On the Trinity 8.5–8.10

Our thought is shaped according to this knowledge when we believe that God was made man for us, as an example of humility and to show God's love towards us. For it profits us to believe, and to hold firm and unshaken in the heart, that the humility by which God was born of a woman and led to death by mortals through such great insults is the supreme medicine by which the swelling of our pride might be healed, and the deep mystery by which the bond of sin might be loosed. So too the power of his miracles and of his resurrection: because we know what omnipotence is, we believe it of the almighty God; and we think of deeds of this kind according to the species and genera of things, either implanted by nature or gathered by experience, so that our faith may not be feigned. For we do not know the face of the virgin Mary, from whom, untouched by a man and not corrupted even in giving birth, he was wonderfully born. Nor have we seen what features of body Lazarus had, nor Bethany, nor the tomb and that stone which he ordered to be removed when he raised him, nor the new tomb cut in the rock from which he himself rose, nor the Mount of Olives from which he ascended into heaven; nor do we know at all, those of us who have not seen these things, whether they are as we think of them; indeed, we think it more probable that they are not so. For when the face of some place, or man, or any body, meets our eyes the same as it met our mind when we thought of it before we saw it, we are moved with no small wonder, so rarely and almost never does it happen; and yet we believe those things most firmly, because we think of them according to the specific and general knowledge which is certain to us. For we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin who was called Mary. But what a virgin is, and what it is to be born, and what a proper name is, we do not believe but plainly know. But whether Mary's face was the one that occurs to the mind when we speak of or recall these things, we neither know at all nor believe. Here, then, it is permissible, without harm to faith, to say, “Perhaps she had such a face, perhaps not”; but no one, without harm to the Christian faith, could say, “Perhaps Christ was born of a virgin.” Since, therefore, we desire to understand, as far as is granted, the eternity, equality, and unity of the Trinity, but ought to believe before we understand, and must watch that our faith be not feigned (for we must enjoy that same Trinity in order to live blessedly; but if we believe something false about it, our hope will be empty and our love not chaste), how then do we love by believing that Trinity which we do not know? Is it according to a specific or general knowledge, according to which we love the apostle Paul? For even if he did not have the face that occurs to us when we think of him, and we are entirely ignorant of this, we know nevertheless what a man is. For, not to go far, this is what we are; and it is clear that he was this, and that his soul, joined to a body, lived a mortal life. We believe this of him, then, which we find in ourselves, according to the species or genus in which all human nature is equally contained. What, then, do we know, specifically or generally, of that excellence of the Trinity, as though there were many such trinities, some of which we had experienced, so that by the rule of likeness impressed on us, or by specific or general knowledge, we might believe that one to be such too, and so love the thing we believe and do not yet know from its equality with a thing we know? This is certainly not so. Or, as we love in the Lord Jesus Christ that he rose from the dead, although we have never seen anyone rise from there, can we in the same way love by believing the Trinity which we do not see, and such as we have never seen? But what it is to die and what it is to live we certainly know, because we both live and have at times seen and experienced the dead and the dying. And what else is it to rise again but to come to life again, that is, to return from death to life? When, then, we say and believe that there is a Trinity, we know what a trinity is, because we know what three things are; but this is not what we love. For we easily have that whenever we wish, to say nothing else, even by flashing three fingers. Or do we love, not what every trinity is, but that the Trinity is God? This, then, we love in the Trinity, that it is God; but we have seen or known no other God, because God is one, he alone whom we have not yet seen and love by believing. But from what likeness or comparison with known things we may believe, so that we may love God even though not yet known, this is the question.

Come back with me, then, and let us consider why we love the apostle. Is it because of the human form, which we know very well, since we believe that he was a man? Certainly not; otherwise there is now no one for us to love, since that man no longer exists; for his soul has been separated from his body. But what we love in him we believe is living even now: for we love a just mind. By what general or specific rule, then, except that we know both what a mind is and what just is? And what a mind is we say, not unfittingly, that we know because we too have a mind. For we have never seen it with the eyes and formed a general or specific notion from the likeness of many things seen; but rather, as I said, because we too have one. For what is known so inwardly, and perceives itself to be, as that by which other things too are perceived, that is, the mind itself? For the motions of bodies by which we perceive that others besides ourselves live we recognize from our likeness to them, because we too move our body in living as we notice those bodies are moved. For when a living body is moved, no way is opened to our eyes to see the mind, a thing that cannot be seen with the eyes; but we perceive that there is something in that mass such as is in us to move our mass in a similar way, which is life and soul. Nor is this, as it were, peculiar to human prudence and reason. For beasts too perceive that not only they themselves live, but also one another and each other, and ourselves. Nor do they see our souls, but they perceive it from the motions of the body, and that at once and most easily by a kind of natural agreement. We know, then, the mind of anyone from our own, and from our own we believe in the mind we do not know. For we not only perceive a mind, but can also know what a mind is by considering ourselves: for we have a mind. But what just is, how do we know? For we had said that we love the apostle for no other reason than that he is a just mind. We know, then, what just is, as we know what a mind is. But what a mind is, as has been said, we know from ourselves: for there is a mind in us. But how do we know what just is, if we are not just? But if no one knows what just is except one who is just, no one loves a just man except one who is just; for he cannot love one whom he believes to be just, for the very reason that he believes him just, if he does not know what just is; according to what we showed above, that no one loves what he believes and does not see except from some rule of general or specific knowledge. And so, if no one loves the just except the just, how will anyone wish to be just who is not yet? For no one wishes to be what he does not love. But in order that one who is not yet just may become just, he will certainly wish to be just; and in order to wish it, he loves the just. He, therefore, who is not yet just also loves the just. But one who does not know what just is cannot love the just. Therefore even one who is not yet just knows what just is. Where, then, does he know it? Has he seen it with the eyes? Is any body just, as it is white, or black, or square, or round? Who would say that? But with the eyes he has seen only bodies. But what is just in a man is only the mind; and when a man is called just, he is called so from the mind, not from the body. For justice is a kind of beauty of the mind, by which men are beautiful, many of them even who are crooked and misshapen in body. And just as the mind is not seen with the eyes, neither is its beauty. Where, then, does he who is not yet just know what just is, and love the just in order to become just? Do certain signs shine out through the movement of the body, by which this or that man appears to be just? But how does he know that these are signs of a just mind, not knowing at all what just is? He knows, then. But where do we know what just is, even when we are not yet just? If we know it outside ourselves, we know it in some body. But this is not a matter of body. In ourselves, then, we know what just is. For I find this nowhere else, when I seek to express it, but within myself; and if I ask another what just is, he seeks within himself what to answer; and whoever has been able to answer truly on this has found within himself what to answer. And when I want to speak of Carthage, I seek within myself in order to speak, and within myself I find an image (phantasia) of Carthage; but I received it through the body, that is, through the sense of the body, since I was present there in the body, and saw and perceived it, and kept it in memory, so that I might find within myself a word about it when I wished to speak of it. For its image in my memory is its word: not this three-syllable sound when Carthage is named, or even when the name itself is thought silently through spaces of time, but that which I discern in my mind when I utter this word of three syllables with the voice, or before I utter it. So too when I wish to speak of Alexandria, which I have never seen, an image (phantasma) of it is ready within me. For since I had heard from many and believed that that city is great, as it could be described to me, I formed in my mind an image of it as well as I could; and this is its word within me when I wish to speak of it, before I utter with the voice the five syllables, a name known to almost everyone. Yet if I could bring that image out of my mind before the eyes of men who know Alexandria, certainly either all would say, “It is not it,” or if they said, “It is it,” I would be greatly surprised; and gazing at it in my mind, that is, at the image as a kind of picture of it, I would still not know that it was it, but would believe those who held it from having seen it. But it is not in this way that I seek what just is, nor in this way that I find it, nor in this way that I gaze on it when I speak of it; nor in this way am I approved when I am heard, nor do I approve in this way when I hear; as though I had seen such a thing with the eyes, or learned it by any sense of the body, or heard it from those who had so learned it. For when I say, and say knowingly, “A just mind is one that, by knowledge and reason, in life and conduct gives to each his own,” I do not think of something absent, like Carthage, or invent it as I can, like Alexandria, whether it is so or not; but I discern something present, and I discern it within myself, though I am not myself what I discern; and many, if they hear, will approve. And whoever hears me and approves knowingly, he too discerns this same thing within himself, even if he is not himself what he discerns. But when a just man says it, he discerns and says what he himself is. And where does he too discern it but within himself? But this is not wonderful: for where would he discern himself but within himself? This is wonderful, that the mind should see within itself what it has seen nowhere else, and see what is true, and see the true just mind itself, and be itself a mind and not be the just mind which it sees within itself. Is there another just mind in a mind not yet just? Or if there is not, whom does it see there, when it sees and says what a just mind is, and sees it nowhere but in itself, though it is not itself a just mind? Or is what it sees an inner truth present to the mind that is able to behold it? And not all are able; and those who are able to behold it are not all also what they behold, that is, they are not also themselves just minds, as they can see and say what a just mind is. And how will they be able to be so, except by cleaving to that very form which they behold, so that they may be formed by it and be just minds; not only discerning and saying that a mind is just that, by knowledge and reason, in life and conduct gives to each his own, but so that they themselves may live justly and be of just conduct, giving to each his own, so as to “owe no one anything except to love one another”? And how does one cleave to that form except by loving it? Why, then, do we love another whom we believe to be just, and do not love the form itself in which we see what a just mind is, so that we too may be able to be just? Or is it that unless we loved this too, we would not love at all him whom we love because of it, but while we are not just, we love it less than is needed for us to be able to be just? The man who is believed to be just, then, is loved because of that form and truth which he who loves discerns and understands within himself; but that form and truth itself cannot be loved from anywhere else. For we find nothing like it besides itself, so that we might love it by believing when it is unknown, from the fact that we already know something like it. For whatever such thing you behold is itself; and there is nothing like it, since it alone is such as it is. He who loves men, then, ought to love them either because they are just or in order that they may be just. For so he ought to love himself too, either because he is just or in order that he may be just; for so he loves his neighbour as himself without any danger. For he who loves himself otherwise loves himself unjustly, since he loves himself to this end, that he may be unjust; and so to this end, that he may be wicked; and therefore he no longer loves himself. For “he who loves iniquity hates his own soul.”

Therefore in this question which we have about the Trinity and about knowing God, the chief thing to be seen is what true love is, or rather what love is. For only that is to be called love which is true; otherwise it is desire; and so those who desire are said to love by a misuse of the word, just as those who love are said to desire by a misuse of the word. And this is true love, that, cleaving to the truth, we may live justly, and therefore despise all mortal things for the love of men, by which we wish them to live justly. For so we shall be able to be ready, profitably, even to die for the brethren, which the Lord Jesus Christ taught us by his example. For since there are two commandments on which the whole Law and the Prophets hang, the love of God and the love of neighbour, not without reason does Scripture often put one for both. Sometimes only the love of God, as in that, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good”; and again, “But whoever loves God is known by him”; and that, “For the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”; and many others: because it follows that he who loves God does what God has commanded, and loves him in so far as he does it; it follows, then, that he also loves his neighbour, because God has commanded this. Sometimes Scripture mentions only the love of neighbour, as in that, “Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ”; and that, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in what is written, You shall love your neighbour as yourself”; and in the Gospel, “Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to them also; for this is the Law and the Prophets.” And we find very many other places in the holy writings in which the love of neighbour alone seems to be commanded for perfection, and the love of God passed over in silence, although the Law and the Prophets hang on both commandments. But this too is because it follows that he who loves his neighbour also loves above all love itself. But “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God.” It follows, then, that he loves God above all. Therefore those who seek God through those Powers that rule over the world or parts of the world are carried away from him and cast far off, not by intervals of place but by difference of affections; for they try to go outward and desert their own inner selves, within which God is more inward still. And so, even if they have heard of or somehow thought of some holy heavenly Power, they desire its deeds, which human weakness marvels at, rather than imitate the piety by which divine rest is obtained. For they prefer proudly to be able to do what an angel can than devoutly to be what an angel is. For no holy one rejoices in his own power, but in the power of him from whom he has the ability to do whatever he fittingly can; and he knows that it is more powerful to be joined to the Almighty by a pious will than to be able by one's own power and will to do what makes those tremble who cannot do such things. And so the Lord Jesus Christ himself, doing such things in order to teach those who marvelled greater things, and to turn those intent on and held in suspense by unusual temporal things to things eternal and inward, says, “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you.” And he does not say, “Learn from me, because I raise men dead four days,” but he says, “Learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart.” For the most solid humility is more powerful and safer than the most windy loftiness. And therefore he goes on to say, “And you will find rest for your souls.” For “love is not puffed up”; and “God is love”; and “the faithful in love shall rest in him,” called back from the noise that is outside to silent joys. See, God is love: why do we go and run to the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth, seeking him who is with us, if we wish to be with him?

Let no one say: “I do not know what to love.” Let him love his brother, and he will love that same love. For he knows the love with which he loves better than the brother whom he loves. See, he can already have God better known to him than his brother: plainly better known, because more present; better known, because more inward; better known, because more certain. Embrace love, God, and embrace God by love. It is love itself that unites all the good angels and all the servants of God by the bond of holiness, and joins us and them to one another, and joins us to itself. The more, then, we are healed of the swelling of pride, the fuller we are of love; and with what is he full who is full of love, if not with God? But, you say, I see love, and as far as I can I behold it with my mind, and I believe the Scripture that says, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God”; but when I see it, I do not see the Trinity in it. Indeed you do see the Trinity, if you see love. But I will remind you, if I can, so that you may see that you see; only let love itself be present, so that we may be moved by love to some good. For when we love love, we love it as loving something, for the very reason that it loves something. What, then, does love love, so that love itself can also be loved? For it is not love that loves nothing. But if it loves itself, it must love something, so that it may love itself as love. For just as a word indicates something and indicates itself too, but does not indicate itself as a word unless it indicates that it indicates something, so love too loves itself, but unless it loves itself as loving something, it does not love itself as love. What then does love love, but what we love with love? And this, to begin from what is nearest, is our brother. And let us attend to how greatly the apostle John commends brotherly love: “He who loves his brother,” he says, “abides in the light, and there is no stumbling block in him.” It is clear that he placed the perfection of righteousness in the love of one's brother; for he in whom there is no stumbling block is certainly perfect. And yet he seems to have been silent about the love of God; which he would never have done, unless he wished God to be understood in brotherly love itself. For most plainly, a little later in the same letter, he says: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love has not known God, for God is love.” This connection declares plainly and openly that this same brotherly love (for the love with which we love one another is brotherly love) is proclaimed with such authority to be not only from God but also God. When, therefore, we love our brother from love, we love our brother from God; nor can it be that we do not love above all the very love with which we love our brother. Hence it is gathered that those two commandments cannot exist without each other. For since God is love, he certainly loves God who loves love; and he must love love who loves his brother. And therefore he says a little later, “He cannot love God whom he does not see, who does not love his brother whom he sees”; because the reason why he does not see God is that he does not love his brother. For he who does not love his brother is not in love; and he who is not in love is not in God, because God is love. Further, he who is not in God is not in light, because “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” What wonder, then, if he who is not in the light does not see the light, that is, does not see God, because he is in darkness? But he sees his brother with human sight, by which God cannot be seen. But if he loved with spiritual love him whom he sees with human sight, he would see God, who is love itself, with the inner sight by which he can be seen. Therefore he who does not love the brother whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he does not see for this very reason, that God is love, which he lacks who does not love his brother? Nor let the question trouble us any longer, how much love we ought to spend on our brother and how much on God: on God incomparably more than on ourselves, on our brother as much as on ourselves; and we love ourselves the more, the more we love God. With one and the same love, therefore, we love God and neighbour; but God for God's sake, and ourselves and our neighbour for God's sake.

For what is it, I ask, that sets us on fire when we hear and read: “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation; giving no offence in anything, so that our ministry may not be blamed; but in all things commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in beatings, in prisons, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonour, through ill repute and good repute; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and see, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and possessing all things”? What is it that kindles us to love the apostle Paul when we read these things, except that we believe he lived so? Yet that the ministers of God ought to live so we do not believe from hearing it from others, but behold within ourselves, or rather above ourselves, in the truth itself. Him, then, whom we believe to have lived so, we love because of what we see. And unless we loved above all this form, which we discern as always stable and unchangeable, we would not love him for the reason that we hold by faith that his life, while he lived in the flesh, was fitted to and in harmony with this form. But somehow we are roused even more to the love of this form itself by the faith by which we believe that someone lived so, and by the hope by which, since some men have lived so, we by no means despair that we too, who are men, can live so; so that we both desire this more ardently and pray for it more confidently. So the love of that form, according to which they are believed to have lived, makes their life loved by us; and their life, believed, rouses a more burning love towards that same form: so that the more ardently we love God, the more certainly and serenely we see him; because in God we behold the unchangeable form of justice according to which we judge that man ought to live. Faith, therefore, avails for the knowledge and love of God, not as of one wholly unknown or wholly unloved, but so that he may be known more clearly and loved more firmly.

And what is love or charity, which divine Scripture praises and proclaims so greatly, but the love of the good? But love belongs to someone who loves, and by love something is loved. See, there are three: the lover, what is loved, and love. What then is love but a kind of life joining together, or seeking to join together, two things, namely the lover and what is loved? And this is so even in outward and carnal loves; but in order to drink something purer and clearer, let us tread down the flesh and ascend to the mind. What does the mind love in a friend but the mind? There too, then, there are three: the lover, what is loved, and love. It remains to ascend from here too, and to seek these things higher up, as far as is granted to man. But here let our attention rest a little, not as if it thought it had already found what it seeks, but as a place is usually found where something is to be sought: it has not yet been found, but where it is to be sought has been found. So let it suffice to have said this, so that from it, as from the starting point of a beginning, we may weave the rest.