On the Trinity 2.8–2.15

Let us set aside, then, those who have thought, in too carnal a way, that the nature of the Word of God and the Wisdom, which, "remaining in itself, renews all things," whom we call the only Son of God, is not only changeable but even visible. For they have brought a very gross heart to the inquiry into divine things, with more boldness than reverence. For the soul, since it is a spiritual substance, and since it too was made, and could not have been made through any other than him through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made, although it is changeable, is still not visible; yet this is what they have believed of the Word himself and the very Wisdom of God, through whom the soul was made, although it is not only invisible, as the soul also is, but also unchangeable, which the soul is not. For that same unchangeableness of Wisdom was recalled when it was said, "Remaining in itself, it renews all things." And these people, trying to prop up the ruin of their error, as it were, with testimonies of the divine Scriptures, bring in a saying of the apostle Paul, and take what is said of the one only God, in whom the Trinity itself is understood, to be said only of the Father, not also of the Son and the Holy Spirit: "Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever"; and that other one, "The blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or can see." How these are to be understood I think we have already discussed sufficiently.

But those who want these texts to be taken not of the Son nor of the Holy Spirit but only of the Father say that the Son was visible not only through the flesh taken from the Virgin but also before that, through himself. "For he himself," they say, "appeared to the eyes of the fathers." If you say to them, "Then, as the Son is visible through himself, so let him also be mortal through himself, so that you may establish that 'who alone has immortality' is to be understood only of the Father, as you wish; for if the Son is mortal on account of the flesh he took, allow him on account of it also to be visible," they answer that it is not on account of the flesh that they call the Son mortal, but that, as he was visible before, so he was also mortal before. For if they say that the Son is mortal on account of the flesh, then the Father without the Son does not alone have immortality, since his Word too, through whom all things were made, has immortality. For he did not lose his immortality because he took mortal flesh, since not even the human soul could suffer this, to die with the body, as the Lord himself says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." Or else the Holy Spirit too took flesh; about whom they will certainly be troubled, if the Son is mortal on account of the flesh, as to how they are to accept that the Father alone, without the Son and without the Holy Spirit, has immortality, since the Holy Spirit did not take flesh. If he does not have immortality, then the Son is not mortal on account of the flesh; but if the Holy Spirit has immortality, then "who alone has immortality" is not said of the Father only. Hence they think they can prove that the Son was mortal through himself even before the incarnation, because changeableness itself is not unfittingly called mortality, according to which the soul too is said to die: not because it is changed and turned into a body or into some other substance, but whatever in its own substance is now otherwise than it was is found to be mortal in that it has ceased to be what it was. "Because, then," they say, "before the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary he appeared to our fathers, not in one and the same appearance but in many forms, now in one way and now in another, he is both visible through himself, since, before he took flesh, his substance was perceptible to mortal eyes, and mortal, insofar as he is changeable; and so too the Holy Spirit, who appeared at one time as a dove, at another as fire. Hence," they say, "it is not the Trinity, but singly and properly the Father alone, to whom what is said is fitting: 'to the immortal, invisible, only God,' and 'who alone has immortality and dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or can see.'" Setting these people aside, then, who have not been able to know even that the substance of the soul is invisible, so that it was far from them to know that the substance of the one and only God, that is, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, remains not only invisible but also unchangeable, and therefore abides in true and genuine immortality, let us, who say that God, neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit, never appeared to bodily eyes except through a bodily creature subject to his power, inquire in catholic peace and with peaceable zeal, ready to be corrected if we are rebuked in a brotherly and right way, ready even if we are bitten by an enemy who nonetheless speaks the truth, whether God appeared to our fathers before Christ came in the flesh without distinction of persons, or some person of the Trinity, or the persons one by one, as it were in turn.

And first, as regards what is written in Genesis, that God spoke with the man whom he had formed from clay: if we treat these things, setting aside the figurative meaning, so as to hold faith in the event even according to the letter, God seems to have spoken then with the man in the appearance of a man. This is not indeed stated expressly in the book, but the context of the reading suggests it, above all where it is written that Adam heard the voice of God walking in paradise in the evening and hid himself in the midst of the trees that were in paradise, and when God said, "Adam, where are you?" answered, "I heard your voice, and I hid myself from your face, because I am naked." For I do not see how such a walking and conversation of God can be understood according to the letter except in human appearance. For it cannot be said that only a voice was made where God is said to have walked, or that he who was walking in a place was not visible, since Adam too says that he hid himself from the face of God. Who, then, was he? The Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Or was it altogether God without distinction, the Trinity itself, speaking to the man in the form of a man? The connection of the Scripture itself is nowhere felt to pass from person to person; but he seems to speak to the first man who said, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament," and the rest through each of those days; and we usually take him to be God the Father, saying that whatever he wished to make should be made. For he made all things through his Word, and we know, according to the right rule of faith, that his Word is his only Son. If, then, God the Father spoke to the first man, and he himself was walking in paradise in the evening, and it was from his face that the sinner hid himself in the midst of the trees of paradise, why should he not be understood also to have appeared to Abraham and Moses, and to whom he wished and as he wished, through a changeable and visible creature subject to him, while he himself remains, in himself and in his substance, by which he is unchangeable and invisible? But it could be that the Scripture passed secretly from person to person, and that after relating that the Father said, "Let there be light," and the other things that he is recorded to have made through the Word, it was now indicating that the Son was speaking to the first man, not explaining this openly but intimating it to be understood by those who could. Whoever, then, has the strength to penetrate this secret with the eye of the mind, so that it appears clearly to him either that the Father too can appear to human eyes through a visible creature, or that only the Son and the Holy Spirit can, let him proceed to search into these things, and if he can, to express them in words and treat them. Yet the matter, as far as this testimony of Scripture where God spoke with man is concerned, is, I think, hidden; for it does not evidently appear even whether Adam was accustomed to see God with bodily eyes, especially since it is a great question what kind of eyes were opened to them when they tasted the forbidden food; for before they tasted, these were closed. Yet I would not rashly say that, if that Scripture implies that paradise was a certain bodily place, God could in no way have walked there except in some bodily form. For it can be said that only voices were made, which the man heard without seeing any form; nor, because it is written, "Adam hid himself from the face of God," does it follow at once that he was accustomed to see his face. For what if he himself could not indeed see, but feared to be seen by him whose voice he had heard and whose presence, as he walked, he had felt? For Cain too said to God, "I will hide myself from your face," and we are not therefore compelled to admit that he was accustomed to behold the face of God with bodily eyes in some visible form, though he had heard the voice questioning him about his crime and speaking with him. But what kind of speech God then sounded in the outward ears of men, especially when speaking to the first man, is both hard to find and not what we have undertaken in this discussion. Yet if only voices and sounds were made, by which a certain perceptible presence of God was given to those first human beings, I do not know why I should not understand there the person of God the Father, since his person is shown both in that voice when Jesus appeared shining on the mountain before three disciples, and in that one when the dove descended on him after his baptism, and in that one where he cried to the Father about his glorification and was answered, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." Not that the voice could be made without the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit (for the Trinity works inseparably), but that the voice was made which would show the person of the Father alone; just as the Trinity worked that human form from the Virgin Mary, yet it is the person of the Son alone; for the invisible Trinity worked the visible person of the Son alone. Nor does anything prevent us from understanding those voices made to Adam as not only made by the Trinity but also as showing the person of that same Trinity. For there we are compelled to take it as the Father's alone where it is said, "This is my beloved Son." For Jesus cannot be believed or understood to be the son of the Holy Spirit too, or his own son. And where it sounded, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again," we confess only the person of the Father. For it is an answer to that saying of the Lord in which he had said, "Father, glorify your Son," which he could say only to God the Father, not also to the Holy Spirit, whose son he was not. But here, where it is written, "And the Lord God said to Adam," nothing can be said why the Trinity itself should not be understood. Likewise also what is written, "And the Lord said to Abraham: Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house": it is not plain whether only a voice was made to the ears of Abraham or something also appeared to his eyes. A little later, however, it is said somewhat more openly, "And the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him: To your seed I will give this land." But neither there is it stated in what appearance the Lord appeared to him, or whether it was the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit who appeared to him. Unless perhaps they think it was the Son who appeared to Abraham because it is not written, "God appeared to him," but "the Lord appeared to him." For the Son seems to be called Lord in a proper sense, as the Apostle says, "For although there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him." But since God the Father too is found called Lord in many places, as in this, "The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you," and in this, "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand"; and since the Holy Spirit too is found called Lord, where the Apostle says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit" (and lest anyone should think that the Son was meant, and called spirit on account of his incorporeal substance, he went on to add, "And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," and no one will doubt that the Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit), neither here, then, does it evidently appear whether it was some person of the Trinity or God himself, the Trinity, of whom as one God it is said, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," who appeared to Abraham. But under the oak of Mamre he saw three men, whom he invited, received as guests, and served as they ate. Yet Scripture began to narrate that event in such a way as not to say, "Three men appeared to him," but "The Lord appeared to him." And then, explaining in consequence how the Lord appeared to him, it adds the narrative of the three men, whom Abraham invites in the plural to receive them as guests, and afterward addresses in the singular as one; and as one he promises him a son by Sarah, the one whom Scripture calls Lord, as at the beginning of the same narrative: "The Lord appeared," it says, "to Abraham." So he invites them, washes their feet, and escorts them as they leave, as men; but he speaks as with the Lord God, whether when a son is promised to him or when the impending destruction of Sodom is made known to him.

This passage of Scripture demands no small or passing consideration. For if one man had appeared, then those who say that the Son was visible through his own substance even before he was born of the Virgin would cry out that it was he and no other. "For of the Father," they say, "it is said, 'to the invisible, only God.'" And yet I could still ask how, before he took flesh, he was "found in fashion as a man," since his feet were washed and he ate a human meal. How could this happen while he was still in the form of God, not thinking it robbery to be equal to God? For had he already emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man, when we know when he did this, namely by the Virgin's childbearing? How, then, before he had done this, did he appear to Abraham as one man? Or was that form not real? I could ask these things if one man had appeared to Abraham and he were believed to be the Son of God. But since three men were seen, and none of them is said to be greater than the others in form, or age, or power, why should we not take it that here the equality of the Trinity was visibly intimated through a visible creature, and in three persons one and the same substance? For lest anyone should think that one of the three was intimated in this way to be greater, and that he was to be understood as the Lord, the Son of God, and the other two as his angels, because, though three were seen, Abraham there speaks to one Lord, holy Scripture did not fail to meet such future thoughts and opinions by contradicting them, when a little later it says that two angels came to Lot, in whom that righteous man too, who deserved to be delivered from the burning of Sodom, speaks to one Lord. For so the Scripture goes on, saying: "And the Lord went away when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place."

Here we must consider more attentively what I have set out to show. Abraham was certainly speaking with three, and he called him Lord in the singular. Someone may say: "He recognized one of the three as Lord, and the other two as his angels." What, then, does the Scripture mean when it goes on to say, "And the Lord went away when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place; and the two angels came to Sodom in the evening"? Had that one, perhaps, who was recognized as Lord among the three, gone away, and sent the two angels who were with him to destroy Sodom? Let us look, then, at what follows. "The two angels," it says, "came to Sodom in the evening. And Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. And when Lot saw them, he rose up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground and said: Behold, my lords, turn aside into your servant's house." Here it is plain both that there were two angels, and that they were invited as guests in the plural, and that they were honorably called lords, when perhaps they were thought to be men. But again it is puzzling: for unless they were recognized as angels of God, Lot would not bow down with his face to the ground. Why, then, are both lodging and food offered to them as to those in need of such human kindness? But whatever lies hidden here, let us now pursue what we have undertaken. Two appear; both are called angels; they are invited in the plural; he speaks with them as with two, in the plural, until they leave Sodom. Then the Scripture goes on and says: "And it came to pass, when they had brought them out, that they said: Save your life; do not look back, and do not stop in all this region; go to the mountain, and there you will be saved, lest you be overtaken. And Lot said to them: I pray, Lord, since your servant has found mercy before you," and so on. What is this, that he said to them, "I pray, Lord," if he who was the Lord had already departed and sent the angels? Why is it said, "I pray, Lord," and not "I pray, lords"? Or if he wished to address one of them, why does the Scripture say, "And Lot said to them: I pray, Lord, since your servant has found mercy before you"? Do we here too understand two persons in the plural number, but, when the same two are addressed as one, one Lord God of one substance? But what two persons do we understand here? The Father and the Son, or the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Son and the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the last I mentioned is more fitting. For they said that they had been sent, which we say of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For nowhere in the Scriptures do we come across the Father as sent.

But when Moses was sent to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, it is written that the Lord appeared to him thus: "He was feeding the sheep of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he drove the sheep into the desert and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the bush. And he saw that fire was burning in the bush, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses said: I will go and see this sight, which I have seen so great, that the bush is not consumed. So when the Lord saw that he came to see, the Lord called him out of the bush, saying: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Here too he is first called the angel of the Lord, then God. Is an angel, then, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? It can rightly be understood, then, as the Savior himself, of whom the Apostle says: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever." He, then, who is God over all, blessed for ever, is not absurdly understood here too to be the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But why was he first called the angel of the Lord, when he appeared out of the bush in a flame of fire? Was it because he was one of many angels, but by a dispensation bore the person of his Lord? Or had something of the creature been taken up that would appear visibly for the business at hand, and from which voices might be uttered perceptibly, by which the presence of the Lord might be shown, through a subject creature, even to the bodily senses of man, as was fitting? For if he was one of the angels, who could easily affirm whether the person of the Son was laid on him to announce, or of the Holy Spirit, or of God the Father, or of the Trinity itself altogether, which is the one and only God, so that he should say, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? For we cannot say that the Son of God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and that the Father is not; nor will anyone dare to deny that the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, which we believe and understand to be one God, is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he who is not God is not the God of those fathers. Moreover, if not only the Father is God, as even all the heretics grant, but also the Son, which, whether they like it or not, they are compelled to confess, since the Apostle says, "who is God over all, blessed for ever," and also the Holy Spirit, since the same Apostle says, "Glorify God, therefore, in your body," having said above, "Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?"; and these three are one God, as catholic soundness believes: then it is not clear enough which person in the Trinity that angel bore, and whether he bore some one person or the Trinity itself, if he was one of the rest of the angels. But if a creature was taken up for the use of the matter at hand, which might both appear to human eyes and sound in human ears, and be called the angel of the Lord, and Lord, and God, then God cannot here be understood as the Father, but either the Son or the Holy Spirit. Although I do not recall that the Holy Spirit is anywhere called an angel, yet it could be understood from his work; for it is said of him, "He will announce to you the things that are to come"; and "angel" in Greek is certainly rendered in Latin as "messenger." But of the Lord Jesus Christ we read most plainly in the prophet that he is called "the Angel of great counsel"; while both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God are God and Lord of the angels.

Again, at the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt it is written: "And God went before them, by day in a pillar of cloud, and showed them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire; and the pillar of cloud did not fail by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people." Who would doubt here too that God appeared to the eyes of mortals through a subject creature, and that a bodily one, not through his own substance? But whether it was the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself, the one God, likewise does not appear. Nor is this distinguished there, I think, where it is written: "And the majesty of the Lord appeared in the cloud, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel," and so on.

And now as to the clouds, and voices, and lightnings, and trumpet, and smoke on Mount Sinai, when it was said: "And Mount Sinai was all smoking, because God had descended upon it in fire, and the smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and all the people were greatly confounded in mind; and the voices of the trumpet went forth very loudly; Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice." And a little later, after the giving of the Law in ten commandments, it is said in consequence: "And all the people saw the voices, and the torches, and the voices of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking." And a little later: "And all the people," it says, "stood afar off; but Moses went into the dark cloud where God was, and the Lord said to Moses," and so on. What shall I say of this, except that no one is so senseless as to believe that the smoke, the fire, the clouds, and the dark cloud, and anything of this kind, are the substance of the Word and Wisdom of God, which is Christ, or of the Holy Spirit? For of God the Father not even the Arians ever dared to say this. All those things, then, were made by the creature serving the Creator, and presented to the human senses according to a fitting dispensation. Unless perhaps, because it is said, "But Moses went into the dark cloud where God was," carnal thinking will suppose that the dark cloud was seen by the people, but that within the dark cloud Moses saw with the eyes of the flesh the Son of God, whom raving heretics want to have been seen in his own substance. Let Moses indeed have seen him with eyes of flesh, if not only the Wisdom of God, which is Christ, but even the wisdom of any man, of any kind of wise man at all, can be seen with eyes of flesh! Or, because it is written of the elders of Israel that they saw the place where the God of Israel had stood, and that under his feet was as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the appearance of the firmament of heaven, are we therefore to believe that the Word and Wisdom of God, which reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly, stood by its own substance in a space of earthly place; and that the Word of God, through whom all things were made, is so changeable that it now contracts itself and now stretches itself out? (May the Lord cleanse the hearts of his faithful from such thoughts!) But through a subject creature, as we have often said, all these visible and perceptible things are shown, to signify the invisible and intelligible God, not only the Father but also the Son and the Holy Spirit, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things; although "the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and divinity." But as regards what we have now undertaken, I do not see, even on Mount Sinai, how it appears through all those things that were shown terrifyingly to the senses of mortals whether it was God the Trinity, or the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit who properly spoke. Yet if it is allowed to conjecture something from this modestly and hesitantly, without rashness of assertion, if one person of the Trinity can be understood, why should we not rather understand the Holy Spirit, since the Law itself which was given there is said to have been written on tablets of stone with the finger of God, by which name we know that the Holy Spirit is signified in the Gospel? And fifty days are counted from the slaying of the lamb and the celebration of the Passover until the day on which these things began to happen on Mount Sinai; just as after the Lord's passion fifty days are counted from his resurrection, and the Holy Spirit came, promised by the Son of God. And at his very coming, which we read of in the Acts of the Apostles, fire appeared in the dividing of tongues, which also rested on each one of them; which agrees with Exodus, where it is written, "And Mount Sinai was all smoking, because God descended upon it in fire," and somewhat later, "The appearance of the majesty of the Lord," it says, "was like burning fire on the top of the mountain before the children of Israel." Or if these things were done because neither the Father nor the Son could be presented there in the manner in which the Law itself was to be written without the Holy Spirit, then we know that God appeared there, not through his substance, which remains invisible and unchangeable, but through that appearance of the creature; but, as far as the capacity of my understanding goes, we do not see some person of the Trinity marked by any proper sign.