|
4. But since the necessities of our discussion and argument have
compelled us to say a great many things in the course of fourteen
books, which we cannot view at once in one glance, so as to be able to
refer them quickly in thought to that which we desire to grasp, I will
attempt, by the help of God, to the best of my power, to put briefly
together, without arguing, whatever I have established in the several
books by argument as known, and to place, as it were, under one
mental view, not the way in which we have been convinced of each
point, but the points themselves of which we have been convinced; in
order that what follows may not be so far separated from that which
precedes, as that the perusal of the former shall produce forgetfulness
of the latter; or at any rate, if it have produced such
forgetfulness, that what has escaped the memory may be speedily
recalled by re-perusal.
5. In the first book, the unity and equality of that highest
Trinity is shown from Holy Scripture. In the second, and third,
and fourth, the same: but a careful handling of the question
respecting the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has resulted
in three books; and we have demonstrated, that He who is sent is not
therefore less than He who sends because the one sent, the other was
sent; since the Trinity, which is in all things equal, being also
equally in its own nature unchangeable, and invisible, and everywhere
present, works indivisibly. In the fifth, with a view to those who
think that the substance of the Father and of the Son is therefore not
the same, because they suppose everything that is predicated of God to
be predicated according to substance, and therefore contend that to
beget and to be begotten, or to be begotten and unbegotten, as being
diverse, are diverse substances, it is demonstrated that not
everything that is predicated of God is predicated according to
substance, as He is called good and great according to substance, or
anything else that is predicated of Him in respect to Himself, but
that some things also are predicated relatively, i.e. not m respect
to Himself, but in respect to something which is not Himself; as He
is called the Father in respect to the Son, or the Lord in respect
to the creature that serves Him; and that here, if anything thus
relatively predicated, i.e. predicated in respect to something that
is not Himself, is predicated also as in time, as, e.g.,
"Lord, Thou hast become our refuge," then nothing happens to Him
so as to work a change in Him, but He Himself continues altogether
unchangeable in His own nature or essence. In the sixth, the
question how Christ is called by the mouth of the apostle "the power
of God and the wisdom of God," is so far argued that the more
careful handling of that question is deferred, viz. whether He from
whom Christ is begotten is not wisdom Himself, but only the father of
His own wisdom, or whether wisdom begat wisdom. But be it which it
may, the equality of the Trinity became apparent in this book also,
and that God was not triple, but a Trinity; and that the Father and
the Son are not, as it were, a double as opposed to the single Holy
Spirit: for therein three are not anything more than one. We
considered, too, how to understand the words of Bishop Hilary,
"Eternity in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift."
In the seventh, the question is explained which had been deferred: in
what way that God who begat the Son is not only Father of His own
power and wisdom, but is Himself also power and wisdom; so, too,
the Holy Spirit; and yet that they are not three powers or three
wisdoms, but one power and one wisdom, as one God and one essence.
It was next inquired, in what way they are called one essence, three
persons, or by some Greeks one essence, three substances; and we
found that the words were so used through the needs of speech, that
there might be one term by which to answer, when it is asked what the
three are, whom we truly confess to be three, viz. Father, and
Son, and Holy Spirit. In the eighth, it is made plain by reason
also to those who understand, that not only the Father is not greater
than the Son in the substance of truth, but that both together are not
anything greater than the Holy Spirit alone, nor that any two at all
in the same Trinity are anything greater than one, nor all three
together anything greater than each severally. Next, I have pointed
out, that by means of the truth, which is beheld by the
understanding, and by means of the highest good, from which is all
good, and by means of the righteousness for which a righteous mind is
loved even by a mind not yet righteous, we might understand, so far as
it is possible to understand, that not only incorporeal but also
unchangeable nature which is God; and by means, too, of love, which
in the Holy Scriptures is called God, by which, first of all,
those who have understanding begin also, however feebly, to discern
the Trinity, to wit, one that loves, and that which is loved, and
love. In the ninth, the argument advances as far as to the image of
God, viz. man in respect to his mind; and in this we found a kind of
trinity, i.e. the mind, and the knowledge whereby the mind knows
itself, and the love whereby it loves both itself and its knowledge of
itself; and these three are shown to be mutually equal, and of one
essence. In the tenth, the same subject is more carefully and subtly
handled, and is brought to this point, that we found in the mind a
still more manifest trinity of the mind, viz. in memory, and
understanding, and will. But since it turned out also, that the mind
could never be in such a case as not to remember, understand, and love
itself, although it did not always think of itself; but that when it
did think of itself, it did not in the same act of thought distinguish
itself from things corporeal; the argument respecting the Trinity, of
which this is an image, was deferred, in order to find a trinity also
in the things themselves that are seen with the body, and to exercise
the reader's attention more distinctly in that. Accordingly, in the
eleventh, we chose the sense of sight, wherein that which should have
been there found to hold good might be recognized also in the other four
bodily senses. although not expressly mentioned; and so a trinity of
the outer man first showed itself in those things which are discerned
from without, to wit, from the bodily object which is seen, and from
the form which is thence impressed upon the eye of the beholder, and
from the purpose of the will combining the two. But these three
things, as was patent, were not mutually equal and of one substance.
Next, we found yet another trinity in the mind itself, introduced
into it, as it were, by the things perceived from without; wherein
the same three things, as it appeared, were of one substance: the
image of the bodily object which is in the memory, and the form thence
impressed when the mind's eye of the thinker is turned to it, and the
purpose of the will combining the two. But we found this trinity to
pertain to the outer man, on this account, that it was introduced into
the mind from bodily objects which are perceived from without.
In the twelfth, we thought good to distinguish wisdom from knowledge,
and to seek first, as being the lower of the two, a kind of
appropriate and special trinity in that which is specially called
knowledge; but that although we have got now in this to something
pertaining to the inner man, yet it is not yet to be either called or
thought an image of God. And this is discussed in the thirteenth book
by the commendation of Christian faith. In the fourteenth we discuss
the true wisdom of man, viz. that which is granted him by God's gift
in the partaking of that very God Himself, which is distinct from
knowledge; and the discussion reached this point, that a trinity is
discovered in the image of God, which is man in respect to his mind,
which mind is "renewed in the knowledge" of God," after the image
of Him that created" man; "after His own image;" and so obtains
wisdom, wherein is the contemplation of things eternal.
|
|