Outline

1. Let us resolve again to try to understand the Doctrine of the Trinity. (1.10)

2. Consider the three things: lover, beloved, and love. (2.2)

3. When the mind loves itself there is this trinity: mind, love, and knowledge [of itself]. (3.3–4.4)

4. When the mind loves itself, love and knowledge of itself are not mere parts of it. (4.5–7)

5. In that case mind, love, and knowledge are each in the other two, yet each is a substance. (5.8)

6. Having seen in our own mind, or some body or some place we can recognize its form or type. (6.9–11)

7. We do willingly with our bodies only what we have previously formulated in mental language. (7.12)

8. One who knows and loves justice perfectly is just before doing any just deeds. (8.13–9.14)

9. We must distinguish between words of a natural language, even as thought, and mental words. (10.15)

10. Knowing itself, the mind begets knowledge of itself that is like itself and equal to itself. (11.16–12.18)

11. The mind, its knowledge of itself, and its love of itself are an image of the Divine Trinity. (12.18)

Chapter 1

We are indeed seeking a trinity, though not just any trinity at all, but that Trinity which is God, and the true, the supreme, and the only God. Keep waiting, therefore, you, whoever you are, who hear these words. For we are still seeking, and no one rightly faults searching for such things, provided only that the searcher remain firmly rooted in the faith while he seeks that which it is so difficult to know or to express.