Abstract

St. Augustine tells us that he worked on the De Trinitate on and off between 400 and 416. The aim of this work is basically twofold: to examine both how the absolute monotheism of Christianity can speak of three divine persons as well as to examine how humanity images this triune God. A rare treasure of theology and psychology, the DT has shaped most of the West’s talk about the Trinity. For how we read Scripture’s often oblique references to the Trinity, how we understand the Trinitarian relations within God as well as what it means that the human person is created in this divine image, have been largely determined by Augustine. Given the importance and influence of the DT, it is curious that an English edition did not appear until the late nineteenth century when Philip Schaff included Arthur West Haddan’s translation in the 1887 Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series. Since then only two more full English translations have appeared: Stephen McKenna’s in 1963 and Edmund Hill’s in 1991.