On the Trinity 8.7–8.28

For I ask whether those whose soul and heart were one were one through faith in God. Certainly through faith: through it the soul and heart of all were one. And I ask whether faith is one or another. One, surely, on the authority of the apostle himself, who preaches one faith, as one Lord, one baptism, one hope, and one God. If then all were one through faith, that is, through the nature of one faith, how do you not understand a natural unity in those who are one through the nature of one faith? For all had been reborn to innocence, to immortality, to the knowledge of God, to the faith of hope. And if these cannot be different from one another, because hope is one and God is one, as the Lord also is one and the baptism of regeneration is one; if these are one by agreement rather than by nature, then ascribe a unity of will also to those reborn into them. But if they have been regenerated into the nature of one life and eternity, through which their soul and heart are one, then unity of agreement ceases in those who are one in the regeneration of the same nature.

We do not speak our own words, nor do we frame anything false from these texts by corrupting the sense of what is said, to mock the ears of our hearers; holding the form of sound teaching, we think and preach what is sincere. For the apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature of the sacraments, writing to the Galatians: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." That they are one amid so great a diversity of nations, conditions, and sexes: is it from the agreement of will, or from the unity of the sacrament, since they have one baptism and have all put on one Christ? What then will harmony of minds do here, when they are one through this, that they put on one Christ through the nature of one baptism?

Or, when he who plants and he who waters are one, are they not one through this, that, being themselves reborn in one baptism, they are one ministration of the one baptism that regenerates? Do they not do the same thing? Are they not one in one? So those who are one through the same thing are one also by nature, not by will only, because they themselves have been made the same thing and are ministers of the same thing and the same working.

The contradiction of fools always serves to show their folly, because whatever is fitted against the truth by the wit of an unwise or perverse understanding must, since the truth stands unshaken and immovable, be understood as false and foolish, being opposed to it. For the heretics, labouring to deceive through the words "I and the Father are one," so that unity of nature and undifferenced substance of divinity might not be believed of them, but that they might be one from mutual love and agreement of wills, have brought forward, as we showed above, an example of that unity even from the Lord's words: "That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." Whoever is outside the faith of the gospel promises is outside the promises themselves, and the crime of impious understanding has lost simple hope. For not to understand what you believe brings not so much pardon as reward, since the greatest pay of faith is to hope for what you do not know. But it is the madness of the utmost impiety either not to believe what is understood or to have corrupted the understanding of what is believed.

But although impiety changes the sense of its own understanding, it cannot prevent the meaning of the words from standing out. The Lord prays the Father that those who will believe in him may be one, and that, as he is in the Father and the Father in him, so all may be one in them. Why do you bring in equanimity here, why a unity of soul and heart through agreement of will? It was within the wealth and precision of language, if will made them one, for the Lord to pray thus: "Father, as we will one thing, so may they also will one thing, so that we may all be one through concord." Or did he who is the Word not know the meaning of a word? Did he who is the Truth not know how to speak the truth? Did he who is Wisdom err in foolish speech? Was he who is Power in such weakness that he could not express what he wished to be understood? He plainly spoke the true and sincere mysteries of the gospel faith. And he not only spoke so as to signify, but taught for faith, saying: "That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." First the prayer is for those of whom it is said, "That they all may be one"; then the advance of unity is shown by an example of unity, when he says, "As you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us": so that, as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so through the pattern of this unity all might be one in the Father and the Son.

But because it is proper by nature to the Father and the Son alone to be one, since God from God, the Only-begotten from the Unbegotten, can exist only in the nature of his origin, so that he who is begotten exists in the substance of his birth and the birth of divinity has no other and different truth than that from which it proceeded: the Lord, leaving nothing doubtful to our faith, taught the nature of this absolute unity in the whole speech that follows. For there follows: "That the world may believe that you sent me." The world, then, will believe that the Son was sent by the Father through this, that all who will believe in him will be one in the Father and the Son. And how they will be so, we are told at once: "And the glory which you gave me I have given to them." Now I ask whether glory is the same thing as will, since will is a movement of the mind, while glory is an appearance or dignity of nature. The Son, then, gave the glory received from the Father to all who would believe in him, not, surely, a will; had that been given, faith would have no reward, since a necessity of will fastened on us would bring faith upon us. What the giving of the received glory would achieve he showed: "That they may be one, as we are one." The received glory was given for this reason, that all might be one. Now then all are one in glory, because the glory given is no other than that which was received, and it was given for no other purpose than that all might be one. And since all are one through the glory given to the Son and bestowed by the Son on believers, I ask how the Son is of a glory different from the Father's, when the Son's glory takes up all believers into the unity of the Father's glory? This saying may perhaps be bold for human hope, but it will not be unfaithful; for though it is rash to hope for this, yet not to have believed it is irreligious, since one and the same is for us the author of both hope and faith. Of this we shall treat more plainly and fully in its proper place. Meanwhile, even from the present passage, this hope of ours is seen to be neither empty nor rash. All, then, are one through the glory received and given. I hold the faith and accept the cause of the unity; but I do not yet grasp the reason how the glory given brings it about that all are one.

But the Lord, leaving nothing uncertain to the conscience of the faithful, taught the very effect of this natural working, saying: "That they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one." I now ask those who introduce a unity of will between the Father and the Son whether Christ is in us today through the truth of nature or through concord of will. For if the Word truly became flesh, and we truly receive the Word made flesh in the Lord's food, how is he not to be thought to abide in us by nature, who, born as man, both took to himself the nature of our flesh, now inseparable from him, and mingled the nature of his own flesh with the nature of eternity under the sacrament of the flesh to be communicated to us? For in this way we are all one, because the Father is in Christ and Christ is in us. Whoever then denies that the Father is in Christ by nature, let him first deny that he himself is in Christ, or Christ in him, by nature; because the Father in Christ and Christ in us make us one in them. If then Christ truly took the flesh of our body, and that man who was born of Mary truly is Christ, and we truly receive the flesh of his body under the mystery (and through this we shall be one, because the Father is in him and he is in us), how is a unity of will asserted, when the natural property brought about through the sacrament is the sacrament of perfect unity?

In the things of God we must not speak with human or worldly sense, nor must a perverse, foreign, and impious understanding be wrung from the soundness of the heavenly words by violent and reckless preaching. Let us read what is written and understand what we read, and then we shall fulfil the duty of perfect faith. For what we say of the natural truth of Christ in us we say foolishly and impiously unless we have learned it from him. He himself says: "My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." No room is left for doubting the truth of the flesh and blood. For now, both by the Lord's own declaration and by our faith, it is truly flesh and truly blood. And these, received and drunk, bring it about that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not the truth? Let it be untrue, by all means, for those who deny that Christ Jesus is true God. He is in us, then, through the flesh, and we are in him, while what we are is with him in God.

How we are in him through the sacrament of his communicated flesh and blood he himself testifies, saying: "And this world no longer sees me; but you will see me, because I live and you will live; because I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." If he wanted only a unity of will to be understood, why did he set out a certain gradation and order in the completing of unity? Was it not so that, since he was in the Father through the nature of divinity, and we, on the other hand, in him through his bodily birth, and he again in us through the mystery of the sacraments, a perfect unity through the Mediator might be taught? For while we abide in him, he abides in the Father, and abiding in the Father he abides in us; and so we advance to unity with the Father, since we too are in him by nature, who is in the Father by nature according to his birth, while he abides in us by nature.

How natural this unity in us is, he himself testified thus: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." For no one will be in him except one in whom he himself has been, having taken into himself the flesh of him only who has taken his. He had already taught the sacrament of this perfect unity above, saying: "As the living Father sent me, and I live through the Father, so he who eats my flesh will himself also live through me." He lives, then, through the Father; and in the same way as he lives through the Father, we live through his flesh. For every comparison is taken up to give a pattern for understanding, so that we may grasp the matter in hand according to the example set before us. This, then, is the cause of our life, that we who are fleshly have Christ abiding in us through the flesh, we who are to live through him on the same terms on which he lives through the Father. If then we live by nature according to the flesh through him, that is, having received the nature of his flesh, how does he not have the Father in himself by nature according to the Spirit, since he himself lives through the Father? He lives through the Father because his birth did not bring him a foreign and different nature, because what he is is also from him, and yet he is not separated from him by any intervening unlikeness of nature, because through his birth he has the Father in himself in the power of nature.

We have recalled these things because the heretics, falsely claiming only a unity of will between the Father and the Son, used the example of our unity with God, as though we were united to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, only by obedience and the will of religion, and as though no property of natural communion were granted us through the sacrament of the flesh and blood. Yet the mystery of a true and natural unity must be preached, both through the glory of the Son given to us and through the Son abiding in us in the flesh, while we are united to him bodily and inseparably.

We have answered, then, the folly of these madmen only to show their empty lie, so that they might not deceive the unlearned by the error of a vain and ridiculous assertion. For the rest, the gospel faith did not need the necessity of our reply. The Lord prayed for our unity with God on our behalf; but he holds his own and abides in it. They are not one through the sacrament of the dispensation, but through a birth of nature, since God in begetting him lets nothing of himself degenerate in him. They are one, since what is not snatched from his hand is not snatched from the hand of the Father; since when he is known the Father is known; since when he is seen the Father is seen; since what he speaks, the Father abiding in him speaks; since in him working the Father works; since he is in the Father and the Father in him. This is not the work of creation but of birth; will does not bring it about, but power; unanimity does not speak it, but nature. For to be created and to be born are not one thing, nor is to will the same as to be able, nor is to agree the same as to abide.

We do not, then, deny unanimity between the Father and the Son; for the heretics are accustomed to lie in this, saying that, since we do not accept concord alone as the unity, we affirm them to be at discord. But let them hear how far we are from denying unanimity. The Father and the Son are one in nature, in glory, in power; and the same nature cannot will different things. And let them hear further the Son testifying to his unity of nature with the Father; for he says: "When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from my Father, he will testify of me." The Advocate will come, the Son will send him from the Father, and he is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. Let the whole school of the heretics shake off the stings of its wit and look now for something it can at least lie about to the ignorant, and let it teach what this is that the Son sends from the Father. He who sends shows his power in what he sends. But what he sends from the Father, how shall we understand it: as received, or let go, or begotten? For one of these the words "he will send from the Father" must signify. And he will send from the Father the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father: there is, then, no receiving here, where a proceeding has been shown. It remains for us to settle our view on this: whether we are to think it the going forth of one already existing or the proceeding of one begotten.

I am not now finding fault with anyone's freedom of understanding as to whether they think the Paraclete Spirit is from the Father or from the Son. For the Lord did not leave it uncertain; in the same discourse he spoke thus: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When that Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and declare it to you. All things whatever the Father has are mine; therefore I said, He will receive of mine and declare it to you." He receives, then, from the Son, who is also sent by him and proceeds from the Father. And I ask whether to receive from the Son is the same as to proceed from the Father. But if a difference is believed between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, certainly to receive from the Son will be thought one and the same as to receive from the Father. For the Lord himself says: "Because he will receive of mine and declare it to you. All things whatever the Father has are mine; therefore I said, He will receive of mine and declare it to you." What he will receive (whether it is power, or might, or teaching), the Son said was to be received from himself; and again he signifies that this same thing is to be received from the Father. For when he says that all things whatever the Father has are his, and that he therefore said it was to be received from what is his, he teaches that what is to be received from the Father is still received from him, because all that is the Father's is his. This unity has no difference; nor does it matter from whom a thing is received, when what is given by the Father is spoken of as given by the Son. Will a unity of will be brought in here too? All that the Father has is the Son's, and all that is the Son's is the Father's. For he himself says: "And all mine are yours, and yours are mine." This is not yet the place to show why he said, "Because he will receive of mine"; for the meaning is of future time, where he is shown as about to receive. Now at any rate he says the Spirit will receive from him, because all that is the Father's is his. Cut apart, if you can, the unity of this nature, and bring in some necessary unlikeness through which the Son is not in unity of nature. For the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father, but is sent by the Son from the Father. All that is the Father's is the Son's; and therefore whatever he who is to be sent will receive, he will receive from the Son, because all that is the Father's is the Son's. So nature keeps its law in all things; and the fact that both are one signifies the same divinity in each through generation and birth, since the Son confesses that what the Spirit of truth will receive from the Father is to be given by him. Heretical perversity is not to be allowed the licence of impious understanding, so as not to confess that this saying of the Lord, that the Spirit of truth will receive from him because all that is the Father's is his, must be referred to the unity of nature.

Let him speak who is the chosen vessel and teacher of the Gentiles, in accordance with the understanding of the truth, having first praised the faith of the Roman people. Wishing to teach the unity of nature in the Father and the Son, he says: "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God is in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you." We are all spiritual if the Spirit of God is in us. But this Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ. And while the Spirit of Christ is in us, yet the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead is in us; and he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in us. We are given life, then, because of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, through him who raised Christ from the dead. And while the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead is in us, yet the Spirit of Christ is in us, and the Spirit who is in us is nonetheless the Spirit of God. Distinguish, then, heretic, the Spirit of Christ from the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead from the Spirit of God raising Christ from the dead, when the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us is the Spirit of God, and when the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead is yet the Spirit of God raising Christ from the dead.

And I now ask whether you think that by "the Spirit of God" a nature is signified or a thing belonging to a nature. For a nature is not the same as a thing of the nature, just as a man is not the same as what belongs to a man, nor fire the same as what belongs to fire itself; and by the same reasoning God is not the same as what belongs to God.

For I remember that by "the Spirit of God" the Son of God is signified in such a way that God the Father is understood to be shown in him, and that "the Spirit of God" can signify and refer to either; and that this is shown not only on prophetic but on gospel authority, when it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me"; and again: "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him"; and when the Lord himself testifies of himself: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come near to you." For these seem without ambiguity to signify either the Father or the Son, while still manifesting the power of the nature.

I think "the Spirit of God" is said of both for this reason, so that we should not believe that the Son is in the Father or the Father in the Son in a bodily manner, that is, so that God, abiding in a place, should not seem to exist nowhere else apart from himself. For a man, or anything else like him, when he is somewhere, is not elsewhere, because what is there is contained where it is; his nature is too weak to be everywhere, being somewhere where it stands. But God, the living power of immeasurable might, which is nowhere absent and nowhere lacking, shows himself wholly through what is his, and signifies that what is his is nothing other than himself, so that where what is his is present, he himself is understood to be. Yet it is not to be believed in a bodily manner that, when he is somewhere, he is not also everywhere, since through what is his he does not cease to be in all things, and what is his is nothing other than what he himself is. These things have been said for the understanding of the nature.

That God the Father is signified by "the Spirit of God" I think must be understood thus: the Lord Jesus Christ professed that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, because of which he anointed him and sent him to preach the gospel. For in him the power of the Father's nature is manifested, showing the communion of his nature in the Son even when born in the flesh, through the sacrament of this spiritual anointing; for after the birth of the completed baptism this sign of the property was also heard, the voice from heaven testifying: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you." For it is not to be understood that he was upon himself, or came to himself from heaven, or named himself his own son; all this was a demonstration for our faith, so that under the sacrament of a perfect and true birth we might know the unity of the nature abiding in the Son, who had also begun to be man. So it is found that the Father is signified by "the Spirit of God." And we understand the Son to be shown in this way when he says: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come near to you": showing, that is, that he casts out demons by himself, that is, by the power of his nature, since they can be cast out only by the Spirit of God. And in "the Spirit of God" the Spirit the Paraclete is also signified, not only on prophetic but on apostolic authority, when it is said: "But this is what was spoken through the prophet: It shall be in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy." And we are taught that all this was fulfilled in the apostles when, the Holy Spirit having been sent, they all spoke in the tongues of the nations.

These things had necessarily to be shown so that, to whatever side heretical falsehood might betake itself, it would still be shut in by the bounds and rule of gospel truth. For Christ dwells in us, and where Christ dwells, God dwells. And when the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, yet while the Spirit of Christ dwells in us no other spirit dwells than the Spirit of God. And if Christ is understood to be in us through the Holy Spirit, this Spirit is still to be known as the Spirit of God in the same way as the Spirit of Christ. And since through the thing of the nature the nature itself dwells in us, the nature of the Son will be believed to be undifferenced from the Father, since the Holy Spirit, who is both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God, is shown to be the thing of one nature. I ask now, then, how are they not one by nature? The Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father; he is sent by the Son and receives from the Son. But all that the Father has is the Son's; and therefore he who receives from him is the Spirit of God, but the same is also the Spirit of Christ. He is a thing of the Son's nature, but the same thing is also of the Father's nature. He is the Spirit of him who raises Christ from the dead; but the same is the Spirit of Christ raised from the dead. Let the nature of Christ and of God differ in something, so as not to be the same, if it can be made out that the Spirit who is God's is not also Christ's.

But you, heretic, raving and whirled about by the spirit of deadly teaching, the apostle holds fast and hems in, laying down Christ for us as the foundation of faith, not unaware of this saying of the Lord: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." By this he testified that, when the Spirit of Christ abides in us, the Spirit of God abides in us, and that the Spirit of him raised from the dead is not different from the Spirit of him who raises from the dead. For they come and dwell in us; and I ask whether they will come and make their dwelling as a company of different beings, or in unity of nature? But the teacher of the Gentiles insists that not two spirits, that of God and that of Christ, but the Spirit of Christ, who is also the Spirit of God, is in believers. It is not a cohabiting but a dwelling; yet a dwelling under the mystery of cohabiting, since neither do two dwell, nor is the dweller different from another. For the Spirit of God is in us, but the Spirit of Christ is in us; and when the Spirit of Christ is in us, the Spirit of God is in us. So, since what is God's is also Christ's, and what is Christ's is God's, Christ cannot be anything different from what God is. Christ, then, is God, one Spirit with God.

The apostle teaches that the gospel saying "I and the Father are one" is a unity of nature, not the solitude of a union, writing to the Corinthians: "Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God calls Jesus anathema." Do you know now, heretic, in what spirit you call Christ a creature? Since those who served the creature rather than the Creator are under anathema, understand what you are when you confess Christ a creature, you who are not unaware that the worship of a creature is under a curse. And note what follows: "And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit." Do you feel what you lack, in denying to Christ what is his? If Christ is Lord to you through the nature of God, you have the Holy Spirit; but if he is lord by an adoptive name, you lack the Holy Spirit and are animated by the spirit of error, because no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. And you, calling him a creature rather than God, though you name him lord, do not say that he is the Lord, because for you he is lord by a common, general, and familiar name rather than by nature. But learn his nature from Paul.