Abstract
The essay is devoted to finding the similarities and differences between the Trinitarian doctrine of St. Augustine and that of the Great Cappadocian Fathers. As a result of this careful analysis of the texts of St. Augustine and of comparitive texts of the Cappadocian Fathers the author draws the conclusion that the Trinitarian doctrine of St. Augustine is strikingly different from the Trinitarian doctrine of the Great Cappadocian Fathers and of other Eastern Fathers, because, first of all, Augustine has consciously refused to draw a distinction in the Godhead between essence generically conceived (as common) and hypostatis as an individual (as special). In addition he has identified the hypostaseis of the Holy Trinity with certain Divine properties or abilities, such as being, intellect and will, which the Cappadocian Fathers ascribed to the one Divine essence or nature of the Holy Trinity. Finally, in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Augustine mixed theological and economical aspects and consequently came to an inadmissible (from the point of view of the Cappadocian Fathers) doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus the author believes that the Trinitarian doctrine of Augustine and many other western theologians, who followed him, can be characterized as a kind of modalism or, at least, a functionalism.
Please note that the translator of this article, used the Roman Catholic translation of De Trinitate of Augustine, and the Russian author used the Russian version, hence there may be pagination variances.)
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Notes
It should be noted that the trinitarian doctrine of Augustine was formed under the influence of another Latin of the Fourth Century, Marius Victorinus. Look at my article in Alfa and Omega,#23.
This is what we find in the Categories.
Here, we might include the notion of physis (nature).
Basil, Magn. Ep. 214: Ei de dei...
Basil, Magn. Ep. 189 (Gr. Nyss.): ean de mian....
This formula can also be found in Origen.
It is right for Tertullian.
Probably it was under the influence of the Neoplatonic doctrine of the One. Plotinus himself considered that the categories are applicable but only to the material world, not to the intelligible one, and absolutely refuted them when it came to the One. In the Nous part of these categories (essence, quality, quantity) and as well, life and wisdom coincide with one another. See the Sophist.
Among the Western theologians, one can find such doctrine such as in Marius Victorinus: “for the eternal beings to be (esse)is identical with to live (vivere) and to think (intelligere, Adv. Arium,IV, 25). Victorinus himself refers to Plato’s dialogue, the Sophist. In his Confessions (IV, 29), Augustine says that earlier he applied the ten categories to God, though later he dropped them. ”I thought that whatever existed had to be included under these ten predicaments. In this way, I attempted to understand even yourself, my God, who are most wonderfully simple and incommunicable, as if you were subject to your greatness and beauty in such wise that they would be in you as in a subject, just as they are in bodies. But you yourself are your greatness and your beauty. On the other hand, a body is not great or beautiful in so far as it is a body, for even if it were smaller and less beautiful, it would yet remain a body.“ It is a special theme, connected with the doctrine of ideas, where the essence conincides with an attribute, single one (substantia)with general (essential Lk. De Trinit. V, 11). We suppose that Augustine wants by this to express that essentially true thought that God possesses attributes by nature (essence), but not through communication, as a creature (the same manner as Plato’s idea that what it is, a thing is through communication with idea. However, the form which Augustine used for this is, in my mind, false, for it completely eliminates the boundary between the incomprehensible, unsearchable essence of God and His communicable energies. It is worthy to note that Augustine himself uses ten categories when he says that not everything we speak about God refers to his essence (substantia, secundum substantiam),but also refers to relation (ad liquid) (De Trinit. V, 6). Besides, Augustine says that other categories are applicable to God, such as situation, time, space, et. al.,not in the proper sense (non propre) but figuratively (translate) or analogically (per similitudines)(De Trin.,V, 9). The same idea is found in Augustine’s De Trinitate,VII, 10, X, 13. Note that such doctrine is opposed to one of the Cappadocian Fathers, who widely used the Aristotelian categories in his trinitarian doctrine. However, Augustine defends his position with great energy and persistence in the majority of his dogmatical works (On Faith and Free Will,IX, the Confessions,IV, 29, On Some Dogmatical Questions, On the Holy Trinity,V, 6, VI, 6, VII, 2, 10, The City of God,XI, 10, et. al.). He even suggests that those not able to understand him should still purify their hearts (LK. De fide et symbolo,IX). However, it is this doctrine that constitutes the main difference between Western and Eastern theology. But the differences arise not only with trinitarian questions (10, Basil Magn.,Ep. 234).
Basil Magn., Ep. 2:3, 4: “But God, he says, is simple, and whatever attribute you have reckoned as knowable is of His essence. But the absurdities involved in this sophism are innumerable. When all these high attributes have been enumerated, are they all names of one essence? And is there the same mutual force in His awfulness and His loving—kindness, His justice and His creative power, His providence and His foreknowledge, His bestowal of rewards and punishments, and His majesty? In mentioning any one of these do we declare His essence? If they say yes, let them not ask if we know the essence of God, but let them inquire of us whether we know God to be awful, or just, or merciful. These we confess that we know. If they say that essence is something distinct, let them not put us in the wrong on the score of simplicity. For they confess themselves that there is a distinction between the essence and each one of the attributes enumerated. The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to come near essence. His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach.
Basil Magn. Ep 2:3,6: “Those who identify essence or substance and hypostasis are compelled to confess only three Persons, and, in their hesitation to speak of three hypostsis, are convinced of failure to avoid the error of Sabellius, for even Sabellius himself, who in many places confuses the conception, yet, by asserting that the same hypostasis changed its form to meet the needs of the moment, does endeavor to distinguish persons.”
There is an answer offered by St. Gregory of Nyssa to Bishop Ablabius, who asked him a similar question. Gregory pointed out first, that men too could not be called in a proper sense, as many men, but one man, and second, that the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity is not divided by time, nor place, nor position, nor thoughts, nor operations, nor will, but they abide in one another and have the sameness in everything, besides hypostasis, attributes, which are expressions of causality and their origin: “Unbegotten—ness, begotten—ness, procession or being without cause, being from direct cause, being through that which had cause.”
It is noteworthy that sometimes Augustine himself recognizes that he doesn’t know what the difference lies between essence and hypostasis according to the Greek Fathers: “And they (Greeks) say: Hypostasis,but I don’t know how, according to their opinion, this is different from essence,Dicunt quidem et illi hypostasis; sed nescio quid volant interesse inter usiam et hypostasis, De Trinit.,V, 10).
Compare Gregory of Niziance, Orat. 29.
It is not frequently that Augustine mentions traditional hypostatical attributes, such as: inbegotten, begotten, proceeding (ingenious, genius, procedens, De Trinit.,V, 4, 8, 15; XV, 47; De fide et symbolo,IX). Comp. with Greg. Nza. Orat.,29.).
Before Augustine, it was his predecessor, Marius Victorinus, who in order to understand the mystery of God’s Tri—unity (Archetype), turned also to an analysis of human individual consciousness as reflecting in itself the image of God: “[Human] soul (anima),he says, being the incorporeal substance, possesses the definition and likeness,—vital power (vitalem potentiam),and intelligence, i.e., she has two powers (bipotens). For it is life—giving, endowing the power to every living creature, and has intelligence, though darkened, but of the same essence; and thus, all these powers are of the same essence with one another. There is one being (unum,on) though possessing with double power in a single movement, life and thinking. Adv., Ar.,1, 22).” Our soul possesses being, life and thinking, therefore the soul is the image of the Most High Trinity“ (superiors Triados anima ests ut imago imagines), Adv. Ar. 1,63). We can find these traits as well in Augustine, but not so often as others: omnes tarnen se intelligere nonertunt, et esse et vivre, sed intelligere ad id quod intelligent referrunt, esse autem et vivere ad se ipsas. Et nulli est dubium, nec quemquam intelligere qui non vivat, nec quemquam vivere qui non sit. Ergo consequenter et esse et vivere id quod intelligit, non sicuit est cadaver quod non vivit, nec sicuti vivat anima qua non intelligit, sed proprio quondam eodemque praestantiore modo. Iteemvelle se sciunt, neque hoc posse quemquam qui non sit et qui non vivat, pariter sciunt: itemque ipsa voluntatem referent ad liquid, quod ea voluntate volant (De Trinit.X,13; also De libero arbitrio, lib. 2, cap. 3).
Generally speaking, such discourse was known in the East before Augustine. Moreover, the psychological analogy was among the most favorable both in the West and in the East, especially among pre—Nicean theologians. It is found even in St. Athanasius and the Cappadocians, but the latter use it very little in comparison to the other anthropological analogies, where there is one human nature and a plurality of human hypostasis,possessing a given nature. Comp. Basil Magn. Ep. 38.
Gregory of Nyssa includes subsistence, free will, power and goodness in Hypostasis,(Orat, Cat.Cap. 1–4).
Augustine does not consider these three attributes as simple, but rather as truth about God. See the Confess. XIII.
It is worth noting that in God, the distinction of any attributes or abilities contradicts the claim of Augustine himself regarding their complete identity with the Divine essence (see above). Besides, there is a question that remains: Why did Augustine hypostisize only these three attributes, while at the same time fail to see these three attributes as separate Divine Persons (as for instance, all—mighty—ness, goodness, justice, eternity)? He partly answers this question when he reduces the secondary attributes to the primal ones, but this move is nonetheless not a real answer.
In an earlier period (c. 393 A.D.), in his treatise, Defide et Symbolo,cap. IX, Augustine recognized that God the Father was the only source of the Godhead.
Sometimes, Augustine speaks about the proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father only. Cf. De Trinit. IV, 20, XV, 17, Enchir. 9, 38 ).
In that notion Augustine has succeeded, maybe, to express most clearly the idea of the hypostasity of the first two persons of the Holy Trinity, but at the expense of de—hypostasizing the Third Person. Besides, it is appropriate to mention here that according to the Cappadocian doctrine, love is the common attribute, or operation, of all Hypostases of the Holy Trinity, relating to Nature, not to Hypostases.
Translation of A. J. Sidorov (the editor made some changes). See Orat. Domin. Expositio; Cap. De charitate II, 29; Cap. Theol. III; Ambiqua PG 91, 1133cd; 1260d, etc.
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Fokin, A. (2003). St Augustine’s Doctrine of the Trinity in the Light of Orthodox Triadology of the Fourth Century. In: Stewart, M.Y. (eds) The Trinity. Studies in Philosophy and Religion, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0393-2_12
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