On the Trinity, Book 3

I would like those who are willing to believe me to know that I would rather spend my effort reading than dictating something for others to read. Those who do not believe this, but are able and willing to test it, should provide whatever answers can be found through reading, whether to my own questions or to other people’s questions, which, because of my role in Christ’s service and my burning desire to strengthen our faith against the errors of fleshly and merely natural people, I must put up with. Then they will see how readily I would leave this task aside, and how gladly I would give my pen a holiday. Yet what we have read on these subjects may not be adequately explained, or may not exist at all in Latin, or at least may not be easy for us to find. We do not know Greek well enough to read and understand books on these subjects in that language, although, judging by the little translated for us, I do not doubt that these writings offer everything we might usefully seek. Nor can I refuse my brothers when they ask me, under the law that makes me their servant, to serve their praiseworthy studies in Christ especially through my speech and writing, which are yoked together in me with Love as their charioteer. I myself also admit that writing has taught me many things I did not know. Given all this, my effort should not seem unnecessary to anyone with leisure or great learning; many busy people and many who lack learning, myself among them, need it a great deal. Greatly supported and helped by other people’s writings we have already read on this subject, I have undertaken to investigate and discuss whatever I judge can reverently be investigated and discussed about the Trinity, the one supreme and supremely good God. He Himself encourages my inquiry and helps my discussion. I undertake this so that, if no other writings of this kind exist, those willing and able to read may have something to read; but if any exist already, the greater number of such writings may make them easier to find. As with all my writings, I certainly want not only a devout reader but also someone free to correct me, and I especially want this in the present inquiry, which is so important that I wish there were as many people investigating as objecting. Just as I do not want my reader bound to my views, I do not want my corrector bound to his own. The reader should not love me more than the Catholic faith, and the corrector should not love himself more than Catholic truth. I tell the reader: Do not submit to my writings as you do to the canonical Scriptures; in those Scriptures, when you discover something you did not previously believe, believe it unhesitatingly; but in my writings, do not hold firmly to what you previously considered uncertain unless you have understood it with certainty. I tell the corrector: Do not correct my writings on the basis of your own opinion or argument, but from the divine text or through reasoning that cannot be answered. If you understand any truth in them, its presence there does not make it mine, but by understanding and loving it, let it be both yours and mine; but if you prove anything false, it may once have been mine because I made the mistake, but now let us both avoid it so that it belongs to neither of us. Let this third book begin where the second ended. We had reached the point of wanting to show that the Son was not less than the Father because the Father sent and the Son was sent; nor the Holy Spirit less than both because we read in the Gospel that He was sent by both. We then asked another question. The Son was sent where He already was, for He came into the world, and “was in the world.” The Holy Spirit was also sent where He already was, for “the Spirit of the Lord fills the world, and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice.” Was the Lord “sent” because He was born in the flesh so as to be no longer hidden, and, as it were, came out from the Father’s embrace, and appeared to human eyes in the form of a servant? And was the Holy Spirit too “sent” because He too was seen as a dove in physical form and in divided tongues resembling fire? So, when they are said to be sent, this means emerging from spiritual concealment in a physical form visible to mortals; since the Father did not do this, He is said only to have sent, not also to be sent. Our next inquiry was why the Father too is not sometimes said to be sent, if He Himself was manifested through those physical forms which appeared to the eyes of the ancients. But if the Son was manifested at these times, why should He be said to be “sent” so much later, when the fullness of time had come that He should be born of a woman; since He had also been sent before, when He appeared physically in those forms? Or if He could only rightly be said to be “sent” when the Word became flesh, why do we read that the Holy Spirit was “sent,” when He never underwent such an incarnation? But if neither the Father, nor the Son, but the Holy Spirit was manifested through these ancient appearances; why should He too be said to be “sent” now, when He was also sent before in these various ways? Next we subdivided the subject, to examine it as carefully as possible, and divided the question into three parts, of which one part was explained in the second book, and two remain for me to discuss next. We have already investigated and determined that not only the Father, nor only the Son, nor only the Holy Spirit appeared in those ancient physical forms and visions, but either the Lord God without distinction of persons, who is understood to be the Trinity itself, or a particular person of the Trinity, as the narrative might indicate through clues supplied by the context.

Let us now continue our inquiry in order. The second part of that division raised the question whether a created form was produced solely for that purpose, to reveal God to human sight in the way He then judged fitting; or whether angels, who already existed, were sent to speak in God’s person, taking on a physical appearance from physical creation for their service; or whether they transformed their own bodies, which do not rule them but are ruled by them, into whatever forms they wanted that suited their actions, according to the power given to them by the Creator. When we have investigated this part of the question as far as God permits, we must finally examine the question we started with: whether the Son and the Holy Spirit were also “sent” before; and if so, then what difference there is between that sending and the one of which we read in the Gospel; or whether neither was sent until either the Son was born of the Virgin Mary, or the Holy Spirit appeared in a visible form, whether as a dove or in tongues of fire. I admit, however, that it is beyond my purpose here to investigate whether angels work secretly through the spiritual quality of the bodies they retain and take something from the lower, more physical elements, fitting it to themselves and transforming it like a garment into whatever physical appearances they want, with those appearances themselves also being real, as real water was changed by our Lord into real wine; or whether they transform their own bodies into whatever suits the particular action. Which of these is the case does not affect the present question. Although I am human and cannot understand these things through direct experience, as the angels who do them can, the angels know these things better than I know how far my own body can be changed by my will, whether from my own experience or from what I have learned from others. Yet I need not say here which alternative I believe on the authority of divine Scripture, because then I would have to prove it, making this discussion too long on a subject outside the present question. Our present question is whether angels brought those bodily appearances before human eyes and made those words sound in human ears when perceptible creation, serving at the Creator’s command, was temporarily transformed into whatever was needed; as it is written in the book of Wisdom, “Creation serves You, its Maker, intensifying its strength to punish the unrighteous and reducing its strength to benefit those who trust in You. Therefore even then it was changed into every form, and was obedient to Your grace, that nourishes all things according to the desire of those who longed for You.” For the power of the will of God reaches through spiritual creation even to visible and perceptible effects in physical creation. Where does the wisdom of almighty God not accomplish what He wills, which “extends powerfully from one end to the other and gently orders all things”?

There is a natural order in the transformation and change of bodies that also serves God’s command but no longer causes wonder because it continues without interruption; for example, things that change at very short, or at least fairly short, intervals in heaven, or earth, or sea; whether in rising, setting, or changing their appearance from time to time; other things arise from the same order but are less familiar because they occur at longer intervals. Although most people marvel at these things without understanding them, those who investigate the present world understand them, and over successive generations they become less remarkable as they recur more often and more people know about them. Such are the eclipses of the sun and moon, and certain kinds of stars that rarely appear, and earthquakes, and abnormal births among living creatures, and other similar things; not one of these occurs without God’s will, yet most people do not recognize this. Philosophers’ conceit has therefore allowed them to attribute these things to other causes, perhaps real causes, but only immediate ones, while they cannot see the cause above all others at all, that is, the will of God; or else to false causes proposed without any careful investigation of physical things and movements, but only from their own guesses and mistakes. I will offer an example, if I can, to make this clearer. There is, we know, in the human body, a mass of flesh, an outward shape, a distribution and arrangement of limbs, and a balanced state of health; and a soul breathed into the body governs it, and this soul is rational. Although changeable, it can therefore share in unchanging wisdom, so that “it may share in what exists in and of itself;” as it is written in the Psalm concerning all saints, from whom, as living stones, is built the Jerusalem that is the mother of us all, eternal in heaven. It is sung in this way: “Jerusalem is built as a city, that shares in what exists in and of itself.” For “in and of itself,” in that place, refers to that supreme and unchanging good, which is God, and to His own wisdom and will. To Him it is sung elsewhere, “You shall change them, and they shall be changed; but You are the same.”

Consider a wise man whose rational soul already shares in unchanging and eternal truth, so that he consults it about all his actions, and does nothing at all unless through it he knows it should be done, so that by submitting to it and obeying it he may act rightly. Suppose this man consults the highest rational principle of divine righteousness, which he hears secretly with his heart’s ear, and at its command wears out his body performing an act of mercy and becomes ill. When he consults physicians, one tells him that the illness was caused by excessive bodily dryness, and another says it was excessive moisture; one of the two no doubt would identify the true cause and the other would be wrong, but both would be discussing only immediate causes, that is, physical ones. If further investigation found that his voluntary work caused the dryness, we would have reached a higher cause, which comes from the soul and affects the body it governs. Yet this would not be the first cause either, for that was certainly higher still and lay in unchanging wisdom itself. By lovingly serving that wisdom and obeying its inexpressible commands, the wise man’s soul had voluntarily undertaken the work; God’s will alone would therefore be found to be the truest first cause of that illness. Suppose that in this devout work the wise man enlisted others to help with the good deed, although they did not serve God with the same intention as he did, but either wanted to satisfy their own fleshly desires or merely avoid physical discomfort. Suppose he also employed pack animals, if completing the task required them. These would certainly be animals without reason, and would not move their limbs beneath their loads because they were thinking about that good deed, but from their natural desire for pleasure and avoidance of discomfort. Finally, suppose he used physical things without any sensation that were necessary for that work, such as grain, and wine, and oils, clothes, or money, or a book, or anything similar. Certainly, in all these bodily things thus employed in this work, whether animate or inanimate, whatever movement, wear and tear, repair, destruction, renewal, or other change occurred as places and times affected them, could all these visible and changeable events have any other cause, except the invisible and unchangeable will of God, which uses all these things: evil souls, souls without reason, and bodies, whether bodies given breath and life by those souls or bodies without any sensation, through that upright soul as the seat of His wisdom, since it was that good and holy soul that first employed them, after His wisdom had subjected it to itself in devout and reverent obedience?

What we have proposed as an example involving one wise man, who still bears a mortal body and still sees only in part, can also be extended to a household where such men live together, or to a city, or even to the whole world, if supreme control and government of human affairs were in the hands of wise people, and of those perfectly and devoutly subject to God. Since this is not yet the case (for in our pilgrimage we must first undergo the trials of mortal life, and be taught through beatings by the power of gentleness and patience), let us turn our thoughts to that heavenly homeland above, from which we are now on pilgrimage. There the will of God, “who makes His angels spirits, and His servants a flaming fire,” presides among spirits united in perfect peace and friendship, and joined in a single will by a kind of spiritual fire of love, as though in a high, holy, and hidden seat, as in its own house and temple. From there it spreads through everything by perfectly ordered movements of creation, first spiritual, then physical, and uses everything according to its own unchanging purpose, whether nonphysical or physical things, whether spirits with or without reason, whether good by His grace or evil through their own will. Just as coarser, lower bodies are governed in an orderly way by finer, more powerful ones, so all bodies are governed by the living spirit; and living spirits without reason by rational living spirits; and rational living spirits that fall away and sin by devout and righteous rational living spirits; and those by God Himself, and so all creation by its Creator, from whom and through whom and in whom it is also created and established. Thus the will of God is the first and highest cause of all physical appearances and movements. Nothing visible or perceptible happens except by command or permission from the supreme Ruler’s inner palace, which is invisible and known by the mind, according to the inexpressible justice of rewards and punishments, of favor and retribution, in the vast and boundless commonwealth of all creation. If, therefore, the Apostle Paul, although he still bore the burden of a perishable body that weighs down the soul, and although he still saw only partially and in a riddle, wishing to depart and be with Christ and groaning inwardly as he awaited adoption, that is, the redemption of his body, was nevertheless able to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ through signs, in one way by his tongue, in another through a letter, in another by the sacrament of His body and blood (since, certainly, we do not call either the tongue of the apostle, or the parchments, or the ink, or the meaningful sounds he uttered, or the letters written on animal skins, the body and blood of Christ; but only what we take from the earth’s produce, consecrate through mystical prayer, and properly receive for our spiritual health in memory of our Lord’s suffering for us. Although human hands bring it to that visible form, it is not sanctified to become so great a sacrament except through God’s Spirit working invisibly; since God works everything accomplished through physical movements in that action, by first moving the invisible things of His servants, whether human souls or the service of hidden spirits subject to Him): why should it be surprising if, in the created heavens, earth, sea, and air, God also produces whatever perceptible and visible things He wills, to signify and reveal Himself through them, in the way He Himself knows to be fitting, without revealing His own substance, through which He exists, which is entirely unchanging and surpasses all the spirits He has created in its inwardness and hiddenness?

For since the divine power administers all spiritual and physical creation, the waters of the sea are summoned and poured over the earth’s surface on certain days each year. Yet when this happened at holy Elijah’s prayer, such a prolonged spell of fair weather had preceded it that people were starving, and at the very hour God’s servant prayed, the air had shown no signs of moisture or coming rain. Divine power was apparent in the heavy, sudden showers that followed, through which that miracle was granted and carried out. God also works in the ordinary course of events through thunder and lightning, but because these occurred in an unusual way on Mount Sinai, and the sounds were not just a confused noise, but there was unmistakable evidence that they conveyed particular indications, they were miracles. Who draws up the sap through the root of the vine to the bunch of grapes, and makes the wine, except God; who, while a person plants and waters, Himself makes things grow? But when, at the command of the Lord, the water was turned into wine with extraordinary speed, even foolish people admitted that divine power had been revealed. Who ordinarily clothes the trees with leaves and flowers except God? Yet, when the staff of Aaron the priest blossomed, the divine nature in a sense spoke to doubting humanity. Again, earthly matter serves to produce and form every kind of wood and the flesh of every animal; and who makes these things, but He who said, Let the earth produce them; and who governs and guides by the same word of His, those things which He has created? Yet, when He changed that same matter from Moses’ staff into the flesh of a serpent, immediately and quickly, this unusual change in something capable of change was a miracle. But who is it that gives life to every living thing at its birth, except the One who also temporarily gave that serpent life as needed?

And who is it that restored the dead bodies’ own souls to them when the dead rose again, except the One who gives life to flesh in a mother’s womb, so that those who will eventually die may come into existence? But when such things happen in a continuous river of events flowing one after another, passing from the hidden to the visible, and from the visible to the hidden, along a familiar, well-worn path, then they are called natural; when, to warn people, they interrupt that course through an unusual change, then they are called miracles.

I see what might occur here to someone of weak judgment: why are such miracles also performed through magic? Pharaoh’s wise men also made serpents and did similar things. Yet it is even more surprising that the power of those magicians, which was able to make serpents, failed completely when it came to tiny flies. The gnats that struck Egypt’s proud people in the third plague are extremely tiny flies; yet this was certainly where the magicians failed, saying, “This is the finger of God.” This enables us to understand that not even the angels and powers of the air who sinned, who have been thrown down into the lowest darkness as into a prison set apart for them, from their dwelling in the purity of the high heavens, through whom magic receives whatever power it has, can do anything except by power given from above. This power is given either to deceive the deceitful, as it was given against the Egyptians, and against the magicians also themselves, so that those spirits’ deception might make the people performing these acts seem impressive, though condemned by God’s truth; or to warn the faithful not to desire to do anything of this kind as though it were something great, which is also why Scripture’s authority has handed these things down to us; or, finally, to exercise, test, and reveal the patience of the righteous. It was through considerable power displayed in visible miracles that Job lost all his possessions, his children, and his physical health.

This should not make us think that the matter of visible things obeys those evil angels’ command; it obeys God, who gives this power only to the extent that He, who is unchanging, decides to give it from His high spiritual dwelling. For water and fire and earth serve even wicked men condemned to work in the mines, so that they can do with them what they want, but only so far as is permitted. Nor should those evil angels be called creators, because by their means the magicians, opposing God’s servant, made frogs and serpents; for it was not they who created them. Hidden seeds of everything born in physical and visible form are concealed in this world’s physical elements. The seeds from fruits and living things that we can now see are quite different from the hidden seeds of those seeds; from which, at the bidding of the Creator, the water produced the first swimming creatures and birds, and the earth the first shoots of each kind, and the first living creatures of each kind. Even then, bringing those seeds into the products of their various kinds did not exhaust their productive power in those products; often the right combination of circumstances is lacking for them to emerge and complete their forms. Consider that even the smallest shoot is a seed; for, if properly planted in the earth, it produces a tree. An even finer seed of this shoot exists in a grain of the same kind, and this is visible even to us. There is also a further seed of this grain, which, although we are unable to see it with our eyes, we can infer its existence through reason; because, unless such a power existed in those elements, the earth would not so often produce things that had not been sown there; nor would so many animals arise without any prior mating of male and female, whether on the land, or in the water, and then grow and produce others through mating, although they themselves arose without any union of parents. And certainly bees do not conceive the seeds of their young through mating, but gather them with their mouths from where they lie scattered over the earth. For the Creator of these invisible seeds is the Creator of all things Himself; whatever becomes visible to us through birth begins its development from hidden seeds, and receives its successive stages of growth, proper size, and distinctive forms from these, as though from original rules. Just as we do not call parents the creators of human beings, or farmers the creators of grain, although God’s power operates inwardly to create these things as they act outwardly, we should not think of either evil or good angels as creators, if, through the fineness of their perception and body, they know seeds of things more hidden from us, and scatter them secretly through suitable combinations of the elements, and so provide opportunities for things to be produced and their growth accelerated. Good angels do these things only as far as God commands, and evil angels do them wrongfully only as far as He justly permits. An evil angel’s malice makes his own will wrongful; yet the power to act is given to him justly, whether for his own punishment, or, in others’ cases, to punish the wicked or praise the good. Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, distinguishing God’s inward creating and forming from the outward actions of created beings, and drawing a comparison with farming, says, “I planted, Apollos watered; but God made it grow.” As, therefore, in the case of spiritual life itself, only God can produce righteousness in our minds, yet people can preach the gospel as an outward means, not only the good in sincerity, but also the evil in pretense; so in the creation of visible things God works from within; but outward actions, whether of good or evil beings, angels, humans, or any kind of animal, according to His supreme power and the faculties and various desires for pleasant things that He has distributed, are applied by Him to the nature in which He creates everything, just as farming is applied to the soil. Therefore I can no more call the bad angels, summoned through magic, the creators of the frogs and serpents, than I can say that wicked people created the grain crop that I see growing through their labor. Jacob likewise did not create the colors of the flocks because he placed differently colored sticks in front of the mothers to look at as they drank and conceived. Nor did the cattle themselves create the variety of their offspring, because the multicolored image impressed on their souls through seeing the varied sticks remained there, but could affect the body animated by that affected spirit only through the sympathetic connection in this combination, enough to color the delicate beginnings of their offspring. That they affect each other in this way, whether the body affects the soul or the soul the body, comes from appropriate principles that exist unchangingly in God’s own supreme wisdom, which no extent of space contains; and although itself unchanging, it abandons none of the things that change, because it creates every one of them. It was the unchanging, invisible principle of God’s wisdom, by which all things are created, that caused cattle to give birth to cattle rather than sticks; the varied sticks influenced the color of the cattle conceived because the pregnant cattle’s souls were affected from outside through their eyes, and so, within their own limits, drew inwardly on the rule of formation they received from their Creator’s innermost power. How much power the soul may have to affect and change physical substance (although certainly it cannot be called the creator of the body, because every cause of changeable and perceptible substance, and all its measure and number and weight, which bring about both its existence and its particular nature, arise from the unchanging life known by the mind, which is above all things, and which reaches even to the most distant and earthly things), is a vast subject that we need not discuss now. I thought we should mention Jacob’s action concerning the cattle, so that we could recognize that if neither the man who placed those sticks nor even the mothers’ own souls can be called creators of the colors in the lambs and kids, even though those souls colored the seeds conceived in the flesh by the multicolored image received through the physical eyes, so far as nature permitted it, then still less can the evil angels be called the creators of the frogs and serpents, through whom the magicians of Pharaoh then made them.

Making and governing creation from the innermost, highest center of causation is one thing, and only God the Creator does this; applying an action from outside according to the strength and faculties He gives each being is quite another, so that what is created may emerge at one time or another and in one way or another. The origins and beginnings of all these things have already been created within a kind of fabric of the elements, but they emerge when they have the opportunity. For as mothers are pregnant with young, so the world itself is pregnant with the causes of things that are born; which are created in it only by that highest essence, where nothing arises or dies, begins or ceases to exist. Applying additional causes from outside, which must still conform to nature although they are not natural, so that things hidden deep within nature may emerge and in a sense be created outwardly through the unfolding of the proper measures, numbers, and weights which they have received in secret from Him “who has ordered all things in measure and number and weight,” is within the power not only of evil angels but also of wicked people, as I showed above through the example of farming. To prevent the somewhat different condition of animals from troubling anyone, since they have the breath of life and a sense of desiring what agrees with nature and avoiding what opposes it, we should also consider how many people know from what herbs or flesh, or from whatever kinds of juices or liquids, when placed, buried, crushed, or mixed in particular ways, a particular animal usually arises; yet who can be so foolish as to dare to call himself the creator of these animals? Is it surprising, then, that just as even the most worthless person can know where particular worms and flies arise, evil angels, through their finer perceptions, recognize the hidden seeds in the elements from which frogs and serpents arise, and by applying these seeds through hidden movements under known, suitable combinations of circumstances, cause them to be produced without creating them themselves? People simply do not marvel at things people normally do. If anyone happens to wonder how quickly these things grow, since those living beings were produced so quickly, he should consider how even humans can bring this about within the limits of their abilities. For how is it that the same bodies generate worms more quickly in summer than in winter, or in hotter than in colder places? People apply these things with greater difficulty because their earthly, sluggish limbs lack fine perception and rapid physical movement. This is why, for angels of any kind, the more easily they draw immediate causes from the elements, the more remarkable their speed in actions of this kind. Only the One who first forms these things is their creator. No one can be this except the One with whom first reside the measure, number, and weight of all things existing; and He is God the one Creator, whose inexpressible power also ensures that these angels cannot do what they could otherwise do, because they are not permitted. There is no other reason why those who made frogs and serpents could not make the tiniest flies, except that God’s greater power was present to prevent them, through the Holy Spirit; which even the magicians themselves confessed, saying, “This is the finger of God.” What they could do by nature but cannot do because it is prohibited, and what their nature itself does not allow them to do, is difficult, indeed impossible, for humans to determine, except through the gift of God the apostle mentions: “To another, discernment of spirits.” For we know that a man can walk, yet that he cannot do so if he is not permitted; but that he cannot fly, even if he is permitted. Those angels too can do certain things if they are permitted by more powerful angels, under God’s supreme command; but cannot do certain other things, even if those angels permit them; because the One who assigned them their particular measure of natural powers does not permit it; even through His angels, He does not usually permit everything He has given them the power to do. Let us therefore set aside physical events that occur in nature’s order at entirely regular intervals, such as the rising and setting of the stars, the births and deaths of animals, the countless varieties of seeds and shoots, the vapors and the clouds, the snow and the rain, lightning and thunder, the thunderbolts and the hail, the winds and the fire, cold and heat, and all like things; and also set aside events that occur rarely within the same natural order, such as eclipses, unusual appearances of stars, and abnormal births, and earthquakes, and similar things. All these, I say, are to be set aside, and their first and highest cause is God’s will alone; that is why, after the Psalm mentions some things of this kind, “Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind,” to prevent anyone from thinking they occur either by chance or only through physical causes, or even through spiritual causes apart from God’s will, it immediately adds, “fulfilling His word.”

Setting all these things aside, as I just said, there are also things of another kind which, although made from the same physical substance, are brought within reach of our senses in order to announce something from God, and these are properly called miracles and signs; yet not everything the Lord God announces to us involves representing God’s own person. When His person is represented, it is sometimes revealed through an angel; sometimes through a form that is not itself an angel, although an angel arranges and administers it. Again, when His person is represented through a form that is not itself an angel, sometimes an existing body is taken up after some change in order to reveal the message; sometimes a body comes into existence for that purpose and is discarded when the purpose is accomplished. Similarly, when humans are the messengers, sometimes they speak the words of God in their own person, prefacing it with, “The Lord said,” or, “Thus says the Lord,” or any other such phrase, but sometimes without such a preface, they speak in God’s own person, for example: “I will instruct you, and teach you the way you should go.” Thus the prophet is charged with signifying God’s person through actions as well as words, representing that person while delivering the prophecy; as did the man who divided his garment into twelve pieces and gave ten of them to King Solomon’s servant, the future king of Israel. Sometimes, also, something that was not itself a prophet and which existed already among earthly things, was taken up to signify this; as Jacob, on waking from his dream, did with the stone he had placed under his head while asleep. Sometimes something of the same kind is made solely for this purpose; it may continue to exist for a while, as did the bronze serpent which was lifted up in the wilderness, and as written records can; or it may pass away after performing its service, as bread made for the purpose is consumed when the sacrament is received. But because people know these things from doing them, they may be revered as holy things, but cannot cause amazement as miracles. Things done by angels are therefore more amazing to us, because they are harder and less familiar; yet they are familiar and easy to the angels who perform them. An angel speaks in the person of God to man, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;” after Scripture has just said, “The angel of the Lord appeared to him.” And a man also speaks in the person of God, saying, “Listen, my people, and I will speak; Israel, I will testify to you: I am God, your God.” A staff was taken up as a sign and was changed into a serpent by angelic power; but although humans lack that power, yet a human also took up a stone as a similar sign. There is a great difference between the angel’s deed and the human’s deed. The former calls for both amazement and understanding; the latter only for understanding. What is understood from both is perhaps one and the same; but the things through which it is understood are different. It is like writing God’s name in both gold and ink: the former would be the more precious, the latter of less value; yet that which is signified in both is one and the same. And although the serpent that came from Moses’ staff signified the same thing as Jacob's stone, yet Jacob's stone signified something better than the magicians’ serpents did. For as the anointing of the stone signified Christ in the flesh, in which He was anointed with the oil of joy above His companions; so Moses’ staff, turned into a serpent, signified Christ Himself made obedient to death, even the death of the cross. That is why it is said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life;” just as by gazing on that serpent which was lifted up in the wilderness, they were not killed by the serpents’ bites. For “our old self is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.” The serpent signifies death, which the serpent brought about in Paradise, a way of speaking that calls the effect by the name of its cause. Therefore the staff became the serpent, as Christ entered death; and the serpent became a staff again, as the whole Christ, with His body, entered the resurrection; this body is the Church; and this will be at the end of time, signified by the tail, which Moses held, so that it could become a staff again. But the serpents of the magicians, like those who are dead in the world, unless through faith in Christ they are, so to speak, swallowed up into His body and enter it, will not be able to rise again in Him. Jacob's stone, therefore, as I said, signified something better than the magicians’ serpents did; yet the deed of the magicians was much more amazing. This does not prevent us from understanding the matter; it is like writing a person’s name in gold and God’s name in ink. What human being knows how the angels made or took those clouds and fires in order to signify the message they carried, even if we supposed that the Lord or the Holy Spirit was manifested in those physical forms? Similarly, infants do not know where or how what is placed on the altar and consumed after the holy celebration is made, or where it comes from for religious use. And if they were never to learn from their own experience or that of others, and never to see that kind of thing except during the celebration of the sacrament, when it is being offered and given; and if they were told by the highest authority whose body and blood it is; they would believe simply that the Lord Himself appeared to mortal eyes in this form, and that that liquid actually flowed from a pierced side in just this way. It is certainly a useful warning for me to remember the limits of my own abilities, and urge my brothers to remember their own limits too, so that human weakness does not go beyond what is safe. How angels do these things, or rather how God does them through His angels, and how far He wills them to be done even through evil angels, whether by permitting, or commanding, or compelling, from the hidden seat of His supreme power, I cannot discover by eyesight, establish through the certainty of reason, or reach an understanding of through intellectual effort, well enough to answer every question that might be asked about these matters as certainly as if I were an angel, or a prophet, or an apostle. “For mortal people’s thoughts are timid, and our plans uncertain. For the perishable body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tent burdens the mind that thinks about many things. We can barely guess correctly about earthly things, and it takes effort to discover what lies in front of us; but the things that are in heaven, who has searched out?” But because it goes on to say, “And who has known Your counsel unless You give wisdom and send Your Holy Spirit from above;” we therefore refrain from investigating heavenly things, which include angelic bodies in their proper dignity and any physical action of those bodies; yet, according to the Spirit of God sent to us from above, and to His grace given to our minds, I dare to say confidently, that neither God the Father, nor His Word, nor His Spirit, which is the one God, is in any way changeable in what He is, through which He is what He is; and still less is He visible in this respect. Some things are certainly changeable yet invisible, as are our thoughts, and memories, and wills, and all nonphysical creation; but everything visible is also changeable.

Therefore the substance, or, if that is the better expression, the essence of God, in which we understand, within our limits, however little, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, since it is in no way changeable, cannot be visible in itself. It is therefore clear that all those appearances to the ancestors, when God was presented to them under His own arrangement suited to the times, were brought about through creation. And if we cannot determine how He brought them about through angels’ service, yet we say that they were brought about through angels; we do not say this through our own discernment, so that no one thinks we claim wisdom beyond our limits; rather, we think soberly, according to the measure of faith God has given us; and we believe, and therefore speak. We have the authority of divine Scripture, from which our reasoning should not turn aside; it should not abandon the firm support of God’s words and plunge over the cliff of its own guesses, in matters where neither bodily perception governs nor the clear reasoning of truth shines. The Epistle to the Hebrews states very clearly, when distinguishing the New Testament’s arrangement from the Old’s according to the requirements of ages and times, that not only the visible things but also the message itself came through angels. It says: “But to which angel did He ever say, Sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” This shows that all those things were not only brought about through angels but also for our sake, that is, for God’s people, who are promised the inheritance of eternal life. As it is written also to the Corinthians, “Now all these things happened to them as figures: and they were written to warn us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” And then, showing clearly that the message once spoken through angels is now spoken through the Son, “Therefore,” he says, “we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not let it slip away. For if the word spoken by angels was binding, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” And then, as though you asked, What salvation? to show that he is now speaking of the New Testament, that is, of the word which was spoken not by angels, but by the Lord, he says, “Which was first announced by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him; God also testified with them, both with signs and wonders, and with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.” Someone may ask, Why then is it written, “The Lord said to Moses;” and not, rather, The angel said to Moses? Because, when the herald proclaims the judge’s words, it is not usually written in the record, that the herald said this or that, but that the judge said it. Likewise, when the holy prophet speaks, although we say, The prophet said, we mean that the Lord said it; and if we were to say, The Lord said, we would not exclude the prophet, but simply indicate who spoke through him. And, indeed, these Scriptures often reveal the angel to be the Lord, whose speech is sometimes introduced by the words, “the Lord said,” as we have shown already. For those who, because that passage specifies an angel, insist that the Son of God Himself, in Himself, is meant, since the prophet calls Him an angel who announces His Father’s will and His own, I thought it appropriate to give clearer testimony from this epistle, which says not through an angel, but “by angels.” For Stephen, too, in the Acts of the Apostles, describes these events as they are also recorded in the Old Testament: “Men, brothers, and fathers, listen,” he says; “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia.” To prevent anyone from thinking that the God of glory appeared then to the eyes of any mortal in what He is in Himself, he goes on to say that an angel appeared to Moses. “Moses then fled,” he says, “at that saying, and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons. And after forty years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed by the sight: and as he approached to look at it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses trembled and did not dare to look. The Lord then told him, Take your shoes off your feet,” etc. Here, certainly, he speaks both of angel and of Lord; and identifies the same one as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; as is written in Genesis. Will anyone say that the Lord appeared to Moses by an angel, but to Abraham by Himself? Let us not answer this question from Stephen, but from the book itself, from which Stephen took his narrative. Because it says, “And the Lord God said to Abraham;” and a little later, “And the Lord God appeared to Abraham;” does that mean these things were not done through angels? Elsewhere it similarly says, “And the Lord appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the tent entrance in the heat of the day;” and yet it is added immediately, “And he looked up and saw three men standing beside him:” of whom we have already spoken. How will people who refuse to rise from words to their meaning, or readily throw themselves down from meaning to words, be able, I ask, to explain that God was seen in three men, unless they admit that they were angels, as the following passage also shows? Because it is not said an angel spoke or appeared to him, will they dare say that the vision and voice given to Moses came through an angel because it is so written, but that God appeared and spoke in His own substance to Abraham because there is no mention made of an angel? What about the fact that an angel is also mentioned in Abraham’s case? For when his son was ordered to be offered as a sacrifice, we read: “And after these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here I am. And He said, Take now your son, your beloved son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the high country; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will show you.” Certainly God is here mentioned, not an angel. But a little later Scripture says: “And Abraham reached out his hand, and took the knife to kill his son. And the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.” What can be answered to this? Will they say that God commanded that Isaac be killed, and that an angel prohibited it? And further, that the father, against God’s command that Isaac be killed, obeyed the angel, who told him to spare Isaac? This interpretation must be rejected as absurd. Scripture leaves no room even for this crude and low interpretation, for it immediately adds: “For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your beloved son for my sake.” What is “on account of me,” except for the sake of the One who commanded that he be killed? Was Abraham’s God the angel himself, or was it God speaking through an angel? Consider what follows. An angel has already been mentioned very clearly here; yet notice the context: “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and there was a ram caught by its horns in a Sabech tree: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham named that place The Lord saw: as it is said to this day, On the mountain the Lord was seen.” Similarly, in what God said a little earlier through an angel, “For now I know that you fear God;” we should not understand that God only then came to know, but that through God Abraham himself came to know how strong his heart was in obeying God, even to the sacrificing of his only son: following the way of speaking that calls the effect by the name of its cause; cold is called sluggish because it makes people sluggish; so that God was said to know because He made Abraham himself know, who might well have not discerned the firmness of his own faith, had such a trial not tested it. So here, too, Abraham named the place “The Lord saw,” that is, caused Himself to be seen. For he goes on immediately to say, “As it is said to this day, On the mountain the Lord was seen.” Here you see the same angel is called Lord: why, unless because the Lord spoke through the angel? But if we pass on to that which follows, the angel speaks entirely as a prophet and explicitly reveals that God is speaking through him. “And the angel of the Lord,” he says, “called to Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, I have sworn by myself, says the Lord; for because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your beloved son for my sake,” etc. Certainly when someone through whom the Lord speaks says, “Thus says the Lord,” these are words the prophets commonly use too. Does the Son of God say of the Father, “The Lord says,” while He Himself is that Angel of the Father? What then? Do they not see how difficult their position is concerning the three men who appeared to Abraham, after the earlier statement, “The Lord appeared to him?” Were they not angels because they are called men? Let them read Daniel, saying, “Here is the man Gabriel.” Why delay silencing them with another entirely clear and powerful proof, which speaks neither of an angel in the singular nor of men in the plural, but simply of angels? Through them came not just a particular message, but the Law itself, as the passage clearly states. None of the faithful doubts that God gave it to Moses to govern the Israelites, or that it was given through angels. Stephen says: “You stubborn people, “and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit: as your ancestors did, so do you. Which prophet did your ancestors not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One; whom you have now betrayed and murdered: you received the Law through the arrangement of angels, and have not obeyed it.” What could be clearer than this, or stronger than such authority? The Law, indeed, was given to that people through the arrangement of angels; it prepared for and foretold the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; and He Himself, as the Word of God, was in some marvelous and inexpressible way in the angels, through whose arrangement the Law itself was given. That is why He said in the Gospel, “If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me.” The Lord was therefore speaking through the angels; and the Son of God, who was to be the Mediator between God and human beings, from the seed of Abraham, was preparing His own coming through the angels, so that He might find people to receive Him, confessing themselves guilty, whom failure to fulfill the Law had made transgressors. That is why the apostle also says to the Galatians, “What purpose does the Law serve, then? It was added because of transgressions, until the seed came to whom the promise was made, which [seed] was arranged through angels in a mediator’s hand;” that is, arranged through angels in His own hand. For He was not born under limiting conditions, but in power. But you learn in another place that he does not mean any particular angel as mediator, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, insofar as He chose to become human: “For there is one God,” he says, “and one Mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus.” This is the reason for that Passover in the slaughter of the lamb: and for everything spoken figuratively in the Law about Christ’s coming in the flesh to suffer and rise again. That Law was given through angels’ arrangement; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were certainly in those angels; and through those angels sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit, and sometimes God, without any distinction of person, was figuratively signified by them, although appearing in visible and perceptible forms, through His own creation rather than His substance, and hearts are cleansed to see that substance through all those things which are seen by the eyes and heard by the ears. I think what we undertook to show in this book has now been sufficiently discussed and demonstrated, according to our capacity; and it has been established, both by probable reason, as far as a human being, or rather I myself, am able, and by the strength of authority, so far as the divine declarations in Holy Scripture have been explained, that those words and bodily appearances which were given to these ancient ancestors of ours before the incarnation of the Savior, when God was said to appear, were brought about through angels: whether themselves speaking or doing something in the person of God, as we have shown that the prophets also regularly did, or taking from creation something that they themselves were not, in which God could be shown figuratively to human beings; Scripture teaches through many examples that the prophets also used this way of showing Him. We must now consider the following. Both in the Lord as born of a virgin, and in the Holy Spirit descending in physical form like a dove, and in the tongues resembling fire, which appeared with a sound from heaven on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, it was not the Word of God Himself by His own substance, in which He is equal and eternal with the Father, nor the Spirit of the Father and of the Son by His own substance, in which He Himself also is equal and co-eternal with both, but certainly a created thing capable of being formed and existing in these ways, that appeared to physical, mortal senses. We must consider what difference there is between these manifestations and those belonging specifically to the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, although brought about through visible creation; it will be more convenient to begin this subject in another book.