Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Note 1. The opinion of the theologians concerning the resolution of the present Question is varied, but chiefly threefold: of which the First, says the Doctor in 1. dist. 2. n. 1., was that of Praepositivus, who affirmed that the divine Persons are constituted and distinguished by their whole selves, an opinion long since banished from the Schools, which Gregory of Rimini in 1. dist. 26. and 27. called back anew. The Second is that of Lincolniensis, and of John of Ripa, saying in the same place that there are indeed in the divine some constitutive and distinctive properties of the persons, but that they are absolute, not relative; which opinion, because the praised Doctor proves it with various arguments and solves all those things which are wont to be objected against it, some Recent authors wrongly attribute to him. The Third finally, the common and universal opinion of the theologians, now prevails: that the divine persons are constituted through relative properties. How, however, this is done, all do not explain in the same way; for the arguments of Scotus, says Vazquez, disp. 189. cap. 1., exercised the wits of the Thomists to such a degree that they divided them into various opinions: for some assert that the persons are not constituted by relations insofar as they are relations, but insofar as they are hypostatic forms; for they say that a divine relation claims two things for itself, namely, to be in itself, or per se; and to be toward another; and that according to being in itself it constitutes the person, but according to being toward another it does not constitute, but refers the person to another correlative to itself. Some, with St. Bonaventure in 1. dist. 26. q. 3., teach that the three persons are constituted by the relations as they are origins, e.g. that the divine Father is constituted in the notion of person by Paternity, not as Paternity is, but as active generation. The rest finally, with the Subtle Doctor, judge that the divine relations are constitutive of the divine Persons insofar as they are formally relations.

Note 2. Here the question is not raised about real constitution, which is made through constitutive things really distinct from one another, but about formal, which namely is made through constitutive things formally distinct; for although any divine person is a being really simple and indivisible on account of the real indistinction of the personal properties from the essence, nevertheless a twofold entity is conceived in it, one of which is absolute and simpliciter, the other relative and modal, or a mode of so being: through the first God is one, and is constituted formally in the notion of God; through the second indeed He is three, and is constituted in the notion of Father, and of Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Absolute being is prior, with the priority of reason and of sign, to the relative; for it is primary, which through the relative, as through a secondary being, is contracted and determined to the person; whence the relations are rightly conceived, as it were, to come to the divine nature and to constitute it in personal being, which, considered in itself, namely insofar as it is divinity, it does not have.

Note 3. That although the relative properties are conceived to come to the divine nature, already essentially constituted, they are nevertheless not accidental, but substantial; just as forms, although they are not essential to matter, but, as the Logicians say, come to it accidentally, are nevertheless substantial in themselves, and together with matter constitute a composite, not from accident and subject, but from diverse substances. Moreover, not only are those properties substantial and constitute substances, or things existing per se, but they are also hypostatic forms and the notions of supposits and persons, which together with the divine essence constitute the divine Person in the being of an intellectual nature complete and ultimately terminated according to existence. With these things premised, three things must be determined: first, that the divine Persons are constituted by properties. Second, that those properties are relative. Third, that they formally constitute the divine Persons precisely insofar as they are relations.

First conclusion. — The divine Persons are not constituted, nor distinguished, by their whole selves, but by certain personal properties.

This is the common opinion among the theologians, and is gathered and confirmed, first, from the various Councils, especially from the Lateran, cap.

Firmiter. where it is said that the Most Holy Trinity is undivided according to the common essence, but distinct according to the personal properties: likewise in the Council of Florence, sess. 1., it is asserted that the divine Persons differ by their properties: finally the Church sings in the preface of the Mass of the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity: And in the persons let property, in the essence unity, and in majesty equality be adored.

Proof 2. by the authority of the holy Fathers. First indeed of St. Dionysius, lib. De Divinis Nominibus cap. 2., saying: Those things which are of divine fecundity are not reciprocated among themselves, but only the Father is the font of the heavenly Divinity, so that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, but the holy praises preserve for each divine Person its own properties. Likewise Saint Basil, lib. 2. Contra Eunomium: The properties, he says, αἱ δὲ ἡμέτεραι, like certain characters and forms beheld in the substance, distinguish indeed what is common by the appropriated characters, but do not cut off the communication of the substance. Saint Athanasius, Dialog. 1.: A hypostasis, he says, has a property by no means common to the hypostases which underlie the essence, nor does it admit the multiplication of number, since it is one and singular; but whatever admits the multiplication of number wholly has a property, and what has a property admits number. Saint Ambrose, in Symbolum Apostolorum cap. 11.: We, he says, distinguishing the persons of the Deity in their properties, nevertheless confess the inseparable unity of the Most Holy Trinity. To these St. Augustine assents, serm. 38. De Tempore: Each of the persons in the Trinity, he says, has something proper, by which, in inseparable equality, they show in themselves some property: whence the Council of Toledo 11. in the Confession of Faith rightly concludes, There is, he says, abiding in each person his own property: for the Father has eternity without nativity, the Son eternity with nativity, the Holy Spirit procession without nativity.

Proof 3. The Doctor proves by theological reason: whatever things are not first diverse, but have something in which they agree, are not distinguished by their whole selves, but by something of themselves: but the divine Persons are not first diverse, because they are of the same essence: therefore they are not distinguished by their whole selves, but by something of themselves. — Then, several properties are in the same person, as in the Father innascibility, and active generation, which according to St. Augustine 5. De Trinit. cap. 6. are mutually distinguished; for, he says, if the Father were not unbegotten, He could nevertheless be Father, and conversely: therefore even if per impossibile one would not distinguish the Father from someone, another could distinguish, and conversely; and so the Father always has something by which He is distinguished from the Son, and consequently they are not distinguished by their whole selves. — Finally, in the Father there is active generation, and active spiration: but by active spiration He is not distinguished from the Son: indeed that is common to Him with the Son: therefore the Father is not distinguished by his whole self, but by something of himself. — These reasons are confirmed: if the persons are distinguished by their whole selves: therefore they are distinguished also by the essence: but this cannot be, because they agree in the essence, and the same thing cannot be the principle of agreeing and of distinguishing. Moreover, either the divine Person, e.g. the Father, has something beyond the essence which the Son does not have, or He does not: if the first, we have what was intended: if the second, no reason can be given why this person is the Father rather than the other; indeed nor why He is a person distinct from the other: therefore some Recent authors rightly pronounce the opposite opinion of the Conclusion to be rash, and almost heretical; nevertheless its assertors

They object 1. The divine Person is just as simple as the essence: but the divine essence itself is distinguished by itself from anything else: therefore also the person. It is confirmed: Paternity is not more simple than the Father: but Paternity, because it is simple, is constituted by nothing distinct from itself: therefore neither is the Father. — I deny the major. for, as we observed in the 2. Note, the divine Person is constituted in the being of a complete person through the entity of the Deity, and of personality, and so the person expresses two entities, or formalities, constitutive of itself, and thus could be said to be less simple than the essence. Or I distinguish: it is just as simple as the essence, with real simplicity, which excludes real composition from parts really distinct, I concede: with formal simplicity, which excludes the plurality of formalities, I deny: but this formal simplicity does not befit God, but real simplicity does, as we proved when treating of divine Simplicity. The confirmation is to be distinguished in like manner. I add moreover, that Paternity is not therefore not constituted by something distinct from itself because it is simple, but because it is conceived after the manner of a form, which does not consist of other formalities: whence since the Father is signified after the manner of a whole and of a concrete, and consists of nature, and of Paternity, which are formally distinguished, He must also be constituted by something distinct from the divine nature, and so the account is not the same of Paternity as of the Father.

They object 2. The constituted depends on, and is caused by, the constituent: but the divine Persons are wholly independent, and uncaused: therefore they are not constituted by something distinct. — I distinguish the major. the real constituted, which is made through the union of constituents really distinct, such as is the constitution of a physical composite, which is made through the union of matter with form, depends on the constituent and on the uniting of the constitutive things, I concede: the formal constituted, which is made through formalities really indistinct, and which by themselves, and independently of anything extrinsic, are united and constitute the whole, depends thus, I deny.

They object 3. From the Lateran Council, chapter Firmiter, it is said that the Father gave the whole substance to the Son: but those properties, if there are any, whether relative or absolute, are substances: therefore He gave them to the Son; and so He is not distinguished from the Son by them: therefore neither is the divine Father constituted in the being of a person by them. — I answer. The Council understands by the name of substance the essence, and the divine nature, insofar as it prescinds from the personal properties; in which way also the holy Fathers are wont in this matter to oppose substance to relation: whence Boetius toward the end of lib. De Trinit.: Substance contains unity, relation multiplies the Trinity; by which he opposes unity to multitude, substance to relation.

Second conclusion. — The divine Persons are constituted and distinguished by properties not absolute, but relative.

This is the more common, and truer opinion of the theologians, and it is proved first. by all those texts of Sacred Scripture by which the divine Persons are called by the relative names of Father, and of Son, and of the Spirit of truth proceeding from the Father, most of all from that text of the last of Matthew, where Christ, sending the Apostles for the conversion of the Gentiles, commands that they baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; from which places I argue thus: Sacred Scripture, and Christ the Lord designate the divine Persons by names most proper and signifying the personal properties: but these names from their primary imposition signify a relation, not indeed something absolute: therefore those personal properties are relative. The major is clear; for Christ the Lord imposed on the persons those names which best fit them, as they can be conceived and distinguished by us in this life.

Proof 2. From the Councils, especially the 11th of Toledo, in the Confession of Faith, chapter 1.: In the relative names of the persons, he says, the Father is referred to the Son, and the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both; and although the three persons are thus said relatively, one nature is nevertheless believed through the substance: and below: In the relation of the persons the number is discerned. The same is gathered from the Council of Florence, where John the Theologian, pleading the cause of the Latin Church, with the Council silently approving, said: Relation alone, among all the Greek and Latin Doctors, multiplies the persons by the divine procession; to which also those two, the a quo and the ad quod, of which mention was made above, agree. Since therefore relations in this way multiply the persons, so that the Father differs from the Son, one person from another, by no other reason than by the force of the relation. It judges therefore that the divine Persons are constituted and distinguished by relations; which is confirmed moreover from the oration which Bessarion the Patriarch gave for the union of both Churches, namely the Greek and the Latin, where cap. 6. he says: Therefore the divine Persons are distinguished in both ways indeed; but first and principally, according to the manner of understanding, through the relations, through which also the divine Persons are constituted: and after a few words inserted: the divine Persons are distinguished indeed in both ways, but more principally relatively, or by properties.

Proof 3. By the authority of the holy Fathers; for Nazianzenus, Orat. 37.: The mutual difference of their relation, he says, produced also different names for them; namely of Father, and of Son. Similarly Chrysostom, homil. 5. De incomprehensibili Dei natura, thus distinguishes: The proper names of God, so that the property of the persons may be denoted; for Father, and Son is the proper name of a person, but God, and Lord is common: St. Cyril of Alexandria, lib. 12. Thesauri cap. 15.

There is, he says, no difference between the Father and the Son, except only the personal, because the Father is, and the other is the Son; how will the Son be created, since the Father is uncreated? especially since the relative names are said of the one in regard to the other, and by one word spoken the other is immediately understood? for, he who says Father immediately understood the Son, and he who named the Son at once referred to the Father.

Damascenus also agrees, De Fide cap. 11.: We acknowledge one God, he says, but in the properties alone, namely of Paternity, of Filiation, and of Procession, and as regards the cause, and those things which proceed from the cause, and the perfection of the person, that is, the mode of existing, we notice the difference. Finally St. Anselm, book De Processione Spiritus sancti, chapter 1., writes thus: This therefore is the sole cause of plurality in God, that Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be said of one another, but are others in regard to one another, etc. From all of which it is clear that the opinion of the holy Fathers is manifest: that the divine Persons are constituted by properties not absolute, but relative.

This truth cannot be proved by an efficacious reason: for all the reasons which can be devised, the Doctor sets forth and subtly solves in 1. dist. 23. n. 31.; therefore only this one can be formed: in the mysteries of the Faith, especially in the mystery of the Trinity, nothing should be affirmed except what appears more conformable to Sacred Scripture, and to the sayings of the holy Fathers: but both Sacred Scripture and the holy Fathers signify that the divine Persons are constituted not by absolute, but by relative properties: therefore it must be so held. — Then, the holy Fathers for the most part teach that all absolute things are common to the three divine persons: but the personal properties are not common to the three: therefore they are not something absolute. — Finally, by that thing the divine Persons are formally constituted by which they are formally distinguished and multiplied: but this is done through the relations alone, as is clear from what has been said; for relation alone multiplies the Trinity: whence that common saying: In the divine, all things are one, where the opposition of relation does not stand in the way: therefore, etc.

You will object 1. That text of Proverbiorum 30.¹ where Solomon, speaking of God, asks among other things: What is his name, that is, of the Father, and what is the name of his Son, if you know? From which it is argued thus: every question supposes something, and inquires after another: but here the Father, and the divine Son are supposed to be; and moreover their proper names are asked: therefore Solomon supposes that the proper name of the first and second person is not Father, and Son, otherwise there would be no place for the question, for thus he would know and not know the same thing, or he would suppose to know and investigate, than which nothing is more inept. — I answer. That Solomon there indeed rightly asks something else, which adequately and exactly explains the nature and property, both of the divine Father and of the divine Son; because although these names Father, and Son signify that the divine persons are constituted and distinguished through relations, they do not however sufficiently explain who, and of what sort, those constitutive divine relations are, and in what way those divine Persons are constituted: they signify indeed the constitution of the persons through relation; they do not explain the dignity of the persons.

You will object 2. One divine Person is referred to another through a relation: therefore they are not constituted through it in the being of person. The antecedent is clear; for that which is referred is neither the essence, because the relatum must be really distinguished from the term; but the divine essence, which is in the Father, is not really distinguished from itself in the Son; indeed it is really the same; nor again is the relation referred, because it is itself the cause of referring; and therefore what is referred is the person. The consequence is proved 1. by the authority of St. Augustine saying in book 7. De Trinit. cap. 2.: Every relative is something, except the relation. And cap. 3.: If the Father, he says, is not something in regard to himself, there is nothing that is referred. — Then, that which is referred through a relation is prior to the relation, because it is the foundation and subject of the relation; but the foundation is presupposed to that which is founded in it. — Finally, that which is denominated a relatum is neither the essence nor the relation: therefore it is the supposit, and person: therefore just as a wall, which is denominated white, is presupposed to whiteness, so the person must be presupposed to the relation, through which it is referred, and so is not constituted through it in the notion of person. — The Doctor denies the consequence, n. 41. For that which is referred is the whole supposit consisting of essence, and of relation, which supposit indeed thus constituted is called relative, or relatum. — To the first proof. he responds, n. 42., that St. Augustine does not will that that relatum, as that which is referred, is something absolute, but only that it includes some absolute, as the foundation of the relation. To the second proof. he says that the antecedent is true of created relations, which do not constitute the supposit in the being of supposit, but not of the divine ones, which are constitutive of the supposits; for the constituted is posterior to all its constitutive things, or at least simultaneous in nature with them; and so the person constituted through the relation is simultaneous in nature with the relation itself, through which it is constituted in the being of divine Person. Add that created relations must therefore suppose that which they refer, because they are accidents, which come to the foundations, as to subjects: but it is otherwise with the divine relations, which, since they are substantial, do not pre-require a subject which they refer, but only presuppose the essence, from which they arise, and with which they constitute the person. In the same way the third proof is solved; for whiteness supposes the white thing for this reason, because it is an accident coming to it extrinsically, and really distinct from it; but the divine essence is neither really distinguished from the relation, just as neither is the related person, and therefore it should not be presupposed to it.

You will object 3. A real relation presupposes extremes constituted as really distinct: but the divine relations are real: therefore they presuppose the persons related to one another, really constituted and distinct, and so they do not constitute them. The major is proved: both because that which is referred is constituted before it is referred: and because Aristotle proves that identity is for this reason not a real relation, because it does not presuppose really distinct extremes: and finally, because the producing person, constituted in personal being, is prior in origin and in reason to the person proceeding from it: but a relation can be prior in neither way, because relatives are simultaneous in nature and in knowledge: therefore the producing person is not constituted in its personal being through a relation. — The Doctor denies the major ibid. n. 42. For in the first place that is false of transcendental relations, which do not presuppose extremes already constituted and distinct, but are one of the extremes, which by itself formally and from its own nature is referred to another, and is of itself formally a relation to another; thus, for example, knowledge is referred to its object, potency to the possible, etc.; but the relations of the divine Persons are transcendent. To the first proof I say, that what is referred through another must be constituted before it is referred, I concede; what is referred through itself, I deny: but the divine Persons are referred to one another through themselves: whence it comes about that a divine Person is not constituted in being before it is referred. To the second proof the Doctor says, that Aristotle gathers that identity is not a real relation not only from this, that it does not presuppose really distinct extremes; but also because he supposes that the identity of one thing with itself does not make really distinct extremes either. To the third proof, I distinguish the major; the producing Person is prior in origin to the produced, by a priority in quo, that is, of duration, I deny: by a priority a quo, that is, of origin, I concede. To the minor I say, that relatives are simultaneous in nature and in knowledge, because from the production of the one the existence of its correlative is gathered, either in the being of existence or in objective being. Hence it follows that in the first sign of origin in which the Father is conceived, the Son is also known, not indeed in the being of existence for that prior sign, but only in objective being, as was said when treating of the objects of the divine processions. Add that, as the Doctor says n. 41., although relations are simultaneous in nature, yet among some correlatives one can be prior to the other with a priority of origin; thus action is prior to the passion correlative to it.

You will insist. The supposit is in some way pre-understood before action, because each thing is understood first to exist of itself, and then to act of itself; therefore in the prior sign of origin the supposit of the Father is understood either as something absolute or as something relative; if the first, the intended conclusion is had; if the second, then in that prior sign of origin the Son is also presupposed before he is generated, and so he will not be the term of generation. It is confirmed, because with whatever priority one correlative is pre-understood before something, with the same priority its correlative is also pre-understood. Add that, if Paternity is constitutive of the Father, it will thus be prior to the Father; therefore Filiation, which is simultaneous with Paternity, will also be prior to the Father, and so the Son will not be produced by the Father. — The Doctor distinguishes the major. When the supposit is not constituted through a productive action, he concedes; when it is so constituted, he denies. But the divine Father is constituted in the being of Father, and of the first Person, through active generation; and so he ought not to be presupposed to it. He also denies the second part of the consequent, together with its confirmation, because, as was just said, the simultaneity of nature which correlatives have does not remove the priority of origin, and consequently does not prevent Paternity from belonging to the Father prior in origin to Filiation, or from being understood to belong to the Son.

You will object 4. Every real relation is terminated at something absolute: but this would be false if the person at which Paternity is terminated were constituted through a relation, for then it would not be something absolute, but something relative: therefore, etc. — The Doctor denies the major n. 48. For although it is true of relations that do not constitute their extremes that they must be terminated at something absolute; it is nevertheless false of those which constitute really distinct extremes: for just as their foundation is something relative, so likewise is their term, which can be something relative, because it is constituted in the being of a term through relations.

Third conclusion. — The divine Persons are constituted in personal being through relation, under the formal notion of relation.

This seems to be the Doctor's genuine opinion, as is gathered from various places, especially q. 1. of the Quodlibet n. 1., and q. 19. n. 5., and in 1. dist. 2. q. 7., dist. 5. q. 2. and dist. 11. q. 4.; finally at greatest length throughout dist. 26., and Proof, first. by the authority of the Eleventh Council of Toledo c. 1., where it is said that the divine Persons intimate number by this alone, that they are toward one another, and they lack number in that which they are in themselves: therefore from the Council's definition the relations do not constitute nor distinguish the persons according to their being in, as the Thomists will, but according to their being toward, that is, under the formal notion of relation. It is gathered likewise from the discourse of John the Theologian in the Council of Florence, sess. 18., saying: It is said that relations of this sort multiply the persons, so that it is on no other ground than by force of relation that the Father differs from the Son, nor one person from another. But what is it to differ by force of relation, if not under the formal notion of relation? but the proper being of relation, as the Philosopher says, is being toward, not being in: therefore they truly constitute the divine persons under the formal notion of relation.

Proof by reason. A relation cannot constitute or distinguish the divine persons except according to the formal notion which it has: but it has no formal notion other than the relative one: therefore it constitutes the persons precisely insofar as it is relative, that is, insofar as it regards its term. — It is confirmed: a relation cannot be conceived unless it is understood according to its essence and the formal notion by which it differs from the other beings: but the proper essence of a relation is to regard its term, for by this it differs from the other beings, for the other beings have being in themselves; but this one is wholly toward another: therefore, etc. — Secondly, that by which a relation formally constitutes a person is either something formally in itself, or toward another. If the first, that is something absolute; and so persons are not constituted through a relation: if the second, then it truly formally constitutes the divine Persons insofar as it is relative. — Thirdly, it is impossible to conceive that some form inhere in something without giving it its formal effect: but the formal effect of a relation is actually to refer one thing to another: therefore by the very fact that the divine Paternity is understood, e.g., it is also understood as actually referring the Father to the Son, and consequently it implies a contradiction that Paternity be understood to constitute the Father in the notion of person, without being understood as actually referring the Father and the Son. Moreover, that being in which relation expresses either signifies the essence with which it constitutes the person, or the constituted person: not the first, because the relation of Paternity is not said to be in the essence, but in the Father: not the second either, for then the relation of Paternity would not constitute the first supposit, but would presuppose it already constituted, just as a form presupposes the subject in which it is.

They object 1. St. Augustine in lib. 7. De Trinit. cap. 2. saying: Substance is the Father Himself, not by that by which He is Father, but by that by which He is; thus the Person of the Father is so called, for the person is said indeed in reference to Himself, not to the Son or the Holy Spirit: therefore according to the mind of St. Augustine the divine person is not formally toward another; and so it is not constituted in the being of person through relation reduplicatively, as relation is. — I answer. St. Augustine by that being toward oneself does not deny that the person is relative to another, for he asserts that same thing ibid., but only that each person has in itself its own constitutive principle, really distinct from the other person: Or I say that he wishes there that the divine personal relations are substantial and per se, not however accidental and in another as in a subject of inherence, as the relations of creatures are.

You will object 2. The notion of person and the notion of relation are opposed; for a person is something subsisting in itself; but a relative is essentially toward another; personality is substance itself in itself, but relation is the very referring to another: therefore a person is not constituted in the notion of person through relation reduplicatively, as it is relative. — I distinguish the antecedent. The notions of person and of relation are opposed in creatures, I concede; in the divine, I deny: for the disparity is that a created relation is an accident presupposing a subject already in every way substantially complete, and so having the notion of subsistent and person; but it is otherwise in the divine, where the relation itself constitutes and distinguishes the persons.

You will object 3. If the divine relations, insofar as they are relations reduplicatively, constituted and distinguished the divine Persons, this would be at most either insofar as they are relations, or insofar as they are divine relations. Not the first, because then any relation, even a created one, would be constitutive and distinctive of a person: not the second either, otherwise it would belong to every divine relation to constitute a person, and so active spiration, which is a divine relation, would constitute a divine person, which is false: therefore, etc.

I answer. That constitutive notion of person belongs to the divine relations not precisely insofar as they are divine, but insofar as they have mutual opposition by reason of procession, and the origin of one person from another: or rather insofar as they imply and signify the real distinction of one from another: but active spiration does not imply such a distinction, because it is made through one and the same formal principle by which, namely through the will.

Corollary I. — From what has been said it is inferred 1. against the Thomists that the divine relations are not constitutive of the persons insofar as they are a hypostatic form, as the Doctor rightly proves in 1. dist. 28. q. 3. n. 2. Both because a relation considered as a hypostatic form is conceived as an entity either absolute or relative: for although the concept of being in common is neither relative nor absolute, because being as such prescinds from relative and absolute being and embraces both under itself: nevertheless a singular entity, such as the entity constitutive of a person in incommunicable being, must be either absolute or relative, since between a singular absolute being and a singular relative being no middle is given: but the entity constitutive of a person cannot be absolute, otherwise it would follow that the divine persons are constituted through absolutes, which has been disproved: therefore it must be conceived as relative. Both because that notion of hypostatic form either signifies something distinct from the formal notion of Paternity, e.g., as relation is formally, or not; if the first, therefore the Father is not constituted through the relation, but through a formality distinct from the formality of the relation, which nevertheless all the Thomists disapprove. If the second: therefore the persons are formally constituted through the relations, as relations are, since they are constituted through an entity which is formally a relation.

It is confirmed from a similar case. Although whiteness, e.g., can be conceived as dispersive of sight, without its being conceived as it is a quality; nevertheless just as no one can say that it is not whitening, nor dispersive of sight, as it is such a quality; so by parity, although we can form some concept of the divine Paternity in which the concept of relation is not explicitly involved, nevertheless it ought not on that account to be inferred that it does not constitute the persons, as relation is.

Corollary II. — It is inferred 2. from the same ibid. n. 3. that although the divine origins are not formally distinct from the relations, both because otherwise they would be something absolute, and so would be common to the three Persons, which implies a contradiction: and because nothing is so much toward another as generation and active or passive spiration; and so active generation is formally nothing other than Paternity, just as passive generation is formally the same as Filiation: nevertheless they constitute the divine Persons not precisely as origins are reduplicatively, but only as relations. First because, as the Doctor says, origin, as origin formally, is only a way between the producing and the produced person: therefore it is not their constitutive form; indeed it seems to presuppose in the producing person a proper constitutive form; for a thing is first conceived to have its own being before it is conceived to operate: therefore the Father is first conceived as constituted in the notion of person, at least inadequately, before he is conceived adequately to produce the Son: the same must be said of the produced person. For origin is the way by which the produced person receives its being, and consequently by which it receives its constitutive form in the being of person. — Secondly, the constitutive of a thing having fixed and permanent being must be expressed after the manner of the fixed and permanent, not however as a way to being, that is, not as in fieri, but as in facto esse: but the divine persons have fixed and permanent being: origin, however, signifies something flowing, and precisely signifies only the being which is made and produced: therefore the divine persons in facto esse are not adequately constituted through origins, but through relations. — Thirdly, finally, origin, as origin formally, is something absolute or something relative; not the first, as has been said, and moreover it would follow that the persons would be constituted through something absolute, if in their personal being they were constituted through absolute origins: if the second; therefore they constitute the persons not precisely as origins, but as relations. — And so the divine origins properly signify persons really distinct, but do not formally constitute them. In this sense are to be understood those holy Fathers who seem to assert that the divine persons are constituted and distinguished through origins.

Thus St. Cyril lib. 2. Thesauri cap. 3.: In order, he says, that the divine Scripture might distinguish by its reasonings the hypostasis which generates and that which is generated, it made use of the names of Father and Son. Thus St. Anselm in the book De processione Spiritus sancti cap. 2.: This, he says, is the sole cause of plurality in God, that the Father and the Holy Spirit cannot be said of one another, but are other from one another, because in the two ways aforesaid God is of God, all of which can be said relatively. Thus finally St. John of Damascus lib. 1. De Fide cap. 2. says: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are altogether one, except for the property of the unbegotten, of generation, and of procession: not that the Fathers truly wish the divine Persons to be constituted through origins, but that, constituted and really distinct, they become better known through the relations insofar as they are origins, than as they are conceived under the formal concept of relations.

This same doctrine borrowed from the Subtle Doctor Cardinal Bessarion lucidly expounds in the Council of Florence, Oratione pro unione utriusque Ecclesiae Graecae, et Latinae c. 6., saying:

Relation and origin, although they differ according to the mode of understanding (since origin is signified after the manner of an act, as generation; relation however after the manner of a form, as paternity) nevertheless do not differ in reality; therefore in both ways indeed the divine Persons are distinguished; yet first and principally according to the mode of understanding through relations, through which also the divine Persons are constituted; consequently through the diverse mode, that is, through origin. For to generate and to be generated, which belongs to origin, does not principally constitute the person, but Paternity and Filiation, that is, to be Father and Son, which belongs to relation; but because relation and origin are the same in reality, and relation follows upon origin (according to concept) therefore in both ways indeed the divine Persons are distinguished, but more principally by relation.

Corollary III. — It is inferred 3. that the divine Father is not constituted through the notion of the unbegotten, but through the relation of Paternity, because, as the Doctor says in 1. dist. 28. q. 2. num. 11., the unbegotten formally expresses a negation: but a divine person cannot be formally constituted through a negation: therefore, etc. The major is evident, for the unbegotten is the negation of the begotten. The Doctor proves the minor: no negation can be of itself incommunicable; but it must be incommunicable by reason of another: therefore it cannot of itself make an incommunicable person, but only by reason of another incommunicable thing in which it inheres: but there is nothing in the divine essence which is incommunicable: therefore no negation together with the divine essence can constitute a person. — It is confirmed, and the preceding argument is further illustrated: in the first divine Person there must be a negation of communicability inseparable from its foundation, and rendering that foundation altogether incommunicable both actually and aptitudinally and obedientially, because the divine person has a repugnance to its own communication: but that foundation is not the divine essence; nor any absolute common to the three Persons: therefore that positive absolute which is constitutive and distinctive of the first person must be something. Therefore the first Person is not formally constituted through a negation, and so neither through the notion of the unbegotten, which is formally a negation.

Some reply: That the notion of the unbegotten is not a pure and simple negation, but imports something positive, namely the notion of first principle and of fontal Divinity.

On the contrary. The Doctor presses in Quodlibet 4: that notion of first principle signifies that the Father is a se, and that either effectively, because He is the cause of Himself, or only negatively, because namely He has no principle of Himself: not the first, because it is repugnant that something be the author and cause of its own being; otherwise it would be before it was, as has already been said many times: if the second, then to be the first principle is only a negation of another prior principle, and so is not something positive. Secondly, if the unbegotten expresses something positive, it is at most either something absolute or something relative: if absolute, then the first person is constituted through something absolute, which the holy Fathers and Councils deny: if relative, either that relation is formally the same as Paternity, and the intended conclusion is had; or it is formally distinct from it, and so there will be more than four distinctive relations of the divine Persons, which no theologian admits. Thirdly, finally, that fontal notion of Divinity which is in the Father is either essence or relation. If essence, it cannot be constitutive and distinctive of the person: if relation, either it is Paternity, or it is distinct from Paternity: and thus the prior objection recurs. It must therefore be conceded that the first person is formally constituted through Paternity, which in its formal concept of constitutive relation of the first supposit imports the notion of the unbegotten and of first principle, etc.