Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

Note 1. The name principle can be used in a threefold way in divine matters, namely essentially, notionally, and principally. In the first way it signifies the fecundity of the Divinity ad extra, belonging to the three Persons, by which through Omnipotence they produce all creatures. In the second way it designates the fecundity of the same Divinity ad intra, by which the Father produces the Son, and the Father together with the Son produces the Holy Spirit: in the third way it signifies that dignity by which the first Person in divine matters, produced by none, produces the rest. Principle taken essentially belongs to the three Persons undividedly, for the works of the divine Trinity ad extra are undivided; because those divine Persons produce creatures through one will, and one power: principle taken notionally is common to the Father, and the Son, since the Father, and the Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit: whence Saint Augustine in the book Contra Maximinum chapter 17.: The Father, he says, is a principle not from a principle, the Son a principle from a principle, but both together, not two, but one principle: finally, principle used principally is said to be proper to the Father alone.

Note 2. That although Aristotle, in 5. Metaph. text 1., after enumerating all the modes in which Principle is said, affirms that cause is likewise said in as many modes, as if he wished cause to be the same as principle; nevertheless, as Asclepius notes in his Commentary on that passage, the Philosopher does not say this from the truth of the matter, nor from his own opinion, but from the common understanding of the people. For, he says, the signification of principle is broader than that of cause: therefore he mentioned principle in the prior place, and before cause: for whatever is a cause, that very thing is also a principle, yet not conversely must whatever is a principle be a cause. This, however, is the greatest difference between cause and principle, that a principle is that from which another thing, or another, proceeds; but a cause is that which imparts being to another not previously existing: hence cause signifies a greater superiority, and perfection in the one producing, than in the thing produced; and so it denotes in the effect a certain dependence, contingency, and imperfection. For, says Saint Dionysius in De Divinis Nominibus cap. 2., the likeness between effects and causes is not perfect, but effects indeed bear the images which they can of the causes; the causes, however, are hidden from the effects, and are superior by reason of their principle. Hence cause properly taken differs greatly from principle.

Note 3. The name Author sometimes among the Latins signifies the same thing as principle; I said among the Latins, for the Greeks either have none that corresponds to it; or if they have accommodated one properly to it, they by no means use it in divine matters, as Saint Thomas observes in his opuscule cap. 1.; wherefore indeed the Latin Fathers alone transfer this appellation from creatures to divine things. In using it, however, some caution is needed; since an Author is sometimes said to be one in whose power another is, or one who precedes in right, and dignity; thus Tertullian in the book De Fuga cap. 1. calls the foremost, and the teachers of the Church, Authors, witnesses, leaders, and standard-bearers, to whom others are inferior. But when, he says, the Authors themselves, that is, the Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops themselves flee, how will the layman be able to understand in what sense it was said, Flee from city to city? Therefore when the leaders flee, who among the rank-and-file soldiers will stand fast, sweating to hold their post in the battle line? Therefore the name of Author is to be attributed to any divine Person with respect to another in no other way than to signify the same thing as principle.

First conclusion. — It is proper to the divine Father, that He is principally the principle, and the source of the Divinity communicated to the two divine Persons produced.

This Conclusion comprises two parts, of which the first is proved by the authority of the holy Fathers, who proclaim the divine Father to be a principle without principle. Thus Gregory Nazianzen Orat. 32.: Moreover the name of him who lacks a principle is Father, of the principle Son, of him who is with the principle, the Holy Spirit: thus Phoebadius in the book Contra Arianos: This is, he says of the Father, the principle without principle: thus Cyril of Alexandria in lib. 2. Thesauri cap. 1.: Other, he says, is the Father, other the Son, and other is the principle, other that which is from the principle: thus Augustine De Trinit. cap. 14.: If the begetter, he says, is a principle with respect to that which is begotten, the Father is a principle with respect to the Son, because He begets Him: whence the Master of the Sentences rightly says in 1. dist. 29. cap. 1.: The Father is a principle without principle, the Son a principle from a principle, the Holy Spirit a principle from both. With him Saint Thomas agrees, Opusc. 1. Contra errores Graecorum cap. 32.: It is necessary, he says, to believe the Holy Trinity, namely the Father without principle, the Son indeed a principle from the Father as principle: and the Holy Spirit with the Son as principle, one God.

The second part is proved. First indeed from the Sixth Council of Toledo cap. 1.: We confess, he says, the Father unbegotten, uncreated, the source, and origin of the whole Divinity. The Council of Worms repeats the same in the Profession of Faith.

It is confirmed. By the testimony of the holy Fathers, especially of Dionysius in the book De Divinis Nominibus cap. 2.: In the divine Scriptures we have received, he says, that the Father is, so to speak, the fountain of the Divinity; Jesus however, and the Spirit, if it is lawful so to speak, the buds, or shoots of the fecund Divinity. Athanasius agrees in Contra Gregales Sabellii, where he says of the Father: He alone is the source of the Deity; and near the end: The Father is the root, and source of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Augustine also subscribes, in the fourth book De Trinit. cap. 20., where he thus explains Ioann. 15.: The Spirit of truth, whom I will send to you from the Father; namely, he says, showing that the Father is the principle of the whole Divinity, or, if it is better said, of the Deity. Eugene the Fourth also kept this manner of speaking in the Letters of Union, saying: The Father is the source, and principle of the whole Deity.

You will say 1. Not only the Father, but also the Son, indeed even the Holy Spirit are said to be without principle: therefore the name, and notion of principle principally does not belong to the eternal Father. The antecedent is proved from Zacharias of Mitylene in the book De Mundi opificio: The Father, he says, is without principle, and unbegotten: the Son begotten without principle; the Spirit of God proceeding without principle from the Father: similarly Athanasius in the Quaestionibus qu. 19. asserts, that the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are at once lacking principle, and without principle. And Hippolytus the martyr, Homil. de consummatione mundi, thus addresses the Son: You together with the Father lack a principle. Athanasius also attributes to Him the same appellation of one lacking principle, in his letter to Liberius.

I answer. The holy Fathers are to be understood in such a way, that they wish the divine Persons to be without principle of duration, of creation, and of making: but not without the principle of the emanation of one from another, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa lucidly explains, lib. Contra Eunomium:

When, he says, in the word ἀνάρχου (that is, of one without principle,) nothing else is understood, except that which has from no principle at all that it subsists; this very thing we confess to be proper to the Father alone. When, however, inquiry is made concerning the other significations of principle; since it is the principle also of creation, and of time, and of order; even in these we judge the only-begotten Son to be superior to every principle, so that we believe Him to be above every principle of creation, and the motion of time, and the sequence of order, through whom all things were made; and so Him whom we think not to lack a principle by reason of subsistence, we confess to lack a principle in all the rest: and the Father indeed we call lacking principle, and unbegotten, but the Son lacking principle indeed in the way we have said, yet we do not call Him unbegotten.

Than which nothing is more to the point.

You will say 2. A principle is that from which something proceeds, or is produced: but the Deity does not proceed, nor is produced from the Father: therefore the Father is neither its source, nor its principle.

I distinguish the minor. The Deity in the abstract, and insofar as it prescinds from the Persons, does not proceed from the Father, nor is the Father its principle, I concede; the Deity in the concrete, and taken for the divine Persons, which take their origin from the Father, and are produced, I deny: whence I said pointedly in the conclusion, that the Father is the principle of the communicated Divinity, that is, the principle from which the Divinity is communicated to the two produced Persons. But if the Divinity is also communicated through the Son to the Holy Spirit, the Son nevertheless cannot for that reason be called the principle of the whole communicated Divinity, as it is communicated through production, because He is not the reason for communicating the divine nature to Himself, but receives it from the Father.

Second conclusion. — The Father is truly called the Cause, and Author of the Son, but not in the proper signification of either name.

The first part is proved. By the authority of the Greek Fathers, especially of Basil in lib. 1. Contra Eunomium: The very word Father, he says, what else does it signify, except this, that He is the cause, and principle of him who was begotten from Him? Thus also Gregory of Nyssa in the book Ad Ablabium: For, he says, we do not deny the difference which is considered about cause, and caused, by which alone we find the one to be distinguished from the other; namely, from the fact that we believe one indeed to be the cause, the other to be from the cause. Likewise Chrysostom in cap. 1. Epist. ad Hebraeos homil. 2.: For if, he says, the Father is the cause of the Son, much more is He the cause of those things which are declared to have been made through the Son: the Damascene also subscribes in lib. 1. De Fide cap. 11.: One, he says, is the Father without principle, that is, without cause; for He is not from something. One is the Son, and He who is the Son is not without principle, that is, without cause, for He is from the Father. — The same thing is gathered from the Latin Fathers; for Hilary in lib. 12. De Trinit.: Of him who is, he says, the Father is the cause of that which he is. Likewise Augustine in lib. 7. De Trinit. says: The cause He has for being wise is the very cause He has for being: hence, if the Wisdom which He begot is also His cause for being, that Wisdom is itself the cause of His being.

The same thing is proved concerning the name of Author; for Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. 29., affirms that the Father is the cause, and author of the Divinity, which is considered in the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Likewise Saint Athanasius, in Dialogue 2. Contra Anomoeum, after he had said that the Father is the cause, and author of the Son, adds: God is the source of the Holy Spirit, and the author of the same, not receiving Him from without, but letting Him well forth from Himself. — The Latin Fathers affirm the same thing, especially Augustine, lib. 3. Contra Maximinum cap. 11., where he thus reproves him:

But the Son of God has, you say, the Father as author: if for this reason you call God the Father the author of God the Son, because the one begot, the other was begotten, because the latter is of the former, not the former of the latter, I confess, and concede it; if however through the name of Author you wish to make the Son lesser, and the Father greater, and the Son not of the same substance as the Father, I will detest, and reject it.

With him Saint Hilary agrees, 9. De Trinitate: For since, he says, the unbegotten God is the author to the only-begotten God of the perfect nativity of divine beatitude, to be the author of the nativity is the paternal mystery.

That this appellation of Author, and Cause is altogether improper, insofar as it is attributed to the divine Persons producing, is sufficiently clear both from the very notion of Cause, and Author, which implies something inferior in the product, and from Saint Augustine just now cited; whence Saint Cyril, lib. 2. Dialogorum de Trinitate, says: Cause, and caused, it is not lawful even to name; it befits us likewise to say of God rather Father, and begotten Son: which Bessarion lucidly explains in the Oration which he delivered in the Council of Florence: It is to be noted, he says, that the holy Eastern Doctors use the name of cause, and caused even in divine matters in a broad way; not indeed. insofar as it imports limitation, and dependence, but insofar as it signifies the production, and emanation, from a principle, of that which is from the principle. Therefore a divine Person producing is called the cause of the one produced only insofar as it is solely its principle.