Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

The error of those who deviate from the truth is not one but manifold: hence one can scarcely recount how many and what manner of dark spirits of heresies have gone astray concerning the greatest of all truths, namely the divine Trinity: yet it is fitting to distinguish them all into a threefold order. For some asserted more divine persons than three; some indeed dreamed of a single person in the Godhead distinct only by a threefold office or name; finally, others said that the three divine persons are not one God, but a threefold one; which errors, so that they may more easily appear and be refuted

Note 1. There were various heretics who attacked the Trinity of divine persons in manifold ways: for first of all the Emperor Anastasius decreed that not a Trinity, but a quaternity, was to be adored, and that for that reason he was struck by lightning from heaven, as Paul the Deacon and Pomponius Laetus report in Cellius, lib. 1. De Trinitate, art. 1. A certain Gallic cleric seems to have subscribed to this error, who, as St. Anselm reports in the book De Incarnatione Verbi, cap. 1. and 13., distinguished the three divine persons really from the divine Essence, and said:

If in God the three persons are only one thing, and are not three things, each one by itself separate, like three Angels, or three souls, yet in such a way that they are entirely the same in power and will: therefore the Father and the Holy Spirit were incarnate together with the Son.

Nor was Gilbert of Poitiers far off, for, as Matthew Paris reports in the Historia Anglicana, in the year 1119, his third assertion was: The properties of the persons are certain eternal relations, which are indeed not what the persons themselves are, but divided in number, and divided in substance, and have three unities, and so there are many eternal things, none of which is God. But far more monstrous was the multiplication of persons, which the first Council of Braga thus condemns in Can. 2., saying: If anyone introduces outside the holy Trinity other names of divinity, I know not what they be, saying that in the divinity itself there is a Trinity of Trinities, as the Gnostics and Priscillians said, let him be anathema.

Note 2. There were some heretics utterly opposed to the former, who from the wholly complete unity of the essence inferred the unity also of the divine person; so that what designates the distinction of persons in Scripture they referred not to the diversity of the persons themselves, but to the difference of the offices and actions of the same person, and said that the same person, inasmuch as it is unbegotten and productive of creatures, is named Father; inasmuch as it is incarnate, is called Son; inasmuch as it sanctifies the creature, is called Holy Spirit; as if one and the same person were distributed into different effects and distinct offices. Praxeas seems to have borne the torch to this error; he, as Tertullian says in the book which he wrote against him, in order to make a heresy of the One, said that the Father himself descended into the Virgin, that he himself was born of her, that he himself suffered: and he adds: Praxeas managed two businesses of the Devil at Rome: he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy. He put the Paraclete to flight and crucified the Father. Hence Optatus of Milevis, in lib. 5. Adversus Parmenianum, calls Praxeas a Patripassian, because he asserted that the divine Father had been crucified and had suffered. Noetus subscribed to him, who, as St. Epiphanius reports in Heresy 57., said that there is one God, the same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who suffered and was born in the flesh. The disciples of Montanus also favored this, for although St. Epiphanius says in Heresy 48. that Montanus thinks about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit just as the holy Catholic Church does; nevertheless St. Jerome, in the Epistle to Marcella, qu. 54., says of the disciples of Montanus: They forced the Trinity into the narrows of a single person: whence Nicephorus, lib. 4. Historiae, c. 22.: Montanus, he says, taught the same things as we do about the divine Trinity and the creation of the world; nevertheless some of his followers afterwards thought that the three substances of the Divinity were one. But this error, almost buried in the netherworld, was stirred up anew by Sabellius the African of Pentapolis, who, as St. Anastasius reports in the Contra Gregales Sabellii, said: The Father is dilated into the Son by taking on flesh, and into the Holy Spirit by sanctifying men: whence he called the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit not three persons, but the same one under three names; hence his disciples were called Patripassians, because they asserted that the Father had been incarnate, had suffered, and had died. To this error afterwards adhered Paul of Samosata, then Photinus, Bishop of Sirmium, and also many more recent heretics, as has already been said.

Note 3. Other heretics, opposed to the aforesaid in the extreme, acknowledged indeed the distinction of persons in God; but denied the unity of the essence; these are distributed into two rivulets of error; for some denied the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Origen is said to have gone before them; nevertheless this error is attributed to Arius as its author, because it was so propagated and disseminated by him that it poured out its poison through the whole world. And when he was extinguished, and, in the manner of Judas, his entrails were poured out in a solitary place, the sect of the Semi-Arians arose, who, tempering the error of Arius as far as possible, asserted the Son to be like the Father and coeternal with him, yet not consubstantial and equal. Changing the word Homoousion, which means consubstantial, into Homoiousion, that is, like in substance, as if softening its rigor: so that by the very similarity and consonance of the word they deceived very many, as if using a catholic word. With them the Macedonians are wont to be numbered, who denied that the Holy Spirit is truly God, and some of them said that the Father is omnipotent, the Son semi-omnipotent, but the Holy Spirit nullipotent. But another error, opposed to them, grew up, that of the Tritheists, who asserted three natures and substances alike in all things, whose leader was Philoponus, as Nicephorus reports, lib. 18. cap. 49.; concerning whom Dionysius the Roman, in Athanasius, in the Epist. De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi, says: These men in a certain way constitute three Gods, while they divide the holy unity into three foreign substances. Hence it is worth the effort at present to resolve three things. 1. That there are only three divine Persons: 2. That they are really distinguished from one another: 3. That they are truly one God. In the following Question, moreover, we shall prove the consubstantiality of the Persons.

First conclusion. — Truly there are three divine persons really distinct from one another. That they are three is sufficiently and more than sufficiently established by the Oracles of both the Old and the New Testament reported above. But that they are really distinguished from one another is proved by the same sacred texts; and moreover the same thing is further confirmed from those various places in which Sacred Scripture commemorates Generation, Paternity, and Filiation in God, which cannot be verified without a real distinction of Persons: For, says St. Augustine, lib. 1. De Trinit., cap. 1., there is altogether no thing which begets itself, so that it may be: and Tertullian, Contra Praxean:

Everything which proceeds from something must of necessity be of the same kind as that from which it proceeds, yet it is not the same, but separate: but where the Second is, there are two, and where the Third is, there are three: for the Third is the Holy Spirit from God and the Son, just as the third from the root is the fruit from the shoot, and the third from the spring is the stream from the river, and the third from the sun is the beam from the ray.

Nor should you say with the Sabellians that these words Father and Son denote in God only a distinction of Persons, not entitatively and really, but according to the diverse offices which the single divine Person bears and executes, and that he is called Father by reason of creation, the Son by reason of incarnation, and the Holy Spirit by reason of justification: for, as Tertullian rightly replies against Praxeas, c. 10.:

It can in no way happen that the Father makes himself a Son to himself, and the Son makes himself a Father to himself: what God has instituted, he himself also guards; the Father must have a Son, that he may be Father, and the Son a Father, that he may be son; but it is one thing to have, another to be; v. g. that I may be a husband, I must have a wife; I shall not myself be a wife to myself; so also that I may be a Father, I have a Son; I shall not myself be a Son to myself; and that I may be a Son, I have a Father; I shall not myself be a Father to myself: for the things which make me, if I have them; then I shall be a Father, if I have a Son: I shall be a Son, if I have a Father: moreover, if I myself am one of these, I no longer have that which I myself am, neither a Father, because I myself am the Father, nor a Son, because I myself am the Son; but inasmuch as I must have one of these and be the other, if I shall be both, I shall not be the one, while I do not have the other: for if I myself am the Son, who am also the Father, I no longer have a Son, but I myself am the Son: but by not having a Son, while I myself am the Son, when shall I be the Father? I must have one Son, that I may be the Father, etc.

Moreover the same thing is established from those very words of Scripture, Ioan. 8., in which the Son affirms, I proceeded from God: and in the same place: I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me. And c. 14. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth. For the one proceeding must be really distinguished from the one from whom he proceeds, and the one sent from the one by whom he is sent, and the one asking from the one whom he asks: since the same one cannot proceed from himself, nor send himself, or ask himself, as Tertullian rightly urges in the same place, and likewise St. Athanasius in the Contra Gregales Sabellii.

Finally, Sacred Scripture expressly pronounces that the Son of God was begotten before the daystar, and that divine Wisdom came forth from the mouth of the Most High before every creature: and that the Word was in the beginning with God, and that through him all things were made: therefore truly within God himself a real distinction of Persons is to be admitted, and not only from a diverse connotation and respect to the effects to be produced in creatures. Add that this divine truth is strengthened by those very principles by which the Sabellians strive to overturn it; for

They object 1. Various places of Scripture in which the unity of God is predicated, whence they infer that there is a single Person: thus Deuteron. 6. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And c. 4. The Lord himself is God and there is no other besides him.

But so far is it from being the case that these words indicate the unity of Person, that rather they signify the Trinity and denote the distinction: for by a wonderful instinct of God it came about that Moses and the other writers of the Old Testament signified the very unity of God by a threefold repetition, namely that they might designate the three Persons in the unity of the Godhead, as the holy Fathers gather, especially Athanasius in the books De Trinit.

They object 2. That saying of Ioan. 14. I am in the Father and the Father is in me: whence they infer that the Father and the Son are a single Person distinguished by only two names. They confirm it from that saying of Isaiae 43. and 45. Only in you is God and there is no God besides you; truly you are a hidden God.

But from those texts the holy Fathers gather the distinction of Persons, especially Athanasius in Dialogue 3. De Trinit. and Hilary, lib. 4., who weighs those words of Isaiah thus: Isaiah, discerning the inhabitant from that in which he inhabits, does so only by distinction of Person, not of kind; for God is in him, and he in whom God is, is God; for God is not in a dwelling-place diverse and alien in nature from himself.

They object 3. That saying of Ioan., I and the Father are one.

But that context fights against them: for, as St. Augustine notes, tract. 36. in Ioan., If one, therefore not diverse: if we are, therefore both the Father and the Son are; for he would not say 'we are' of one, nor would he say 'one' of diverse ones: whence Nazianzen, lib. 1. De Fide: 'One,' he says, he refers to the unity of the Godhead: 'we are,' however, he assigns to the persons. In like manner Tertullian, lib. 1. Contra Marcionem, weighs that saying of 1. Ioan. c. 2. There are three who give testimony in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one; and he says: Those who are three, he says, are one thing, not one person, just as it was said, I and the Father are one? He answers that it refers to the unity of substance, not to the singularity of number.

They object 4. All things that the Father has, the Son equally obtains: therefore there is nothing by which the Son can be really distinguished from the Father. They prove the antecedent from Matth. 11. All things have been delivered to me by my Father: and Ioan. 16. All things that the Father has are mine: and c. 17. All my things are yours and your things are mine.

But from those very words the holy Fathers gather the distinction of persons; for there must be a real distinction between the giver and the receiver. Hence they commonly interpret the aforesaid texts as meaning that the Father gave all things to the Son, except being the Father. Hence the Council of Florence says in the letters of Union: All things that are the Father's, the Father himself gave to his only-begotten Son by begetting, except being the Father: to which that saying of Nazianzen, Orat. 44. in Sanctam Pentecostem, accords: All things whatsoever, he says, that the Father has, are the Son's, except that he is not unbegotten: all things whatsoever the Son has, are the Holy Spirit's, if you except generation. But that the aforesaid exception is implicitly contained in the very words of Christ, Athanasius teaches, Orat. 4. Contra Arianos, saying: But lest anyone, seeing the Son have all things whatsoever the Father has, deceived by the indiscriminate likeness of the things that are had, should think impiously in the Sabellian manner, and judge that the Son is also the Father: for that reason this Word was uttered: 'It was given to me and I received and it was delivered to me,' for no other reason than that he might show that he is not the Father, etc.

And a little further down, that saying of Ioan. 5. Just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son to have life in himself. He weighs it thus: For from this word 'gave' he indicates that he himself is not the Father; while from the very saying he signifies the likeness and property of the Son with the Father.

They object 5. Sacred Scripture affirms that God is alone, Ps. 85. You are the only God; and 1. ad Timotheum 1. To the King of the ages, immortal and invisible, to the only God: therefore he is also solitary: but solitude does not stand with the fellowship of three Persons: therefore three Persons are not to be admitted in God.

The holy Fathers answer that the Scriptures also teach that the Father is not alone, but that the Son is with him; for Christ himself, Ioan. 8., expressly pronounces: I am not alone; but I and the Father who sent me. And in your Law it is written that the testimony of two men is true: I am the one who bears testimony about myself, and the Father who sent me bears testimony about me: which words St. Athanasius, in the Contra Gregales Sabellii, weighs thus: Behold two Persons for you; and unless you say that they are truly two, when he says this, you do not allow a true testimony to exist; for that testimony is confirmed only if it is borne not by one but by two. Therefore the Scriptures are so to be reconciled that the former do not exclude the Trinity of Persons, and the latter do not introduce a plurality of Gods.

They answer secondly that God is called alone by the exclusion of other gods, not by the exclusion of the divine Persons; and this exposition is strengthened by Sacred Scripture itself; for Ioan. 17. we read: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God: and it is added: and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Moreover, of the Son it is said, Isaiae 45., There is no God besides you: truly you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior: and Baruch 3. This is our God and no other shall be reckoned against him: but it is added, After these things he was seen on earth, to signify that the former words are to be understood of the Son of God; nor yet does it follow from this that the Father is not truly God and Lord; and so the particle 'alone' is not exclusive of the Persons, but of vain gods.

I answer 3. With the Doctor, in 1. dist. 2. qu. unica, the word 'alone' can be taken in two ways, namely either categorematically or syncategorematically: taken categorematically it is the same as 'solitary,' and therefore it has no place in the divine realities: hence those propositions are false, God is alone, the Father is alone: that is, solitary. But syncategorematically it can be taken in four ways: for either it determines the essential subject with respect to an essential predicate, and so this proposition is true, You alone are God and the true God: or it determines the personal subject with respect to an essential predicate, and so the proposition only the Father is God would be false; hence when it is said of the Father, Ioan. 17., That they may know you, the only true God, the particle 'alone' does not hold on the part of the subject, namely the Father, but on the part of the predicate, namely the true God, so that the sense is this, That they may know you, Father, who are the only true God. Thirdly, 'alone' can be taken insofar as it determines the personal subject with respect to a personal predicate, and so the proposition is true, Only the Father generates, only the Son is generated. Fourthly and finally, it determines the personal subject with respect to a notional predicate common to several persons, and so it is not rightly joined to a subject importing only one person; but it must be joined to a subject importing both; for you would not rightly say, Only the Father spirates, but you should say, only the Father and the Son spirate.

They object 6. Some testimonies of the holy Fathers by which they seem to affirm that the divine Persons are distinct only by names and by the consideration of the intellect: thus St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. 13., after he distinguished the three divine supposits by their proper characters, subjoins: Each one is God, if it is considered separately, the mind, of course, separating those things which cannot be separated: the same, Orat. 35.: That there is one essence and nature and appellation of God; although through certain distinct thoughts the names also are distinguished at the same time.

But St. Gregory of Nazianzus himself thrusts this wrong far away from himself, for in Orat. 49., showing that in his earlier little works he had professed the true real distinction of the Persons, he says: Since indeed I have condemned this sect, that is, the Sabellian, in the same little book, and I have written the distinction of persons according to the word; for no one can say 'they are one' for one person, nor assign the unity of kind except to the persons: whence, Orat. 35., It is, he says, an equal impiety either to connect the persons in the manner of Sabellius, or to distinguish and separate the natures after the fashion of Arius. Therefore, when he says that one person considered apart from another is distinguished by intellection, he is so to be understood that our intellect can scarcely really conceive and separate one person from another; for a parte rei every person has in itself the two other persons remaining through circumincession, and as to essence it is the same with them, and so it cannot be really separated from them.

They object 7. Things which are the same as one and the same third are the same among themselves: but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same as the divine essence: therefore they are the same among themselves.

I distinguish the major. as I have already distinguished: in whatever identity they are the same as something, in an equal identity they are the same among themselves, I concede; hence since the divine Persons are not the same personally and suppositally, but only essentially in the third, so neither should they be the same among themselves personally, but only essentially.

They object 8. It is a contradiction for something unique to be at once one and manifold: but God, one and Trinity, is divided and manifold: therefore God is not the Trinity.

I distinguish the major. Under the same notion under which it is one, it cannot be divided and manifold, I concede; under another notion under which it is not one, I deny: thus, therefore, God is one in essence and manifold in persons; and so He is not one, and divided, and manifold under the same notion, but under diverse ones.

Finally they object. Nothing is to be admitted in God, with the removal of which God would remain infinitely perfect: but with the Trinity of persons set aside, God remains infinitely perfect, for to be infinite is of the essence of Deity itself: therefore, etc.

He denies the minor. The Doctor denies it in 1. dist. 2. quaest. 53.; for once one person is removed, another will not remain infinitely perfect, not because one person constitutes the perfection of the essence, or of another person, but because all the persons are really identified with the essence, and thus really and essentially are also identified with one another: but it is a contradiction that something really identified with another subsisting thing be removed, otherwise the same thing would really be both removed and not removed, which is a contradiction. Or I distinguish the minor. With the Trinity of persons removed, God would remain infinitely perfect, if that condition were possible, I concede: if it is impossible, as in truth it is, I deny.

You will insist. From the infinity of the divine nature we gather that the divinity is one and incapable of multiplication: but the divine person, as formally distinct from the essence, is no less infinite: therefore neither is it less one and incapable of multiplication.

I distinguish the major. From infinity simpliciter and absolutely, I concede: from infinity in a certain respect and in a certain definite and determinate genus, I deny.

I likewise distinguish the minor. The divine person is no less infinite simpliciter and absolutely, I deny: infinite according to its own proper formal notion, let it pass. Or otherwise, I deny the minor. For the person formally, as it is a person, is neither infinite nor finite, neither imperfect nor perfect, as we shall prove below.

Second conclusion. — In God there are only three divine persons, and there can be neither more nor fewer. This is of defined faith in several Councils, the doctrine of all of which the Lateran Council gathers together and proves again in the chapter Damnamus in these words:

We believe and confess that there is one supreme reality, which is truly the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons together, and each one of them singly... Each of the three persons is that reality, namely substance, essence, or divine nature... And that reality is not generating, nor generated, nor proceeding, but it is the Father who generates, and the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds, so that the distinctions are in the persons, and unity in the nature. Although, therefore, the Father is another, the Son another, the Holy Spirit another, it is not however another thing, but that which is the Father is the Son and the Holy Spirit, the same entirely, so that according to the Orthodox and Catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial.

This very thing St. Athanasius openly hands down in the Symbol: There is therefore one Father, not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. All the contexts of Sacred Scripture likewise prove it, by which in the previous Question we intimated the holy Trinity, that is, that there are three divine persons. Moreover, Sacred Scripture itself openly declares that the Father is unique, while God the Father is expressed by a singular name. But it also clearly sets forth that the Son is unique, and the Holy Spirit unique; for they call the Son the Only-begotten, thus Ioan. 1.: The Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father. And below: glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father. And chap. 3.: So God loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son. Likewise of the Holy Spirit, 1. Corinth. 12.: There are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit. And below: But all these things one and the same Spirit works. And again: in one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body. But John speaks this very thing more evidently, Epist. 1. chap. 5., saying: There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. Although, however, this proposition does not express the exclusion directly and explicitly, nonetheless it designates and imports it implicitly, according to the common interpretation of the holy Fathers.

The same truth is proved by reason: first indeed, if there were more than three divine persons, there would likewise be more Gods, and not one only God: but it is a contradiction that there be more Gods: therefore it is also a contradiction that there be more divine persons than three. Proof of the major. The reason why several persons make one only God, and do not have a distinct Divinity and essence, is that the Father communicates the same Divinity undividedly to the Son through generation; which moreover the Father and the Son communicate to the Holy Spirit through spiration. But such a communication of the same Divinity in God would be impossible, if there were several Fathers, several Sons, or several Holy Spirits. Therefore, etc. The holy Fathers prove the minor, who from that communication confess that God is one; first of all St. Ignatius in the Epistola ad Philippenses gathers: There is therefore one God the Father, and not two, or three, namely one who is, and there is no true one besides Him alone; for the Lord says, God is one... One Son also, God the Word. And with a few words interposed for the unity of the Holy Spirit he concludes: Again, therefore, there are neither three Fathers, nor three Sons, but neither three Paracletes. But one Father, and one Son, and one Paraclete. By which Ignatius observes that it pertains to the unity of God, that there be not several Fathers, nor several Sons, nor several Paracletes.

St. Basil agrees with him, lib. 3. Contra Eunomium: Thus, he says, the notion of unity will be preserved in the Trinity, if we profess one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit. Epiphanius also subscribes, haeresi 64.: The Father, he says, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, a Trinity in truth and a Monad; for therefore there is one God, because there are neither two Fathers, nor two Sons, nor two Holy Spirits. Whence St. Fulgentius, in his response to the first objection of the Arians, concludes the whole matter: if both, he says, were called Fathers, they would surely be dissimilar in nature; for each would consist from himself and would not have a common substance with the other, nor would the Deity be one for those to whom one nature did not belong. The same, to objection 5., says of the Son: Two unbegotten ones, he says, cannot have one nature, where neither of the two finds in the other generation from himself, nor does either recognize in himself the substance of his nativity from the other, etc.

Proof 2. There are as many divine Persons, and no more, as there are unproduced and produced ones: but only one unproduced person exists and can exist, and two produced: therefore only three divine Persons can exist. The major is clear; the minor, however, is proved, as to its first part, by the Doctor in 1. dist. 2. qu. 7. num. 37.: If several unproduced persons could exist, they would necessarily be infinite; but it is a contradiction that there be infinite persons in God: therefore several unproduced persons likewise imply a contradiction. The minor is evident: for those infinite unproduced persons would either be of the same species and distinct in number alone, or diverse. Not the first, because it is a contradiction that there be several infinite things differing in number alone, as we proved in demonstrating the unity of God. Not diverse either, because thus none of them would be infinite, since it would not have the perfections of a person of another species, just as man does not have all the perfections of the brutes, nor do the brutes obtain the perfections of man; and so it would not be infinitely perfect, since it would not have all possible perfections.

He proves the minor. The Doctor: whatever can be in several supposits, and is not determined to a certain number of supposits by something distinct from itself, can by its own notion be in infinitely many, and if it is a necessary being, in fact it is in infinitely many; for as Aristotle speaks, 1. phys. text 32., In perpetual things, being able and being do not differ: but the unproduced divine Person, if it could be in several supposits, could not be determined by anything, so as to be in a certain and determinate number of supposits, because to be determined by another, in order to be in a supposit, is against the notion of an unproduced person: therefore from itself it could be in infinitely many, and thus in fact there would be infinite produced persons: but this is a contradiction: therefore also that from which it follows.

Proof 2. of the same part of the minor: plurality is never to be posited without necessity: but there is no necessity of admitting several unproduced persons; for neither would that regard the production of an unproduced person, nor would it help anything toward the perfection of the produced persons: therefore several cannot exist. Thirdly, because one essence actually existing cannot from itself have diverse modes of existing without productions. Whence, indeed, would that diversity of existing have to be derived? Therefore the unproduced person cannot be manifold.

The same minor is proved, as to its second part. namely that there are only two produced persons, by the same Doctor, ibidem, number 18.: there are as many produced persons, and no more, as there are adequate and sufficient productive principles of diverse notion in the unproduced person: but those principles are only two, namely the intellect and the will: therefore there are also only two produced persons. The minor will appear in the following Disputation, where we shall demonstrate that only two divine processions and productions are to be admitted, and so only two produced persons.

St. Bonaventure proves this very truth from a sufficient combination, which he presents as threefold in 1. dist. art. 1. qu. 4. The first indeed he forms thus: The first Person, who is innascible and inspirable, generates and spirates. The second Person, however, because inspirable but begotten, does not generate, but spirates. The third Person, because spirated and proceeding from the one generating, neither generates nor spirates. And therefore it is impossible that there be more persons than three. The second he forms thus, with Richard of St. Victor, lib. 3. De Trinit. and 20.: From a threefold love; for love is threefold, namely gratuitous, owed, and mixed from both: therefore there must be only three divine Persons: one which only gives, in which is gratuitous love; another which only receives, in which is owed love; and a middle one, which gives and receives, in which is love mixed from both. The third he gathers from origin, for, he says, it happens that one understands a person who is the principle of a person and is not principled, and again a person who is principled and not the principle of a person; and in a third way, a person who is principled and principle. But the fourth mode, that one be neither principle nor principled, is altogether impossible, nor intelligible.

You will say 1. In created things generation proceeds from the fecundity of nature: therefore likewise in God, besides the two processions, one of which is through the intellect and the other through the will, another one arising from the fecundity of nature is to be admitted, and consequently another proceeding person distinct from the Word and the Holy Spirit.

The Doctor answers. ibidem n. 21., distinguishing the consequent: that a production from the fecundity of nature is to be posited in God as from an adequate principle, he denies; from an inadequate and partial one, he concedes. For the adequate and total principle of the production of the Son includes the intellect and the divine essence, each of which concurs partially in that production. The same is to be said of the divine will with respect to the production of the Holy Spirit. Whence, although the divine essence concurs as the principle by which to the production of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it does not thereby have the notion of a distinct adequate principle productive per se of some divine Person, but only insofar as it concurs with the intellect and the will; and so, since there are only two adequate productive principles of the divine Persons, there are also only two produced divine Persons.

You will insist. One and the same adequate principle can have several productions and distinct terms: therefore, although in God there are only two productive principles, it does not follow from this that there are only two produced persons. Proof of the antecedent. The created intellect, e.g., is the adequate principle of the mental word; but it can produce several total and adequately distinct words: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the antecedent. If the produced terms are not adequate, both intensively and extensively, that is, if they do not equal the whole perfection of the producing principle, both in being and in operating, I concede: if they do, I deny. The created intellect, however, can for this reason produce several distinct mental words, because none of those words equals the perfection of the intellect in being. For this is a substance, whereas that is an accident; nor in operating, because the intellect, which concurs with one impressed species to the production of one word, can again concur with another species representative of a dissimilar object to the production of another word. But it is otherwise in divine things; for the divine Word equals the whole perfection of its productive principle, both in being, because it is consubstantial with the Father, and in operating, because it exhausts and equals all the fecundity of the divine intellect; and so the consequence is to be denied.

You will subsume. But the same productive principle can have distinct adequate terms, both in being and in operating: therefore, although in divine things there are only two adequately productive principles, no fewer produced persons can exist. Proof of the antecedent. Produced fire equals all the perfection of the producing fire; for it is of altogether the same nature and activity with it; but from the same fire two other fires can be produced, from two distinct matters applied in diverse ways: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the antecedent. If it does not conflict from elsewhere, namely if the adequate term is not infinite, I concede: if it is, I deny. Whence, since one finite productive principle can have various terms that are also finite, because several finite beings of the same notion do not conflict, since one need not involve the perfection of another; for that reason a finite potency, notwithstanding its limitation, can extend itself to two terms at once, which it could produce separately. But it happens otherwise when the produced term is infinite, because it conflicts for two infinite things of altogether the same notion to exist; for either one would involve the perfections of the other, or not: if so, then they would not be diverse, nor consequently two; if not, then neither would be infinitely perfect, since it would not have those perfections which the other infinite thing would comprise. And therefore the consequence is to be denied.

You will press. As finite potency is related to a finite effect and term, so also is infinite potency to an infinite one: but finite potency can have several finite adequate terms: therefore much more will infinite potency be able to have various infinite adequate terms. Proof of the antecedent. If some difference intervened, it would be chiefly either because the infinite effect exhausts the fecundity of the productive potency, or because it is incompossible with another infinite effect of the same notion: but this does not stand in the way. Not indeed the first, because no reason appears why an infinite adequate effect would exhaust the fecundity of an infinite potency more than a finite one exhausts the fecundity of a finite potency: but the latter does not so exhaust the fecundity of its potency that it cannot further produce another adequate term, as appears from the adduced example of fire: therefore neither does one infinite term so exhaust the fecundity of an infinite potency that it cannot produce a further term. Not the second either: both because, since the effect is posterior to the cause, it does not impede the fecundity of the cause; and because all the divine Attributes and the three divine Persons are several infinite things of the same notion in the notion of Attribute and of Person, although they differ from elsewhere: therefore several infinite terms of the divine Intellect will also be able to exist, although they have their own particular characters by which they are distinguished.

I distinguish the major. According to some proportion, I concede: according to a total one, I deny. It is indeed true that, just as finite potency requires a finite adequate term, so infinite potency must have something infinite as its adequate term; but it is false that, just as a finite faculty can have successively various finite adequate terms, so an infinite one will be able to have various infinite ones; whence the consequence is to be denied. To the proof I say that the variety of infinite terms of the same divine potency conflicts on both counts; namely first, because a single term exhausts and equals the fecundity of its faculty; for if that faculty could produce something further, it would no longer act infinitely in the production of the first term, since it would not bestow every perfection whatsoever on that first term, if it could produce another equally perfect and endowed with like excellences. The second conflicts, because it is a contradiction that there be two infinite things of the same notion, on account of such express contradictions. Nor do the adduced examples prove that; for the divine personalities formally considered are neither infinite nor finite, as will appear below. Likewise the attributes formally considered are neither finite nor infinite; for thus they are distinguished formally, both from formal infinity, which is a mode of the divine essence, and from radical infinity, which is the constitutive and distinctive difference of the divine essence itself. Whence they are not infinite formally, but only really, inasmuch as they are identified with the divine Essence itself; and so they are not several infinite things, but one only, because they do not have the notion of the infinite as they are distinct, but only as they are identified.

You will say 2. There are as many divine Persons as there are their constitutive principles: but these are four: therefore also those. The major is evident: the minor is proved: The constitutive principles of the divine Persons are the opposed relations: but here there are four, namely Paternity and Filiation, passive and active Spiration: therefore, etc.

I deny the minor. And to its proof I distinguish the major: A relation belonging to one Person only is the constitutive principle of that Person, I concede: one that belongs to several Persons, I deny. Active Spiration, however, belongs to the Father and the Son, who indivisibly spirate the Holy Spirit, and therefore it is not constitutive of any divine Person; indeed it presupposes the Father as already constituted through Paternity, and the Son through Filiation.

You will insist. As being generated and being spirated are related, so are generating and spirating; but being generated and being spirated, which are signified through the relations of Filiation and of passive Spiration, constitute distinct Persons: therefore likewise generating and spirating, which are explained through Paternity and active Spiration, ought to constitute two distinct Persons.

I deny the major. For being generated and being spirated are opposed at least mediately, and therefore constitute diverse persons, namely the Son and the Holy Spirit. But generating and spirating are not opposed in any way, and therefore ought not to constitute diverse Persons.

You will say 3. In a most necessary being, to be is the same as to be able: but the divine Son can produce another Son: therefore He really produces Him. The minor is proved from St. Augustine, lib. 3. Contra Maximinum, who asserted that the Son of God is not equal to the Father, and whom Augustine thus sharply refuted in cap. 7.:

The matter is wholly gathered to this point, that God the Father either could beget for Himself an equal Son, or would not. If He could not, He is found weak; if He would not, envious; but both of these are false. Therefore the true Son is equal to God the Father; finally in cap. 12. he concludes thus: But far be it that, as you think, the Father is therefore more powerful than the Son, because the Father begot a Creature, while the Son did not beget the Creator (that is, another Son,) for it was not that He could not, but that it was not fitting:

therefore St. Augustine really judges that the Son of God could have begotten another Son like to Himself, whom nevertheless He did not beget, lest there be several divine Sons.

It is confirmed. There St. Augustine is wholly intent on proving that if the divine Father could not beget for Himself an equal Son, He was impotent, and that conversely, if He is omnipotent, He ought to have begotten for Himself an equal Son: therefore by parity of reasoning, if the Son could not beget another Son, He would not be omnipotent, nor consequently God; and so, in the mind of St. Augustine, the divine Son really could beget another son.

The Doctor answers in 1. dist. 20. qu. unic. n. 12. by denying the minor. As for the consequence of St. Augustine, he says that it holds only through an extrinsic argument, so that if the Father did not beget for Himself an equal Son, He would really not be omnipotent, not that omnipotence is the principle and reason why the Father can produce another Son, otherwise, since the Son and the Holy Spirit are equally omnipotent, They would also have to beget Sons; but that if the Father could not produce for Himself an equal Son, that impotence would argue in Him some defect, which certainly could not be other than a defect of omnipotence, since there was nothing else in the Father that could impede the production of an equal Son. But the same reason does not hold for the Son, since the negation of the production of another son cannot be traced back to a defect of His omnipotence, but to another reason, namely, that two adequate and infinite terms of the same faculty wholly contradict each other. And consequently, the divine Son did not produce another son for this reason, because He could not, or because He is not omnipotent, but because it was not fitting, or because the production of two Sons contradicts itself.

I answer 2. That St. Augustine there argues ad hominem; for since Maximinus conceded at the same time that the Son of God is the natural Son and yet that He was made and is a creature, it followed from this that there was some factible Son of God, who would be equal to the Father: therefore the Father was not omnipotent, if He could not make this Son equal and factible. But that this was the mind of St. Augustine is gathered from the following words, for he adds:

The divine generation would be immoderate, if the begotten Son begot a Grandson for the Father, because the Grandson Himself, unless He begot a great-grandson for His Grandfather, would, according to your wonderful wisdom, be called impotent. Likewise also He, if He did not beget a Grandson

for His Grandfather, and a great-grandson for His Grandfather, would not by you be called omnipotent, nor would the series of generation be fulfilled, if one were always born from another, nor would anyone perfect it, if one omnipotent did not suffice. And so He begot an omnipotent Son, since whatever He Himself does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

Third conclusion. — The three divine Persons are one God in number.

This is de fide, determined in the Councils: in the Nicene, lib. 2., where the holy Trinity is proclaimed undivided and indivisible; in the Sixth of Toledo, e. 1., In the Trinity there is so great a unity of substance, that it lacks plurality and retains equality, nor does less remain in the single persons than in all, nor more in all than in the single persons; and in the Eleventh of Toledo, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is spoken of in the singular. And below: Therefore each single person is affirmed and believed to be one God in the singular. All of which the Lateran Council embraces in the chapter Firmiter, saying:

that there is one only and true God... the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three indeed Persons, but one essence, substance, or nature wholly simple: the Father from no one, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy Spirit in like manner from both. The Father generating, the Son being born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding.

This very thing the holy Fathers most steadfastly defend. First of all, Pope Damasus in his profession of Faith, where he anathematizes him who would divide God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, affirming that they are called Gods and not God, on account of the one Deity and power, which we believe to be the Father's and the Son's and the Holy Spirit's. Whence St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus pointedly notes that the seraphim in Isaiah say: holy, holy, holy, not indeed holy ones, holy ones, holy ones, whereby they pronounce the celebrated singular, nor do they hide the number of the three, but thrice indeed they give sanctification, while uniformly and in the singular they utter the word, lest they name a multitude of gods.

This same truth the holy Fathers prove with very many arguments. First indeed from the Simplicity of God: for the Divine simplicity would not be most strict, if it were not a unique and indivisible essence, as is clear from the example of human nature, which in all men is not properly and truly simple, because it consists of many natures really and numerically distinct. This argument St. Dionysius touched upon, lib. De Divinis Nominibus cap. 1. In nearly all the sacred books, he says, we notice the Divinity to be holily proclaimed, namely as singular and unique, and the simplicity and unity of that excellent individual. With him St. Gregory of Nyssa agrees at the end of the book ad Ablabium:

Since therefore, he says, it distinguishes the hypostases of the holy Trinity by the reason of cause, requiring one indeed to be without cause, another truly to be from a cause, while the Divine nature is found to be free of variation and division in every consideration, for that reason there is properly one Deity and one God, and all the other names fitting God are uttered in the singular.

St. Athanasius confirms it in the first dialogue De Trinitate contra Anomeum. The essence, he says, has no property not common to the hypostases which are subject to the essence, nor does it admit the multiplication of number, since it is unique and singular.

Secondly they prove it from the infinity of the divine essence: for an infinite essence does not admit another as its consort, because it would lack the perfection of the other, which would be possible in the same species; wherefore each created essence is numerically circumscribed and finite, nor does it admit the perfection of another. But what is not circumscribed, says the praised Nyssenus, is not numbered; and what is not numbered cannot be considered in a multitude. Whence, since the divine Essence is not circumscribed nor finite, it cannot be manifold. From this the holy Fathers infer that the divine Essence has no more or less perfection in three persons than in one alone.

This St. Augustine admirably develops, lib. 7. De Trinit. cap. 1., 5. and 6., where, after proposing various reasons why three human persons are three men, while the three divine Persons are not three Gods, he finally concludes in cap. 6.:

One man is not as much as three men together, and some two men are more than one man; and in equal statues there is more gold in three together than in single statues, and there is less gold in one than in two; but in God it is not so, for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together are not a greater essence than the Father alone or the Son alone: but those three substances, or persons, if they are so to be called, together are equal to each one singly.

With him agrees St. Bernard, Epist. 190. to Innocent.

The whole, he says, is the Father, which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are; the whole is the Son, which He Himself and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are; the whole is the Holy Spirit, which He Himself and the Father and the Son are; and the whole one is the whole, neither superabounding in three nor diminished in each one, for they do not divide among themselves particularly the true and supreme good, which they are, since neither do they possess it participially, but this very thing they are essentially.

Thirdly, finally, the holy Fathers prove it from the supreme Unity and Uniformity of God. For, says St. Fulgentius, lib. De Fide ad Petrum cap. 1., the Trinity itself would not be one God, if, just as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from one another by the property of persons, so They had also been separated by a diversity of natures. Whence he adds: For this reason therefore we rightly believe and say that the three are one God, because there is altogether one eternity, one immensity, and the divinity of the three Persons is one numerically.

This very thing St. Ambrose admirably develops, lib. 5. De Fide cap. 1., where, solving this objection of the Arians saying: If you confess the Father and the Son to be of one substance, you do not introduce one God but two Gods, because those who are of one substance appear not as one God but as two Gods, just as two men, etc., he answers:

We approve by the Lord's words, that where there are several, there is a difference either of natures or of wills and operations. Finally, that they may be refuted by their own testimonies, two men are so called, because although they are of one nature, nevertheless they differ by right of birth, and in time, and in thought, and in work, and in place; and therefore one man cannot be said in the signification and number of two, because there is no unity where there is diversity. But one God is said, and the glory and fullness of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is signified.

Here I will not weave again all those scholastic arguments, which I have sufficiently and more than sufficiently inculcated in proving that the plurality of gods is impossible, and hence that the unity of the divinity is numerical and singular; nevertheless here some holy Fathers are to be explained, who seem to assert that among the divine Persons there obtains only a unity of species.

You will say. Therefore the holy Fathers affirm that the divine Persons agree with one another in the unity of the Divinity, just as two men agree in the unity of humanity: but two men so agree in specific unity, and are really two men numerically distinct from one another: therefore in like manner the three divine Persons agree only specifically, and will be three Gods numerically distinct. The major is proved, for St. Gregory of Nyssa, lib. De Fide to Simplicius, says: In the divine dogmas, being begotten makes no difference of nature, but just as in Adam and Abel there is one humanity, or human nature, in their manner also in the Father and in the Son the Deity, or divine nature, is one. Likewise St. Justin in the Expositione fidei, just as Adam, he says, although not begotten in the same manner as his descendants, nevertheless has a common essence with them, so there is no reason why, on account of the name of the unbegotten, the essence common to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit should be torn apart. Similarly St. Athanasius Contra Macedonium, in the first Dialogue:

But Paul, Peter, and Timothy are three, he says; the heretics think that the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, because He is not the Father either: and on account of the difference of persons they introduce differences of substances; how then can Abel and Adam be called consubstantial, since neither can Abel be Adam, nor Adam Abel? But if the difference of persons does not destroy the identity of nature in men, how will it not be impious, for that reason, to think that the supernatural substance of God is diversified?

From which it is clear that the holy Fathers asserted that among the divine Persons there is found only a specific unity, not indeed a numerical one, and hence that They can be called three Gods numerically distinct.

I deny the minor. For that was not the opinion of the praised Fathers, that they should establish an absolute parity between the three divine Persons and three men: but since they were dealing against the heretics, who said that the Son is a substance of a different kind from the Father, and consequently unequal, just as a creature of a different kind is unequal to the Creator, the holy Fathers refuted them thus: if the Son is truly and properly a natural Son, He must necessarily be equal and of the same substance with the Father, just as a begetting man and a begotten man are of the same substance and essence: therefore since you admit that the Word is the Son of God, you must also necessarily confess that the divine Persons are of the same substance. But by a prudent counsel, the Fathers then pronounced nothing about the numerical and real unity of the divine nature, the mention of which would undoubtedly have given the Adversaries occasion for many sophisms, by which they might blunt the force of the arguments. The Fathers therefore judged it enough to bring the disputation to this point, that the Adversaries could not deny the specific identity and equality of substance among the divine Persons; which once admitted, it was easiest for them to prove the numerical identity by those arguments already adduced by us. But that this is really the opinion of the praised Fathers is gathered sufficiently and more than sufficiently, both from what has been said and from what will be said, in which it will appear that they assert that the three divine Persons are one God in number.