TWOGIG
Contra Maximinum
Augustine : Contra Maximinum : Verse 8
The Debate with Maximinus is a stenographic record of an encounter between Augustine, the Catholic Bishop of Hippo, and Maximinus, an Arian Bishop. Maximinus had been sent to Hippo in 427 by Sigiswulf, a Goth who led a Roman army to Africa in order to suppress a rebellion. Maximinus was an intelligent and well spoken Arian, and the record of this debate presents one of the fullest extent articulations of Homoian Arianism. This form of Arianism was originally brought to the Goths by Ulfila and ratified at the Council of Ariminum. Like Arianism in general, Homoian Arianism asserted that the Son was created by the Father and that the Holy Spirit was created by the Son; therefore, the Son is inferior to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son. On account of this inferiority, the Son is of a substance similar to that of the Father ( homoiousios ) instead of being of the same substance as the Father ( homoousios ) which was the orthodox position. The text itself presents the public debate between the 73 year old Augustine and Maximinus, who was probably 10 years younger. Both were skilled rhetoricians and well versed in the Scriptures. The two began by responding to each other briefly, but, as the debate proceeded, their responses grew considerably until Maximinus began a lengthy discourse which encompassed half of the entire debate. Augustine then complained that no time remained for him to respond. He
promised at the end to write and publish a full response, which he did shortly afterwards called, Answer to Maximinus the Arian. Maximinus seems to have won the debate, at least in the eyes of the crowd, based on the fact that Augustine felt the need to write an extended response. Arianism, then, remained a pressing issue for the elderly bishop of Hippo who was concerned about his congregation falling into Arianism.
(RJN, Abstract of”'Debate with Maximinus' in Arianism and Other Heresies by R. Teske (1995)", 2009, Online Medieval Sources Bibliography. <medievalsourcesbibliography.org/sources.php?id=2146116820>)
Note: Types of Interpretation for Augustine
Literal: what the actual things are ...three things to have issued from the body of the Lord when he hung upon the tree
Allegory: what they denote as signs ... spirit = Father (John 4:24); blood = Son (John 1:14); water = Holy Spirit (John 7:39)
Contra Maximinum, Lib. II. C. 22 §3
1 John 5:7-8. Tres sunt testes; spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis; et tres unum sunt.
[Augustine] I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith,”There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one.”Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said,”the three are one:” for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the matter. For these are mystical expressions, in which the point always to be considered is, not what the actual things are, but what they denote as signs: since they are signs of things, and what they are in their essence is one thing, what they are in their signification another.
[Augustine] If then we understand the things signified, we do find these things to be of one substance. Thus, if we should say, the rock and the water are one, meaning by the Rock, Christ; by the water, the Holy Ghost: who doubts that rock and water are two different substances? yet because Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature, therefore when one says, the rock and the water are one, this can be rightly taken in this behalf, that these two things of which the nature is diverse, are signs of other things of which the nature is one.
[Augustine] Three things then we know to have issued from the Body of the Lord when He hung upon the tree: first, the spirit: of which it is written,”And He bowed the head and gave up the spirit:”(John 19:30) then, as His side was pierced by the spear, ”blood and water.”(cf. John 19:34) Which three things if we look at as they are in themselves, they are in substance several and distinct, and therefore they are not one.
[Augustine] But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, ”There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One:” so that by the term Spirit we should understand God the Father to be signified; as indeed it was concerning the worshipping of Him that the Lord was speaking, when He said,”God is a Spirit:”(John 4:24) by the term, blood, the Son; because”the Word was made flesh:” (John 1:14) and by the term water, the Holy Ghost; as, when Jesus spake of the water which He would give to them that thirst, the evangelist saith, ”But this said He of the Spirit which they that believed on Him were to receive.” (John 7:39)
[Augustine] Moreover, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are”Witnesses, ”who that believes the Gospel can doubt, when the Son saith, ”I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me, He beareth witness of me.” (John 8:18) Where, though the Holy Ghost is not mentioned, yet He is not to be thought separated from them. Howbeit neither concerning the Spirit hath He kept silence elsewhere, and that He too is a witness hath been sufficiently and openly shown. For in promising Him He said, ”He shall bear witness of me.” (John 15:26) These are the”Three Witnesses,”and the”Three are One,” because of one substance.
[Augustine] But whereas, the signs by which they were signified came forth from the Body of the Lord, herein they figured the Church preaching the Trinity, that it hath one and the same nature: since these Three in threefold manner signified are One, and the Church that preacheth them is the Body of Christ. In this manner then the three things by which they are signified came out from the Body: of the Lord: like as from the Body of the Lord sounded forth the command to ”baptize the nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”(Matt 28:19) ”In the name:”not, In the names: for”these Three are One,”and One God is these Three.
[Augustine] And if in any other way this depth of mystery which we read in John's epistle can be expounded and understood agreeably with the Catholic faith, which neither confounds nor divides the Trinity, neither believes the substances diverse nor denies that the persons are three, it is on no account to be rejected. For whenever in Holy Scriptures in order to exercise the minds of the faithful any thing is put darkly, it is to be joyfully welcomed if it can be in many ways but not unwisely expounded.
Augustine, Contra Maximinum, Lib. II. C. 22 §3.; Translated by W. Smith, vol 11, 1883, p. 1231-1233; Migne Latina, PL 42.794
Comment:
[Burgess] For with Augustine’s sense of ”unum” in the eighth verse, which he limited to ”one in substance", he could not interpret the eighth verse otherwise than he did, even if the seventh verse had been before him. [PAGE 33] For he understood πνεῦμα, ὕδωρ, and αἷμα, of the eighth verse to mean, literally, Christ’s ”expiration” on the cross, and the ”water” and ”blood” which issued from his side. These he knew were things not of ”one substance", and therefore, to be consistent with his own interpretation of ”unum", he was compelled to resort to allegory, and to interpret the three terms before mentioned of the three Persons of the Trinity. It was not therefore to ”extract the doctrine” of the Trinity from the eighth verse, that he had recourse to his ”forced, indirect, and unnatural interpretation", as Mr. Porson allows it to be, (for Augustine leaves it to his readers to choose any other sense, not inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity, that is, with the doctrine of the preceding verse,) but it was the unavoidable consequence of his limited sense of the word”unum", and his not observing that [PAGE 34] the original text was not simply ”ἑν", but ”εἰς ἑν” or ”εἰς το ἑν".
(Burgess, A letter to the clergy of the diocese of St. David's on a passage of the second Symbolum Antiochenum of the fourth century as an evidence of the authenticity of 1 John v. 7, 1825, p. 32-34)
[P. Cullen] According to the mystic interpretation by St. Augustine, we're supposed to signify the three Divine Persons. But we reply, 1) this interpretation was quite unheard of before St. Augustine’s time; 2) St. Augustine had recourse to this mystic signification solely to support his too Wide assertion, that in Scripture the word ”unum” was not applied to more things than one, unless they were consubstantial. Nor did he advance this mystic interpretation as certain, or necessary, but merely by way of conjecture to meet objections brought against hermeneutical canon. Hence he would never have adduced his the eighth verse as a clear proof of unity and trinity. And this interpretation, unknown before Augustine’s time, was not adopted after his day by any save a few influenced oy his authority, and in itself is too far fetched and improbable.
(Cullen, ”The Authenticity of the Text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses” in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol 4, 1868, p. 196-197)
