The Trinity

Book XIV

BOOK FOURTEEN Chapter 1 ilE ARE NOW TO TREAT OF WISDOM, not that of God which is undoubtedly God-for His only-begotten Son is called the Wisdom of God1-but we shall speak about the wisdom of man, yet of true wisdom which is according to God, and is the true and principal worship of Him; in Greek it is called by one word theosebia. Since our writers also wished to interpret this word by a single term, as we have already mentioned, they called it piety, pietas, while among the Greeks the more usual name for piety was eusebia; but because theosebia cannot be perfectly translated by one word, it is better to use two words, so that it should rather be called the worship of God [Dei cultus]. That this is the wisdom of man, which we have already explained in the twelfth book of the present work,2 is proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture in the book of Job the servant of God, where we read that the Wisdom of God said to the man: 'Behold, piety is wisdom, but to abstain from evil, knowledge.'3 But some have also translated this Greek word epistemen, as disciplina, which has certainly taken its name from discendo, and for this reason can also be called knowledge. For everything is learned in order that it may be known. I Cf. Ecclus. 24.5; I Cor. 1.24. 2 C. H. ~ Cf. Job 28.28. 411 412 SAINT AUGUSTINE Discipline, however, is commonly spoken of in another sense, namely, in reference to those evils which anyone suffers for his sins in order that he may be corrected. Such is its meaning in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'For what son is there to whom his father does not give discipline?' And he says even more clearly in the same Epistle: 'For all discipline seems for the present to be a matter not for joy but for grief; but afterwards it will yield the most peaceful fruit of justice to those who have been exercised by it.'4 God Himself, therefore, is the highest wisdom, but the worship of God is the wisdom of man about which we are now speaking. For 'the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.'5 In accordance with this wisdom which is the worship of God, the Sacred Scripture says: 'The multitude of the wise is the welfare of the whole world.'6 (2) But if it is the function of wise men to treat of wisdom, what shall we do? Shall we venture to make profession of wisdom in order that our discussion of it may not appear impudent? Or shall we be deterred by the example of Pythagoras who, since he did not venture to profess himself a wise man, answered that he was rather a philosopher, that is, a lover of wisdom? Thus arose this name which so pleased succeeding generations that from then on, no matter how greatly anyone might seem either to himself or to others, to excel in subjects pertaining to wisdom, yet he should only be called a philosopher. Or is it that none of these men, then, ventured to acknowledge himself as wise, because they considered a wise man to be without any fault? But our Scripture does not say that, which says: 'Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.'7 For it certainly judges that he has a sin, since it declares that he should be rebuked. But even so, I do not venture to call myself a wise man; it is sufficient for me, what even they them4 Cf. Heb. 12.7. 11. 5 1 Cor. 3.19. 6 Wisd. 6.26. 7 Prov.9.8. BOOK FOURTEEN 413 selves cannot deny, that it is also the function of the philosopher , that is, of the lover of wisdom, to treat about wisdom. For they have not refrained from doing this, who professed themselves to be the lovers of wisdom rather than wise men. (3) But when arguing about wisdom they defined it by saying: 'Wisdom is the science of human and divine things: Wherefore, in the preceding book, I, too, did not omit to say that the knowledge of divine and human things should be called wisdom as well as science.s But according to this distinction in which the Apostle said: 'To one is given the utterance...