Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and

Reformation Thought 1st ed. Edition

John T. Slotemaker
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/trinitarian-theology-in-medieval-and-reformation-thou
ght-1st-ed-edition-john-t-slotemaker/
Trinitarian Theology
in Medieval and
Reformation Thought

John T. Slotemaker
Trinitarian Theology in Medieval
and Reformation Thought
 John T. Slotemaker

Trinitarian Theology
in Medieval and
Reformation Thought
John T. Slotemaker
Fairfield University
Fairfield, CT, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-47789-9    ISBN 978-3-030-47790-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47790-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 For my parents, Tom and Hennie,
you have been the grace of God to me.
And for the Dragon in the hostas,
and for those who named her.
 Preface

In the spring of 2012, I defended a dissertation on the development of

medieval trinitarian theology between 1250 and 1380. That work—like so
many in the genre—was a massive accumulation of technical data that
sprawled over 850 pages. In this, at least, it was not unlike other works in
the field: Théodore de Régnon’s Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte
Trinité was published in 4 volumes and extends to over 2300 pages,
Michael Schmaus’s massive history of medieval trinitarian theology is over
1000 pages, as is Russell Friedman’s magisterial Intellectual Traditions.1
Hester Gelber’s unpublished dissertation, “Logic and the Trinity,” sits on
almost every medievalist’s shelf and is a more modest 685 pages.2 These
are works that are frequently referenced but rarely read; from their titles,
to their length, to their content, these are imposing pieces of scholarship
that are best referenced and not read in one’s armchair next to the fire. A
few years ago, I began to imagine a shorter, trimmer, and more accessible
volume on medieval trinitarian theology.
While pondering what type of book could fill the obvious lacuna, I
reread C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity as I was preparing an undergraduate
readings course.3 Lewis’s goal in that work was to present a common or
“mere” Christianity: an overview of Christian thought that looks at nor-
mative theological beliefs shared by the majority of Christians past and

1
John T. Slotemaker, “Pierre d’Ailly;” Michael Schmaus, Der “Liber propugnatorius;”
Russell L. Friedman, Intellectual Traditions.
2
Hester G. Gelber, “Logic and the Trinity.”
3
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

vii
viii PREFACE

present. He sets aside the heated theological debates between Anglicans,

Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox, to focus instead on certain
themes shared by all Christians. There are, of course, objections to be lev-
eled against Lewis’s approach, and in particular it seems that oftentimes
the most interesting material is found not in commonality but in disagree-
ment. Further, if one is to truly understand the nuances of Christian
thought, one must attend to the various theological and philosophical
systems that inform the respective denominations. That said, there is also
a useful simplicity to the volume as it attempts to tell a broader story.
There is something gained by looking at what is held in common.
This book is an attempt to outline some of the basic or “mere” trinitar-
ian beliefs held by Christians living in the late medieval period: a period
circumscribed for the purposes of this volume from roughly the time of
Anselm up through the first generation of the Reformation era. The intent
here is not to obfuscate the disagreements between Christian theologians
writing on the Trinity, but to highlight commonalities that can be gleaned
by focusing precisely on these disagreements. Thus, by looking at a range
of theological opinions one can get a sense of the options that were on the
table and the common assumptions undergirding those commonalities. It
is these distilled or common assumptions about medieval trinitarian theol-
ogy that I am attempting to flesh out in this work.
While I will look broadly at the long Middle Ages, there is one impor-
tant way in which this work is methodologically circumscribed. I am pri-
marily tracing the trajectory of medieval trinitarian theology that becomes
normative as a result of two events: (1) the establishment of Peter
Lombard’s Sentences as the textbook for theological education at the
medieval Universities, and (2) the theological doctrines adopted as part of
the Fourth Lateran Council (the Liber extra) that ensconced the Lombard’s
trinitarian theology as normative. These two early thirteenth-century
events were significant in laying the foundation for several developments:
the dominance of a particular genre of medieval trinitarian theology (e.g.,
through the genre of Sentences commentaries); the emergence of a norma-
tive structure of trinitarian theology as established by this genre; and the
development of theological parameters within which orthodoxy was to
reside. As Peter Gemeinhardt writes—in response to the ascendancy of the
Lombard’s theology at Lateran IV—“the Council’s decision impacted
grammar and dialectics on the doctrine of the Trinity … from this point
forward, the tradition of Trinitarian thought had to be read according to
 PREFACE ix

the Lombard’s rationale.”4 This does not mean, however, that I am limit-
ing the discussion to the period after the early thirteenth century; I am,
instead, limiting the discussion to the theological streams that fed into this
tradition, such that I will be discussing Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and
numerous other theologians who thrived before the early thirteenth cen-
tury and influenced later developments. However, it does mean that I will
not be focusing on the dizzying diversity of trinitarian theologies that
flourished during the long twelfth century (e.g., the alternative trinitarian
theologies of Peter Abelard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Robert of Melun, Joachim
of Fiore).
Given these parameters, there is one objection to this approach that is
necessary to address at the outset. This book of less than 50,000 words
cannot possibly be comprehensive in any way, be it theological, historical,
or textual. It does not cover every theological topic in play regarding trini-
tarian theology in the long Middle Ages; it is not historically comprehen-
sive, and does not, and cannot, present a historical overview of the topics
discussed; it is not textually inclusive in looking at all genres or forms of
trinitarian theology in primary (e.g., biblical commentaries, sermons, lit-
urgies, hymnody, iconography, scholastic treatises) or secondary works.
This work is both more and less than that. It is more, in that by limiting
the discussion the reader will be given an overview of a complex subject in
a relatively brief format. It is less in that the remarkable complexity and
diversity of medieval trinitarian theology will often be discussed briefly and
without as much detail as some may desire. It is my hope that the utility of
the former will outweigh the limitations of the latter, and that those who
seek to fill out the contours of this landscape will use this book as a way
into the great literature referenced throughout. This is emphatically a
work for those just beginning to learn about how medieval Christians
understood the triune God.

* * *

It is a privilege to thank colleagues and students who have contributed to

this work in various ways, including Lewis Ayres, Michel Barnes, Monica
Brinzei, Delphine Conzelmann, Boyd Taylor Coolman, Richard Cross,
Russell Friedman, Hester Gelber, Christine Helmer, Kevin Hughes, Bruce

4
Peter Gemeinhardt, “Joachim the Theologian,” 41. See Constant J. Mews and Clare
Monagle, “Peter Lombard, Joachim of Fiore and the Fourth Lateran Council.”
x PREFACE

Marshall, Constant Mews, JT Paasch, Dominique Poirel, Chris Schabel,

J. Warren Smith, Graham White, Jeremy Wilkins, Scott Williams, Jeff
Witt, and Ueli Zahnd. In particular, those who participated in the work-
shops on Medieval Trinitarian Theology at Boston College over the past
few years have shaped my thinking in numerous ways. I am grateful to you
all for your assistance and friendship. You all—particularly Russ—deserve
more footnotes than you have received, given the space limitations of this
volume. The anonymous reviewers saved me from a few errors, and gener-
ally improved the quality of the work. I am grateful for their comments
and criticisms.
This work began while directing independent studies on medieval trini-
tarian theology, Anselm of Canterbury, and the thought of C.S. Lewis. I
am grateful to my students—Richard Burke, Meaghan Conlon, Jessica
Estrada, Nick Frega, Anthony Iorio, Margaret Liguori, Hannah Megan,
Carlos Mesquita, and Michael Valvala—for asking questions that I had
forgotten how to ask, and for teaching me that it is important to be able
to answer them. You are missed.

Styles and Conventions

All sources (primary and secondary) are referenced by name and an
abbreviated title in the footnotes, with complete bibliographic infor-
mation found in the corresponding bibliography. I have used single
quotation marks to designate terms qua terms, and double quotation
marks for quotations, scare quotes, and so forth. Because individual
chapters are available independently, I have on occasion treated a given
topic in two separate chapters—attempting to limit redundancy in
all cases.
Given the introductory nature of the volume and the number of sources
referenced, it has not been practical to provide a reference to both the
standard Latin edition and an English translation. As a result I have pro-
vided my own translations (unless noted), though I have freely referenced
existing translations throughout.

Timeline of Councils and Theologians
Irenaeus (†202)
Tertullian (†220)
Origen (†253)
Porphyry of Tyre (†305)
Nicaea (325)
Arius (†336)
Marius Victorinus (†364)
Hilary of Poitiers (†368)
Athanasius (†373)
Marcellus of Ancyra (†374)
Basil the Great (†379)
Constantinople (381)
Gregory of Nazianzus (†390)
Gregory of Nyssa (†394)
Ambrose of Milan (†397)
Maximus of Turin (†c420)
Augustine (†430)
Chalcedon (451)
Boethius (†524)
Rusticus the Deacon (†564)
Isidore of Seville (†636)
John of Damascus (†749)
Alcuin of York (†804)
Theodulf of Orléans (†821)
Ratramnus of Corbie (†868)
Anselm of Canterbury (†1109)
Soissons (1121)
William of Champeaux (†1121)
Roscelin of Compiègne (†1125)
Hugh of St. Victor (†1141)
Sens (1141)
Peter Abelard (†1142)
William of St. Thierry (†1148)
Thierry of Chartres (†c.1150)
Bernard of Clairvaux (†1153)
Gilbert of Poitiers (†1154)
Peter Lombard (†1160)
Robert of Melun (†1167)
Richard of St. Victor (†1173)
Walter of Mortagne (†1174)
Clarembald of Arras (†1187)
Joachim of Fiore (†1202)
Amalric of Bena (†c.1205)
Lateran IV (1215)
William of Auxerre (†1231)
Fairfield, CT, USA
PREFACE xi
Alexander of Hales (†1245)
William of Auvergne (†1249)
Robert Grosseteste (†1253)
Lyon II (1272–1274)
Thomas Aquinas (†1274)
Bonaventure (†1274)
Albert the Great (†1280)
Henry of Ghent (†1293)
James of Viterbo (†1307/8)
John Duns Scotus (†1308)
Henry Harclay (†1317)
Peter Auriol (†1322)
Walter Chatton (†1343)
William of Ockham (†1347)
Robert Holcot (†1349)
Richard Campsall (†c.1350)
Adam Wodeham (1358)
Gregory Rimini (†1358)
Facinus of Asti (fl.c.1360s)
Hugolino of Orvieto (†1373)
John Klenkok (†1374)
Angel of Döbeln (fl. 1370s–80s)
John van Ruysbroeck (†1381)
John Hiltalingen of Basel (†1392)
Peter Gracilis (†1393)
Marsilius of Inghen (†1396)
Henry Totting of Oyta (†1397)
Henry of Langenstein (†1397)
Pierre d’Ailly (†1420)
Peter of Pulkau (†1425)
Nicholas Dinkelsbühl (†1433)
Berthold of Ratisbon (Puchhauser) (†1437)
Florence (1438–1445)
John Capreolus (†1444)
William of Vorilong (†1463)
Denys the Carthusian (†1471)
Gabriel Biel (†1495)
Marsilio Ficino (†1499)
Giles of Viterbo (†1532)
Martin Luther (†1546)
John Mair (†1550)
Michael Servetus (†1553)
Philipp Melanchthon (†1560)
John Calvin (†1564)
John T. Slotemaker
xii PREFACE

Bibliography

Modern Sources
Friedman, Russell L. Intellectual Traditions at the Medieval University:
The Use of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology among the
Franciscans and Dominicans, 1250–1350. Leiden 2013.
Gelber, Hester Goodenough. “Logic and the Trinity: A Clash of Values in
Scholastic Thought, 1300–1335.” Ph.D Dissertation, University of
Wisconsin, 1974.
Gemeinhardt, Peter. “Joachim the Theologian: Trinitarian Speculation
and Doctrinal Debate,” in A Companion to Joachim of Fiore, ed. Matthias
Riedl. Leiden 2018, 41–87.
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York 2001.
Mews Constant J., and Clare Monagle. “Peter Lombard, Joachim of Fiore
and the Fourth Lateran Council.” Medioevo. Rivista di storia della filoso-
fia medievale 35 (2010), 81–122.
Schmaus, Michael. Der “Liber propugnatorius” des Thomas Anglicus und
die Lehrunterschiede zwischen Thomas von Aquin und Duns Scotus, II
Teil: Die trinitarischen Lehrdifferenzen. Münster 1930.
Slotemaker, John T. “Pierre d’Ailly and the Development of Late Medieval
Trinitarian Theology: With an edition of Quaestiones super primum
librum Sententiarum, qq. 4–8, 10.” Ph.D Dissertation, Boston
College, 2012.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Sources   3
Language and Categories   8
Bibliography  15

2 Theological Epistemology 19
The Trinity and Demonstrative Arguments  20
Vestiges and Images  24
The Trinity and Scripture  29
Cognitio per Filium  33
Knowing the Trinity Through Prayer  37
Conclusion  40
Coda: The Trinity and Aristotelian Logic  40
Bibliography  46

3 Emanations and Relations 49

The Generation of the Son  50
The Spiration of the Holy Spirit  57
The Divine Relations: A Common Language  63
Disparate and Opposed Relations  69
Conclusion  73
Bibliography  75

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

4 Persons and Personal Distinction 79

Divine Persons  80
Attributes, Properties, and Appropriations  89
Personal Constitution  94
The Distinction of Persons 100
Conclusion 108
Bibliography 109

5 Conclusion113
Patient Learning 114
Exhausting the Dialectical Possibilities 120
Bibliography 126

Index129
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter introduces the volume by means of defining its

methodological and historical contours, the sources of medieval trinitarian
thought, and the language and categories of discourse. The first section
lays out the chronological parameters of the work as well as describes the
various topical limitations that have been put in place to keep the material
manageable. The second section treats the sources of trinitarian theology
as found in the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Fathers of the Church. The
final section introduces the reader to the basic language and categories of
medieval trinitarian thought (emanations, relations, and persons).

Keywords Scripture • The Creeds • Patristic sources • Emanations •

Relations • Persons

This book is about unity and distinction/diversity, in a twofold sense. First

and foremost, it is about the Christian claim that the one God is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, such that God is one substance (or essence) and
three distinct persons who are this one thing (res). Second, this book is
about the unity and diversity of medieval theologies of God. The latter
constitutes the basic argument of this work, which is that while there is
clearly a diversity of views regarding who God is and how the triune God
can be talked about in the long medieval period (c. 1000–1550), there is

© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. T. Slotemaker, Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and Reformation
Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47790-5_1
2 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

also a profound unity or agreement.1 There is, one could say, a common
or basic trinitarian theology held by almost all medieval and Reformation
era Christians. Here it is perhaps useful to say a bit about both of these
aspects.
First, this volume is focused on the long medieval period (c. 1000–1550)
because of the richness of philosophical and theological argumentation
about God that emerged during these centuries. As the recent work of
Russell Friedman has masterfully demonstrated, the quality of theologiz-
ing about the Trinity in the medieval period is second to none and is an
interesting source of theological and philosophical speculation. Further, as
Lambertus de Rijk observed,

no student of medieval speculative thought can help being struck by the

peculiar fact that whenever fundamental progress was made, it was theologi-
cal problems which initiated the development. …speculation was, time and
again, focused on how the notion of being and the whole range of our lin-
guistic tools can be applied to God’s nature.2

To study Christian theologizing about God, therefore, is to enter into the

long debates in Western philosophy about the nature of God, the principle
of individuation, substances and categories of accidental being, and other
such topics.
Second, the present work defends the somewhat counter-intuitive the-
sis that medieval and Reformation era theologies of God remained remark-
ably consistent.3 Writing precisely at the hinge between the late medieval
and early modern world, Martin Luther wrote in the first part of the
Smalcald Articles in 1537 that with respect to trinitarian theology or
Christology there is no contention or dispute with his Roman adversaries,
because “both sides share the same confession.”4 Here Luther observes
that his break with Rome is not over trinitarian doctrine or Christology,
precisely because both Protestants and Catholics held similar beliefs about
the one God and the incarnation of the Son. This, of course, is true in a

1
Throughout this book I use the phrase “long medieval period” to refer to the time
from roughly 1000 to 1550, and “late medieval” to refer to the period from about 1300
to 1550.
2
Lambertus de Rijk, “On Boethius,” 1.
3
Here the work takes issue with various narratives that attempt to explain the shift from
the medieval to early modern world in terms of how God was understood.
4
Luther, Smalcald Articles (WA 50, 198).
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

rather stark sense; the Church divisions that emerged out of the sixteenth-­
century conflagration were not initially divisions grounded in divergent
theologies of God or Christ (though whether divergent theologies of God
and Christ eventually emerged is a rather different question), but about
issues of salvation and the Church. Thus, the present volume will examine
select topics of trinitarian theology in such a way as to demonstrate the
basic normativity—shaped by common philosophical categories
(Aristotelianism), Scripture, the Creeds of the Church, and Church tradi-
tion—that existed in trinitarian theology between the years 1000 and 1550.
In what remains of the introduction, we will consider some preliminary
topics, including the sources of trinitarian speculation in this period, and
the common language and categories employed by the majority of the
thinkers discussed.

Sources
The theologians of the early Church held that the Christian doctrine of
the Trinity is fundamentally a reflection upon Scripture. Augustine argued
in De Trinitate that the Scriptures—both Old and New Testaments—bear
witness to the fact that the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Medieval theologians shared this view. According to William of St. Thierry,
the Scriptures contain a biblical argument for both unity and diversity in
God: (1) His unity is evident in the shema, “hear O Israel, the Lord your
God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4); (2) and His trinitarian diver-
sity is evident in the baptismal formula spoken by Christ, “Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).5 For William,
the Scriptures speak about the unity and diversity in God: the book of
John, in particular (3:17, 14:26, 15:26), was understood to provide sub-
stantial evidence that God is both three and one.6 Here, following
Augustine, William observes that the Christian Scriptures speak of three
persons, and that the Father sends the Son and that the Father and Son
send the Holy Spirit.
As William recognized, however, the doctrine of the Trinity is not
explicitly stated in the Scriptures. The Christian doctrine uses lots of

5
William, Aenigma fidei (PL 80, 408).
6
See William (Ibid.). As we will see in chapter 2, Peter Auriol argued that the entirety of
the Gospel of John is one argument for the Trinity.
4 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

technical terms to describe how God is three and one that are not found
in Scripture. In particular, William observes that the words ‘Trinity’ and
‘homoousios’ are not found in the Bible: the former being used to describe
the three persons in one God and the latter to identify the Father, Son,
and Spirit as one substance. William’s response is clear; the Christian doc-
trine of the Trinity is the Church’s interpretation of what the Scriptures
present of the living God. While the doctrine, per se, is not found directly
in the Scriptures, what the doctrine articulates is a theological model that
can help one read and understand the complex statements made in
Scripture.7
William’s approach was normative for theologians up through the
medieval and Reformation eras, in that trinitarian theology presents, for
these thinkers, a technical distillation of what is present in Scripture. John
Calvin—often problematically labeled as one who would have preferred to
reject such technical terms8—would claim that the use of the words ousia,
hypostasis, essentia, and persona within trinitarian theology is often falsely
decried by heretics as un-biblical and the product of human invention,
when in fact such language merely articulates that which is found in the
Scriptures. The Scriptures, Calvin thinks, are often unclear to the extent
that they perplex or hinder our understanding, and in such cases why
should one not explain the Scriptures by means of clearer words (verbis
planioribus) to shed light upon the faith?9 In this sense trinitarian theology
is a human attempt to bring clarity to the truths of the faith presented in
Scripture by means of technical philosophical language.
Scripture, therefore, is the foundation of trinitarian theology for all of
the medieval and Reformation era theologians. The fourteenth-century
Augustinian theologian Peter Gracilis put it this way,

every Catholic writer who has written about the Trinity, which is God,
intends to teach that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one substance/essence
and are one God with an inseparable equality, and that this unity in essence,
and Trinity in persons, is proved through many Scriptures.10

It is, as Gracilis attests, simply a fact that for all catholic authors the doc-
trine of the Trinity is understood to be fundamentally a distillation of
7
William, Aenigma fidei (PL 80, 409–410).
8
For example, pace Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, 41.
9
Calvin, Institutes (1536), II (CO 1, 60).
10
Gracilis, Sent. I.3 (R, fol. 21r).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Scripture. That said, trinitarian theology is not just a record of what is in

Scripture, it is also a doctrine that was worked out in the Creeds of the
Christian Church and by the numerous theologians of the Early Christian
period. Here it is necessary to say a word or two about these sources.
In its present form the Nicene Creed professed by the Western Churches
goes back to the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). This
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was accepted at the Council of
Chalcedon (451) and would become a normative statement of belief for
both Eastern and Western Christians.11 It is, therefore, a statement of faith
that has governed the great majority of Christians throughout time and
history, and it has a fundamentally trinitarian structure. First it speaks of
the Father almighty who is the creator of the cosmos and the maker of
things visible and invisible. Second, it turns to Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, who is begotten from the Father, before all ages; and, lest one confuse
the issue, it is clarified that the Son is begotten, not made, and is consubstan-
tial (omousion Patri) with the Father. The Son is God from God, light from
light, true God from true God. Third, the Creed speaks of the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life (vivificatorem) who proceeds from the Father [and
the Son]. This creedal statement is an articulation of the trinitarian faith
professed by Christians throughout history and includes the basic frame-
work of trinitarian theology. Here Christians confess that God the Father
is all powerful (omnipotentem) and that Jesus is the only begotten (unige-
ntium) Son of God who is eternally from the Father (ex Patre). The
Father, Son, [and Spirit] are one substance (consubstantialis) eternally and
as such are the God from whom all things proceed. Finally, the creed in
the West states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son.12
The medieval Church also produced authoritative documents expand-
ing upon the early creeds, the most important being the first and second
canons of Gregory IX’s Liber extra (1234) following the fourth Lateran
Council.13 This collection of canon law contains an explication of basic
trinitarian theology and was central to the medieval theological tradition.
The Liber extra is generally consistent with the earlier Christian creeds,
however, there are a few distinct aspects worth noting.

11
Pelikan-Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, I.162–163.
12
Ibid., cf. the “Western Recension,” I.672.
13
For a translation of the Liber extra, see Pelikan-Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions,
I.741–742.
6 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

First, Augustine maintained that the Son and Holy Spirit emanated
from the Father (a Patre), however, in the subsequent medieval tradition
there emerged a minority opinion that held that the Holy Spirit proceeded
from the essence. This position is evident, most notably, in Anselm of
Canterbury (see Chap. 3). The Liber extra—following the language of the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed—would reassert in canon 2 that the
divine essence is not the thing begetting or being begotten (or proceed-
ing), generating or being generated, and as such put an end to this par-
ticular theological trajectory.14 Second, while the Western patristic tradition
did not specify whether or not there was a unique or particular property
common to each person by which the persons are distinct, the Liber extra
somewhat codified the language of “personal properties” stating that the
Holy Trinity is indivisible (individua) according to the common essence
and is distinguished (discreta) according to personal properties.15 This lan-
guage of personal properties would become central to the development of
trinitarian theology after the late twelfth century, and here the Liber extra
establishes the use of this language.
Beyond a reflection upon Scripture and the creedal statements of the
Church, Western trinitarian theology also inherited the rich patristic tradi-
tion, and much of medieval and early modern thinking about God is
shaped by this deposit of faith. There are, of course, a diversity of patristic
authors who influenced the development of medieval trinitarian theology,
as the doctrine was worked out by theologians such as Irenaeus, Tertullian,
Origen, Marius Victorinus, Hilary of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil the Great,
Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, and
Augustine. That said, this plethora of authorities obfuscates the fact that
when it comes to tracing theological influence, it is Augustine’s great De
Trinitate that overshadows the entire Western tradition. While there have
been claims—particularly in the second half of the twentieth century—
that certain strains or traditions of medieval or Reformation era trinitarian
theology (e.g., Richard of St. Victor or John Calvin) are grounded in an
“Eastern” theology that emerges out of the Cappadocian Fathers and the
Pseudo-Dionysian tradition as transmitted to the Latin West, much of that
research has not withstood more modern criticism. In short, what one

14
Liber extra 1.1.2 (CIC II.7): [Essentia divina] non est generans, neque genita, nec proce-
dens; sed est Pater, qui generat …
15
Liber extra 1.1.1 (CIC II.5): Haec sancta trinitas, secundum communem essentiam indi-
vidua et secundum personales proprietates discreta.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

finds in Richard or Calvin that could perhaps be traced back to an “Eastern”

tradition is better explained by looking to Augustine himself;16 not to
mention, much of the search for these alternate—read “non-­Augustinian”—
sources was generated and driven by a problematic historiographical nar-
rative that was critical of Augustine and praised the “Eastern” tradition.17
So, what is the role of Augustine in the development of trinitarian theol-
ogy in the long Middle Ages?
The easiest place to look to get a sense of Augustine’s influence in the
medieval and Reformation eras is Peter Lombard’s Sentences and the cor-
responding commentary tradition. The Lombard was a theologian at the
University of Paris and wrote what would become the textbook of medi-
eval theology up until, and in some regions through, the sixteenth centu-
ry.18 This work is divided into four books—the first on the Trinity—and is
comprised of thousands of citations from the patristic tradition. The
Lombard engages with the patristic authorities and develops his theology
out of, and in dialogue with, these “sentences” from the Fathers. In the
Sentences he cites Augustine 680 times, 310 of which are from De Trinitate.
When contrasted with the next highest authors by citation numbers
(Ambrose 66, Hilary 63, Jerome 48, and Gregory the Great 41), we can
observe that the Lombard quotes Augustine’s De Trinitate more than the
four other highest cited authors combined.19 Focusing now on the first
book of the Sentences, we observe that he rarely references Fathers from
the Greek tradition—no quotations from Basil the Great, Gregory
Nazianzus, Gregory Nyssa, or Origen’s De principiis, and only 9 from
John of Damascus’s De fide orthodoxa—and from the Latin tradition his
main sources, beyond Augustine, are Hilary’s De Trinitate (50+) and
Ambrose’s De fide (11). Similar patterns hold for the reception of patristic
sources in the massive Sentences commentary tradition that extended from
the thirteenth century up through the sixteenth, and which remained pri-
marily engaged with Augustine, and, to a much lesser degree, Hilary—
both as found in the Lombard.20

16
Cf. Jean Ribaillier’s discussion of Richard’s sources in De Trinitate (Paris 1958), 17–33.
17
The literature on this topic is substantive, but the place to begin remains Michel René
Barnes, “De Regnon Reconsidered.”
18
Philipp W. Rosemann, The Story.
19
Jacques-Guy Bougerol, “The Church Fathers,” 114–124.
20
I have catalogued similar patterns in the commentaries on book I of the Sentences by
Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Gregory of Rimini, though a
more thorough study is needed to confirm this argument. That said, similar patterns emerge
8 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

The upshot is that Augustine’s De Trinitate had a massive influence on

medieval trinitarian theology and one can, somewhat simplistically, look at
three distinct areas of influence. First, following books 1–4, De Trinitate
had an influence on medieval biblical exegesis; medieval theologians, fol-
lowing Augustine, would find evidence of the Trinity in both Old and
New Testaments. Second, following books 5–7, the work influenced the
technical language and categories used to discuss the divine nature, God’s
attributes, and the divine processions and relations. In particular,
Augustine’s distinction between substantial terms and relational terms
would become normative for almost all subsequent medieval theologians
(see the following section). Finally, books 8–15 of De Trinitate influenced
the way in which medieval theologians understood certain trinitarian
images or analogies. Here, in particular, Augustine’s noetic triad of mem-
ory, understanding, and will as an image of the Trinity (imago Trinitatis)
would influence the development of medieval trinitarian epistemology,
trinitarian theology, and anthropology.

Language and Categories

The sources of trinitarian theology in the long Middle Ages established a
normative language for speaking about God as Trinity, and here, at the
outset, it is useful to briefly sketch the contours of medieval trinitarian
theology by defining its essential terms and the parameters of the
discussion.
Classical Christian theology teaches that God is one substance, essence,
or nature; this one substance is eternal, unchanging, omnipotent, ineffa-
ble, good, or, as Anselm states, everything it is better to be than not to be
(quidquid melius est esse quam non esse).21 God is one substantial thing, and
not more than one thing. Further, Christians believe that this one God is
three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons
simply are the divine essence: it is not the case that the one essence is at
times manifest as Father, or other times manifest as Son, or that each per-
son constitutes a part of the essence that is distributed equally among the
three. Rather, the three persons are the divine essence, such that each is
fully and completely God. But how, precisely, can there be one God who

when one reads the subsequent essays by Bougerol, Leo J. Elders, and Eric Leland Saak in
The Reception of the Church Fathers, 289–404.
21
Anselm, Proslogion 5 (I, 104); cf. id., Monologion 15 (I, 28–29),
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

is three persons? How are these three related to each other and to the
divine essence?
Medieval Christians held that the Father is from no one, the Son comes
from the Father, and the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and Son.
When speaking about the two “coming forths” in God, they spoke of two
emanations (emanationes): further, and being more precise, the emana-
tion of the Son is referred to as generation (generatio), while the emana-
tion of the Spirit is referred to as procession (processio) or spiration
(spiratio). The term generation is employed because the language used to
refer to the first two persons in Scripture—Father and Son—indicates a
paternal and filial relationship, respectively, and borrowing from this imag-
ery the biological term generation is used to describe the first emanation.
The second emanation is referred to as a procession and, as Isidore of
Seville tells us,22 the term is probably used because it is biblical (John
15:26): “when the Paraclete comes, who I will send to you from the
Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father (Spiritum veri-
tatis qui a Patre procedit).” The book of John, in particular (14:16–17,
26; 15:26; 16:12–15), speaks of the Spirit as being sent (mitto) from the
Father, or proceeding from the Father. Somewhat later in the fifth and
sixth century, it would become normative to speak of this second emana-
tion as a spiration (spiratio): literally, a breathing forth. This language of
the Spirit as wind or breath is found in Scripture as well, though less
directly: for example, in Acts 2:2–4 when the Spirit comes in a mighty
wind (spiritus vehementis), or John 20:22 when Christ breathes (insuflo)
the Spirit upon the disciples.
Despite the explicitly biological language of generation and spiration,
however, the emanations in God are not understood as natural emanations
that happen in space and time, given that the generation of the Son is
eternal, such that there is no time when the Father and Son were not
Father and Son. To be the Father, therefore, is to have an eternal Son and
to be eternally in the act of generating the Son: and, mutatis mutandis, for
the Holy Spirit who is breathed forth eternally from the Father and Son.
The emanations in God, therefore, are eternal and come forth from the
Father (though, as we shall see, some medieval theologians argued for
spiration from the essence not the Father).
Related to the discussion of the two emanations in God, the Western
tradition also developed an understanding of the trinitarian relations

22
Isidore, Etymologies 7.3.6 (158).
10 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This language developed
throughout the period and by the thirteenth century it was customary to
speak about the trinitarian relations as such: the Father’s relation to the
Son is paternity (paternitas), the Son’s relation to the Father is filiation
(filiatio), the Father and Son’s relation to the Spirit is active spiration (spi-
ratio activa), the Spirit’s relation to the Father and Son is passive spiration
(spiratio passiva). While the language of paternity and filiation would
become normative, the terms for the emanation of the Spirit were a bit
more fluid. For example, John Duns Scotus and Peter Auriol used the
language of spiratio activa and spiratio passiva, while Thomas Aquinas
refers to the active emanation of the spirit as spiration (spiratio) and the
passive emanation as procession (processio).23
While the trinitarian relations were understood as distinguishing one
person from another, the theologians of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries also held there to be certain notions that reveal the persons or
make them known. The notions (notio)—innascibility, paternity, filiation,
common spiration, and procession—indicate active or passive emanations
and it is these properties by which a person is known. Thus, the Father is
known by the notions of innascibility and paternity: in that the Father
comes from no one, He is known by innascibility; in that the Father sends
out the Son and the Holy Spirit, He is known by paternity and spiration,
respectively.24
To take stock briefly, medieval theologians held that the one God is
best described as being one substance that is two emanations, three per-
sons, four relations, and five notions. This generates a problem, however,
in that how is one to develop a language that can precisely indicate how all
of these terms can be predicated of God, and yet not lead to the implica-
tion that there is some composition in the one perfectly simple essence.
After all, how can one predicate all of these terms—‘God,’ ‘Trinity,’ ‘good-
ness,’ ‘truth,’ ‘love,’ ‘power,’ ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ ‘Spirit,’ ‘paternity,’ ‘filia-
tion,’ ‘active spiration,’ ‘passive spiration,’ and so forth—of the one simple,
incomplex divine essence/nature, while maintaining some philosophical
clarity with regard to divine simplicity? Are all of these terms predicated of
God in the same way?

23
Auriol, Scriptum I.26 (Electronic Scriptum); Scotus, Reportatio I.11.2 (Wolter-Bychkov
I, 419); Thomas, ST I.28.4 (4, 325–326).
24
For example, Thomas, ST I.32.3 (4, 355).
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

The theological outline sketched above is philosophically supported

and clarified by a distinction between substantial terms and relational
terms that the medieval tradition inherited from Augustine. Aristotle
argued in the Categories that of the “things that can be said,” there are ten
basic categories, including substances and nine categories of accidental
being (quantity, quality, relation, place, time, state (or position), action,
and affection (or passion)).25 Working within this framework, Augustine
would argue that when speaking about God a basic distinction can be
made between terms predicated of God according to substance (secundum
substantiam) and those predicated according to relation (secundum
relativum).26 In a creature, the former category would be understood (by
definition) to be predicated of the substance of the thing, the latter would
be predicated accidentally (secundum accidens); thus, if it is said that there
is a person standing in front of the Church, one could say that ‘woman’ is
predicated of this individual secundum substantiam, and ‘in front of’ could
be predicated secundum relativum to indicate her physical position with
respect to the Church. In the case of any thing the substance is that which
the thing is, such that to the extent that it is, it is a substance. A relational
category, however, indicates something accidental to a substance: an indi-
vidual need not be in front of the Church, she could be in the Church, or
on the Church, or to the left of the Church, and so forth. However, classi-
cal Christian doctrine states that God cannot have any accidental proper-
ties (accidental properties are things that can change, and there is no
change in God),27 so how can something be predicated of God according
to relation?
Augustine maintained that within God relational predicates such as
‘father’ and ‘son’ indicate an eternal relation that is not accidental to God
but is simply what God is. Thus, for Augustine, the relational terms predi-
cated of God describe a relation—that is, the Father really sends the Son,

25
Aristotle, Categories (1a1–2a10; Barnes 3–4).
26
Augustine, De Trinitate 5.4.6 (CCSL 50, 210). Here we use Augustine’s language of
“relation” and pass over the somewhat complex issue that, in Aristotle, the category is not
relation per se but “things toward something” (τὰ πρός τι). Aristotle has in mind individual
things that are toward something else and not relations as such (though generally a relational
term is predicated of such things). Further, we leave aside the complex issue of whether or
not Aristotle understood the categories to be words, concepts, or realities—we are speaking
here of predicates, though for Aristotle this does not seem to limit the categories to a gram-
matical function.
27
Augustine, De Trinitate 5.4.5 (CCSL 50, 209–210).
12 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

and the Son is really sent—without indicating anything accidental, pre-

cisely because the emanations in God are eternal. But, if that is the case—if
relational terms do not indicate an accident and are not predicated secun-
dum accidens—how is it that they identify something different from the
substantial terms or the substance itself? Augustine’s answer is that such
relational terms indicate the eternal distinctions in God between persons,
while the substantial terms do not.
The upshot is that there is a basic distinction between terms predicated
of God secundum substantiam and terms predicated secundum relativum.
The former includes terms such as ‘good,’ ‘powerful,’ ‘loving’ (i.e., the
divine attributes), ‘God,’ and the like; such terms are predicated of the
one substance and the three divine persons equally. For example, one can
say that God is good, the Father is good, the Son is good, and so forth.
Relational terms, by contrast, are predicated of the divine persons and
indicate distinction within the divine nature. The term ‘father,’ therefore,
is predicated of the first person of the Trinity indicating a relation between
Father and Son, however, it cannot be applied to the other divine persons
in the way substantial terms can (i.e., one can say the Father is the Father,
but not the Son is the Father, etc.). This works for the relational terms
‘father’ and ‘son,’ but how is one to speak of the Holy Spirit given that the
terms ‘holy’ and ‘spirit’ would seemingly be substantial terms applied to
all three persons and the essence (i.e., God is holy, the Father is holy, the
Son is holy, etc.)?
Augustine observed that for many relations that exist in the natural
world there is a language that adequately captures it: a father has a son, a
daughter has a mother, and so on. In these two cases there are adequate
terms used to describe the paternal relation. This is not always the case,
however. Augustine, following Aristotle, observes that, in some cases, a
given relation that is observed between two things is not adequately iden-
tified through a particular word in a natural language. For example, access
to the internet for many individuals is through a point-to-point protocol
between an individual’s computer and an internet provider. This rela-
tion—between user and provider—is one that did not exist 100 years ago,
and, while the terms ‘user’ and ‘provider’ did exist, they were not used to
describe this relation. Thus, prior to the adoption of the terms ‘user’ and
‘provider’ to describe such a relation, there was indeed a relation without
terms sufficient to describe it. In such cases where there are no adequate
terms to describe one thing in relation to another, a term must be coined
or adopted. This is what happens, Augustine argues, with respect to the
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

Holy Spirit: while neither the term ‘holy’ nor ‘spirit’ indicates a relation,
theologians are justified in using the name Holy Spirit to indicate the
“Spirit of the Father and Son” (using the word, in effect, as a rela-
tional term).
I want to conclude by noting that there were medieval theologians who
took a different path when it came to working out the basic terms and
categories of trinitarian theology. Many of these theologians worked
between the Carolingian period and the end of the twelfth century prior
to both the Sentences of Peter Lombard being established as the theologi-
cal textbook within the Universities, and the trinitarian statements of
Lateran IV. The trinitarian theology throughout this period remains
understudied, and to date there is no satisfactory narrative that begins to
capture the diversity of trinitarian theology during this incredibly rich
period. Here we can note, by way of passing, a couple exceptional thinkers
who simply took a different path. Gottschalk of Orbais is an interesting
example of a Carolingian theologian who does just this. While much of
what he wrote is lost, fragments of his trinitarian theology are present in
the De una et non trina deitate by Hincmar of Rheims.28 In this work
Hincmar critiques Gottschalk’s rejection of the formula of one nature/
substance and three persons, and his replacement language that God is
trina (threefold, or triple). It seems Gottschalk’s argument was that the
divinity of God is not limited to the one nature, but extends completely to
the three persons, such that one can speak of trina deitas. Somewhat later,
the twelfth-century theologian Thierry of Chartres would argue in De sex
dierum operibus (On the Six Days of Creation) that the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit can helpfully be understood in relation to the four Aristotelian
causes, such that the Father is the efficient cause, the Son is the formal
cause, the Holy Spirit is the final cause, and, finally, the matter God cre-
ates—and out of which He makes all things—is the material cause.29 What
is important to note is that Hincmar and Thierry—one could add Peter
Abelard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Joachim of Fiore, et al.—are not necessarily
explicating what could or should be called heretical views. Their theologi-
cal language and categories, while somewhat unusual, attempt to explicate
an account of how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be fully God, and yet
there is one God. For our purposes, therefore, the point is not to label
them as heretical or problematic, but to simply note that they fall outside

28
See Hincmar, De una et non trina (PL 125, 473–618).
29
See Thierry of Chartres, De sex dierum operibus.
14 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

of the normative ways of speaking about the Trinity that would develop in
the period following Lateran IV and be ensconced in the Lombard’s trini-
tarian theology.30

* * *

The structure of this volume follows the basic trinitarian categories of

emanation, relation, and person. It begins, however, with a chapter on
trinitarian epistemology.
The second chapter considers how it is that one can know God is
Trinity. It begins with a discussion of early medieval attempts to prove that
God is Trinity by means of rational argumentation. And, while it is clear
that this tradition had some influence in the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries, one observes that formal demonstrations for the triunity of God
waned by the thirteenth century and up through the sixteenth. However,
if one cannot know God is Trinity by means of demonstrative argument,
how is one to know God is triune? In the subsequent sections of the chap-
ter, we explore how medieval and early modern Christians thought the
Trinity is known through vestiges, Scripture, the Son (cognitio per Filium),
and prayer.
The third chapter considers the theological topics of the divine emana-
tions and the divine relations. It begins with an analysis of the generation
of the Son, looking at several models of generation found in the thirteenth
century. Following this discussion, it shifts to the procession of the Holy
Spirit, treating the question of whether or not the Spirit proceeds from the
essence or the Father, as well as other issues surrounding the procession of
the Spirit from the Father and Son (filioque). The second half of the chap-
ter examines the divine relations and returns to the Augustinian distinc-
tion between terms predicated of God according to substance and those
predicated according to relation, arguing that this distinction was norma-
tive for all medieval theologians. Building upon this section, the chapter
concludes with a discussion of the late thirteenth-century debate regard-
ing disparate and opposed relations. It is argued that this heated debate
was both philosophical and theological, involving both the philosophical

30
The other thing to note is that many of these theologians examined trinitarian theology
in radically distinct genres. See, for example, Cédric Giraud, “The Literary Genres of
‘Theology’.” Invaluable here is Olga Weijers, A Scholar’s Paradise.
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

issues regarding the principle of individuation, and theological issues

regarding the relations between the Eastern and Western Churches.
The fourth chapter examines the divine persons and accounts of per-
sonal distinction. The first part treats the definition of a divine person in
Augustine and Boethius before turning to the reception of the Boethian
definition in Thomas and Scotus. The second section considers the dis-
tinction between divine attributes, personal properties, and trinitarian
appropriations, with a focus on how these distinctions were worked out in
the twelfth century. The third section looks at the notion of personal con-
stitution and whether or not the divine persons are “constituted.” Finally,
the chapter concludes with a discussion of personal distinction and exam-
ines four medieval models.
The volume concludes with a brief discussion of two interrelated topics
that demonstrate the common or normative aspects of medieval trinitarian
theology. First, it was argued in the third chapter that medieval theolo-
gians shared a common understanding of the divine relations—an under-
standing that builds upon Augustine’s theology in important ways, but
also redefines it and narrows it in others. Here that common theology is
placed into contrast with Wolfhart Pannenberg’s account of the divine
relations to highlight an alternative theology and to demonstrate certain
common assumptions of the medieval view. Second, the chapter examines
the ways in which post-Lombardian medieval trinitarian theology was cir-
cumscribed by certain theological, philosophical, and educational devel-
opments that occurred in the early thirteenth century.

Bibliography
(CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina; CO = Calvini Opera; CR = Corpus
Reformatorum; PL = Patrologia Latina; WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke,
Weimarer Ausgabe)

Manuscript Sources
Peter Gracilis. Lectura super quattuor libros Sententiarum.
London, Royal 10 A 1, fols. 1–236 [sigla R]
16 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

Pre-modern Sources
Anselm. S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, Opera Omnia, ed. F.S. Schmitt.
Edinburgh 1946–1961.
Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols.
Princeton 1995.
Augustine. De Trinitate, in CCSL 50 and 50A.
Calvin, John. Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia, 59 vols., ed. Guilielmus
Baum, et al. (Brunswick 1863–1900).
Corpus Iuris Canonici [Liber extra], ed. Aemilius Friedberg, 2 vols. Graz 1959.
Hincmar of Rheims. De una et non trina deitate, in PL 125, 473–618.
Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, ed. Stephen A. Barney, et al.
Cambridge 2006.
John Duns Scotus. Reportatio I-A, ed. and trans. Alan B. Wolter and Oleg
V. Bychkov, 2 vols. St. Bonaventure, NY, 2004 and 2008. NB: cited as
Wolter-Bychkov.
Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 73 vols.
Weimar 1883–2009.
Peter Auriol. Scriptum super primum Sententiarum, at http://www.peterauriol.
net/editions/electronicscriptum/contents/, accessed January 2020. NB: cited
as Electronic Scriptum.
Richard of St. Victor. De Trinitate, ed. J. Ribaillier. Paris 1958.
Thierry of Chartres. De sex dierum operibus, ed. N.M. Häring in Commentaries on
Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School. Toronto 1971.
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, in Opera Omnia (Leonine Edition), vols.
4–12. Rome 1888–1906.
William of St. Thierry. Aenigma fidei, in PL 180, 397–440.

Modern Sources
Barnes, Michel René. “De Regnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26.2
(1995), 51–79.
Bougerol, Jacques-Guy. “The Church Fathers and the Sentences of Peter
Lombard,” in The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, ed. Irena Backus.
Leiden 2001, 113–164.
Giraud, Cédric. “The Literary Genres of ‘Theology’,” in A Companion to the
Twelfth-Century Schools, ed. Cédric Giraud. Leiden 2020, 250–271.
Helm, Paul. John Calvin’s Ideas. Oxford 2004.
de Rijk, Lambertus. “On Boethius’ Notion of Being. A Chapter of Boethian
Semantics,” in Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman
Kretzmann. Dordrecht 1988, 1–29.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

Pelikan, Jaroslav and Valerie R. Hotchkiss, eds. Creeds and Confessions of Faith in
the Christian Tradition, 4 vols. New Haven 2003.
Rosemann, Philipp W. The Story of A Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s
‘Sentences.’ Ontario 2007.
Weijers, Olga. A Scholar’s Paradise. Teaching and Debating in Medieval Paris.
Turnhout 2015.
 CHAPTER 2

Theological Epistemology

Abstract This chapter examines how it is that one can know God is
Trinity. It begins with a discussion of early medieval attempts to prove that
God is Trinity by means of rational argumentation. And, while it is clear
that this tradition had some influence in the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries, one observes that formal demonstrations for the triunity of God
waned by the thirteenth century. In the subsequent sections of the chap-
ter, we explore how medieval Christians argued that the Trinity is known
through vestiges, Scripture, the Son (cognitio per Filium), and prayer.

Keywords Trinity • Epistemology • Knowing God • Vestiges •

Scripture • Prayer

John Calvin wrote in the Institutes that God discloses Himself to human-
ity through the creation of the universe such that one cannot “open his or
her eyes without being compelled to see Him.”1 The creator God is evi-
dent, Calvin argues, throughout creation: there is no place one can look
without seeing God’s glory—the beauty of the universe itself is a mirror in
which one can contemplate God, a virtual theater of His glory.2 The prob-
lem, however, is that despite divine wisdom and goodness being imprinted

1
Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.5.1 (CO 2, 41).
2
See Susan E. Schreiner, Theater of His Glory.

© The Author(s) 2020 19

J. T. Slotemaker, Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and Reformation
Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47790-5_2
20 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

into the very fabric of the world, human beings are limited in their ability
to know God. They are simply not in a position to understand and inter-
pret creation in a way that leads to a discrete knowledge of God’s trinitar-
ian nature. So how can one know the triune God?
Almost every medieval theologian held that God is revealed through
two sources: (1) the natural world, and (2) the Scriptures. This idea
emerges as early as Tertullian’s third-century work Adversus Marcionem,
and many medieval theologians, such as Hugh of St. Victor, referred to
these sources as the “two books” written by the Holy Spirit, the finger of
God (digitus Dei).3 The two books, for Hugh, provide knowledge of God
as He reveals Himself to human beings. For some, like John Calvin, the
knowledge that one gets of God through the natural world is limited, such
that he will rework the metaphor and argue that human beings are only
able to read the “book of nature” by means of the “spectacles” of
Scripture.4 Without Scripture, Calvin argues, one can only acquire a con-
fused knowledge of God by means of the natural world. For others, such
as Peter Abelard, there is a more complete knowledge of God that one can
access by means of reason unaided directly by Scripture, and that is the
basic tension we will be tracing in this chapter.

The Trinity and Demonstrative Arguments

Can human reason deduce that the one God is three persons? Is this article
of faith known only by means of revelation, or can one demonstrate that
God is three and one? There was a remarkable range of opinions in the
medieval period regarding what could be known about the Trinity by
means of reason alone. That said, the question of demonstrably proving
the Trinity is really a question belonging to the long twelfth century; for
the majority of later thinkers between the thirteenth and sixteenth centu-
ries, the triunity of God was an article of faith that could not be rationally
demonstrated. However, in the twelfth century this was not yet settled,
and theologians between Anselm and Richard of St. Victor would wrestle
with this question. We begin with Anselm.
Anselm is infamous for arguing in the Monologion that he would pres-
ent a theology of the trinitarian God in which nothing would be argued

3
Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 1.18 (46–47).
4
Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.6.1 (CO 2, 53).
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 21

on the basis of Scripture, but by means of reason alone.5 Here Anselm

seems to move from a natural knowledge of the divine essence and its
attributes to a full-blown account of the divine Trinity. However, as the
reader quickly realizes, Anselm is working with a particular understanding
of reason and is operating within the constraints of the “reasoning of the
faith.”6 Commentators on Anselm have disagreed as to what this means,
with some arguing that Anselm intends to provide philosophical proofs
that God is Trinity that ought to be convincing to believer and unbeliever
alike,7 while others have attempted to soften this claim by arguing that
Anselm is working within the context of the faith and is presenting argu-
ments based on the creeds and Scripture—if not quoting them directly—
for monks within his community.8 Regardless of how one adjudicates this
scholarly debate, almost everyone would agree that Anselm displays a
remarkable confidence in the ability of human reason to know the Trinity.
Anselm’s arguments in the second half of the Monologion attempt to
demonstrate that a divine essence must necessarily be triune. His exposi-
tion of the necessary emanations in God emerges seamlessly out of his
treatment of the divine essence, its attributes, and its role in creation.9
What is perhaps more interesting is that Anselm is not an anomaly in the
twelfth century. As Richard Southern reminds us,

for the first time ever [in the twelfth-century masters] we find scholars con-
fident that nature could be fully understood … everything could be known,
and already, as it seemed to those optimistic masters, more was known than
had ever been known before.10

This optimism with respect to human knowledge was not limited to the
natural world, and the theologians of the twelfth century demonstrate a
remarkable confidence regarding what can be known about the divine
nature. Here we consider Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Abelard because
they offer two important alternatives in the century following Anselm.
Hugh maintained in his early Sententiae de divinitate that there are four
ways the human creature can know the Creator, two according to nature

5
Anselm, Monologion, prol. (I.7).
6
Ibid.
7
Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm, 14–19.
8
John T. Slotemaker, Anselm of Canterbury, 6–8, 17–20.
9
Ibid. 31–41.
10
R.W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism, 33.
22 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

and two according to grace: according to nature, reason and the natural
world can lead one to knowledge of God; according to grace, inspiration
and teaching can lead one to knowledge of God.11 Reason, what Hugh
calls the first eye, is understood as an internal knowledge that is based on
nature and not grace. He writes that reason naturally has the light of truth
planted into it and is the source of three kinds of knowledge regarding
God: “God exists, God is one, and God is triune.”12 Here, it seems, Hugh
supports a purely rational knowledge of God as Trinity, though as we will
see, he would nuance this in subsequent works.
Later in his De Sacramentis, Hugh argues that there is not a purely
rational knowledge of God as Trinity that is available to all human beings:
he argues, by contrast, that the fact “that God is” (quia esset) is available
to all rational creatures, while “what God is” (quid esset) remains unknown
without the aid of grace and revelation.13 Thus, for Hugh, knowledge of
God as Trinity is bound to God’s revelation through Scripture—that said,
Hugh also thinks that that revelation is now available to almost all persons,
such that one is without excuse. Since God is revealed through the Word
to all rational beings, they cannot help but see God’s trinitarian nature
manifest throughout the created order. Hugh’s De tribus diebus (On the
Three Days) is a strikingly beautiful exposition of this basic theologi-
cal point.
Peter Abelard, by contrast, will make a more robust claim about what
can be known based on reason alone. He begins his examination of trini-
tarian theology in the Theologia ‘summi boni’ with the claim that God the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are known by means of their power, wisdom,
and goodness, respectively: the Father through the power to create and do
all things, the Son through His wisdom, and the Holy Spirit through His
goodness in human redemption. This trinitarian triad—also found in
Hugh’s De tribus diebus—was central to Abelard’s trinitarian theology.
While Hugh had argued that the Trinity can be known through the natu-
ral world as interpreted through Scripture, Abelard’s focus is on the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and what can be known by means of

11
Hugh, Sententiae de divinitate III (Coolman-Coulter, 156). I have cited the English
translation.
12
Ibid. 157.
13
See Hugh, De Sacramentis I.3.1 (PL 176, 217). Cf. Bonaventure’s reading of Hugh,
Quaestiones disputatae de mysterio Trinitatis I.1 (V, 45).
14
Constant J. Mews, Abelard and Heloise, 105n14.
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 23

examining the properties associated with the three persons. Thus, under-
standing Father as power, Son as wisdom, and Spirit as goodness provides
some knowledge about the Trinity: knowledge, Abelard argues, that is not
limited by the revelation found in Scripture.
The pagan philosophers, Abelard claims, had some knowledge about
the divine Trinity. In particular, he examines Cicero’s De inventione and
Plato’s Timaeus: the former providing evidence that pagan philosophers
were not polytheists as well as linking the notion of the order and good-
ness of creation with the notion of God; the latter discussing the nature of
the “world soul” that is perhaps a simulacrum for the Holy Spirit. The
point Abelard insists upon is that the Pagan philosophers could come to
some knowledge of the Trinity through an analysis of certain attributes
that belong to the three divine persons in a unique way. Abelard also
argues in the Theologia ‘summi boni’ that by means of natural reason one
could know that God is Trinity through the goodness or order of the cre-
ated world.14 There is, however, one caveat that we must add to this pic-
ture of Abelard, lest one think that he falls outside of the normative
Western tradition. In the final chapter of the ‘summi boni’ he maintains
“that all people may have faith in the Trinity by nature” (quod fidem trini-
tatis omnes homines naturaliter habeant),15 such that there is a common
faith that all individuals have by nature (naturaliter). But what does this
mean? It seems that even Abelard would argue that faith is necessary for a
knowledge of God as Trinity, though a faith that could be defined as a
virtue common to all and a natural human quality. As such, one need not
be a Christian to know about the triune nature of God, as the common
faith available to all teaches that God is threefold by means of knowing His
power, wisdom, and goodness.
We began this discussion with John Calvin, who would clearly reject
Abelard’s claim regarding a natural knowledge of the Trinity. Calvin, one
could say, is at the other end of the theological spectrum. What is striking,
however, is that Calvin himself uses language that seems to borrow from
Abelard and an older intellectual tradition. Calvin notes that some phi-
losophers have referred to the human person as a microcosm (μικρόκοσμος)
that contains the divine power (potentia), goodness (bonitas), and wisdom
(sapientia).16 Here the triad so famous in the twelfth century—and the

15
Abelard, Theologia ‘summi boni’ III.5 (CCCM 13, 200–201); id., Theologia ‘Scholarium’
II (CCCM 13, 497–498).
16
Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.5.3 (CO 2, 43).
24 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

center of Abelard’s argument—is employed by Calvin, who similarly

argues that these three attributes reveal the nature of God. For Calvin
God’s power is on display when the wicked are punished and the needy are
“raised out of the dust,” God’s wisdom is on display through the fact that
all things have their season, order, and time, and God’s goodness is on
display in the very fact that there is anything created at all.17 The point
here is not to argue that Calvin follows Abelard’s argument per se, or that
they would agree about how the triad power, wisdom, and goodness
reveals the nature of God. It is, rather, that thinkers who are quite far apart
in terms of what they think can or cannot be known about the Trinity
based on natural reason share a common tradition and grammar going
back to both non-Christian and Christian sources.
In the long medieval tradition, there are few theologians who would
agree with Peter Abelard that there is some natural knowledge of the
Trinity. It was generally held that knowledge of the Trinity is available to
reason informed by the faith. However, what individual thinkers meant by
that claim was varied. Southern, therefore, is correct in his judgment that
in the long twelfth century there was an optimism about what can be
known about God. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was a
bit more caution about what reason could know about God both informed
by faith and uninformed by faith. In the following section, we will con-
sider a similar line of inquiry, looking this time at how a few later thinkers
understood the trinitarian vestiges or images as related to questions of
theological epistemology.

Vestiges and Images

Building upon Genesis 1:26 medieval theologians understood human
beings to be made in the image and likeness (imaginem et similitudinem)
of God. This tradition has roots in the Greek Fathers such as Origen of
Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa and was worked out in extensive detail
in Augustine’s De Trinitate. Furthermore, beyond the study of the human
person, medieval theologians held that there were vestiges (vestigia) or
footprints of God embedded in the natural world. What knowledge of
God can be gleaned from the vestiges or images of the Trinity?

17
Ibid. I.5.6–8 (CO 2, 44–47).
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 25

From the perspective of the thirteenth century, Abelard’s faith in dia-

lectic and a natural knowledge of the Trinity is a bit unnerving. Thomas
Aquinas, for example, argues in the Summa theologiae that knowledge of
God is not self-evident, however, human beings can develop demonstra-
tive arguments that prove the existence of God. These arguments are
demonstrations quia (reasoning from effect to cause) and not demonstra-
tions proper quid (reasoning from cause to effect) because what is known
about the one God are His effects evident through creation. Thomas sub-
sequently develops five arguments (the quinque viae) to prove the exis-
tence of God by means of observing the natural world.18 However,
Thomas does not think that one can know that God is Trinity by means of
demonstration.
In his discussion of the knowledge of the divine persons, Thomas ques-
tions whether it is possible to know the Trinity from creatures (ex creatu-
ris). After all, if there are vestigia (footprints) of the Trinity in creation, it
would seem these “little tracks” might provide knowledge of the Trinity.
Thomas’s response is that the vestigia cannot give one knowledge of the
Trinity precisely because the creative acts of God belong to the unity of
the divine essence, not the distinction of persons; stated differently, when
God creates, it is the divine essence that creates, not a distinct person or a
distinguished Trinity of persons. Thus, what can be known about God by
means of creation is not knowledge of God qua Trinity, but knowledge of
God qua essence.19 If this is the case, however, in what sense do the ves-
tigia give one knowledge of God?
Thomas maintains that while the vestigia cannot give one knowledge of
the Trinity in the sense of furnishing a proof for its existence, they can
provide some knowledge, in the sense that once one believes in the Trinity,
the trinitarian nature of God is manifest throughout creation. Taking the
Trinity as a given—in Thomas’s words, Trinitate posita—one comes to
observe that the goodness of God is manifest in creation through His
infinite power. A goodness, he argues, that can only reach ultimate happi-
ness when it is shared.20 Observing the emanation of all good things from
God, one schooled in trinitarian faith cannot help but recognize in cre-
ation the footprints of the trinitarian fecundity that is the Father, Son, and

18
Aquinas, ST I.1.2–3 (IV, 8–14).
19
Aquinas, ST I.32.1 (IV, 349–350).
20
Aquinas, ST I.32.1.2 (IV, 350).
26 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

Holy Spirit. Thomas concludes that, following Augustine, Christians

arrive at a knowledge of the Trinity through faith (per fidem).21
Thomas was not alone in arguing that knowledge of the Trinity is avail-
able only through faith. His contemporary, the Franciscan theologian
Bonaventure, also insisted that there were limitations in terms of what the
vestigia could reveal about God. In the Itinerarium mentis in Deum
(Journey of the mind into God), Bonaventure presents a mystical vision of
Jesus under the aspect of a six-winged Seraph (angel). The six wings rep-
resent stages of knowing God, and Bonaventure examines the stages in
pairs: the two lower wings symbolize what can be known of God through
vestigia (Itin. 1–2), the two middle wings symbolize what can be known
of God through the imago Dei (Itin. 3–4), the two upper wings symbolize
what can be known of God through seeing God in God’s self, first as the
unity of essence (Itin. 5), and subsequently as a Trinity of persons (Itin.
6). Here Bonaventure agrees with Thomas, arguing that at the first two
levels what is known of God is God qua essence, such that a fully trinitar-
ian knowledge of God does not emerge until one reaches the upper wings
of the Seraph.22 This is a position Bonaventure maintained as early as his
commentary on the Sentences.23
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, John Duns Scotus would
defend a similar position, though on different grounds. Scotus makes a
distinction between theologia in se (theology in itself) and theologia nostra
(our theology): the former referring to God’s knowledge of God, the sec-
ond referring to our knowledge of God in the present life. Theologia nos-
tra, according to Scotus, includes the truths of the faith that God wills to
reveal to humanity through Scripture and the Church. Thus, proving the
existence of God is, strictly speaking, not theology, but part of metaphys-
ics or natural philosophy, while the truth that God is Trinity is fundamen-
tally a revealed truth (theologia nostra) that God makes evident through
Scripture. No one, Scotus argues, can arrive at demonstrable knowledge
of the Trinity in this life by natural means.24 As Scotus understands things,
if God were not a Trinity (per impossibile), He could still create human
beings; thus, since being a Trinity is not necessary in terms of God pro-
ducing human beings, God being Trinity cannot be demonstrated based

21
Ibid.
22
Bonaventure, Itinerarium 6 (V, 310–312).
23
Bonaventure, Sent. I.3.1.4 (I, 76b).
24
Scotus, Quodlibet 14.34 (Alluntis-Wolter, 323).
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 27

on God’s effects.25 Despite this, what can one know about the Trinity by
means of the vestiges?
Scotus maintains that a creature cannot distinctly represent (distincte
repraesentare) the Trinity. That said, a creature can represent the Trinity in
two somewhat lesser or incomplete ways: (1) by means of likeness (per
modum similitudinis), and (2) by means of proportion or correspondence
(proportionis).26 Creatures can represent the Trinity by means of likeness
as goodness represents goodness, truth represents truth, and unity repre-
sents unity. In short, where one finds goodness, truth, and unity, one finds
a likeness of the Trinity, in that all such qualities found in created things
are related, per modum similitudinis, to the three persons of the Trinity.27
Further, creatures can represent the Trinity by means of proportion, such
that the limited represents the unlimited, dependent represents indepen-
dent, possible being represents necessary being (necesse esse). Here, what
Scotus seems to mean is that proportionally the very limited, dependent,
and contingent nature of creatures is related to the trinitarian nature of
God who is unlimited, independent, and necessary. But what does it mean
to represent the Trinity in a non-distinct way?
Scotus is clear that to represent the Trinity distinctly would be for terms
to be attributable to the trinitarian persons insofar as the attributes are
actually attributed (in quantum sunt appropriata). That, quite simply, is
not what is going on in vestigial attribution; instead, this type of represen-
tation is such that the terms or attributes in question represent that which,
by nature, one can attribute to the persons. The difference is that the
former kind of attribution would be to say what the divine persons are in
se, whereas the latter is a kind of attribution that uses terms that, by nature,
are applicable to the divine persons. To say this somewhat differently:
when goodness is found in created things, that goodness is not the same
goodness that is the Holy Spirit (such that it distinctly represents that
person), but is rather like that goodness in the Holy Spirit (per modum
similitudinis).28
Thomas and Scotus agree, therefore, that the trinitarian vestiges cannot
provide a rational demonstration for the Trinity. And here the argument
can be extended from the vestiges found throughout all of creation to the

25
Ibid.
26
Scotus, Reportatio I-A, I.3.3 (Wolter-Bychkov, 206).
27
While this is found in Scotus, it is also present in Bonaventure, Quaestiones disputatae de
mysterio Trinitatis I.2, concl. (V, 54–56).
28
Ibid.
28 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

imago Trinitatis. Thomas and Scotus both argue that human beings are
made in the image of God, such that there is a trinitarian image found in
the human person through the acts of memory (memoria), understanding
(intelligentia), and willing (voluntas).29 For Thomas and Scotus, the image
is not the powers of the soul (potentiae animae), but the acts themselves,
whereby one remembers, thinks, and loves. That said, while there is an
image in the human person, what one can know about God as Trinity by
means of the image is radically limited. In Thomas’s language, the image
is not created by the Trinity, but is the product of the divine essence; as
such, one can argue that there is a God who creates all things, but one
cannot argue that there is a Trinity of persons. In Scotus’ language, it is
not necessary that God is Trinity, and, per impossibile, if God were not a
Trinity of persons, God could still have created humans capable of remem-
bering, thinking, and loving. Therefore, one cannot deduce from the
imago Trinitatis that God is a Trinity of persons.
This basic position would become normative for the majority of late
medieval theologians. Almost a century after the death of Thomas, the
Augustinian theologian Peter Gracilis would argue that a vestige of the
Trinity appears in every creature (quaelibet creatura) because every crea-
ture is one thing (aliquid unum) that has a likeness (speciem) or beauty
(pulchritudinem), and has order, love, and goodness (ordinem, amorem,
bonitatem). The unity of every created thing represents the Father who is
the principle of origin; the beauty of every created thing represents the
Son, who is the beauty according to which every beauty is formed; 30 and
order represents the Holy Spirit, who is the love and goodness of the
Father and Son. Thus, all created things have a unity, beauty, and order
that is intrinsic to it as a created thing. That said, such knowledge is only
available to one who holds that God is Trinity based on the Scriptures and
the creeds. As Gracilis concludes, “one is not able to have sufficient knowl-
edge of the Trinity through the contemplation of creatures, without doc-
trine and divine inspiration or revelation.”31
Like so many medieval theologians, Gracilis recognized that knowledge
of the Trinity is fundamentally gleaned from the Scriptures and the
Church’s distillation of what the Scriptures teach in the creeds. Luther
would also insist that Christians know the trinitarian nature of God

29
Thomas, ST I.93 (V, 401–412); Scotus, Reportatio I-A.3.7 (245–248).
30
Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate 6.10.11 (CCSL 50, 241–242).
31
Gracilis, Sent. I.4 (R, fol. 23v).
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 29

through Scripture and the creeds: in the memorable image of Luther, the
creeds of the Church are like the honey collected from beautiful flowers.
The flowers are the Scriptures, and the Fathers of the Church are the bees
who have taken what is good and pure in the Scriptures and collected it
into an abbreviated form, as the goodness of a flower is condensed into
honey.32 For Gracilis and Luther, therefore, the Scriptures and the creeds—
which are not something radically distinct from the Scriptures, but a sim-
ple distillation of what is taught within them—are the true source of
trinitarian theology.

The Trinity and Scripture

The first four books of Augustine’s De Trinitate are an extended analysis
of how Scripture speaks about God. Here Augustine gives an explanation
for how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—who are the one God—
are to be understood according to the faith. This, he writes, must first be
established by an appeal to “the authority of sacred Scripture.”33 Augustine
begins with an analysis of two distinct kinds of passages: those that speak
of the Son of God as the same substance with the Father (e.g., John 1:1,
2, 3, 14), and those that seem to speak of the Son as subordinate to the
Father (e.g., I Timothy 2:5; John 14:28).34 The former support a pro-­
Nicene interpretation of the Trinity and are evidence of his basic claim; the
latter pose a challenge, and Augustine follows previous Latin theologians
such as Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan in arguing that such pas-
sages refer to the Son’s incarnate life, such that when Christ says “the
Father is greater than I” it is a statement about his life as incarnated in the
flesh. His approach, however, is not limited to just the Son. He also exam-
ines similar passages about the Spirit.
De Trinitate I–IV is not, however, a simple theological reading of New
Testament passages that examine the divinity of the Son and Spirit. In the
second book, Augustine turns to Old Testament theophanies and argues
that because it is proper for the Son and Spirit to be “sent,” many of the
passages in the Old Testament are not speaking about the Father (or the
one God) but of the Son or Spirit. For example, Augustine examines

32
Luther, Sermon 27 (1535), (WA 41, 275).
33
Augustine, De Trin., 1.2.4 (CCSL 50, 31–32).
34
Ibid. 1.6.9 (CCSL 50, 37–38), 1.7.14 (CCSL 50, 44–46).
35
Augustine, De Trin. 2.10.19–2.12.22 (CCSL 50, 105–109).
30 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

Abraham’s discussion of the “three men” near the Great oaks of Mamre in
Genesis 18—here, and in other passages, Augustine insists that it is not
only the Son who is revealed but also the entire Trinity.35
Augustine’s methodology throughout the first four books of De
Trinitate is exegetical and provides a foundation for arguing that both the
Old and New Testament contain evidence that God is Triune. These first
four books are also a complex argument that knowledge of the Trinity is
always saving knowledge grounded in Jesus Christ; thus, as has been
emphasized in the literature, there is an explicitly Christological and
Soteriological dimension to Augustine’s biblical and trinitarian hermeneu-
tics. Knowledge of God, therefore, cannot be gleaned from the biblical
text without the gradual process of purification that is found through par-
ticipation in Christ, and, through Him and the Spirit, in relationship with
the Father.36 This should not surprise us, for Augustine states in the very
introduction to De Trinitate that he is on guard against those who attempt
to formulate a knowledge of God based on a “misguided love of reason”
independent of the faith.37
The long medieval tradition would inherit Augustine’s trinitarian
hermeneutics, and here it is perhaps instructive to consider a couple con-
crete examples. First, it goes without saying that numerous biblical pas-
sages were understood as defending the claim that God is Trinity: for
example, dozens of New Testament passages were used to defend the gen-
eration of the Son (John 1:1–5; 1:14; 1:18; 3:16; 5:26; 14:11; 17:21,
etc.), or the procession of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7;
20:22, etc.). The great Patristic authors discussed these passages at length
and the medieval theologians inherited a tradition of commenting upon
them. What is perhaps more interesting is that building upon Augustine’s
work these authors also understood the Old Testament to provide evi-
dence of the Trinity. Here we can turn to an interesting case in which
Peter Lombard and Bonaventure—following Augustine’s Sermon 9—read
the first three commandments of the Decalogue as pertaining to the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively.
Peter Lombard argues that the Decalogue should be understood (Cf.
Matthew 22:40) as consisting of two tables: the first table contains com-
mandments 1–3 and pertains to the love of God; the second table contains

36
Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 142–173. Cf. Luigi Gioia, Theological Epistemology.
37
Augustine, De Trin. 1.1.1 (CCSL 50, 27). See Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 243.
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 31

commandments 4–10 and pertains to the love of neighbor.38 Bonaventure

would agree with the Lombard’s approach. In his reading of the first table,
Bonaventure argued that the triad introduced by Peter Abelard and Hugh
of St. Victor—power, wisdom, and goodness—could fruitfully be applied
to this passage. Bonaventure concluded that

1) you shall have no other God before me refers to the Father as power
(potentia),
2) you shall not use the name of the Lord in vain refers to the Son as
wisdom (sapientia), and
3) you shall remember to keep holy the Sabbath day refers to the Holy
Spirit as goodness (bonitas).39

The problem, however, is that it is not immediately clear why this triad is
usefully applied to this passage. Bonaventure explains: the first command-
ment—to have no other gods—is about the Father, and the proper wor-
ship and adoration that is a fitting response to the divine power (potentia)
and majesty (maiestas) of the first person of the Trinity. The Father, fol-
lowing Hugh, represents the divine power, and the only appropriate
human response to this power is worship and adoration. The second com-
mandment is in relationship to Christ in that one is to faithfully confess
the Truth and Wisdom of God, as Christ, through the proper use of oaths.
That is, one can avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain by confessing the
Truth of Christ found in the Son of God. The third command is to love
the Holy Spirit. This commandment instructs the proper rest, work, and
avoidance of Sin that are necessary to love the Holy Spirit. This rest con-
tains seven acts or intentions, the work contains six acts of mercy, and the
injunction not to sin contains five ways to avoid sinning. These three
aspects are appropriate to the Holy Spirit, in that one who keeps them all
will truly be ordered to the proper love and goodness of God.40
But what is going on in such readings of the Old Testament? Here
Bonaventure interprets the Old Testament Law as pertaining to the proper
love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And, well, it is clear that such
readings of the Old Testament only make sense within the context of

38
Lombard, Sent. III.37.1.1 (II, 206).
39
Bonaventure, Collationes de decem praeceptis I.3–5 (V, 507–508).
40
Cf. Ibid. II–IV (V, 511–522).
32 J. T. SLOTEMAKER

Augustine’s hermeneutics described above. For Augustine, the Lombard,

and Bonaventure the one God of Scripture is a Trinity of persons, and as
such the Old Testament bears witness to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
While medieval and early modern theologians understood the Old
Testament to be a witness to the triune God, here we can turn to the ways
in which the New Testament functioned both as a source for trinitarian
theology and as a lens by which to read the Old Testament. The fourteenth-­
century Franciscan theologian Peter Auriol wrote a comprehensive biblical
commentary—the Compendiosa litteralis sensus totius scripturae—that was
influential throughout the late medieval and early Reformation period. In
his commentary on John’s gospel, Auriol provided a densely theological
gloss examining the nature of Christ as the second person of the Trinity.
In outlining the basic structure of the book of John, Auriol argues that
almost the entirety of the book is one argument for the claim that Jesus is
the second person of the Trinity, who is: equal to God the Father in
authority, efficacy, immensity, mode of operation (modus operandi) and
activity, benevolence to humanity, friendship and charity, patience and
longsuffering (longaminis). The Son is equal to the Father in all things
that belong to the divine essence and is also equal to the Father in produc-
ing the Holy Spirit (est aequalis Patri in producendo Spiritum Sanctum).41
In short, Auriol interprets the book of John as an argument for the divin-
ity of Christ that not only makes claims about the Word in relation to God
the Father, but also explicates in detail the central claims of trinitarian
theology. Auriol is not unique in his reading of the Gospel of John; since
the patristic period, Christian theologians—from Hilary and Augustine to
Calvin and Melanchthon—understood John as demonstrating the trinitar-
ian truths of the faith.42 Further, Luther, like Auriol, would claim that the
specific purpose of the Gospel of John was to defend the divinity of Christ,
and the Trinity, against the heresiarch Cerinthus.43 However, it is not just
the case that John provides evidence for the Trinity; John also, as we will
see with Luther, was understood to provide a hermeneutics by which to
read other biblical books.
In Matthew 11:27 Jesus states that

all things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the
Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and
anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

41
Auriol, Compendiosa, fol.127r–v.
42
Cf., for example, Melanchthon, Loci (1559) I, (CR 21, 619–621).
 2 THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY 33

Martin Luther begins his exposition of this passage by observing that here
Matthew speaks in a Johannine fashion (Iohannis more).44 John had said
that the Word was the “unbegotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father” (in sinu Patris) (1:18), and Luther links his exposition of Matthew
with this passage of John that speaks of the intimacy of the relation
between Father and Son. Luther argues explicitly that the knowledge one
arrives at from John and Matthew is not philosophical (non philosophice)
but theological, such that what the Son knows is not an abstracted philo-
sophical knowledge of the divine substance, but a knowledge of the judg-
ment and will of the Father. This type of theological knowledge, Luther
argues, is beyond mere human reasoning, and is a mystery hidden (myste-
rium absconditum) from the wise and knowing. The Son transmits a
knowledge of the Father to humanity because, in his divine being, He
understands with the Father. The Son, therefore, is the source of knowl-
edge about the Father and the trinitarian mystery.
What Luther emphasizes here and elsewhere is that the knowledge one
arrives at about the Trinity is not a kind of knowledge that one can deduce
philosophically; it is, instead, a theological knowledge that is revealed in
Scripture. Thus, as he writes elsewhere, theological knowledge of the
Trinity can only be gleaned through revelation.45 The upshot is that from
Augustine up through Luther the Old and New Testaments were under-
stood as a witness to the triune nature of God—the former being read
through the latter, with the Gospel of John often being seen as a unique
witness to the divinity of Christ and the trinitarian mystery.

Cognitio per Filium

As we saw in the previous section, the Gospel of John was often under-
stood as a unique witness to the Trinity because of its presentation of the
Word. It was, however, not just the Gospel of John that inspired such
reflections. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, Jesus says that with respect
to the Father, “all things are delivered to me by my Father, and no one
knows who the Son is, but the Father, and who the Father is, but the Son,

43
Luther, Sermon 27 (1535), (WA 41, 277–278).
44
Luther, Annotationes Matthaei 11 (WA 38, 525).
45
Luther, Reihenpredigten über Johannes 1–2 (WA 46, 669). While this view was generally
accepted, some questioned whether the technical terms of trinitarian theology are justified.
See, for example, Servetus, De trinitatis erroribus, and Melanchthon, Loci (1521), prol. (CR
21, 85).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 From Homo Erectus to Neanderthal. 18 min., sd., color, 16 mm.
(Origins of man) Adapted from the MGM documentary television
special The Man hunters. Prev. pub. 17Feb70, LP41140. NM:
abridgment. © Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Inc.; 14Dec72 (in notice:
1970); MP24742.

MP24743.
Early man in North America. 14 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Origins
of man) Adapted from the MGM documentary television special In
search of the lost world. Prev. pub. 17Apr72, LP41311. NM:
abridgment. © Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Inc.; 28Nov72; MP24743.

MP24744.
Civilizations of ancient America. 24 min., sd., color, 16 mm.
(Origins of man) Adapted from the MGM documentary television
special In search of the lost world. Prev. pub. 17Apr72, LP41311. NM:
abridgment. © Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Inc.; 27Nov72; MP24744.

MP24745.
Apemen of Africa. 21 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Origins of man)
Adapted from MGM documentary’s television special The Man
hunters. Prev. pub. 17Feb70, LP41140. NM: abridgment. © Metro
Goldwyn Mayer, Inc.; 14Dec72 (in notice: 1970); MP24745.

MP24746.
I’m no fool with fire. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24746.

MP24747.
You and your eyes. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24747.
MP24748.
I’m no fool having fun. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24748.

MP24749.
Gears and machines. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24749.

MP24750.
The Pedestrian. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev.
reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24750.

MP24751.
Donald discovers transportation. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney
Productions; 20Sep73; MP24751.

MP24752.
Navajo arts and crafts. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24752.

MP24753.
A Day with a Navajo family. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney
Productions; 20Sep73; MP24753.

MP24754.
 You and your sense of smell and taste. 3 min., si., color, Super 8
mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt
Disney Productions; 20Sep73; MP24754.

MP24755.
The Camel. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg.
NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions; 20Sep73;
MP24755.

MP24756.
The Living Machine at work. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney
Productions; 20Sep73; MP24756.

MP24757.
Assembling a puppet. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24757.

MP24758.
You and your senses. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24758.

MP24759.
You and your food. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24759.

MP24760.
Muskrat family. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev.
reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney Productions;
2Feb72; MP24760.
MP24761.
Sea lion colony surfing. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney
Productions; 2Feb72; MP24761.

MP24762.
Food chains in a lake environment. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm.
in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24762.

MP24763.
Wolf adaptations for defense. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24763.

MP24764.
The Wolf and the badger. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24764.

MP24765.
Silver fox hunting for prey. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24765.

MP24766.
Silver fox — competition among males. 3 min., si., color, Super 8
mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. ©
Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24766.

MP24767.
 Silver fox den and pups. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24767.

MP24768.
Bears fishing for salmon. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24768.

MP24769.
Pine marten getting food. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24769.

MP24770.
Coyotes escape from man. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24770.

MP24771.
Coyotes hunting. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev.
reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney Productions;
2Feb72; MP24771.

MP24772.
Coyote den and pups. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Add. ti.: Coyote pups and den. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited
footage. © Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24772.

MP24773.
Coyote pups growing up. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24773.
MP24774.
Gathering information for weather forecasting. 4 min., si., color,
Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited
footage. © Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24774.

MP24775.
Raccoon family. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev.
reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney Productions;
2Feb72; MP24775.

MP24776.
Camouflage beneath the sea. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24776.

MP24777.
Ocelots — den and cubs. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24777.

MP24778.
Bullfrogs protecting territory. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24778.

MP24779.
Predators and prey of the forest. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24779.

MP24780.
 Weather: superstition and facts. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24780.

MP24781.
Weather — storm endangers forest animals. 3 min., si., color,
Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited
footage. © Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24781.

MP24782.
Bobcat hunting. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev.
reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney Productions;
2Feb72; MP24782.

MP24783.
Bobcat: mother and cubs. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24783.

MP24784.
Weather: high and low pressure areas. 3 min., si., color, Super 8
mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. ©
Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24784.

MP24785.
Raccoon survival techniques. Pt. 1. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm.
in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24785.

MP24786.
Raccoon survival techniques. Pt. 2. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm.
in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24786.
MP24787.
Raccoon getting food. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney
Productions; 2Feb72; MP24787.

MP24788.
Pine squirrel: mother and young. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24788.

MP24789.
Don’t feed the bears. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney
Productions; 2Feb72; MP24789.

MP24790.
Autumn in the forest. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney
Productions; 2Feb72; MP24790.

MP24791.
Wolf hunting pronghorn antelope. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm.
in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24791.

MP24792.
Bird predators of the mountain water world. 4 min., si., color,
Super 8 mm. in cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited
footage. © Walt Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24792.

MP24793.
 Nesting habits of Canada geese. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24793.

MP24794.
Coyotes and man. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt Disney
Productions; 2Feb72; MP24794.

MP24795.
Forest animals and their young. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & edited footage. © Walt
Disney Productions; 2Feb72; MP24795.

MP24796.
What’s new in gonorrhea? Primary Medical Communications, Inc.
16 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © E. R. Squibb and Sons, Inc.; 11Nov73;
MP24796.

MP24797.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 527. 29 min., sd., color, videotape
(3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador College; 13Dec73; MP24797.

MP24798.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 506. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 4Nov73; MP24798.

MP24799.
Patriotic music: its influence on United States history, 1775–1900.
A Dana production, a division of Saparoff Films, Inc. 21 min., sd.,
color, 16 mm. Appl. au.: Albert Saparoff d. b. a. Dana Productions,
division of Saparoff Films, Inc. © Dana Productions, a division of
Saparoff Films, Inc.; 2Jan74; MP24799.

MP24800.
Physiological and behavioral effects of noise. 10 min., sd., color, 16
mm. © Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center; 21Sep73;
MP24800.

MP24801.
Liquids can burn. Alfred Higgins Productions, Inc. 13 min., sd.,
color, 16 mm. © Alfred Higgins Productions, Inc.; 17Dec73;
MP24801.

MP24802.
The Maple sugar farmer. 29 min., sd., color, 16 mm. Appl. au.: W.
Craig Hinde & Robert E. Davis. © W. Craig Hinde & Robert E. Davis;
1Apr73; MP24802.

MP24803.
Spaced vision. 3 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © ABBA Productions;
11Dec73; MP24803.

MP24804.
Memoirs of a strawberry. 12 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © ABBA
Productions; 11Dec73; MP24804.

MP24805.
Elephant seal colony. 2 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
2Feb72; MP24805.

MP24806.
 Little Red Ridinghood. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24806.

MP24807.
How to make a puppet head. 4 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in
cartridge. Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney
Productions; 20Sep73; MP24807.

MP24808.
History of the bicycle. 3 min., si., color, Super 8 mm. in cartridge.
Prev. reg. NM: compilation & editing. © Walt Disney Productions;
20Sep73; MP24808.

MP24809.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 538. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 15Jan74; MP24809.

MP24810.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 507. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 14Nov73; MP24810.

MP24811.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 508. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 19Nov73; MP24811.

MP24812.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 452. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24812.
MP24813.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 453. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24813.

MP24814.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 454. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24814.

MP24815.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 512. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24815.

MP24816.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 513. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24816.

MP24817.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 515. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 5Dec73; MP24817.

MP24818.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 519. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 7Dec73; MP24818.

MP24819.
 Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 520. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 7Dec73; MP24819.

MP24820.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 521. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 10Dec73; MP24820.

MP24821.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 517. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 10Dec73; MP24821.

MP24822.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 509. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 10Dec73; MP24822.

MP24823.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 510. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 10Dec73; MP24823.

MP24824.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 522. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 13Dec73; MP24824.

MP24825.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 523. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 13Dec73; MP24825.
MP24826.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 525. Ambassador College. 29
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 13Dec73; MP24826.

MP24827.
Garner Ted Armstrong. Program 526. Ambassador College. 28
min., sd., color, videotape (3/4 inch) in cassette. © Ambassador
College; 13Dec73; MP24827.

MP24828.
Stalking the wild cranberry: the making of a T V commercial.
George Gage Productions. Produced in cooperation with the
Beverage and Breakfast Foods Division of General Foods
Corporation, Benton and Bowles, Inc. & Euell Gibbons. 22 min., sd.,
color, 16 mm. © American Association of Advertising Agencies;
17Oct73; MP24828.

MP24829.
The Baggs. A Solari Carr production. 12 min., sd., color, 16 mm.
Appl. au.: Tom Solari, Clark Carr & James F. Griffith. © Tom Solari
& Clark Carr; 26Oct73; MP24829.

MP24830.
We’ve come of age. National Council of Senior Citizens. Made by
Scad Promotions, Inc. 12 min., sd., color, 16 mm. Appl. au.: Stan
Anton. © National Council of Senior Citizens; 1Nov73; MP24830.

MP24831.
Wind raiders of the Sahara. National Geographic Society & Wolper
Productions. 50 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © National Geographic
Society; 28Aug73; MP24831.
MP24832.
Newspaper story. Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational
Corporation. 2nd edition. 27 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (The World of
work) Prev. pub. 10Apr50, M42. © Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation; 19Jul73; MP24832.

MP24833.
T V news: behind the scenes. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation. 27 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (The World of
work) © Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation;
17Aug73; MP24833.

MP24834.
The Mayfly: ecology of an aquatic insect. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation. 15 min., sd., color, 16 mm. ©
Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation; 6Jul73;
MP24834.

MP24835.
Starting school. Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational
Corporation. 14 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation; 20Jul73; MP24835.

MP24836.
The American Indian speaks. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation. 23 min., sd., color, 16 mm. ©
Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation; 27Jul73;
MP24836.

MP24837.
Diffusion and osmosis. Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational
Corporation. 14 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation; 24Aug73; MP24837.
MP24838.
Volcanoes: exploring the restless earth. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation. Produced in cooperation with the
American Geological Institute. 18 min., sd., color, 16 mm. ©
Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation; 21Sep73;
MP24838.

MP24839.
What do you do while you wait? Maclovia. 11 min., sd., color, 16
mm. © Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation; 18Jul73;
MP24839.

MP24840.
The Farmer in a changing America. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Educational Corporation. 27 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (The Rise of
industrial America) © Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational
Corporation; 6Jul73; MP24840.

MP24841.
The United States Supreme Court: guardian of the Constitution.
Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation. Made by
Concept Films. 2nd edition. 24 min., sd., color, 16 mm. Prev. pub.
9Dec54, 5848. © Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational
Corporation; 11Jun73; MP24841.

MP24842.
Say it — moving. 30 sec., sd., color, 16 mm. Appl. au.: William Esty
Company, Inc. © Colgate Palmolive Company; 12Nov73; MP24842.

MP24843.
Gloriously clean/campus. 30 sec., sd., color, 16 mm. Appl. au.:
William Esty Company, Inc. © Colgate Palmolive Company;
12Nov73; MP24843.
MP24844.
The Least of these, my brethren. A John R. Gregory production.
Produced in cooperation with the University of Southern Missions.
14 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © John R. Gregory; 10Apr72; MP24844.

MP24845.
Stabilization: holding the roads. Engineering Research Institute,
Soil Research Laboratory & the Film Production Unit, Iowa State
University. 21 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © Iowa State University a. a.
d. o. Iowa State University of Science and Technology; 20Oct73;
MP24845.

MP24846.
Walking with the Master. 22 min., si., color, 16 mm. Appl. au.:
Mani S. Irani. © Mani S. Irani; 23Jun73; MP24846.

MP24847.
First aid action. The Sidaris Company, a subsidiary of Penn-Pacific
Corporation. Produced in cooperation with the American National
Red Cross, Los Angeles Chapter. 20 min., sd., color, 16 mm. © The
Sidaris Company; 12Nov73; MP24847.

MP24848.
Sexuality in the medical school curriculum. Ortho Pharmaceutical
Corporation. 3 motion pictures (29 min., 35 min., 31 min.), sd., color,
16 mm. © Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation; 21May73 (in notice:
1972); MP24848.

MP24849.
2 guys on 1 girl. 12 min., si., b & w, 8 mm. © Diverse Industries,
Inc.; 15Nov73; MP24849.

MP24850.
 Teenage pajama party. 12 min., si., b & w, 8 mm. © Diverse
Industries, Inc.; 15Nov73; MP24850.

MP24851.
Candy and Dick. 12 min., si., b & w, 8 mm. © Diverse Industries,
Inc.; 15Nov73; MP24851.

MP24852.
Tits galore. 12 min., si., b & w, 8 mm. © Diverse Industries, Inc.;
15Nov73; MP24852.

MP24853.
Henry Miller, asleep and awake. Tom Schiller. 35 min., sd., color,
16 mm. © Thomas Bennett Schiller d. b. a. Tom Schiller Films;
5Dec73; MP24853.

MP24854.
Miller on special problems in the older diabetic. Science and
Medicine Films, a division of Science and Medicine Publishing
Company, Inc. 6 min., sd., color. 16 mm. (Upjohn Mini-text series)
Prev. reg. 18Jun73. NM: Mini-text prologue. © The Upjohn
Company; 8Jan74 (in notice: 1973); MP24854.

MP24855.
Swans of Red Rock Lakes. Pt. 2. A Don Meier production. 23 min.,
sd., color, 16 mm. (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild kingdom) Add. ti.:
Swans of Red Rocks Lake. NM: cinematographic work. © Mutual of
Omaha; 25Jan74; MP24855.

MP24856.
Swans of Red Rock Lakes. Pt. 1. A Don Meier production. 23 min.,
sd., color, 16 mm. (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild kingdom) Add. ti.:
Swans of Red Rocks Lake. NM: cinematographic work. © Mutual of
Omaha; 25Jan74; MP24856.

MP24857.
Adventure above the Arctic Circle. A Don Meier production. 23
min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild kingdom) NM:
cinematographic work. © Mutual of Omaha; 31Nov73; MP24857.

MP24858.
Coyote country. A Don Meier production. 23 min., sd., color, 16
mm. (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild kingdom) NM: cinematographic
work. © Mutual of Omaha; 28Dec73; MP24858.

MP24859.
Isles of enchantment. Pt. 2. A Don Meier production. 23 min., sd.,
color, 16 mm. (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild kingdom) NM:
cinematographic work. © Mutual of Omaha: 2Nov73; MP24859.

MP24860.
Bass, U. S. A. A Mort Neff-Francis Carter Wood production. 25
min., sd., color, 16 mm. © Francis Carter Wood, Inc.; 15Dec73;
MP24860.

MP24861.
Digital computer engineering laboratory. 15 min., sd., color, 16
mm. Appl. au.: The University of Michigan, Audio Visual Center. ©
The University of Michigan; 1Dec73; MP24861.

MP24862.
The Energy environment game. A Portafilms production. 22 min.,
sd., color, 16 mm. © Edison Electric Institute; 2Jul73; MP24862.
MP24863.
About candy. 11 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (About) NM: abridgment.
© Films, Inc.; 20Mar73 (in notice: 1972); MP24863.

MP24864.
About astronauts. 10 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (About) Appl. states
copyright not claimed in official NASA films. NM: abridgment. ©
Films, Inc.: 20Mar73 (in notice: 1972); MP24864.

MP24865.
About horses. 10 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (About) Prev. pub. 1967.
NM: abridgment. © Films, Inc.; 2Mar73 (in notice: 1972); MP24865.

MP24866.
About dogs. 11 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (About) Prev. pub. 1966.
NM: abridgment. © Films, Inc.; 9Jan73 (in notice: 1972); MP24866.

MP24867.
About cats. 11 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (About) Prev. pub. 1968.
NM: abridgment. © Films, Inc.; 29Nov72; MP24867.

MP24868.
Two brothers in Greece. 17 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Man and his
world) NM: abridgment. © Public Media, Inc.; 25Sep69; MP24868.

MP24869.
Venezuela. 12 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Man and his world) NM:
abridgment. © Public Media, Inc.; 23Apr70; MP24869.

MP24870.