yours to write briefly. But since you deigned to excuse yourself by the practice of the ancients, I will not seem absurd to you if you will not mind recalling the length of certain letters of Cicero, since you mentioned him too in your letter.