On the Dignity of the Human Condition

Which image is to be considered more diligently from the nobility of the inner man.

First indeed, just as God is one and is always and everywhere wholly present, giving life to all things, moving and governing them, as the Apostle affirms: In him we live, and move, and have our being; so the soul is wholly vigorous everywhere in its body, giving it life, moving it, and governing it. For it is not greater in the greater members of the body, and lesser in the lesser ones; but it is whole in the smallest parts, and whole in the largest. And this is the image of the unity of almighty God, which the soul has in itself. Which also has a certain image of the holy Trinity. First, in this: that as God is, lives, and knows, so the soul, in its own manner, is, lives, and knows.

There is also another trinity in it, by which, made after the image of its Creator—of that perfect and supreme Trinity which is constituted of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—it, though of one nature, yet has in itself three dignities, that is, understanding, will, and memory. The same thing, though in other words, is designated in the Gospel, when it is said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, that is, with thy whole understanding, and with thy whole will, and with thy whole memory.

For as the Son is begotten from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; so the will is begotten from the understanding, and from these two together likewise proceeds the memory, as can easily be understood by any wise person; for the soul cannot be perfect without these three, nor can any one of these three, so far as pertains to its own blessedness, be complete without the other two: and as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is God, and yet they are not three gods, but one God having three persons; so also the soul is understanding, the soul is will, the soul is memory, yet not three souls in one body, but one soul having three dignities.

And in these three our inner man wondrously bears his image in his own nature, from which, as it were from the more excellent dignities of the soul, we are commanded to love the Creator; so that in the measure he is understood, he may be loved: and in the measure he is loved, he may always be held in memory. Nor does understanding alone concerning him suffice, unless the will comes to be in love of him: nay, neither do these two suffice, unless memory be added, by which God may always remain in the mind of the one who understands and loves; so that just as there can be no moment in which man does not use or enjoy the goodness and mercy of God, so there ought to be no moment in which memory does not hold him present.

And therefore, most beloved son, it seems to me rightly said that the inner man is the image of God; for the whole inner man is called the soul, by which that clayey mass, moistened with its humors, is given life, ruled, and held together, lest, having dried out, it dissolve. God is called that power ineffably great, and innumerably wise, as it is written: Great is our Lord, and great is his power, and of his wisdom there is no number; and incomparably sweet, as is said elsewhere: The Lord is sweet to all, and his mercies are over all his works.

From whom, and through whom, and in whom are all things that are; all things that are, are ruled; all things that are, are contained: I mean by all things the whole universe itself, which is the totality of what is other than he who made it, and was not made: but he himself is that from which, and he who is from it, and that by which; because God, that from which he is, is called by us, poor in understanding, poorer still in words, the Father; because he who is from him, is called the Son: because that by which, is called the Holy Spirit. And therefore he is called God the Father; because he himself is that from which, and he is wisdom, by which all things are ordered: and love, by which all things wish to remain so ordered as they are.

From that, then, from which, and he who is from it, and that by which they love one another, these two are themselves three, and those three are therefore one; because the two are so from the one, that yet they are not separated from it: but they are from it, because not from themselves; and in it, because not separated: and the one is that which the other is, and the other is that which the one is; and yet the one is not that one who is the other, nor the other that other which is the one. This power is God, and God himself is three, and each one of these three is God, and all three of them together are not gods, but God.

To his own image, then, as has been said, the Creator made the soul of man, which is called the whole soul. Yet I do not mean anything else of man than the soul, when I say mind: but for one reason it is called soul, and for another reason mind. For the whole that lives is the soul of man: but when the soul acts within itself, upon itself, from itself, and through itself, it is usually called mind alone; but the sense, fulfilling its own ministries, is more commonly called soul. The mind, therefore, begets knowing, and loves to know what it knows. I do not mean by "knowing" that by which some particular thing is suddenly known, which before was thought unknown: but that from which both something and everything, whether known or unknown, can be known. That knowing, then, the mind begets, and when it has been begotten, it can be called knowledge. There are, then, already two: the mind, and what the mind itself knows: there remains a third, common to both.

Every mind loves to know whatever it knows. Love exists between no fewer than two, the one who loves and that which is loved. There is, then, one love of both, which is also the third. Nor can it be denied that this whole is one soul, and that one soul is these three things; for just as these three are truly one soul, so no less truly this one thing, and this other, and this third, are one soul.

Let this creature, then, so eminent, compare itself to its Creator, who is supereminent above it, except in this—and it is a very great exception—that all goodness, and every good, and the sweetness of all goodness and of every good of the Creator, is from himself; but the creature, not only what it is, but even that it is such, is from another, not from itself; whereas he himself, what he is, always is. Although the soul itself in a certain manner of its own is unchangeable; for it always is soul, once it has begun to be, and it knows, and wills to know. Let the soul, then, compare itself, as I have said, in the way it can, to its Creator; so that the mind may be called Father, because it begets knowing; let knowing be called Son, because it is from another, and is not other than that very thing which he is from whom it is; let love be called Holy Spirit, because it belongs to both of those who love one another.

Whence in our Scriptures love, that is, charity, which is in God toward us, and which is from us toward God, is very often called the Spirit itself: and this concerning the image, most beloved son, do you hold.

—Now, however, understand something concerning the likeness, which is to be discerned by lesser minds; namely, that as God the Creator, who created man to his own likeness, is charity, is good and just, patient and gentle, pure and merciful, and the other marks of the holy virtues which are read of him: so man was created that he might have charity, that he might be good and just, that he might be patient and gentle, pure and merciful. The more of these virtues anyone has in himself, the nearer he is to God, and the greater likeness he bears of his Creator. But if, God forbid, anyone, through the byways of vices and the divorces of crimes, wanders degenerate from this most noble likeness of his Creator, then there will come to pass concerning him what is written: And man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts, and is become like unto them.

What greater honor could there be for man, than to be created after the likeness of his Maker, and to be adorned with the same garments of virtues with which the Creator himself is adorned, of whom it is read: The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty; that is, adorned with the splendor of all virtues, and with the beauty of all goodness? Or what greater disgrace can there be for man, or more unhappy misery, than that, having lost this glory of likeness to his Creator, he should slide down into the shapeless and irrational likeness of brute beasts?

Wherefore, most beloved, let each one attend more diligently to the excellence of his first condition, and acknowledge in himself the venerable image of the holy Trinity, and let him strive, by nobility of morals, by exercise of virtues, by the dignity of merits, to hold fast the honor of the divine likeness for which he was created; so that when it appears what he is, he may then appear like him who wondrously created him after his own likeness in the first Adam, and more wondrously reformed him in the second.