Augustin - Trinity 1550
1551 51. O Lord our God, we believe in Thee, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Truth would not say, Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, unless Thou wast a Trinity. Nor wouldest thou, O Lord God, bid us to be baptized in the name of Him who is not the Lord God. Nor would the divine voice have said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God, unless Thou wert so a Trinity as to be one Lord God. And if Thou, O God, weft Thyself the Father, and weft Thyself the Son, Thy Word Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit your gift, we should not read in the book of truth, “God sent His Son;”144 nor wouldest Thou, O Only-begotten, say of the Holy Spirit, “Whom the Father will send in my name;”145 and, “Whom I will send to you from the Father.”146 Directing my purpose by this rule of faith, so far as I have been able, so far as Thou hast made me to be able, I have sought Thee, and have desired to see with my understanding what I believed; and I have argued and labored much. O Lord my God, my one hope, hearken to me, lest through weariness I be unwilling to seek Thee, “but that I may always ardently seek Thy face.”147 Do Thou give strength to seek,, who hast made me find Thee, and hast given the hope of finding Thee more and more. My strength and my infirmity are in Thy sight: preserve the one, and heal the other. My knowledge and my ignorance are in Thy sight; where Thou hast opened to me, receive me as I enter; where Thou hast closed, open to me as I knock. May I remember Thee, understand Thee, love Thee. Increase these things in me, until Thou renewest me wholly. I know it is written, “In the multitude of speech, thou shalt not escape sin.”148 But O that I might speak only in preaching Thy word, and in praising Thee! Not only should I so flee from sin, but I should earn good desert, however much I so spake. For a man blessed of Thee would not enjoin a sin upon his own true son in the faith, to whom he wrote, “Preach the word: be instant in season. out of season.”149 Are we to say that he has not spoken much, who was not silent about Thy word, O Lord, not only in season, but out/of season? But therefore it was not much, because it was only what was necessary. Set me free, O God, from that multitude of speech which I suffer inwardly in my soul, wretched as it is in Thy sight, and flying for refuge to Thy mercy; for I am not silent in thoughts, even when silent in words. And if, indeed, I thought of nothing save what pleased Thee, certainly I would not ask Thee to set me free from such multitude of speech. But many are my thoughts, such as Thou knowest, “thoughts of man, since they are vain.”150 Grant to me not to consent to them; and if ever they delight me, nevertheless to condemn them, and not to dwell in them, as though I slumbered. Nor let them so prevail in me, as that anything in my acts should proceed from them; but at least let my opinions, let my conscience, be safe from them, under Thy protection. When the wise man spake of Thee in his book, which is now called b the special name of Ecclesiasticus, We speak,” he said, “much, and yet co eshort; and in sum of words, He is all.”151 When, therefore, we shall have come to Thee, these very many things that we speak, and yet come short, will cease; and Thou, as One, wilt remain “all in all.”152 And we shall say one thing without end, in praising Thee in One, ourselves also made one in Thee. O Lord the one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of Thine, may they acknowledge who are Thine; if anything of my own, may it be pardoned both by Thee and by those who are Thine. Amen).
1 Mens or animus.
2 Anima.
3 (Ps 105 Ps 3,4.
4 (Is 55,6-7).
5 (Si 24,29).
6 (Is 7,9,
7 (Ps 14,2,
8 (Rm 1,20,
9 (Sg 13,1-5).
10 (Ps 90,1,
11 (1Co 1,24).
12 (1Jn 4,16).
13 (Col 3,10,
14 (Gn 1,27,
15 (Jn 4,24,
16 (1Tm 6,16,
17 (Sg 8,1).
18 [In the Infinite Being, qualities are inseparable from essence; in the finite being, they are separable. If man or angel ceases to be good, or wise, or righteous, he does not thereby cease to be man or angel. But it God should lose goodness, wisdom or righteousness, he would no longer be God. This is the meaning of Augustin, when he says that “goodness” as well as “spirit” must be predicated of God, “according to substance”—that is, that qualities in God are essential qualities. They are so one with the essence, that they are inseparable.—W.G.T.S.]
19 (Sg 6,1,
20 (1Co 1,24).
21 (1Jn 4,16,
22 (Gn 1,27).
23 (Ps 139,6).
24 (Ps 39,3,
25 (Ps 105,4.
26 (1Co 13,12,
27 (2Co 3,18,
28 Speculantes.
29 Speculum.
30 Specula.
31 (1Co 11,7).
32 (1Jn 3,2,
33 (Ga 4,24,
34 (1Th 5,6-8.
35 (Pr 30,15).
36 (Sg 2,1,
37 (Mt 9,2-4.
38 (Lc 5,21-22.
39 (Lc 12,17,
40 (Mt 15,10-20).
41 (Jn 1,1,
42 (Jn 13,21-24.
43 (Ac 6,7).
44 (Rm 10,17,
45 (1Th 2,13,
46 (Si 1,5,
47 (Mt 5,37,
48 (Si 37,20,
49 (2Co 3,17,
50 (1Jn 3,4,
51 (1Co 13,12).
52 [Not the Old Academy of Plato and his immediate disciples, who were anti-skeptical; but the new Academy, to which Augustin has previously referred (XIV. 19,26). This was skeptical—W.G.T.S.]
53 Libri Tres contra Academicos.
54 (Mt 6,8,
55 (Si 23,20).
56 (Mt 5,37,
57 (Jn 5,19).
58 (2Co 1,19
59 Aen.x. 159, 160).
60 (1Jn 3,2,
61 (1Jn 4,16,
62 (Ps 71,5.
63 (Ps 62,5,
64 (Ps 91,9,
65 (Ps 59,17,
66 (Jn 4,24).
67 (Is 28,11 and 1Co 14,21,
68 (Jn 15,25,
69 (Ps 35,19,
70 (Mt 11,13,
71 (Mt 22,40,
72 (Lc 24,44,
73 (1Co 1,24).
74 (Jn 4,10,
75 (1Jn 4,7-19.
76 (Rm 5,5,
77 (1Co 13,1-3.
78 (Ga 5,6,
79 (Jc 2,19,
80 (Ac 8,20,
81 (Jn 7,37-39.
82 (1Co 12,13).
83 (Jn 4,7-14.
84 Ep 4,7-8.
85 (Ps 68,18,
86 (Ac 9,4,
87 (Mt 25,40,
88 (1Co 12,11,
89 Distributionibus.
90 (He 2,4,
91 (1Co 12,29,
92 (Ep 4,7-12.
93 (Ps 126,1).
94 (Ac 2,37-38.
95 (Ac 8,18-20.
96 Ac 10,44 Ac 10,46.
97 Ac 11,15-17.
98 (Col 2,11
99 (Jn 3,6).
100 (Col 1,13
101 (Pr 19,21,
102 (Rm 1,20).
103 (1Co 13,12).
104 [The reader will observe that Augustin has employed the term “memory” in a wider sense than in the modern ordinary use. With him, it is the mind as including all that is potential or latent in it. The innate ideas, in this use, are laid up in the “memory,” and called into consciousness or “remembered” by reflection. The idea of God, for example, is not in the “memory” when not elicited by reflection. The same is true of the ideas of space and time, etc.—W.G.T.S.]
105 (1Co 13,12,
106 (1Tm 1,5,
107 (Sg 9,15,
108 (Jn 1,29,
109 (1Tm 2,5,
110 (Ac 4,12,
111 C. 3).
112 (Ga 4,6,
113 (Mt 10,20,
114 (Jn 15,26,
115 (Jn 14,26,
116 (Jn 20,23,
117 (Lc 6,19,
118 (Jn 20,22,
119 Ac 2,4.
120 (Rm 5,5,
121 Mt 22,37-40.
122 Ac 8,18-19.
123 (Jn 1,14,
124 (Lc 2,52 and Lc 4,1.
125 (Ac 10,38,
126 (Mt 3,16,
127 Jn 1,14.
128 Lc 3,21-23.
129 (Lc 1,15,
130 (Ac 2,33).
131 (Jn 5,26).
132 [Says Turrettin, III. 29,21. “The Father does not generate the Son either as previously existing, for in this case there would be no need of generation; nor yet as not yet existing, for in this case the Son would not be eternal; but as co-existing, because he is from eternity in the God-head.”—W.G.T.S.]
133 [The term “unbegotten” is not found in Scripture, but it is implied in the terms “begotten” and “only-begotten,” which are found. The term “unity” is not applied to God in Scripture, but it is implied in the term “one” which is so applied.—W.G.T.S.]
134 [The spiration and procession of the Holy Spirit is not by two separate acts, one of the Father, and one of the Son—as perhaps might be inferred from Augustin’s remark that “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally.” As Turrettin says: “The Father and Son spirate the Spirit, not as two different essences in each of which resides a spirative energy, but as two personal subsistences of one essence, who concur in one act of spiration.” Institutio III. xxxi. 6.—W.G.T.S.]
135 (Jn 15,26).
136 (Jn 7,16,
137 [Generation and procession are each an emanation of the essence by which it is modified. Neither of them is a creation ex nihilo. The school-men attempted to explain the difference between the two emanations, by saying that the generation of the Son is by the mode of the intellect—hence the Son is called Wisdom, or Word (Logos); but the procession of the Spirit is by the mode of the will—hence the Spirit is called Love. Turrettin distinguishes the difference by the following particulars: 1. In respect to the source. Generation is from the Father alone; procession is from Father and Son. 2. In respect to effects. Generation yields not only personality, but resemblance. The Son is the “image” of the Father, but the Spirit is not the image of the Father and Son. Generation is accompanied with the power to communicate the essence; procession is not. 3. In respect to order of relationship. Generation is second, procession is third. In the order of nature, not of time (for both generation and procession are eternal, therefore simultaneous), procession is after generation). Institutio III. 31,3.—W.G.T.S.]
138 Serm. in Joh. Evang. tract..99, n. 8, 9).
139 (Jn 1,5).
140 (Ps 139,5,
141 (Ps 103,3,
142 Lc 10,30 Lc 10,34.
143 (Ps 17,2,
144 (Ga 4,5 and Jn 3,17,
145 (Jn 14,26,
146 (Jn 15,26,
147 (Ps 105,4).
148 (Pr 10,19.
149 (2Tm 4,2,
150 (Ps 94,11,
151 (Si 43,29,
152 (1Co 15,28).
[i]Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series: Volume III, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc). 1997.
Augustin - Trinity 1550