Abstract

To the modern reader, it might seem surprising that the Book of Sentences finds allusions to the Trinity in the Old Testament. Book 1 of the Sentence opens with the use/enjoyment distinction, with which we have already acquainted ourselves. There follows a section comprising several chapters in which Lombard examines the evidence for the existence of three persons in the one Godhead. This chapter also tries to reflect upon Peter Lombard's ambiguous attitude toward the theological debates of his time, or at least toward certain aspects of these debates—he was taking up a question reluctantly, not because of its inherent value but only in order not to pass over a point which featured prominently in contemporary debates. It concludes that Lombard was well aware of the kind of counterarguments that his teaching on charity was likely to provoke; indeed, a lively controversy about it seemed to have started during his own lifetime.