On the Trinity 9.11–10.6

But all knowledge according to form is like the thing it knows. For there is another knowledge, according to privation, which we express when we disapprove. And this disapproval of the privation praises the form, and therefore is approved. The mind, then, has some likeness to the form known, whether when that form pleases or when its privation displeases. Therefore in so far as we know God we are like him; but not like him to the point of equality, since we do not know him as much as he knows himself. And just as, when we speak of bodies through the sense of the body, some likeness of them comes about in our mind, which is an image (phantasia) in the memory (for the bodies themselves are not at all in the mind when we think of them, but their likenesses; and so when we approve these in place of them, we err, for error is approving one thing in place of another); yet the image of a body in the mind is better than that form of the body, in so far as it is in a better nature, that is, in a living substance, as the mind is: so when we know God, although we are made better than we were before we knew him, and above all when that same knowledge, also pleasing and worthily loved, is a word, and that knowledge becomes a certain likeness of God, yet it is lower, because it is in a lower nature; for the mind is a creature, but God is the Creator. From this it is gathered that when the mind knows and approves itself, this same knowledge is its word in such a way that it is wholly equal and identical to it; because it is neither knowledge of a lower essence, like that of a body, nor of a higher, like that of God. And while knowledge has a likeness to the thing it knows, that is, to that of which it is knowledge, this knowledge, by which the mind itself, which knows, is known, has a perfect and equal likeness. And therefore it is both image and word, because it is expressed from the mind, when by knowing it is made equal to it, and what is begotten is equal to the begetter.

What then of love? Will it not be an image? Not a word? Not begotten? For why does the mind beget its knowledge when it knows itself, and not beget its love when it loves itself? For if it is the cause of its knowledge because it is knowable, it is also the cause of its love because it is lovable. Why, then, it has not begotten both is hard to say. For this question is also commonly raised concerning the supreme Trinity itself, the almighty creator God, to whose image man was made, by men whom the truth of God invites to faith through human speech: why the Holy Spirit too is not believed or understood to be begotten by God the Father, so that he too may be called son? This we now try to investigate in some way in the human mind, so that from the inner image, in which our nature itself, as if questioned, answers us more familiarly, we may direct the more practised eye of the mind from the enlightened creature to the unchangeable light: if, that is, the truth itself persuades us that, as no Christian doubts that the Word of God is the Son, so the Holy Spirit is love. Let us return, then, to that image which is a creature, that is, to the rational mind, to question and consider it more carefully on this matter, where the knowledge of some things, existing in time, which was not there before, and the love of some things which were not loved before, open to us more distinctly what we are to say; because to speech itself, which must be directed in time, a thing that is contained in the order of times is easier to explain. First, then, let it be clear that it can happen that something is knowable, that is, can be known, and yet is not known; but that it cannot happen that something is known which was not knowable. Hence it must be clearly held that every thing whatever that we know co-generates in us the knowledge of itself. For knowledge is brought forth by both, by the knower and the known. And so the mind, when it knows itself, is the sole parent of its knowledge; for it is itself both the known and the knower. But it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself; yet knowledge of itself was not in it when it did not know itself. In that it knows itself, therefore, it begets knowledge of itself equal to itself; because it does not know itself as less than it is, nor is its knowledge of another essence, not only because it itself knows, but also because it knows itself, as we said above. What then is to be said of love: why, when it loves itself, does it not seem to have begotten its love of itself as well? For it was lovable to itself even before it loved itself, because it could love itself; just as it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself, because it could know itself. For if it were not knowable to itself, it could never have known itself; so if it were not lovable to itself, it could never have loved itself. Why then should it not be said to have begotten its love by loving itself, as it begot its knowledge by knowing itself? Is it because it is clearly shown that the beginning of love is that from which it proceeds (for it proceeds from the mind itself, which is lovable to itself before it loves itself, and so is the beginning of its love by which it loves itself), but that it is therefore not rightly said to be begotten by it, as is the knowledge of itself by which it knows itself, because knowledge is something already found, which is called brought forth (partum) or discovered (repertum), and this is often preceded by a search that comes to rest in that end? For search is the desire of finding, which means the same as if you said discovering. But things that are discovered are as it were brought forth; and so they are like offspring. Where, but in knowledge itself? For there they are formed as if expressed. For even if the things we find by seeking already existed, yet the knowledge itself did not exist, which we regard as offspring being born. Further, that desire which is in seeking proceeds from the seeker, and hangs, as it were, and does not rest in the end towards which it is directed until what is sought is found and joined to the seeker. And this desire, that is, search, although it does not seem to be the love by which what is known is loved (for here the aim is still to know it), is yet something of the same kind. For it can already be called will, because everyone who seeks wishes to find; and if what is sought belongs to knowledge, everyone who seeks wishes to know. And if he wishes ardently and urgently, he is said to study; which is said especially of attaining and acquiring any branches of learning. The mind's bringing forth, then, is preceded by a kind of desire, by which, through seeking and finding what we wish to know, the offspring itself, knowledge, is born; and therefore that desire by which knowledge is conceived and brought forth cannot rightly be called birth and offspring; and the same desire by which one longs to know a thing becomes love of the thing known, while it holds and embraces the pleasing offspring, that is, the knowledge, and joins it to the begetter. And there is a certain image of the Trinity: the mind itself, and its knowledge, which is its offspring and its word from itself, and love as a third; and these three are one and one substance. Nor is the offspring less, while the mind knows itself as great as it is; nor is love less, while it loves itself as much as it knows itself and as great as it is.

Now let our attention, made sharper, approach the task of explaining these same things in order and more plainly. And first, since no one at all can love a thing wholly unknown, we must carefully consider what kind of love belongs to those who are studying, that is, those who do not yet know, but still desire to know, some branch of learning. For even in those matters in which we do not usually speak of study, loves often arise from hearing, when the mind is fired by the report of someone's beauty to see and enjoy it; because it knows the beauties of bodies in general, from having seen very many, and there is within it that by which what it longs for outwardly is approved. When this happens, love is roused not for a thing wholly unknown, since its kind is so well known. And when we love a good man whose face we have not seen, we love him from the knowledge of the virtues, which we know in the truth itself. But to know the branches of learning, we are often fired by the authority of those who praise and commend them; and yet unless we had in the mind a notion of each branch of learning impressed in brief, we would burn with no zeal to learn it. For who would spend any care and effort on knowing rhetoric, for example, unless he knew beforehand that it is the knowledge of speaking? Sometimes too we admire the ends of these branches of learning, which we have heard of or experienced, and from this we burn to acquire by learning the ability by which we may attain them. As if one who did not know letters were told that there is a kind of learning by which anyone can send words made by the hand in silence to someone however far away, which he to whom they are sent in turn gathers not with the ears but with the eyes; and if he saw this done, would he not, while he longs to know how this can be done, be moved with all zeal towards that end which he already holds as known? So the zeal of learners is kindled; for what anyone is wholly ignorant of he can in no way love. So too if anyone hears an unknown sign, such as the sound of some word whose meaning he does not know, he desires to know what it is, that is, what thing that sound was appointed to recall: as if he hears “temetum” said and, not knowing what it is, asks. He must already know, then, that it is a sign, that is, that it is not an empty sound but that something is signified by it; otherwise this word of three syllables is already known, and has impressed its articulated form on the mind through the sense of the ears. What more is to be sought in it, to make it better known, when all its letters and all the spaces of its sounds are known, except that at the same time it became known that it is a sign, and this moved a desire to know what it is a sign of? The more, then, it is known, but not fully known, the more the mind desires to know what remains about it. For if it knew only that this sound exists, and did not know that it is a sign of something, it would seek nothing further, having perceived the sensible thing by sensing it, as far as it could. But since it knows not only that it is a sound but also that it is a sign, it wishes to know it perfectly. And no sign is known perfectly unless what it is a sign of is known. Can one, then, who seeks this with burning care so as to know it, and presses on fired by zeal, be said to be without love? What then does he love? For certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known. For he does not love those three syllables, which he already has as known. And if he loves this in them, that he knows that they signify something, that is not what we are dealing with now, for he is not seeking to know that; but we are asking what he loves in what he is eager to know, which he certainly does not yet know; and therefore we wonder why he loves, since we know most firmly that things cannot be loved unless they are known. What then does he love, except that he knows and beholds in the reasons of things what is the beauty of the learning in which the knowledge of all signs is contained, and what is the usefulness of that skill by which human society communicates its thoughts among its members, lest gatherings of men be worse for them than any solitude, if they did not mingle their thoughts by conversing? This fair and useful form, then, the soul discerns, and knows, and loves; and whoever asks about any significant words he does not know is eager to have it perfected in himself as far as he can. For it is one thing that he beholds it in the light of truth, another that he desires it in his own ability. For he beholds in the light of truth how great and how good it is to understand and speak all the languages of all nations, and to hear none as a foreigner and be so heard by none. The beauty of this knowledge is already discerned by thought, and the thing known is loved; and it is so beheld, and so fires the zeal of learners, that they are moved about it and long for it in all the effort they spend to attain such an ability, so as to embrace in practice also what they know beforehand by reason; and so each burns more fervently with love for that ability which he approaches in hope. For those branches of learning are studied more eagerly which are not despaired of as attainable. For a thing that anyone has no hope of obtaining he either loves lukewarmly or does not love at all, although he sees how beautiful it is. Therefore, since knowledge of all languages is despaired of by almost everyone, each is most eager to know that of his own nation. And if he feels he is not sufficient to grasp even that perfectly, yet no one is so idle about this knowledge that, when he hears an unknown word, he does not wish to know what it is, and, if he can, ask and learn. While he asks, he is certainly in the zeal of learning, and seems to love an unknown thing; which is not so. For that form touches the mind which it knows and thinks of, in which shines the beauty of minds joined together by hearing and returning known sounds; and it fires with zeal one who seeks indeed what he does not know, but beholds and loves the known form to which it belongs. And so if one who asks, for example, what “temetum” is (for I gave this as an example) is told, “What does it matter to you?”, he will answer, “Lest perhaps I hear someone speak and not understand, or perhaps read it somewhere and not know what the writer meant.” Who, then, would say to him, “Do not understand what you hear, do not know what you read”? For the beauty of this skill, by which men's thoughts are known to one another through the utterance of significant sounds, is ready to be seen by almost all rational minds; because of this known beauty, loved because known, that unknown word is eagerly sought. And so when he has heard and learned that wine was called “temetum” by the ancients, but that this word is already dead in the usage of speech we now have, he will perhaps think it necessary for him because of some books of the ancients. But if he considers these too superfluous, perhaps he will not even think it worth committing to memory, because he sees that it hardly belongs to that form of learning which he beholds as known in the mind and loves. Therefore every love of the studious mind, that is, of one wishing to know what it does not know, is not love of the thing it does not know, but of what it knows, for the sake of which it wishes to know what it does not know. Or if one is so curious that he is carried away, not for some other known reason, but by the mere love of knowing unknown things, this curious man is indeed to be distinguished from the studious man, but neither does he love unknown things; indeed it is more fitting to say, “He hates unknown things,” which he wishes not to exist, since he wishes all things to be known. But lest anyone raise against us a harder question, asserting that no one can hate what he does not know any more than he can love what he does not know, we do not resist what is true; but it must be understood that, when it is said, “He loves to know unknown things,” this is not said as if it were said, “He loves unknown things.” For it can happen that someone loves to know unknown things; but that he loves unknown things cannot happen. For “to know” is not put there in vain; since he who loves to know unknown things loves not the unknown things themselves but knowing itself. And unless he had this known, no one could say confidently either that he knows or that he does not know. For not only must one who says, “I know,” and says it truly, know what knowing is; but also one who says, “I do not know,” and says it confidently and truly, and knows that he says it truly, certainly knows what knowing is; because he distinguishes the one who does not know from the one who knows, when, looking at himself truthfully, he says, “I do not know”; and when he knows that he says this truly, how would he know it, if he did not know what knowing is?

Any studious man, then, and any curious man, does not love unknown things, even when he presses on with most ardent desire to know what he does not know. For either he already knows in its kind what he loves, and longs to know it also in some particular thing or things, which perhaps are praised to him though not yet known to him, and he pictures in his mind an imaginary form by which he is roused to love. And from what does he picture it, but from the things he already knew? Yet if he finds the one that was praised unlike this form figured in his mind and very well known in his thought, perhaps he will not love it. And if he does love it, he will begin to love it from the time he learned it. For a little before, it was another that was loved, which the mind, forming it, was accustomed to present to itself. But if he finds it like that form which report had proclaimed, so that he can truly say to it, “I loved you already,” not even then did he love an unknown one, whom he had known in that likeness. Or we see something in the form of the everlasting reason and love it there, and when it is expressed in some image of a temporal thing, we both believe and love it on the praise of those who have experienced it; and we do not love anything unknown, about which we have already said enough above. Or we love something known, for the sake of which we seek something unknown; and it is by no means the love of that unknown thing that holds us, but of the known thing to which we know it belongs, so that we may know also that which we still seek as unknown, as I said a little before about the unknown word. Or each one loves knowing itself, which cannot be unknown to anyone who desires to know something. For these reasons those who wish to know something they do not know seem to love unknown things, and because of their more ardent desire to seek, they cannot be said to be without love. But how otherwise the matter stands, and that nothing at all unknown is loved, I think I have persuaded those who look carefully at the truth. But since the examples we have given are of those who desire to know something that they themselves are not, we must see whether perhaps some new kind appears when the mind desires to know itself.

What then does the mind love, when it ardently seeks itself in order to know itself, while it is unknown to itself? For see, the mind seeks itself in order to know itself, and is set on fire by this zeal. It loves, then; but what does it love? Itself? How, since it does not yet know itself, and no one can love what he does not know? Or has report proclaimed its beauty to it, as we usually hear about absent people? Perhaps, then, it does not love itself, but loves what it pictures of itself, perhaps far other than what it is; or if the mind pictures itself like itself, and so, when it loves this fiction, loves itself before it knows itself, because it beholds what is like itself, then it knows other minds from which it pictures itself, and is known to itself in its very kind. Why then, when it knows other minds, does it not know itself, since nothing can be more present to it than itself? But if, as other eyes are better known to the eyes of the body than they are to themselves, then let it not seek itself, for it will never find itself. For the eyes will never see themselves except in mirrors; and we must by no means think that anything of the kind is applied also to the contemplation of incorporeal things, so that the mind should know itself as in a mirror. Or does it see in the reason of eternal truth how beautiful it is to know oneself, and love what it sees, and strive that it may come about in itself? Because, although it is not known to itself, yet it is known to it how good it is to be known to itself. And this indeed is most wonderful, not yet to know oneself and already to know how beautiful it is to know oneself. Or does it see some best end, that is, its own security and blessedness, through a kind of hidden memory which has not deserted it even when it has gone far away, and believe that it cannot reach that end unless it knows itself? So while it loves that, it seeks this; and it loves that known thing for the sake of which it seeks the unknown. But why could the memory of its blessedness endure, and the memory of itself not endure with it, so that it should know itself, who wishes to arrive, as well as it knows that at which it wishes to arrive? Or, when it loves to know itself, does it love not itself, which it does not yet know, but knowing itself, and does it bear more bitterly that it is itself lacking to its own knowledge, by which it wishes to grasp all things? But it knows what knowing is, and while it loves this which it knows, it also desires to know itself. Where, then, does it know its own knowing, if it does not know itself? For it knows that it knows other things, but does not know itself; for from this it also knows what knowing is. How, then, does it know itself as knowing something, if it does not know itself? For it does not know another mind as knowing, but itself. It knows itself, then. Further, when it seeks itself in order to know itself, it already knows itself as seeking. It already knows itself, then. Therefore it cannot be wholly ignorant of itself, since, when it knows itself not knowing, it certainly knows itself. But if it did not know itself as not knowing, it would not seek itself in order to know. Therefore, by the very fact that it seeks itself, it is shown to be more known to itself than unknown. For it knows itself seeking and not knowing, while it seeks itself in order to know itself.

What then shall we say? That it knows itself in part and in part does not? But it is absurd to say that it does not know as a whole what it knows. I do not say, “It knows the whole,” but, “What it knows, it knows as a whole.” When, therefore, it knows something about itself, which it cannot know except as a whole, it knows itself whole. But it knows itself as knowing something, and it cannot know anything except as a whole. Therefore it knows itself whole. Further, what of it is so known to it as that it lives? But it cannot be a mind and not live, since it has besides the power to understand; for the souls of beasts too live, but do not understand. As, then, the mind is wholly mind, so it wholly lives. But it knows that it lives. Therefore it knows itself whole. Finally, when the mind seeks to know itself, it already knows that it is a mind; otherwise it does not know whether it is seeking itself, and may perhaps be seeking one thing instead of another. For it could be that it is not itself a mind, and so, while it seeks to know a mind, it is not seeking itself. Therefore, since when the mind seeks what mind is it knows that it is seeking itself, it certainly knows that it is itself a mind. Further, if it knows this in itself, that it is a mind, and it is wholly mind, it knows itself whole. But suppose it did not know that it is a mind, but when it seeks itself knew only this, that it is seeking itself. For even so it can seek one thing instead of another, if it does not know this; but in order not to seek one thing instead of another, it undoubtedly knows what it is seeking. But if it knows what it is seeking, and it is seeking itself, it certainly knows itself. What then does it still seek? And if it knows itself in part and still seeks in part, it is seeking not itself but a part of itself. For when it itself is spoken of, it is spoken of as a whole. Further, since it knows that it has not yet been wholly found by itself, it knows how great the whole is. And so it seeks what is lacking, as we usually seek to bring to mind something that has slipped from it, yet has not wholly gone out of it, because it can be recognized, when it comes, as the thing that was being sought. But how can the mind come into the mind, as if the mind could not be in the mind? Add to this that, if, having found a part, it is not seeking itself whole, yet it is itself whole that seeks. It is wholly present to itself, then, and there is nothing further to be sought; for what is sought is lacking, not the mind that seeks. When, therefore, it seeks itself whole, nothing of it is lacking. Or if it is not the whole that seeks itself, but the part that has been found seeks the part that has not yet been found, then the mind is not seeking itself, since no part of it is seeking itself. For the part that has been found is not seeking itself; and the part that has not yet been found is not seeking itself either, since it is being sought by the part that has already been found. Therefore, since neither the whole mind seeks itself, nor does any part of it seek itself, the mind does not seek itself at all.

Why then has it been commanded to know itself? I believe it is so that it may think about itself and live according to its nature, that is, seek to be set in order according to its nature: under him, namely, to whom it is to be subject, and above those things to which it is to be preferred; under him by whom it ought to be ruled, above the things it ought to rule. For through perverse desire it does many things as though it had forgotten itself. For it sees certain things inwardly beautiful in a more excellent nature, which is God; and when it ought to stand still in order to enjoy them, wishing to claim them for itself, and to be what he is not from him, like him, but from itself, it turns away from him, and is moved and slips down into less and less, which it thinks is more and more; because neither it itself nor anything else is enough for it as it withdraws from him who alone is enough. And so through want and difficulty it becomes excessively intent on its own actions and on the restless pleasures which it gathers through them; and so, through the desire of acquiring knowledge from the things that are outside, whose kind it knows and loves and feels can be lost unless it is held with spent care, it loses its security, and thinks of itself the less, the more secure it is that it cannot lose itself. So, since it is one thing not to know oneself and another not to think of oneself (for we do not say that a man skilled in many branches of learning is ignorant of grammar when he is not thinking of it because he is then thinking of the art of medicine), since, then, it is one thing not to know oneself and another not to think of oneself, so great is the power of love that the mind draws along with it the things it has long thought of with love, and to which it has stuck by the glue of care, even when it returns in some way to think of itself. And because those things are bodies, which it has loved outside through the senses of the flesh, and with which it has become entangled by a kind of long familiarity, and it cannot bring the bodies themselves in with it inwardly, as into the region of incorporeal nature, it rolls together their images and snatches them, made in itself from itself. For it gives something of its own substance to forming them; but it keeps something by which it may freely judge the form of such images, and this is more truly mind, that is, rational understanding, which is kept in order to judge. For we perceive that those parts of the soul which are shaped by the likenesses of bodies we have in common even with the beasts.

But the mind errs when it joins itself to these images with such great love that it even thinks itself to be something of this kind. For so it is in a certain way conformed to them, not by being so but by thinking so; not that it thinks itself to be an image, but wholly the very thing whose image it has with it. For the judgement to distinguish the body which it leaves outside from the image which it carries with it about that body is still strong in it; except when these same images are so expressed that they are perceived as if outside, not thought within, as usually happens to those asleep, or mad, or in some ecstasy.