Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

The third genus of names by which the Son of God is designated in the sacred Scriptures is Wisdom. For this word is for the most part used to stand for the Person of the Word, as will be established below. Wherefore three things especially are to be resolved here. 1. Whether the name of Wisdom truly so befits the Word that it can stand for His Person. 2. In what manner this appellation squares with the divine Word, namely whether properly, or appropriately. 3. Whether the divine Father is wise with that wisdom which is the Word. Wherefore

Note 1. That there is this distinction among essential, proper, and appropriated things in the divine: that the essential are those predicates — whether quidditative, or modificative, or attributive — common to the three divine Persons, such as are the divine nature, immensity, goodness, etc. But the proper are those properties, or relative formalities, by which each Person is constituted, and distinguished from another. But the appropriated are those essential and absolute predicates which, though truly common to the three Persons, are nevertheless accommodated to one Person rather than to another on account of some singular reason and affinity: thus, to extinguish the heresy of those who would say that the divine Father is powerless on account of old age, Omnipotence is attributed to Him, which nevertheless belongs to the three divine Persons inseparably: so likewise, because the divine Word proceeds through the intellect, whose office it is to know and to be wise, and because the Holy Spirit proceeds through the will, which is the sanctuary of love, goodness, and holiness, therefore knowledge, wisdom, etc. are appropriated to the Son, while holiness, goodness, and love are specially attributed to the Spirit.

Note 2. That it was fitting that some essential attributes, and some operations ad extra, should be specially appropriated to one Person or another, although these were truly common to the three divine Persons; the truth of this assertion is gathered not only from Sacred Scripture, in which we behold many such appropriations, but also from the holy Fathers, who accommodated various appropriated perfections to one divine Person rather than to another; so that through the property of the word, or of the work, the truth of the Trinity is suggested to us, and let not the intellect divide what the hearing distinguishes, says St. Leo, serm. 2. De Pentecoste cap. 2. For never, as he adds, is the Trinity understood, if it were always said inseparably. Reason also favors this, for it was fitting that darker and more difficult things be manifested through those which are more easily perceived: but the attributes and operations of God ad extra are understood by us more clearly than the properties and distinctions; since by evident demonstration from known creatures we can rise to the knowledge of the divine attributes; not so to the cognition of the personal properties; and therefore it was fitting to accommodate to one divine Person some special attribute naturally known, by which the distinction of that Person from another might more easily become known. Whence Richard of St. Victor, in the little work De tribus appropriatis cap. 2., speaking of the divine Power, Wisdom and Goodness, says: In these three the form and image of the supreme Trinity is expressed, so that the invisible things of God may be seen, being understood through the things that are made. Those things, therefore, which are in that Trinity are three to three, like to like, proper to proper, etc.

Note 3. That two things are required for a perfect appropriation: First, that there be a knowledge, and a certain affinity of the attribute with the property of the Person, as was just said, since the Son proceeds through intellection, Wisdom is appropriated to Him, so that, hearing this name, the hearers may be moved to apprehend something peculiar in the second Person, which is not common to the rest, namely the notion of the Word, of the Image, etc. Second, that through the appropriated perfection there be removed the imperfection which the less instructed could suspect in a divine Person; thus Alensis says, 1. p. qu. 67. membro 3. art. 1., Power is attributed to the Father, lest He be believed weaker on account of old age; Wisdom to the Son, lest He be thought more feeble on account of youth; and Goodness to the Spirit, lest He be heard of as cruel: whence it comes about that St. Thomas calls appropriation the Way of likeness, and of unlikeness: Albert, 1. p. qu. 48., the Approach, and withdrawal: Henry, 2. p. art. 72. q. 1., the Correspondence according to likeness: but the above-cited Alexander of Hales explains both these conditions of appropriation best of all from the end, namely, That truth may be taught, and error be met. These things being thus premised, it remains to prove the three things already mentioned, and so let it be

First conclusion. — Wisdom is truly attributed to the Son, and sometimes stands for His name.

It is proved from Sacred Scripture. First indeed, because Wisdom is for the most part called begotten: but no essential attribute, as such, can be said to be begotten: therefore then the name of wisdom stands for the Person of the Word. The minor is evident: because the essence neither generates, nor is generated. The major is proved, for in Proverb. 8. that divine Wisdom says: The abysses were not yet, and I was already conceived: and again: Before all the hills I was brought forth: and Eccl. 24.: I came forth out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before every creature. Hence St. Paul, 1. ad Corinth. 1., calls Christ the Lord the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Whence St. Basil, lib. 1. Contra Eunomium, rightly gathers that, If Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God, these, however, are uncreated and coeternal with God (for He was not at some time without wisdom, or without power), then Christ is uncreated and coeternal with God.

It is confirmed from the holy Fathers, who in a similar way prove that the Son of God is eternal, and therefore coeval with, and consubstantial to, the Father: thus St. Ambrose, in the book De symbolo cap. 11., refutes the Arians saying: There was a time when He was not; and before He was born He was not; in this way: Could there have been a time when the Father was without life, without Wisdom, without Virtue, without the Word, which Christ is? St. Augustine agrees with him, in the Oration Contra haeres. cap. 6.: You see therefore, that He always was, of whom you dare to say that He was not. Or if you say that God was at some time without the Word, or without reason, you will be an adversary not only of the Son, but also of the Father. Whence in lib. 7. De Trinit. cap. 1. he says: It is impious to say that God is not the Father of His Wisdom. Hence Theophylact on 1. Ioannis: It is impossible, he says, for God to be without speech, and wisdom, and virtue: therefore, because the Son exists as the Word, Wisdom, and Virtue of the Father, we believe that He is always with God, that is, with the Father.

That Eusebius, whoever he is, the Author of the first homily de Symbolo, explains all these things lucidly:

As, he says, the sun cannot exist without splendor, nor fire without heat, nor immortality without eternity, nor eternity without immortality, nor power without strength; as, I say, reason cannot exist without wisdom, nor truth without justice, nor goodness without mercy; so the Father could never exist without the Son: for all powers are contained in the Son.

From all of which it is evident that Wisdom truly stands for the Son, not only in Sacred Scripture, but also among the holy Fathers.

Second conclusion. — Wisdom is attributed to the divine Son not properly, but appropriately.

This is the common teaching, and St. Augustine proves it, lib. 7. De Trinit. cap. 1., where, having said: Because in that simplicity to be wise is nothing other than to be, there wisdom is the same as essence; he concludes: The Father therefore, and the Son are together one essence, and one magnitude, and one truth, and one wisdom; but the Father and the Son are not together both one Word, because they are not together both one Son: the reason for which he gives in the same place, that the Son, as Image and Word, is said not with reference to Himself, but to the Father, and relatively. From this he infers that the Son is not the Word in the respect in which He is Wisdom, because He is Wisdom in the respect in which He is essence: Therefore, he says, He is not the Word in the respect in which He is wisdom, because the Word is not said with reference to itself, but only relatively with respect to him whose Word it is, just as the Son with reference to the Father; but Wisdom in the respect in which He is essence: and therefore, because there is one Essence, there is one Wisdom. From which it clearly appears that Wisdom is an essential attribute, and therefore common to the three divine Persons, not however proper to the Son alone. Hence St. Augustine in the same place infers, that when the name of Wisdom stands for the Person of the Son, it should not be called Wisdom simpliciter, but Wisdom born, or begotten:

Since, however, he says, the Word is also Wisdom, but it is not the Word in the respect in which it is Wisdom: for the Word is understood relatively, but Wisdom essentially: let this be understood when the Word is said, so that born Wisdom is not said, so that He may be the Son, and the Image: and when these two are said, that is, born Wisdom, in one of them, because it was born, both the Word, and the Image, and the Son are understood, and in all these names essence is not understood, because they are said relatively.

From these things it clearly appears that the name of Wisdom is not simpliciter proper to the Son, but only with an addition, namely when born, or begotten Wisdom is said; for in this way it befits the Son alone not only appropriately, but also properly, and expresses nothing other than what the name of Word and of Son expresses.

Third conclusion. — The divine Father is not wise with the begotten Wisdom.

This is the common teaching, and the Doctor proves it thus in 1. dist. 32. q. 1. n. 9.: If the divine Father were wise with the begotten Wisdom, then either the begotten Wisdom would be the form by which the Father would be made formally wise, just as He is Father by Paternity: or the begotten Wisdom would be the principle of the Wisdom which is in the Father, in which sense the Master of the Sentences concedes that the Son is wise with the unbegotten Wisdom principiatively, namely because the unbegotten Wisdom of the Father is the principle of the begotten Wisdom, which is the Son: or finally the sense would be, that the Son would be the sub-authoritative principle with respect to the act of being wise, which is in the Father, just as the Word is the sub-authoritative principle with respect to the act of creating; for the Father is said to create by the Word: but neither of these can be said licitly, and truly. Not indeed the first, nor the second, otherwise the divine Father would receive Wisdom from the Son, which is absurd:

For if, says St. Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinit. cap. 7., the Son alone understood for Himself, so that the understanding might be for Himself, and for the Father, and for the Holy Spirit, we return to that absurdity, that the Father is not wise from Himself, but from the Son, nor did Wisdom beget Wisdom, but the Father is said to be wise by that Wisdom which He begot... And if for God to be is the same as to be wise, and that is His essence by which He is Wisdom, then not the Son from the Father, which is true; but rather the Father has essence from the Son, which is most absurd, and most false.

Nor even the third, because a sub-authoritative principle has a true action with respect to that of which it is said to be such a principle; for the Son, e.g., truly influences the creatures which the Father produces through Him, and with Him: but the begotten Wisdom has no influence with respect to the act of being wise in the Father. Whence St. Augustine concludes in the same place: God the Father is therefore wise with that Wisdom by which He Himself is His own Wisdom, and the Son is the wisdom of the Father from the wisdom which is the Father, from whom the Son was begotten. Whence he rightly revoked, in the first book of Retractationum cap. 26., what he had taught in lib. 83. Quaestionum q. 23., that God is said to be wise, because He Himself begot that Wisdom by which He is said to be wise. Which opinion he certainly retracted, and in the same place asserts that he examined it more carefully in the books De Trinit.

You will say 1. The divine Father speaks by the Word, according to St. Augustine, 7. De Trinit. cap. 1.: but from St. Anselm in Monologio, cap. 63. To speak is nothing other for the supreme Spirit than to behold, as it were, by thinking*: therefore the Father beholds by the Word, and hence also is wise by the Word.

He distinguishes the minor. The Doctor, n. 10.: If to speak is taken essentially, inasmuch as it signifies the same as to understand, as St. Anselm takes it, he concedes: if it is taken notionally, and inasmuch as it imports the same as to produce the Word, he denies the minor, and likewise the consequence, since in this way speech is distinguished from essential intellection. And so the Father speaks by the Word only in so far as He is the principle of the Word, which by its own notion is formally declarative, and expressive of everything declarable, and manifestable; and thus the Father is only the active cause, not indeed the formal cause, of that representation, and expression: not otherwise than if Peter were to make a mirror, in which all the species, and images of things would be received; that mirror would indeed be the formal cause of that representation, but Peter only the efficient cause. Hence it is, that although the Father speaks by the Word in this way, He cannot nevertheless be said to be wise by the Word, because to be wise is taken essentially, not indeed notionally.

You will say 2. The Doctor admits in the same place, q. 1. n. 7., that the divine Father is rightly said to love Himself by the Holy Spirit: therefore by parity it is also not incongruously said, that He is wise with the begotten Wisdom. The consequence is proved: the Father is said to love Himself by the Holy Spirit because He produces the Holy Spirit, who is the love of the Father by appropriation: but He also produces the Word, which is appropriately called the Wisdom of the Father: therefore etc.

I deny the consequence, and to its proof I say that there is this distinction between loving, and being wise in the divine: that to love can be taken notionally, inasmuch as it signifies the production of the Holy Spirit, who is called produced love, by which reasoning to love is nothing other than to breathe forth the produced love: but to be wise is not ordered to signifying the production of Wisdom, but only the attainment, and perception of the object, whence it comes about, that it is taken only essentially for the whole intellection, not however notionally for the productive speech of the divine Word; and therefore between the two there is no parity.