Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

Among all the divine excellences which are expressed by negative words, the first that presents itself to us is the Simplicity of God; by which appellation it indeed seems to be one of the affirmative properties: yet in reality it is not without reason numbered among the negative ones. For to be simple is nothing other than to lack composition, and to have no parts which, joined together with one another, produce something one. Hence a dispute arises among some theologians, whether divine simplicity is formally a negation, as some affirm with our Aureolus in 3. d. 8. q. 3. a. 2., or whether it is formally a positive perfection, carrying with itself the negation of all composition, as the Subtle Doctor seems to have judged more correctly in 2. d. 8. q. 1. ad 1. Therefore it must first be resolved whether God is truly altogether simple; secondly, what His divine Simplicity is formally; thirdly, whether that supreme Simplicity keeps every composition whatsoever, as much real as of reason, as much actual as possible, away from God.

AND IN WHAT ITS DIVINE SIMPLICITY FORMALLY CONSISTS.

Note 1. The difference between simplicity, unity, and identity is this: that Identity is opposed to distinction, Unity to multitude, and Simplicity to composition. For those things are said to be altogether the same which are not diverse either in reality or in reason; e.g., Man and rational Animal: for these diverse words express altogether the same thing; but those things are said to be One which, although they are diverse in themselves and distinct really or formally, are nevertheless so united to one another that they coalesce into one; thus the rational soul and the flesh are one man. But that is said to be Simple which rejects every composition entirely, and admits in itself nothing after the manner of act and potency, which are required for forming a true composition. And so Simplicity seems to be, as it were, midway between unity and identity; since it is stricter than Unity, which admits component parts, and broader than identity, which rejects every distinction. Therefore that is called simple which, although it includes distinct things, nevertheless excludes every composition from act and potency, as is manifest in the Mystery of the adorable Trinity, in which the real mutual distinction of the divine Persons does not dissolve divine simplicity; much less does the formal distinction of the Personal relations from the Divine Essence impede it.

Note 2. As many kinds of simplicity can be distinguished as there are kinds of composition inimical to it: whence, since universally there is a twofold genus of composition — for one is real composition, which is made in four ways, namely, either from matter and form; or from integral or quidditative parts; or from nature and subsistence, on the hypothesis that the latter adds something positive to the substantial nature; or from subject and accident. The other is formal composition ex natura rei, which others call virtual composition and of reason; and this is likewise made in four ways, namely, either from essence and existence, or from genus and difference, or from essence and properties, or finally from essence and its intrinsic modes. Hence it happens that likewise in general a twofold Simplicity is spoken of: one indeed real, which excludes every composition, whether from matter and form, or from integral or quidditative parts, or from nature and subsistence, or from subject and accident; the other is formal simplicity, or of reason, which excludes every mode of formal composition.

Note 3. Formal simplicity is again distinguished as twofold: one is called Simplicity secundum quid, or simple; whose objective concept is so one that it is nevertheless resolvable into various distinct concepts, thinkable separately; such is, e.g., the concept of man, which although metaphysically it is unique, can nevertheless be resolved into the concepts of animal and rational, by which man is constituted. The other is called absolute Simplicity, or simpliciter simplex, whose entity cannot be resolved into various concepts; such is the concept of Being, e.g., which since it presupposes nothing prior, but is the more general and prior of all concepts, is likewise resolved into none. Which, however, of these simplicities belongs to God is to be resolved here.

First conclusion. — God is entirely simple. Thus the Lateran Council defined, cap. Firmiter, in which it is decreed that the divine Substance is invisible, as being entirely simple. All the holy Fathers and theological Doctors prove the same, and that by various reasons, of which the First is deduced from the supreme perfection of God, and can be formed thus: God is the most perfect being: therefore He is simple. The antecedent is evident; since by the name of God is understood a being than which nothing better and more perfect can be thought or imagined. The consequence is proved: To the most perfect being must be attributed every perfection altogether that savors of no imperfection: whence St. Ambrose, lib. 1. De Fide, cap. 7.: Whatever can be felt more religiously, whatever is more excellent for adornment, whatever is more sublime for power, understand that this befits God: but a simple nature, says St. Bernard, lib. 5. De Consideratione, cap. 7., is preferred to a manifold one: therefore, as he concludes there: God is not composed, He is pure simplicity. And that you may clearly know what I call simple, the same as one. God is as simple as He is one: He is one, and as it were nothing else: if it can be said, He is most one. The second proof is deduced from the notion of the first cause: The first cause can have no cause of itself: but every composite thing requires a cause which unites and joins its distinct parts; for things which are diverse among themselves cannot coalesce into one, except through some uniting cause: therefore since God is the first cause, He cannot have a unitive cause of parts; nor consequently can He be composed, and hence He is entirely simple. The major is certain. For, says the Author of the book De cognitione verae vitae, cap. 7., in Augustine, tom. 9., everything which is joined from parts, or resolved into parts, certainly undergoes conjunction or resolution from something. St. Cyril of Alexandria proves the minor in the book Thesaurus, cap. 13.: Since therefore, he says, nothing can be thought before the principle, it will in no way befall it to be composed; since composite things are made by a certain concourse of simples. The same is confirmed by Justin Martyr, or whoever is the Author of the Quaestionum, et Responsionum ad Orthodoxos, q. 129, where he says that every composite is made by another: For, he says, he who has no one who made and composed him, has neither been made nor composed. On that account in God we say especially that the essence is eternal, not however composition. Prudentius illustrated the same reason poetically, lib. 2. Contra Symmachum, where he brings in God speaking thus:

I am a simple substance, Nor can I be a part; division belongs only to things Composed, and made: no one created me, So that I could be cut apart, the one Creator of all things.

The third reason is inferred from the supreme Identity of God: In every composite there are parts which are not the composite itself: but in God there is nothing which is not God: therefore God is not composed. The major is evident: for none of the parts of a man is a man. St. Augustine proves the minor, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 10, where he says that God is for that reason called simple, because what He has, that He is, except that each Person is said relatively to the other; for indeed the Father has the Son, and yet He is not Himself the Son: and the Son has the Father, and yet He is not Himself the Father. Therefore in that in which He is said with reference to Himself, not to another, He is what He has: as He is said to be Living with reference to Himself, having life, and that same life He Himself is; on this account that nature is called simple for which it is not the case that it has something which it could either lose, or that the one having and the thing had are different. — St. Bernard proves the same, sermon 80. in the Cantica:

Only the supreme and uncreated nature, he says, claims for itself this pure and singular Simplicity of its essence, so that it is not one thing and another, not elsewhere and elsewhere; but neither indeed now and then; namely, remaining in itself, it is what it has, and what it is is always and in one mode in it, and many things are reduced to one, and diverse things to one, so that it neither takes plurality from the number of things, nor feels alteration from variety.

— Therefore we must rightly conclude with our Cornelius Mussius, lib. De divina historia, that God is entirely simple, in whom all things are one; where there is no multitude of parts, no distinction of powers, no diversity of actions. What unity is in numbers, what the point is in lines, what the now is in time, what light is in the Sun, what seed is in substances, principle in elements, soul in body, mind in soul; imagine to yourself all the unities, imagine all the simplicities, still divine simplicity is far simpler, divine unity far more indivisible. Or, as St. Dionysius speaks, lib. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 13: More ancient than every one and multitude, every part and whole, every limit and privation of determination, every end and infinity, and hence since God surpasses every one and whole, He is simpler than all unities.

The fourth reason can be deduced from eternity: What is eternal is not composed: but God is eternal: therefore He cannot be composed, and hence is entirely simple. The minor is evident. The major is proved: Every composite presupposes the parts out of which it is constituted, at least with a priority of nature; for parts concur to the constitution of the whole, and are, as it were, its causes, and every cause precedes its effect at least by an instant of nature; and consequently the parts constituting a composite must be prior to the composite; and hence what is composed cannot be eternal; because in eternity there is nothing prior or posterior. — St. Ambrose brings forward this very cause of divine Simplicity, lib. De Symbolo, cap. 1.: God, he says, cannot be composed, since it is impious to think that anything anterior to Him pre-existed. Richard Victorinus infers the same, lib. 2. De Trinitate, cap. 17. in these words:

What is composed of several things is naturally divisible; and what is naturally divisible is naturally changeable; and where there is changeability, there cannot be eternity; and so neither true happiness: but in the good which is universally perfect, none of these things can be lacking.

And hence since God is eternal and immutable, it follows that He is likewise incomposite and entirely simple.

The fifth reason the Doctor deduces in 1. d. 8. q. 1. n. 5. from the supreme actuality of God and the necessity of being: If God were composed, He would be composed either of parts which were necessary beings, or which were not; but neither can be said; not indeed the second, because what is composed of non-necessary beings cannot be a necessary being. Not the first either, both because, by the very fact that those component parts would be necessary beings, they would have to be in their ultimate actuality; for a necessary being excludes all potentiality, and is in act all that it can be, and consequently one necessary part could not be actuated by another; nor consequently could those parts be mutually united so as to compose some third thing; for a part which is determined and actuated by another, so as with it to make a composite, is not of itself in its ultimate actuality, but is in potency to the other, and is ordered to it as its companion part; then because if those parts out of which God would be composed were necessary beings, it would follow that God is twice a necessarily existing being, namely by reason of each part composing Him; which is absurd; then finally because it would follow that God would be a necessary being by reason of one part, which nevertheless being removed, He would no less be a necessary being on account of the other part, which altogether implies a contradiction; and consequently since God is a necessarily existing being, He cannot be composed.

The sixth and final reason the Doctor infers from divine infinity: If God were composed, He would be composed especially either of parts of finite perfection, or of infinite; not of finite parts, because several things of finite perfection cannot make something infinitely perfect: not of several of infinite perfection either, for it is repugnant that several infinite things be mutually united to compose and constitute some whole: both because if those infinite parts made a composition, it would follow that the whole composed of them would be intensively more perfect; for a composite is more perfect than any of its parts taken separately, otherwise the composition would be made in vain, since one part without the fellowship of the other would be as perfect intensively as the whole itself; but it is absurd that one intensively infinite thing be more perfect than another also intensively infinite; otherwise the one would not be intensively infinite, since it would be exceeded by the other, nor would it involve every perfection altogether. Therefore it implies a contradiction that some whole be made of intensively infinite parts; and hence the Doctor subtly infers from the infinity of God that He is not composed; but entirely simple.

It must therefore be concluded with Boethius, book De Trinitate:

Simple being, simple power, Simple will, simple knowing, All things are simple.

You will say 1. That is to be attributed to God which is more excellent: but composition is more excellent than simplicity: therefore composition, not simplicity, is to be attributed to God. The major is evident; since God is the being than which nothing better and more perfect can be thought or imagined, it follows that we attribute to Him every perfection altogether which savors of no imperfection. The minor also is certain: for composite things excel simple ones, and mixed things excel elements, and the whole surpasses its parts; for good added to good makes better, and perfection joined to perfection makes a thing more perfect: therefore since in composition one perfect part is united to another perfect one, hence it happens that the more a whole is composed, the more perfect it should be judged, because it embraces more goods in itself and more perfections.

I distinguish the minor. Composition is more perfect than simplicity in created beings and those of limited perfection, I concede; it is more perfect than the simplicity which is really found in the divine essence altogether infinite, I deny. For since God on account of His infinity embraces all perfections altogether formally or virtually, and identifies them with Himself, hence it happens that the stricter His divine simplicity is, the more excellent His divine perfection is; for it is far better to embrace all perfections in a single simple, but infinite entity, than to involve some of them through composition mutually cohering. It is otherwise with creatures, whose entity and perfection, since it is finite and limited, shines forth the more excellent the more united perfections it embraces. Hence it happens that physical composites, since they involve more parts, and therefore more perfections, are also judged more perfect than prime matter, which is indeed simpler than all corporeal beings, yet more imperfect.

Add. That even in creatures greater perfection is not always found in more composed beings, indeed some are more perfect because they are simpler. For who would say that man, e.g., is nobler than an Angel because he is more composed, and consists of matter and form, body and soul, and integral corporeal parts, which the Angel lacks on account of his spirituality and his simple and indivisible entity? Which simple and indivisible Angelic entity nevertheless virtually embraces and contains unitedly all the perfections which in corporeal things may be observed separately: since therefore God contains in Himself the perfections of all beings whatsoever, but in a more eminent mode and grade, hence it happens that He is the more perfect the simpler He is.

You will say 2. If God could not be composed, this would be especially because Deity cannot have the notion of form: but this is not repugnant: therefore neither is it repugnant that God be composed.

The minor is proved. It would be repugnant for Deity to be a form, chiefly because a form carries with itself dependence on the subject which it informs, but Deity must be altogether independent: but it could happen that Deity be a form without any dependence: since there is no contradiction that the notion of dependence be separated from the notion of form: for a form would no less affect and actuate the subject, even if it in no way depended on it: therefore it is not repugnant that Deity be a form, nor consequently that God be composed. — The Doctor denies the minor in the cited place n. 8.; for the notion of limitation and dependence can in no way be separated from form, for although a form does not sometimes depend on the subject which it informs, it always depends on the efficient cause, which produces it, and unites it with the subject, as is clear by the example of the rational soul, which although it does not depend on the human body of which it is the form, nevertheless depends on God, by whom it is created, and through whom it is united to the body. Since therefore the notion of dependence can in no way be separated from form, it plainly follows that Deity cannot have the notion of form, and consequently that God is in no way composed. Add that every form has the notion of a part, and consequently of a limited being; but in God there is no part, and no limitation, as was proved above.

You will say 3. No perfection is to be asserted in God, except that which befits Him according to its most excellent grade: but simplicity cannot befit God according to its most excellent grade: therefore neither should it be asserted in God. The major is evident: since God is the most perfect being, He can admit in Himself nothing except what is most excellent. The minor is proved: The most excellent simplicity is that which is the strictest; and the strictest is that which suffers no plurality with itself, and excludes all multitude: but this cannot be attributed to God; for in God there is plurality of relations and attributes, and the Trinity of Persons: therefore the most excellent simplicity cannot be in Him. — Our Alexander of Hales denies the minor in 1. p. q. 5. memb. 2. ad 1:

For that simplicity is more perfect, he says, which remains undivided among many, and not multiplied; for the more something is one, the simpler it is; but greater and stricter unity is the unity of essence with plurality of Persons, because it is more perfect to be in many, and not to be multiplied in them, than to be only one in one, or multiple in many.

Since therefore supreme unity must be attributed to God, the unity and simplicity which stands with plurality is to be attributed to Him most of all; otherwise God would not be simple in the highest grade of simplicity.

You will insist. There is greater simplicity where there is identity without diversity, than where it is found with diversity: but in God there is identity with diversity of supposits and relations: therefore in Him there is not supreme simplicity. — The Seraphic Bonaventure responds in 1. d. 8. q. 5. ad 2. by distinguishing the Major: There is greater simplicity where there is identity without diversity, which comes from origin, he denies; which comes from the addition of form, he concedes. For diversity (he says) arises either from the addition of form and of absolute perfections, which are diverse in diverse things, as whiteness in Peter and Paul, and this dissolves simplicity, because it posits composition. The other is diversity coming from origin alone, by which it happens that a person emanating from another person differs and is distinguished from it. This diversity however is not repugnant to simplicity, because it posits no composition; but only an order and respect of one to another, and is more fittingly called distinction than diversity: this is attributed to God, not the former, and consequently divine simplicity is not dissolved by it.

You will insist. Simplicity is stricter where there is supreme unity without any plurality, because number says some composition in respect of which unity is simple: therefore since in God there is unity with plurality of Persons, there is not the strictest simplicity. — The same Seraphic Doctor responds that there is a twofold plurality, one indeed in which there is more in two than in one, as e.g. in two equally perfect men there is more wisdom and goodness than in either of them; and this plurality is repugnant to simplicity, because unity adds over unity: the other is plurality in which there is as much perfection in many as in one; and this is found in the divine, because there is as much perfection and virtue in one Person as in many; and so since this plurality does not dissolve unity, nor posit any composition, therefore it does not destroy simplicity either.

Second conclusion. — Simplicity thus divided is not a simple negation of composition, but formally is something positive connoting such a negation. This is the Doctor's teaching in 1. d. 8. q. 5. ad 5.

Proof. Simplicity is a perfection simpliciter simplex. Therefore it is not a pure negation. The consequence is evident, for no negation can be called simpliciter a perfection, since it precisely only denies imperfection, but does not establish any perfection. The antecedent is proved: First indeed by the authority of the holy Fathers, who affirm that divine Simplicity is a perfection far more excellent than multiplicity or composition is. Thus St. Augustine, lib. De quantitate animae, cap. 5.: Altogether to be preferred is that which altogether cannot be divided, and lacks all composition. St. Anselm, De Incarnatione Verbi, cap. 6.: Every simple thing, he says, inasmuch as it is simple, is more perfect than a composite. And St. Bernard, lib. 5. De Consideratione, cap. 7.: A simple nature is preferred to a manifold one. Therefore in the mind of the holy Fathers divine simplicity is a formal perfection of God, and hence is something positive, for a negation formally considered, since it does not signify some being, also imports no perfection. — Then, the same judgment is to be rendered of divine simplicity, inasmuch as it denies composition, just as of infinity, immensity, and the other perfections modifying the divine Essence, which deny limitation and determination: but these are not pure negations, as will appear below: therefore neither is this one. — Finally, every negation which imports repugnance is founded on something positive, which is the principle of this repugnance: but divine simplicity carries with itself the formal repugnance of composition and division: therefore it connotes some formal positive perfection in God, which is the principle of this repugnance.

You will say 1. Simplicity does not add some new entity to a simple thing: therefore it is not some positive perfection. The consequence is evident, for every positive perfection is an entity. The antecedent is proved: If simplicity added a new entity to a simple thing, it would make a composition with it: but this is repugnant, otherwise the thing would be simple and not simple: therefore it is not some perfection.

I deny the antecedent. And to its proof I say that an intrinsic mode does not make a composition with the entity of which it is the mode; both because it is not adequately distinguished from it, as a part must be distinguished from a part, and a form from the subject which it composes; and because it does not affect it as act affects potency, which however are required for perfect composition, but only as a perfecting mode, or one connoting the perfection of such an entity: therefore although divine simplicity is some positive perfection, it does not thence follow that it makes a composition in God.

You will say 2. Composition does not add some entity or positive mode to a composite: therefore neither does simplicity to a simple thing.

I deny the antecedent. For composition is a mode of the entity which is said to be composed, for it connotes a thing which claims for itself act and potency, or parts mutually united: whence in a composite these are distinguished: the constituted entity, the constituting parts, and the order of the composed entity to the parts, and of the parts to the whole, which order indeed is an intrinsic mode, both in the whole and in the parts, following the nature or quiddity of such an entity and of its parts. And so composition formally taken says something besides the parts and the whole. The same judgment therefore is to be rendered of simplicity with respect to a simple thing.

In the preceding Question it was noted beforehand that real composition occurs in four ways: namely, either from matter and form, or from parts — either integrating, or quidditative and quantitative — or from nature and subsistence, or finally from subject and accident. In this, however,

Question, it must be resolved whether God rejects this fourfold mode of composition, so that His divine simplicity may be established and made known more firmly and more evidently; but first

Note 1. The fictions of the ancient pagans about the Divinity were various; for some thought that the gods were present corporeally in the statues and in the consecrated images themselves, as Tertullian relates and reproaches, lib. De Idololatria, cap. 14.: We know, he says, that although the names are empty and feigned, yet when they are led down into superstition, they snatch to themselves demons and every unclean spirit, through the obligation of consecration. Although that error was not that of all, but only of the rude and unlearned. For the wiser ones easily saw that no Divinity is in corporeal statues, but used them as an instrument, as it were, to represent to themselves the presence of the gods, and to establish the worship of their deity by a certain rite and law. Nevertheless, the wiser ones themselves struck upon a graver error; for, as St. Augustine asserts, lib. 7. De Civitate Dei, cap. 6, Varro, the most learned of the philosophers, says that he judges God to be the soul of the world, and this same world to be God. So that, just as a man, although consisting of body and soul, is nevertheless called wise from the soul, so the world is said to be God from its soul, since it is from soul and body.

Note 2. That many heretics judged so perversely about God, that some, with the Manichaeans, asserted God to be an accident. For they wished, says St. Augustine, Haeresi, 16., God to be that corporeal light lying adjacent to the eyes of mortal animals. Some, with Hermogenes, affirmed first matter to be equal to God, and accordingly judged it to be God, since nothing is equal to God except God, as Tertullian shrewdly concludes, lib. Contra eumdem Hermogenem, cap. 1. et 5. To him a certain David of Dinant assented, who, as St. Thomas relates, 1. part. q. 3. art. 8, contended that first matter is God. Others, however, affirmed God to be corporeal, who for that reason were called Anthropomorphites, from a Greek word compounded of ἄνθρωπος, which is man, and μορφή, which signifies form, and, figuring God after the likeness of man, thought that He consists of body and soul, and of corporeal members and parts. The master of this error is asserted by Theodoret, De Haeresibus, cap. 13., and likewise by St. Augustine, in 10. 7. Har., c. 20., to be a certain Audius, or Audeus, born in Mesopotamia, a man indeed religious and pious, who with ecclesiastical freedom reproved not only presbyters, but also bishops who went astray, for which cause he was assailed with calumnies by them and defamed as a heretic; although, as St. Epiphanius asserts, Haeresi, 70., he departed in nothing from the right faith, but he with his own held sincere religion in all things, or, as he speaks in the index of the third book, the Audians' is properly a schism and defection, not a heresy. Their manner of living is well instituted, but neither, as far as pertains to faith, do they dissent from the Catholic Church. And accordingly, those who on the authority of Epiphanius affirm that Audius was truly a heretic rely on a false testimony; since neither he nor his followers dissented from the Catholic Church and faith, except in one and that a most light matter, that he interpreted those words of Sacred Scripture which signify that man was made to the image of God more harshly and stubbornly, when he asserted that that divine image is to be placed in the human body, so that the image of an incorporeal and spiritual substance might be visible and corporeal. From which perhaps the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, which arose in Egypt about the times of Theodosius the First, as Socrates, lib. 6. cap. 6., and Sozomenus, lib. 8. cap. 55, are witnesses, seized the occasion of affirming God to be corporeal. For indeed they assumed this argument of a corporeal image in defense of their error. Whence I judge it happened that Audius seemed to be the author of this sect. Hence the Anthropomorphites were promiscuously called by the Holy Fathers Audians, or Odians, whom St. Augustine, with a corrupted word, calls Vadians. These things having been premised, let there be

First conclusion. — God utterly rejects every composition from matter and form. This is of faith, and is evident from all the texts of Sacred Scripture by which God is called Spirit, which we cited above when treating of the nature and spirituality of God.

It is proved first, from the excellence of the Divinity: God is the most excellent being that can fall into our thought: but of that sort is a certain mind loosed and free, separated from all mortal concretion, perceiving and moving all things, as Cicero defined God, in St. Augustine, lib. 22., De Civitate, cap. 20. For body and everything corporeal is worse than spirit, and more ignoble than mind; it remains, therefore, says Maximus of Tyre, dissert. 5, that, as if set on high in a citadel, we may place God in the principal mind by our discourse.

Second, from His immortality and incorruption: for, as St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks in the 4th and 13th Oration,

if God were corporeal, what cause shall we say why He does not consist of those elements, and is wholly dissolved into them? for composition is the principle of strife, strife of dissension, dissension of dissolution, dissolution, however, is wholly alien to God and the first nature. Wherefore there is no dissension in Him, lest there be some dissolution; nor strife, lest dissension arise; nor composition, lest strife exist; and hence He is not even a body, lest there be composition.

To him Arnobius agrees, lib. 3. adversus gentes.

Our judgment on this matter is such, he says, that every divine nature, which has neither begun to be nor will sometime come to be, lacks corporeal lineaments, nor possesses any shapes of forms by which the outermost circumscription of members is wont to bound the joinings. For whatever is of that sort, we judge to be mortal and frail, nor do we believe that it can obtain perpetual eternity, because a necessary extremity encloses it, hemmed in by outermost limits.

Third, from His immensity; for it was known to all, even to the pagans, that God is everywhere. Whence Virgil, 4. Georg.:

For God indeed goes through all Lands, and the reaches of the Sea, and the deep Heaven.

But if He were corporeal, He could not be present to all parts of the world, which in a wonderful manner the aforementioned St. Gregory Nazianzen urges. How, he says, shall we be able to maintain that which Scripture says, that God pervades and fills all things, according to that: do I not fill Heaven and Earth? and the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, if God partly circumscribes, and partly is circumscribed? For either He will roam through this empty universe, and all things will perish for us, so that God is thus afflicted with contumely — namely, both that He is a body, and that He lacks the things He has created; or a body will be in bodies, which cannot come to pass; or He will be entangled, or opposed, or, just as liquids are mixed with one another, so He will cut through some things, and be cut by others, which is more absurd and silly even than the very atoms of Epicurus. — These two proofs are confirmed: If God were corporeal, He would have a body, either inanimate or animate: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, otherwise the body of God would be worse than the body of a brute, which is known to be animated, to vegetate, and to sense; but to assert this of God, the most excellent of beings, would be stupid and insane. Nor the second, because an animate body is organic, but an organic body can naturally be harmed, labor, grow weary, and even perish; which certainly are wholly unbecoming to God. — Then: If God has an organic body, it also follows, says the aforementioned Arnobius,

that He should have ears pierced with curved windings, the moving orbs of eyes overshadowed by the borders of the eyebrows, a suspended ridge of nostrils furnished with mucous defenses, and passable for the passage of breath; teeth of a threefold kind for the grinding of foods, and arranged into three offices. Hands as ministers of works, tractable through joints, fingers, and the mobility of elbows; feet for bearing the weight, for extending strides, and for supplying the anticipations of goings, all of which are unbecoming to God.

The Doctor supplies a fourth argument, 1. dist. 8. q. 1. n. 2., from the Independence and Primacy of God: If God were corporeal, He would consist of matter and form: but He cannot consist of these: therefore He is not corporeal. He proves the Minor: Every composite of matter and form requires an efficient cause which unites the form with the matter: but God, since He is the first cause of all, cannot have any efficient cause: therefore, etc. He proves the major: Matter is in passive potency to form, because of itself it does not seek one form rather than another: therefore, in order that it be under this form, some cause must be assigned which both produces the form and unites it with the matter. — Then that matter of which God would consist could either be without His form, or could not: if it could not, then it is not really distinguished from that form, and so God would consist of matter really distinct from the form, and would not consist of it, which would imply a contradiction. Or it could be, and so God would not be a necessary being, because He could not be; for a composite which can lack a form can be dissolved and perish. — Moreover it manifestly follows that, in order to be placed under a form, He would have to presuppose an efficient cause by which the matter would be constituted under the form, and which could separate it from the form: therefore if God is corporeal, He must necessarily acknowledge some efficient cause, and so He would not be God, since He would not be the first cause.

They object 1. The Anthropomorphites: Man was made to the image of God: therefore since he is corporeal, it is a sign that God is likewise corporeal.

I deny the consequence. For, as the uncertain Author of the book De Essentia, in Augustine, volume 4, says, God made man to His own image indeed not in the body, but in the soul; not in the outer man, but in reason. For man's soul was made to the image of God. Or, as St. Ambrose says, in the book De dignitate hominis, cap. 2., The image is to be considered more diligently from the nobility of the inner man. First indeed, that just as there is one God, always everywhere wholly present, and vivifying, moving, and governing all things, as the Apostle confirms, that in Him we live, and move, and are: so the soul in its body flourishes everywhere wholly present, vivifying it, moving and governing it. For it is not greater in the greater members of its body, and smaller in the smaller, but in the smallest it is whole, and in the greatest it is whole. And this image of the omnipotent God, which the soul has in itself, bears as it were a certain likeness of the Trinity: First, because just as God is, and lives, and knows, so also the soul, according to its mode, is, and lives, and knows .... There is also another likeness of the Trinity in it, by which it was created to the image of its Creator — indeed of the perfect and most high Trinity, which is in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — and although it is of one nature, it nevertheless has three dignities in itself, namely the intellect, the will, and the memory, which indeed is designated in the Gospel in other words, when it is said: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind, that is, with your whole intellect, and with your whole will, and with your whole memory; for just as the Son is generated from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so through the intellect the will is generated, and from both proceeds the memory.

They object 2. Tertullian, the most keen-sighted investigator of the mysteries of the faith, and the fiercest champion of Catholic truth and of Christian dogmas, judged that God is truly corporeal: therefore it can be affirmed to be so. The antecedent is proved from several of his texts; for in the book De carne Christi, cap. 11 he says: Everything that is, is a body of its own kind; nothing is incorporeal, except that which is not. And in lib. 2. contra Marcionem, cap. 10:

Distinguish, he says, the substances, and distribute to them their own senses, as diverse as the substances require, although they may seem to communicate in words. For we read of the right hand, and the eyes, and the feet of God, nor yet for that reason will they be compared with human ones, because they are associated in appellation. As great as will be the diversity of the divine body and the human, under the same names of members, so great also will be the difference of the divine mind and the human, under the same words, albeit, of the senses, which the corruptibility of the human substance makes as corruptible in man, as the incorruptibility of the divine substance makes them incorruptible in God.

And in the book contra Prax., cap. 7.:

This, he says, is certainly He who, being constituted in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God. In what form of God? Certainly in another, yet not in none. For who will deny that God is a body, although God is Spirit? For Spirit is a body of its own kind in its own form; but even those invisible things, whatever they are, have with God both their own body and their own form, through which they are visible to God alone — how much more will that which was sent from His own substance not be without substance?

I answer. That he can be excused, as in fact St. Augustine excused him, lib. 10. in Genes. cap. 25., with these words:

Finally, he says, Tertullian, because he believed the soul to be a body, did so for no other reason than because he could not think it incorporeal, and therefore feared that it would be nothing, if it were not a body. Nor was he able to think otherwise about God, he who, although certainly acute, is sometimes overcome against his own opinion when the truth is seen. For what truer thing could he say, than that which he says in a certain place, everything corporeal is passible? He ought, therefore, to have changed the opinion by which a little above he had said that even God is a body; for I do not think that he was so foolish as to believe even the nature of God passible, so that Christ might now be believed passible and changeable not only in the flesh, nor in flesh and soul, but in the very Word, by which all things were made — which far be it from a Christian heart.

He has similar things in the book De Haer. to Quodvultdeus, Haeresi, 86. He says, he says, that even God Himself is corporeal, although not figured; nor yet is he believed to have become a heretic from this, for he could in some way be thought to call the divine nature and substance itself a body — not such a body, whose parts, some greater, some smaller, can or should be conceived, such as are all the things which we properly call bodies, although he feels something of that sort about the soul — but rather, as I said, to be thought to call God a body for this reason, because He is not nothing. — Certainly the same Tertullian sufficiently indicates this to be his opinion in the book Adversus Hermogenem, when he says: Let them concede in the meantime that there is something incorporeal, at least among the substances, since substance itself is the body of each thing. And in lib. De Anima, cap. 7. n. 96: For nothing, if not body. Likewise in the book De carne Christi: But since it is, it must needs have something by which it is. If it has something by which it is, this will be its body. Everything that is, is a body of its own kind; nothing is incorporeal, except that which is not. Finally, lib. 2. Adversus Marc.: For we read, he says, of the right hand, and the eyes, and the ears of God, nor yet for that reason will they be compared with human ones, because they are associated in appellation. That is, as his interpreters comment, the nobler things are, the more body — that is, a more solid and nobler substance — they possess. Since, therefore, He is the first and highest being, He is most of all a body — that is, He obtains a most solid being, neither empty nor void, but infinitely distant from nothing. For Tertullian takes body for solid, in the way in which mathematicians call body solid. And so he does not want God to be corporeal in that sense in which body is opposed to spirit, but only insofar as body sounds the same as a solid being, opposed to the empty, the void, and nothing. — I confess, however, that his words are harsher, especially in the aforementioned text of the Second book against Marcion, and they can be an argument that, in establishing this proposition, he deviated from Catholic truth no less than in some other erroneous propositions which he established in his writings, published even against the decrees and sanctions of the Catholic Church.

They object 3. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, whom Polycrates, writing to Victor, the Roman Pontiff, celebrates with these words: Why, moreover, should I recount the Blessed Papyrius, and Melito the Eunuch, who, wholly inspired by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, passed the time of his life piously and holily, who is buried at Sardis? Whom also Eusebius, lib. 4. cap. 25., and Jerome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, wonderfully commend. This Melito, I say, asserted that the image of God is to be placed in the body, and published a book on God as corporeal, as Theodoret affirms, quaest. 20. in Genesim. Therefore, since this opinion is supported by the patronage of so great a man, it does not seem to be rejected.

I answer first. That Melito truly never struck upon that error, as is gathered not only from the aforementioned encomia with which he is celebrated, and of which he would be judged wholly unworthy, if he had so raved as to affirm God corporeal: then because Theodoret himself, making mention of the error of the Audians and the Anthropomorphites, made no mention of Melito: then finally, because, as Sixtus of Siena observes, lib. 5. Bibliothecae annotatione 18., the words of Theodoret have not been rightly and correctly translated by Picus; for the aforementioned Theodoret has these words literally: But it is (as I said before) first to be discussed, where that (ad imaginem) stands, in the body, or in the soul. And in the first place let us see what they use, who first assert, of whom are those who left the writings of Melito, on the fact that God is embodied. Theodoret, therefore, does not say that Melito taught this, but others, whose opinion he himself left written, and impugned.

I answer second. that even if Melito truly judged God to be a body, he would not for that reason be blameworthy, since he could have used body in that way in which Tertullian used it, namely, for a most solid being. To this also refers that saying of Sabadius of Agen, who, in order to assert that the Son of God is a substance, and not that He lacks substance, as Sabellius affirmed, has these words:

The true image, he says, and the express figure of His substance — that is, the Word of God: not a sound of the voice, but a substantive thing, and corpulent through substance. For that which He made from so great a substance did not stand without substance. Nothing, therefore, empty from the full, nothing void from the solid. Because the Word of God is furnished with the Spirit of God, and, that I may speak more evidently, the body of the Word is Christ. For it is the body of spirit, but a body of its own kind. For the Spirit is invisible and incomprehensible. Is God, however, an empty and void thing? For God is Spirit.

They object 4. God consists of body and soul: therefore also of matter and form. The antecedent is proved: Hebraeorum 10. My just one lives by faith; but if he draws back, my soul will not be pleased in him: but the soul is the form and companion of the body: therefore God has a body.

I answer. That "soul" is there taken for "will", so that the just man, turning himself away from justice, as from the right rule of the divine will, is supremely displeasing to Him.

Second conclusion. — God has no integrating nor quantitative parts.

It is proved by the Doctor with the argument of Aristotle: God has infinite power: but infinite power cannot subsist with integrating and quantitative parts: therefore, etc. The major is evident: since by the name of God is signified the first cause, which is infinitely powerful. The Minor is proved: The infinite power of God, than which nothing greater can be conceived, if it were in extended parts, would be in them either extensively, or non-extensively. Not extensively, because thus either the magnitude in which it would be would have to be infinite, or finite. If finite: therefore a greater power than it could be given, because a greater magnitude than any finite one could be given, and so that would not be divine. If infinite, apart from the fact that an actual infinite in quantity is not commonly admitted, still any part of it would be finite, and so God would consist of some finite part, which implies a contradiction. And moreover, although some part of it were lacking, it would follow that God would still be of infinite power, and so any part of it would not be necessary for His constitution. If, however, God were in extended parts non-extensively: therefore His power would be really distinct from that magnitude in which it would be, whether it be called finite or infinite: but if it were really distinct, then it would have to inform it, as a substantial form informs its subject, and so God would consist of first matter; for that extended subject which would be informed by it would either be composite, and so would consist of matter; or it would be first matter, and so God would consist of first matter, which has been refuted.

It is proved second, more clearly: Because if God consisted of integrating parts, each of them would be either finite or infinite. If finite, therefore imperfect, and moreover God would have no infinity except that of extension. If infinite, therefore several gods really distinct would be given, as I deduced above in the proof of the first Conclusion.

It is proved finally: Because those parts of which He would consist would either be really separable, or they would not be. If they were: therefore any of them could not be, and so God Himself could not be, than which nothing is more absurd. If they could not: therefore they would not be really distinct. To these add all the arguments by which above we proved God to be altogether simple and incorporeal.

You will object 1. In the sacred Scriptures corporeal members, such as hands, eyes, feet, ears, are attributed to God: therefore He has corporeal and integral parts.

I deny the consequence. For these things are attributed to God only metaphorically, and by a certain likeness to corporeal things, so that divine matters may be more easily opened up and explained to rough and unlettered men by this adumbration of corporeal parts. Or, as Novatian says, lib. De Trinitate, cap. 7.:

That the divine efficacies are shown through the members, he says, not the habits of God, nor are corporeal lineaments posited. For when eyes are described, it is expressed that He sees all things. And when an ear, it is set forth that He hears all things: and when a finger, a certain signification of the will is expressed. And when nostrils, through this a perception of odors, as it were, is shown; and when a hand, it is proved that He is the author of every creature. And when an arm, it is declared that no nature can resist His strength. And when feet, it is explained that He fills all things, nor is there anything where God is not. For neither members nor the offices of members are necessary to Him, at whose will alone, even silent, all things serve and are present.

Wherefore this is a mere abuse of names (says Philo) accommodating itself to our weakness. — Or, as St. Augustine says, Epistol. 555.: I say that God is wholly eye, wholly hand, and wholly foot. He is wholly eye, because He sees all things; wholly hand, because He works all things; wholly foot, because He is everywhere.

They object 2. Quantity and position are accidents of corporeal parts: but they are attributed to God in the Scriptures; quantity indeed, as in Iob. 11.¹: He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? deeper than hell, and how will you know? His measure is longer than the earth, and wider than the sea. Position also is attributed to Him, as in Isaiae, 3.: The Lord stands to judge; to sit, Isaiae, 6.: I saw the Lord sitting, etc. Therefore God is corporeal.

I answer. with St. Thomas, that these are not attributed to God properly, but only according to some likeness. Thus by corporeal quantity His virtual quantity is designated; by depth, the power of knowing hidden and secret things; by height, the excellence of His strength over all things; by length, the duration of His being; by breadth, the affection of love and dilection toward all things. — Or I say with St. Dionysius, lib. De Divinis nominibus, cap. 9.: The divine breadth, indeed, is to be called the immense procession of God to all things; the length, moreover, reaching unto all things; the depth, in truth, the obscurity and ignorance which cannot be comprehended by any of all things. The same must be said of position; for God is said to stand on account of His immutability and strength; to sit, on account of His authority, etc.

Third conclusion. — God receives no accidents. This is of faith, and it is clear from the texts of Sacred Scripture, by which God is celebrated as immutable, and the holy Fathers prove it in various ways.

First indeed, because every accident differs from the thing of which it is an accident: but in God there is nothing that is not God Himself. Whence St. Cyril

of Jerusalem, in Catechesis, 6.: he says that God is an essence of many names and omnipotent, for not because He is called Good and Just, and Omnipotent, and Sabaoth, is He various and diverse, but since He is one and the same, He pours forth innumerable efficacies of the divinity. To this St. Augustine agrees, l. 5. De Trinit., c. 11.: Wherefore this Trinity, he says, one God, just as it is called Great, Good, Eternal, Omnipotent, the same itself, so can its Deity be said: He Himself His Greatness, He Himself His Goodness, He Himself His Eternity, He Himself His Omnipotence, … He Himself is to Himself Unity, Deity, Greatness, Goodness, Omnipotence. From which St. Fulgentius, in responsione 2. ad Ferrandum, asserts this to be of Catholic truth, that when in God we name divinity, greatness, goodness, virtue, and whatever else among those things which are said of Him properly, we most certainly know not some diverse things by these diverse names, as in man who is subject to quality, but that one thing which is essence or nature. For thence it is that blessed Augustine himself says in l. 5. De Trinit.: God is to be understood as Good without quality, Great without quantity, because the immutability of the simple and omnipotent essence can be subject to no accidents, where the Divinity is the same as Eternity and Majesty, the same Greatness, Virtue, and Goodness.

They prove secondly: Because an accident is participated being, or diminished being, and consequently imperfect: but nothing imperfect can be found in God: therefore neither an accident. Origen presses this argument, lib. 6. contra Celsum: God, he says, is not a partaker of substance, for He is participated rather than participates: and He is participated by those who have the spirit of God: and our Savior is not indeed a partaker of justice, but since He is justice, He is participated by the just.

And St. Athanasius, lib. contra Graecos:

He is the Power, he says, of the Father, and the Wisdom, and the Word: not so that this is by participation, or that these accrue to Him from elsewhere: as happens to those who are partakers of Him, and are imbued through Him with wisdom, and become powerful and rational in Him: but He is wisdom itself per se, reason itself, power itself, the very light proper to the Father, etc.

St. Cyril aims at the same point, l. 5. in Ioan.: The Word of God, he says, is light substantively, not by participation through grace, neither having the dignity as an accident in itself, nor yet as something acquired, like grace, etc.

They prove thirdly from immutability: by which argument St. Ambrose, lib. De Fide, cap. 5., concludes that the Son of God is not a creature, because He is not mutable, nor capable of an accident:

Every creature, he says, is mutable; but the Son of God is not mutable; therefore the Son of God is not a creature. Every creature receives the accidents both of good and of evil by the capacity of its nature, and experiences the same by their departure: but to the Son of God nothing can either pass away or accrue from His divinity: therefore the Son of God is not a creature.

St. Athanasius uses the same argument in Epist. ad Africanos:

Since in your opinion, he says, the Son is similar to the Father, but these are the proper marks of quality, you say, no doubt, that God is composed of quality and substance. And who will bear you boasting thus? For God is not composed, He who composed all things to this end, that they might be: nor is He of such a kind as are the things which were made by the Word itself; far be it, for His substance is simple, in which there is no quality, nor, as James said, any change or shadow of vicissitude.

Fourthly: the Doctor proves the same truth in 1. d. 8. q. 1. n. 4.: If

God were capable of accidents, it would be especially either of material accidents or of spiritual ones. Neither can be said. Not the first; for since God is spiritual, so that He has no entitative and quantitative parts, He cannot receive even material accidents. Nor the second either; because if He were capable of some spiritual accident, it would be especially of volition and intellection; but these cannot be accidents in God, both because whatever is in God is supremely identical, and because God is altogether immutable: He would, moreover, be changed if He produced and received a new act of willing and understanding distinct from Himself: therefore etc.

You will say 1. Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, and most skilled in divine matters, in the oration for the Christians to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, affirms that the goodness of God is an accident, and as it were a quality affecting Him:

Now, he says, we know that there are other virtues as well, which are occupied about matter and through it, one of which is contrary to God. Not that anything can oppose God; like strife to friendship, according to Empedocles, and night to day, as appears to our senses: for if anything withstood God, it would soon cease to be, dissipated by the power of God: but because that spirit which is occupied about matter is contrary to the goodness of God, which inheres in Him as an accident and exists at the same time like color in a body, without which it is not (not as a part of Him, but as a thing consequent, necessarily existing in Him, and joined to Him, and as it were incorporated; as the tawny heat to fire, the blue to the aether).

Lactantius seems to go in the same opinion, affirming that the affection of anger is in God, which He would have in His power, and consequently which He could take up and shake off at will.

I answer. that this indeed seems to have been their opinion: but what wonder if men emerging from the schools of the pagan philosophers, namely of Aristotle and Plato, even after becoming Christians, still retained something of their error, since God Himself, as holy Job says, found wickedness in His angels? For no one denies that the first Doctors and Patrons of the nascent Church still labored under various defects; especially in those dogmas which concerned the nature and affections of the Deity. For it seemed difficult to some to cast off the opinion about the Divinity conceived in the philosophical Academies, which they did not yet see proscribed either by evident texts of Scripture, or by the oracles of the Councils, or by the doctrine of the holy Fathers. And so no force is to be given to their opinions which are opposed to Catholic dogmas.

You will say 2. The same judgment is to be borne of the divine operations as of human ones: but these are really distinguished from the substance and essence of man: therefore in like manner those differ from the essence and nature of the Deity. The minor is established, not only from Philosophy, but from experience itself, by which it is clear that we take up and cast off intellection and volition at will. The major is proved by the authority of the Council celebrated in the temple of holy Sophia, around the year 1341, while Benedict XII held the Supreme Pontificate, as may be seen in Raynaldus, book Annalium Ecclesiasticorum, tomo 16. ad annum 1341, num. 119, and in Petavius, book 2. De Deo, cap. 7. This Council the Greeks call one of the Oecumenical Synods, in which Synod Barlaam was condemned with his supporters, because he would not separate ἐνέργειαν, that is, the force and efficacy, or operation, from οὐσίᾳ, that is, from its nature and substance.

For although Nicephorus Gregoras, who himself together with Barlaam and very many other Bishops was condemned in that Synod, affirms in lib. 11. of his history that nothing was done in that Synod which concerned theology and the dogmas of faith: nevertheless in the Synopsis of this Council, which together with the other Councils celebrated in this cause was committed to print at Paris in the Greek idiom, these things are found:

This holy and oecumenical ninth Synod was held, under the rule of the Emperor of blessed memory and renowned, Lord Andronicus Palaeologus, and John his son, against Barlaam and Acindynus. For these asserted — some indeed that in the divine nature there is no distinction between substance and operation; but that it is the same, and differs in nothing: others in truth said that there is a difference; but conceding that the substance indeed is uncreated, while its substantial and natural operations are diverse, yet not uncreated, but created. Likewise that that light which shone on Mount Thabor was simply a vision and a creature arising and ceasing: not the natural splendor and divinity of the Divine nature; and that the light is and is said to be inaccessible. Against those therefore who said such things, this holy Synod was gathered, which convicted them of speaking foolishly and of lying in every form of speech, and of surpassing the rest of the heretics in impiety.

It is added: There were present at this Synod Isidore of Constantinople, Lazarus of Jerusalem, Patriarch; the Alexandrian and the Antiochene indeed through Vicars and Legates; likewise Gregory Palamas, and Philotheus Coccinus, and many other Monks distinguished and chosen for virtue, who also pronounced anathema upon them.

If these things are true, what Nicephorus Gregoras writes appears false — that Barlaam was forbidden in that Synod to touch those things which pertained to the dogmas, lest the sacred mysteries of Theology be impressed upon the profane ears of the vulgar; or that, with Barlaam rendering an account of his inept tongue and mind, Palamas too would seem to do blasphemous and absurd things. By which words Nicephorus himself seems to have favored neither Palamas nor Barlaam, although he rejected the dogmas of Palamas and sided with Barlaam. For he feared, no doubt, to offend John Cantacuzenus, who shortly after the Synod administered the Empire together with John Palaeologus, the still young son of Andronicus, and who warmly favored Palamas, as is clear from his history, which Iac. Pontanus published translated into Latin.

I answer 1. that this Synod is of no moment, nor does it make any faith for Catholics; since it was a pseudo-Synod, over which not some Patriarch, but the Emperor Andronicus presided to give a sentence on the controversies of faith. In which matter you may lament the unhappy servitude of the Greek Church under Schismatic Emperors, who, despising the Roman Pontificate and impiously usurping the Pontifical dignity together with the Imperial, being cast down and despoiled of both, mourn under the dire captivity of the Mahometans.

I answer 2. that the sentence was passed not against heretics (as the words bear) but against various Catholics. For Barlaam was a Catholic and religious man, who was sent by the Supreme Pontiff as Legate to the Greeks, that he might unite them with the Roman Church, and recall them into mutual confederation, the Schism being removed. When therefore he had come to Mount Athos, he found there very many flocks of Monks exposed to the mockeries and illusions of the enemy of the human race: for while they poured forth prayers with head pressed to the navel and breath suppressed, they boasted that they beheld a wonderful light and were affected with ineffable delight, and they asserted that that light was an irradiation and participation of the divinity. But when Barlaam recognized that they were deceived by the prestiges of demons, he reported them to John, Patriarch of Constantinople, who (as Cantacuzenus relates) summoned the Monks by letters to judgment. But when they had appeared in person to plead their cause, they set against Barlaam Palamas, who then indeed was a Monk, but afterwards was created Bishop of Thessalonica, namely that he might play the part of the aforesaid Monks and defend that light, which they perceived while praying, to be that with which God is clothed, the Prophet saying: He is clothed with light as with a garment; and so God Himself, or at least the splendor of the Deity. But when the hatreds and contentions of Palamas and of the Greek Monks against Barlaam grew hot, and the skirmish had now been drawn out to the third year, the matter is brought to a Synod, celebrated at Constantinople in the temple of holy Sophia, at which presided and were present those whom you have set forth in the aforesaid Synopsis of the same Council.

— Nor is Cantacuzenus to be heard, who, playing the part of the Greeks, says in lib. 2. cap. 39., that Barlaam was deceived; nay, that out of malice he imposed this manner of praying and the foul error about the aforesaid divine light upon the aforementioned Monks: for besides that this very thing is clear from the aforesaid Synopsis, it may also be gathered from Leo Allatius, a Greek indeed, and most skilled in Greek affairs, who in book 2. De Ecclesiae Orientalis, et Occidentalis consensu, cap. 17. relates that this manner of praying was invented, at the suggestion of the Devil, by a certain Simon, Abbot of the Monastery of Xeroceleus, who in the work which he wrote De sobrietate, et attentione prescribes this manner of praying in these words:

Attend, that you may do for yourself what I say: with the doors closed, sit in some corner apart, and draw your mind away from all vanity, a fragile and fleeting thing. Then let your chin rest fixed upon your breast, and move your sensible eye with your whole mind into the middle of your belly, namely into the navel: nay also compress the drawing of breath through the nostrils, that you may not breathe easily: and search within your bowels, that you may find the place of the heart, where the faculties of the soul are wont to dwell. And first indeed you will find darkness, and a thickness that yields not at all. But when you have persevered, and have consumed days and nights in this work — O wonderful thing! — you will perceive a joy which can be interrupted by no point of time: for as soon as the mind has found the place of the heart, it immediately sees what it never knew; since, when the air which stands in the space of the heart has been seen, it presents itself wholly lucid and discernible.

Thus the Demon mocked the wretched Abbot and his followers; wherefore it is no wonder if the aforesaid Synod, celebrated by the counsels of men raving so insanely, dashed into this most grave error, so as to believe the light visible to corporeal eyes to be God, and to affirm the divine operations to be distinct from the Deity.

— And so rightly did Barlaam rise up against this erroneous opinion, a man indeed Catholic, and raised to the Episcopate of Cyzicus, who published several excellent and most learned treatises, both on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, and on the universal primacy of the Supreme Pontiff; which you have at the end of the third tome of the Paris edition of the Bibliotheca Patrum; in which he resolves all the arguments of the Greeks, and proposes pressing reasons by which he might recall them to the union and confederation of the Latin Church. By which it is also clear that a calumny was imposed upon him by Cantacuzenus, when he hands down in l. 2. cap. 40. that he assented to the pseudo-Synod.

Since in the preceding pages we have already noted that metaphysical composition takes place in four ways; and since it is already abundantly clear from what has been said about the formal distinction of the attributes that the divine perfections, whether attributive or modifying, produce no real composition in God, the only thing that remains to be resolved here is whether any composition can be detected in God from genus and difference, and from the Divine Essence and the divine supposits: and that these may appear more evidently

Note 1. The grades of genus and of difference can be conceived in two ways. First, insofar as they are really and formally distinguished from one another from the nature of the thing, as all the Scotists prove together with the Doctor, in 2. dist. 3. quest. 1. and elsewhere. In this sense the generic grade is so called, which, since it is common to different species and indifferent to them, is regarded as being, as it were, in potency determinable to them through some other grade, which is called difference, because through it the thing is constituted and distinguished from any other. Thus, for example, the principle and power of sensing is called the generic concept common to man and brute, and to be determined to each of the two through other concepts expressed by the names rational and irrational. Second, insofar as each of these two grades can be conceived as diverse only by reason, so that on the side of the thing there is in reality no distinction of such concepts, but only an occasion and foundation of distinction, on account of which our intellect from its native fecundity produces this distinction and perceives those grades as distinct, although in reality they are not distinguished on the side of the thing.

Note 2. Each of these two grades can be taken either categorically or transcendentally. In the former way, the generic grade is that which, in the predicamental line of substance or of accidents, prescinds from the species subject to it and is determined to them through true and perfect differences that divide and contract the genus and constitute and distinguish the species: in the latter way, however, that grade must be called generic which, prescinding from every predicamental being, is perceived after the manner of some common concept univocally belonging to God and creatures, and is determined to each of the two, whether through true essential differences or through intrinsic modes serving the place of differences. In the former way each of these two grades must be derived from some reality distinctly known through the operations or properties of the thing, e.g. the generic grade in man is derived from the power of sensing, which through sensations appears common to man and brute: the differential grade, however, is derived from the discursive power, which is proper to man alone among living beings: and each of these two grades must therefore be known distinctly, because it serves to form the distinction of the thing, which must explain the essence distinctly through genus and categorical difference. It is otherwise, however, with transcendental genus and difference, which disclose the nature of the thing not distinctly and through known realities, but confusedly and through transcendental concepts. Whether, however, the differential and generic grades belong to God in either of these ways, is what must be resolved here.

First conclusion. — God is truly not composed of the grades of genus and of categorical difference: it is not, however, improbable that He consists of transcendental genus and difference. This conclusion has two parts, the first of which the Doctor openly defends in 1. dist. 8. q. 3. n. 16. etc.

Proof 1. By the authorities of the Holy Fathers, who judge that God is in no way included in the predicaments. Thus, above all, Saint Anselm in the Monologion, cap. 26., where he says: The divine Substance is included in no common treatment of substances, from whose essential communion every nature is excluded. — The same is affirmed by Saint Bernard, or whoever is the author of the book De vita solitaria, where near the end, discoursing about God, he says: It is the supreme substance, not subject to the predicaments, but the subsisting causal principle of all things. Similarly Saint Augustine, in the book De Cognitione verae vitae, cap. 3. says: that every human condition is included in the predicaments, and that from all of these the property of the supreme Essence is utterly excluded by evident reason; whence Evagrius justly concludes, in Socrates, lib. 3. cap. 7.: That every proposition, or genus, contains what is predicated, either the species, or the difference, or the property, or the accident, or what is composed of these; but nothing of this kind can be received in the holy Trinity.

This same truth is proved by the reason of the Doctor in the cited place. The categorical generic grade is sought from a reality determinable and contractible, the differential grade, however, from a determinative and contractive reality: but these distinct realities cannot be found in God: therefore neither is the categorical generic and differential grade to be found in Him.

The major is evident from an inspection of the predicamental line itself, both of substance and of accidents, in which line it is certain that the generic grade is that reality which appears common to the different species, to which it is determined through grades proper and special to them; thus substance is determined and contracted to body through materiality, and to spirit through immateriality.

The minor is proved: every reality and formality in God that is to be distinguished is formally, or at least really, infinite; but an infinite formality or reality is not determinable and contractible through a formality or reality. Proof: whatever is contracted and determined through another is also actuated and perfected through it: but an infinite formality or reality cannot be actuated or perfected by anything: therefore it can neither be determined and contracted, nor consequently have the notion of genus. The major is evident: for matter, which is determined through form, is also actuated and perfected through it. The same must be said of genus, which is contracted through difference, and is perfected and ennobled. The minor is also established: for that is called infinite which has in itself and from itself all perfections compossible with itself: for if any perfection were wanting to it, it would no longer retain the notion of the infinite: but the generic concept of itself and in itself does not bring in the concept of the difference through which it is contracted, otherwise the difference, e.g. rational, would be superfluous for the constitution of man, since man would be rational also through the grade of animal; or it would follow that he is rational twice; once indeed through animal, which would also contain rational of itself, and again through the grade of the rational itself, which would be added to him after the manner of a difference: and consequently, since every reality or formality which is in God is infinite, no distinct generic concept that is truly categorical can be derived from it. And so God cannot be constituted from a generic and categorical differential grade, nor consequently be composed of predicamental genus and difference.

It is confirmed. It is impossible that an essence simply infinite in the genus of being should consist of categorical genus and difference: but the Divine Essence is simply infinite in the genus of being: therefore it cannot consist of categorical genus and difference. The minor is established. The major is proved: what is infinite in some order cannot consist of finite parts in the same order: but categorical genus and difference are something finite and limited in the notion of being: therefore the infinite Essence cannot consist of genus and difference. The major is evident, because from finite notions nothing but what is finite can be made. The minor is proved: genus and difference are metaphysical parts distinct from one another, and mutually excluding one another from their concept: for genus does not include difference in its concept, but excludes it: but it is repugnant that two parts, one of which does not include the other, should be infinite; for the infinite identifies whatever is compossible with itself; for infinite being identifies with itself every perfection of being; and an infinite line, if there were one, would identify with itself any length whatsoever: therefore in like manner infinite reality must identify every reality compossible with itself: therefore, since genus cannot identify with itself the difference compossible with it in the same species, nay rather excludes it from its concept, it follows that neither of the two can be infinite.

The other arguments proving this same truth I pass over, since we have weighed them in our Logica, in the Disputation on predicamental Substance, quaest. 1. concl. 2.

You will say. The Holy Fathers indicate that certain predicaments are found in God and truly affirmed of Him. Thus St. Augustine, 5. De Trinit., cap. 7. 8. 10. et 11., teaches that the predicament of Substance, of Relation, and of Action properly belongs to God; that of Quality, however, of Quantity, of Position, and of Habit only improperly. Similarly St. Damascene, in the Elementario, cap. 7. says: that the species of the highest and first genus of substance are, first, that which is free of body, and inanimate body: that is, the predicamental genus of substance is distributed into spiritual and corporeal substance: he adds, however: The Essence free of body comprises God, the Angel, the Soul, the Demon. Finally Boethius, lib. 1. De Trinit. says that only two predicaments, namely Substance and Relation, remain in divine things. Therefore these Fathers judge that categorical genus is truly found in God, both of Substance and of Relation.

I deny the consequence. For the Holy Fathers only intend that the confused concept of substance and relation can be accommodated and attributed to God more than the other predicamental concepts, which are altogether unbecoming to God; so that from the notion of uncreated and created substance and relation some concept, at least a confused one, can be prescinded, which is attributed to God generically not properly, but by metaphor. Thus the Subtle Doctor explains St. Damascene and Boethius, and he gathers this from the words of Damascene saying, c. 8. Elementarii: Substance, which contains supersubstantially the uncreated Deity, but knowably and contentively every creature, is the most general genus. That is, says the Doctor, predicamental substance contains under itself formally the Deity, just as it contains the creature, nor is it predicated generically of both in a similar way; but supersubstantially, that is, insofar as the concept of substance accommodated to God excludes every imperfection and limitation which is found in the predicamental generic concept.

The same is gathered from Boethius himself, l. 1. De Trinit., cap. 6., where, after he had enumerated the ten predicaments into which being is distributed in general, he adds:

But when anyone turns these into a divine predication, all things that can be predicated are changed: something, however, cannot be predicated at all. For substance in Him is not true substance, but beyond substance. Likewise quality, and the rest, in whatever way they can come to pass: and that the understanding of these may become fuller, examples must be subjoined. For when we say, God, we seem to signify substance indeed, but that which is beyond substance. When, however, we say just, quality indeed, but not an accident, but that which is of substance; but beyond substance.

Whence the Doctor concludes that all predicates common to God and creatures are transcendental predicates, prescinding from all categorical predicates, which are finite and limited.

The second part remains proved from our Metaphysica, q. 3. sect. 2., where we have shown that it is not improbable that the notion of Being, which the Subtle Doctor maintains to be univocal to God and creatures, likewise has the notion of transcendental genus; since indeed God agrees with the creature in being, but differs from it essentially through infinity.

You will say. The Holy Fathers judge that every notion of genus and of difference must be kept away from God: therefore He cannot admit even the notion of transcendental genus and difference. The antecedent is evident: for St. Clement of Alexandria, l. 8. Stromat. says that God is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor number, etc. And St. Cyril of Alexandria, lib. 55. Thesauri, cap. 5. says that God has a substantial difference, because He is most simple, and difference is found only in composites: therefore, etc.

I answer. The aforementioned Fathers, and any others suggesting the same, must be understood of predicamental genus and difference, which, since they import limitation and composition from realities, must be removed far from God: not, however, of transcendental genus and difference, which import no reality, but only a diversity of concepts, which Rusticus the Deacon lucidly observed in the Dialogue against the Acephali, where, to the heretic objecting that the Divinity and the Humanity have one highest genus; for substance is the most general genus of the divinity and of the humanity, which is subsisting through itself: he answers thus:

the Subsistent per se, when said of God, signifies that it needs nothing else in order to be; but when said of creatures, by no means; for they have taken their being from the Creator. … Therefore although substance is one name, it is not, however, one thing: substance is therefore not a common genus of the Deity and of flesh: but only a common name; this, however, is not genus.

You will insist. The notion of categorical genus cannot be found in God: therefore neither can the transcendental. The antecedent is evident from what has been said. The consequence is proved: The reason why categorical genus cannot be found in God is that, since whatever is in God is infinite, nothing in Him can have the notion of part: for every whole is greater than its part: but nothing is greater than the infinite: but any genus whatsoever, whether categorical or transcendental, necessarily has the notion of part; since it concurs with difference to constitute the essence. Therefore by the same reason by which categorical genus must be kept away from God, the transcendental must also be removed.

I deny the consequence. And to the major of that proof I say that it is not repugnant that the infinite should have the notion of part, not after the manner of reality, but after the manner of formality, which does not adequately state the whole essence of the thing formally; for it is certain that in God Himself the notion of infinite substance is formally distinguished from the notion of infinite spiritual substance. Add that although the divine attributes are infinite, they nevertheless seem to have the notion of part with respect to the Divine Essence itself: since from them and the divine essence the whole God is constituted and, as it were, integrated.

— To what is said, however, that nothing is greater than the infinite; I answer: nothing is greater than the infinite, really, let it pass; formally, I deny it. For it can happen that something is formally greater than one infinite, if indeed, since it is of itself already an infinitely perfect formality, it has another formality joined to itself and really identified with it, also infinitely perfect: thus the divine Essence, e.g. which of itself is infinitely perfect, prescinding from the attributes, can be said to be more perfect when it is conceived together with the attributes themselves, also infinitely perfect: therefore although nothing in God can have the notion of part after the manner of reality, from which the notion of categorical genus is derived, it is nevertheless not repugnant that something in Him have the notion of part after the manner of formality, from which the notion of transcendental genus is derived.

Second conclusion. — The divine personalities, although formally distinct from the Essence, nevertheless produce no true composition with it. This conclusion remains sufficiently and more than sufficiently proved from what we have said about the divine attributes, which, although they formally differ from the divine Essence, we have nevertheless shown to produce no composition with it. Nonetheless I prove it further:

First indeed from the supreme identity of God: Every true composition must be made from two realities: but the Personality and the divine Essence are not two realities: therefore they produce no composition. The major is evident from Note 2. The minor is proved from St. Bernard, lib. 5. De Consideratione ad Eugenium, cap. 8.: The properties of the Persons, he says, are nothing other than the Persons, and they themselves are nothing other than one God, one divine Substance, one divine Nature, one divine and supreme majesty, which the Catholic Faith confesses. Eulogius of Alexandria speaks the same, in Photius, pag. 457. Some assert, he says, that the Hypostasis is a combination of substance and of properties, which manifestly seems to introduce composition. And where is that simple Divinity in the Trinity, free of composition? namely, if the Personality were distinguished from the Essence, as reality from reality. St. Cyril of Alexandria, lib. 10. Thes. indicates this very supreme identity of the divine Essence with the Persons in explicit words:

Since the nature of the Deity is not composed but simple, he says, it would never be distinguished in thought into two Persons, the Father and the Son, unless some difference were found; not according to Essence, but according to Relation and, as it were, from without, that is, understood outside the Essence: through which the Person of each of the two is constituted in its own hypostasis, and is bound into the unity of the Deity because of natural identity, so that no confusion occurs, and, as it were, no mixture of the Father and of the Son

by which he openly indicates that no composition intervenes between the Divine Persons, nor of the same with the Divine Essence, namely because of their supreme essential identity.

The 2nd Conclusion is proved from the supreme Actuality of God: Every true composition must be made from two realities, or formalities, one of which has the notion of act, the other, however, the notion of determinable potency: God can have the notion of no potency: therefore He can admit no composition either. These things are sufficiently and more than sufficiently evident from what we have said, both in demonstrating the Existence of God, by a reason taken from necessary and actual being: and in proving the formal distinction of the attributes from the Divine Essence.

You will say. Where there is union, there is composition: but between the divine personalities and the essence there is union: therefore there is also composition. The Holy Fathers prove the minor, who affirm that both the divine nature is united with the Persons, and the Persons are mutually united with one another. Thus St. Athanasius, lib. Contra Sabellianos: The Trinity, he says, truly existing, is joined with nothing interrupting. And St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in Oration 23.: He says that the Unity is adored in the Trinity, and the Trinity in the unity, whose division and union are both admirable. Likewise St. Augustine in Sermon 189. de tempore asserts that the three Persons are divided by properties, but associated by nature.

I answer 1. The major can be denied, for union does not always entail composition; since complete beings, e.g. stones, are mutually united in a house by the unity of aggregation, yet are not on that account composed; for composition is the union of those things of which one has the notion of act and the other the notion of potency.

I answer 2. by denying the minor; and to the Holy Fathers I say that by these or similar ways of speaking they do not intend that some perfect union intervenes, whether among the Persons themselves or with the Divine Essence, but only a perfect essential unity; and that they suggest that the Divinity is communicated to the three Persons without any division and diversity of itself, lest they should seem to introduce a plurality of Gods; whence they frequently reproached the Arians that by the division of the Deity itself they introduced a plurality of Gods: If the nature in the holy Trinity varied, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, it would be a different thing, as those deceived by error suspect, and the consequence would be that the number would be spread out into a multitude of Gods; since the subjects themselves would be divided along with the diversity of substance. Which Cardinal Bessarion excellently pursues, lib. De Process. Spiritus sancti:

Substance and hypostasis, he says, are one thing in each divine Person: and so one, that they are mutually discerned only by reason. For if Person or hypostasis and substance really differed from one another, just as the Persons are three in reality, so there would also be three substances: that is, essences; but this is contrary to the faith.

You will insist. Where there is a determinable and a determinative, there is potency and act, and consequently composition: but the Essence is determinable, and the personality is determinative of it, so that with it it constitutes the Person; therefore between the Person and the Essence there is composition.

I distinguish the major. Where there is a determinable and a determinative after the manner either of matter and form, or of genus and difference, there is composition, I concede: where the determinable is not after the manner of a potency indifferent to this or that act, just as matter is indifferent to this or that form, and genus to this or that difference; but after the manner of a constituting act, concurring with another act to constitute a thing which is pure act, I deny. The divine Essence, however, is not determinable through the personality in the former way, but in the latter; for since this is pure act, it concurs to constitute the divine Person.

You will press. From the union of act with act, a being per se is not made, but per accidens: therefore either the divine Person, which is constituted through the Essence and the Personality, is not made from act and act, and so is truly composed; or it is not a being per se, but per accidens, which it would be impious to assert. — I distinguish the antecedent: From the union of act with act a being per se is not made, in created things, I concede; because unless created things united with one another coalesce after the manner of act and potency to constitute a third, they have nothing in themselves by which they can be mutually identified: it is otherwise, however, in divine things, because since the divine infinity really identifies all those things which are in God, except the Personal Relations, which on that account are not called infinite, hence it happens that through the union of act with act in God there is not made a being per accidens, but per se, because of the supreme identification of each of the two.

Since this principal distinction is established between the attributes and the modes of the divine Essence, that the former are attributed to God and creatures alike, while the latter belong to the divine Essence alone, in order that an exact knowledge of the divine Simplicity may be had, and that it may clearly appear whether it is to be numbered among the modes, it is worthwhile to resolve here whether it belongs to God alone. That this may be done more clearly.

Note 1. In general, a twofold simplicity can be distinguished, one of being, the other of virtue. The former denies all composition; the latter excludes dissimulation. The former denotes imperfection in creatures; for when a created thing is simple and does not have the perfections of other things joined to it, it comes about that it is the less perfect the more simple it is: this latter, however, imports the highest perfection: whence Christ especially commends it in these words, Matthew 10. Be prudent as serpents, and simple as doves. For by this simplicity the spiritual man is perfected and made whole, who, in order to be perfect, ought to be simple indeed in mind, simple in heart, simple in speech, simple in work. In mind, through the knowledge and assertion of truth; in heart, through the fervor of charity; in speech, through the sincerity and candor of discourse; in work, through justice and holiness, so that the splendor of the Christian man may shine forth, Christ saying, Matt. 6. If your eye is simple, your whole body will be full of light, and like a lamp it will enlighten you.

Note 2. Composite things can be distinguished into three kinds: for some are composed out of these, some with these, others after these. Those are said to be composed out of these which consist of parts mutually united; thus a species is composed out of genus and difference, a physical body out of matter and form, and the human body out of head, arms, chest, etc. Those, however, are said to be composed with these which, although in themselves they do not appear composite, nor consist of parts, are nevertheless ordered of themselves to the composition of another: thus genus and difference are ordered to constituting a species, matter and form to composing a body, etc. Finally, those are said to be composed after these which are constituted out of a form supervening after the union of matter with form; thus after the union of soul with body, the universal form of man, namely humanity, arrives so as to constitute man as a whole. The first composition is called passive, because through it the thing is constituted. The second active, because it constitutes the thing. The third denominative, because it does not inform the thing, but denominates it.

Note 3. Besides the twofold general difference of composition, namely physical and metaphysical, each of which is done in four ways, as we noted above, a twofold genus of composition is again assigned by the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 8. quaest. 2. n. 2. One indeed from actuality and possibility, by which it comes about that since no creature exists necessarily, there is also none which is not able not to exist, and consequently which does not imply potency to act: for whatever has been formed out of nothing can again pass away into nothing, so as to be produced anew, if God so wills. For since an existing creature is a mean between God, the highest being, and possible things, which are close to nothing, it also participates at once in the actuality of God and in the possibility of things capable of existence, that is, of possibles. The other genus of composition, however, is from positive entity and from the privation of some grade and perfection of being: for since a creature does not contain in itself all perfections of being whatsoever, the consequence is that it appears to be composed both of the perfections which it has and of the negation of the perfections which it does not embrace. These things having been premised, let there be

Only conclusion. — God alone is altogether simple.

This is the conclusion of all Theologians, and the Doctor proves it thus: Every creature is either a substance or an accident: if an accident, it necessarily requires to be received in a substance as in a subject, and so it can compose with the subject one composite per accidens. If it is a substance, it is either a substance constituted out of really distinct parts, e.g., matter and form, or it is not so constituted. If the first, it will be most properly composite; and consequently it will not be simple: if the second, it will be either substantially complete or incomplete. If incomplete, it can with its other co-part make one substance per se; thus prime matter with substantial form makes an organic body. If complete, it can receive in itself an accident, and so compose with the accident a composite per accidens formed out of that substance and the accident. That any created substance can receive some accident is evident, because if some one could not, it would be above all the most perfectly spiritual substance, namely the Angels: but the Angels can receive intellections and volitions, by which they understand and will: for those acts are not really identified with them; first, because otherwise they would be formally and necessarily blessed from their own nature; for their beatitude consists in intellection, or volition, or both: then, because they would necessarily understand every intelligible by one single intellection, and so their intellection, and consequently their Essence, would be infinite: finally, because they would not depend in understanding on any object, except on that on which they depend in being, namely on God, and consequently they would understand nothing in their proper genus except God; for whatever is understood in its proper genus is understood with dependence on that object which is thus understood. — Every creature likewise has two other modes of composition: since it has certain grades of being, but lacks very many others. For although man is a Microcosm and an epitome of the whole mundane composition, because he has being with stones, life with plants, sensation with animals, understanding with Angels, and on that account is called by Christ every creature, St. Gregory thus explaining these words, Preach the Gospel to every creature, that is, to man; nevertheless it is certain that man himself labors under innumerable defects, and lacks many perfections which we see shining in the other creatures. Whence the Royal Psalmist, not undeservedly disclosing his emptiness and vanity, says in Psalm 143.: Man is become like to vanity, and in Psalm 38.: Every living man is altogether vanity. — It equally stands that every creature involves act and potency at once; for there is none which holds its existence so tenaciously and immutably that it cannot pass into nothing at any moment of time. Whence it is rightly to be concluded with St. Job: Behold, they who serve him are not stable, and in his Angels he found wickedness: how much more they who dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, are consumed as it were by a moth?

You will say. Things which are neither composed, nor divisible, nor able to be resolved into various parts, are simple: but many beings are such; for a point is indivisible, as also is one; matter and form are not composed: the supreme genera cannot be resolved into others: therefore besides God, many things are simple. — I distinguish the major: They are simple with some simplicity, I concede; with a simplicity of every kind, I deny. To the minor I say that the things adduced are indeed not composed out of these, but are composed or composable with these; for out of unities the number, out of points the line, out of genera and differences the species; and out of matter and form physical bodies are constituted. And consequently these cannot be called simple with a simplicity of every kind, since they are ordered of themselves to composition; but God rejects both these modes of composition.

You will insist. God too can be composed with these; therefore he is not simple in every way. The antecedent is proved: God can be united, and in fact the Word is united to the humanity so as to make with it the man-God: but this union is a true composition. Proof: the union of the Word with human nature is such as the union of the soul with the body; but this is a perfect composition: therefore so is that. The major is established from that saying of St. Athanasius in the Creed: As the rational soul and the flesh are one man: so God and man are one Christ. — I deny the major, and to the minor of its proof I say; the union of the Word with the humanity is rather the termination of dependence and of hypostatic communication than a composition: for every perfect composition is made either from parts which mutually perfect one another, or from those which are mutually united by way of act and potency. But the divine Word cannot have the notion of act and of part; for these savor of imperfection, which is far to be removed from God; and consequently his union with human nature cannot be a true composition. — To the authority of St. Athanasius I say that the parity assumed consists only in this, that just as the rational soul is neither polluted nor changed through its union with the flesh, so neither does the Word suffer any detriment through its union with the humanity; whence St. Athanasius had premised: One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person.