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8. Some persons, however, find a difficulty in this faith; when
they hear that the Father is God, and the Son God, and the Holy
Spirit God, and yet that this Trinity is not three Gods, but one
God; and they ask how they are to understand this: especially when it
is said that the Trinity works indivisibly in everything that God
works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father spoke, which is not
the voice of the Son; and that none except the Son was born in the
flesh, and suffered, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; and
that none except the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. They
wish to understand how the Trinity uttered that voice which was only of
the Father; and how the same Trinity created that flesh in which the
Son only was born of the Virgin; and how the very same Trinity
itself wrought that form of a dove, in which the Holy Spirit only
appeared. Yet, otherwise, the Trinity does not work indivisibly,
but the Father does some things, the Son other things, and the Holy
Spirit yet others: or else, if they do some things together, some
severally, then the Trinity is not indivisible. It is a difficulty,
too, to them, in what manner the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity,
whom neither the Father nor the Son, nor both, have begotten,
although He is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son.
Since, then, men weary us with asking such questions, let us unfold
to them, as we are able, whatever wisdom God's gift has bestowed
upon our weakness on this subject; neither "let us go on our way with
consuming envy." Should we say that we are not accustomed to think
about such things, it would not be true; yet if we acknowledge that
such subjects commonly dwell in our thoughts, carried away as we are by
the love of investigating the truth, then they require of us, by the
law of charity, to make known to them what we have herein been able to
find out. "Not as though I had already attained, either were
already perfect" (for, if the Apostle Paul, how much more must
I, who lie far beneath his feet, count myself not to have
apprehended!); but, according to my measure, "if I forget those
things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are
before, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high
calling," I am requested to disclose so much of the road as I have
already passed, and the point to which I have reached, whence the
course yet remains to bring me to the end. And those make the
request, whom a generous charity compels me to serve. Needs must
too, and God will grant that, in supplying them with matter to read,
I shall profit myself also; and that, in seeking to reply to their
inquiries, I shall myself likewise find that for which I was
inquiring. Accordingly I have undertaken the task, by the bidding
and help of the Lord my God, not so much of discoursing with
authority respecting things I know already, as of learning those
things by piously discoursing of them.
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