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40. I have undoubtedly taken pains so far as I could, not indeed
so that the thing might be seen face to face, but that it might be seen
by this likeness in an enigma, in how small a degree soever, by
conjecture, in our memory and understanding, to intimate God the
Father and God the Son: i.e. God the begetter, who has in some
way spoken by His own co-eternal Word all things that He has in His
substance; and God His Word Himself, who Himself has nothing
either more or less in substance than is in Him, who, not lyingly but
truly, hath begotten the Word; and I have assigned to memory
everything that we know, even if we were not thinking of it, but to
understanding the formation after a certain special mode of the
thought. For we are usually said to understand what, by thinking of
it, we have found to be true; and this it is again that we leave in
the memory. But that is a still more hidden depth of our memory,
wherein we found this also first when we thought of it, and wherein an
inner word is begotten such as belongs to no tongue, as it were,
knowledge of knowledge, vision of vision, and understanding which
appears in [reflective] thought; of understanding which had indeed
existed before in the memory, but was latent there, although, unless
the thought itself had also some sort of memory of its own, it would
not return to those things which it had left in the memory while it
turned to think of other things.
41. But I have shown nothing in this enigma respecting the Holy
Spirit such as might appear to be like Him, except our own will, or
love, or affection, which is a stronger will, since our will which we
have naturally is variously affected, according as various objects are
adjacent or occur to it, by which we are attracted or offended.
What, then, is this? Are we to say that our will, when it is
right, knows not what to desire, what to avoid? Further, if it
knows, doubtless then it has a kind of knowledge of its own, such as
cannot be without memory and understanding. Or are we to listen to any
one who should say that love knows not what it does, which does not do
wrongly? As, then, there are both understanding and love in that
primary memory wherein we find provided and stored up that to which we
can come in thought, because we find also those two things there, when
we find by thinking that we both understand and love anything; which
things were there too when we were not thinking of them: and as there
are memory and love in that understanding, which is formed by thought,
which true word we say inwardly without the tongue of any nation when we
say what we know; for the gaze of our thought does not return to
anything except by remembering it, and does not care to return unless
by loving it: so love, which combines the vision brought about in the
memory, and the vision of the thought formed thereby, as if parent and
offspring, would not know what to love rightly unless it had a
knowledge of what it desired, which it cannot have without memory and
understanding.
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