On the Trinity, Book 4

People commonly think highly of knowledge about earthly and heavenly things. Yet those who prefer self-knowledge undoubtedly judge better; a mind that recognizes even its own weakness deserves more praise than one that ignores this and investigates, or even discovers, the ways of the stars, or holds on to such knowledge already gained, while remaining ignorant of the way to its own health and strength. Suppose someone has already awakened to God, kindled by the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and through love of God has come to see his own worthlessness. Wanting to enter His presence but lacking the strength, he has paid attention to himself through the light He gives, and has found himself, and has learned that his own uncleanness cannot mingle with God’s purity. He finds sweetness in weeping and pleading with Him, that again and again He will have compassion, until he has shed all his misery. He prays confidently, as someone who has already freely received the pledge of salvation through his only Savior, who enlightens humanity. Knowledge does not puff up someone who acts and laments in this way, because love builds up; for he has preferred knowledge to knowledge, he has chosen to know his own weakness rather than the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth, and the pinnacles of heaven. By gaining this knowledge he has also gained sorrow; sorrow over his exile, arising from longing for his own homeland, and the Creator of it, his own blessed God. And if among people like these, in the family of Your Christ, O Lord my God, I groan among Your poor, give me some of Your bread to answer people who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness, but are full and have plenty. But it is the vain image of those things that has filled them, not Your truth, which they have rejected and recoiled from, and so fall into their own vanity. I certainly know how many inventions the human heart gives birth to. And what is my own heart but a human heart? But I pray to the God of my heart that I may not pour out (eructuem) into these writings any of these inventions as solid truths, but may include only what the breath of His truth has breathed into me; although I have been cast out of His sight, and am striving from afar to return by the way which His only-begotten Son’s divinity has opened through His humanity. Although I am changeable, I drink in this truth insofar as I see nothing changeable in it: neither in place and time, as bodies change; nor in time alone, and in a certain sense place, as our spirits’ thoughts change; nor in time alone, and without even any appearance of place, as some of our minds’ reasoning changes. For the essence of God, by which He is, has nothing changeable at all, whether in eternity, in truth, or in will; for in Him truth is eternal and love eternal; love is true and eternity true; eternity is loved and truth is loved.

We are exiles from unchanging joy, yet we are not so cut off or torn from it that we fail to seek eternity, truth, happiness, even in those changeable things that pass in time (for we want neither to die, nor to be deceived, nor to be miserable); and visions suited to our pilgrimage have been sent to us from heaven, to remind us that what we seek is not here, and that we must return there from this pilgrimage; unless we depended on that place, we would not seek these things here. First we needed to be persuaded how much God loved us, so that despair would not keep us from daring to look up to Him. We also needed to be shown what sort of people He loved in loving us, so that pride in our supposed merits would not make us withdraw further from Him and fail still more through our own strength. He therefore dealt with us in a way that would help us benefit more from His strength, so that the power of love might be perfected in the weakness of humility. The Psalm suggests this when it says, “O God, You set apart a freely given rain for Your inheritance, and it became weak; but You perfected it.” “Freely given rain” means grace, not paid as a reward for merit, but given freely, which is why it is called grace; for He gave it, not because we were worthy, but because He chose to. Knowing this, we will not trust in ourselves; this is what being made “weak” means. But He Himself makes us perfect, who also tells the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Humanity therefore needed to be persuaded how much God loved us, and what sort of people He loved in loving us; the former to keep us from despair, the latter to keep us from pride. The apostle explains this essential subject as follows: “But God demonstrates,” he says, “His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more will we be saved from anger through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; how much more, now that we are reconciled, will we be saved by His life.” Romans 5:8-10— Donavit Elsewhere he also says: “What,” he says, “then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how has He not also freely given us everything with Him?” What is declared to us as already accomplished was also shown to the righteous of ancient times as something still to come; through the same faith they too could be humbled and thus made weak, and by being made weak could be perfected. The Word of God, through whom all things were made, is one and is unchanging truth. Therefore all things exist together in Him, as in their original source and without change; not only those things which are now in this whole creation, but also those which have been and those which will be. In Him they neither were nor will be, but simply are; and all things are life, and all things are one; or rather, He is one being and one life. For all things were so made by Him, that whatever was made among them was not made in Him, but was life in Him. Since, “in the beginning,” the Word was not made, but “the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by Him;” nor could all things have been made through Him unless He Himself had existed before all things without being made. But in those things which were made by Him, even a body, which is not life, could not have been made through Him unless it had been life in Him before being made. For “that which was made was already life in Him;” and not just any kind of life: for the soul also is the life of the body, but this too is made, for it is changeable; and through what was it made except by the unchangeable Word of God? For “all things were made by Him; and without Him nothing was made.” “What, therefore, was made was already life in Him;” and not any kind of life, but “the life [which] was the light of men;” certainly the light of rational minds, through which humans differ from animals and are therefore human. This is therefore not physical light, the light for bodily eyes, whether it shines from heaven or is kindled by earthly fires; and not for human eyes alone, but for animals too, down to the tiniest worms. All these creatures see that light: but that life was the light of men; nor is it far from any of us, for in it “we live, and move, and have our being.”

But “the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The “darkness” means foolish human minds, made blind by wicked desires and unbelief. To care for and heal these minds, the Word, through whom all things were made, “became flesh and lived among us.” Our enlightenment is participation in the Word, that is, in the life that is humanity’s light. But the uncleanness of our sins made us utterly unfit for this participation and kept us from it. We therefore needed cleansing. The only cleansing for the unrighteous and proud is the blood of the Righteous One, and the humbling of God Himself; so that we might be cleansed through Him, who became what we are by nature and what we are not because of sin, and might contemplate God, which we are not by nature. For by nature we are not God: by nature we are human, and because of sin we are not righteous. God therefore became a righteous man and interceded with God for sinful humanity. A sinner does not match a righteous person, but a human does match a human. By joining us through the likeness of His humanity, He took away the difference caused by our unrighteousness; and by sharing our mortality, He made us share His divinity. For the death of the sinner arising from the necessity of condemnation is deservedly abolished by the death of the Righteous One arising from His freely chosen compassion, while His single [death and resurrection] answers to our double [death and resurrection]. This correspondence, or suitability, or concord, or harmony, or whatever better word there may be, by which one is [united] to two, has great importance in the whole fitting together, or perhaps better, the mutual adaptation, of creation. For what I mean, as it now occurs to me, is precisely that mutual adaptation which the Greeks call ἁρμονία . However this is not the place to explain the power of that harmony between single and double which is found especially in us, and which is so deeply planted in our nature (and by whom, except by Him who created us?), that even people without training perceive it, whether when singing themselves or hearing others. Through it high and low voices harmonize, and anyone who sings a note that departs from it greatly offends not only trained musical judgment, which most people lack, but the very sense of hearing. Explaining this undoubtedly requires a long discussion; but anyone who understands it can demonstrate it to the ear itself on a properly tuned monochord.

For our present purpose we must discuss, as far as God enables us, how our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s single death corresponds to, and, so to speak, harmonizes with our double death to bring salvation. As no Christian doubts, we are certainly dead in both soul and body: in soul, because of sin; in body, because of the punishment of sin, and through this also in body because of sin. And to both these parts of ourselves, that is, both to soul and to body, both healing and resurrection were needed, that what had been changed for the worse might be renewed for the better. The soul’s death is ungodliness, and the body’s death is its perishable condition, through which the soul also departs from the body. For as the soul dies when God leaves it, so the body dies when the soul leaves it; making the former foolish and the latter lifeless. For the soul is raised up again by repentance, and life begins to be renewed in the still-mortal body through faith, by which people believe in Him who justifies the ungodly; and it is increased and strengthened by good habits day by day, as the inner self is renewed more and more. But the body, which is, so to speak, the outer self, deteriorates more as this life lasts longer, either by age or by disease, or by various afflictions, until it reaches the final affliction everyone calls death. And its resurrection is delayed until the end; when our justification itself will also be perfected beyond words. Then we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. But now, as long as the perishable body weighs down the soul, and human life on earth is entirely a trial, no living person will be justified in His sight, compared with the righteousness in which we will be made equal to the angels, and the glory that will be revealed in us. But why offer more proofs about the difference between the death of the soul and the death of the body, when the Lord in one sentence of the Gospel has made the two deaths easy for anyone to distinguish, saying, “Let the dead bury their dead”? Burial was the appropriate treatment for a dead body. But by those who would bury it He meant those who were dead in soul through the ungodliness of unbelief, the kind of people awakened when it is said, “Wake up, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” And there is a death the apostle condemns when he says of the widow, “But she who lives for pleasure is dead even while alive.” Therefore the soul, which was formerly ungodly and is now devout, is said to have come alive again from the dead and to live, because of the righteousness of faith. The body is not only said to face death because the soul will depart from it; but because of the great weakness of flesh and blood it is even said to be dead already, in the passage of Scripture where the apostle says that “the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” This life comes through faith, “since the righteous will live by faith.” But what follows? “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies by His Spirit which dwells in you.” Our Savior therefore bestowed His own single death on our double death; and to cause both our resurrections, He established beforehand and presented as a mystery and a pattern His own one resurrection. For He was not a sinner or ungodly, so that, as though dead in spirit, He would need to be renewed in the inner self, and to be called back, so to speak, to righteous life by repentance; but being clothed in mortal flesh, and in that alone dying, in that alone rising again, in that alone He corresponded to both for us; for in it a mystery was accomplished for the inner self and a pattern provided for the outer self. As a mystery concerning our inner self, signifying our soul’s death, these words were spoken, not only in the Psalm, but also on the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” The apostle agrees with these words when he says, “Knowing this, that our old self is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, so that we would no longer serve sin;” for the crucifixion of the inner self means the pains of repentance, and a kind of healing agony of self-control; through this death the death of ungodliness is destroyed, and in this death God has left us. Through such a cross the body of sin is destroyed, so that we should no longer offer our limbs as instruments of unrighteousness to sin. Although the inner self is certainly renewed day by day, it is undoubtedly old before being renewed. What the same apostle describes takes place inwardly: “Put off the old self and put on the new;” which he goes on to explain by saying, “Therefore put away lying and let everyone speak the truth.” But where is lying put away, except inwardly, so that one who speaks the truth from his heart may inhabit the holy hill of God? But the resurrection of the body of the Lord is shown to concern the mystery of our own inner resurrection when, after He had risen, He says to the woman, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.” The apostle’s words agree with this mystery when he says, “If you have risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God; set your thoughts on things above.” Not touching Christ until He had ascended to the Father means not thinking about Christ in a fleshly way. Again, the death of the flesh of our Lord provides a pattern for the death of our outer self, since it is by such suffering most of all that He urges His servants not to fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Therefore the apostle says, “So that I may complete in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” And the resurrection of the body of the Lord provides a pattern for the resurrection of our outer self, because He says to His disciples, “Touch me and see; a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” And one of the disciples also, touching His scars, exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” The complete wholeness of that flesh was evident; He had indicated this when encouraging His disciples: “Not a hair of your head will perish.” Why was it first said, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father;” yet before He ascended to the Father the disciples actually touched Him, unless the former suggested the mystery of the inner self and the latter provided a pattern for the outer self? Could anyone possibly lack understanding so completely and turn so far from truth as to dare say that He was touched by men before He ascended, but by women only after He had ascended? Because the Lord provided this advance pattern of our future bodily resurrection, the apostle says, “Christ the first-fruits; afterward those who belong to Christ.” This passage refers to bodily resurrection, about which he also says, “Who has transformed our lowly body to be like His glorious body.” Our Savior’s one death therefore brought salvation to our double death, and His one resurrection brought about two resurrections for us; since in both His death and His resurrection His body served us through a kind of healing correspondence, as both a mystery of the inner self and a pattern for the outer self.

This ratio of single to double undoubtedly arises from the number three, since one added to two makes three; but their combined whole reaches six, for one and two and three make six. This number is called perfect because its own parts add up to it: it has these three parts, a sixth, a third, and a half; it has no other part that can be called an aliquot part, dividing it without remainder. The sixth part of it, then, is one; the third part, two; the half, three. But one and two and three complete the same six. Holy Scripture presents this number’s perfection to us, especially in that God finished His works in six days, and on the sixth day man was made in the image of God. The Son of God came and became the Son of man to re-create us in God’s image, in the sixth age of the human race. This is the present age, whether a thousand years apiece are assigned to each age, or whether we trace memorable and remarkable periods or turning points in divine Scripture, so that the first age extends from Adam until Noah, and the second from there to Abraham, and then next, following Matthew the evangelist’s division, from Abraham to David, from David to the exile to Babylon, and from there to the Virgin’s giving birth. These three ages, added to the other two, make five. Accordingly, the Lord’s birth began the sixth, which continues until the hidden end of time. We also recognize in the number six a kind of symbol of time, through the threefold division by which we count one portion of time before the Law; a second, under the Law; a third, under grace. In this last period we have received the sacrament of renewal, so that at the end of time we may also be renewed completely, by the resurrection of the flesh, and so may be healed of all our weakness, not only of soul, but also of body. The woman whom the Lord healed and straightened is therefore understood as a pattern of the Church, after she had been bent over by weakness because Satan had bound her. The Psalm laments such hidden enemies in these words: “They bowed down my soul.” This woman had suffered her weakness for eighteen years, which is three times six. The number of months in eighteen years is the cube of six, that is, six times six times six. Nearby in the Gospel is the fig tree whose wretched barrenness was also established by its third year. But someone pleaded that it be left for that year: if it bore fruit, well and good; otherwise it should be cut down. The three years belong to the same threefold division, and the months of three years make the square of six, which is six times six. A single year also, counting all twelve months, which are made up of thirty days each (for the month observed since ancient times is determined by the moon’s revolution), is full of the number six. What six is in the first order of numbers, consisting of units up to ten, sixty is in the second order, consisting of tens up to a hundred. Sixty days, then, are a sixth part of the year. Further, multiplying the sixth number of the second order by the sixth of the first gives six times sixty, i.e. three hundred and sixty days, which are the whole twelve months. As the moon’s revolution determines the month for us, the sun’s revolution marks the year; and five days and a quarter of a day remain, for the sun to complete its course and finish the year; for four quarters make one day, which must be inserted every fourth year, called a bissextile or leap year, to keep the order of time from being disturbed. If we also consider these five and a quarter days themselves, the number six prevails in them. First, because, as we commonly count the whole from a part, we must not call it five days, but rather six, counting the quarter day as a whole day. Next, because five days themselves are the sixth part of a month; while the quarter of a day contains six hours. The entire day, including its night, is twenty-four hours, and a fourth of that, a quarter of a day, is six hours. This is how thoroughly the number six prevails in the year’s course.

There is good reason to understand six as standing for a year in the formation of the Lord’s body, of which the temple was a figure when He said He would raise it in three days after the Jews destroyed it. For they said, “This temple took forty-six years to build.” And six times forty-six makes two hundred and seventy-six. And this number of days completes nine months and six days, which are counted as, so to speak, ten months for a woman’s pregnancy; not because all come to the sixth day after the ninth month, but because the Lord’s body is found to have reached its full development for birth in that many days, as the authority of the church maintains on the tradition of the elders. For He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, the day on which He also suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which He was conceived, where no other mortal was conceived, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, where no one was ever laid, either before or afterward. But He was born, according to tradition, on December 25. Counting from the former date to the latter gives two hundred and seventy-six days which is forty-six times six. And in this number of years the temple was built, because in that number of sixes the body of the Lord was perfected; which He raised again on the third day after it was destroyed through suffering death. For “He spoke this of the temple of His body,” as the Gospel’s entirely clear and firm testimony declares, where He said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Scripture also testifies that these three days were not all complete days, but the first is counted as a whole from its last part, and the third day is itself also counted as a whole from its first part; but the intervening day, the second, was entirely complete with its twenty-four hours, twelve of the day and twelve of the night. For He was first crucified through the Jews’ voices in the third hour, when it was the sixth day of the week. Then He hung on the cross itself at the sixth hour, and gave up His spirit at the ninth hour. But He was buried, “now when the evening had come,” as the evangelist puts it, meaning at the end of the day. Wherever you begin — even if some other explanation can be given, without contradicting John’s Gospel, so as to understand that He was suspended on the cross at the third hour — still you cannot make the first day an entire day. It will therefore be counted as a complete day from its last part, as the third from its first part. For the night up to the dawn, when the resurrection of the Lord was made known, belongs to the third day; because God (who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that through the grace of the New Testament and sharing in Christ’s resurrection we might be told “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” ) in some way indicates to us that the day takes its beginning from the night. For as the first days of all were counted from light to night, because of humanity’s future fall; so these because of humanity’s restoration, are counted from darkness to light. From the hour, then, of His death to the dawn of the resurrection are forty hours, counting in also the ninth hour itself. This number also corresponds to His forty days of life on earth after His resurrection. This number is used very frequently in Scripture to express the mystery of perfection in the fourfold world. For the number ten has a certain perfection, and that multiplied by four makes forty. But from the evening of the burial to the dawn of the resurrection are thirty-six hours which is six squared. This relates to the ratio of the single to the double in which there is the greatest harmony of mutual adaptation. For twelve added to twenty-four corresponds to the ratio of single added to double and makes thirty-six: namely a whole night with a whole day and a whole night, and this involves the mystery I mentioned above. It is appropriate to compare the spirit to the day and the body to the night. For the body of the Lord in His death and resurrection was a figure of our spirit and a pattern of our body. In this way the ratio of the single to the double is also apparent in the thirty-six hours, when twelve are added to twenty-four. Other people may find other reasons for these numbers’ use in Holy Scripture, whether less convincing than mine, equally plausible, or even more plausible; but surely no one is so foolish or absurd as to argue that they occur in Scripture for no purpose at all, and that there are no mystical reasons for mentioning those numbers there. I have gathered the reasons given here either from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our ancestors, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of likenesses. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.

All those things which appeared to our fathers in a sacred and mystical way through angelic miracles, or which were done by the fathers themselves, were likenesses of this mystery, this sacrifice, this priest, this God, before He was sent and came, born of a woman; so that every creature might through its actions speak in some way of the One who was to come, in whom there would be salvation through the recovery of all from death. Through wicked ungodliness we had recoiled and fallen away in discord from the one true and supreme God, and had become empty amid many things, distracted by many things and clinging to many things. It was therefore necessary, by God’s merciful decree and command, that those same many things should join in proclaiming the One who would come, that the One should come as proclaimed by these many things, and that these many things should join in witnessing that this One had come; and that, freed from these many things’ burden, we should thus come to the One, and, though dead in our souls through many sins, and destined to die in the flesh because of sin, we should love that One who, without sin, died in the flesh for us; and that by believing in Him now risen and rising with Him in spirit through faith, we should be justified by being made one in the one righteous One; and that we should not despair of our own resurrection in the flesh itself, as we consider that the one Head has gone before us, His many members; in whom, cleansed now through faith and renewed afterward through sight, and through Him as mediator reconciled to God, we are to cling to the One, feast on the One, and remain one.

So the Son of God Himself, the Word of God, Himself also the Mediator between God and humanity, the Son of man, equal to the Father through the unity of the divine nature, and sharing with us by taking on humanity, interceding for us with the Father as a man, yet not concealing that He was God, one with the Father, says among other things: “I do not pray for these alone,” He says, “but also for those who will believe in me through their word; so that they may all be one; as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, so that they too may be one in us, and the world may believe that You have sent me. And the glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”

He did not say, I and they are one thing. Although since He is the head of the church which is His body, He might have said that He and they are, not one thing, but one person, because the head and body are one Christ. To show that His divinity is of one substance with the Father (for which reason He says in another place, “I and my Father are one” ), in His own manner, that is, in the equality of one substance within the same nature, He wills His own people to be one, but in Himself; since they could not be so in themselves, separated as they are from one another by various wills and desires and the uncleanness of sin; hence they are cleansed through the Mediator, that they may be one in Him, not only through the same nature in which all become equal to the angels after being mortal humans, but also through the same will, joining in perfect harmony toward the same happiness and fused in some way by the fire of love into one spirit. This is what His words mean: “That they may be one, even as we are one;” namely, that as the Father and Son are one, not only in equality of substance, but also in will, so may those for whom the Son mediates with God be one, not only because they share the same nature, but also through the same union of love. He then goes on to indicate the truth that He Himself is the Mediator, through whom we are reconciled to God, by saying, “I in them, and You in me, that they may be perfected into one.”

Our true peace and firm union with our Creator consist in being purified and reconciled through the Mediator of life, as we had been polluted and estranged and had thus departed from Him through the mediator of death. Just as the devil’s pride led humanity through pride to death, Christ’s humility led humanity back through obedience to life. As the one fell through self-exaltation and also cast down [man] who agreed with him, the other was raised through humiliation and also raised [man] who believed in Him. The devil had not himself reached the place to which he had led the way (although his ungodliness brought him spiritual death, he had not undergone the death of the flesh, because he had not taken on the covering of flesh), and so appeared to humanity as a mighty leader among the legions of demons, through whom he exercises his deceptive rule. He thus puffed humanity up still more, eager as it is for power rather than righteousness, through arrogant self-exaltation, or through false philosophy; or else entangled people through sacrilegious rites, through which he hurled the minds of the more inquisitive and proud headlong with deceit and illusion, holding people captive to magical trickery; he also promised to cleanse the soul through the initiations which they call τελεταί, by transforming himself into an angel of light, through various schemes involving lying signs and wonders.

The most worthless spirits can easily do many things through bodies made of air that astonish souls weighed down by earthly bodies, even souls with better inclinations. For if earthly bodies themselves, when trained through skill and practice, display such wonders to people in theatrical performances that those who have never seen them hardly believe reports of them, why should it be difficult for the devil and his angels to make out of physical elements, through their own bodies made of air, things at which the flesh marvels; or even through hidden promptings to produce imaginary appearances that delude people’s senses, deceiving them whether awake or asleep, or to drive them into madness? Someone whose life and character are better may watch the most worthless people, walking a tightrope or performing many incredible feats through various bodily movements, without wanting to do these things himself or thinking that this makes them better than him. Similarly, a faithful and devout soul may see demons’ miracles or even shudder at them through bodily weakness, yet will neither lament its own inability to do such things nor judge them better than itself on that account; especially since it is in the company of the holy, who, whether human beings or good angels, accomplish, through the power of God, to whom all things are subject, wonders which are far greater and entirely free of deception.

Souls are therefore never cleansed and reconciled to God by sacrilegious imitations, or impious occult arts, or magical incantations; for the false mediator does not raise them to higher things, but blocks and cuts off the way through the feelings he inspires in his companions, feelings as malicious as they are proud; these cannot nourish the wings of virtue for upward flight, but instead pile up the weight of vice to press downwards; the higher the soul thinks it has been carried, the more heavily it will fall. As the Magi did when warned by God, after the star led them to worship the Lord’s humble condition, we too should return to our homeland, not by the way by which we came, but by another way which the lowly King has taught, and which the proud king, the adversary of that lowly King, cannot block. For us too, so that we may worship the humble Christ, the “heavens have declared the glory of God, when their sound went into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” Sin in Adam made a path for us to death. For, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death spread to all people, in whom all have sinned.” The devil mediated this path, persuading us to sin and casting us down into death. He too applied his single death to bring about our double death. He did die in spirit through ungodliness, but certainly did not die in the flesh: yet he persuaded us to ungodliness and thus made us deserve bodily death. Through wicked persuasion we desired the one death; the other followed by just condemnation; and therefore it is written, “God did not make death,” since He was not Himself the cause of death; but yet death was inflicted on the sinner, through His entirely just retribution. A judge inflicts punishment on the guilty; yet it is not the justice of the judge, but the crime’s deserving punishment, which is the cause of the punishment. Where the mediator of death made us go but did not go himself, that is, to the death of the flesh, our Lord God brought us corrective healing, which the devil did not deserve, by a hidden and deeply mysterious decree of profound divine justice. This was so that, as death came through one man, the resurrection of the dead might also come through one man. People tried harder to avoid what they could not avoid, bodily death, than spiritual death, that is, punishment rather than deserving punishment (for people care little or nothing about avoiding sin, yet eagerly seek to avoid death, although that is beyond their reach). The Mediator of life therefore makes it plain that death is not to be feared, which our human condition now makes unavoidable, but rather ungodliness, which faith can guard against. He meets us at the end we have reached, but not by the way by which we came. We came to death through sin; He came through righteousness: and, therefore, as our death is the punishment of sin, so His death became a sacrifice for sin.

The spirit is therefore to be preferred to the body, and the death of the spirit means that God has left it, but the death of the body that the spirit has left it; and the punishment in bodily death lies in this: that the spirit leaves the body against its will, because it left God willingly; the spirit left God because it wanted to, but leaves the body although it does not want to; nor does it leave when it wants, unless it has used violence against itself, killing the body. The Mediator’s spirit showed that He did not reach bodily death as punishment for sin, because He did not leave it against His will, but because He chose to, when He chose to, and as He chose to. Because He is so united [with the flesh] by the Word of God as to be one, He says: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself, and I take it again.” And, as the Gospel tells us, those present were utterly astonished that after that [last] word, in which He presented the figure of our sin, He immediately gave up His spirit. Those hung on a cross usually suffer a prolonged death. That is why the thieves’ legs were broken, so they would die immediately and be taken down from the cross before the Sabbath. His being found already dead caused amazement. We read that Pilate too was amazed at this when asked for the Lord’s body for burial. That deceiver, who mediated death for humanity, falsely presents himself as a mediator of life, claiming to cleanse through sacrilegious rites and sacrifices, which lead the proud astray. He can neither share our death nor rise from his own: he has indeed been able to apply his single death to our double one; but he certainly has not been able to apply a single resurrection, that would be both a mystery of our renewal and a pattern of the awakening to come at the end. He who was alive in spirit and raised His own dead flesh, the true Mediator of life, has cast the one dead in spirit, the mediator of death, out of the spirits of those who believe in Him, so that he cannot rule within, but attacks from outside without prevailing. He also offered Himself to be tempted by him, so that He might also mediate our victory over his temptations, not only by help, but also by example. When the devil first tried every entrance to creep within Him, he was driven out, after completing all his enticing temptation in the wilderness after the baptism. Since, dead in spirit, he could force no entrance into the One alive in spirit, his eagerness to bring about human death by any means turned him to causing the death he could, and he was permitted to inflict it on that mortal element which the living Mediator had received from us. And where he could do anything, he was completely defeated there; in receiving outward power to kill the Lord in the flesh, his own inward power, by which he held us, was killed. The bonds of many sins in many deaths were thus loosened, through the one death of One which no sin had preceded. The Lord paid this death for us although He did not owe it, so that the death we owed would not harm us. No authority compelled Him to be stripped of the flesh; He stripped Himself. Undoubtedly, He who could have avoided death if He chose died because He chose: and so He made a public display of rulers and powers, openly triumphing over them in Himself. Through His death the one entirely true sacrifice was offered for us, and He cleansed, abolished, and extinguished every fault through which rulers and powers held us as though entitled to exact its penalty; and by His own resurrection He also called us whom He predestined to a new life; and those He called He justified, and those He justified He glorified. And so the devil, through that very bodily death lost humanity, which he possessed as though by an absolute right after seducing it through its own consent, and over which he ruled, unimpeded himself by the decay of flesh and blood, exploiting the frailty of the human mortal body that made humanity so poor and weak; he was proud in proportion to his apparently greater wealth and strength, ruling over humanity, apparently clothed in rags and full of troubles. Where he drove the sinner to fall without following himself, he followed the Redeemer and compelled Him to descend. And so the Son of God graciously became our friend in the fellowship of death, which our enemy thought made him better and greater than us because he did not share it. For our Redeemer says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.” Therefore also the devil thought himself superior to the Lord Himself, because the Lord yielded to him in suffering; the Psalm’s words are understood of Him too: “For You have made Him a little lower than the angels:” so that He, being Himself put to death, although innocent, by the unjust one who acted against us as though by a just right, might overcome him by the fullest justice, and so might take captive the captivity caused by sin, and free us from a captivity that was just on account of sin, by canceling the written bond, and redeeming us sinners who were to be justified, through His own righteous blood unrighteously poured out. To this very day the devil also mocks his own people, to whom he presents himself as a false mediator, as though his rites would cleanse them, although they entangle and drown them instead, for he very easily persuades the proud to ridicule and despise the death of Christ, the further he himself is removed from it, the holier and more divine they believe him to be. Yet those who have remained with him are very few, since the nations acknowledge and with devout humility drink in the price paid for them, trust in it, abandon their enemy, and gather to their Redeemer. For the devil does not know how the most excellent wisdom of God uses both his traps and his fury to bring about the salvation of His own faithful ones, beginning from the first extreme, the beginning of spiritual creation, to the last extreme, which is the death of the body, and so “reaching powerfully from one end to the other and gently ordering all things.” For wisdom “passes through all things because of her purity, and nothing defiled can enter her.” And since the devil has nothing to do with the death of the flesh, which is the source of his extreme pride, a death of another kind is prepared in the eternal fire of hell, by which not only spirits with earthly bodies, but also those with bodies made of air, can be tormented. But proud people despise Christ because He died, the very act by which He bought us at so great a price; along with other humans they pay the debt of this death to the miserable natural condition derived from the first sin, and will be cast down into the latter death with the devil. And they preferred the devil to Christ because the former cast them into that former death, into which he himself did not fall because his nature was different, but into which Christ descended for their sake through His great mercy: and yet they do not hesitate to believe themselves better than demons, and do not cease to assail and denounce them with every kind of curse, although they know that demons do not suffer the kind of death for which they despise Christ. Nor will they consider the possibility that the Word of God, remaining in Himself, and in Himself in no way changeable, may yet, by taking on a lower nature, be able to undergo something belonging to that lower nature, which the unclean spirit cannot suffer, because he has no earthly body. And so, although they themselves are better than demons, their bodies of flesh allow them to die in a way demons cannot, because demons have no such bodies. They place great confidence in the deaths of their sacrificial victims, without realizing that they sacrifice them to deceitful and proud spirits; or if they have come to perceive it, think these spirits’ friendship benefits them, although they are treacherous and envious and intend nothing except to hinder our return.

They do not understand that even the proudest spirits could not delight in the honor of sacrifices unless a true sacrifice was due to the one true God, in whose place they want to be worshiped; nor that this sacrifice cannot rightly be offered except by a holy and righteous priest; unless the offering is taken from those for whom it is offered; and unless it is faultless, so that it may be offered to cleanse the faulty. At least everyone who wants sacrifice offered to God on their behalf desires this. Who, then, is as righteous and holy a priest as the only Son of God, who had no need to cleanse His own sins by sacrifice, whether original sins or those added during human life? And what could people choose more appropriately to offer for themselves than human flesh? And what is so suitable for this sacrificial death as mortal flesh? And what so clean for cleansing mortal people’s faults as the flesh born in and from the womb of a virgin, without any infection of fleshly lust? And what could be offered and received so acceptably, as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our priest? Thus four things must be considered in every sacrifice — to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, for whom it is offered, — and the same one true Mediator Himself, reconciling us to God by the sacrifice of peace, could remain one with Him to whom He offered, could make those for whom He offered one in Himself, and could Himself be both the one offering and the offering.

Some people, however, think they can be cleansed by their own righteousness, so as to contemplate God, and to dwell in God, yet their very pride stains them more than anyone else. No sin is more opposed to divine law, or gives that proudest of spirits, who is a mediator to things below, but a barrier against things above, a greater right of mastery over them; unless his hidden traps are avoided by taking another way, or, if he rages openly through a people falling away (which is what Amalek means in translation), and fights to bar passage to the promised land, he is overcome by the cross of the Lord, prefigured by Moses’ outstretched hands. These people promise themselves cleansing through their own righteousness because some of them have been able to penetrate with the eye of the mind beyond all creation, and to touch, however slightly, the light of the unchangeable truth. They mock many Christians for being unable to do this yet, who meanwhile live by faith alone. But what use is seeing his homeland far away across the sea to a proud man who is therefore ashamed to board the wooden ship? How does it harm a humble man not to see it from so far away, when he is actually approaching it on the wood the other scorns to travel on?

These people also blame us for believing the resurrection of the flesh, and want us to believe them instead about these things. As though their ability to understand the lofty, unchanging substance through created things entitled them to be consulted concerning the cycles of changeable things, or concerning the connected sequence of the ages. Tell me: because they argue entirely correctly and persuade us by absolutely certain proofs that everything in time is made according to eternal knowledge, can they therefore see clearly within this knowledge itself, or infer from it, how many kinds of animals there are, what each kind’s seeds are at its beginning, what measures govern its growth, what numbers govern its conceptions, births, lifespans, and endings; what movements govern its desire for things suited to its nature and avoidance of their opposites? Have they not investigated all this through actual events in places and times rather than through that unchanging wisdom, or trusted other people’s written experience? It is therefore less surprising that they have entirely failed to discover the succession of longer ages, or to find the destination of the course along which the human race sails as though down a river, and each person’s passage from there to the appropriate end. For these are subjects which historians could not describe, because they lie far in the future, and have been experienced and related by no one. Nor have those philosophers, who have made more progress than others in that lofty, eternal knowledge, been able to understand such subjects; otherwise, instead of investigating such past events as best they could, as historians do, they would also know the future in advance; and they call those able to do this diviners, while we call them prophets:

22.— although the name prophets is not entirely absent from their writings either. But it makes all the difference whether future things are inferred from experience of the past (as physicians have also written down many predictions based on their own observations; or as again farmers, or sailors, too, foretell many things; for if such predictions are made long in advance, they are thought to be divinations), or whether these things have already begun their course toward us, and are seen approaching from far away and announced according to the sharpness of their observers’ senses, which makes the powers of the air seem to divine (just as if a person from the top of a mountain were to see far off someone approaching, and were to announce it beforehand to those living nearby on the plain); or whether holy angels, to whom God shows these things through His Word and Wisdom, in which both future and past things exist, announce them beforehand to certain people, or people hear them from those angels and pass them on to others; or whether certain people’s minds are raised so high by the Holy Spirit that they see, not through the angels, but themselves, the unchanging causes of future things, at the very highest summit of the universe itself. [And I say, see,] for the powers of the air, too, hear these things, either by message through angels, or through men; and hear only as much as the One to whom everything is subject judges fitting. Many things, too, are foretold through a kind of instinct and inward impulse by people who do not understand them: as Caiaphas did not know what he said, but being the high priest, he prophesied. We should therefore consult these philosophers neither about the succession of ages nor about the resurrection of the dead, although they have understood as much as they could the eternity of the Creator, in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.” For although they knew God through created things, they have not glorified Him as God, or given thanks, but while claiming to be wise, they became fools. They were not fit to fix the mind’s eye firmly enough on the eternity of the spiritual and unchangeable nature, to see, in the wisdom itself of the Creator and Governor of the universe, the cycles of the ages, which already and always existed in that wisdom but were still to come here and so did not yet exist; or to see in it those changes for the better, not of the souls only, but also of human bodies, reaching the perfection of their proper measure; since they were entirely unfit to see these things in it, they were not even judged worthy of receiving any announcement of them by the holy angels; whether externally through the senses of the body, or by inward revelations shown in spirit; as these things actually were manifested to our fathers, who were endowed with true devotion, and who by foretelling them, gained credibility through present signs or nearby events that happened as predicted, earning authority to be believed about events in the distant future, even to the end of the world. But the proud and deceitful powers of the air, even if they are found to have said through their soothsayers some things about the saints’ fellowship and citizenship, and about the true Mediator, which they heard from the holy prophets or the angels, did so to seduce even God’s faithful people, if possible, using truths borrowed from elsewhere to make them turn to these powers’ own falsehoods. But God did this through those who did not understand what they said, so that truth might sound out from every side, to aid the faithful, to be a witness against the ungodly.

We were unfit to grasp eternal things, and weighed down by the uncleanness of sins contracted through love of passing things, and implanted in us as though naturally from mortality’s root. We therefore needed cleansing. But we could only be cleansed and fitted to eternal things through things in time, to which we were already fitted and bound. For health is at the opposite extreme from disease; but the intermediate process of healing does not lead us to perfect health, unless it has some correspondence with the disease. Useless things in time merely deceive the sick; useful things in time take up those needing healing and, once healed, pass them on to eternal things. Just as the cleansed rational mind owes contemplation to eternal things, the mind needing cleansing owes faith to things in time. Even one of those once regarded as wise among the Greeks said, Truth stands in the same relation to faith as eternity to what has a beginning. And he is no doubt right in saying so. What we call temporal, belonging to time, he describes as having had a beginning. And we ourselves belong to this category, through both our bodies and our souls’ changeability. What undergoes any degree of change cannot properly be called eternal. We therefore stand apart from eternity insofar as we are changeable. But eternal life is promised to us through truth, and our faith stands as far from clear knowledge of truth as mortality stands from eternity. For now we put faith in things done in time for our sake, and by that faith itself we are cleansed; so that when we reach sight, as truth follows faith, so eternity may follow mortality. Our faith will therefore become truth when we attain what is promised to us believers; what is promised us is eternal life; and the Truth (not the truth that will come into being as our faith becomes truth, but the truth that always exists, because eternity is in it — that Truth) has said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent:” when our faith becomes truth through seeing, eternity will possess our mortality, now transformed. Until this happens, and so that it may happen — because we direct believing faith toward things with a beginning while hoping for the truth of contemplation in eternal things, so that mortal life’s faith would not conflict with eternal life’s truth — the Truth itself, co-eternal with the Father, took a beginning from earth, when the Son of God came to become the Son of man, and to take up our faith and through it lead us to His own truth, taking on our mortality without losing His own eternity. For truth stands in the same relation to faith as eternity to what has a beginning. We therefore need cleansing so that the One who remains eternal might be born for us, so that we would not have one in faith and another in truth. We could not pass from having a beginning to eternal things unless the Eternal One, united to us through our own beginning, carried us into His eternity. Our faith has therefore already followed, in some measure, to where the One we believe in has ascended; He was born, died, rose again, and was taken up. Of these four things, we knew the first two in ourselves. For we know that people both have a beginning and die. But the remaining two, that is, to be raised, and to be taken up, we rightly hope will happen to us because we believe they happened to Him. Since, therefore, even what had a beginning in Him has passed into eternity, it will pass into eternity in us too when faith reaches truth. To those who believe in this way He speaks as follows, so that they may remain in the word of faith, be led from there to truth and through truth to eternity, and be freed from death: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples.” As though they asked, With what result? He continues, “And you will know the truth.” And again, as though they would say, What good is truth to mortal people? “And the truth,” He says, “will set you free.” From what, except from death, from corruptions, from changeableness? For truth remains immortal, incorruptible, and unchanging. But true immortality, true incorruptibility, true unchangeability, is eternity itself.

See, then, why the Son of God was sent; or rather, see what it means for the Son of God to be sent. Whatever was done in time to produce faith, by which we might be cleansed so as to contemplate truth, among things with a beginning, brought forth from eternity and referred back to eternity: these were either witnesses to the Son of God’s sending or that sending itself. But some of these testimonies announced His future coming, some testified that He had come already. His becoming a creature, when all creation was made through Him, necessarily had to find a witness in all creation. Unless the One were proclaimed by the sending of many [witnesses], we would not be bound to the One by the sending away of the many. Unless these witnesses seemed great to the lowly, people would not believe that He who was sent in lowliness to the lowly was great and would make them great. For the heaven and the earth and all things in them are incomparably greater works of the Son of God, since all things were made by Him, than the signs and wonders that appeared as witnesses to Him. Yet lowly people trembled at those lowly things as though they were great, so that they might believe He had accomplished these great things. “When, therefore, the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law;” so lowly that He was “made;” sent in this way, therefore, because He was made. If, therefore, the greater sends the lesser, we too acknowledge that He was made lesser; and lesser insofar as He was made, and made insofar as He was sent. For “He sent forth His Son made of a woman.” And yet, because all things were made by Him, not only before He was made and sent, but before anything existed at all, we confess that the same One whom we call lesser as sent is equal to the sender. How, then, could the ancestors see Him, when certain angelic visions were shown to them, before that fullness of time when it was fitting for Him to be sent, and so before He was sent, when even after being sent He was not seen as equal to the Father? For how does He say to Philip, who certainly saw Him, as did all the others, even those who crucified Him in the flesh, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has also seen the Father;” unless He was both seen and not seen? He was seen, as He had been made in being sent; He was not seen as the One through whom all things were made. Or how does He say this too, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him,” at a time when He was visible before people’s eyes; unless He was offering for our faith to accept the flesh the Word became in the fullness of time; while reserving the Word Himself, through whom all things were made, for contemplation in eternity by the mind cleansed through faith?

But if the Son is said to be sent by the Father because the one is the Father, and the other the Son, this in no way prevents us from believing the Son to be equal, of one substance, and co-eternal with the Father, and yet to have been sent as Son by the Father. This is not because one is greater and the other lesser; but because the one is Father, the other Son; the one begetter, the other begotten; the one is the source of the One sent; the other is from the One who sends. For the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son. We can now understand in this way that the Son is not only said to have been sent because “the Word was made flesh,” but was sent so that the Word might become flesh, and carry out in His bodily presence what had been written; that is, He is understood as sent not only as the man the Word became, but the Word too was sent to become man; because He was not sent because of any inequality of power, or substance, or anything in Him unequal to the Father; but because the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son; for the Son is the Word of the Father, who is also called His wisdom. Why be surprised, then, that He is sent, not because He is unequal to the Father, but because He is “a pure emanation (manatio) issuing from the glory of the Almighty God”?⁠a There, what issues and that from which it issues are of one and the same substance. For it does not issue as water issues from an opening in earth or stone, but as light issues from light. What else do the words, “For she is the brightness of the everlasting light,” mean but that she is light from everlasting light? For what is the brightness of light, except light itself? She is therefore co-eternal with the light from which this light comes. But it is preferable to say, “the brightness of light,” rather than the light of light; so that what issues will not be thought darker than that from which it issues. For when one hears of the brightness of light as being light itself, it is easier to believe that the source shines through its radiance than that the radiance shines less. But because there was no need to warn people against thinking that the light which begot the other was lesser (for no heretic ever dared say this, nor should we believe anyone will dare to do so), Scripture addresses the other thought, that the issuing light might seem darker than its source; and it has removed this suspicion by saying, “It is the brightness of that light,” namely, of eternal light, and so shows it to be equal. If it were lesser, then it would be its darkness, not its brightness; but if it were greater, then it could not issue from it, for it could not surpass that from which it comes. Therefore, because it issues from it, it is not greater than it is; and because it is not its darkness, but its brightness, it is not lesser than it: therefore it is equal. Nor should it trouble us that it is called a pure emanation issuing from the glory of the Almighty God, as though it were not itself almighty, but an emanation from the Almighty; for soon after it is said of it, “And being but one, she can do all things.” Who is almighty except the One who can do all things? It is sent, therefore, by Him from whom it issues; for this is how the one who loved and desired her seeks her. “Send her,” he says, “out of Your holy heavens, and from the throne of Your greatness, that, being present, she may work with me;” that is, may teach me to work [heartily] so that I may not work [irksomely]. For her works are virtues. But she is sent in one way to be with humanity; she has been sent in another way to become human herself. For, “entering into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets;” so she also fills the holy angels, and does everything appropriate to such services through them. But when the fullness of time had come, she was sent, not to fill angels, nor to be an angel, except insofar as she announced the counsel of the Father, which was her own also; nor to be with or in human beings, for this too took place before, both in the fathers and in the prophets; but so that the Word Himself would become flesh, that is, become human. This future mystery, once revealed, would also bring salvation to those wise and holy people who, before He was born of the Virgin, were born of women; and, once accomplished and made known, it brings salvation to all who believe, hope, and love. For this is “the great mystery of godliness, which was revealed in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.” Therefore the Word of God is sent by the One whose Word He is; He is sent by the One from whom He was begotten (genitum). The One who begot sends; the One begotten is sent. He is sent to each person when that person understands and perceives Him, as far as He can be understood and perceived, according to the rational soul’s capacity, either advancing toward God, or already perfect in God. The Son, therefore, is not properly said to have been sent because He is begotten of the Father; but either because the Word made flesh appeared to the world, as He says, “I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world;” or because He is perceived in time by each person’s mind, according to the saying, “Send her, that, being present with me, she may work with me.” What is born (natum) from eternity is therefore eternal, “for it is the brightness of the everlasting light;” but what is sent in time is what each person understands. But when the Son of God was revealed in the flesh, He was sent into this world in the fullness of time, made of a woman. “Since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom” (since “the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it”), it “pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe,” so that the Word would become flesh and live among us. But when He comes forth in time and is perceived by each person’s mind, He is said indeed to be sent, but not into this world; for He does not appear to the senses, that is, He does not present Himself to bodily senses. For we ourselves, too, are not in this world, insofar as our minds grasp what is eternal as far as they can; and the spirits of all the righteous are not in this world, even of those who are still living in the flesh, insofar as they discern divine things. But the Father is not said to be sent, when someone understands Him in time, for there is no one from whom He has His being or from whom He proceeds; since Wisdom says, “I came out of the mouth of the Most High,” and it is said of the Holy Spirit, “He proceeds from the Father,” but the Father is from no one. As, therefore, the Father begot, the Son is begotten; so the Father sent, the Son was sent. Just as the One who begot and the One begotten are one, so the One who sent and the One sent are one, since the Father and the Son are one. So also the Holy Spirit is one with them, since these three are one. For the Son, being born means being from the Father; being sent means being known to be from the Father. For the Holy Spirit, being God’s gift means proceeding from the Father; being sent means being known to proceed from the Father. Nor can we say that the Holy Spirit does not also proceed from the Son, for the same Spirit is not without reason said to be the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. Nor do I see what else He intended to indicate when He breathed on the face of the disciples, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” For that bodily breathing, coming from the body and felt through physical touch, was not the substance of the Holy Spirit, but a declaration through an appropriate sign, that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son. Even the most deluded madman would not say that He gave one Spirit when He breathed on them, and sent another after His ascension. For the Spirit of God is one, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit, who works all in all. But that He was given twice was certainly a meaningful arrangement, which we will discuss in its place, as far as the Lord enables us. The Lord’s words —“Whom I will send to you from the Father,” — therefore show the Spirit to be both of the Father and of the Son; for when He said, “Whom the Father will send,” He added also, “in my name.” Yet He did not say, Whom the Father will send from me, as He said, “Whom I will send to you from the Father,”— thus showing that the Father is the beginning (principium) of the whole divinity, or deity, if that is the better expression. He, therefore, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son, is referred back to the One from whom the Son was born (natus). And the evangelist’s words, “For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified;” how should we understand them, unless the special giving or sending of the Holy Spirit after the glorification of Christ would be unlike any earlier giving? There had been a giving before, but not one like this. For if the Holy Spirit was not given before, with what were the prophets who spoke filled? Scripture plainly says and shows in many places that they spoke by the Holy Spirit. It is also said of John the Baptist, “And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.” And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, so as to say these things about him. And Mary, too, was filled with the Holy Spirit, so as to foretell these things about the Lord, whom she was bearing in her womb. And Simeon and Anna were filled with the Holy Spirit, so as to recognize the greatness of the little child Christ. How, then, was “the Spirit not yet given, since Jesus was not yet glorified,” unless because that giving, or granting, or mission of the Holy Spirit was to have a distinctive character in its very coming, unlike anything before? We read nowhere that people spoke in languages they did not know through the Holy Spirit coming upon them; as happened then, when His coming needed to be made clear through visible signs, to show that the whole world, and all nations with their different languages would believe in Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit, to fulfill what is sung in the Psalm, “There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard; their sound has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” Humanity was therefore united, and in some sense mingled, with the Word of God, so as to be One Person, when the fullness of time had come, and the Son of God, made of a woman, was sent into this world, so that He might also be the Son of man for the sake of humanity. Angelic nature could prefigure and announce this person beforehand, but could not take this personhood to itself and become that person.

As for the Holy Spirit’s appearance to the senses, whether by the shape of a dove, or by fiery tongues, when creation, subject and obedient to Him, revealed through movements and forms in time His substance co-eternal with the Father and the Son, and unchanging like them, without being united with Him as one person, as was the flesh the Word became, I do not dare to say that nothing of the kind was done in earlier times. But I would confidently say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of one and the same substance, God the Creator, the almighty Trinity, act inseparably; but that this cannot be revealed inseparably through creation, which is far inferior, least of all through physical creation: just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be named by our words, which certainly are bodily sounds, except at their own separate times, distinctly divided, with each word’s syllables occupying their respective intervals. In their own substance, in which they exist, the three are one, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, remaining the same without any movement in time, above all creation, without any interval of time and place, simultaneously one and the same from eternity to eternity, as though eternity itself, which is not without truth and love. But, in my words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separated, and cannot be named simultaneously, and occupy their own separate places in visible letters. When I name my memory, intellect, and will, each name refers to one separately, yet each is spoken by all three; none of these three names is spoken without my memory, intellect, and will acting together [by the soul as a whole]; similarly, the Trinity together produced both the voice of the Father, and the flesh of the Son, and the dove of the Holy Spirit, while each of these things is referred separately to each person. This likeness makes it possible to discern to some degree that the Trinity, which is inseparable in itself, is revealed separately through the appearance of visible creation; and that the Trinity’s action is also inseparable in each of those things separately which are said to belong specifically to the revealing of the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit. If I am asked how words or perceptible forms and appearances were produced before the incarnation of the Word of God, to prefigure its future coming, I reply that God produced these things through angels; and this I have also shown sufficiently, as I think, through Holy Scripture’s testimony. And if I am asked how the incarnation itself happened, I reply that the Word of God Himself became flesh, that is, became human, without being transformed or changed into what He became. He became human in such a way that there was not only the Word of God and the flesh of man, but also the rational soul of man, and this whole was to be called both God because of God and man because of man. If this is hard to understand, the mind must be cleansed through faith, by more and more abstaining from sins, and by doing good works, and by praying with the groaning of holy desires; so that by progressing through divine help, it may both understand and love. And if I am asked, how, after the incarnation of the Word, either a voice of the Father was produced, or a physical appearance by which the Holy Spirit was manifested: I do not doubt that this was done through creation; but whether through physical, perceptible creation alone, or whether also through the use of a rational or intellectual spirit (for this is the term by which some choose to call what the Greeks name νοερόν), certainly without forming one person (for who could possibly say that whatever creature it was by which the voice of the Father sounded, is God the Father in the same sense; or whatever creature it was by which the Holy Spirit was manifested in the form of a dove, or in fiery tongues, is the Holy Spirit in the same sense, as the Son of God is that man who was made of a virgin?), but only for the service of producing the indications God judged necessary; or whether something else should be understood, is difficult to discover and should not be rashly asserted. Yet I do not see how these things could have happened without rational or intellectual creation. But it is not yet the proper place to explain, as the Lord enables me, why I so think; for the arguments of heretics must first be discussed and refuted, which they derive from their own reasoning rather than the divine books, and which they think forcibly compel us to understand the testimonies of the Scriptures which treat of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they themselves want. But now, as I think, it has been sufficiently shown, that the Son is not lesser because He is sent by the Father, nor the Holy Spirit lesser because both Father and Son sent Him. These statements are understood to appear in Scripture either because of visible creation; or rather to impress on our minds the source [within the Godhead]; without implying inequality, disparity, or difference of substance; since, even if God the Father had willed to appear visibly through creation subject to Him, yet it would be completely absurd to say that He was sent either by the Son, whom He begot, or by the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from Him. Let this therefore end the present book. In the remaining books, with the Lord’s help, we will examine the heretics’ crafty arguments and how they can be refuted.