Saint Augustine: Dogmatic Works on the Trinity
Download:
Book Summary:
Saint Augustine was still young when he began his books on the Trinity, which is, he says, the sovereign and true God. However, he did not publish them until his old age, around the year 411. It was at the request of Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, to whom he addressed them with a letter that can serve as their preface.
This work is divided into fifteen books and can be regarded as a complete treatise on this ineffable mystery. It is indeed both dogmatic and moral.
Saint Augustine begins by dismissing any false and erroneous idea of God, such as one formed by representing Him as a corporeal substance or a limited and consequently imperfect spirit. For God, he adds, is infinite, immense, and incomprehensible.
Also read | Satan, Hell, Demons: Exorcism by a Catholic Priest – Documentary
In the first three books, he proves the unity of the divine essence and the Trinity of persons; the fourth deals with the mystery of the Incarnation, and the fifth is a refutation of the principal sophisms of heretics.
In the other books, he attempts to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity, using for this purpose comparisons drawn from man. Although these comparisons are, in themselves, very imperfect, they nonetheless shed some light on a subject so far above all created intelligence.
This work by Saint Augustine has always been cited with praise by all of Christian antiquity; but Cassiodorus says that its reading requires strong application and great penetration, because it is of singular subtlety and elevation. One can therefore easily conceive all the difficulties of a good translation.
This is why, while first of all claiming the indulgence of my readers, I disavow in advance any expression that does not fully convey the meaning of the holy Doctor, or that might not be of rigorously theological exactitude.
For on this mystery, as on all points of Christian doctrine, I wish to think and speak only in conformity with the holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church.