(Augustine, Enchiridion. part 2)
which came out of it. Error, in itself and by itself, whether a
great error in great matters or a small error in small affairs, is
always a bad thing. For who, except in error, denies that it is
bad to approve the false as though it were the truth, or to
disapprove the truth as though it were falsehood, or to hold what
is certain as if it were uncertain, or what is uncertain as if it
were certain? It is one thing to judge a man good who is actually
bad -- this is an error. It is quite another thing not to suffer
harm from something evil if the wicked man whom we supposed to be
good actually does nothing harmful to us. It is one thing to
suppose that this particular road is the right one when it is not.
It is quite another thing that, from this error -- which is a bad
thing -- something good actually turns out, such as being saved
from the onslaught of wicked men.
CHAPTER VII
Disputed Questions about the Limits
of Knowledge and Certainty in Various Matters
20. I do not rightly know whether errors of this sort should
be called sins -- when one thinks well of a wicked man, not
knowing what his character really is, or when, instead of our
physical perception, similar perceptions occur which we experience
in the spirit (such as the illusion of the apostle Peter when he
thought he was seeing a vision but was actually being liberated
from fetters and chains by the angel[36]) Or in perceptual
illusions when we think something is smooth which is actually
rough, or something sweet which is bitter, something fragrant
which is putrid, that a noise is thunder when it is actually a
wagon passing by, when one takes this man for that, or when two
men look alike, as happens in the case of twins -- whence our poet
speaks of "a pleasant error for parents"[37] -- I say I do not
know whether these and other such errors should be called sins.
Nor am I at the moment trying to deal with that knottiest of
questions which baffled the most acute men of the Academy, whether
a wise man ought ever to affirm anything positively lest he be
involved in the error of affirming as true what may be false,
since all questions, as they assert, are either mysterious
[occulta] or uncertain. On these points I wrote three books in
the early stages of my conversion because my further progress was
being blocked by objections like this which stood at the very
threshold of my understanding.[38] It was necessary to overcome
the despair of being unable to attain to truth, which is what
their arguments seemed to lead one to. Among them every error is
deemed a sin, and this can be warded off only by a systematic
suspension of positive assent. Indeed they say it is an error if
someone believes in what is uncertain. For them, however, nothing
is certain in human experience, because of the deceitful likeness
of falsehood to the truth, so that even if what appears to be true
turns out to be true indeed, they will still dispute it with the
most acute and even shameless arguments.
Among us, on the other hand, "the righteous man lives by
faith."[39] Now, if you take away positive affirmation,[40] you
take away faith, for without positive affirmation nothing is
believed. And there are truths about things unseen, and unless
they are believed, we cannot attain to the happy life, which is
nothing less than life eternal. It is a question whether we ought
to argue with those who profess themselves ignorant not only about
the eternity yet to come but also about their present existence,
for they [the Academics] even argue that they do not know what
they cannot help knowing. For no one can "not know" that he
himself is alive. If he is not alive, he cannot "not know" about
it or anything else at all, because either to know or to "not
know" implies a living subject. But, in such a case, by not
positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off
the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do make errors
simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not
alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is
altogether certain as well. And there are many things that are
thus true and certain concerning which, if we withhold positive
assent, this ought not to be regarded as a higher wisdom but
actually a sort of dementia.
21. In those things which do not concern our attainment of
the Kingdom of God, it does not matter whether they are believed
in or not, or whether they are true or are supposed to be true or
false. To err in such questions, to mistake one thing for
another, is not to be judged as a sin or, if it is, as a small and
light one. In sum, whatever kind or how much of an error these
miscues may be, it does not involve the way that leads to God,
which is the faith of Christ which works through love. This way
of life was not abandoned in that error so dear to parents
concerning the twins.[41] Nor did the apostle Peter deviate from
this way when he thought he saw a vision and so mistook one thing
for something else. In his case, he did not discover the actual
situation until after the angel, by whom he was freed, had
departed from him. Nor did the patriarch Jacob deviate from this
way when he believed that his son, who was in fact alive, had been
devoured by a wild beast. We may err through false impressions of
this kind, with our faith in God still safe, nor do we thus leave
the way that leads us to him. Nevertheless, such mistakes, even
if they are not sins, must still be listed among the evils of this
life, which is so readily subject to vanity that we judge the
false for true, reject the true for the false, and hold as
uncertain what is actually certain. For even if these mistakes do
not affect that faith by which we move forward to affirm truth and
eternal beatitude, yet they are not unrelated to the misery in
which we still exist. Actually, of course, we would be deceived
in nothing at all, either in our souls or our physical senses, if
we were already enjoying that true and perfected happiness.
22. Every lie, then, must be called a sin, because every man
ought to speak what is in his heart -- not only when he himself
knows the truth, but even when he errs and is deceived, as a man
may be. This is so whether it be true or is only supposed to be
true when it is not. But a man who lies says the opposite of what
is in his heart, with the deliberate intent to deceive. Now
clearly, language, in its proper function, was developed not as a
means whereby men could deceive one another, but as a medium
through which a man could communicate his thought to others.
Wherefore to use language in order to deceive, and not as it was
designed to be used, is a sin.
Nor should we suppose that there is any such thing as a lie
that is not a sin, just because we suppose that we can sometimes
help somebody by lying. For we could also do this by stealing, as
when a secret theft from a rich man who does not feel the loss is
openly given to a pauper who greatly appreciates the gain. Yet no
one would say that such a theft was not a sin. Or again, we could
also "help" by committing adultery, if someone appeared to be
dying for love if we would not consent to her desire and who, if
she lived, might be purified by repentance. But it cannot be
denied that such an adultery would be a sin. If, then, we hold
chastity in such high regard, wherein has truth offended us so
that although chastity must not be violated by adultery, even for
the sake of some other good, yet truth may be violated by lying?
That men have made progress toward the good, when they will not
lie save for the sake of human values, is not to be denied. But
what is rightly praised in such a forward step, and perhaps even
rewarded, is their good will and not their deceit. The deceit may
be pardoned, but certainly ought not to be praised, especially
among the heirs of the New Covenant to whom it has been said, "Let
your speech be yes, yes; no, no: for what is more than this comes
from evil."[42] Yet because of what this evil does, never ceasing
to subvert this mortality of ours, even the joint heirs of Christ
themselves pray, "Forgive us our debts."[43]
CHAPTER VIII
The Plight of Man After the Fall
23. With this much said, within the necessary brevity of
this kind of treatise, as to what we need to know about the causes
of good and evil -- enough to lead us in the way toward the
Kingdom, where there will be life without death, truth without
error, happiness without anxiety -- we ought not to doubt in any
way that the cause of everything pertaining to our good is nothing
other than the bountiful goodness of God himself. The cause of
evil is the defection of the will of a being who is mutably good
from the Good which is immutable. This happened first in the case
of the angels and, afterward, that of man.
24. This was the primal lapse of the rational creature, that
is, his first privation of the good. In train of this there creptt
in, even without his willing it, ignorance of the right things to
do and also an appetite for noxious things. And these brought
along with them, as their companions, error and misery. When
these two evils are felt to be imminent, the soul's motion in
flight from them is called fear. Moreover, as the soul's
appetites are satisfied by things harmful or at least inane -- and
as it fails to recognize the error of its ways -- it falls victim
to unwholesome pleasures or may even be exhilarated by vain joys.
>From these tainted springs of action -- moved by the lash of
appetite rather than a feeling of plenty -- there flows out every
kind of misery which is now the lot of rational natures.
25. Yet such a nature, even in its evil state, could not
lose its appetite for blessedness. There are the evils that both
men and angels have in common, for whose wickedness God hath
condemned them in simple justice. But man has a unique penalty as
well: he is also punished by the death of the body. God had
indeed threatened man with death as penalty if he should sin. He
endowed him with freedom of the will in order that he might rule
him by rational command and deter him by the threat of death. He
even placed him in the happiness of paradise in a sheltered nook
of life [in umbra vitae] where, by being a good steward of
righteousness, he would rise to better things.
26. From this state, after he had sinned, man was banished,
and through his sin he subjected his descendants to the punishment
of sin and damnation, for he had radically corrupted them, in
himself, by his sinning. As a consequence of this, all those
descended from him and his wife (who had prompted him to sin and
who was condemned along with him at the same time) -- all those
born through carnal lust, on whom the same penalty is visited as
for disobedience -- all these entered into the inheritance of
original sin. Through this involvement they were led, through
divers errors and sufferings (along with the rebel angels, their
corruptors and possessors and companions), to that final stage of
punishment without end. "Thus by one man, sin entered into the
world and death through sin; and thus death came upon all men,
since all men have sinned."[44] By "the world" in this passage
the apostle is, of course, referring to the whole human race.
27. This, then, was the situation: the whole mass of the
human race stood condemned, lying ruined and wallowing in evil,
being plunged from evil into evil and, having joined causes with
the angels who had sinned, it was paying the fully deserved
penalty for impious desertion. Certainly the anger of God rests,
in full justice, on the deeds that the wicked do freely in blind
and unbridled lust; and it is manifest in whatever penalties they
are called on to suffer, both openly and secretly. Yet the
Creator's goodness does not cease to sustain life and vitality
even in the evil angels, for were _this_ sustenance withdrawn,
they would simply cease to exist. As for mankind, although born
of a corrupted and condemned stock, he still retains the power to
form and animate his seed, to direct his members in their temporal
order, to enliven his senses in their spatial relations, and to
provide bodily nourishment. For God judged it better to bring
good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist. And if he
had willed that there should be no reformation in the case of men,
as there is none for the wicked angels, would it not have been
just if the nature that deserted God and, through the evil use of
his powers, trampled and transgressed the precepts of his Creator,
which could have been easily kept -- the same creature who
stubbornly turned away from His Light and violated the image of
the Creator in himself, who had in the evil use of his free will
broken away from the wholesome discipline of God's law -- would it
not have been just if such a being had been abandoned by God
wholly and forever and laid under the everlasting punishment which
he deserved? Clearly God would have done this if he were only
just and not also merciful and if he had not willed to show far
more striking evidence of his mercy by pardoning some who were
unworthy of it.
CHAPTER IX
The Replacement of the Fallen Angels By
Elect Men (28-30); The Necessity of Grace (30-32)
28. While some of the angels deserted God in impious pride
and were cast into the lowest darkness from the brightness of
their heavenly home, the remaining number of the angels persevered
in eternal bliss and holiness with God. For these faithful angels
were not descended from a single angel, lapsed and damned. Hence,
the original evil did not bind them in the fetters of inherited
guilt, nor did it hand the whole company over to a deserved
punishment, as is the human lot. Instead, when he who became the
devil first rose in rebellion with his impious company and was
then with them prostrated, the rest of the angels stood fast in
pious obedience to the Lord and so received what the others had
not had -- a sure knowledge of their everlasting security in his
unfailing steadfastness.
29. Thus it pleased God, Creator and Governor of the
universe, that since the whole multitude of the angels had not
perished in this desertion of him, those who had perished would
remain forever in perdition, but those who had remained loyal
through the revolt should go on rejoicing in the certain knowledge
of the bliss forever theirs. From the other part of the rational
creation -- that is, mankind -- although it had perished as a
whole through sins and punishments, both original and personal,
God had determined that a portion of it would be restored and
would fill up the loss which that diabolical disaster had caused
in the angelic society. For this is the promise to the saints at
the resurrection, that they shall be equal to the angels of
God.[45]
Thus the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother and the commonwealth
of God, shall not be defrauded of her full quota of citizens, but
perhaps will rule over an even larger number. We know neither the
number of holy men nor of the filthy demons, whose places are to
be filled by the sons of the holy mother, who seemed barren in the
earth, but whose sons will abide time without end in the peace the
demons lost. But the number of those citizens, whether those who
now belong or those who will in the future, is known to the mind
of the Maker, "who calleth into existence things which are not, as
though they were,"[46] and "ordereth all things in measure and
number and weight."[47]
30. But now, can that part of the human race to whom God
hath promised deliverance and a place in the eternal Kingdom be
restored through the merits of their own works? Of course not!
For what good works could a lost soul do except as he had been
rescued from his lostness? Could he do this by the determination
of his free will? Of course not! For it was in the evil use of
his free will that man destroyed himself and his will at the same
time. For as a man who kills himself is still alive when he kills
himself, but having killed himself is then no longer alive and
cannot resuscitate himself after he has destroyed his own life --
so also sin which arises from the action of the free will turns
out to be victor over the will and the free will is destroyed.
"By whom a man is overcome, to this one he then is bound as
slave."[48] This is clearly the judgment of the apostle Peter.
And since it is true, I ask you what kind of liberty can one have
who is bound as a slave except the liberty that loves to sin?
He serves freely who freely does the will of his master.
Accordingly he who is slave to sin is free to sin. But thereafter
he will not be free to do right unless he is delivered from the
bondage of sin and begins to be the servant of righteousness.
This, then, is true liberty: the joy that comes in doing what is
right. At the same time, it is also devoted service in obedience
to righteous precept.
But how would a man, bound and sold, get back his liberty to
do good, unless he could regain it from Him whose voice saith, "If
the Son shall make you free, then you will be free indeed"[49]?
But before this process begins in man, could anyone glory in his
good works as if they were acts of his free will, when he is not
yet free to act rightly? He could do this only if, puffed up in
proud vanity, he were merely boasting. This attitude is what the
apostle was reproving when he said, "By grace you have been saved
by faith."[50]
31. And lest men should arrogate to themselves saving faith
as their own work and not understand it as a divine gift, the same
apostle who says somewhere else that he had "obtained mercy of the
Lord to be trustworthy"[51] makes here an additional comment: "And
this is not of yourselves, rather it is a gift of God -- not
because of works either, lest any man should boast."[52] But
then, lest it be supposed that the faithful are lacking in good
works, he added further, "For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath prepared beforehand for
us to walk in them."[53]
We are then truly free when God ordereth our lives, that is,
formeth and createth us not as men -- this he hath already done --
but also as good men, which he is now doing by his grace, that we
may indeed be new creatures in Christ Jesus.[54] Accordingly, the
prayer: "Create in me a clean heart, O God."[55] This does not
mean, as far as the natural human heart is concerned, that God
hath not already created this.
32. Once again, lest anyone glory, if not in his own works,
at least in the determination of his free will, as if some merit
had originated from him and as if the freedom to do good works had
been bestowed on him as a kind of reward, let him hear the same
herald of grace, announcing: "For it is God who is at work in you
both to will and to do according to his good will."[56] And, in
another place: "It is not therefore a matter of man's willing, or
of his running, but of God's showing mercy."[57] Still, it is
obvious that a man who is old enough to exercise his reason cannot
believe, hope, or love unless he wills it, nor could he run for
the prize of his high calling in God without a decision of his
will. In what sense, therefore, is it "not a matter of human
willing or running but of God's showing mercy," unless it be that
"the will itself is prepared by the Lord," even as it is
written?[58] This saying, therefore, that "it is not a matter of
human willing or running but of God's showing mercy," means that
the action is from both, that is to say, from the will of man and
from the mercy of God. Thus we accept the dictum, "It is not a
matter of human willing or running but of God's showing mercy," as
if it meant, "The will of man is not sufficient by itself unless
there is also the mercy of God." By the same token, the mercy of
God is not sufficient by itself unless there is also the will of
man. But if we say rightly that "it is not a matter of human
willing or running but of God's showing mercy," because the will
of man alone is not enough, why, then, is not the contrary rightly
said, "It is not a matter of God's showing mercy but of a man's
willing," since the mercy of God by itself alone is not enough?
Now, actually, no Christian would dare to say, "It is not a matter
of God's showing mercy but of man's willing," lest he explicitly
contradict the apostle. The conclusion remains, therefore, that
this saying: "Not man's willing or running but God's showing
mercy," is to be understood to mean that the whole process is
credited to God, who both prepareth the will to receive divine aid
and aideth the will which has been thus prepared.[59]
For a man's good will comes before many other gifts from God,
but not all of them. One of the gifts it does not antedate is --
just itself! Thus in the Sacred Eloquence we read both, "His
mercy goes before me,"[60] and also, "His mercy shall follow
me."[61] It predisposes a man before he wills, to prompt his
willing. It follows the act of willing, lest one's will be
frustrated. Otherwise, why are we admonished to pray for our
enemies,[62] who are plainly not now willing to live piously,
unless it be that God is even now at work in them and in their
wills?[63] Or again, why are we admonished to ask in order to
receive, unless it be that He who grants us what we will is he
through whom it comes to pass that we will? We pray for enemies,
therefore, that the mercy of God should go before them, as it goes
before us; we pray for ourselves that his mercy shall follow us.
CHAPTER X
Jesus Christ the Mediator
33. Thus it was that the human race was bound in a just doom
and all men were children of wrath. Of this wrath it is written:
"For all our days are wasted; we are ruined in thy wrath; our
years seem like a spider's web."[64] Likewise Job spoke of this
wrath: "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble."[65]
And even the Lord Jesus said of it: "He that believes in the Son
has life everlasting, but he that believes not does not have life.
Instead, the wrath of God abides in him."[66] He does not say,
"It will come," but, "It now abides." Indeed every man is born
into this state. Wherefore the apostle says, "For we too were by
nature children of wrath even as the others."[67] Since men are
in this state of wrath through original sin -- a condition made
still graver and more pernicious as they compounded more and worse
sins with it -- a Mediator was required; that is to say, a
Reconciler who by offering a unique sacrifice, of which all the
sacrifices of the Law and the Prophets were shadows, should allay
that wrath. Thus the apostle says, "For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, even more now
being reconciled by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through
him."[68] However, when God is said to be wrathful, this does not
signify any such perturbation in him as there is in the soul of a
wrathful man. His verdict, which is always just, takes the name
"wrath" as a term borrowed from the language of human feelings.
This, then, is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord --
that we are reconciled to God through the Mediator and receive the
Holy Spirit so that we may be changed from enemies into sons, "for
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God."[69]
34. It would take too long to say all that would be truly
worthy of this Mediator. Indeed, men cannot speak properly of
such matters. For who can unfold in cogent enough fashion this
statement, that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,"[70] so
that we should then believe in "the only Son of God the Father
Almighty, born of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin." Yet it is
indeed true that the Word was made flesh, the flesh being assumed
by the Divinity, not the Divinity being changed into flesh. Of
course, by the term "flesh" we ought here to understand "man," an
expression in which the part signifies the whole, just as it is
said, "Since by the works of the law no flesh shall be
justified,"[71] which is to say, no _man_ shall be justified. Yet
certainly we must say that in that assumption nothing was lacking
that belongs to human nature.
But it was a nature entirely free from the bonds of all sin.
It was not a nature born of both sexes with fleshly desires, with
the burden of sin, the guilt of which is washed away in
regeneration. Instead, it was the kind of nature that would be
fittingly born of a virgin, conceived by His mother's faith and
not her fleshly desires. Now if in his being born, her virginity
had been destroyed, he would not then have been born of a virgin.
It would then be false (which is unthinkable) for the whole Church
to confess him "born of the Virgin Mary." This is the Church
which, imitating his mother, daily gives birth to his members yet
remains virgin. Read, if you please, my letter on the virginity
of Saint Mary written to that illustrious man, Volusianus, whom I
name with honor and affection.[72]
35. Christ Jesus, Son of God, is thus both God and man. He
was God before all ages; he is man in this age of ours. He is God
because he is the Word of God, for "the Word was God."[73] Yet he
is man also, since in the unity of his Person a rational soul and
body is joined to the Word.
Accordingly, in so far as he is God, he and the Father are
one. Yet in so far as he is man, the Father is greater than he.
Since he was God's only Son -- not by grace but by nature -- to
the end that he might indeed be the fullness of all grace, he was
also made Son of Man -- and yet he was in the one nature as well
as in the other, one Christ. "For being in the form of God, he
judged it not a violation to be what he was by nature, the equal
of God. Yet he emptied himself, taking on the form of a
servant,"[74] yet neither losing nor diminishing the form of
God.[75] Thus he was made less and remained equal, and both these
in a unity as we said before. But he is one of these because he
is the Word; the other, because he was a man. As the Word, he is
the equal of the Father; as a man, he is less. He is the one Son
of God, and at the same time Son of Man; the one Son of Man, and
at the same time God's Son. These are not two sons of God, one
God and the other man, but _one_ Son of God -- God without origin,
man with a definite origin -- our Lord Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER XI
The Incarnation as Prime Example
of the Action of God's Grace
36. In this the grace of God is supremely manifest,
commended in grand and visible fashion; for what had the human
nature in the man Christ merited, that it, and no other, should be
assumed into the unity of the Person of the only Son of God? What
good will, what zealous strivings, what good works preceded this
assumption by which that particular man deserved to become one
Person with God? Was he a man before the union, and was this
singular grace given him as to one particularly deserving before
God? Of course not! For, from the moment he began to be a man,
that man began to be nothing other than God's Son, the only Son,
and this because the Word of God assuming him became flesh, yet
still assuredly remained God. Just as every man is a personal
unity -- that is, a unity of rational soul and flesh -- so also is
Christ a personal unity: Word and man.
Why should there be such great glory to a human nature -- and
this undoubtedly an act of grace, no merit preceding unless it be
that those who consider such a question faithfully and soberly
might have here a clear manifestation of God's great and sole
grace, and this in order that they might understand how they
themselves are justified from their sins by the selfsame grace
which made it so that the man Christ had no power to sin? Thus
indeed the angel hailed his mother when announcing to her the
future birth: "Hail," he said, "full of grace." And shortly
thereafter, "You have found favor with God."[76] And this was
said of her, that she was full of grace, since she was to be
mother of her Lord, indeed the Lord of all. Yet, concerning
Christ himself, when the Evangelist John said, "And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us," he added, "and we beheld his
glory, a glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and
truth."[77] When he said, "The Word was made flesh," this means,
"Full of grace." When he also said, "The glory of the only
begotten of the Father," this means, "Full of truth." Indeed it
was Truth himself, God's only begotten Son -- and, again, this not
by grace but by nature -- who, by grace, assumed human nature into
such a personal unity that he himself became the Son of Man as
well.
37. This same Jesus Christ, God's one and only Son our Lord,
was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Now obviously
the Holy Spirit is God's gift, a gift that is itself equal to the
Giver; wherefore the Holy Spirit is God also, not inferior to the
Father and the Son. Now what does this mean, that Christ's birth
in respect to his human nature was of the Holy Spirit, save that
this was itself also a work of grace?
For when the Virgin asked of the angel the manner by which
what he announced would come to pass (since she had known no man),
the angel answered: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the
power of the Most High shall overshadow you; therefore the Holy
One which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of
God."[78] And when Joseph wished to put her away, suspecting
adultery (since he knew she was not pregnant by him), he received
a similar answer from the angel: "Do not fear to take Mary as your
wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Spirit"[79] -- that is, "What you suspect is from another man is
of the Holy Spirit."
CHAPTER XII
The Role of the Holy Spirit
38. Are we, then, to say that the Holy Spirit is the Father
of Christ's human nature, so that as God the Father generated the
Word, so the Holy Spirit generated the human nature, and that from
both natures Christ came to be one, Son of God the Father as the
Word, Son of the Holy Spirit as man? Do we suppose that the Holy
Spirit is his Father through begetting him of the Virgin Mary?
Who would dare to say such a thing? There is no need to show by
argument how many absurd consequences such a notion has, when it
is so absurd in itself that no believer's ear can bear to hear it.
Actually, then, as we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God
from God yet born as man of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
there is in each nature (in both the divine and the human) the
only Son of God the Father Almighty, from whom proceeds the Holy
Spirit.
How, then, do we say that Christ is born of the Holy Spirit,
if the Holy Spirit did not beget him? Is it because he made him?
This might be, since through our Lord Jesus Christ -- in the form
of God -- all things were made. Yet in so far as he is man, he
himself was made, even as the apostle says: "He was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh."[80] But since that
creature which the Virgin conceived and bore, though it was
related to the Person of the Son alone, was made by the whole
Trinity -- for the works of the Trinity are not separable -- why
is the Holy Spirit named as the One who made it? Is it, perhaps,
that when any One of the Three is named in connection with some
divine action, the whole Trinity is to be understood as involved
in that action? This is true and can be shown by examples, but we
should not dwell too long on this kind of solution.
For what still concerns us is how it can be said, "Born of
(continued in part 2...)
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file: /pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01: agenc-02.txt
.