Writings of Augustine. On the Trinity, De Trinitate
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The Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus, Bishop of Hippo,
on the Trinity, de Trinitate
Translated by the Rev. Arthur West Haddan, B.D.,
Hon. Canon of Worchester, and Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath,
Warwickshire.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
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Book XIII.
The inquiry is prosecuted respecting knowledge, in which, as
distinguished from wisdom, Augustin had begun in the former book to
look for a kind of trinity. And occasion is taken of commending
Christian faith, and of explaining how the faith of believers is one
and common. Next, that all desire blessedness, yet that all have not
the faith whereby we arrive at blessedness; and that this faith is
defined in Christ, who in the flesh rose from the dead; and that no
one is set free from the dominion of the devil through forgiveness of
sins, save through Him. It is shown also at length that it was needful
that the devil should be conquered by Christ, not by power, but by
righteousness. Finally, that when the words of this faith are
committed to memory, there is in the mind a kind of trinity, since
there are, first, in the memory the sounds of the words, and this even
when the man is not thinking of them; and next, the mind's eye of his
recollection is formed thereupon when he thinks of them; and, lastly,
the will, when he so thinks and remembers, combines both.
Chapter 1.--The Attempt is Made to Distinguish Out of the Scriptures
the Offices of Wisdom and of Knowledge. That in the Beginning of John
Some Things that are Said Belong to Wisdom, Some to Knowledge. Some
Things There are Only Known by the Help of Faith. How We See the Faith
that is in Us. In the Same Narrative of John, Some Things are Known by
the Sense of the Body, Others Only by the Reason of the Mind.
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1. In the book before this, viz. the twelfth of this work, we have
done enough to distinguish the office of the rational mind in temporal
things, wherein not only our knowing but our action is concerned, from
the more excellent office of the same mind, which is employed in
contemplating eternal things, and is limited to knowing alone. But I
think it more convenient that I should insert somewhat out of the Holy
Scriptures, by which the two may more easily be distinguished.
2. John the Evangelist has thus begun his Gospel: "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and
without was Him not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and
the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose
name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the
Light, that all men through Him might believe. He was not that Light,
but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the
world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He
came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and
truth." [792] This entire passage, which I have here taken from the
Gospel, contains in its earlier portions what is immutable and
eternal, the contemplation of which makes us blessed; but in those
which follow, eternal things are mentioned in conjunction with
temporal things. And hence some things there belong to knowledge, some
to wisdom, according to our previous distinction in the twelfth book.
For the words,--"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it
not:"--require a contemplative life, and must be discerned by the
intellectual mind; and the more any one has profited in this, the
wiser without doubt will he become. But on account of the verse, "The
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not,"
faith certainly was necessary, whereby that which was not seen might
be believed. For by "darkness" he intended to signify the hearts of
mortals turned away from light of this kind, and hardly able to behold
it; for which reason he subjoins, "There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of
the Light, that all men through Him might believe." But here we come
to a thing that was done in time, and belongs to knowledge, which is
comprised in the cognizance of facts. And we think of the man John
under that phantasy which is impressed on our memory from the notion
of human nature. And whether men believe or not, they think this in
the same manner. For both alike know what man is, the outer part of
whom, that is, his body, they have learned through the eyes of the
body; but of the inner, that is, the soul, they possess the knowledge
in themselves, because they also themselves are men, and through
intercourse with men; so that they are able to think what is said,
"There was a man, whose name was John," because they know the names
also by interchange of speech. But that which is there also, viz.
"sent from God," they who hold at all, hold by faith; and they who do
not hold it by faith, either hesitate through doubt, or deride it
through unbelief. Yet both, if they are not in the number of those
over-foolish ones, who say in their heart "There is no God," [793]
when they hear these words, think both things, viz. both what God is,
and what it is to be sent from God; and if they do not do this as the
things themselves really are, they do it at any rate as they can.
3. Further, we know from other sources the faith itself which a man
sees to be in his own heart, if he believes, or not to be there, if he
does not believe: but not as we know bodies, which we see with the
bodily eyes, and think of even when absent through the images of
themselves which we retain in memory; nor yet as those things which we
have not seen, and which we frame howsoever we can in thought from
those which we have seen, and commit them to memory, that we may recur
to them when we will, in order that therein we may similarly by
recollection discern them, or rather discern the images of them, of
what sort soever these are which we have fixed there; nor again as a
living man, whose soul we do not indeed see, but conjecture from our
own, and from corporeal motions gaze also in thought upon the living
man, as we have learnt him by sight. Faith as not so seen in the heart
in which it is, by him whose it is; but most certain knowledge holds
it fast, and conscience proclaims it. Although therefore we are bidden
to believe on this account, because we cannot see what we are bidden
to believe; nevertheless we see faith itself in ourselves, when that
faith is in us; because faith even in absent things is present, and
faith in things which are without us is within, and faith in things
which are not seen is itself seen, and itself none the less comes into
the hearts of men in time; and if any cease to be faithful and become
unbelievers, then it perishes from them. And sometimes faith is
accommodated even to falsehoods; for we sometimes so speak as to say,
I put faith in him, and he deceived me. And this kind of faith, if
indeed it too is to be called faith, perishes from the heart without
blame, when truth is found and expels it. But faith in things that are
true, passes, as one should wish it to pass, into the things
themselves. For we must not say that faith perishes, when those things
which were believed are seen. For is it indeed still to be called
faith, when faith, according to the definition in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, is the evidence of things not seen? [794]
4. In the words which follow next, "The same came for a witness, to
bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe;"
the action, as we have said, is one done in time. For to bear witness
even to that which is eternal, as is that light that is intelligible,
is a thing done in time. And of this it was that John came to bear
witness who "was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that
Light." For he adds "That was the true Light that lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was
made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not." Now they who know the Latin language,
understand all these words, from those things which they know: and of
these, some have become known to us through the senses of the body, as
man, as the world itself, of which the greatness is so evident to our
sight; as again the sounds of the words themselves, for hearing also
is a sense of the body; and some through the reason of the mind, as
that which is said, "And His own received Him not;" for this means,
that they did not believe in Him; and what belief is, we do not know
by any sense of the body, but by the reason of the mind. We have
learned, too, not the sounds, but the meanings of the words
themselves, partly through the sense of the body, partly through the
reason of the mind. Nor have we now heard those words for the first
time, but they are words we had heard before. And we were retaining in
our memory as things known, and we here recognized, not only the words
themselves, but also what they meant. For when the bisyllabic word
mundus is uttered, then something that is certainly corporeal, for it
is a sound, has become known through the body, that is, through the
ear. But that which it means also, has become known through the body,
that is, through the eyes of the flesh. For so far as the world is
known to us at all, it is known through sight. But the quadri-syllabic
word crediderunt reaches us, so far as its sound, since that is a
corporeal thing, through the ear of the flesh; but its meaning is
discoverable by no sense of the body, but by the reason of the mind.
For unless we knew through the mind what the word crediderunt meant,
we should not understand what they did not do, of whom it is said,
"And His own received Him not." The sound then of the word rings upon
the ears of the body from without, and reaches the sense which is
called hearing. The species also of man is both known to us in
ourselves, and is presented to the senses of the body from without, in
other men; to the eyes, when it is seen; to the ears, when it is
heard; to the touch, when it is held and touched; and it has, too, its
image in our memory, incorporeal indeed, but like the body. Lastly,
the wonderful beauty of the world itself is at hand from without, both
to our gaze, and to that sense which is called touch, if we come in
contact with any of it: and this also has its image within in our
memory, to which we revert, when we think of it either in the
enclosure of a room, or again in darkness. But we have already
sufficiently spoken in the eleventh book of these images of corporeal
things; incorporeal indeed, yet having the likeness of bodies, and
belonging to the life of the outer man. But we are treating now of the
inner man, and of his knowledge, namely, that knowledge which is of
things temporal and changeable; into the purpose and scope of which,
when anything is assumed, even of things belonging to the outer man,
it must be assumed for this end, that something may thence be taught
which may help rational knowledge. And hence the rational use of those
things which we have in common with irrational animals belongs to the
inner man; neither can it rightly be said that this is common to us
with the irrational animals.
Footnotes
[792] John i. 1-14
[793] Ps. xiv. 1
[794] Heb. xi. 1
Chapter 2.--Faith a Thing of the Heart, Not of the Body; How It is
Common and One and the Same in All Believers. The Faith of Believers
is One, No Otherwise than the Will of Those Who Will is One.
5. But faith, of which we are compelled, by reason of the arrangement
of our subject, to dispute somewhat more at length in this book: faith
I say, which they who have are called the faithful, and they who have
not, unbelievers, as were those who did not receive the Son of God
coming to His own; although it is wrought in us by hearing, yet does
not belong to that sense of the body which is called hearing, since it
is not a sound; nor to the eyes of this our flesh, since it is neither
color nor bodily form; nor to that which is called touch, since it has
nothing of bulk; nor to any sense of the body at all, since it is a
thing of the heart, not of the body; nor is it without apart from us,
but deeply seated within us; nor does any man see it in another, but
each one in himself. Lastly, it is a thing that can both be feigned by
pretence, and be thought to be in him in whom it is not. Therefore
every one sees his own faith in himself; but does not see, but
believes, that it is in another; and believes this the more firmly,
the more he knows the fruits of it, which faith is wont to work by
love. [795] And therefore this faith is common to all of whom the
evangelist subjoins, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God;" common I say, not as any form of a
bodily object is common, as regards sight, to the eyes of all to whom
it is present, for in some way the gaze of all that behold it is
informed by the same one form; but as the human countenance can be
said to be common to all men; for this is so said that yet each
certainly has his own. We say certainly with perfect truth, that the
faith of believers is impressed from one doctrine upon the heart of
each several person who believes the same thing. But that which is
believed is a different thing from the faith by which it is believed.
For the former is in things which are said either to be, or to have
been or to be about to be; but the latter is in the mind of the
believer, and is visible to him only whose it is; although not indeed
itself but a faith like it, is also in others. For it is not one in
number, but in kind; yet on account of the likeness, and the absence
of all difference, we rather call it one than many. For when, too, we
see two men exceedingly alike, we wonder, and say that both have one
countenance. It is therefore more easily said that the souls were
many,--a several soul, of course, for each several person--of whom we
read in the Acts of the Apostles, that they were of one soul, [796]
--than it is, where the apostle speaks of "one faith," [797] for any
one to venture to say that there are as many faiths as there are
faithful. And yet He who says, "O woman, great is thy faith;" [798]
and to another, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"
[799] intimates that each has his own faith. But the like faith of
believers is said to be one, in the same way as a like will of those
who will is said to be one; since in the case also of those who have
the same will, the will of each is visible to himself, but that of the
other is not visible, although he wills the same thing; and if it
intimate itself by any signs, it is believed rather than seen. But
each being conscious of his own mind certainly does not believe, but
manifestly sees outright, that this is his own will.
Footnotes
[795] Gal. v. 6
[796] Acts iv. 32
[797] Eph. iv. 5
[798] Matt. xv. 28
[799] Matt. xiv. 31
Chapter 3.--Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The
Poet Ennius.
6. There is, indeed, so closely conspiring a harmony in the same
nature living and using reason, that although one knows not what the
other wills, yet there are some wills of all which are also known to
each; and although each man does not know what any other one man
wills, yet in some things he may know what all will. And hence comes
that story of the comic actor's witty joke, who promised that he would
say in the theatre, in some other play, what all had in their minds,
and what all willed; and when a still greater crowd had come together
on the day appointed, with great expectation, all being in suspense
and silent, is affirmed to have said: You will to buy cheap, and sell
dear. And mean actor though he was, yet all in his words recognized
what themselves were conscious of, and applauded him with wonderful
goodwill, for saying before the eyes of all what was confessedly true,
yet what no one looked for. And why was so great expectation raised by
his promising that he would say what was the will of all, unless
because no man knows the wills of other men? But did not he know that
will? Is there any one who does not know it? Yet why, unless because
there are some things which not unfitly each conjectures from himself
to be in others, through sympathy or agreement either in vice or
virtue? But it is one thing to see one's own will; another to
conjecture, however certainly, what is another's. For, in human
affairs, I am as certain that Rome was built as that Constantinople
was, although I have seen Rome with my eyes, but know nothing of the
other city, except what I have believed on the testimony of others.
And truly that comic actor believed it to be common to all to will to
buy cheap and sell dear, either by observing himself or by making
experiment also of others. But since such a will is in truth a fault,
every one can attain the counter virtue, or run into the mischief of
some other fault which is contrary to it, whereby to resist and
conquer it. For I myself know a case where a manuscript was offered to
a man for purchase, who perceived that the vendor was ignorant of its
value, and was therefore asking something very small, and who
thereupon gave him, though not expecting it, the just price, which was
much more. Suppose even the case of a man possessed with wickedness so
great as to sell cheap what his parents left to him, and to buy dear,
in order to waste it on his own lusts? Such wanton extravagance, I
fancy, is not incredible; and if such men are sought, they may be
found, or even fall in one's way although not sought; who, by a
wickedness more than that of the theatre, make a mock of the
theatrical proposition or declaration, by buying dishonor at a great
price, while selling lands at a small one. We have heard, too, of
persons that, for the sake of distribution, have bought corn at a
higher price, and sold it to their fellow-citizens at a lower one. And
note also what the old poet Ennius has said: that "all mortals wish
themselves to be praised;" wherein, doubtless, he conjectured what was
in others, both by himself, and by those whom he knew by experience;
and so seems to have declared what it is that all men will. Lastly, if
that comic actor himself, too, had said, You all will to be praised,
no one of you wills to be abused; he would have seemed in like manner
to have expressed what all will. Yet there are some who hate their own
faults, and do not desire to be praised by others for that for which
they are displeased with themselves; and who thank the kindness of
those who rebuke them, when the purpose of that rebuke is their own
amendment. But if he had said, You all will to be blessed, you do not
will to be wretched; he would have said something which there is no
one that would not recognize in his own will. For whatever else a man
may will secretly, he does not withdraw from that will, which is well
known to all men, and well known to be in all men.
Chapter 4.--The Will to Possess Blessedness is One in All, But the
Variety of Wills is Very Great Concerning that Blessedness Itself.
7. It is wonderful, however, since the will to obtain and retain
blessedness is one in all, whence comes, on the other hand, such a
variety and diversity of wills concerning that blessedness itself; not
that any one is unwilling to have it, but that all do not know it. For
if all knew it, it would not be thought by some to be in goodness of
mind; by others, in pleasure of body; by others, in both; and by some
in one thing, by others in another. For as men find special delight in
this thing or that, so have they placed in it their idea of a blessed
life. How, then, do all love so warmly what not all know? Who can love
what he does not know?--a subject which I have already discussed in
the preceding books. [800] Why, therefore, is blessedness loved by
all, when it is not known by all? Is it perhaps that all know what it
is itself, but all do not know where it is to be found, and that the
dispute arises from this?--as if, forsooth, the business was about
some place in this world, where every one ought to will to live who
wills to live blessedly; and as if the question where blessedness is
were not implied in the question what it is. For certainly, if it is
in the pleasure of the body, he is blessed who enjoys the pleasure of
the body; if in goodness of mind, he has it who enjoys this; if in
both, he who enjoys both. When, therefore, one says, to live blessedly
is to enjoy the pleasure of the body; but another, to live blessedly
is to enjoy goodness of mind; is it not, that either both know, or
both do not know, what a blessed life is? How, then, do both love it,
if no one can love what he does not know? Or is that perhaps false
which we have assumed to be most true and most certain, viz. that all
men will to live blessedly? For if to live blessedly is, for
argument's sake, to live according to goodness of mind, how does he
will to live blessedly who does not will this? Should we not say more
truly, That man does not will to live blessedly, because he does not
wish to live according to goodness, which alone is to live blessedly?
Therefore all men do not will to live blessedly; on the contrary, few
wish it; if to live blessedly is nothing else but to live according to
goodness of mind, which many do not will to do. Shall we, then, hold
that to be false of which the Academic Cicero himself did not doubt
(although Academics doubt every thing), who, when he wanted in the
dialogue Hortensius to find some certain thing, of which no one
doubted, from which to start his argument, says, We certainly all will
to be blessed? Far be it from me to say this is false. But what then?
Are we to say that, although there is no other way of living blessedly
than living according to goodness of mind, yet even he who does not
will this, wills to live blessedly? This, indeed, seems too absurd.
For it is much as if we should say, Even he who does not will to live
blessedly, wills to live blessedly. Who could listen to, who could
endure, such a contradiction? And yet necessity thrusts us into this
strait, if it is both true that all will to live blessedly, and yet
all do not will to live in that way in which alone one can live
blessedly.
Footnotes
[800] Bks. viii. c. 4, etc., x. c. 1.
Chapter 5.--Of the Same Thing.
8. Or is, perhaps, the deliverance from our difficulties to be found
in this, that, since we have said that every one places his idea of a
blessed life in that which has most pleased him, as pleasure pleased
Epicurus, and goodness Zeno, and something else pleased other people,
we say that to live blessedly is nothing else but to live according to
one's own pleasure: so that it is not false that all will to live
blessedly, because all will that which pleases each? For if this, too,
had been proclaimed to the people in the theatre, all would have found
it in their own wills. But when Cicero, too, had propounded this in
opposition to himself, he so refuted it as to make them blush who
thought so. For he says: "But, behold! people who are not indeed
philosophers, but who yet are prompt to dispute, say that all are
blessed, whoever live as they will;" which is what we mean by, as
pleases each. But by and by he has subjoined: "But this is indeed
false. For to will what is not fitting, is itself most miserable;
neither is it so miserable not to obtain what one wills, as to will to
obtain what one ought not." Most excellently and altogether most truly
does he speak. For who can be so blind in his mind, so alienated from
all light of decency, and wrapped up in the darkness of indecency, as
to call him blessed, because he lives as he will, who lives wickedly
and disgracefully; and with no one restraining him, no one punishing,
and no one daring even to blame him, nay more, too, with most people
praising him, since, as divine Scripture says, "The wicked is praised
in his heart's desire: and he who works iniquity is blessed," [801]
gratifies all his most criminal and flagitious desires; when,
doubtless, although even so he would be wretched, yet he would be less
wretched, if he could have had nothing of those things which he had
wrongly willed? For every one is made wretched by a wicked will also,
even though it stop short with will but more wretched by the power by
which the longing of a wicked will is fulfilled. And, therefore, since
it is true that all men will to be blessed, and that they seek for
this one thing with the most ardent love, and on account of this seek
everything which they do seek; nor can any one love that of which he
does not know at all what or of what sort it is, nor can be ignorant
what that is which he knows that he wills; it follows that all know a
blessed life. But all that are blessed have what they will, although
not all who have what they will are forewith blessed. But they are
forewith wretched, who either have not what they will, or have that
which they do not rightly will. Therefore he only is a blessed man,
who both has all things which he wills, and wills nothing ill.
Footnotes
[801] Ps. x. 3
Chapter 6.--Why, When All Will to Be Blessed, that is Rather Chosen by
Which One Withdraws from Being So.
9. Since, then, a blessed life consists of these two things, and is
known to all, and dear to all; what can we think to be the cause why,
when they cannot have both, men choose, out of these two, to have all
things that they will, rather than to will all things well, even
although they do not have them? Is it the depravity itself of the
human race, in such wise that, while they are not unaware that neither
is he blessed who has not what he wills, nor he who has what he wills
wrongly, but he who both has whatsoever good things he wills, and
wills no evil ones, yet, when both are not granted of those two things
in which the blessed life consists, that is rather chosen by which one
is withdrawn the more from a blessed life (since he certainly is
further from it who obtains things which he wickedly desired, than he
who only does not obtain the things which he desired); whereas the
good will ought rather to be chosen, and to be preferred, even if it
do not obtain the things which it seeks? For he comes near to being a
blessed man, who wills well whatsoever he wills, and wills things,
which when he obtains, he will be blessed. And certainly not bad
things, but good, make men blessed, when they do so make them. And of
good things he already has something, and that, too, a something not
to be lightly esteemed,--namely, the very good will itself; who longs
to rejoice in those good things of which human nature is capable, and
not in the performance or the attainment of any evil; and who follows
diligently, and attains as much as he can, with a prudent, temperate,
courageous, and right mind, such good things as are possible in the
present miserable life; so as to be good even in evils, and when all
evils have been put an end to, and all good things fulfilled, then to
be blessed.
Chapter 7.--Faith is Necessary, that Man May at Some Time Be Blessed,
Which He Will Only Attain in the Future Life. The Blessedness of Proud
Philosophers Ridiculous and Pitiable.
10. And on this account, faith, by which men believe in God, is above
all things necessary in this mortal life, most full as it is of errors
and hardships. For there are no good things whatever, and above all,
not those by which any one is made good, or those by which he will
become blessed, of which any other source can be found whence they
come to man, and are added to man, unless it be from God. But when he
who is good and faithful in these miseries shall have come from this
life to the blessed life, then will truly come to pass what now is
absolutely impossible,--namely, that a man may live as he will. [802]
For he will not will to live badly in the midst of that felicity, nor
will he will anything that will be wanting, nor will there be wanting
anything which he shall have willed. Whatever shall be loved, will be
present; nor will that be longed for, which shall not be present.
Everything which will be there will be good, and the supreme God will
be the supreme good and will be present for those to enjoy who love
Him; and what altogether is most blessed, it will be certain that it
will be so forever. But now, indeed, philosophers have made for
themselves, according to the pleasure of each, their own ideals of a
blessed life; that they might be able, as it were by their own power,
to do that, which by the common conditions of mortals they were not
able to do,--namely, to live as they would. For they felt that no one
could be blessed otherwise than by having what he would, and by
suffering nothing which he would not. And who would not will, that the
life whatsoever it be, with which he is delighted, and which he
therefore calls blessed, were so in his own power, that he could have
it continually? And yet who is in this condition? Who wills to suffer
troubles in order that he may endure them manfully, although he both
wills and is able to endure them if he does suffer them? Who would
will to live in torments, even although he is able to live laudably by
holding fast to righteousness in the midst of them through patience?
They who have endured these evils, either in wishing to have or in
fearing to lose what they loved, whether wickedly or laudably, have
thought of them as transitory. For many have stretched boldly through
transitory evils to good things which will last. And these, doubtless,
are blessed through hope, even while actually suffering such
transitory evils, through which they arrive at good things which will
not be transitory. But he who is blessed through hope is not yet
blessed: for he expects, through patience, a blessedness which he does
not yet grasp. Whereas he, on the other hand, who is tormented without
any such hope, without any such reward, let him use as much endurance
as he pleases, is not truly blessed, but bravely miserable. For he is
not on that account not miserable, because he would be more so if he
also bore misery impatiently. Further, even if he does not suffer
those things which he would not will to suffer in his own body, not
even then is he to be esteemed blessed, inasmuch as he does not live
as he wills. For to omit other things, which, while the body remains
unhurt, belong to those annoyances of the mind, without which we
should will to live, and which are innumerable; he would will, at any
rate, if he were able, so to have his body safe and sound, and so to
suffer no inconveniences from it, as to have it within his own
control, or even to have it with an imperishableness of the body
itself; and because he does not possess this, and hangs in doubt about
it, he certainly does not live as he wills. For although he may be
ready from fortitude to accept, and bear with an equal mind, whatever
adversities may happen to him, yet he had rather they should not
happen, and prevents them if he is able; and he is in such way ready
for both alternatives, that, as much as is in him, he wishes for the
one and shuns the other; and if he have fallen into that which he
shuns, he therefore bears it willingly, because that could not happen
which he willed. He bears it, therefore, in order that he may not be
crushed; but he would not willingly be even burdened. How, then, does
he live as he wills? Is it because he is willingly strong to bear what
he would not will to be put upon him? Then he only wills what he can,
because he cannot have what he wills. And here is the sum-total of the
blessedness of proud mortals, I know not whether to be laughed at, or
not rather to be pitied, who boast that they live as they will,
because they willingly bear patiently what they are unwilling should
happen to them. For this, they say, is like Terence's wise saying,--
"Since that cannot be which you will, will that which thou canst."
[803]
That this is aptly said, who denies? But it is advice given to the
miserable man, that he may not be more miserable. And it is not
rightly or truly said to the blessed man, such as all wish themselves
to be, That cannot be which you will. For if he is blessed, whatever
he wills can be; since he does not will that which cannot be. But such
a life is not for this mortal state, neither will it come to pass
unless when immortality also shall come to pass. And if this could not
be given at all to man, blessedness too would be sought in vain, since
it cannot be without immortality.
Footnotes
[802] [The prophet Nathan enunciates the same truth, in his words to
David, "Go do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee."
2 Sam. vii. 3.--W.G.T.S.]
[803] Andreia, Act ii. Scene i, v. 5, 6.
Chapter 8.--Blessedness Cannot Exist Without Immortality.
11. As, therefore, all men will to be blessed, certainly, if they will
truly, they will also to be immortal; for otherwise they could not be
blessed. And further, if questioned also concerning immortality, as
before concerning blessedness, all reply that they will it. But
blessedness of what quality soever, such as is not so, but rather is
so called, is sought, nay indeed is feigned in this life, whilst
immortality is despaired of, without which true blessedness cannot be.
Since he lives blessedly, as we have already said before, and have
sufficiently proved and concluded, who lives as he wills, and wills
nothing wrongly. But no one wrongly wills immortality, if human nature
is by God's gift capable of it; and if it is not capable of it, it is
not capable of blessedness. For, that a man may live blessedly, he
must needs live. And if life quits him by his dying, how can a blessed
life remain with him? And when it quits him, without doubt it either
quits him unwilling, or willing, or neither. If unwilling, how is the
life blessed which is so within his will as not to be within his
power? And whereas no one is blessed who wills something that he does
not have, how much less is he blessed who is quitted against his will,
not by honor, nor by possessions, nor by any other thing, but by the
blessed life itself, since he will have no life at all? And hence,
although no feeling is left for his life to be thereby miserable (for
the blessed life quits him, because life altogether quits him), yet he
is wretched as long as he feels, because he knows that against his
will that is being destroyed for the sake of which he loves all else,
and which he loves beyond all else. A life therefore cannot both be
blessed, and yet quit a man against his will, since no one becomes
blessed against his will; and hence how much more does it make a man
miserable by quitting him against his will, when it would make him
miserable if he had it against his will! But if it quit him with his
will, even so how was that a blessed life, which he who had it willed
should perish? It remains then for them to say, that neither of these
is in the mind of the blessed man; that is, that he is neither
unwilling nor willing to be quitted by a blessed life, when through
death life quits him altogether; for that he stands firm with an even
heart, prepared alike for either alternative. But neither is that a
blessed life which is such as to be unworthy of his love whom it makes
blessed. For how is that a blessed life which the blessed man does not
love? Or how is that loved, of which it is received indifferently,
whether it is to flourish or to perish? Unless perhaps the virtues,
which we love in this way on account of blessedness alone, venture to
persuade us that we do not love blessedness itself. Yet if they did
this, we should certainly leave off loving the virtues themselves,
when we do not love that on account of which alone we loved them. And
further, how will that opinion be true, which has been so tried, and
sifted, and thoroughly strained, and is so certain, viz. that all men
will to be blessed, if they themselves who are already blessed neither
will nor do not will to be blessed? Or if they will it, as truth
proclaims, as nature constrains, in which indeed the supremely good
and unchangeably blessed Creator has implanted that will: if, I say,
they will to be blessed who are blessed, certainly they do not will to
be not blessed. But if they do not will not to be blessed, without
doubt they do not will to be annihilated and perish in regard to their
blessedness. But they cannot be blessed except they are alive;
therefore they do not will so to perish in regard to their life.
Therefore, whoever are either truly blessed or desire to be so, will
to be immortal. But he does not live blessedly who has not that which
he wills. Therefore it follows that in no way can life be truly
blessed unless it be eternal.
Chapter 9.--We Say that Future Blessedness is Truly Eternal, Not
Through Human Reasonings, But by the Help of Faith. The Immortality of
Blessedness Becomes Credible from the Incarnation of the Son of God.
12. Whether human nature can receive this, which yet it confesses to
be desirable, is no small question. But if faith be present, which is
in those to whom Jesus has given power to become the sons of God, then
there is no question. Assuredly, of those who endeavor to discover it
from human reasonings, scarcely a few, and they endued with great
abilities, and abounding in leisure, and learned with the most subtle
learning, have been able to attain to the investigation of the
immortality of the soul alone. And even for the soul they have not
found a blessed life that is stable, that is, true; since they have
said that it returns to the miseries of this life even after
blessedness. And they among them who are ashamed of this opinion, and
have thought that the purified soul is to be placed in eternal
happiness without a body, hold such opinions concerning the past
eternity of the world, as to confute this opinion of theirs concerning
the soul; a thing which here it is too long to demonstrate; but it has
been, as I think, sufficiently explained by us in the twelfth book of
the City of God. [804] But that faith promises, not by human
reasoning, but by divine authority, that the whole man, who certainly
consists of soul and body, shall be immortal, and on this account
truly blessed. And so, when it had been said in the Gospel, that Jesus
has given "power to become the sons of God to them who received Him;"
and what it is to have received Him had been shortly explained by
saying, "To them that believe on His name;" and it was further added
in what way they are to become sons of God, viz., "Which were born not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God;"--lest that infirmity of men which we all see and bear should
despair of attaining so great excellence, it is added in the same
place, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" [805] that,
on the contrary, men might be convinced of that which seemed
incredible. For if He who is by nature the Son of God was made the Son
of man through mercy for the sake of the sons of men,--for this is
what is meant by "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"
men,--how much more credible is it that the sons of men by nature
should be made the sons of God by the grace of God, and should dwell
in God, in whom alone and from whom alone the blessed can be made
partakers of that immortality; of which that we might be convinced,
the Son of God was made partaker of our mortality?
Footnotes
[804] C. 20.
[805] John i. 12-14
Chapter 10.--There Was No Other More Suitable Way of Freeing Man from
the Misery of Mortality Than The Incarnation of the Word. The Merits
Which are Called Ours are the Gifts of God.
13. Those then who say, What, had God no other way by which He might
free men from the misery of this mortality, that He should will the
only-begotten Son, God co-eternal with Himself, to become man, by
putting on a human soul and flesh, and being made mortal to endure
death?--these, I say, it is not enough so to refute, as to assert that
that mode by which God deigns to free us through the Mediator of God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, is good and suitable to the dignity of
God; but we must show also, not indeed that no other mode was possible
to God, to whose power all things are equally subject, but that there
neither was nor need have been any other mode more appropriate for
curing our misery. For what was so necessary for the building up of
our hope, and for the freeing the minds of mortals cast down by the
condition of mortality itself, from despair of immortality, than that
it should be demonstrated to us at how great a price God rated us, and
how greatly He loved us? But what is more manifest and evident in this
so great proof hereof, than that the Son of God, unchangeably good,
remaining what He was in Himself, and receiving from us and for us
what He was not, apart from any loss of His own nature, and deigning
to enter into the fellowship of ours, should first, without any evil
desert of His own, bear our evils; and so with unobligated munificence
should bestow His own gifts upon us, who now believe how much God
loves us, and who now hope that of which we used to despair, without
any good deserts of our own, nay, with our evil deserts too going
before?
14. Since those also which are called our deserts, are His gifts. For,
that faith may work by love, [806] "the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." [807] And He was
then given, when Jesus was glorified by the resurrection. For then He
promised that He Himself would send Him, and He sent Him; [808]
because then, as it was written and foretold of Him, "He ascended up
on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." [809]
These gifts constitute our deserts, by which we arrive at the chief
good of an immortal blessedness. "But God," says the apostle,
"commendeth His love towards as, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through Him." To this he goes on to add,
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His
life." Those whom he first calls sinners he afterwards calls the
enemies of God; and those whom he first speaks of as justified by His
blood, he afterwards speaks of as reconciled by the death of the Son
of God; and those whom he speaks of first as saved from wrath through
Him, he afterwards speaks of as saved by His life. We were not,
therefore, before that grace merely anyhow sinners, but in such sins
that we were enemies of God. But the same apostle calls us above
several times by two appellations, viz. sinners and enemies of
God,--one as if the most mild, the other plainly the most
harsh,--saying, "For if when we were yet weak, in due time Christ died
for the ungodly." [810] Those whom he called weak, the same he called
ungodly. Weakness seems something slight; but sometimes it is such as
to be called impiety. Yet except it were weakness, it would not need a
physician, who is in the Hebrew Jesus, in the Greek Soter, but in our
speech Saviour. And this word the Latin language had not previously,
but could have seeing that it could have it when it wanted it. And
this foregoing sentence of the apostle, where he says, "For when we
were yet weak, in due time He died for the ungodly," coheres with
those two following sentences; in the one of which he spoke of
sinners, in the other of enemies of God, as though he referred each
severally to each, viz. sinners to the weak, the enemies of God to the
ungodly.
Footnotes
[806] Gal. v. 5
[807] Rom. v. 4, 5
[808] John xx. 22, vii. 39, and xv. 26
[809] Eph. iv. 8 and Ps. lxviii. 18
[810] Rom. v. 6-10
Chapter 11.--A Difficulty, How We are Justitified in the Blood of the
Son of God.
15. But what is meant by "justified in His blood?" What power is there
in this blood, I beseech you, that they who believe should be
justified in it? And what is meant by "being reconciled by the death
of His Son?" Was it indeed so, that when God the Father was wroth with
us, He saw the death of His Son for us, and was appeased towards us?
Was then His Son already so far appeased towards us, that He even
deigned to die for us; while the Father was still so far wroth, that
except His Son died for us, He would not be appeased? And what, then,
is that which the same teacher of the Gentiles himself says in another
place: "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who
can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him
up for us all; how has He not with Him also freely given us all
things?" [811] Pray, unless the Father had been already appeased,
would He have delivered up His own Son, not sparing Him for us? Does
not this opinion seem to be as it were contrary to that? In the one,
the Son dies for us, and the Father is reconciled to us by His death;
in the other, as though the Father first loved us, He Himself on our
account does not spare the Son, He Himself for us delivers Him up to
death. But I see that the Father loved us also before, not only before
the Son died for us, but before He created the world; the apostle
himself being witness, who says, "According as He hath chosen us in
Him before the foundation of the world." [812] Nor was the Son
delivered up for us as it were unwillingly, the Father Himself not
sparing Him; for it is said also concerning Him, "Who loved me, and
delivered up Himself for me." [813] Therefore together both the Father
and the Son, and the Spirit of both, work all things equally and
harmoniously; yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and we are
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And I will explain, as I
shall be able, here also, how this was done, as much as may seem
sufficient.
Footnotes
[811] Rom. viii. 31, 32
[812] Eph. i. 4
[813] Gal. ii. 20
Chapter 12.--All, on Account of the Sin of Adam, Were Delivered into
the Power of the Devil.
16. By the justice of God in some sense, the human race was delivered
into the power of the devil; the sin of the first man passing over
originally into all of both sexes in their birth through conjugal
union, and the debt of our first parents binding their whole
posterity. This delivering up is first signified in Genesis, where,
when it had been said to the serpent, "Dust shalt thou eat," it was
said to the man, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return."
[814] In the words, "Unto dust shalt thou return," the death of the
body is fore-announced, because he would not have experienced that
either, if he had continued to the end upright as he was made; but in
that it is said to him whilst still living, "Dust thou art," it is
shown that the whole man was changed for the worse. For "Dust thou
art" is much the same as, "My spirit shall not always remain in these
men, for that they also are flesh." [815] Therefore it was at that
time shown, that he was delivered to him, in that it had been said to
him, "Dust shall thou eat." But the apostle declares this more
clearly, where he says: "And you who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of unfaithfulness; among whom we also had our
conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." [816] The "children of unfaithfulness" are
the unbelievers; and who is not this before he becomes a believer? And
therefore all men are originally under the prince of the power of the
air, "who worketh in the children of unfaithfulness." And that which I
have expressed by "originally" is the same that the apostle expresses
when he speaks of themselves who "by nature" were as others; viz. by
nature as it has been depraved by sin, not as it was created upright
from the beginning. But the way in which man was thus delivered into
the power of the devil, ought not to be so understood as if God did
this, or commanded it to be done; but that He only permitted it, yet
that justly. For when He abandoned the sinner, the author of the sin
immediately entered. Yet God did not certainly so abandon His own
creature as not to show Himself to him as God creating and quickening,
and among penal evils bestowing also many good things upon the evil.
For He hath not in anger shut up His tender mercies. [817] Nor did He
dismiss man from the law of His own power, when He permitted him to be
in the power of the devil; since even the devil himself is not
separated from the power of the Omnipotent, as neither from His
goodness. For whence do even the evil angels subsist in whatever
manner of life they have, except through Him who quickens all things?
If, therefore, the commission of sins through the just anger of God
subjected man to the devil, doubtless the remission of sins through
the merciful reconciliation of God rescues man from the devil.
Footnotes
[814] Gen. iii. 14-19
[815] Gen. vi. 3. "Strive with man," A.V.
[816] Eph. ii. 1-3
[817] Ps. lxxvii. 9
Chapter 13.--Man Was to Be Rescued from the Power of the Devil, Not by
Power, But by Righteousness.
17. But the devil was to be overcome, not by the power of God, but by
His righteousness. For what is more powerful than the Omnipotent? Or
what creature is there of which the power can be compared to the power
of the Creator? But since the devil, by the fault of his own
perversity, was made a lover of power, and a forsaker and assailant of
righteousness,--for thus also men imitate him so much the more in
proportion as they set their hearts on power, to the neglect or even
hatred of righteousness, and as they either rejoice in the attainment
of power, or are inflamed by the lust of it,--it pleased God, that in
order to the rescuing of man from the grasp of the devil, the devil
should be conquered, not by power, but by righteousness; and that so
also men, imitating Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by
righteousness, not by power. Not that power is to be shunned as as
though it were something evil; but the order must be preserved,
whereby righteousness is before it. For how great can be the power of
mortals? Therefore let mortals cleave to righteousness; power will be
given to immortals. And compared to this, the power, how great soever,
of those men who are called powerful on earth, is found to be
ridiculous weakness, and a pitfall is dug there for the sinner, where
the wicked seem to be most powerful. And the righteous man says in his
song, "Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teachest
him out of Thy law: that Thou mayest give him rest from the days of
adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will
not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance,
until righteousness return unto judgment, and all who follow it are
upright in heart." [818] At this present time, then, in which the
might of the people of God is delayed, "the Lord will not cast off His
people, neither will He forsake His inheritance," how bitter and
unworthy things soever it may suffer in its humility and weakness;
"until the righteousness," which the weakness of the pious now
possesses, "shall return to judgment," that is, shall receive the
power of judging; which is preserved in the end for the righteous when
power in its due order shall have followed after righteousness going
before. For power joined to righteousness, or righteousness added to
power, constitutes a judicial authority. But righteousness belongs to
a good will; whence it was said by the angels when Christ was born:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will."
[819] But power ought to follow righteousness, not to go before it;
and accordingly it is placed in "second," that is, prosperous fortune;
and this is called "second," [820] from "following." For whereas two
things make a man blessed, as we have argued above, to will well, and
to be able to do what one wills, people ought not to be so perverse,
as has been noted in the same discussion, as that a man should choose
from the two things which make him blessed, the being able to do what
he wills, and should neglect to will what he ought; whereas he ought
first to have a good will, but great power afterwards. Further, a good
will must be purged from vices, by which if a man is overcome, he is
in such wise overcome as that he wills evil; and then how will his
will be still good? It is to be wished, then, that power may now be
given, but power against vices, to conquer which men do not wish to be
powerful, while they wish to be so in order to conquer men; and why is
this, unless that, being in truth conquered, they feignedly conquer,
and are conquerors not in truth, but in opinion? Let a man will to be
prudent, will to be strong, will to be temperate, will to be just; and
that he may be able to have these things truly, let him certainly
desire power, and seek to be powerful in himself, and (strange though
it be) against himself for himself. But all the other things which he
wills rightly, and yet is not able to have, as, for instance,
immortality and true and full felicity, let him not cease to long for,
and let him patiently expect.
Footnotes
[818] Ps. xciv. 12-15
[819] Luke ii. 14
[820] Res secundoe
Chapter 14.--The Unobligated Death of Christ Has Freed Those Who Were
Liable to Death.
18. What, then, is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered?
What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he
conquered? Because, when he found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet
he slew Him. And certainly it is just, that we whom he held as
debtors, should be dismissed free by believing in Him whom he slew
without any debt. In this way it is that we are said to be justified
in the blood of Christ. [821] For so that innocent blood was shed for
the remission of our sins. Whence He calls Himself in the Psalms,
"Free among the dead." [822] For he only that is dead is free from the
debt of death. Hence also in another psalm He says, "Then I restored
that which I seized not;" [823] meaning sin by the thing seized,
because sin is laid hold of against what is lawful. Whence also He
says, by the mouth of His own Flesh, as is read in the Gospel: "For
the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me," that is, no
sin; but "that the world may know," He says, "that I do the
commandment of the Father; arise, let us go hence." [824] And hence He
proceeds to His passion, that He might pay for us debtors that which
He Himself did not owe. Would then the devil be conquered by this most
just right, if Christ had willed to deal with him by power, not by
righteousness? But He held back what was possible to Him, in order
that He might first do what was fitting. And hence it was necessary
that He should be both man and God. For unless He had been man, He
could not have been slain; unless He had been God, men would not have
believed that He would not do what He could, but that He could not do
what He would; nor should we have thought that righteousness was
preferred by Him to power, but that He lacked power. But now He
suffered for us things belonging to man, because He was man; but if He
had been unwilling, it would have been in His power to not so to
suffer, because He was also God. And righteousness was therefore made
more acceptable in humility, because so great power as was in His
Divinity, if He had been unwilling, would have been able not to suffer
humility; and thus by Him who died, being thus powerful, both
righteousness was commended, and power promised, to us, weak mortals.
For He did one of these two things by dying, the other by rising
again. For what is more righteous, than to come even to the death of
the cross for righteousness? And what more powerful, than to rise from
the dead, and to ascend into heaven with that very flesh in which He
was slain? And therefore He conquered the devil first by
righteousness, and afterwards by power: namely, by righteousness,
because He had no sin, and was slain by him most unjustly; but by
power, because having been dead He lived again, never afterwards to
die. [825] But He would have conquered the devil by power, even though
He could not have been slain by him: although it belongs to a greater
power to conquer death itself also by rising again, than to avoid it
by living. But the reason is really a different one, why we are
justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the power
of the devil through the remission of sins: it pertains to this, that
the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by power. For
Christ was crucified, not through immortal power, but through the
weakness which He took upon Him in mortal flesh; of which weakness
nevertheless the apostle says, "that the weakness of God is stronger
than men." [826]
Footnotes
[821] Rom. v. 9
[822] Ps. lxxxviii. 5
[823] Ps. lxix. 4
[824] John xiv. 30-31
[825] Rom. vi. 9
[826] 1 Cor. i. 25
Chapter 15.--Of the Same Subject.
19. It is not then difficult to see that the devil was conquered, when
he who was slain by Him rose again. It is something more, and more
profound of comprehension, to see that the devil was conquered when he
thought himself to have conquered, that is, when Christ was slain. For
then that blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured
out for the remission of our sins; that, because the devil deservedly
held those whom, as guilty of sin, he bound by the condition of death,
he might deservedly loose them through Him, whom, as guilty of no sin,
the punishment of death undeservedly affected. The strong man was
conquered by this righteousness, and bound with this chain, that his
vessels might be spoiled, [827] which with himself and his angels had
been vessels of wrath while with him, and might be turned into vessels
of mercy. [828] For the Apostle Paul tells us, that these words of our
Lord Jesus Christ Himself were spoken from heaven to him when he was
first called. For among the other things which he heard, he speaks
also of this as said to him thus: "For I have appeared unto thee for
this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these
things which thou hast seen from me, and of those things in the which
I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open the eyes of the blind,
and to turn them from darkness [to light], and from the power of Satan
unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance
among them which are sanctified, and faith that is in me." [829] And
hence the same apostle also, exhorting believers to the giving of
thanks to God the Father, says: "Who hath delivered us from the power
of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son:
in whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins." [830] In
this redemption, the blood of Christ was given, as it were, as a price
for us, by accepting which the devil was not enriched, but bound:
[831] that we might be loosened from his bonds, and that he might not
with himself involve in the meshes of sins, and so deliver to the
destruction of the second and eternal death, [832] any one of those
whom Christ, free from all debt, had redeemed by pouring out His own
blood unindebtedly; but that they who belong to the grace of Christ,
foreknown, and predestinated, and elected before the foundation of the
world [833] should only so far die as Christ Himself died for them,
i.e. only by the death of the flesh, not of the spirit.
Footnotes
[827] Mark iii. 27
[828] Rom. ix. 22, 23
[829] Acts xxvi. 16-18
[830] Col. i. 13, 14
[831] [In this representation of Augustin, the relics of that
misconception which appears in the earlier soteriology, paricularly
that of Irenæus, are seen: namely, that the death of Christ ransoms
the sinner from Satan. Certain texts which teach that redemption
delivers from the captivity to sin and Satan, were interpreted to
teach deliverance from the claims of Satan. Augustin's soteriology is
more free from this error than that of Irenæus, yet not entirely free
from it. The doctrine of justification did not obtain its most
consistent and complete statement in the Patristic church.--W.G.T.S.]
[832] Apoc. xxi. 8
[833] 1 Pet. i. 20
Chapter 16.--The Remains of Death and the Evil Things of the World
Turn to Good for the Elect. How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen,
that We Might Be Justified in His Blood. What the Anger of God is.
20. For although the death, too, of the flesh itself came originally
from the sin of the first man, yet the good use of it has made most
glorious martyrs. And so not only that death itself, bat all the evils
of this world, and the griefs and labors of men, although they come
from the deserts of sins, and especially of original sin, whence life
itself too became bound by the bond of death, yet have fitly remained,
even when sin is forgiven; that man might have wherewith to contend
for truth, and whereby the goodness of the faithful might be
exercised; in order that the new man through the new covenant might be
made ready among the evils of this world for a new world, by bearing
wisely the misery which this condemned life deserved, and by rejoicing
soberly because it will be finished, but expecting faithfully and
patiently the blessedness which the future life, being set free, will
have for ever. For the devil being cast forth from his dominion, and
from the hearts of the faithful, in the condemnation and faithlessness
of whom he, although himself also condemned, yet reigned, is only so
far permitted to be an adversary according to the condition of this
mortality, as God knows to be expedient for them: concerning which the
sacred writings speak through the mouth of the apostle: "God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are
able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it." [834] And those evils which the faithful
endure piously, are of profit either for the correction of sins, or
for the exercising and proving of righteousness, or to manifest the
misery of this life, that the life where will be that true and
perpetual blessedness may be desired more ardently, and sought out
more earnestly. But it is on their account that these evils are still
kept in being, of whom the apostle says: "For we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
to be holy according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He
might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did
predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also
justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." It is of
these who are predestinated, that not one shall perish with the devil;
not one shall remain even to death under the power of the devil. And
then follows what I have already cited above: [835] "What shall we
then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; how has
He not with Him also freely given us all things?" [836]
21. Why then should the death of Christ not have come to pass? Nay,
rather, why should not that death itself have been chosen above all
else to be brought to pass, to the passing by of the other innumerable
ways which He who is omnipotent could have employed to free us; that
death, I say, wherein neither was anything diminished or changed from
His divinity, and so great benefit was conferred upon men, from the
humanity which He took upon Him, that a temporal death, which was not
due, was rendered by the eternal Son of God, who was also the Son of
man, whereby He might free them from an eternal death which was due?
The devil was holding fast our sins, and through them was fixing us
deservedly in death. He discharged them, who had none of His own, and
who was led by him to death undeservedly. That blood was of such
price, that he who even slew Christ for a time by a death which was
not due, can as his due detain no one, who has put on Christ, in the
eternal death which was due. Therefore "God commendeth His love
towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him." Justified, he says, in His blood,--justified
plainly, in that we are freed from all sin; and freed from all sin,
because the Son of God, who knew no sin, was slain for us. Therefore
"we shall be saved from wrath through Him;" from the wrath certainly
of God, which is nothing else but just retribution. For the wrath of
God is not, as is that of man, a perturbation of the mind; but it is
the wrath of Him to whom Holy Scripture says in another place, "But
Thou, O Lord, mastering Thy power, judgest with calmness." [837] If,
therefore, the just retribution of God has received such a name, what
can be the right understanding also of the reconciliation of God,
unless that then such wrath comes to an end? Neither were we enemies
to God, except as sins are enemies to righteousness; which being
forgiven, such enmities come to an end, and they whom He Himself
justifies are reconciled to the Just One. And yet certainly He loved
them even while still enemies, since "He spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all," when we were still enemies. And
therefore the apostle has rightly added: "For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son," by which
that remission of sins was made, "much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved in His life." Saved in life, who were reconciled by
death. For who can doubt that He will give His life for His friends,
for whom, when enemies, He gave His death? "And not only so," he says,
"but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we
have now received the atonement." "Not only," he says, "shall we be
saved," but "we also joy;" and not in ourselves, but "in God;" nor
through ourselves, "but through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have
now received the atonement," as we have argued above. Then the apostle
adds, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned;"
[838] etc.: in which he disputes at some length concerning the two
men; the one the first Adam, through whose sin and death we, his
descendants, are bound by, as it were, hereditary evils; and the other
the second Adam, who is not only man, but also God, by whose payment
for us of what He owed not, we are freed from the debts both of our
first father and of ourselves. Further, since on account of that one
the devil held all who were begotten through his corrupted carnal
concupiscence, it is just that on account of this one he should loose
all who are regenerated through His immaculate spiritual grace.
Footnotes
[834] 1 Cor. x. 13
[835] C. 2.
[836] Rom. viii. 28-32
[837] Wisd. xii. 18
[838] Rom. v. 8, 12
Chapter 17.--Other Advantages of the Incarnation.
22. There are many other things also in the incarnation of Christ,
displeasing as it is to the proud, that are to be observed and thought
of advantageously. And one of them is, that it has been demonstrated
to man what place he has in the things which God has created; since
human nature could so be joined to God, that one person could be made
of two substances, and thereby indeed of three--God, soul, and flesh:
so that those proud malignant spirits, who interpose themselves as
mediators to deceive, although as if to help, do not therefore dare to
place themselves above man because they have not flesh; and chiefly
because the Son of God deigned to die also in the same flesh, lest
they, because they seem to be immortal, should therefore succeed in
getting themselves worshipped as gods. Further, that the grace of God
might be commended to us in the man Christ without any precedent
merits; because not even He Himself obtained by any precedent merits
that He should be joined in such great unity with the true God, and
should become the Son of God, one Person with Him; but from the time
when He began to be man, from that time He is also God; whence it is
said, "The Word was made flesh." [839] Then, again, there is this,
that the pride of man, which is the chief hindrance against his
cleaving to God, can be confuted and healed through such great
humility of God. Man learns also how far he has gone away from God;
and what it is worth to him as a pain to cure him, when he returns
through such a Mediator, who both as God assists men by His divinity,
and as man agrees with men by His weakness. For what greater example
of obedience could be given to us, who had perished through
disobedience, than God the Son obedient to God the Father, even to the
death of the cross? [840] Nay, wherein could the reward of obedience
itself be better shown, than in the flesh of so great a Mediator,
which rose again to eternal life? It belonged also to the justice and
goodness of the Creator, that the devil should be conquered by the
same rational creature which he rejoiced to have conquered, and by one
that came from that same race which, by the corruption of its origin
through one, he held altogether.
Footnotes
[839] John i. 14
[840] Phil. ii. 8
Chapter 18.--Why the Son of God Took Man Upon Himself from the Race of
Adam, and from a Virgin.
23. For assuredly God could have taken upon Himself to be man, that in
that manhood He might be the Mediator between God and men, from some
other source, and not from the race of that Adam who bound the human
race by his sin; as He did not create him whom He first created, of
the race of some one else. Therefore He was able, either so, or in any
other mode that He would, to create yet one other, by whom the
conqueror of the first might be conquered. But God judged it better
both to take upon Him man through whom to conquer the enemy of the
human race, from the race itself that had been conquered; and yet to
do this of a virgin, whose conception, not flesh but spirit, not lust
but faith, preceded. [841] Nor did that concupiscence of the flesh
intervene, by which the rest of men, who derive original sin, are
propagated and conceived; but holy virginity became pregnant, not by
conjugal intercourse, but by faith,--lust being utterly absent,--so
that that which was born from the root of the first man might derive
only the origin of race, not also of guilt. For there was born, not a
nature corrupted by the contagion of transgression, but the one only
remedy of all such corruptions. There was born, I say, a Man having
nothing at all, and to have nothing at all, of sin; through whom they
were to be born again so as to be freed from sin, who could not be
born without sin. For although conjugal chastity makes a right use of
the carnal concupiscence which is in our members; yet it is liable to
motions not voluntary, by which it shows either that it could not have
existed at all in paradise before sin, or if it did, that it was not
then such as that sometimes it should resist the will. But now we feel
it to be such, that in opposition to the law of the mind, and even if
there is no question of begetting, it works in us the incitement of
sexual intercourse; and if in this men yield to it, then it is
satisfied by an act of sin; if they do not, then it is bridled by an
act of refusal: which two things who could doubt to have been alien
from paradise before sin? For neither did the chastity that then was
do anything indecorous, nor did the pleasure that then was suffer
anything unquiet. It was necessary, therefore, that this carnal
concupiscence should be entirely absent, when the offspring of the
Virgin was conceived; in whom the author of death was to find nothing
worthy of death, and yet was to slay Him in order that he might be
conquered by the death of the Author of life: the conqueror of the
first Adam, who held fast the human race, conquered by the second
Adam, and losing the Christian race, freed out of the human race from
human guilt, through Him who was not in the guilt, although He was of
the race; that that deceiver might be conquered by that race which he
had conquered by guilt. And this was so done, in order that man may
not be lifted up, but "that he that glorieth should glory in the
Lord." [842] For he who was conquered was only man; and he was
therefore conquered, because he lusted proudly to be a god. But He who
conquered was both man and God; and therefore He so conquered, being
born of a virgin, because God in humility did not, as He governs other
saints, so govern that Man, but bare Him [as a Son]. These so great
gifts of God, and whatever else there are, which it is too long for us
now upon this subject both to inquire and to discuss, could not exist
unless the Word had been made flesh.
Footnotes
[841] Luke i. 26-32
[842] 2 Cor. x. 17
Chapter 19.--What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to
Wisdom.
24. And all these things which the Word made flesh did and bare for us
in time and place, belong, according to the distinction which we have
undertaken to demonstrate, to knowledge, not to wisdom. And as the
Word is without time and without place, it is co-eternal with the
Father, and in its wholeness everywhere; and if any one can, and as
much as he can, speak truly concerning this Word, then his discourse
will pertain to wisdom. And hence the Word made flesh, which is Christ
Jesus, has the treasures both of wisdom and of knowledge. For the
apostle, writing to the Colossians, says: "For I would that ye knew
what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for
as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might
be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the
full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery
of God which is Christ Jesus: in whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge." [843] To what extent the apostle knew all those
treasures, how much of them he had penetrated, and in them to how
great things he had reached, who can know? Yet, for my part, according
to that which is written, "But the manifestation of the Spirit is
given to every man to profit withal; for to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same
Spirit;" [844] if these two are in such way to be distinguished from
each other, that wisdom is to be assigned to divine things, knowledge
to human, I acknowledge both in Christ, and so with me do all His
faithful ones. And when I read, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us," I understand by the Word the true Son of God, I acknowledge
in the flesh the true Son of man, and both together joined into one
Person of God and man, by an ineffable copiousness of grace. And on
account of this, the apostle goes on to say, "And we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth." [845] If we refer grace to knowledge, and truth to wisdom, I
think we shall not swerve from that distinction between these two
things which we have commended. For in those things that have their
origin in time, this is the highest grace, that man is joined with God
in unity of person; but in things eternal the highest truth is rightly
attributed to the Word of God. But that the same is Himself the
Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,--this took
place, in order that He Himself in things done for us in time should
be the same for whom we are cleansed by the same faith, that we may
contemplate Him steadfastly in things eternal. And those distinguished
philosophers of the heathen who have been able to understand and
discern the invisible things of God by those things which are made,
have yet, as is said of them, "held down the truth in iniquity;" [846]
because they philosophized without a Mediator, that is, without the
man Christ, whom they neither believed to be about to come at the word
of the prophets, nor to have come at that of the apostles. For, placed
as they were in these lowest things, they could not but seek some
media through which they might attain to those lofty things which they
had understood; and so they fell upon deceitful spirits, through whom
it came to pass, that "they changed the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things." [847] For in such forms also
they set up or worshipped idols. Therefore Christ is our knowledge,
and the same Christ is also our wisdom. He Himself implants in us
faith concerning temporal things, He Himself shows forth the truth
concerning eternal things. Through Him we reach on to Himself: we
stretch through knowledge to wisdom; yet we do not withdraw from one
and the same Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and of knowledge." But now we speak of knowledge, and will hereafter
speak of wisdom as much as He Himself shall grant. And let us not so
take these two things, as if it were not allowable to speak either of
the wisdom which is in human things, or of the knowledge which is in
divine. For after a laxer custom of speech, both can be called wisdom,
and both knowledge. Yet the apostle could not in any way have written,
"To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of
knowledge," except also these several things had been properly called
by the several names, of the distinction between which we are now
treating.
Footnotes
[843] Col. ii. 1-3
[844] 1 Cor. xii. 7, 8
[845] John i. 14
[846] Rom. i. 23; detinuerum.
[847] Rom. i. 18, 20
Chapter 20.--What Has Been Treated of in This Book. How We Have
Reached by Steps to a Certain Trinity, Which is Found in Practical
Knowledge and True Faith.
25. Now, therefore, let us see what this prolix discourse has
effected, what it has gathered, whereto it has reached. It belongs to
all men to will to be blessed; yet all men have not faith, whereby the
heart is cleansed, and so blessedness is reached. And thus it comes to
pass, that by means of the faith which not all men will, we have to
reach on to the blessedness which every one wills. All see in their
own heart that they will to be blessed; and so great is the agreement
of human nature on this subject, that the man is not deceived who
conjectures this concerning another's mind, out of his own: in short,
we know ourselves that all will this. But many despair of being
immortal, although no otherwise can any one be that which all will,
that is, blessed. Yet they will also to be immortal if they could; but
through not believing that they can, they do not so live that they
can. Therefore faith is necessary, that we may attain blessedness in
all the good things of human nature, that is, of both soul and body.
But that same faith requires that this faith be limited in Christ, who
rose in the flesh from the dead, not to die any more; and that no one
is freed from the dominion of the devil, through the forgiveness of
sins, save by Him; and that in the abiding place of the devil, life
must needs be at once miserable and never-ending, which ought rather
to be called death than life. All which I have also argued, so far as
space permitted, in this book, while I have already said much on the
subject in the fourth book of this work as well; [848] but in that
place for one purpose, here for another,--namely, there, that I might
show why and how Christ was sent in the fullness of time by the
Father, [849] on account of those who say that He who sent and He who
was sent cannot be equal in nature; but here, in order to distinguish
practical knowlege from contemplative wisdom.
26. For we wished to ascend, as it were, by steps, and to seek in the
inner man, both in knowledge and in wisdom, a sort of trinity of its
own special kind, such as we sought before in the outer man; in order
that we may come, with a mind more practised in these lower things, to
the contemplation of that Trinity which is God, according to our
little measure, if indeed, we can even do this, at least in a riddle
and as through a glass. [850] If, then, any one have committed to
memory the words of this faith in their sounds alone, not knowing what
they mean, as they commonly who do not know Greek hold in memory Greek
words, or similarly Latin ones, or those of any other language of
which they are ignorant, has not he a sort of trinity in his mind?
because, first, those sounds of words are in his memory, even when he
does not think thereupon; and next, the mental vision (acies) of his
act of recollection is formed thence when he conceives of them; and
next, the will of him who remembers and thinks unites both. Yet we
should by no means say that the man in so doing busies himself with a
trinity of the interior man, but rather of the exterior; because he
remembers, and when he wills, contemplates as much as he wills, that
alone which belongs to the sense of the body, which is called hearing.
Nor in such an act of thought does he do anything else than deal with
images of corporeal things, that is, of sounds. But if he holds and
recollects what those words signify, now indeed something of the inner
man is brought into action; not yet, however, ought he to be said or
thought to live according to a trinity of the inner man, if he does
not love those things which are there declared, enjoined, promised.
For it is possible for him also to hold and conceive these things,
supposing them to be false, in order that he may endeavor to disprove
them. Therefore that will, which in this case unites those things
which are held in the memory with those things which are thence
impressed on the mind's eye in conception, completes, indeed, some
kind of trinity, since itself is a third added to two others; but the
man does not live according to this, when those things which are
conceived are taken to be false, and are not accepted. But when those
things are believed to be true, and those things which therein ought
to be loved, are loved, then at last the man does live according to a
trinity of the inner man; for every one lives according to that which
he loves. But how can things be loved which are not known, but only
believed? This question has been already treated of in former books;
[851] and we found, that no one loves what he is wholly ignorant of,
but that when things not known are said to be loved, they are loved
from those things which are known. And now we so conclude this book,
that we admonish the just to live by faith, [852] which faith worketh
by love, [853] so that the virtues also themselves, by which one lives
prudently, boldly, temperately, and justly, be all referred to the
same faith; for not otherwise can they be true virtues. And yet these
in this life are not of so great worth, as that the remission of sins,
of some kind or other, is not sometimes necessary here; and this
remission comes not to pass, except through Him, who by His own blood
conquered the prince of sinners. Whatsoever ideas are in the mind of
the faithful man from this faith, and from such a life, when they are
contained in the memory, and are looked at by recollection, and please
the will, set forth a kind of trinity of its own sort. [854] But the
image of God, of which by His help we shall afterwards speak, is not
yet in that trinity; a thing which will then be more apparent, when it
shall have been shown where it is, which the reader may expect in a
succeeding book.
Footnotes
[848] Cc. 19-21.
[849] Gal. iv. 4
[850] 1 Cor. xiii. 12
[851] Bk. viii. cc. 8 seqq., and Bk. x. c. 1, etc.
[852] Rom. i. 17
[853] Gal. v. 6
[854] [The ternary is this: 1. The idea of a truth or fact held in the
memory. 2. The contemplation of it as thus recollected. 3. The love of
it. This last is the "will" that "unites" the first two.--W.G.T.S.]
.
Book XIV.
The true wisdom of man is treated of; and it is shown that the image
of God, which man is in respect to his mind, is not placed properly in
transitory things, as in memory, understanding, and love, whether of
faith itself as existing in time, or even of the mind as busied with
itself, but in things that are permanent; and that this wisdom is then
perfected, when the mind is renewed in the knowledge of God, according
to the image of Him who created man after His own Image, and thus
attains to wisdom, wherein that which is contemplated is eternal.
Chapter 1.--What the Wisdom is of Which We are Here to Treat. Whence
the Name of Philosopher Arose. What Has Been Already Said Concerning
the Distinction of Knowledge and Wisdom.
1. We must now discourse concerning wisdom; not the wisdom of God,
which without doubt is God, for His only-begotten Son is called the
wisdom of God; [855] but we will speak of the wisdom of man, yet of
true wisdom, which is according to God, and is His true and chief
worship, which is called in Greek by one term, theosebeia. And this
term, as we have already observed, when our own countrymen themselves
also wished to interpret it by a single term, was by them rendered
piety, whereas piety means more commonly what the Greeks call
eusebeia. But because theosebeia cannot be translated perfectly by any
one word, it is better translated by two, so as to render it rather by
"the worship of God." That this is the wisdom of man, as we have
already laid down in the twelfth book [856] of this work, is shown by
the authority of Holy Scripture, in the book of God's servant Job,
where we read that the Wisdom of God said to man, "Behold piety, that
is wisdom; and to depart from evil is knowledge;" [857] or, as some
have translated the Greek word epistemen, "learning," [858] which
certainly takes its name from learning, [859] whence also it may be
called knowledge. For everything is learned in order that it may be
known. Although the same word, indeed, [860] is employed in a
different sense, where any one suffers evils for his sins, that he may
be corrected. Whence is that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "For what
son is he to whom the father giveth not discipline?" And this is still
more apparent in the same epistle: "Now no chastening [861] for the
present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are
exercised thereby." [862] Therefore God Himself is the chiefest
wisdom; but the worship of God is the wisdom of man, of which we now
speak. For "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." [863]
It is in respect to this wisdom, therefore, which is the worship of
God, that Holy Scripture says, "The multitude of the wise is the
welfare of the world." [864]
2. But if to dispute of wisdom belongs to wise men, what shall we do?
Shall we dare indeed to profess wisdom, lest it should be mere
impudence for ourselves to dispute about it? Shall we not be alarmed
by the example of Pythagoras?--who dared not profess to be a wise man,
but answered that he was a philosopher, i.e., a lover of wisdom;
whence arose the name, that became thenceforth so much the popular
name, that no matter how great the learning wherein any one excelled,
either in his own opinion or that of others, in things pertaining to
wisdom, he was still called nothing more than philosopher. Or was it
for this reason that no one, even of such as these, dared to profess
himself a wise man,--because they imagined that a wise man was one
without sin? But our Scriptures do not say this, which say, "Rebuke a
wise man, and he will love thee." [865] For doubtless he who thinks a
man ought to be rebuked, judges him to have sin. However, for my part,
I dare not profess myself a wise man even in this sense; it is enough
for me to assume, what they themselves cannot deny, that to dispute of
wisdom belongs also to the philosopher, i.e., the lover of wisdom. For
they have not given over so disputing who have professed to be lovers
of wisdom rather than wise men.
3. In disputing, then, about wisdom, they have defined it thus: Wisdom
is the knowledge of things human and divine. And hence, in the last
book, I have not withheld the admission, that the cognizance of both
subjects, whether divine or human, may be called both knowledge and
wisdom. [866] But according to the distinction made in the apostle's
words, "To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of
knowledge," [867] this definition is to be divided, so that the
knowledge of things divine shall be called wisdom, and that of things
human appropriate to itself the name of knowledge; and of the latter I
have treated in the thirteenth book, not indeed so as to attribute to
this knowledge everything whatever that can be known by man about
things human, wherein there is exceeding much of empty vanity and
mischievous curiosity, but only those things by which that most
wholesome faith, which leads to true blessedness, is begotten,
nourished, defended, strengthened; and in this knowledge most of the
faithful are not strong, however exceeding strong in the faith itself.
For it is one thing to know only what man ought to believe in order to
attain to a blessed life, which must needs be an eternal one; but
another to know in what way this belief itself may both help the
pious, and be defended against the impious, which last the apostle
seems to call by the special name of knowledge. And when I was
speaking of this knowledge before, my especial business was to commend
faith, first briefly distinguishing things eternal from things
temporal, and there discoursing of things temporal; but while
deferring things eternal to the present book, I showed also that faith
respecting things eternal is itself a thing temporal, and dwells in
time in the hearts of believers, and yet is necessary in order to
attain the things eternal themselves. [868] I argued also, that faith
respecting the things temporal which He that is eternal did and
suffered for us as man, which manhood He bare in time and carried on
to things eternal, is profitable also for the obtaining of things
eternal; and that the virtues themselves, whereby in this temporal and
mortal life men live prudently, bravely, temperately, and justly, are
not true virtues, unless they are referred to that same faith,
temporal though it is, which leads on nevertheless to things eternal.
Footnotes
[855] Ecclus. xxiv. 5. and 1 Cor. i. 24
[856] C. 14.
[857] Job xxviii. 28
[858] Disciplina, disco
[859] Disciplina, disco
[860] Disciplina
[861] Disciplina
[862] Heb. xii. 7, 11
[863] 1 Cor. iii. 19
[864] Wisd. vi. 26
[865] Prov. ix. 8
[866] Bk. xiii. cc. 1, 19.
[867] 1 Cor. xiii. 12
[868] Bk. xiii. c. 7.
Chapter 2.--There is a Kind of Trinity in the Holding, Contemplating,
and Loving of Faith Temporal, But One that Does Not Yet Attain to
Being Properly an Image of God.
4. Wherefore since, as it is written, "While we are in the body, we
are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight;" [869]
undoubtedly, so long as the just man lives by faith, [870] howsoever
he lives according to the inner man, although he aims at truth and
reaches on to things eternal by this same temporal faith, nevertheless
in the holding, contemplating, and loving this temporal faith, we have
not yet reached such a trinity as is to be called an image of God;
lest that should seem to be constituted in things temporal which ought
to be so in things eternal. For when the human mind sees its own
faith, whereby it believes what it does not see, it does not see a
thing eternal. For that will not always exist, which certainly will
not then exist, when this pilgrimage, whereby we are absent from God,
in such way that we must needs walk by faith, shall be ended, and that
sight shall have succeeded it whereby we shall see face to face; [871]
just as now, because we believe although we do not see, we shall
deserve to see, and shall rejoice at having been brought through faith
to sight. For then it will be no longer faith, by which that is
believed which is not seen; but sight, by which that is seen which is
believed. And then, therefore, although we remember this past mortal
life, and call to mind by recollection that we once believed what we
did not see, yet that faith will be reckoned among things past and
done with, not among things present and always continuing. And hence
also that trinity which now consists in the remembering,
contemplating, and loving this same faith while present and
continuing, will then be found to be done with and past, and not still
enduring. And hence it is to be gathered, that if that trinity is
indeed an image of God, then this image itself would have to be
reckoned, not among things that exist always, but among things
transient.
Footnotes
[869] 2 Cor. v. 6, 7
[870] Rom. i. 17
[871] 1 Cor. xiii. 12
Chapter 3.--A Difficulty Removed, Which Lies in the Way of What Has
Just Been Said.
But far be it from us to think, that while the nature of the soul is
immortal, and from the first beginning of its creation thenceforth
never ceases to be, yet that that which is the best thing it has
should not endure for ever with its own immortality. Yet what is there
in its nature as created, better than that it is made after the image
of its Creator? [872] We must find then what may be fittingly called
the image of God, not in the holding, contemplating, and loving that
faith which will not exist always, but in that which will exist
always.
5. Shall we then scrutinize somewhat more carefully and deeply whether
the case is really thus? For it may be said that this trinity does not
perish even when faith itself shall have passed away; because, as now
we both hold it by memory, and discern it by thought, and love it by
will; so then also, when we shall both hold in memory, and shall
recollect, that we once had it, and shall unite these two by the
third, namely will, the same trinity will still continue. Since, if it
have left in its passage as it were no trace in us, doubtless we shall
not have ought of it even in our memory, whereto to recur when
recollecting it as past, and by the third, viz. purpose, coupling both
these, to wit, what was in our memory though we were not thinking
about it, and what is formed thence by conception. But he who speaks
thus, does not perceive, that when we hold, see, and love in ourselves
our present faith, we are concerned with a different trinity as now
existing, from that trinity which will exist, when we shall
contemplate by recollection, not the faith itself, but as it were the
imagined trace of it laid up in the memory, and shall unite by the
will, as by a third, these two things, viz. that which was in the
memory of him who retains, and that which is impressed thence upon the
vision of the mind of him who recollects. And that we may understand
this, let us take an example from things corporeal, of which we have
sufficiently spoken in the eleventh book. [873] For as we ascend from
lower to higher things, or pass inward from outer to inner things, we
first find a trinity in the bodily object which is seen, and in the
vision of the seer, which, when he sees it, is informed thereby, and
in the purpose of the will which combines both. Let us assume a
trinity like this, when the faith which is now in ourselves is so
established in our memory as the bodily object we spoke of was in
place, from which faith is formed the conception in recollection, as
from that bodily object was formed the vision of the beholder; and to
these two, to complete the trinity, will is to be reckoned as a third,
which connects and combines the faith established in the memory, and a
sort of effigy of that faith impressed upon the vision of
recollection; just as in that trinity of corporeal vision, the form of
the bodily object that is seen, and the corresponding form wrought in
the vision of the beholder, are combined by the purpose of the will.
Suppose, then, that this bodily object which was beheld was dissolved
and had perished, and that nothing at all of it remained anywhere, to
the vision of which the gaze might have recourse; are we then to say,
that because the image of the bodily object thus now past and done
with remains in the memory, whence to form the conception in
recollecting, and to have the two united by will as a third, therefore
it is the same trinity as that former one, when the appearance of the
bodily object posited in place was seen? Certainly not, but altogether
a different one: for, not to say that that was from without, while
this is from within; the former certainly was produced by the
appearance of a present bodily object, the latter by the image of that
object now past. So, too, in the case of which we are now treating, to
illustrate which we have thought good to adduce this example, the
faith which is even now in our mind, as that bodily object was in
place, while held, looked at, loved, produces a sort of trinity; but
that trinity will exist no more, when this faith in the mind, like
that bodily object in place, shall no longer exist. But that which
will then exist, when we shall remember it to have been, but not now
to be, in us, will doubtless be a different one. For that which now
is, is wrought by the thing itself, actually present and attached to
the mind of one who believes; but that which shall then be, will be
wrought by the imagination of a past thing left in the memory of one
who recollects.
Footnotes
[872] Gen. i. 27
[873] Cc. 2 sq.
Chapter 4.--The Image of God is to Be Sought in the Immortality of the
Rational Soul. How a Trinity is Demonstrated in the Mind.
6. Therefore neither is that trinity an image of God, which is not
now, nor is that other an image of God, which then will not be; but we
must find in the soul of man, i.e., the rational or intellectual soul,
that image of the Creator which is immortally implanted in its
immortality. For as the immortality itself of the soul is spoken with
a qualification; since the soul too has its proper death, when it
lacks a blessed life, which is to be called the true life of the soul;
but it is therefore called immortal, because it never ceases to live
with some life or other, even when it is most miserable;--so, although
reason or intellect is at one time torpid in it, at another appears
small, and at another great, yet the human soul is never anything save
rational or intellectual; and hence, if it is made after the image of
God in respect to this, that it is able to use reason and intellect in
order to understand and behold God, then from the moment when that
nature so marvellous and so great began to be, whether this image be
so worn out as to be almost none at all, or whether it be obscure and
defaced, or bright and beautiful, certainly it always is. Further,
too, pitying the defaced condition of its dignity, divine Scripture
tells us, that "although man walks in an image, yet he disquieteth
himself in vain; he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall
gather them." [874] It would not therefore attribute vanity to the
image of God, unless it perceived it to have been defaced. Yet it
sufficiently shows that such defacing does not extend to the taking
away its being an image, by saying, "Although man walks in an image."
Wherefore in both ways that sentence can be truly enunciated; in that,
as it is said, "Although man walketh in an image, yet he disquieteth
himself in vain," so it may be said, "Although man disquieteth himself
in vain, yet he walketh in an image." For although the nature of the
soul is great, yet it can be corrupted, because it is not the highest;
and although it can be corrupted, because it is not the highest, yet
because it is capable and can be partaker of the highest nature, it is
a great nature. Let us seek, then, in this image of God a certain
trinity of a special kind, with the aid of Him who Himself made us
after His own image. For no otherwise can we healthfully investigate
this subject, or arrive at any result according to the wisdom which is
from Him. But if the reader will either hold in remembrance and
recollect what we have said of the human soul or mind in former books,
and especially in the tenth, or will carefully re-peruse it in the
passages wherein it is contained, he will not require here any more
lengthy discourse respecting the inquiry into so great a thing.
7. We said, then, among other things in the tenth book, that the mind
of man knows itself. For the mind knows nothing so much as that which
is close to itself; and nothing is more close to the mind than itself.
We adduced also other evidences, as much as seemed sufficient, whereby
this might be most certainly proved.
Footnotes
[874] Ps. xxxix. 7
Chapter 5.--Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.
What, then, is to be said of the mind of an infant, which is still so
small, and buried in such profound ignorance of things, that the mind
of a man which knows anything shrinks from the darkness of it? Is that
too to be believed to know itself; but that, as being too intent upon
those things which it has begun to perceive through the bodily senses,
with the greater delight in proportion to their novelty, it is not
able indeed to be ignorant of itself, but is also not able to think of
itself? Moreover, how intently it is bent upon sensible things that
are without it, may be conjectured from this one fact, that it is so
greedy of sensible light, that if any one through carelessness, or
ignorance of the possible consequences, place a light at nighttime
where an infant is lying down, on that side to which the eyes of the
child so lying down can be bent, but its neck cannot be turned, the
gaze of that child will be so fixed in that direction, that we have
known some to have come to squint by this means, in that the eyes
retained that form which habit in some way impressed upon them while
tender and soft. [875] In the case, too, of the other bodily senses,
the souls of infants, as far as their age permits, so narrow
themselves as it were, and are bent upon them, that they either
vehemently detest or vehemently desire that only which offends or
allures through the flesh, but do not think of their own inward self,
nor can be made to do so by admonition; because they do not yet know
the signs that express admonition, whereof words are the chief, of
which as of other things they are wholly ignorant. And that it is one
thing not to know oneself, another not to think of oneself, we have
shown already in the same book. [876]
8. But let us pass by the infantine age, since we cannot question it
as to what goes on within itself, while we have ourselves pretty well
forgotten it. Let it suffice only for us hence to be certain, that
when man has come to be able to think of the nature of his own mind,
and to find out what is the truth, he will find it nowhere else but in
himself. And he will find, not what he did not know, but that of which
he did not think. For what do we know, if we do not know what is in
our own mind; when we can know nothing at all of what we do know,
unless by the mind?
Footnotes
[875] [This occurred in the the case of Edward Irving. Oliphant's Life
of Irving.--W.G.T.S.]
[876] Bk. x. c. 5.
Chapter 6.--How a Kind of Trinity Exists in the Mind Thinking of
Itself. What is the Part of Thought in This Trinity.
The function of thought, however, is so great, that not even the mind
itself can, so to say, place itself in its own sight, except when it
thinks of itself; and hence it is so far the case, that nothing is in
the sight of the mind, except that which is being thought of, that not
even the mind itself, whereby we think whatever we do think, can be in
its own sight otherwise than by thinking of itself. But in what way it
is not in its own sight when it is not thinking of itself, while it
can never be without itself, as though itself were one thing, and the
sight of itself another, it is not in my power to discover. For this
is not unreasonably said of the eye of the body; for the eye itself of
the body is fixed in its own proper place in the body, but its sight
extends to things external to itself, and reaches even to the stars.
And the eye is not in its own sight, since it does not look at itself,
unless by means of a mirror, as is said above; [877] a thing that
certainly does not happen when the mind places itself in its own sight
by thinking of itself. Does it then see one part of itself by means of
another part of itself, when it looks at itself in thought, as we look
at some of our members, which can be in our sight, with other also of
our members, viz. with our eyes? What can be said or thought more
absurd? For by what is the mind removed, except by itself? or where is
it placed so as to be in its own sight, except before itself?
Therefore it will not be there, where it was, when it was not in its
own sight; because it has been put down in one place, after being
taken away from another. But if it migrated in order to be beheld,
where will it remain in order to behold? Is it as it were doubled, so
as to be in this and in that place at the same time, viz. both where
it can behold, and where it can be beheld; that in itself it may be
beholding, and before itself beheld? If we ask the truth, it will tell
us nothing of the sort since it is but feigned images of bodily
objects of which we conceive when we conceive thus; and that the mind
is not such, is very certain to the few minds by which the truth on
such a subject can be inquired. It appears, therefore, that the
beholding of the mind is something pertaining to its nature, and is
recalled to that nature when it conceives of itself, not as if by
moving through space, but by an incorporeal conversion; but when it is
not conceiving of itself, it appears that it is not indeed in its own
sight, nor is its own perception formed from it, but yet that it knows
itself as though it were to itself a remembrance of itself. Like one
who is skilled in many branches of learning: the things which he knows
are contained in his memory, but nothing thereof is in the sight of
his mind except that of which he is conceiving; while all the rest are
stored up in a kind of secret knowledge, which is called memory. The
trinity, then, which we were setting forth, was constituted in this
way: first, we placed in the memory the object by which the perception
of the percipient was formed; next, the conformation, or as it were
the image which is impressed thereby; lastly, love or will as that
which combines the two. When the mind, then, beholds itself in
conception, it understands and cognizes itself; it begets, therefore,
this its own understanding and cognition. For an incorporeal thing is
understood when it is beheld, and is cognized when understood. Yet
certainly the mind does not so beget this knowledge of itself, when it
beholds itself as understood by conception, as though it had before
been unknown to itself; but it was known to itself, in the way in
which things are known which are contained in the memory, but of which
one is not thinking; since we say that a man knows letters even when
he is thinking of something else, and not of letters. And these two,
the begetter and the begotten, are coupled together by love, as by a
third, which is nothing else than will, seeking or holding fast the
enjoyment of something. We held, therefore, that a trinity of the mind
is to be intimated also by these three terms, memory, intelligence,
will.
9. But since the mind, as we said near the end of the same tenth book,
always remembers itself, and always understands and loves itself,
although it does not always think of itself as distinguished from
those things which are not itself; we must inquire in what way
understanding (intellectus) belongs to conception, while the notion
(notitia) of each thing that is in the mind, even when one is not
thinking of it, is said to belong only to the memory. For if this is
so, then the mind had not these three things: viz. the remembrance,
the understanding, and the love of itself; but it only remembered
itself, and afterwards, when it began to think of itself, then it
understood and loved itself.
Footnotes
[877] Bk. x. c. 3.
Chapter 7.--The Thing is Made Plain by an Example. In What Way the
Matter is Handled in Order to Help the Reader.
Wherefore let us consider more carefully that example which we have
adduced, wherein it was shown that not knowing a thing is different
from not thinking [conceiving] of it; and that it may so happen that a
man knows something of which he is not thinking, when he is thinking
of something else, not of that. When any one, then, who is skilled in
two or more branches of knowledge is thinking of one of them, though
he is not thinking of the other or others, yet he knows them. But can
we rightly say, This musician certainly knows music, but he does not
now understand it, because he is not thinking of it; but he does now
understand geometry, for of that he is now thinking? Such an
assertion, as far as appears, is absurd. What, again, if we were to
say, This musician certainly knows music, but he does not now love it,
while he is not now thinking of it; but he does now love geometry,
because of that he is now thinking,--is not this similarly absurd? But
we say quite correctly, This person whom you perceive disputing about
geometry is also a perfect musician, for he both remembers music, and
understands, and loves it; but although he both knows and loves it, he
is not now thinking of it, since he is thinking of geometry, of which
he is disputing. And hence we are warned that we have a kind of
knowledge of certain things stored up in the recesses of the mind, and
that this, when it is thought of, as it were, steps forth in public,
and is placed as if openly in the sight of the mind; for then the mind
itself finds that it both remembers, and understands, and loves
itself, even although it was not thinking of itself, when it was
thinking of something else. But in the case of that of which we have
not thought for a long time, and cannot think of it unless reminded;
that, if the phrase is allowable, in some wonderful way I know not
how, we do not know that we know. In short, it is rightly said by him
who reminds, to him whom he reminds, You know this, but you do not
know that you know it; I will remind you, and you will find that you
know what you had thought you did not know. Books, too, lead to the
same results, viz. those that are written upon subjects which the
reader under the guidance of reason finds to be true; not those
subjects which he believes to be true on the faith of the narrator, as
in the case of history; but those which he himself also finds to be
true, either of himself, or in that truth itself which is the light of
the mind. But he who cannot contemplate these things, even when
reminded, is too deeply buried in the darkness of ignorance, through
great blindness of heart and too wonderfully needs divine help, to be
able to attain to true wisdom.
10. For this reason I have wished to adduce some kind of proof, be it
what it might, respecting the act of conceiving, such as might serve
to show in what way, out of the things contained in the memory, the
mind's eye is informed in recollecting, and some such thing is
begotten, when a man conceives, as was already in him when, before he
conceived, he remembered; because it is easier to distinguish things
that take place at successive times, and where the parent precedes the
offspring by an interval of time. For if we refer ourselves to the
inner memory of the mind by which it remembers itself, and to the
inner understanding by which it understands itself, and to the inner
will by which it loves itself, where these three always are together,
and always have been together since they began to be at all, whether
they were being thought of or not; the image of this trinity will
indeed appear to pertain even to the memory alone; but because in this
case a word cannot be without a thought (for we think all that we say,
even if it be said by that inner word which belongs to no separate
language), this image is rather to be discerned in these three things,
viz. memory, intelligence, will. And I mean now by intelligence that
by which we understand in thought, that is, when our thought is formed
by the finding of those things, which had been at hand to the memory
but were not being thought of; and I mean that will, or love, or
preference which combines this offspring and parent, and is in some
way common to both. Hence it was that I tried also, viz. in the
eleventh book, to lead on the slowness of readers by means of outward
sensible things which are seen by the eyes of the flesh; and that I
then proceeded to enter with them upon that power of the inner man
whereby he reasons of things temporal, deferring the consideration of
that which dominates as the higher power, by which he contemplates
things eternal. And I discussed this in two books, distinguishing the
two in the twelfth, the one of them being higher and the other lower,
and that the lower ought to be subject to the higher; and in the
thirteenth I discussed, with what truth and brevity I could, the
office of the lower, in which the wholesome knowledge of things human
is contained, in order that we may so act in this temporal life as to
attain that which is eternal; since, indeed, I have cursorily included
in a single book a subject so manifold and copious, and one so well
known by the many and great arguments of many and great men, while
manifesting that a trinity exists also in it, but not yet one that can
be called an image of God.
Chapter 8.--The Trinity Which is the Image of God is Now to Be Sought
in the Noblest Part of the Mind.
11. But we have come now to that argument in which we have undertaken
to consider the noblest part of the human mind, by which it knows or
can know God, in order that we may find in it the image of God. For
although the human mind is not of the same nature with God, yet the
image of that nature than which none is better, is to be sought and
found in us, in that than which our nature also has nothing better.
But the mind must first be considered as it is in itself, before it
becomes partaker of God; and His image must be found in it. For, as we
have said, although worn out and defaced by losing the participation
of God, yet the image of God still remains. [878] For it is His image
in this very point, that it is capable of Him, and can be partaker of
Him; which so great good is only made possible by its being His image.
Well, then, the mind remembers, understands, loves itself; if we
discern this, we discern a trinity, not yet indeed God, but now at
last an image of God. The memory does not receive from without that
which it is to hold; nor does the understanding find without that
which it is to regard, as the eye of the body does; nor has will
joined these two from without, as it joins the form of the bodily
object and that which is thence wrought in the vision of the beholder;
nor has conception, in being turned to it, found an image of a thing
seen without, which has been somehow seized and laid up in the memory,
whence the intuition of him that recollects has been formed, will as a
third joining the two: as we showed to take place in those trinities
which were discovered in things corporeal, or which were somehow drawn
within from bodily objects by the bodily sense; of all which we have
discoursed in the eleventh book. [879] Nor, again, as it took place,
or appeared to do so, when we went on further to discuss that
knowledge, which had its place now in the workings of the inner man,
and which was to be distinguished from wisdom; of which knowledge the
subject-matter was, as it were, adventitious to the mind, and either
was brought thither by historical information,--as deeds and words,
which are performed in time and pass away, or which again are
established in the nature of things in their own times and places,--or
arises in the man himself not being there before, whether on the
information of others, or by his own thinking,--as faith, which we
commended at length in the thirteenth book, or as the virtues, by
which, if they are true, one so lives well in this mortality as to
live blessedly in that immortality which God promises. These and other
things of the kind have their proper order in time, and in that order
we discerned more easily a trinity of memory, sight, and love. For
some of such things anticipate the knowledge of learners. For they are
knowable also before they are known, and beget in the learner a
knowledge of themselves. And they either exist in their own proper
places, or have happened in time past; although things that are past
do not themselves exist, but only certain signs of them as past, the
sight or hearing of which makes it known that they have been and have
passed away. And these signs are either situate in the places
themselves, as e.g. monuments of the dead or the like; or exist in
written books worthy of credit, as is all history that is of weight
and approved authority; or are in the minds of those who already know
them; since what is already known to them is knowable certainly to
others also, whose knowledge it has anticipated, and who are able to
know it on the information of those who do know it. And all these
things, when they are learned, produce a certain kind of trinity, viz.
by their own proper species, which was knowable also before it was
known, and by the application to this of the knowledge of the learner,
which then begins to exist when he learns them, and by will as a third
which combines both; and when they are known, yet another trinity is
produced in the recollecting of them, and this now inwardly in the
mind itself, from those images which, when they were learned, were
impressed upon the memory, and from the informing of the thought when
the look has been turned upon these by recollection, and from the will
which as a third combines these two. But those things which arise in
the mind, not having been there before, as faith and other things of
that kind, although they appear to be adventitious, since they are
implanted by teaching, yet are not situate without or transacted
without, as are those things which are believed; but began to be
altogether within in the mind itself. For faith is not that which is
believed, but that by which it is believed; and the former is
believed, the latter seen. Nevertheless, because it began to be in the
mind, which was a mind also before these things began to be in it, it
seems to be somewhat adventitious, and will be reckoned among things
past, when sight shall have succeeded, and itself shall have ceased to
be. And it makes now by its presence, retained as it is, and beheld,
and loved, a different trinity from that which it will then make by
means of some trace of itself, which in passing it will have left in
the memory: as has been already said above.
Footnotes
[878] Supra, c. iv.
[879] Cc. 2 sq.
Chapter 9.--Whether Justice and the Other Virtues Cease to Exist in
the Future Life.
12. There is, however, some question raised, whether the virtues
likewise by which one lives well in this present mortality, seeing
that they themselves begin also to be in the mind, which was a mind
none the less when it existed before without them, cease also to exist
at that time when they have brought us to things eternal. For some
have thought that they will cease, and in the case of three--prudence,
fortitude, temperance--such an assertion seems to have something in
it; but justice is immortal, and will rather then be made perfect in
us than cease to be. Yet Tullius, the great author of eloquence, when
arguing in the dialogue Hortensius, says of all four: "If we were
allowed, when we migrated from this life, to live forever in the
islands of the blessed, as fables tell, what need were there of
eloquence when there would be no trials, or what need, indeed, of the
very virtues themselves? For we should not need fortitude when nothing
of either toil or danger was proposed to us; nor justice, when there
was nothing of anybody else's to be coveted; nor temperance, to govern
lasts that would not exist; nor, indeed, should we need prudence, when
there was no choice offered between good and evil. We should be
blessed, therefore, solely by learning and knowing nature, by which
alone also the life of the gods is praiseworthy. And hence we may
perceive that everything else is a matter of necessity, but this is
one of free choice." This great orator, then, when proclaiming the
excellence of philosophy, going over again all that he had learned
from philosophers, and excellently and pleasantly explaining it, has
affirmed all four virtues to be necessary in this life only, which we
see to be full of troubles and mistakes; but not one of them when we
shall have migrated from this life, if we are permitted to live there
where is a blessed life; but that blessed souls are blessed only in
learning and knowing, i.e. in the contemplation of nature, than which
nothing is better and more lovable. It is that nature which created
and appointed all other natures. And if it belongs to justice to be
subject to the government of this nature then justice is certainly
immortal; nor will it cease to be in that blessedness, but will be
such and so great that it cannot be more perfect or greater. Perhaps,
too, the other three virtues--prudence although no longer with any
risk of error, and fortitude without the vexation of bearing evils,
and temperance without the thwarting of lust--will exist in that
blessedness: so that it may be the part of prudence to prefer or equal
no good thing to God; and of fortitude, to cleave to Him most
steadfastly; and of temperance, to be pleased by no harmful defect.
But that which justice is now concerned with in helping the wretched,
and prudence in guarding against treachery, and fortitude in bearing
troubles patiently, and temperance in controlling evil pleasures, will
not exist there, where there will be no evil at all. And hence those
acts of the virtues which are necessary to this mortal life, like the
faith to which they are to be referred, will be reckoned among things
past; and they make now a different trinity, whilst we hold, look at,
and love them as present, from that which they will then make, when we
shall discover them not to be, but to have been, by certain traces of
them which they will have left in passing in the memory; since then,
too, there will be a trinity, when that trace, be it of what sort it
may, shall be retained in the memory, and truly recognized, and then
these two be joined by will as a third.
Chapter 10.--How a Trinity is Produced by the Mind Remembering,
Understanding, and Loving Itself.
13. In the knowledge of all these temporal things which we have
mentioned, there are some knowable things which precede the
acquisition of the knowledge of them by an interval of time, as in the
case of those sensible objects which were already real before they
were known, or of all those things that are learned through history;
but some things begin to be at the same time with the knowing of
them,--just as, if any visible object, which did not exist before at
all, were to rise up before our eyes, certainly it does not precede
our knowing it; or if there be any sound made where there is some one
to hear, no doubt the sound and the hearing that sound begin and end
simultaneously. Yet none the less, whether preceding in time or
beginning to exist simultaneously, knowable things generate knowledge,
and are not generated by knowledge. But when knowledge has come to
pass, whenever the things known and laid up in memory are reviewed by
recollection, who does not see that the retaining them in the memory
is prior in time to the sight of them in recollection, and to the
uniting of the two things by will as a third? In the mind, howver, it
is not so. For the mind is not adventitious to itself, as though there
came to itself already existing, that same self not already existing,
from somewhere else, or did not indeed come from somewhere else, but
that in the mind itself already existing, there was born that same
mind not already existing; just as faith, which before was not, arises
in the mind which already was. Nor does the mind see itself, as it
were, set up in its own memory by recollection subsequently to the
knowing of itself, as though it was not there before it knew itself;
whereas,doubtless, from the time when it began to be, it has never
ceased to remember, to understand, and to love itself, as we have
already shown. And hence, when it is turned to itself by thought,
there arises a trinity, in which now at length we can discern also a
word; since it is formed from thought itself, will uniting both. Here,
then, we may recognize, more than we have hitherto done, the image of
which we are in search.
Chapter 11.--Whether Memory is Also of Things Present.
14. But some one will say, That is not memory by which the mind, which
is ever present to itself, is affirmed to remember itself; for memory
is of things past, not of things present. For there are some, and
among them Cicero, who, in treating of the virtues, have divided
prudence into these three--memory, understanding, forethought: to wit,
assigning memory to things past, understanding to things present,
forethought to things future; which last is certain only in the case
of those who are prescient of the future; and this is no gift of men,
unless it be granted from above, as to the prophets. And hence the
book of Wisdom, speaking of men, "The thoughts of mortals," it says,
"are fearful, and our forethought uncertain." [880] But memory of
things past, and understanding of things present, are certain:
certain, I mean, respecting things incorporeal, which are present; for
things corporeal are present to the sight of the corporeal eyes. But
let any one who denies that there is any memory of things present,
attend to the language used even in profane literature, where
exactness of words was more looked for than truth of things. "Nor did
Ulysses suffer such things, nor did the Ithacan forget himself in so
great a peril." [881] For when Virgil said that Ulysses did not forget
himself, what else did he mean, except that he remembered himself? And
since he was present to himself, he could not possibly remember
himself, unless memory pertained to things present. And, therefore, as
that is called memory in things past which makes it possible to recall
and remember them; so in a thing present, as the mind is to itself,
that is not unreasonably to be called memory, which makes the mind at
hand to itself, so that it can be understood by its own thought, and
then both be joined together by love of itself.
Footnotes
[880] Wisd. ix. 14
[881] Æneid, iii. 628, 629.
Chapter 12.--The Trinity in the Mind is the Image of God, in that It
Remembers, Understands, and Loves God, Which to Do is Wisdom.
15. This trinity, then, of the mind is not therefore the image of God,
because the mind remembers itself, and understands and loves itself;
but because it can also remember, understand, and love Him by whom it
was made. And in so doing it is made wise itself. But if it does not
do so, even when it remembers, understands, and loves itself, then it
is foolish. Let it then remember its God, after whose image it is
made, and let it understand and love Him. Or to say the same thing
more briefly, let it worship God, who is not made, by whom because
itself was made, it is capable and can be partaker of Him; wherefore
it is written, "Behold, the worship of God, that is wisdom." [882] And
then it will be wise, not by its own light, but by participation of
that supreme Light; and wherein it is eternal, therein shall reign in
blessedness. For this wisdom of man is so called, in that it is also
of God. For then it is true wisdom; for if it is human, it is vain.
Yet not so of God, as is that wherewith God is wise. For He is not
wise by partaking of Himself, as the mind is by partaking of God. But
as we call it the righteousness of God, not only when we speak of that
by which He Himself is righteous, but also of that which He gives to
man when He justifies the ungodly, which latter righteousness the
apostle commending, says of some, that "not knowing the righteousness
of God and going about to establish their own righteousness,they are
not subject to the righteousness of God;" [883] so also it may be said
of some, that not knowing the wisdom of God and going about to
establish their own wisdom, they are not subject to the wisdom of God.
16. There is, then, a nature not made, which made all other natures,
great and small, and is without doubt more excellent than those which
it has made, and therefore also than that of which we are speaking;
viz. than the rational and intellectual nature, which is the mind of
man, made after the image of Him who made it. And that nature, more
excellent than the rest, is God. And indeed "He is not far from every
one of us," as the apostle says, who adds, "For in Him we live, and
are moved, and have our being." [884] And if this were said in respect
to the body, it might be understood even of this corporeal world; for
in it too in respect to the body, we live, and are moved, and have our
being. And therefore it ought to be taken in a more excellent way, and
one that is spiritual, not visible, in respect to the mind, which is
made after His image. For what is there that is not in Him, of whom it
is divinely written, "For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all
things"? [885] If, then, all things are in Him, in whom can any
possibly live that do live, or be moved that are moved, except in Him
in whom they are? Yet all are not with Him in that way in which it is
said to Him, "I am continually with Thee." [886] Nor is He with all in
that way in which we say, The Lord be with you. And so it is the
especial wretchedness of man not to be with Him, without whom he
cannot be. For, beyond a doubt, he is not without Him in whom he is;
and yet if he does not remember, and understand, and love Him, he is
not with Him. And when any one absolutely forgets a thing, certainly
it is impossible even to remind him of it.
Footnotes
[882] Job xxviii. 28
[883] Rom. x. 3
[884] Acts xvii. 27, 28
[885] Rom. xi. 36
[886] Ps. lxxiii. 23
Chapter 13.--How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.
17. Let us take an instance for the purpose from visible things.
Somebody whom you do not recognize, says to you, You know me; and in
order to remind you, tells you where, when, and how he became known to
you; and if, after the mention of every sign by which you might be
recalled to remembrance, you still do not recognize him, then you have
so come to forget, as that the whole of that knowledge is altogether
blotted out of your mind; and nothing else remains, but that you take
his word for it who tells you that you once knew him; or do not even
do that, if you do not think the person who speaks to you to be worthy
of credit. But if you do remember him, then no doubt you return to
your own memory, and find in it that which had not been altogether
blotted out by forgetfulness. Let us return to that which led us to
adduce this instance from the intercourse of men. Among other things,
the 9th Psalm says, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the
nations. that forget God;" [887] and again the 22d Psalm, "All the
ends of the world shall be reminded, and turned unto the Lord." [888]
These nations, then, will not so have forgotten God as to be unable to
remember Him when reminded of Him; yet, by forgetting God, as though
forgetting their own life, they had been turned into death, i.e. into
hell. [889] But when reminded they are turned to the Lord, as though
coming to life again by remembering their proper life which they had
forgotten. It is read also in the 94th Psalm, "Perceive now, ye who
are unwise among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He
that planted the ear, shall He not hear?" etc. [890] For this is
spoken to those, who said vain things concerning God through not
understanding Him.
Footnotes
[887] Ps. ix. 17
[888] Ps. xxii. 27
[889] [Augustin here understands "Sheol," to denote the place of
retribution for the wicked.--W.G.T.S.]
[890] Ps. xciv. 8, 9
Chapter 14.--The Mind Loves God in Rightly Loving Itself; And If It
Love Not God, It Must Be Said to Hate Itself. Even a Weak and Erring
Mind is Always Strong in Remembering, Understanding, and Loving
Itself. Let It Be Turned to God, that It May Be Blessed by
Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Him.
18. But there are yet more testimonies in the divine Scriptures
concerning the love of God. For in it, those other two [namely, memory
and understanding] are understood by consequence, inasmuch as no one
loves that which he does not remember, or of which he is wholly
ignorant. And hence is that well known and primary commandment, "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God." [891] The human mind, then, is so
constituted, that at no time does it not remember, and understand, and
love itself. But since he who hates any one is anxious to injure him,
not undeservedly is the mind of man also said to hate itself when it
injures itself. For it wills ill to itself through ignorance, in that
it does not think that what it wills is prejudicial to it; but it none
the less does will ill to itself, when it wills what would be
prejudicial to it. And hence it is written, "He that loveth iniquity,
hateth his own soul." [892] He, therefore, who knows how to love
himself, loves God; but he who does not love God, even if he does love
himself,--a thing implanted in him by nature,--yet is not unsuitably
said to hate himself, inasmuch as he does that which is adverse to
himself, and assails himself as though he were his own enemy. And this
is no doubt a terrible delusion, that whereas all will to profit
themselves, many do nothing but that which is most pernicious to
themselves. When the poet was describing a like disease of dumb
animals, "May the gods," says he, "grant better things to the pious,
and assign that delusion to enemies. They were rending with bare teeth
their own torn limbs." [893] Since it was a disease of the body he was
speaking of, why has he called it a delusion, unless because, while
nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can of itself,
that disease was such that those animals rent those very limbs of
theirs which they desired should be safe and sound? But when the mind
loves God, and by consequence, as has been said remembers and
understands Him, then it is rightly enjoined also to love its neighbor
as itself; for it has now come to love itself rightly and not
perversely when it loves God, by partaking of whom that image not only
exists, but is also renewed so as to be no longer old, and restored so
as to be no longer defaced, and beatified so as to be no longer
unhappy. For although it so love itself, that, supposing the
alternative to be proposed to it, it would lose all things which it
loves less than itself rather than perish; still, by abandoning Him
who is above it, in dependence upon whom alone it could guard its own
strength, and enjoy Him as its light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm,
"I will guard my strength in dependence upon Thee," [894] and again,
"Draw near to Him, and be enlightened," [895] --it has been made so
weak and so dark, that it has fallen away unhappily from itself too,
to those things that are not what itself is, and which are beneath
itself, by affections that it cannot conquer, and delusions from which
it sees no way to return. And hence, when by God's mercy now penitent,
it cries out in the Psalms, "My strength faileth me; as for the light
of mine eyes, it also is gone from me." [896]
19. Yet, in the midst of these evils of weakness and delusion, great
as they are, it could not lose its natural memory, understanding and
love of itself. And therefore what I quoted above [897] can be rightly
said, "Although man walketh in an image, surely he is disquieted in
vain: he heapeth up treasures, and knoweth not who shall gather them."
[898] For why does he heap up treasures, unless because his strength
has deserted him, through which he would have God, and so lack
nothing? And why cannot he tell for whom he shall gather them, unless
because the light of his eyes is taken from him? And so he does not
see what the Truth saith, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be
required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast
provided?" [899] Yet because even such a man walketh in an image, and
the man's mind has remembrance, understanding, and love of itself; if
it were made plain to it that it could not have both, while it was
permitted to choose one and lose the other, viz. either the treasures
it has heaped up, or the mind; who is so utterly without mind, as to
prefer to have the treasures rather than the mind? For treasures
commonly are able to subvert the mind, but the mind that is not
subverted by treasures can live more easily and unencumberedly without
any treasures. But who will be able to possess treasures unless it be
by means of the mind? For if an infant, born as rich as you please,
although lord of everything that is rightfully his, yet possesses
nothing if his mind be unconscious, how can any one possibly possess
anything whose mind is wholly lost? But why say of treasures, that
anybody, if the choice be given him, prefers going without them to
going without a mind; when there is no one that prefers, nay, no one
that compares them, to those lights of the body, by which not one man
only here and there, as in the case of gold, but every man, possesses
the very heaven? For every one possesses by the eyes of the body
whatever he gladly sees. Who then is there, who, if he could not keep
both, but must lose one, would not rather lose his treasures than his
eyes? And yet if it were put to him on the same condition, whether he
would rather lose eyes than mind, who is there with a mind that does
not see that he would rather lose the former than the latter? For a
mind without the eyes of the flesh is still human, but the eyes of the
flesh without a mind are bestial. And who would not rather be a man,
even though blind in fleshly sight, than a beast that can see?
20. I have said thus much, that even those who are slower of
understanding, to whose eyes or ears this book may come, might be
admonished, however briefly, how greatly even a weak and erring mind
loves itself, in wrongly loving and pursuing things beneath itself.
Now it could not love itself if it were altogether ignorant of itself,
i.e. if it did not remember itself, nor understand itself by which
image of God within itself it has such power as to be able to cleave
to Him whose image it is. For it is so reckoned in the order, not of
place, but of natures, as that there is none above it save Him. When,
finally, it shall altogether cleave to Him, then it will be one
spirit, as the apostle testifies, saying, "But he who cleaves to the
Lord is one spirit." [900] And this by its drawing near to partake of
His nature, truth, and blessedness, yet not by His increasing in His
own nature, truth and blessedness. In that nature, then, when it
happily has cleaved to it, it will live unchangeably, and will see as
unchangeable all that it does see. Then, as divine Scripture promises,
"His desire will be satisfied with good things," [901] good things
unchangeable,--the very Trinity itself, its own God, whose image it
is. And that it may not ever thenceforward suffer wrong, it will be in
the hidden place of His presence, [902] filled with so great fullness
of Him, that sin thenceforth will never delight it. But now, when it
sees itself, it sees something not unchangeable.
Footnotes
[891] Deut. vi. 5
[892] Ps. xi. 5
[893] Virg. Georg. iii. 513-514.
[894] Ps. lix. 9
[895] Ps. xxxiv. 5
[896] Ps. xxxviii. 10
[897] C. 4.
[898] Ps. xxxix. 6
[899] Luke xii. 20
[900] 1 Cor. vi. 17
[901] Ps. ciii. 5
[902] Ps. xxxi. 20
Chapter 15.--Although the Soul Hopes for Blessedness, Yet It Does Not
Remember Lost Blessedness, But Remembers God and the Rules of
Righteousness. The Unchangeable Rules of Right Living are Known Even
to the Ungodly.
21. And of this certainly it feels no doubt, that it is wretched, and
longs to be blessed nor can it hope for the possibility of this on any
other ground than its own changeableness for if it were not
changeable, then, as it could not become wretched after being blessed,
so neither could it become blessed after being wretched. And what
could have made it wretched under an omnipotent and good God, except
its own sin and the righteousness of its Lord? And what will make it
blessed, unless its own merit, and its Lord's reward? But its merit,
too, is His grace, whose reward will be its blessedness; for it cannot
give itself the righteousness it has lost, and so has not. For this it
received when man was created, and assuredly lost it by sinning.
Therefore it receives righteousness, that on account of this it may
deserve to receive blessedness; and hence the apostle truly says to
it, when beginning to be proud as it were of its own good, "For what
hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" [903] But when
it rightly remembers its own Lord, having received His Spirit, then,
because it is so taught by an inward teaching, it feels wholly that it
cannot rise save by His affection freely given, nor has been able to
fall save by its own defection freely chosen. Certainly it does not
remember its own blessedness; since that has been, but is not, and it
has utterly forgotten it, and therefore cannot even be reminded of it.
[904] But it believes what the trustworthy Scriptures of its God tell
of that blessedness, which were written by His prophet, and tell of
the blessedness of Paradise, and hand down to us historical
information of that first both good and ill of man. And it remembers
the Lord its God; for He always is, nor has been and is not, nor is
but has not been; but as He never will not be, so He never was not.
And He is whole everywhere. And hence it both lives, and is moved, and
is in Him; [905] and so it can remember Him. Not because it recollects
the having known Him in Adam or anywhere else before the life of this
present body, or when it was first made in order to be implanted in
this body; for it remembers nothing at all of all this. Whatever there
is of this, it has been blotted out by forgetfulness. But it is
reminded, that it may be turned to God, as though to that light by
which it was in some way touched, even when turned away from Him. For
hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity, and rightly blame
and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. And by what rules
do they thus judge, except by those wherein they see how men ought to
live, even though they themselves do not so live? And where do they
see these rules? For they do not see them in their own [moral] nature;
since no doubt these things are to be seen by the mind, and their
minds are confessedly changeable, but these rules are seen as
unchangeable by him who can see them at all; nor yet in the character
of their own mind, since these rules are rules of righteousness, and
their minds are confessedly unrighteous. Where indeed are these rules
written, wherein even the unrighteous recognizes what is righteous,
wherein he discerns that he ought to have what he himself has not?
Where, then, are they written, unless in the book of that Light which
is called Truth? whence every righteous law is copied and transferred
(not by migrating to it, but by being as it were impressed upon it) to
the heart of the man that worketh righteousness; as the impression
from a ring passes into the wax, yet does not leave the ring. But he
who worketh not, and yet sees how he ought to work, he is the man that
is turned away from that light, which yet touches him. But he who does
not even see how he ought to live, sins indeed with more excuse,
because he is not a transgressor of a law that he knows; but even he
too is just touched sometimes by the splendor of the everywhere
present truth, when upon admonition he confesses.
Footnotes
[903] 1 Cor. iv. 7
[904] [In the case of knowledge that is remembered, there is something
latent and potential--as when past acquisitions are recalled by a
voluntary act of recollection. The same is true of innate ideas--these
also are latent, and brought into consciousness by reflection. But no
man can either remember, or elicit, his original holiness and
blessedness, because this is not latent and potential, but wholly lost
by the fall.--W.G.T.S.]
[905] Acts xvii. 28
Chapter 16.--How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.
22. But those who, by being reminded, are turned to the Lord from that
deformity whereby they were through worldly lusts conformed to this
world, are formed anew from the world, when they hearken to the
apostle, saying, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye formed
again in the renewing of your mind;" [906] that that image may begin
to be formed again by Him by whom it had been formed at first. For
that image cannot form itself again, as it could deform itself. He
says again elsewhere: "Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind; and
put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness." [907] That which is meant by "created after God," is
expressed in another place by "after the image of God." [908] But it
lost righteousness and true holiness by sinning, through which that
image became defaced and tarnished; and this it recovers when it is
formed again and renewed. But when he says, "In the spirit of your
mind," he does not intend to be understood of two things, as though
mind were one, and the spirit of the mind another; but he speaks thus,
because all mind is spirit, but all spirit is not mind. For there is a
Spirit also that is God, [909] which cannot be renewed, because it
cannot grow old. And we speak also of a spirit in man distinct from
the mind, to which spirit belong the images that are formed after the
likeness of bodies; and of this the apostle speaks to the Corinthians,
where he says, "But if I shall have prayed with a tongue, my spirit
prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." [910] For he speaks
thus, when that which is said is not understood; since it cannot even
be said, unless the images of the corporeal articulate sounds
anticipate the oral sound by the thought of the spirit. The soul of
man is also called spirit, whence are the words in the Gospel, "And He
bowed His head, and gave up His spirit;" [911] by which the death of
the body, through the spirit's leaving it, is signified. We speak also
of the spirit of a beast, as it is expressly written in the book of
Solomon called Ecclesiastes; "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?"
[912] It is written too in Genesis, where it is said that by the
deluge all flesh died which "had in it the spirit of life." [913] We
speak also of the spirit, meaning the wind, a thing most manifestly
corporeal; whence is that in the Psalms, "Fire and hail, snow and ice,
the spirit of the storm." [914] Since spirit, then, is a word of so
many meanings, the apostle intended to express by "the spirit of the
mind" that spirit which is called the mind. As the same apostle also,
when he says, "In putting off the body of the flesh," [915] certainly
did not intend two things, as though flesh were one, and the body of
the flesh another; but because body is the name of many things that
have no flesh (for besides the flesh, there are many bodies celestial
and bodies terrestrial), he expressed by the body of the flesh that
body which is flesh. In like manner, therefore, by the spirit of the
mind, that spirit which is mind. Elsewhere, too, he has even more
plainly called it an image, while enforcing the same thing in other
words. "Do you," he says, "putting off the old man with his deeds, put
on the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge of God after the
image of Him that created him." [916] Where the one passage reads,
"Put ye on the new man, which is created after God," the other has,
"Put ye on the new man, which is renewed after the image of Him that
created him."
In the one place he says, "After God;" in the other, "After the image
of Him that created him." But instead of saying, as in the former
passages "In righteousness and true holiness," he has put in the
latter, "In the knowledge of God." This renewal, then, and forming
again of the mind, is wrought either after God, or after the image of
God. But it is said to be after God, in order that it may not be
supposed to be after another creature; and to be after the image of
God, in order that this renewing may be understood to take place in
that wherein is the image of God, i.e. in the mind. Just as we say,
that he who has departed from the body a faithful and righteous man,
is dead after the body, not after the spirit. For what do we mean by
dead after the body, unless as to the body or in the body, and not
dead as to the soul or in the soul? Or if we want to say he is
handsome after the body, or strong after the body, not after the mind;
what else is this, than that he is handsome or strong in body, not in
mind? And the same is the case with numberless other instances. Let us
not therefore so understand the words, "After the image of Him that
created him," as though it were a different image after which he is
renewed, and not the very same which is itself renewed.
Footnotes
[906] Rom. xii. 2
[907] Eph. iv. 23, 24
[908] Gen. i. 27
[909] John iv. 24
[910] 1 Cor. xiv. 14
[911] John xix. 30
[912] Eccles. iii. 21
[913] Gen. vii. 22
[914] Ps. cxlviii. 8
[915] Col. ii. 11
[916] Col. iii. 9, 10
Chapter 17.--How the Image of God in the Mind is Renewed Until the
Likeness of God is Perfected in It in Blessedness.
23. Certainly this renewal does not take place in the single moment of
conversion itself, as that renewal in baptism takes place in a single
moment by the remission of all sins; for not one, be it ever so small,
remains unremitted. But as it is one thing to be free from fever, and
another to grow strong again from the infirmity which the fever
produced; and one thing again to pluck out of the body a weapon thrust
into it, and another to heal the wound thereby made by a prosperous
cure; so the first cure is to remove the cause of infirmity, and this
is wrought by the forgiving of all sins; but the second cure is to
heal the infirmity itself, and this takes place gradually by making
progress in the renewal of that image: which two things are plainly
shown in the Psalm, where we read, "Who forgiveth all thine
iniquities," which takes place in baptism; and then follows, "and
healeth all thine infirmities;" [917] and this takes place by daily
additions, while this image is being renewed. [918] And the apostle
has spoken of this most expressly, saying, "And though our outward man
perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day." [919] And "it is
renewed in the knowledge of God, i.e. in righteousness and true
holiness," according to the testimonies of the apostle cited a little
before. He, then, who is day by day renewed by making progress in the
knowledge of God, and in righteousness and true holiness, transfers
his love from things temporal to things eternal, from things visible
to things intelligible, from things carnal to things spiritual; and
diligently perseveres in bridling and lessening his desire for the
former, and in binding himself by love to the latter. And he does this
in proportion as he is helped by God. For it is the sentence of God
Himself, "Without me ye can do nothing." [920] And when the last day
of life shall have found any one holding fast faith in the Mediator in
such progress and growth as this, he will be welcomed by the holy
angels, to be led to God, whom he has worshipped, and to be made
perfect by Him; and so will receive in the end of the world an
incorruptible body, in order not to punishment, but to glory. For the
likeness of God will then be perfected in this image, when the sight
of God shall be perfected. And of this the Apostle Paul speaks: "Now
we see through a glass, in an enigma, but then face to face." [921]
And again: "But we with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory,
even as by the spirit of the Lord." [922] And this is what happens
from day to day in those that make good progress.
Footnotes
[917] Ps. ciii. 3
[918] [Justification is instantaneous: sanctification is gradual.
Baptism is the sign, not the cause, of the former. "As many of us as
were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized with reference to (eis)
his death;" and "are intombed with him by the baptism that has
reference to (eis) his death." Rom. vi. 3, 4. According to St. Paul,
baptism supposes a trust in the atonement of Christ, and is a seal of
it. In saying that "the forgiveness of all thine iniquity takes place
in baptism," Augustin is liable to be understood as teaching the
efficiency of baptism in producing forgiveness. This is the weak side
of the Post Nicene soteriology.--W.G.T.S.]
[919] 2 Cor. iv. 16
[920] John xv. 5
[921] 1 Cor. xiii. 12
[922] 2 Cor. iii. 18
Chapter 18.--Whether the Sentence of John is to Be Understood of Our
Future Likeness with the Son of God in the Immortality Itself Also of
the Body.
24. But the Apostle John says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God;
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
[923] Hence it appears, that the full likeness of God is to take place
in that image of God at that time when it shall receive the full sight
of God. And yet this may also possibly seem to be said by the Apostle
John of the immortality of the body. For we shall be like to God in
this too, but only to the Son, because He only in the Trinity took a
body, in which He died and rose again, and which He carried with Him
to heaven above. For this, too, is called an image of the Son of God,
in which we shall have, as He has, an immortal body, being conformed
in this respect not to the image of the Father or of the Holy Spirit,
but only of the Son, because of Him alone is it read and received by a
sound faith, that "the Word was made flesh." [924] And for this reason
the apostle says, "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born
among many brethren." [925] "The first-born" certainly "from the
dead," [926] according to the same apostle; by which death His flesh
was sown in dishonor, and rose again in glory. According to this image
of the Son, to which we are conformed in the body by immortality, we
also do that of which the same apostle speaks, "As we have borne the
image of the earthy, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly;"
[927] to wit, that we who are mortal after Adam, may hold by a true
faith, and a sure and certain hope, that we shall be immortal after
Christ. For so can we now bear the same image, not yet in sight, but
in faith; not yet in fact, but in hope. For the apostle, when he said
this, was speaking of the resurrection of the body.
Footnotes
[923] 1 John iii. 2
[924] John i. 14
[925] Rom. viii. 29
[926] Col. i. 18
[927] 1 Cor. xv. 43, 49
Chapter 19.--John is Rather to Be Understood of Our Perfect Likeness
with the Trinity in Life Eternal. Wisdom is Perfected in Happiness.
25. But in respect to that image indeed, of which it is said, "Let us
make man after our image and likeness," [928] we believe,--and, after
the utmost search we have been able to make, understand,--that man was
made after the image of the Trinity, because it is not said, After my,
or After thy image. And therefore that place too of the Apostle John
must be understood rather according to this image, when he says, "We
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is;" because he spoke
too of Him of whom he had said, "We are the sons of God." [929] And
the immortality of the flesh will be perfected in that moment of the
resurrection, of which the Apostle Paul says, "In the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trump; and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed." [930] For in that very twinkling of an eye,
before the judgment, the spiritual body shall rise again in power, in
incorruption, in glory, which is now sown a natural body in weakness,
in corruption, in dishonor. But the image which is renewed in the
spirit of the mind in the knowledge of God, not outwardly, but
inwardly, from day to day, shall be perfected by that sight itself;
which then after the judgment shall be face to face, but now makes
progress as through a glass in an enigma. [931] And we must understand
it to be said on account of this perfection, that "we shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is." For this gift will be given to us
at that time, when it shall have been said, "Come, ye blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you." [932] For then will the
ungodly be taken away, so that he shall not see the glory of the Lord,
[933] when those on the left hand shall go into eternal punishment,
while those on the right go into life eternal. [934] But "this is
eternal life," as the Truth tells us; "to know Thee," He says, "the
one true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." [935]
26. This contemplative wisdom, which I believe is properly called
wisdom as distinct from knowledge in the sacred writings; but wisdom
only of man, which yet man has not except from Him, by partaking of
whom a rational and intellectual mind can be made truly wise;--this
contemplative wisdom, I say, it is that Cicero commends, in the end of
the dialogue Hortensius, when he says: "While, then, we consider these
things night and day, and sharpen our understanding, which is the eye
of the mind, taking care that it be not ever dulled, that is, while we
live in philosophy; we, I say, in so doing, have great hope that, if,
on the one hand, this sentiment and wisdom of ours is mortal and
perishable, we shall still, when we have discharged our human offices,
have a pleasant setting, and a not painful extinction, and as it were
a rest from life: or if, on the other, as ancient philosophers
thought,--and those, too, the greatest and far the most
celebrated,--we have souls eternal and divine, then must we needs
think, that the more these shall have always kept in their own proper
course, i.e. in reason and in the desire of inquiry, and the less they
shall have mixed and entangled themselves in the vices and errors of
men, the more easy ascent and return they will have to heaven." And
then he says, adding this short sentence, and finishing his discourse
by repeating it: "Wherefore, to end my discourse at last, if we wish
either for a tranquil extinction, after living in the pursuit of these
subjects, or if to migrate without delay from this present home to
another in no little measure better, we must bestow all our labor and
care upon these pursuits." And here I marvel, that a man of such great
ability should promise to men living in philosophy, which makes man
blessed by contemplation of truth, "a pleasant setting after the
discharge of human offices, if this our sentiment and wisdom is mortal
and perishable;" as if that which we did not love, or rather which we
fiercely hated, were then to die and come to nothing, so that its
setting would be pleasant to us! But indeed he had not learned this
from the philosophers, whom he extols with great praise; but this
sentiment is redolent of that New Academy, wherein it pleased him to
doubt of even the plainest things. But from the philosophers that were
greatest and far most celebrated, as he himself confesses, he had
learned that souls are eternal. For souls that are eternal are not
unsuitably stirred up by the exhortation to be found in "their own
proper course," when the end of this life shall have come, i.e. "in
reason and in the desire of inquiry," and to mix and entangle
themselves the less in the vices and errors of men, in order that they
may have an easier return to God. But that course which consists in
the love and investigation of truth does not suffice for the wretched,
i.e. for all mortals who have only this kind of reason, and are
without faith in the Mediator; as I have taken pains to prove, as much
as I could, in former books of this work, especially in the fourth and
thirteenth.
Footnotes
[928] Gen. i. 26
[929] John iii. 2
[930] 1 Cor. xv. 52
[931] 1 Cor. xiii. 12
[932] Matt. xxv. 34
[933] Isa. xxvi. 10
[934] Matt. xxv. 46
[935] John xvii. 3
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