Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus,

 Chapter 1.—This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning

 Chapter 2.—In What Manner This Work Proposes to Discourse Concerning the Trinity.

 Chapter 3.—What Augustin Requests from His Readers. The Errors of Readers Dull of Comprehension Not to Be Ascribed to the Author.

 Chapter 4.—What the Doctrine of the Catholic Faith is Concerning the Trinity.

 Chapter 5.—Of Difficulties Concerning the Trinity: in What Manner Three are One God, and How, Working Indivisibly, They Yet Perform Some Things Severa

 Chapter 6.—That the Son is Very God, of the Same Substance with the Father. Not Only the Father, But the Trinity, is Affirmed to Be Immortal. All Thin

 Chapter 7.—In What Manner the Son is Less Than the Father, and Than Himself.

 Chapter 8.—The Texts of Scripture Explained Respecting the Subjection of the Son to the Father, Which Have Been Misunderstood. Christ Will Not So Give

 Chapter 9.—All are Sometimes Understood in One Person.

 Chapter 10.—In What Manner Christ Shall Deliver Up the Kingdom to God, Even the Father. The Kingdom Having Been Delivered to God, Even the Father, Chr

 Chapter 11.—By What Rule in the Scriptures It is Understood that the Son is Now Equal and Now Less.

 Chapter 12.—In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form o

 Chapter 13.—Diverse Things are Spoken Concerning the Same Christ, on Account of the Diverse Natures of the One Hypostasis [Theanthropic Person]. Why I

 Book II.

 Preface.

 Chapter 1.—There is a Double Rule for Understanding the Scriptural Modes of Speech Concerning the Son of God. These Modes of Speech are of a Threefold

 Chapter 2.—That Some Ways of Speaking Concerning the Son are to Be Understood According to Either Rule.

 Chapter 3.—Some Things Concerning the Holy Spirit are to Be Understood According to the One Rule Only.

 Chapter 4.—The Glorification of the Son by the Father Does Not Prove Inequality.

 Chapter 5.—The Son and Holy Spirit are Not Therefore Less Because Sent. The Son is Sent Also by Himself. Of the Sending of the Holy Spirit.

 Chapter 6.—The Creature is Not So Taken by the Holy Spirit as Flesh is by the Word.

 Chapter 7.—A Doubt Raised About Divine Appearances.

 Chapter 8.—The Entire Trinity Invisible.

 Chapter 9.—Against Those Who Believed the Father Only to Be Immortal and Invisible. The Truth to Be Sought by Peaceful Study.

 Chapter 10—Whether God the Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Sa

 Chapter 11.—Of the Same Appearance.

 Chapter 12.—The Appearance to Lot is Examined.

 Chapter 13.—The Appearance in the Bush.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Appearance in the Pillar of Cloud and of Fire.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Appearance on Sinai. Whether the Trinity Spake in that Appearance or Some One Person Specially.

 Chapter 16.—In What Manner Moses Saw God.

 Chapter 17.—How the Back Parts of God Were Seen. The Faith of the Resurrection of Christ. The Catholic Church Only is the Place from Whence the Back P

 Chapter 18.—The Vision of Daniel.

 Book III.

 Preface.—Why Augustin Writes of the Trinity. What He Claims from Readers. What Has Been Said in the Previous Book.

 Chapter 1.—What is to Be Said Thereupon.

 Chapter 2.—The Will of God is the Higher Cause of All Corporeal Change. This is Shown by an Example.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Same Argument.

 Chapter 4.—God Uses All Creatures as He Will, and Makes Visible Things for the Manifestation of Himself.

 Chapter 5.—Why Miracles are Not Usual Works.

 Chapter 6.—Diversity Alone Makes a Miracle.

 Chapter 7.—Great Miracles Wrought by Magic Arts.

 Chapter 8.—God Alone Creates Those Things Which are Changed by Magic Art.

 Chapter 9.—The Original Cause of All Things is from God.

 Chapter 10.—In How Many Ways the Creature is to Be Taken by Way of Sign. The Eucharist.

 Chapter 11.—The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from

 Book IV.

 Preface.—The Knowledge of God is to Be Sought from God.

 Chapter 1.—We are Made Perfect by Acknowledgement of Our Own Weakness. The Incarnate Word Dispels Our Darkness.

 Chapter 2.—How We are Rendered Apt for the Perception of Truth Through the Incarnate Word.

 Chapter 3.—The One Death and Resurrection of The Body of Christ Harmonizes with Our Double Death and Resurrection of Body and Soul, to the Effect of S

 Chapter 4.—The Ratio of the Single to the Double Comes from the Perfection of the Senary Number. The Perfection of The Senary Number is Commended in t

 Chapter 5.—The Number Six is Also Commended in the Building Up of the Body of Christ and of the Temple at Jerusalem.

 Chapter 6.—The Three Days of the Resurrection, in Which Also the Ratio of Single to Double is Apparent.

 Chapter 7.—In What Manner We are Gathered from Many into One Through One Mediator.

 Chapter 8.—In What Manner Christ Wills that All Shall Be One in Himself.

 Chapter 9.—The Same Argument Continued.

 Chapter 10.—As Christ is the Mediator of Life, So the Devil is the Mediator of Death.

 Chapter 11.—Miracles Which are Done by Demons are to Be Spurned.

 Chapter 12.—The Devil the Mediator of Death, Christ of Life.

 Chapter 13.—The Death of Christ Voluntary. How the Mediator of Life Subdued the Mediator of Death. How the Devil Leads His Own to Despise the Death of

 Chapter 14.—Christ the Most Perfect Victim for Cleansing Our Faults. In Every Sacrifice Four Things are to Be Considered.

 Chapter 15.—They are Proud Who Think They are Able, by Their Own Righteousness, to Be Cleansed So as to See God.

 Chapter 16.—The Old Philosophers are Not to Be Consulted Concerning the Resurrection and Concerning Things to Come.

 Chapter 17.—In How Many Ways Things Future are Foreknown. Neither Philosophers, Nor Those Who Were Distinguished Among the Ancients, are to Be Consult

 Chapter 18.—The Son of God Became Incarnate in Order that We Being Cleansed by Faith May Be Raised to the Unchangeable Truth.

 Chapter 19.—In What Manner the Son Was Sent and Proclaimed Beforehand. How in the Sending of His Birth in the Flesh He Was Made Less Without Detriment

 Chapter 20.—The Sender and the Sent Equal. Why the Son is Said to Be Sent by the Father. Of the Mission of the Holy Spirit. How and by Whom He Was Sen

 Chapter 21.—Of the Sensible Showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the Coeternity of the Trinity. What Has Been Said, and What Remains to Be Said.

 Book V.

 Chapter 1.—What the Author Entreats from God, What from the Reader. In God Nothing is to Be Thought Corporeal or Changeable.

 Chapter 2.—God the Only Unchangeable Essence.

 Chapter 3.—The Argument of the Arians is Refuted, Which is Drawn from the Words Begotten and Unbegotten.

 Chapter 4.—The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.

 Chapter 5.—Nothing is Spoken of God According to Accident, But According to Substance or According to Relation.

 Chapter 6.—Reply is Made to the Cavils of the Heretics in Respect to the Same Words Begotten and Unbegotten.

 Chapter 7.—The Addition of a Negative Does Not Change the Predicament.

 Chapter 8.—Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in Go

 Chapter 9.—The Three Persons Not Properly So Called [in a Human Sense].

 Chapter 10.—Those Things Which Belong Absolutely to God as an Essence, are Spoken of the Trinity in the Singular, Not in the Plural.

 Chapter 11.—What is Said Relatively in the Trinity.

 Chapter 12.—In Relative Things that are Reciprocal, Names are Sometimes Wanting.

 Chapter 13.—How the Word Beginning (Principium) is Spoken Relatively in the Trinity.

 Chapter 14.—The Father and the Son the Only Beginning (Principium) of the Holy Spirit.

 Chapter 15.—Whether the Holy Spirit Was a Gift Before as Well as After He Was Given.

 Chapter 16.—What is Said of God in Time, is Said Relatively, Not Accidentally.

 Book VI.

 Chapter 1.—The Son, According to the Apostle, is the Power and Wisdom of the Father. Hence the Reasoning of the Catholics Against the Earlier Arians.

 Chapter 2 .—What is Said of the Father and Son Together, and What Not.

 Chapter 3.—That the Unity of the Essence of the Father and the Son is to Be Gathered from the Words, “We are One.” The Son is Equal to the Father Both

 Chapter 4.—The Same Argument Continued.

 Chapter 5.—The Holy Spirit Also is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things.

 Chapter 6.—How God is a Substance Both Simple and Manifold.

 Chapter 7.—God is a Trinity, But Not Triple (Triplex).

 Chapter 8.—No Addition Can Be Made to the Nature of God.

 Chapter 9.—Whether One or the Three Persons Together are Called the Only God.

 Chapter 10.—Of the Attributes Assigned by Hilary to Each Person. The Trinity is Represented in Things that are Made.

 Book VII.

 Chapter 1.—Augustin Returns to the Question, Whether Each Person of the Trinity by Itself is Wisdom. With What Difficulty, or in What Way, the Propose

 Chapter 2.—The Father and the Son are Together One Wisdom, as One Essence, Although Not Together One Word.

 Chapter 3.—Why the Son Chiefly is Intimated in the Scriptures by the Name of Wisdom, While Both the Father and the Holy Spirit are Wisdom. That the Ho

 Chapter 4.—How It Was Brought About that the Greeks Speak of Three Hypostases, the Latins of Three Persons. Scripture Nowhere Speaks of Three Persons

 Chapter 5.—In God, Substance is Spoken Improperly, Essence Properly.

 Chapter 6.—Why We Do Not in the Trinity Speak of One Person, and Three Essences. What He Ought to Believe Concerning the Trinity Who Does Not Receive

 Book VIII.

 Preface.—The Conclusion of What Has Been Said Above. The Rule to Be Observed in the More Difficult Questions of the Faith.

 Chapter 1.—It is Shown by Reason that in God Three are Not Anything Greater Than One Person.

 Chapter 2.—Every Corporeal Conception Must Be Rejected, in Order that It May Be Understood How God is Truth.

 Chapter 3.—How God May Be Known to Be the Chief Good. The Mind Does Not Become Good Unless by Turning to God.

 Chapter 4.—God Must First Be Known by an Unerring Faith, that He May Be Loved.

 Chapter 5.—How the Trinity May Be Loved Though Unknown.

 Chapter 6.—How the Man Not Yet Righteous Can Know the Righteous Man Whom He Loves.

 Chapter 7.—Of True Love, by Which We Arrive at the Knowledge of the Trinity. God is to Be Sought, Not Outwardly, by Seeking to Do Wonderful Things wit

 Chapter 8.—That He Who Loves His Brother, Loves God Because He Loves Love Itself, Which is of God, and is God.

 Chapter 9.—Our Love of the Righteous is Kindled from Love Itself of the Unchangeable Form of Righteousness.

 Chapter 10.—There are Three Things in Love, as It Were a Trace of the Trinity.

 Book IX.

 Chapter 1.—In What Way We Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.

 2. And this being so, let us direct our attention to those three things which we fancy we have found. We are not yet speaking of heavenly things, nor

 Chapter 3.—The Image of the Trinity in the Mind of Man Who Knows Himself and Loves Himself. The Mind Knows Itself Through Itself.

 Chapter 4.—The Three are One, and Also Equal, Viz The Mind Itself, and the Love, and the Knowledge of It. That the Same Three Exist Substantially, and

 Chapter 5.—That These Three are Several in Themselves, and Mutually All in All.

 Chapter 6.—There is One Knowledge of the Thing in the Thing Itself, and Another in Eternal Truth Itself. That Corporeal Things, Too, are to Be Judged

 Chapter 7.—We Conceive and Beget the Word Within, from the Things We Have Beheld in the Eternal Truth. The Word, Whether of the Creature or of the Cre

 Chapter 8.—In What Desire and Love Differ.

 Chapter 9.—In the Love of Spiritual Things the Word Born is the Same as the Word Conceived. It is Otherwise in the Love of Carnal Things.

 Chapter 10.—Whether Only Knowledge that is Loved is the Word of the Mind.

 Chapter 11.—That the Image or Begotten Word of the Mind that Knows Itself is Equal to the Mind Itself.

 Chapter 12.—Why Love is Not the Offspring of the Mind, as Knowledge is So. The Solution of the Question. The Mind with the Knowledge of Itself and the

 Book X.

 Chapter 1.—The Love of the Studious Mind, that Is, of One Desirous to Know, is Not the Love of a Thing Which It Does Not Know.

 Chapter 2.—No One at All Loves Things Unknown.

 Chapter 3.—That When the Mind Loves Itself, It is Not Unknown to Itself.

 Chapter 4.—How the Mind Knows Itself, Not in Part, But as a Whole.

 Chapter 5.—Why the Soul is Enjoined to Know Itself. Whence Come the Errors of the Mind Concerning Its Own Substance.

 Chapter 6.—The Opinion Which the Mind Has of Itself is Deceitful.

 Chapter 7.—The Opinions of Philosophers Respecting the Substance of the Soul. The Error of Those Who are of Opinion that the Soul is Corporeal, Does N

 Chapter 8.—How the Soul Inquires into Itself. Whence Comes the Error of the Soul Concerning Itself.

 Chapter 9.—The Mind Knows Itself, by the Very Act of Understanding the Precept to Know Itself.

 Chapter 10.—Every Mind Knows Certainly Three Things Concerning Itself—That It Understands, that It Is, and that It Lives.

 Chapter 11.—In Memory, Understanding [or Intelligence], and Will, We Have to Note Ability, Learning, and Use. Memory, Understanding, and Will are One

 Chapter 12.—The Mind is an Image of the Trinity in Its Own Memory, and Understanding, and Will.

 Book XI.

 Chapter 1.—A Trace of the Trinity Also In the Outer Man.

 Chapter 2.—A Certain Trinity in the Sight. That There are Three Things in Sight, Which Differ in Their Own Nature. In What Manner from a Visible Thing

 Chapter 3.—The Unity of the Three Takes Place in Thought, Viz Of Memory, of Ternal Vision, and of Will Combining Both.

 Chapter 4.—How This Unity Comes to Pass.

 Chapter 5.—The Trinity of the Outer Man, or of External Vision, is Not an Image of God. The Likeness of God is Desired Even in Sins. In External Visio

 Chapter 6.—Of What Kind We are to Reckon the Rest (Requies), and End (Finis), of the Will in Vision.

 Chapter 7.—There is Another Trinity in the Memory of Him Who Thinks Over Again What He Has Seen.

 Chapter 8.—Different Modes of Conceiving.

 Chapter 9.—Species is Produced by Species in Succession.

 Chapter 10.—The Imagination Also Adds Even to Things We Have Not Seen, Those Things Which We Have Seen Elsewhere.

 Chapter 11.—Number, Weight, Measure.

 Book XII.

 Chapter 1.—Of What Kind are the Outer and the Inner Man.

 Chapter 2.—Man Alone of Animate Creatures Perceives the Eternal Reasons of Things Pertaining to the Body.

 Chapter 3.—The Higher Reason Which Belongs to Contemplation, and the Lower Which Belongs to Action, are in One Mind.

 Chapter 4.—The Trinity and the Image of God is in that Part of the Mind Alone Which Belongs to the Contemplation of Eternal Things.

 Chapter 5.—The Opinion Which Devises an Image of the Trinity in the Marriage of Male and Female, and in Their Offspring.

 Chapter 6. —Why This Opinion is to Be Rejected.

 Chapter 7.—How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of Go

 Chapter 8.—Turning Aside from the Image of God.

 Chapter 9.—The Same Argument is Continued.

 Chapter 10.—The Lowest Degradation Reached by Degrees.

 Chapter 11.—The Image of the Beast in Man.

 Chapter 12.—There is a Kind of Hidden Wedlock in the Inner Man. Unlawful Pleasures of the Thoughts.

 Chapter 13.—The Opinion of Those Who Have Thought that the Mind Was Signified by the Man, the Bodily Sense by the Woman.

 Chapter 14.—What is the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge. The Worship of God is the Love of Him. How the Intellectual Cognizance of Eternal Thi

 Chapter 15.—In Opposition to the Reminiscence of Plato and Pythagoras. Pythagoras the Samian. Of the Difference Between Wisdom and Knowledge, and of S

 Book XIII.

 Chapter 1.—The Attempt is Made to Distinguish Out of the Scriptures the Offices of Wisdom and of Knowledge. That in the Beginning of John Some Things

 Chapter 2.—Faith a Thing of the Heart, Not of the Body How It is Common and One and the Same in All Believers. The Faith of Believers is One, No Othe

 Chapter 3.—Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The Poet Ennius.

 Chapter 4.—The Will to Possess Blessedness is One in All, But the Variety of Wills is Very Great Concerning that Blessedness Itself.

 Chapter 5.—Of the Same Thing.

 Chapter 6.—Why, When All Will to Be Blessed, that is Rather Chosen by Which One Withdraws from Being So.

 Chapter 7.—Faith is Necessary, that Man May at Some Time Be Blessed, Which He Will Only Attain in the Future Life. The Blessedness of Proud Philosophe

 Chapter 8.—Blessedness Cannot Exist Without Immortality.

 Chapter 9.—We Say that Future Blessedness is Truly Eternal, Not Through Human Reasonings, But by the Help of Faith. The Immortality of Blessedness Bec

 Chapter 10.—There Was No Other More Suitable Way of Freeing Man from the Misery of Mortality Than The Incarnation of the Word. The Merits Which are Ca

 Chapter 11.—A Difficulty, How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God.

 Chapter 12.—All, on Account of the Sin of Adam, Were Delivered into the Power of the Devil.

 Chapter 13.—Man Was to Be Rescued from the Power of the Devil, Not by Power, But by Righteousness.

 Chapter 14.—The Unobligated Death of Christ Has Freed Those Who Were Liable to Death.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Same Subject.

 Chapter 16.—The Remains of Death and the Evil Things of the World Turn to Good for the Elect. How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen, that We Might

 Chapter 17.—Other Advantages of the Incarnation.

 Chapter 18.—Why the Son of God Took Man Upon Himself from the Race of Adam, and from a Virgin.

 Chapter 19.—What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to Wisdom.

 Chapter 20.—What Has Been Treated of in This Book. How We Have Reached by Steps to a Certain Trinity, Which is Found in Practical Knowledge and True F

 Book XIV.

 Chapter 1.—What the Wisdom is of Which We are Here to Treat. Whence the Name of Philosopher Arose. What Has Been Already Said Concerning the Distincti

 Chapter 2.—There is a Kind of Trinity in the Holding, Contemplating, and Loving of Faith Temporal, But One that Does Not Yet Attain to Being Properly

 Chapter 3.—A Difficulty Removed, Which Lies in the Way of What Has Just Been Said.

 Chapter 4.—The Image of God is to Be Sought in the Immortality of the Rational Soul. How a Trinity is Demonstrated in the Mind.

 Chapter 5.—Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.

 Chapter 6.—How a Kind of Trinity Exists in the Mind Thinking of Itself. What is the Part of Thought in This Trinity.

 Chapter 7.—The Thing is Made Plain by an Example. In What Way the Matter is Handled in Order to Help the Reader.

 Chapter 8.—The Trinity Which is the Image of God is Now to Be Sought in the Noblest Part of the Mind.

 Chapter 9.—Whether Justice and the Other Virtues Cease to Exist in the Future Life.

 Chapter 10.—How a Trinity is Produced by the Mind Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Itself.

 Chapter 11.—Whether Memory is Also of Things Present.

 Chapter 12.—The Trinity in the Mind is the Image of God, in that It Remembers, Understands, and Loves God, Which to Do is Wisdom.

 Chapter 13.—How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.

 Chapter 14.—The Mind Loves God in Rightly Loving Itself And If It Love Not God, It Must Be Said to Hate Itself. Even a Weak and Erring Mind is Always

 Chapter 15.—Although the Soul Hopes for Blessedness, Yet It Does Not Remember Lost Blessedness, But Remembers God and the Rules of Righteousness. The

 Chapter 16.—How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.

 Chapter 17.—How the Image of God in the Mind is Renewed Until the Likeness of God is Perfected in It in Blessedness.

 Chapter 18.—Whether the Sentence of John is to Be Understood of Our Future Likeness with the Son of God in the Immortality Itself Also of the Body.

 Chapter 19.—John is Rather to Be Understood of Our Perfect Likeness with the Trinity in Life Eternal. Wisdom is Perfected in Happiness.

 Book XV.

 Chapter 1.—God is Above the Mind.

 Chapter 2.—God, Although Incomprehensible, is Ever to Be Sought. The Traces of the Trinity are Not Vainly Sought in the Creature.

 Chapter 3.—A Brief Recapitulation of All the Previous Books.

 Chapter 4.—What Universal Nature Teaches Us Concerning God.

 Chapter 5.—How Difficult It is to Demonstrate the Trinity by Natural Reason.

 Chapter 6.—How There is a Trinity in the Very Simplicity of God. Whether and How the Trinity that is God is Manifested from the Trinities Which Have B

 Chapter 7.—That It is Not Easy to Discover the Trinity that is God from the Trinities We Have Spoken of.

 Chapter 8.—How the Apostle Says that God is Now Seen by Us Through a Glass.

 Chapter 9.—Of the Term “Enigma,” And of Tropical Modes of Speech.

 Chapter 10.—Concerning the Word of the Mind, in Which We See the Word of God, as in a Glass and an Enigma.

 Chapter 11.—The Likeness of the Divine Word, Such as It Is, is to Be Sought, Not in Our Own Outer and Sensible Word, But in the Inner and Mental One.

 Chapter 12.—The Academic Philosophy.

 Chapter 13.—Still Further of the Difference Between the Knowledge and Word of Our Mind, and the Knowledge and Word of God.

 Chapter 14.—The Word of God is in All Things Equal to the Father, from Whom It is.

 Chapter 15.—How Great is the Unlikeness Between Our Word and the Divine Word. Our Word Cannot Be or Be Called Eternal.

 Chapter 16.—Our Word is Never to Be Equalled to the Divine Word, Not Even When We Shall Be Like God.

 Chapter 17.—How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly Called by the Na

 Chapter 18.—No Gift of God is More Excellent Than Love.

 Chapter 19.—The Holy Spirit is Called the Gift of God in the Scriptures. By the Gift of the Holy Spirit is Meant the Gift Which is the Holy Spirit. Th

 Chapter 20.—Against Eunomius, Saying that the Son of God is the Son, Not of His Nature, But of His Will. Epilogue to What Has Been Said Already.

 Chapter 21.—Of the Likeness of the Father and of the Son Alleged to Be in Our Memory and Understanding. Of the Likeness of the Holy Spirit in Our Will

 Chapter 22.—How Great the Unlikeness is Between the Image of the Trinity Which We Have Found in Ourselves, and the Trinity Itself.

 Chapter 23.—Augustin Dwells Still Further on the Disparity Between the Trinity Which is in Man, and the Trinity Which is God. The Trinity is Now Seen

 Chapter 24.—The Infirmity of the Human Mind.

 Chapter 25.—The Question Why the Holy Spirit is Not Begotten, and How He Proceeds from the Father and the Son, Will Only Be Understood When We are in

 Chapter 26.—The Holy Spirit Twice Given by Christ. The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son is Apart from Time, Nor Can He B

 Chapter 27.—What It is that Suffices Here to Solve the Question Why the Spirit is Not Said to Be Begotten, and Why the Father Alone is Unbegotten. Wha

 Chapter 28.—The Conclusion of the Book with a Prayer, and an Apology for Multitude of Words.

Chapter 18.—Why the Son of God Took Man Upon Himself from the Race of Adam, and from a Virgin.

23. For assuredly God could have taken upon Himself to be man, that in that manhood He might be the Mediator between God and men, from some other source, and not from the race of that Adam who bound the human race by his sin; as He did not create him whom He first created, of the race of some one else. Therefore He was able, either so, or in any other mode that He would, to create yet one other, by whom the conqueror of the first might be conquered. But God judged it better both to take upon Him man through whom to conquer the enemy of the human race, from the race itself that had been conquered; and yet to do this of a virgin, whose conception, not flesh but spirit, not lust but faith, preceded.833    Luke i. 26–32 Nor did that concupiscence of the flesh intervene, by which the rest of men, who derive original sin, are propagated and conceived; but holy virginity became pregnant, not by conjugal intercourse, but by faith,—lust being utterly absent,—so that that which was born from the root of the first man might derive only the origin of race, not also of guilt. For there was born, not a nature corrupted by the contagion of transgression, but the one only remedy of all such corruptions. There was born, I say, a Man having nothing at all, and to have nothing at all, of sin; through whom they were to be born again so as to be freed from sin, who could not be born without sin. For although conjugal chastity makes a right use of the carnal concupiscence which is in our members; yet it is liable to motions not voluntary, by which it shows either that it could not have existed at all in paradise before sin, or if it did, that it was not then such as that sometimes it should resist the will. But now we feel it to be such, that in opposition to the law of the mind, and even if there is no question of begetting, it works in us the incitement of sexual intercourse; and if in this men yield to it, then it is satisfied by an act of sin; if they do not, then it is bridled by an act of refusal: which two things who could doubt to have been alien from paradise before sin? For neither did the chastity that then was do anything indecorous, nor did the pleasure that then was suffer anything unquiet. It was necessary, therefore, that this carnal concupiscence should be entirely absent, when the offspring of the Virgin was conceived; in whom the author of death was to find nothing worthy of death, and yet was to slay Him in order that he might be conquered by the death of the Author of life: the conqueror of the first Adam, who held fast the human race, conquered by the second Adam, and losing the Christian race, freed out of the human race from human guilt, through Him who was not in the guilt, although He was of the race; that that deceiver might be conquered by that race which he had conquered by guilt. And this was so done, in order that man may not be lifted up, but “that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord.”834    2 Cor. x. 17 For he who was conquered was only man; and he was therefore conquered, because he lusted proudly to be a god. But He who conquered was both man and God; and therefore He so conquered, being born of a virgin, because God in humility did not, as He governs other saints, so govern that Man, but bare Him [as a Son]. These so great gifts of God, and whatever else there are, which it is too long for us now upon this subject both to inquire and to discuss, could not exist unless the Word had been made flesh.

CAPUT XVIII.

23. Cur Filius Dei hominem suscepit de genere Adae, et ex virgine. Poterat enim utique Deus hominem aliunde suscipere, in quo esset mediator Dei et hominum, non de genere illius Adam, qui peccato suo genus obligavit humanum; sicut ipsum quem primum creavit, non de genere creavit alicujus. Poterat ergo vel sic, vel alio quo vellet modo creare unum alium de quo vinceretur victor prioris: sed melius judicavit, et de ipso quod victum fuerat genere assumere hominem Deus, per quem generis humani vinceret inimicum; et tamen ex virgine, cujus conceptum spiritus, non caro: fides, non libido praevenit (Luc. I, 26-38). Nec interfuit carnis concupiscentia, per quam seminantur et concipiuntur caeteri, qui trahunt originale peccatum: sed ea penitus remotissima, credendo, non concumbendo sancta est fecundata virginitas; ut illud quod nascebatur ex propagine primi hominis, tantummodo generis, non etiam criminis originem duceret. Nascebatur namque non transgressionis contagione vitiata natura, sed omnium talium vitiorum sola medicina. Nascebatur homo, inquam, nullum habens, nullum habiturus omnino peccatum, per quem renascerentur liberandi a peccato, qui nasci non possent sine peccato. Quamvis enim carnali concupiscentia, quae inest genitalibus membris, bene utatur castitas conjugalis; habet tamen motus non voluntarios, quibus ostendit vel nullam se in paradiso ante peccatum esse potuisse, vel non talem fuisse si fuit, ut aliquando resisteret voluntati. Nunc autem illam talem esse sentimus, ut repugnans legi mentis, etiam si nulla est causa generandi, stimulos ingerat coeundi: ubi si ei ceditur, peccando satietur; si non ceditur, dissentiendo frenetur: quae duo aliena fuisse a paradiso ante peccatum, dubitare quis possit? Nam neque illa honestas faciebat aliquid indecorum, nec illa felicitas patiebatur aliquid impacatum. Oportebat itaque ut ista carnalis concupiscentia nulla ibi esset omnino, quando concipiebatur virginis partus, in quo nihil dignum morte fuerat inventurus, et eum tamen occisurus auctor mortis, auctoris vitae morte vincendus: victor 1033 primi Adam et tenens genus humanum, victus a secundo Adam et amittens genus christianum, liberatum ex humano genere ab humano crimine, per eum qui non erat in crimine, quamvis esset ex genere; ut deceptor ille ab eo vinceretur genere, quod vicerat crimine. Et hoc ita gestum est, ut homo non extollatur; sed qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur (II Cor. X, 17). Qui enim victus est, homo tantum erat; et ideo victus est, quia superbe deus esse cupiebat: qui autem vicit, et homo erat et Deus; et ideo sic vicit natus ex virgine, quia Deus humiliter, non quomodo alios sanctos, regebat illum hominem, sed gerebat. Haec tanta Dei dona, et si qua alia sunt, quae de hac re nobis et quaerere nunc et disserere longum est, nisi Verbum caro fieret, nulla essent.