Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Note 1. Since the divine processions are truly productive actions, they also necessarily require a term, just as, with due proportion observed, all the productive actions of creatures do. Now a twofold term of a productive action is distinguished in creatures, namely, the term from which and the term to which; for a productive action is, as it were, a tendency from one thing to another. The term from which is again twofold, namely, the one properly and the one improperly so called: the former, following Aristotle, lib. 1. Physicorum c. 5, and the following chapters, is nothing other than the privation of that form which is acquired through the new production or change; whence it happens that, once the form is produced, the term from which, that is, the privation of that form, ceases: the latter, however, can be called that from which something arises and is produced, just as the divine nature can be called the term from which of the generation of the Son, because it is indeed the principle of the Son's productive action. Likewise, the term to which is distinguished as twofold, namely, formal and total: the former is that by reason of which the action is referred to the total; the latter, however, is the person produced itself, according to his whole being, both essential and personal.

Note 2. In the divine realities there is no term from which properly so called, since the term from which is the privation of that form or thing which is produced, and it ceases at the very instant at which the form is produced; but in the divine realities there is no privation of the produced persons, and there is nothing that is extinguished or ceases to be in God through the production of the divine persons, as the privation is extinguished at that very instant at which the produced form begins to be. The difficulty, however, concerns the term from which understood secundum quid and improperly so called, namely, whether it is to be admitted in the divine realities, and whether the divine persons can be said to emanate from the substance of the one producing.

Note 3. Although all Catholic Doctors agree that the Son arises from the substance of the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the substance of the Father and the Son, they do not however agree on the manner in which the produced person is from the substance, or essence, of the person from whom he proceeds. For Durandus, in 1. dist. 5. q. 2., and Henry, in the same place, judge that the Son is said to be from the substance of the Father because the Father's essence constitutes the Son as matter, setting aside, however, these imperfections of matter — namely, that, he says, matter is pure potency, which does not become act except through some form coming to it; likewise, that it is changed from privation to form, and that in acquiring one form it loses another, etc. Durandus assigns three perfections of matter fitting the divine essence, namely, that matter pre-exists the thing producing and in-exists the thing produced; that together with the form it constitutes the whole; that it receives the form in itself and is the subject of generation. From this Durandus concludes that the divine essence has, as it were, the character of matter with respect to the Son and the Holy Spirit; for the divine essence, by a certain order of nature, pre-exists the person proceeding in the divine realities, and in-exists the person produced. Likewise, together with the relative property, which is the form of the person, it constitutes the whole person producing. Finally, it receives that same relation in itself and is, as it were, the subject of divine generation: whence it comes about that it is from the essence of the producing person as if it were matter. But against this opinion nearly all the other Catholic Doctors protest, asserting that the divine essence is neither matter nor, as it were, matter of the divine procession, but is only the subsisting formal principle, insofar, namely, as the essence of the Father, communicated to the Son through generation, subsists in him.

— These things being premised, three points are to be resolved in the present Question: first, whether the proceeding person is truly from the substance of the one from whom he proceeds; second, whether the divine essence is the term from which of the processions after the manner of matter or of form: third, whether the term to which of the divine processions is either the essence, or the relation, or both.

First conclusion. — The divine processions are truly from something, namely, from the divine essence. This is the opinion of nearly all theologians, and

It is proved first by the authority of the Councils; for the Toledan Councils 3. 1., and especially the eleventh, speak thus in the Confession of faith: The Son is to be believed to be begotten not from nothing, nor from another substance, but from the womb of the Father, that is, from his substance: where it imitates that word of the Father to the Son in the Psalm: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee: which testimony the Second Council of Seville also uses, Can. 18, as does the Council of Nicaea in the Confession of faith; and the Council of Ephesus in the Epistle to Nestorius: We believe, it says, in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, born of the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God of God.

— Finally, the Council of Florence has the same, sess. 19, saying: All the Doctors had handed down to us this doctrine, explaining these expressions: the Son is from the substance of the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the substance of the Father and of the Son.

It is also established from the Creeds, in which the Son is called God of God, light of light, etc., and especially in the Creed of Saint Athanasius, where we read, God is from the substance of the Father, begotten before the ages.

All the holy Fathers prove this very thing, especially Saint Augustine, lib. 3. Contra Maximinum, cap. 14.

Either the Son of God was born from some substance, he says, or from none: if from none, therefore from nothing, which we now hold that you, Arians, do not say: if from some substance, yet not from the Father's, then the Son's origin is not certain; if from the Father's, the Father and the Son are of one and the same substance.

And in c. 15 he extends the same proof, with due proportion, to the Holy Spirit, saying: The Holy Spirit is not from nothing, but is from that whence he proceeds. With a similar argument the same author, or rather another, proves the same truth in the book Contra Felicianum, cap. 6.

To those who examine the birth and origin of the Son of God, these alternatives, if I am not mistaken, present themselves: namely, that he is either from the Father, or from nothing, or from another, or from himself. Let us, I ask, consider the consequence of these: if from himself, he is not rightly called the Son, who is proclaimed not born but unbegotten: if from nothing, he is shown to be a creature with the rest, not the author of creatures. If from another, he is proclaimed the Son not of him in whom we believe, but of some unknown Father, whoever he may be. But if, on account of these four, a fifth cannot be found; and if, on account of the evident blasphemy, three of these can by no means be affirmed; it remains that he was begotten substantially from the Father.

The Conclusion is moreover proved. The divine Son was not produced from nothing; otherwise he would be created and a creature: therefore he is from something pre-existing: but nothing else pre-exists but the Father himself: therefore he must arise from the Father's substance.

— Secondly, every son has in himself something of his father; for that is not a son which is produced from external matter; otherwise keys and tunics and the other artifacts would be the sons of smiths, cobblers and craftsmen: therefore the divine Son also must have in himself something of the Father: but he does not have Paternity: therefore he has the essence, from which he arises.

— Finally, if he were not from the substance of the Father, he could not be called consubstantial with him: but the consequence is absurd and against the faith: therefore, etc.

You will say 1. The divine essence and substance is most simple and is undividedly common to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: therefore if the Son, e.g., arises from the divine essence, by the same reason by which he is said to be from the substance of the Father, he is likewise said to be from his own substance, and also from the substance of the Holy Spirit: but this consequence is absurd: therefore, etc.

I deny the sequel of the major. For when the Son is said to be from the substance of the Father, nothing else is signified than that the same essence and substance, which is in the Father in the first sign of origin, is communicated to the Son in the second sign of origin: the Son, however, in that prior sign of origin, is not rightly said to have the essence which is communicated to him in the second sign; nor does he communicate his own substance to himself, and therefore he ought not to be said to be from his own substance, but from the substance of the Father.

You will say 2. If the divine Father begot the Son from his own substance: therefore the Word could be called the Son of the Father's substance: but this is absurd, for he is called Son only in respect of the correlative, namely, the Father: but the divine essence has not the character of Father, nor of correlative to the Son: therefore neither can the Son be said to be begotten of it.

I deny the sequel of the major. For although Saint Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinit., cap. 19, explaining that passage to the Colossians 3, Who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, says that the Son of love is the Son of the Father's substance, that is, the Son who was begotten from his substance, nevertheless this manner of speaking is improper; for the Son is not properly called Son by reference to the principle by which he is produced, but by reference to the principle which: whence the divine Word ought not properly to be called the Son of the Father's substance, but rather the Son from the Father's substance, as Saint Augustine himself explains in the same place, and also in c. 12 or 13: Such is what I say, he says, of the Father's knowledge or of the Father's essence, as if I were saying more expressly, from the Father, knowledge, or from the Father, essence.

Second conclusion. — The proceeding persons are from the substance of the ones producing, not after the manner of matter, but after the manner of form.

It is proved 1. by the authority of the holy Fathers, who with the greatest consensus affirm that the material cause must be removed from the divine processions; thus Saint Hilary, lib. 12. De Trinitate: This one, he says, unbegotten before all time, begot the Son from himself, not from some underlying matter, because through the Son are all things; not from nothing, because he begot the Son from himself; likewise Saint Augustine, lib. 3. Contra Maximinum, cap. 11.

But you, he says, do not want the Son begotten from the substance of the Father, and yet you concede that he is not from nothing, nor from some matter, but from the Father; nor do you see how necessary it is that he who is not from nothing, nor from any thing, but from God, cannot be unless he is from the substance of God.

Whence the Doctor rightly gathers, in 1. dist. 5. quaest. 2. num. 11., that all the ancient Doctors, who from the time of Augustine up to him (namely Henry), did not dare to name matter, nor quasi-matter, in the divine realities; while yet all concordantly say with Augustine that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father.

The Doctor proves the Conclusion in the same place, n. 5. First, because the divine essence is the formal term of the generative production of the Son: therefore it is not quasi-matter of the same. The consequence is clear: for what is matter, or quasi-matter, in generation is in potentia, or quasi in potentia, to the formal term: but the same thing cannot be in potency to itself: therefore the same thing cannot be the formal term and quasi-matter of generation: therefore if the divine essence is the formal term of divine generation, it is not quasi-matter of the same. He proves the antecedent: first by authority; for in Ioannis 10. the Son says: My Father, that which he gave me, is greater than all: but nothing is greater than all unless it is something infinite, and so it is the divine essence which the Father gave to the Son.

Then Saint Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinit., cap. 26: Just as generation from the Father bestows essence on the Son, without a beginning of time, without any mutability of nature, so does procession from both bestow essence on the Holy Spirit, without any beginning of time, without any mutability of nature.

Secondly, the formal term is that which is more perfect in generation: but the essence is more perfect in the produced persons, because the personal relations do not import perfection: therefore it is also the formal term. He adds that in creatures nature is the formal term of generation, not, however, the individual property: therefore the same must be said in the divine realities. Finally, generation in the divine realities would not be univocal if the divine essence were not the formal term, because for univocal generation it is required that the one generating and the one generated agree in the formal term; but the produced persons would not agree with the ones producing if the divine essence were not the formal term: therefore, etc.

He proves 2. Because if the Son were generated from the essence as from quasi-matter, either the essence thus taken would be something absolute and common to the three Persons, or insofar as it is in the first supposit. If the first: therefore the Son proceeds from himself, because he proceeds from the essence as it is common to the three Persons. If the second: therefore the essence, as it is in the Father, will be the Son, because, as it is in the Father, it receives the relation of filiation, as the form constitutive of the Son.

Thirdly, because the Holy Spirit is from the essence just as much as the Son, and yet, in Henry's mind, he is not from the Essence as from matter, otherwise his production would be natural: therefore neither ought the Son to be from it as from matter.

Although this more common manner of speaking of the Doctors is more accommodated to Catholic truth, nevertheless the opinion of Henry is not altogether to be disapproved: if, namely, the sense is that, just as matter is presupposed by the thing which is made from it, and is found and subsists together with that thing which is the determining and constituting form, so the divine essence of the Father is presupposed in the prior sign of origin to the Son, who is said to be generated from it, and is intrinsically included in the Son together with the relation of filiation, by which it is, as it were, the constituting form of the Son; whence this whole question is almost entirely about a name. For it is certain that in the divine realities there is not properly form, just as neither is there matter: but both are attributed to God only by metaphor and by a certain proportion which the divine essence can have with form and matter in creatures: nevertheless the name of matter befits God less than that of form. For since he is a spiritual substance and pure act, both these appellations directly militate against the word matter, not so against the name form.

Third conclusion. — The total term to which of the divine processions is the whole person produced; the formal term, however, is the divine nature itself, communicated to the produced persons by the ones producing.

This Conclusion has two parts, of which the first is proved; first indeed from the holy Fathers, who pronounce that the Son of God was originated and produced wholly from the whole; thus Nazianzen, Orat. 50, calls the Son Perfect from the perfect, whole from the whole, full from the full; and below: In the Father, the whole that is in him begot the whole Son: Saint Ambrose subscribes, De Filii Divinitate, cap. 7: The Son is as great, he says, as the Father will be seen to be, whole from the whole, entire from the entire, perfect from the perfect, and with consummate power, and as the Apostle says, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Divinity corporally.

Hilary likewise agrees, lib. 7. De Trinit.: One, he says, from one, and the whole from the whole, God and the Son, neither having taken away from the Father by his nativity that he is the whole, nor having failed, in being born, to hold this same whole with himself. Saint Augustine has the same in many places, especially Sermon 125. De Tempore: The Father begot the Son, he says, whole from the whole, perfect from the perfect, full from the full. The same must be said, by like reason, of the Holy Spirit; whence the Council of Florence, sess. 18, by the common consent of the Latins and Greeks through John and Mark, decreed that the procession is that by which the Holy Spirit receives being, and that whole by which he is, and by which he is properly called the Holy Spirit.

Hence, therefore, it is established that the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to their whole selves, that is, insofar as they consist of the divine essence and the personal relation, but not according to the precise relation of filiation or of spiration, are the total terms of the divine processions.

— Secondly, the produced Person is not composed, but is wholly indivisible: therefore it is produced entirely; especially since production terminates at the thing insofar as it exists a parte rei. This argument St. Hilary presses in this way, lib. 9. De Trinit.

While, he says, He (the Son) is not composed from a portion, but is perfected from simplicity: it is necessary that, according as the Father is, He Himself be one in all things with Him whom He begot from Himself, the whole Father; while the perfect nativity of the Son, from all that is His, consummates Him as Father.

As if he would say: since the produced Person is wholly simple, it must also be said to be produced simpliciter.

The second part is the Doctor's in 1. dist. 5. q. 2., and dist. 13. n. 12., where, speaking of the divine productions, he says: That production is not some flux, nor a flowing form, nor is it of the same nature as the form which is the formal term of the production, which is something essential. The Doctor therefore judges that the constitutive relation of the produced person is not the total term of the production.

It is proved first: nature is the formal term in the production of creatures, not however personality or suppositality: therefore the same holds equally in divine things by a full parity of reason.

Secondly, that is the formal term of a production which is the form conferring that being which is intended first and per se in the production: but the divine essence confers that being which is intended first and per se in the divine productions, namely that the produced Person be God: therefore the essence must be called the formal term of the production.

— It is confirmed: since generation tends to this, that the Son be perfectly assimilated to the Father in essence, by the most formal force of His generation; and the Holy Spirit, by the identity of the essence communicated to Him; but that likeness and identity is conferred not by the relation, but by the essence: therefore the communication of the latter is primarily intended in the divine production.

Thirdly and finally, if the relation, and not the essence, were the formal term of the divine processions, it would follow that they are not univocal but equivocal: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence of the major is clear; for those things are univocal whose name is common and the notion of the substance of the name wholly the same, as Aristotle teaches in the Ante-praedicamentis: but if the constitutive relations of the Persons were the formal terms of their productions, the produced persons would have no common name with one another and with their producers, for the Son is not called the Father; nor would the formal significate of the name be common to them, for what is signified by filiation is not common to the Father nor to the Holy Spirit, and consequently they would not be univocal but equivocal.

But this is absurd; for it would follow that they are of diverse species and nature, which implies a contradiction; for equivocal things are of diverse natures, and so of diverse species. Nor does it matter that the persons taken adequately are not of the same notion, because they have opposed and disparate relations; for to univocation, the Doctor says in 1. dist. 13. n. 23., it is not required that the univocates taken adequately be wholly of the same notion; otherwise Peter and Paul would not be univocal, because they include Petreity and Pauleity, which are primarily diverse; it suffices therefore that they agree in the univocation of the essence.

You will say 1. The formal term of a production must be produced: but the essence is not produced: therefore it is not the formal term of the production. The minor is established, for the divine essence neither produces nor is produced. The minor is proved, because that on account of which each thing is such is itself more so; but the total term, which is said to be produced, is so denominated on account of the formal term; therefore the latter must the more be said to be produced. The minor is clear; for the formal term of a production is the notion formally constituting the product in the being of the product: therefore, etc.

I deny the major. For the rational soul in the production and generation of a man is the formal term giving formal being to the man begotten, and yet it is not produced by the man generating, but it suffices that it be communicated from natural exigency to that body of the man begotten; so also the most blessed Virgin is called Mother of God, not because she begot the Word or effectively produced the hypostatic union, but because they physically concur to the production of the human nature, which naturally requires a supposit, whether its own or divine. Therefore by a like case it suffices that the divine essence be communicated to the produced persons and give them divine being, so that it be called the formal term of the production. To the proof I answer that that axiom, that on account of which each thing is such is itself more so, is not verified in every genus of cause, especially in the formal cause: for on account of the rational soul Peter is a man, yet the soul is not more a man than Peter. Add that neither in creatures nor in God is the formal term of the produced thing the notion formally constituting it in the being of the product; indeed in creatures this notion is of the predicament of action or passion, and so is accidental; such certainly is not the produced substantial form.

You will say 2. The term which is produced receives its reality formally from the force of the formal term: but the Son does not formally receive His reality from the force of the essence, but from the force of filiation, which is His personal property: therefore the essence is not the formal term of the divine production.

I distinguish the minor. That He does not receive His formal reality from the force of the essence, I concede; that He does not receive the essential and divine reality, I deny. For through the essence communicated to Him the Son receives divine being, in which the divine filiation inhabits, and without which it would be nothing; and so Filiation is as it were a form constituting Him in the being of Son and of person; which form pertains to the total term, which is produced as that which; but the term as that by which is the very essence itself.

You will say 3. That is the formal term which in the total term has the nature of a constitutive and distinctive form: but only the personal relation has this in the produced person: therefore that alone is the formal term. The major is clear from what was just said. The minor is proved: it is the relation which constitutes the person and effects the distinction between the producer and the produced term: for they are not really distinguished from one another by the essence: therefore the essence is not the formal term.

I distinguish the prior part of the minor. as before: that the relation has the nature of a constitutive form in personal being, I concede; in substantial being, I deny. Whence the divine essence is indeed related as a form giving divine being; the relation, however, as a mode, or term of the essence, bestowing personal being. To the posterior part of the minor I say that the formal term in created products does indeed establish the order and the real distinction between the producer and the produced formal term, since that formal term in created things is ordinarily produced. But it is otherwise in divine things, where that formal term is not produced, but only communicated. Whence as to this part the parity must be denied.

You will insist. The essence, as we have said, is the formal term by which, at least so-called improperly: therefore it cannot be formally the term to which. The consequence is clear; for the term by which and the term to which are opposed.

I deny the consequence. For just as it is not repugnant that the same essence which is in the Father be communicated to the Son through generation, so too it is not repugnant that the same essence be the formal principle by which and the term to which, insofar as it is considered in diverse supposits and persons.

From these he gathers 1. The Doctor, in 1. dist. 5. q. 2. n. 13., gathers that the divine Son (the same is to be said of the Holy Spirit) is not from nothing, from the fact that He is of the substance of the Father, that is, because He receives from the Father the same nature in number; for just as, he says, those things are not made from nothing which presuppose their matter, so neither ought those things be said to be made from nothing which presuppose their form: but the Son presupposes the divine essence in the Father, as a form communicated to Him: therefore He is not to be said to be made from nothing.

He gathers 2. That this total communication of the divine nature suffices for the true and genuine notion of generation, no less, indeed much more perfectly, than if it were made through a cutting off of the generating substance;

for just as, he says, a generating man is truly held to be a father, from the fact that he cuts off a part of his substance and supplies it for the formation of the son; much more perfectly must the divine Father claim for Himself the name of Father, not by cutting off anything of His own, but by communicating His whole essence, and this as the formal term of that production. For just as, if a created father immediately cut off a Son from himself, he would truly be a father, because that which would be would truly be, of itself, the term of the action; so much more is the eternal Father said to beget a son perfectly, not communicating a part only, but His whole nature indivisibly to him.

He gathers 3. That the divine Word is produced not by a cutting off of the divine substance, nor by its destruction; but by an indivisible communication of the very same, not only by real identity, but also by formal identity of the divine essence, as is decreed in the chapter Damnamus, De summa Trinit., namely, that it cannot be said that He gave a part of His substance to the Son

the Father and retained a part for Himself, since the substance of the Father is indivisible, as being wholly simple.

You will ask. Whether one may lawfully use the prepositions ex and de in the same way and without distinction to signify the consubstantiality of the proceeding person with the producing principle?

I answer 1. That these two prepositions ex and de have scarcely any distinction among those skilled in the Greek and Latin languages and among the interpreters: whence also many of the holy Fathers use both without distinction, to denote the consubstantiality of the produced person with the producer; thus St. Chrysostom, tom. 3., proves the Divinity of the Holy Spirit and His consubstantiality with the Father from the words of the Apostle, 1. Corinth. 2., the Spirit, who is from God. But nothing, he says, is said to be from God except what is from His substance: thus Nazianzen uses both particles in Orat. 2. De Fide Nicaena, where we read thus: God of God, light of light, life from life, perfect of perfect, whole from whole, full from full. Thus finally the Latin Church pronounces the Nicene Symbol, born of the Father before all ages, God of God; and of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

I answer 2. That the preposition de is more suitable and is more frequently used to signify the consubstantiality of the product and the producer; for the preposition ex, according to the force of its signification, imports only the order of the product to the producer, not signifying consubstantiality: but the preposition de signifies besides the consubstantiality of the produced thing with the producing principle, as St. Augustine explains in lib. De natura boni, Contra Manichaeos cap. 26.

From him, he says, does not signify the same as of him; for what is of him can be said to be from him, but not everything that is from him is rightly said to be of him. For Heaven and Earth are from him, because he made them; but not of him, because not of his substance; just as if some man beget a Son and build a house: from him is the Son, from him the house; but the Son is of him, the house of earth and wood.

Whence also the Ariani, as Theodoret relates in lib. 1. Historiae Ecclesiasticae c. 8., and as is read in the acts of the Council of Nicaea cap. 2. near the end, in order to feign consent to the Catholic faith, conceded that the Son is from God. For, Eusebius of Nicomedia, their prince, would say, We too are from God; and there is one God, from whom are all things; but the Catholic Bishops, having clearly recognized the fraudulent attempt, explained more fully that being from God, so that creatures are said to be from God for this reason, because they did not arise of themselves or without a cause, but have a principle of their origin; and so that the Son alone is held to consist of the Father's essence: for this is proper to the only-begotten and true Word of God the Father: and what was written by the Bishops, from the Father's essence, had this cause: thus Nazianzen marked the treacherous words of the Arians in Orat. 49., where he thus attacks the Arian:

Because the Father is light and the Son is light, we rightly believe light of light. But you assert not light of light, but light from light, as it were that from the Father, who is truly light, another light was made, which is not of the Father's very substance, but just as any other light, although made by God, is nevertheless far other than Him who was; and therefore you say light from light, not light of light.

— Nor does it matter that the particle de sometimes seems not to signify the consubstantiality of the principle and the product, as Driedo gathers in lib. 3. De Regulis et Dogmatibus sacrae Scripturae, from that of Matth. 1., what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit, and from the Symbol of the Apostles, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit from Mary the Virgin, and in the Nicene Symbol, He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit: which words indicate the formation of Christ's humanity, according to which He is not consubstantial with the Holy Spirit.

For they answer that the particle de there signifies the same as the preposition ex: first, because St. Athanasius so explains the aforesaid context of Matthew in Dialogue 3. De Trinit. near the end, She was found, he says, with child from the Holy Spirit: then because Maldonatus and Salmeron, expounding the same context, affirm that the preposition ex responds more literally to the Greek: and finally because St. Ambrose, in lib. 2. De Spiritu sancto cap. 5., expounding that of Matth. 1., she was found in the womb having of the Holy Spirit, observes that although most have of the Spirit, the Greek nevertheless, from which the Latins translated, says: from the Holy Spirit;

for what, he says, is from someone is either of his substance or from his power: of the substance, as the Son, who says: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High: as the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father; but from the Father, as that is: one God the Father, from whom are all things:

from which he infers that the most holy Mary gave birth from the Holy Spirit, not from the substance, but from the power; and hence he supposes that the preposition de determinately signifies consubstantiality, which the preposition ex declares only indeterminately.