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Our conception is framed according to this notion, when we believe
that God was made man for us, as an example of humility, and to show
the love of God towards us. For this it is which it is good for us to
believe, and to retain firmly and unshakenly in our heart, that the
humility by which God was born of a woman, and was led to death
through contumelies so great by mortal men, is the chiefest remedy by
which the swelling of our pride may be cured, and the profound mystery
by which the bond of sin may be loosed. So also, because we know what
omnipotence is, we believe concerning the omnipotent God in the power
of His miracles and of His resurrection, and we frame conceptions
respecting actions of this kind, according to the species and genera of
things that are either ingrafted in us by nature, or gathered by
experience, that our faith may not be feigned. For neither do we know
the countenance of the Virgin Mary; from whom, untouched by a
husband, nor tainted in the birth itself, He was wonderfully born.
Neither have we seen what were the lineaments of the body of Lazarus;
nor yet Bethany; nor the sepulchre, and that stone which He
commanded to be removed when He raised Him from the dead; nor the new
tomb cut out in the rock, whence He Himself arose; nor the Mount of
Olives, from whence He ascended into heaven. And, in short,
whoever of us have not seen these things, know not whether they are as
we conceive them to be, nay judge them more probably not to be so.
For when the aspect either of a place, or a man, or of any other
body, which we happened to imagine before we saw it, turns out to be
the same when it occurs to our sight as it was when it occurred to our
mind, we are moved with no little wonder. So scarcely and hardly ever
does it happen. And yet we believe those things most steadfastly,
because we imagine them according to a special and general notion, of
which we are certain. For we believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be
born of a virgin who was called Mary. But what a virgin is, or what
it is to be born, and what is a proper name, we do not believe, but
certainly know. And whether that was the countenance of Mary which
occurred to the mind in speaking of those things or recollecting them,
we neither know at all, nor believe. It is allowable, then, in this
case to say without violation of the faith, perhaps she had such or
such a countenance, perhaps she had not: but no one could say without
violation of the Christian faith, that perhaps Christ was born of a
virgin.
8. Wherefore, since we desire to understand the eternity, and
equality, and unity of the Trinity, as much as is permitted us, but
ought to believe before we understand; and since we must watch
carefully, that our faith be not feigned; since we must have the
fruition of the same Trinity, that we may live blessedly; but if we
have believed anything false of it, our hope would be worthless, and
our charity not pure: how then can we love, by believing, that
Trinity which we do not know? Is it according to the special or
general notion, according to which we love the Apostle Paul? In
whose case, even if he was not of that countenance which occurs to us
when we think of him (and this we do not know at all), yet we know
what a man is. For not to go far away, this we are; and it is
manifest he, too, was this, and that his soul joined to his body
lived after the manner of mortals. Therefore we believe this of him,
which we find in ourselves, according to the species or genus under
which all human nature alike is comprised. What then do we know,
whether specially or generally, of that most excellent Trinity, as if
there were many such trinities, some of which we had learned by
experience, so that we may believe that Trinity, too, to have been
such as they, through the rule of similitude, impressed upon us,
whether a special or a general notion; and thus love also that thing
which we believe and do not yet know, from the parity of the thing
which we do know? But this certainly is not so. Or is it that, as
we love in our Lord Jesus Christ, that He rose from the dead,
although we never saw any one rise from thence, so we can believe in
and love the Trinity which we do not see, and the like of which we
never have seen? But we certainly know what it is to die, and what it
is to live; because we both live, and from time to time have seen and
experienced both dead and dying persons. And what else is it to rise
again, except to live again, that is, to return to life from death?
When, therefore, we say and believe that there is a Trinity, we
know what a Trinity is, because we know what three are; but this is
not what we love. For we can easily have this whenever we will, to
pass over other things, by just hold ing up three fingers. Or do we
indeed love, not every trinity, but the Trinity, that is God? We
love then in the Trinity, that it is God: but we never saw or knew
any other God, because God is One; He alone whom we have not yet
seen, and whom we love by believing. But the question is, from what
likeness or comparison of known things can we believe, in order that we
may love God, whom we do not yet know?
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