Alcuin, De fide sanctæ et individuæ trinitatis

[Steven Avery]

RGA
Alcuin, De fide sanctæ et individuæ trinitatis I.11, PL 101:19-20

Et hæc tria unum, et vere unum; et hoc unum tres, sed non tres Patres, nec tres Filii, nec tres Spiritus sancti; sed tres personæ, unus Pater, unus Filius, unus Spiritus sanctus. Et hi tres, id est, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus, unum sunt in natura, omnipotentia, et æternitate

See also the Invocatio ad ss. trinitatem, et fidei symbolum ejusdem constituting book III of the same treatise, PL 101:57:

“Et hæc tria unus Deus, et unus Deus hæc tria; idem Deus et Dominus [ms Sanct-Germ.: Et hæc tria unus Deus et unus Dominus; hæc tria idem Deus et Dominus] vera et sempiterna Trinitas in personis, vera et sempiterna unitas in substantia, quia una est substantia Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus.”

 

[Steven Avery]

WOGIG references the above, but for the Alcuin HIT uses the Revelation Commentary.

Comment:
[Dales] In a letter to his friend, Arno Archbishop of Salzburg, written in 802, Alcuin mentioned the completion of
his recent book ["...which I recently wrote concerning the Catholic Faith and directed to our Lord Emperor through
this boy (who ferried correspondence). In no way let this little book slip from your hands, but by all means make a
copy so that you have one, because it is very necessary to know willingly the Catholic faith in which the highest
things of our salvation consist.”Alcuin. Epistola 258. Translated by Owen M. Phelan, 2014, p. 134] on the Catholic
faith The belief in the Holy and Undivided Trinity (De Fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis), which at the request of
their friend Adalhard, later Abbot of Ferrieres, he was sending to Arno as well as to Charlemagne, who had
commissioned it, perhaps with the forthcoming synod of Aachen in view. He asked that the book should not leave
his hands but instead be widely copied so that the heart of the Christian faith might be properly understood. To
judge from the proliferation of accurate manuscripts of this work that still remain from the ninth century and their
likely provenance, Arno had a key role in fulfilling his friend's request. ...In some ways Alcuin's compilation is a
little Summa Theologica, perhaps even an official Carolingian textbook of theology.' It was certainly regarded as
such for many centuries after Alcuin's death, to judge from the large number of manuscripts remaining that
contain De Fide often with its accompanying works. It was only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that De Fide
came to be copied alongside other texts. It would seem that from the time of Alcuin, the original grouping of texts
associated with De Fide was intentional, giving a valuable insight therefore into the theological education of the
clergy and monks, and also of some of the nobility, men and women, at the Carolingian court in the ninth century
after his death. ...Until the Reformation and well into the age of printing, Alcuin's De Fide was regarded as
a cogent and seminal exposition of the heart of Christian Latin theology.

(Dales, Alcuin II: A Study of his of Theology, 2013, p. 94)

Douglas Dales