Augustin - Trinity 1415
1415 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.”28 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;”29 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.
1416 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.”30 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”?31 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.”32 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.
1417 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, hut 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;”33 and again the 22d Psalm, “All the ends of the world shall be reminded, and turned unto the Lord.”34 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.35 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.36 For this is spoken to those, who said vain things concerning God through not understanding Him.
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.
1418 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.”37 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.”38 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.”39 Sinceit was a disease of the body he was speakingof, 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,”40 and again, “Draw near to Him, and be enlightened,”41 —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.”42
1419 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 above43 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.”44 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?”45 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 subvertthe 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?
1420 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.”46 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,”47 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,48 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.
The Unchangeable Rules of Right Living are Known Even to the Ungodly.
1421 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?49 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.50 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;51 had 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.
1422 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;”52 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.”53 That which is meant by “created after God,” is expressed in another place by “after the image of God.”54 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 in: tend 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,55 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.”56 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;”57 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?”58 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.”59 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 I storm.”60 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,”61 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.”62 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.
1423 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 causeof 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;”63 and this takes place by daily additions, while this image is being renewed.64 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.”65 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.”66 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.”67 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.”68 And this is what happens from day to day in those that make good progress.
1424 24. But the Apostle Jn 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.”69 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 Jn 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.”70 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.”71 “The first-born” certainly “from the dead,”72 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;”73 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.
1425 25. But in respect to that image indeed, of which it is said, “Let us make man after our image and likeness,”74 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 Jn 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 be had said, “We are the sons of God.”75 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.”76 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.77 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.”78 For then will the ungodly be taken away, so that he shall not see the glory of the Lord,79 when those on the left hand shall go into eternal punishment, while those on the right go into life eternal.80 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.”81
1 (Si 24,5 1Co 1,24).
2 C. 14.
3 (Jb 28,28,
4 Disciplina, disco.
5 Disciplina, disco.
6 Disciplina.
7 Disciplina.
8 (He 12,11.
9 (1Co 3,19,
10 (Sg 6,26).
11 (Pr 9,8,
12 Bk. 13,cc. 1, 19.
13 (1Co 13,12,
14 Bk. 13,c. 7.
15 (2Co 5,6, 7.
16 (Rm 1,17,
17 (1Co 13,12).
18 (Gn 1,27,
19 CC. 2 sq.).
20 (Ps 39,7,
21 [This occured in the the case of Edward Irving. Oliphant’s Life of Irving.—W. G. T. S.].
22 Bk. 10,c. 5).
23 Bk. 10,c. 3).
24 Supra, c. iv.
25 Cc. 2 sq).
26 (Sg 9,14,
27 Aeneid, 3,628, 629.
28 (Jb 28,28,
29 (Rm 10,3).
30 (Ac 17,27-28.
31 (Rm 11,36,
32 (Ps 73,23,
33 (Ps 9,17,
34 (Ps 22,27,
35 [Augustin here understands “Sheol,” to denote the place of retribution for the wicked.—W.G.T.S.].
36 Ps 94,8-9.
37 (Dt 6,5,
38 (Ps 11,5).
39 Virg). Georg. 3,513-514).
40 (Ps 59,9,
41 (Ps 34,5,
42 (Ps 38,10,
43 C. 4.
44 (Ps 39,6,
45 (Lc 12,20).
46 (1Co 6,17,
47 (Ps 103,5,
48 (Ps 31,20,
49 (1Co 4,7
50 [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.]
51 (Ac 17,28).
52 (Rm 12,2,
53 Ep 4,23-24.
54 (Gn 1,27,
55 (Jn 4,24,
56 (1Co 14,14,
57 (Jn 19,30,
58 (Qo 3,21,
59 (Gn 7,22,
60 (Ps 148,8,
61 (Col 2,11,
62 (Col 3,9-10).
63 (Ps 103,3,
64 [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 (eij") his death;” and “are intombed with him by the baptism that has reference to (eij") his death.” Rm 6,3, 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.].
65 (2Co 4,16,
66 (Jn 15,5,
67 (1Co 13,12,
68 (2Co 3,18,
69 1Jn 3,2.
70 (Jn 1,14,
71 (Rm 8,29,
72 (Col 1,18).
73 1Co 15,43 1Co 15,49.
74 (Gn 1,26,
75 (Jn 3,2,
76 (1Co 15,52,
77 1Co 13,12.
78 (Mt 25,34,
79 (Is 26,10,
80 (Mt 25,46,
81 (Jn 17,3).
1426 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).
Augustin - Trinity 1415