Edition Masquer
De Trinitate

XVII.

[XVII] Non incongruenter ex persona domini nostri Iesu Christi praefiguratum solet intellegi ut posteriora eius accipiantur caro eius in qua de virgine natus est et mortuus et resurrexit, sive propter postremitatem mortalitatis posteriora dicta sint sive quod eam prope in fine saeculi, hoc est posterius, suscipere dignatus est. Facies autem eius illa dei forma in qua non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis deo patri, quod nemo utique potest videre et vivere; sive quia post hanc vitam in qua peregrinamur a domino et ubi corpus quod corrumpitur aggravat animam, videbimus facie ad faciem sicut dicit apostolus. De hac enim vita in psalmis dicitur: Verumtamen universa vanitas omnis homo vivens, et iterum: Quoniam non iustificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens. In qua vita etiam secundum Iohannem nondum apparuit quod erimus. Scimus, inquit, quia cum apparuerit, similes ei erimus quoniam videbimus eum sicuti est; quod utique post hanc vitam intellegi voluit cum mortis debitum solverimus et resurrectionis promissum receperimus – sive quod etiam nunc in quantum dei sapientiam per quam facta sunt omnia spiritaliter intellegimus, in tantum carnalibus affectibus morimur ut mortuum nobis hunc mundum deputantes nos quoque ipsi huic mundo moriamur et dicamus quod ait apostolus: Mundus mihi crucifixus est et ego mundo. De hac enim morte item dicit: Si autem mortui estis cum Christo, quid adhuc velut viventes de hoc mundo decernitis? – Non ergo immerito nemo poterit faciem, id est ipsam manifestationem sapientiae dei, videre et vivere.

Ipsa est enim species cui contemplandae suspirat omnis qui affectat diligere deum ex toto corde et ex tota anima et ex tota mente; ad quam contemplandam etiam proximum quantum potest aedificat qui diligit et proximum sicut se ipsum, in quibus duobus praeceptis tota lex pendet et prophetae. Quod significatur etiam in ipso Moyse. Nam cum dixisset propter dilectionem dei qua praecipue flagrabat: Si inveni gratiam in conspectu tuo, ostende mihi temet ipsum manifeste ut sim inveniens gratiam ante te, continuo propter dilectionem etiam proximi subiecit atque ait: Et ut sciam quia populus tuus est gens haec. Illa est ergo species quae rapit omnem animam rationalem desiderio sui tanto ardentiorem quanto mundiorem et tanto mundiorem quanto ad spiritalia resurgentem, tanto autem ad spiritalia resurgentem quanto a carnalibus morientem. Sed dum peregrinamur a domino et per fidem ambulamus non per speciem, posteriora Christi, hoc est carnem, per ipsam fidem videre debemus, id est in solido fidei fundamento stantes quod significat petra, et eam de tali tutissima specula intuentes, in catholica scilicet ecclesia de qua dictum est: Et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam. Tanto enim certius diligimus quam videre desideramus faciem Christi quanto in posterioribus eius agnoscimus quantum nos prior dilexerit Christus.

[29] Sed in ipsa carne fides resurrectionis eius salvos facit atque iustificat. Si enim credideris, inquit, in corde tuo quia deus illum suscitavit a mortuis, salvus eris; et iterum: Qui traditus est, inquit, propter delicta nostra et resurrexit propter iustificationem nostram. Ideoque meritum fidei nostrae resurrectio corporis domini est. Nam mortuam esse illam carnem in cruce passionis etiam inimici eius credunt, sed resurrexisse non credunt. Quod firmissime nos credentes tamquam de petrae soliditate contuemur, unde certa spe adoptionem exspectamus redemptionem corporis nostri quia hoc in membris Christi speramus quae nos ipsi sumus quod perfectum esse in ipso tamquam in capite nostro fidei sanitate cognoscimus. Inde non vult nisi cum transierit videri posteriora sua, ut in eius resurrectionem credatur. Pascha enim Hebraeum verbum dicitur quod transitum interpretamur. Unde et Iohannes evangelista dicit: Ante diem autem festum paschae sciens Iesus quia venit eius hora ut transeat de hoc mundo ad patrem.

[30] Hoc autem qui credunt nec tamen in catholica sed in schismate aliquo aut in haeresi credunt non de loco qui est penes eum vident posteriora domini. Quid enim sibi vult quod ait dominus: Ecce locus est penes me, et stabis super petram? Quis locus terrenus est penes dominum nisi hoc est penes eum quod eum spiritaliter attingit? Nam quis locus non est penes dominum qui attingit a fine usque in finem fortiter et disponit omnia suaviter, et cuius dictum est caelum sedes et terra scabellum pedum eius, et qui dixit: Quam domum aedificabitis mihi? Aut quis locus quietis meae? Nonne manus mea fecit haec omnia? Sed videlicet intellegitur locus penes eum in quo statur super petram ipsa ecclesia catholica ubi salubriter videt pascha domini, id est transitum domini, et posteriora eius, id est corpus eius, qui credit in resurrectionem eius. Et stabis, inquit, super petram statim ut transiet mea maiestas. Re vera enim statim ut transiit maiestas domini in clarificatione domini qua resurgens ascendit ad patrem solidati sumus super petram. Et ipse Petrus tunc solidatus est ut cum fiducia praedicaret quem priusquam esset solidatus ter timore negaverat, iam quidem praedestinatione positus in specula petrae sed adhuc manu domini sibi superposita ne videret. Posteriora enim eius visurus erat et nondum ille transierat utique a morte ad vitam; nondum resurrectione clarificatus erat.

[31] Nam et quod sequitur in exodo et dicit: Tegam manu mea super te donec transeam, et auferam manum et tunc videbis posteriora mea. Multi Israhelitae quorum tunc erat figura Moyses post resurrectionem domini crediderunt in eum tamquam iam videntes posteriora eius remota manu eius ab oculis suis. Unde et Esaiae talem prophetiam evangelista commemorat: Incrassa cor populi huius et aures eorum oppila et oculos eorum grava. Denique in psalmo non absurde intellegitur ex eorum persona dici: Quoniam die ac nocte gravata est super me manus tua; die fortasse cum manifesta miracula faceret nec ab eis agnosceretur; nocte autem cum in passione moreretur quando certius putaverunt sicut quemlibet hominem peremptum et exstinctum. Sed quoniam cum transisset ut eius posteriora viderentur praedicante sibi apostolo Petro quia oportebat Christum pati et resurgere, compuncti sunt dolore poenitentiae ut fieret in baptizatis quod in capite psalmi eius dicitur: Beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates et quorum tecta sunt peccata. Propterea cum dictum esset: Gravata est super me manus tua, tamquam domino transeunte ut iam removeret manum et viderentur posteriora eius, sequitur vox dolentis et confitentis et ex fide resurrectionis domini peccatorum remissionem accipientis: Conversus sum, inquit, in aerumna dum confringeretur spina. Peccatum meum cognovi et iniustitiam meam non operui. Dixit: Pronuntiabo adversum me iniustitiam meam domino, et tu dimisisti impietatem cordis mei. Neque enim tanto carnis nubilo debemus involvi ut putemus faciem quidem esse domini invisibilem, dorsum vero visibile, quandoquidem in forma servi utrumque visibiliter apparuit; in forma autem dei absit ut tale aliquid cogitetur. Absit ut verbum dei et sapientia dei ex una parte habeat faciem, ex alia dorsum sicut corpus humanum, aut omnino ulla specie vel motione sive loco sive tempore commutetur.

[32] Quapropter si in illis vocibus quae fiebant in exodo et illis omnibus corporalibus demonstrationibus dominus Iesus Christus ostendebatur, aut alias Christus sicut loci huius consideratio persuadet, alias spiritus sanctus sicut ea quae supra diximus admonent, non hoc efficitur ut deus pater numquam tali aliqua specie patribus visus sit. Multa enim talia visa facta sunt illis temporibus non evidenter nominato et designato in eis vel patre vel filio vel spiritu sancto, sed tamen per quasdam valde probabiles significationes nonnullis indiciis exsistentibus ut nimis temerarium sit dicere deum patrem numquam patribus aut prophetis per aliquas visibiles formas apparuisse. Hanc enim opinionem illi pepererunt qui non potuerunt in unitate trinitatis intellegere quod dictum est: Regi autem saeculorum immortali, invisibili soli deo, et: Quem nemo hominum vidit nec videre potest – quod de ipsa substantia summa summeque divina et incommutabili ubi et pater et filius et spiritus sanctus unus et solus deus per sanam fidem intellegitur. Visiones autem illae per creaturam commutabilem deo incommutabili subditam factae sunt, non proprie sicuti est, sed significative sicut pro rerum causis et temporibus oportuit ostendentes deum.

Traduction Masquer
The Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus, Bishop of Hippo, on the Trinity

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 Parts of God are Seen. The Back Parts of God Were Seen by the Israelites. It is a Rash Opinion to Think that God the Father Only Was Never Seen by the Fathers.

Not unfitly is it commonly understood to be prefigured from the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that His "back parts" are to be taken to be His flesh, in which He was born of the Virgin, and died, and rose again; whether they are called back parts ¹ on account of the posteriority of mortality, or because it was almost in the end of the world, that is, at a late period, ² that He deigned to take it: but that His "face" was that form of God, in which He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," ³ which no one certainly can see and live; whether because after this life, in which we are absent from the Lord, ⁴ and where the corruptible body presseth down the soul, ⁵ we shall see "face to face," ⁶ as the apostle says--(for it is said in the Psalms, of this life, "Verily every man living is altogether vanity;" ⁷ and again, "For in Thy sight shall no man living be justified;" ⁸ and in this life also, according to John, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know," he says, "that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," ⁹ which he certainly intended to be understood as after this life, when we shall have paid the debt of death, and shall have received the promise of the resurrection);--or whether that even now, in whatever degree we spiritually understand the wisdom of God, by which all things were made, in that same degree we die to carnal affections, so that, considering this world dead to us, we also ourselves die to this world, and say what the apostle says, "The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." ¹⁰ For it was of this death that he also says, "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances?" ¹¹ Not therefore without cause will no one be able to see the "face," that is, the manifestation itself of the wisdom of God, and live. For it is this very appearance, for the contemplation of which every one sighs who strives to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; to the contemplation of which, he who loves his neighbor, too, as himself builds up his neighbor also as far as he may; on which two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. ¹² And this is signified also in Moses himself. For when he had said, on account of the love of God with which he was specially inflamed, "If I have found grace in thy sight, show me now Thyself plainly, that I may find grace in Thy sight;" he immediately subjoined, on account of the love also of his neighbor, "And that I may know that this nation is Thy people." It is therefore that "appearance" which hurries away every rational soul with the desire of it, and the more ardently the more pure that soul is; and it is the more pure the more it rises to spiritual things; and it rises the more to spiritual things the more it dies to carnal things. But whilst we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight, ¹³ we ought to see the "back parts" of Christ, that is His flesh, by that very faith, that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, ¹⁴ and beholding it from such a safe watch-tower, namely in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, "And upon this rock I will build my Church." ¹⁵ For so much the more certainly we love that face of Christ, which we earnestly desire to see, as we recognize in His back parts how much first Christ loved us.

29. But in the flesh itself, the faith in His resurrection saves and justifies us. For, "If thou shalt believe," he says, "in thine heart, that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved;" ¹⁶ and again, "Who was delivered," he says, "for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." ¹⁷ So that the reward of our faith is the resurrection of the body of our Lord. ¹⁸ For even His enemies believe that that flesh died on the cross of His passion, but they do not believe it to have risen again. Which we believing most firmly, gaze upon it as from the solidity of a rock: whence we wait with certain hope for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body; ¹⁹ because we hope for that in the members of Christ, that is, in ourselves, which by a sound faith we acknowledge to be perfect in Him as in our Head. Thence it is that He would not have His back parts seen, unless as He passed by, that His resurrection may be believed. For that which is Pascha in Hebrew, is translated Passover. ²⁰ Whence John the Evangelist also says, "Before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should pass out of this world unto the Father." ²¹

30. But they who believe this, but believe it not in the Catholic Church, but in some schism or in heresy, do not see the back parts of the Lord from "the place that is by Him." For what does that mean which the Lord says, "Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock?" What earthly place is "by" the Lord, unless that is "by Him" which touches Him spiritually? For what place is not "by" the Lord, who "reacheth from one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth order all things," ²² and of whom it is said, "Heaven is His throne, and earth is His footstool;" and who said, "Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For has not my hand made all those things?" ²³ But manifestly the Catholic Church itself is understood to be "the place by Him," wherein one stands upon a rock, where he healthfully sees the "Pascha Domini," that is, the "Passing by" ²⁴ of the Lord, and His back parts, that is, His body, who believes in His resurrection. "And thou shalt stand," He says, "upon a rock while my glory passeth by." For in reality, immediately after the majesty of the Lord had passed by in the glorification of the Lord, in which He rose again and ascended to the Father, we stood firm upon the rock. And Peter himself then stood firm, so that he preached Him with confidence, whom, before he stood firm, he had thrice from fear denied; ²⁵ although, indeed, already before placed in predestination upon the watch-tower of the rock, but with the hand of the Lord still held over him that he might not see. For he was to see His back parts, and the Lord had not yet "passed by," namely, from death to life; He had not yet been glorified by the resurrection.

31. For as to that, too, which follows in Exodus, "I will cover thee with mine hand while I pass by, and I will take away my hand and thou shalt see my back parts;" many Israelites, of whom Moses was then a figure, believed in the Lord after His resurrection, as if His hand had been taken off from their eyes, and they now saw His back parts. And hence the evangelist also mentions that prophesy of Isaiah, "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes." ²⁶ Lastly, in the Psalm, that is not unreasonably understood to be said in their person, "For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me." "By day," perhaps, when He performed manifest miracles, yet was not acknowledged by them; but "by night," when He died in suffering, when they thought still more certainly that, like any one among men, He was cut off and brought to an end. But since, when He had already passed by, so that His back parts were seen, upon the preaching to them by the Apostle Peter that it behoved Christ to suffer and rise again, they were pricked in their hearts with the grief of repentance, ²⁷ that that might come to pass among the baptized which is said in the beginning of that Psalm, "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;" therefore, after it had been said, "Thy hand is heavy upon me," the Lord, as it were, passing by, so that now He removed His hand, and His back parts were seen, there follows the voice of one who grieves and confesses and receives remission of sins by faith in the resurrection of the Lord: "My moisture," he says, "is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." ²⁸ For we ought not to be so wrapped up in the darkness of the flesh, as to think the face indeed of God to be invisible, but His back visible, since both appeared visibly in the form of a servant; but far be it from us to think anything of the kind in the form of God; far be it from us to think that the Word of God and the Wisdom of God has a face on one side, and on the other a back, as a human body has, or is at all changed either in place or time by any appearance or motion. ²⁹

32. Wherefore, if in those words which were spoken in Exodus, and in all those corporeal appearances, the Lord Jesus Christ was manifested; or if in some cases Christ was manifested, as the consideration of this passage persuades us, in others the Holy Spirit, as that which we have said above admonishes us; at any rate no such result follows, as that God the Father never appeared in any such form to the Fathers. For many such appearances happened in those times, without either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit being expressly named and designated in them; but yet with some intimations given through certain very probable interpretations, so that it would be too rash to say that God the Father never appeared by any visible forms to the fathers or the prophets. For they gave birth to this opinion who were not able to understand in respect to the unity of the Trinity such texts as, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God;" ³⁰ and, "Whom no man hath seen, nor can see." ³¹ Which texts are understood by a sound faith in that substance itself, the highest, and in the highest degree divine and unchangeable, whereby both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is the one and only God. But those visions were wrought through the changeable creature, made subject to the unchangeable God, and did not manifest God properly as He is, but by intimations such as suited the causes and times of the several circumstances.