Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (19).

1. Here it is asked whether the Father was able or willing to beget the Son. Some commonly ask whether the Father was able or willing to beget the Son. For, they say, if he was able and willing to beget the Son, then he was able and willing to do something that the Son was neither able nor willing to do, since the Son was neither able nor willing to beget the Son. — We readily answer this sophistry by saying that being able or willing to beget the Son is not being able or willing to do some object subject to the will or power; nevertheless, there is a certain power or will, namely, the ability or will to beget the Son. Therefore the meaning of the preceding verb must be distinguished. To be able or willing to beget the Son is to be able or willing to do something; yet the Son’s generation is none of the things subject to divine power and will, nor is it one thing among all things or one of all things, but it is above all and before all. For he did not will or have the power before he begot. — just as he did not exist before he begot, since he existed from eternity and begot from eternity. — We can see this also from a similar case: the Father can be Father and wills to be Father, whereas the Son can neither be nor wills to be the Father; therefore the Father can or wills to be something that the Son cannot or does not will to be. The inference does not follow, because being the Father is not being something, as will be shown below¹.

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2. He cites certain words of Augustine that may trouble the reader. But we are greatly troubled by what Augustine says in Book I Against Maximinus⁴. Maximinus asserted that the Father was more powerful than the Son because the Father begot God the Creator, but the Son did not; he said that the Father could beget, but the Son could not, and therefore the Father was more powerful than the Son. — In reply, Augustine seems to say that the Son too could beget, in order to show that the Father is not more powerful than the Son, in these words: «Far be it that the Father be more powerful than the Son for the reason you suppose: that the Father begot the Creator, whereas the Son did not. For it is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting». — Look carefully at these words and attend to them: «It is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting». He seems to say that the Son could beget, but that it was not fitting, and thus that he could do what it was not fitting to do. He adds why it was not fitting, saying⁵: «Divine generation would be immoderate if the begotten Son were to beget a grandson for the Father; for according to your astonishing wisdom that grandson too would be called powerless unless he begot a great-grandson for his grandfather. Likewise, if that one did not beget a grandson for his grandfather and a great-grandson for his great-grandfather, you would not call him almighty. Nor would the series of generation be fulfilled if one were always born from another; and none would complete it if one did not suffice. The Almighty therefore begot the Almighty, the Son of the Father by nature, not by creation».

3. An objection is raised against Augustine’s foregoing words. Some think that this cannot stand, namely, that the Son could have begotten. For if the Son could beget, he could be a father; and if he could be a father, then he could be the father either of himself, or of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of someone else. Not of someone else, because no other has always existed; not of the Father, because the Father is unbegotten and unborn; not of himself, because no thing can beget itself⁶; nor of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit could not be born. For if he could be born, he could be a Son, and thus could be mutable.

4. Here it is asked how these words are to be understood. How, then, should what was said above be understood: «It is not that he could not beget, but that it was not fitting», as if it meant: he could, but it was not fitting? It is not clear to us how this is true, and so it would be better to pass over it in silence, were I not compelled to say something about it by the urgency of those who ask.

5. Here he explains in what sense they should be understood. It can therefore be understood thus: «It is not that he could not, but that it was not fitting», that is, the Son’s not begetting was not due to an inability in himself, but it was not proper to him; just as God the Son is not God the Father, yet this is not due to an inability in him. Likewise the Father is not the Son, and this is not due to an inability in the Father. But Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, asks: Why, then, can the Father not be the Son, or the Son the Father? Certainly not through inability; rather, the Father is Father by the property of generation, by which he must not be the Son, and the Son is Son by the property of birth, by which he must not be the Father. These properties will be treated more fully later⁷.

Chapter 2 (20).

1. Whether the Father has by nature the power to beget the Son, and whether this is a power that is in the Son. Some also ask⁸ whether the Father has by nature the power to beget the Son, and whether this is a power that is in the Son. — We answer that he has power only by nature, for his power is his nature or essence.

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2. But, they say, if he has the power to beget, then he has a power of begetting; whereas the Son does not have the power to beget, if he cannot beget. Therefore the Father has some power that the Son does not have. — The inference does not follow. For the Son has exactly the same power as the Father, by which the Father could beget and the Son could be begotten. The power by which the Son could be begotten is the very same power by which the Father could beget.

3. But an objection is raised against this: being able to beget is one thing, and being able to be begotten another, because begetting and being begotten are different. — Here a distinction must be made. If by saying «being able to beget is one thing, and being able to be begotten another» you mean one power by which the Father can beget and another by which the Son can be begotten, the interpretation is false. But if you mean that the Father can have one property or notion by which he is begetter, and the Son another by which he is begotten, the interpretation is true. For the Father has one property by which he is Father, and the Son another by which he is Son.

4. How it is to be understood that the Son has or does not have the power of generation. Likewise, when it is said that the Son does not have the power of generation that the Father has, this can be understood in two ways. If one says, «The Son does not have the power of generation that the Father also has», that is, the power by which he is able to generate, so as to have begotten or beget as the Father does, this is true. But if it is understood thus: he does not have the power by which he can be begotten or be generated, the same power by which the Father was able to beget or to beget, this is false. Thus one says: the Father has the power by which he can be Father, whereas the Son does not have the power by which he can be Father; and conversely, the Son has the power by which he can be Son, whereas the Father does not have the power by which he can be Son. Does the Father, then, have some power that the Son does not, and conversely? Far from it! For the power by which the Father can be Father and the Son can be Son is one and the same. So too the will by which the Father wills to be Father, not Son, and the Son wills to be Son, not Father, is one and the same; likewise the Son’s will to be begotten and to have the Father begetter is the very same will as the Father’s will to be begetter and to have the Son begotten.

¹¹ est add. OP. 10 et om. LMNV. 26 ergo] potentiam add. CT, add. mg. V.]