Letter 241: Augustine denies believing in a three-formed God and asks for written debate.

Pascentius, from Augustine. Your letter could neither provoke me into returning insults nor keep me from returning a letter. The things you wrote would have moved me if they had been spoken from the truth of God and not from human power. You said that my judgment was "a crooked and knotty tree, with nothing straight in it, which distorts the line of sight." What would you have said about me if I had been the one who withdrew from the agreement we had made together in the morning, and if, in a very easy matter that had rightly been agreed, I had put forward a crooked refusal and a knot of difficulty? You would not have judged me a man gulping muddy water, but a man drowned in the drunkenness of bad faith, which is much worse, if after lunch I had not returned as the same person I was before lunch. But see: did you not write back what you wanted and fear no slander? You can do the rest in the same way, so that there may be something for us ourselves, or for others, to consider and judge. As for your saying that I believe in a three-formed person of God, perhaps you would not say this if you had deigned to read the other, somewhat longer writing I sent and had wanted to answer what was written there. Still, here is the very claim that I say there is a three-formed person of God: you dictated it, sent it in writing, and feared no slander. You have shown that what I say is true: when we were together, you did not refuse to dictate your words, as we had agreed, because you feared slander, but because you did not trust the truth. Now, since it has pleased you to dictate whether I believe in a three-formed person of God, I answer that I do not believe this. There is one form, because there is one, if I may put it this way, Godhead; and therefore Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God. I ask you to deign to answer briefly how you understand what the apostle says: "He who joins himself to a prostitute is one body"; but "he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit." The bodies of different sexes joined to one another, he called one body. And although a human spirit can in no way say, "I and the Lord are one," still, when it clings to the Lord, it is one spirit. How much more is he who most truly said, "I and the Father are one," because he clings inseparably to the Father, himself and the Father one God? If indeed this word "clings" can be admitted in that divinity at all, where there never has been and never could be any distance separating them. Answer this: whether you are pleased to call the spirit two-formed when the one who clings to the Lord is one spirit. If this does not please you, neither have I called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit a three-formed God, but one God. If you want us to speak in person, I am grateful for your courtesy and good will. But just as you have now deigned to write back something else you wished, so deign to write back that we will dictate what we are going to say, and I will not fail your wish as much as the Lord helps me. For "if you write and I write" does not build us up; how will "you speak and I speak" build us up, if after the noise of words we find nothing to review by reading? I, Augustine, dictated these things and, after rereading them, signed them. Let us abstain from insults, so that we do not spend time emptily, and let us attend instead to the matter at issue between us.

EPISTOLA 241 Incerti temporis; scripta post superiorem. A. Pascentio convicium, quod scl. triformem Deum crederet, refutans profitensque Deum unum esse (n. l); conflictum non detrectat si excipiantur quae dicantur (n. 2). PASCENTIO AUGUSTINUS A. negat se credere triformem Deum. 1. Litterae tuae nec ad reddenda convicia me provocare, nec a reddendis litteris revocare potuerunt. Ea quippe quae scripsisti, moverent me, si a veritate Dei non a potestate hominis dicerentur. Dixisti: "consilium meum arborem curvam et nodosam, quae nihil in se rectum habet, et aciem pervertit oculorum" 1. Quid in me diceres, si a placito quod inter nos mane statueramus, ego recessissem, et in re facillima quae recte placuerat, curvam refragationem et nodos difficultatis posuissem? Neque enim aqua coenosa ingurgitatum me iudicares, sed perfidiae, quod multo peius est, ebrietate submersum, si non talis post prandium rediissem, qualis ante prandium recessissem. Sed ecce numquid non rescripsisti quod voluisti, et nullam calumniam formidasti? Sic ergo potes et caetera, ut sit quod vel nos ipsi, vel alii possint considerare et iudicare. Quod enim dicis triformem Dei personam me credere, si legere dignatus fuisses quod aliud aliquanto prolixius misi, et ad ea quae ibi scripta sunt respondere voluisses; hoc fortasse non diceres. Sed tamen ecce et hoc ipsum quod triformem Dei personam dicam, et dictasti, et conscriptum misisti, et nullam calumniam timuisti: ecce ostendisti verum esse quod dico, non ideo te, sicut placuerat cum simul essemus, verba tua dictare noluisse, quia calumniam timebas, sed quia de veritate non confidebas. Modo quia iam tibi placuit dictare an triformem Dei personam credam; respondeo me non ita credere: una quippe forma est, quia una, ut ita dicam, deitas, et ideo unus Deus Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus. Tres divinas personas esse unum Deum. 2. Tu autem, peto, digneris breviter respondere quomodo accipias quod ait Apostolus: Qui adhaeret meretrici, unum corpus est; qui autem adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est 2. Diversi enim sexus corpora sibi adhaerentia, unum corpus dixit. Et cum spiritus humanus nullo modo possit dicere: "Ego et Dominus unum sumus"; tamen cum adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est: quanto magis ille qui verissime dixit: Ego et Pater unum sumus 3, quia inseparabiliter Patri cohaeret, ipse et Pater unus Deus est? Si tamen vel hoc verbum admittitur in illa divinitate, ut dicamus, cohaeret, quod numquam omnino vel fuit vel esse poterit ulla distantia separatum. Ad hoc responde, utrum tibi placeat biformem spiritum dici, quando qui adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est. Quod si tibi non placet, nec ego triformem Deum dixi Patrem et Filium et Spiritum sanctum, sed unum Deum. Si autem in praesentia vis ut colloquamur, gratiam quidem habeo dignationi et benevolentiae tuae. Sed sicut iam mihi aliud quod voluisti rescribere dignatus es; ita dignare rescribere dictaturos nos esse quae dicturi sumus, et non deero voluntati tuae, quantum me adiuverit Dominus. Nam "si scribis et scribo" non nos aedificat; quomodo nos aedificat "dicis et dico", ubi post verborum strepitum non inveniamus quod legendo recenseamus? Augustinus haec dictavi, et relectis subscripsi. Abstineamus nos a conviciis, ne tempus inaniter impendamus; et ad id quod agitur inter nos potius advertamus.