On the Trinity 3.10–4.0

but leaving these aside, as I had begun to say, there are those other things which, though made of the same bodily matter, are nevertheless brought before our senses by divine agency to announce something, and these are properly called miracles and signs; and not in everything that is announced to us by the Lord God is the person of God himself taken on. But when it is taken on, it is sometimes shown in an angel, sometimes in an appearance that is not what an angel is, though it is arranged and supplied through an angel. Again, when it is taken on in an appearance that is not what an angel is, sometimes the body itself already existed, and is taken up into some change to show this; sometimes it comes into being for this purpose, and when the thing is done it is taken away again. So also when men announce, sometimes they speak the words of God in their own person, as when it is prefaced, "The Lord said," or "Thus says the Lord," or something of the kind; but sometimes, prefacing nothing of the kind, they take on the very person of God, as in "I will give you understanding, and I will set you in the way in which you shall go." So not only in words but also in deeds the person of God is laid upon a prophet to be signified, so that he bears it in the ministry of prophecy; as he bore his person who divided his garment into twelve parts and gave ten of them to the servant of King Solomon, the future king of Israel. Sometimes also a thing that was not what the prophet was, and already existed among earthly things, was taken up into a signification of this kind, as Jacob, waking after seeing a dream, did with the stone which he had at his head as he slept. Sometimes the same appearance is made for this purpose, either to remain for a while, as that bronze serpent lifted up in the desert could, and as letters can; or to pass away when its ministry is done, as the bread made for this purpose is consumed in receiving the sacrament. But because these things are known to men, since they are done by men, they can receive honor as religious things, but cannot cause amazement as wonderful ones. And so those things that are done by angels are the more wonderful to us the more difficult and unknown they are; but to them they are known and easy, as their own actions. An angel speaks to a man in the person of God, saying, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," after the Scripture had said beforehand, "The angel of the Lord appeared to him"; and a man too speaks in the person of the Lord, saying, "Hear, my people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I will testify to you: I am God, your God." A rod was taken up for a signification and was changed into a serpent by angelic power; and though man lacks that power, a stone was nevertheless taken up by a man too for some such signification. Between the deed of an angel and the deed of a man there is a very great difference: the former is both to be wondered at and to be understood, the latter only to be understood. What is understood from both is perhaps one; but the things from which it is understood are different: as if the name of the Lord were written both in gold and in ink, the former is more precious, the latter cheaper, yet what is signified in both is the same. And although the serpent from Moses' rod signified the same as Jacob's stone, yet Jacob's stone signified something better than the serpents of the magicians. For as the anointing of the stone signified Christ in the flesh, in which he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, so the rod of Moses turned into a serpent signified Christ himself made obedient unto the death of the cross. Hence he says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life"; just as those who looked at that serpent lifted up in the desert did not perish from the bites of the serpents. For "our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away." For by the serpent is understood death, which was brought about by the serpent in paradise, by a manner of speaking that shows the effect by the cause. So the rod into a serpent, Christ into death; and the serpent back into a rod, Christ into the resurrection, whole with his body, which is the Church; which will be at the end of time, signified by the serpent's tail, which Moses held so that it would return into a rod. But the serpents of the magicians, like the dead of this world, unless, believing in Christ, they enter into his body as if devoured, will not be able to rise again in him. Jacob's stone, then, as I said, signified something better than the serpents of the magicians; but the deed of the magicians was much more wonderful. Yet these things do not prejudge the things to be understood, just as if the name of a man were written in gold and that of God in ink. How the angels made or took up those clouds and fires to signify what they were announcing, even if the Lord or the Holy Spirit was shown in those bodily forms, what man can know? Just as infants do not know what is placed on the altar and consumed when the celebration of devotion is completed, from what or how it is made, or from where it is taken up for religious use. And if they never learned by their own experience or that of others, and never saw that appearance of things except during the celebrations of the sacraments, when it is offered and given, and they were told by the weightiest authority whose body and blood it is, they would believe nothing else than that the Lord had appeared to the eyes of mortals altogether in that appearance, and that that liquid had flowed altogether from a side so pierced. But it is altogether useful for me to remember my own powers, and to admonish my brothers that they too remember theirs, lest human weakness go further than is safe. For how the angels do these things, or rather how God does these things through his angels, and how much he wishes them to be done even through evil angels, whether by allowing, or commanding, or compelling, from the hidden seat of his most high sovereignty, I can neither penetrate by the sharpness of the eyes, nor unravel by confidence in reason, nor grasp by the progress of the mind, so as to speak about everything that can be asked on these matters as certainly as if I were an angel, or a prophet, or an apostle. "For the thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresight uncertain. For the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things. And we hardly guess the things that are on earth, and find with labor the things that are before us; but the things that are in heaven, who will search out?" But because it goes on to say, "But who will know your mind, unless you give wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from on high?", we do not indeed search out the things that are in heaven, in which kind of things both the angelic bodies, according to their proper dignity, and a certain bodily action of theirs are contained; yet according to the Spirit of God sent to us from on high, and his grace imparted to our minds, I dare to say confidently that neither God the Father, nor his Word, nor his Spirit, which is one God, is in any way changeable in that which he is, and which is the selfsame; and therefore much less is he visible. For there are some things which, though changeable, are not visible, such as our thoughts, memories, and wills, and every incorporeal creature; but there is nothing visible that is not changeable.

Therefore the substance, or, if it is better so called, the essence of God, in which, in our small measure, from however tiny a part, we understand the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, since it is in no way changeable, can in no way be visible in itself. Accordingly it is plain that all those things that were seen by the fathers, when God was presented to them according to his dispensation, suited to the times, were made through a creature. And though it is hidden from us how he did them with angels as his ministers, yet we say that they were done through angels, not from our own understanding, lest we seem to anyone to be wise beyond what is fitting; but we are wise unto sobriety, as God has apportioned to us the measure of faith, and we believe, and therefore we also speak. For there stands the authority of the divine Scriptures, from which our mind ought not to stray, nor, leaving the firm ground of the divine word, be hurled down the precipices of its own suspicions, where neither bodily sense guides nor the clear reason of truth shines. For it is written most plainly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when the dispensation of the New Testament was being distinguished from the dispensation of the Old Testament according to what befitted the ages and times, that not only those visible things but also the word itself was made through angels. For it says thus: "But to which of the angels did he ever say, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet'? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to minister for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?" From this it shows that all those things were done not only through angels but also for our sake, that is, for the sake of the people of God, to whom the inheritance of eternal life is promised. As it is also written to the Corinthians: "All these things happened to them in figure; and they were written for our correction, upon whom the end of the ages has come." Then, showing in consequence and openly that the word was spoken then through angels but now through the Son, he says: "Therefore we must give more abundant heed to what we have heard, lest perhaps we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels was made firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" And as if you were asking what salvation, to show that he was now speaking of the New Testament, that is, of the word spoken not through angels but through the Lord, he says: "Which, having first begun to be declared through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him, God bearing witness with signs and wonders and various mighty works and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will." But someone says: "Why, then, is it written, 'The Lord said to Moses,' and not rather, 'The angel said to Moses'?" Because when a herald pronounces the words of a judge, it is not written in the records, "The herald said," but "The judge said." So too when a holy prophet speaks, even if we say, "The prophet said," we wish nothing else to be understood than that the Lord said it. And if we say, "The Lord said," we do not remove the prophet, but point out who said it through him. And that Scripture indeed often discloses that it is an angel who is the Lord, at whose speaking it is repeatedly said, "The Lord said," as we have already shown. But because of those who, when Scripture names an angel there, want the Son of God himself to be understood in his own person, because he was called an angel by the prophet on account of announcing the will of the Father and his own, I wished to give a plainer testimony from this epistle, where it is not said "through an angel" but "through angels." For Stephen too, in the Acts of the Apostles, narrates these things in the same way in which they were written in the old books: "Brothers and fathers, hear," he says: "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia." But lest anyone should think that the God of glory then appeared to the eyes of any mortal by that which he is in himself, he says in what follows that an angel appeared to Moses. "Moses fled," he says, "at this word, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he begot two sons. And when forty years were completed there, there appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. And Moses, seeing it, wondered at the sight. And as he drew near to look, the voice of the Lord came, saying: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. And the Lord said to him: Loose the shoes from your feet," and so on. Here he certainly speaks of both an angel and the Lord, and the same as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, as it is written in Genesis. Will anyone perhaps say that the Lord appeared to Moses through an angel, but to Abraham through himself? Let us not ask this of Stephen; let us question the very book from which Stephen related these things. For because it is written, "And the Lord God said to Abraham," and a little later, "And the Lord God appeared to Abraham," were these things therefore not done through angels? Since in another place it likewise says, "And God appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at noon," and yet it adds in consequence, "And lifting up his eyes he looked, and behold, three men were standing over him," of whom we have already spoken. For how will those who either refuse to rise from the words to understanding, or easily hurl themselves from understanding into the words, how will they be able to explain that God was seen in three men, unless they admit that they were angels, as what follows also teaches? Or, because it is not said, "An angel spoke to him," or "appeared," will they therefore dare to say that to Moses that vision and voice came through an angel, because it is so written, but that to Abraham, because no mention of an angel is made, God appeared and spoke through his own substance? What of the fact that even with Abraham there is no silence about an angel? For thus it reads, when his son was commanded to be sacrificed: "And it came to pass after these words that God tested Abraham and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he said: Here I am. And he said to him: Take your beloved son, whom you love, Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you." Certainly here God, not an angel, is mentioned. But a little later the Scripture runs thus: "And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the sword to kill his son. And the angel of the Lord called him from heaven and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he said: Here I am. And he said: Do not lay your hand on the boy, nor do anything to him." What is the answer to this? Will they say that God commanded Isaac to be killed and the angel forbade it; and further, that the father himself, against the command of God, who had commanded him to kill, obeyed the angel so as to spare? This interpretation is to be laughed at and thrown out. But the Scripture does not allow even so gross and abject a view any place, at once adding: "For now I know that you fear God, and have not spared your beloved son for my sake." What is "for my sake," except for the sake of him who had commanded him to be killed? Is, then, the God of Abraham the same as the angel, or rather is it God through an angel? Take what follows. Certainly here the angel is now expressed most plainly; yet see what is joined to it: "Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, a ram was caught by its horns in a sabech tree; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of Isaac his son. And Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord saw, so that they say today that on the mountain the Lord was seen." Just as a little before, what God said through the angel, "For now I know that you fear God," is not to be understood as though God then came to know, but that he brought it about that through God Abraham himself might know how much strength of heart he had to obey God even to the sacrifice of his only son, by that manner of speaking by which the effect is signified by the cause, as cold is called sluggish because it makes people sluggish: so that he was said to have known for this reason, that he had made Abraham himself know, from whom the firmness of his faith could have been hidden had it not been proved by such a test. So here too Abraham called the name of that place "The Lord saw," that is, made himself seen. For he at once goes on to say, "so that they say today that on the mountain the Lord was seen." See, the same angel is called the Lord: why, except because the Lord spoke through the angel? And now in what follows the angel speaks altogether prophetically, and plainly discloses that God speaks through the angel. "And the angel of the Lord," it says, "called Abraham a second time from heaven, saying: By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your beloved son for my sake," and so on. Certainly the prophets too usually have these words, so that he through whom the Lord speaks says, "Thus says the Lord." Or does the Son of God say of the Father, "says the Lord," and is he himself that Angel of the Father? What then? Do they not see, as to those three men who appeared to Abraham after it had been said beforehand, "The Lord appeared to him," how hard they are pressed? Or, because they are called men, were they not angels? Let them read Daniel saying, "Behold, the man Gabriel." But why do we delay any longer to stop their mouths with another most evident and weighty proof, where it is said not "an angel" in the singular, nor "men" in the plural, but plainly "angels," through whom not just any word was spoken, but the Law itself is most plainly shown to have been given; which certainly none of the faithful doubts that God gave to Moses to bring the people of Israel under its yoke, but which was nonetheless given through angels? Stephen speaks thus: "Stiff-necked," he says, "and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become, who received the law by the ordinances of angels and did not keep it." What is plainer than this? What stronger, with such authority? The law was indeed given to that people by the ordinances of angels; but through it the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was being arranged and foretold; and he himself, as the Word of God, was in a wonderful and ineffable way in the angels by whose ordinances the law itself was given. Hence he says in the Gospel, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me." Through angels, then, the Lord was then speaking; through angels the Son of God, the future mediator between God and men from the seed of Abraham, was arranging his own coming, so that he might find those by whom he would be received, confessing themselves guilty, whom the law unfulfilled had made transgressors. Hence the Apostle too says to the Galatians: "Why then the law? It was set down for the sake of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels in the hand of a Mediator"; that is, ordained through angels in his own hand. For he was not born by necessity of condition but by power. And that he calls not one of the angels mediator, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, insofar as he deigned to become this, you have in another place: "One God," he says, "and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Hence that Passover in the slaying of the lamb; hence all those things that are figured of Christ, who was to come in the flesh and to suffer, and also to rise again, in the law that was given by the ordinances of angels; in which angels were certainly both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit, sometimes God without any distinction of person, was figured through them, appearing indeed in visible and perceptible forms, yet through his creature, not through his substance, for the seeing of which hearts are cleansed through all these things that are seen by the eyes and heard by the ears. But now enough, I think, has been argued and shown, according to our capacity, of what we had undertaken to show in this book; and it has been established, both by probability of reason as far as a man, or rather as far as I, could, and by firmness of authority as far as the divine words of the holy Scriptures have disclosed it, that when God was said to appear to our ancient fathers before the incarnation of the Savior, those voices and bodily appearances were made through angels: whether they themselves spoke or did something in the person of God, as we have shown the prophets also usually did, or took from the creature what they themselves were not, in which God might be shown figuratively to men; which kind of signification, Scripture teaches by many examples, the prophets did not omit either. It remains, then, for us now to see, since both when the Lord was born of the Virgin, and when the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove, and when fiery tongues were seen with a sound from heaven on the day of Pentecost after the Lord's ascension, it was not the Word of God himself in his substance, in which he is equal and coeternal with the Father, nor the Spirit of the Father and the Son in his substance, in which he too is equal and coeternal with both, but certainly a creature, which could be formed and come into being in those ways, that appeared to bodily and mortal senses, what difference there is between those manifestations and these which are proper to the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, though they were made through a visible creature. This we shall more conveniently begin in another volume.

Prologue. The human race is accustomed to value highly the knowledge of earthly and heavenly things; and in this those are surely better who prefer to this knowledge the knowing of themselves. And more praiseworthy is the mind to which even its own weakness is known than one which, disregarding it, searches out the paths of the stars, even to know them, or holds them already known, while itself ignorant of the way by which it may enter into its own salvation and strength. But he who has already awakened toward God, stirred by the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and in love of him has become worthless in his own eyes, and wishing but not able to enter into him, and attending to himself as God gives him light, has found himself and has recognized that his own sickness cannot be tempered to God's purity, finds it sweet to weep and to beseech him to have mercy again and again until he puts off all his misery, and to pray with confidence, having already received the free pledge of salvation through God's only Savior and Enlightener of man. Such a one, so acting and so grieving, knowledge does not puff up, because love builds up; for he has preferred knowledge to knowledge: he has preferred to know his own weakness rather than to know the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth, and the heights of the heavens; and by adding this knowledge he has added sorrow, the sorrow of his pilgrimage, from longing for his homeland and for its founder, his blessed God. Among men of this kind, in the household of your Christ, O Lord my God, if I groan among your poor, grant me from your bread to answer men who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness but are satisfied and have abundance. But it is their own phantasm that has satisfied them, not your truth, which they repel and recoil from, and fall into their own vanity. I certainly feel how many fictions the human heart brings forth; and what is my heart but a human heart? But this I pray of the God of my heart, that I may pour out into these writings none of these fictions as solid truth, but that whatever may come into them through me may come from that source from which, though I have been cast away from the sight of his eyes and am trying to return from afar by the way which the divinity of his Only-begotten has paved with his humanity, the breath of his truth is sprinkled upon me. This truth I, though changeable, draw in insofar as I see nothing changeable in it: not in places and times, as bodies are; not in times alone and as it were places, as the thoughts of our spirits are; not in times alone and without any image of places, as certain reasonings of our minds are. For the essence of God, by which he is, has nothing at all changeable, neither in eternity, nor in truth, nor in will: for there truth is eternal, love is eternal; and there love is true, eternity is true; and there eternity is dear, truth is dear.