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1. THE following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the
reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against
the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are
deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason. Now one class of such
men endeavor to transfer to things incorporeal and spiritual the ideas
they have formed, whether through experience of the bodily senses, or
by natural human wit and diligent quickness, or by the aid of art,
from things corporeal; so as to seek to measure and conceive of the
former by the latter. Others, again, frame whatever sentiments they
may have concerning God according to the nature or affections of the
human mind; and through this error they govern their discourse, in
disputing concerning God, by distorted and fallacious rules.
While yet a third class strive indeed to transcend the whole creation,
which doubtless is changeable, in order to raise their thought to the
unchangeable substance, which is God; but being weighed down by the
burden of mortality, whilst they both would seem to know what they do
not, and cannot know what they would, preclude themselves from
entering the very path of understanding, by an over-bold affirmation
of their own presumptuous judgments; choosing rather not to correct
their own opinion when it is perverse, than to change that which they
have once defended. And, indeed, this is the common disease of all
the three classes which I have mentioned, viz., both of those who
frame their thoughts of God according to things corporeal, and of
those who do so according to the spiritual creature, such as is the
soul; and of those who neither regard the body nor the spiritual
creature, and yet think falsely about God; and are indeed so much the
further from the truth, that nothing can be found answering to their
conceptions, either in the body, or in the made or created spirit, or
in the Creator Himself. For he who thinks, for instance, that God
is white or red, is in error; and yet these things are found in the
body. Again, he who thinks of God as now forgetting and now
remembering, or anything of the same kind, is none the less in error;
and yet these things are found in the mind. But he who thinks that
God is of such power as to have generated Himself, is so much the
more in error, because not only does God not so exist, but neither
does the spiritual nor the bodily creature; for there is nothing
whatever that generates its own existence.
2. In order, therefore, that the human mind might be purged from
falsities of this kind, Holy Scripture, which suits itself to babes
has not avoided words drawn from any class of things really existing,
through which, as by nourishment, our understanding might rise
gradually to things divine and transcendent. For, in speaking of
God, it has both used words taken from things corporeal, as when it
says, "Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings;" and it has borrowed
many things from the spiritual creature, whereby to signify that which
indeed is not so, but must needs so be said: as, for instance, "I
the Lord thy God am a jealous God;" and, "It repenteth me that
I have made man." But it has drawn no words whatever, whereby to
frame either figures of speech or enigmatic sayings, from things which
do not exist at all. And hence it is that they who are shut out from
the truth by that third kind of error are more mischievously and emptily
vain than their fellows; in that they surmise respecting God, what
can neither be found in Himself nor m any creature. For divine
Scripture is wont to frame, as it were, allurements for children from
the things which are found in the creature; whereby, according to
their measure, and as it were by steps, the affections of the weak may
be moved to seek those things that are above, and to leave those things
that are below. But the same Scripture rarely employs those things
which are spoken properly of God, and are not found in any creature;
as, for instance, that which was said to Moses, "I am that I
am;" and, "I Am hath sent me to you." For since both body and
soul also are said in some sense to be, Holy Scripture certainly
would not so express itself unless it meant to be understood in some
special sense of the term. So, too, that which the Apostle says,
"Who only hath immortality." Since the soul also both is said to
be, and is, in a certain manner immortal, Scripture would not say
"only hath," unless because true immortality is unchangeableness;
which no creature can possess, since it belongs to the creator alone.
So also James says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning." So also David, "Thou,
shall change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the
same."
3. Further, it is difficult to contemplate and fully know the
substance of God; who fashions things changeable, yet without any
change in Himself, and creates things temporal, yet without any
temporal movement in Himself. And it is necessary, therefore, to
purge our minds, in order to be able to see ineffably that which is
ineffable; whereto not having yet attained, we are to be nourished by
faith, and led by such ways as are more suited to our capacity, that
we may be rendered apt and able to comprehend it. And hence the
Apostle says, that "in Christ indeed are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge;" and yet has commended Him to us, as to babes
in Christ, who, although already born again by His grace, yet are
still carnal and psychical, not by that divine virtue wherein He is
equal to the Father, but by that human infirmity whereby He was
crucified. For he says, "I determined not to know anything among
you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified;" and then he continues,
"And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much
trembling." And a little after he says to them, "And I,
brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and
not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet
now are ye able." There are some who are angry at language of this
kind, and think it is used in slight to themselves, and for the most
part prefer rather to believe that they who so speak to them have
nothing to say, than that they themselves cannot understand what they
have said. And sometimes, indeed, we do allege to them, not
certainly that account of the case which they seek in their inquiries
about God, because neither can they themselves receive it, nor can we
perhaps either apprehend or express it, but such an account of it as to
demonstrate to them how incapable and utterly unfit they are to
understand that which they require of us. But they, on their parts,
because they do not hear what they desire, think that we are either
playing them false in order to conceal our own ignorance, or speaking
in malice because we grudge them knowledge; and so go away indignant
and perturbed.
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