Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« What is wont to be called circuminsession (=περιχώρησις circumincessio) of the divine persons, as regards the thing itself is nothing other than the numerical unity of nature in three persons distinct through relations of origin; formally, however, circumincession is understood as the mutual, as it were, passage or immanence of the persons in one another, necessarily arising from this unity and distinction ».

I. The doctrine frequent among the holy Fathers and theologians concerning this relation, which the Greeks called περιχώρησιν, the older scholastics, such as s. Bonaventura (1. dist. 19. P. I. q. 4.), sometimes called circumincession, or, as Aureolus (1. dist. 19. P. II. a. 1. propos. 2.), circumcession, and the more recent ones circuminsession, is nothing other than the declaration of the truth expressed by Christ the Lord Himself in so many words. « I and the Father are one.... that you may know and believe, that the Father is in me and I in the Father » Io. X. 30. 38. « He who sees me, sees the Father also... do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? » ib. XIV. 9. 10. « That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us... And the glory which you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one, as we (καθὼς ἡμεῖς) also are one » ib. XVII. 21. 22. Although in these passages there is no explicit treatment of the Holy Spirit, yet, given the distinction of the third person and the unity of essence, as in the Father and the Son so in all three persons, the very same relation of mutual circumincession of the other persons in the Holy Spirit and conversely must necessarily be admitted. Yet there can be added to the preceding an explicit testimony of the Apostle concerning the Holy Spirit: « God has revealed to us through His Spirit... For who among men knows the things that are of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? So too the things that are of God no one has known except the Spirit of God » I. Cor. II. 11.

1°. In all these passages there is declared the distinction of the persons, formally as they are Father and Son and Holy Spirit, together with the unity of the nature or essence of the same. Then, whether as a further declaration of this unity and distinction or as the relation necessarily consequent therefrom, the mutual inexistence of one person in another is enunciated. Surely if three persons distinct among themselves are one God without any distinction according to essence, the Father, who is God through the divine essence and is identified with the divine essence, can neither be nor be conceived by a somewhat more adequate notion, without having in himself and being understood to have, just as the divine essence with which he is identified, so also the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are identified with the same numerically one essence of the Father. In like manner neither can the Son, the same one God, be or be conceived through the divine essence, without in the same way having in his essence, identified with it, the Father and the Holy Spirit, and conversely the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son. « I am in the Father and the Father in me. For the Son is in the Father, in so far as one may understand, since the whole Being of the Son is itself proper to the essence of the Father, just as from light the brightness and from the source the river ¹, so that he who sees the Son sees that which is proper to the Father (the essence of the Father), and understands the Son to be in the Father, since the Being of the Son is communicated by the Father (the same numerically one). But the Father also is in the Son, since that which is proper to the Father (the essence) and communicated by Him, this very thing is the Son's, as the sun in the brightness, and the mind in the (internal) word, and the source in the river. For thus he who contemplates the Son contemplates that which is proper to the essence of the Father, and acknowledges the Father to be in the Son. Since therefore that which is proper to the Father, namely the divinity, is the Being of the Son, it follows that the Son also is in the Father and the Father in the Son. For for this reason He rightly, when He had earlier said: I and the Father are one, subjoined that: I am in the Father and the Father in me, in order to show the identity of the divinity and the unity of the essence » Athan. contra Arianos or. III. n. 3. « He who shall have truly taken the Son will have Him bringing with Himself on both sides, on the one hand His Father, on the other the Holy Spirit... Likewise he who has admitted the Father admits the Son and the Holy Spirit at the same time in power. For no section or division can by any means be devised, so that either the Son could be understood without the Father or the Spirit be separated from the Son; but a certain ineffable and incomprehensible communion together with distinction is observed in these » Basil. ep. 38. al. 43. n. 4. With declarations of this kind of the mutual inexistence of the persons through the unity of nature all the writings of the Fathers against the Arians are full (see Ruiz disp. 107; Petav. l. IV. c. 17; Thomassin. c. 28; Bullum Fid. Nic. sect. 4. c. 4. n. 10. sq.).

Although the reason for this mutual inexistence so far explained is the unity of nature, yet far different is that which inheres in one person, e. g. in the Father — the essence, with which the Son is identified — from that which inexists in the Father according to περιχώρησιν, namely the Son under the formal reason of a person distinct from the Father Himself. The former is not an inexistence of one in another; but only in our manner of understanding, according to the analogy of creatures, do we conceive the person as a subject and in it the nature, as it were, a metaphysical form; really, however, it is altogether an identity of person and nature, i. e. the same most simple thing, under one reason, inasmuch as it is absolute, is called and is the divine nature, and under another reason, inasmuch as it is relative, is called and is the divine person. But where there is no real distinction, certainly one thing cannot inexist in another. But person is really distinguished from person, and all three persons are identified with the nature; whence by reason of the distinction one can rightly be said to inexist in another; by reason of the identification of all three with the one common nature, all three necessarily inexist mutually in one another, as has been declared.

Circumincession, therefore, just as it has, as it were, as its form and containing bond the one numerically common nature, so it supposes and includes, as it were, as its terms the really distinct persons. In commending the unity of nature as the reason of περιχωρήσεως, the holy Fathers declare this distinction of the persons no less solicitously. « He who has received all things from him who has all things, God from God, spirit from spirit, light from light, says with more confidence: the Father in me and I in the Father; because as the Father is spirit, so also the Son is spirit; as the Father is God, so also the Son is God... What is in the Father, this also is in the Son... the one from the other and both one, not two one, but the one in the other, because there is not another thing in each » s. Hilar. Trin. l. III. n. 4. cf. l. VI. n. 19. Damascenus embraces the whole reason. « We know that the hypostases do not go out beyond one another, and are inseparable from one another and are a unity, and pass into one another without confusion; a unity indeed without confusion, for they are three even if they are united, but distinct without separation (1). For although each one subsists by itself, that is, is a perfect hypostasis, and has its own property, that is, a distinct manner of subsisting; yet they are united by essence and essential attributes, and so are not separated nor do they go out beyond the paternal hypostasis, and they are and are called one God » Damasc. Fid. orthod. l. III. c. 5.

The predication, therefore, of τῆς περιχωρήσεως, as it is contained in the Scriptures and in the doctrine of the Fathers, is a compendious refutation and exclusion of almost all the heresies concerning the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. While the unity of nature is understood as the foundation of the mutual inexistence of the persons, the Arians are excluded, and whoever, by admitting natures of the three that are either diverse or distinct, separate the persons from one another. While, conversely, the inexistence of one in another is understood, the Sabellians and other heretics are refuted, who, denying the real distinction of the divine persons, by that very fact also take away the circumincession of one person in another.

Cf. S. Th. ² contr. gent. IV. c. 9.

In almost the same way in which, in the mystery of the Incarnation — though in an inverted order — the circumincession of the one nature in the other, predicated by reason of the unity of the person to which each nature is proper, excludes both the separation of the Nestorians into two hypostases and the confusion of the Monophysites into one nature ³. As long as we consider περιχώρησιν only in the way now declared, inasmuch as its proper reason is the unity of the nature identified with all and each of the persons, in exactly the same way the Father is understood to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, each of the two in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit in each of the two. But the thing itself and the frequent doctrine of the Fathers admonish us that this consideration is not complete, unless the persons themselves, who are in one another, be regarded according to their distinct properties and origins. « In the Father and the Son there are three things to consider, namely the essence and the relation and the origin, and according to each of these the Son is in the Father and conversely » S. Th. I. q. 42. a. 5.; 1. dist. 19. q. 3. a. 2. Thus, however, with some distinction « the Son is in the Father as the originated in the originating, and conversely the Father in the Son as the originating in the originated » S. Th. 1. dist. 1. c. ad i. et 3.

2°. Therefore, even when the mode of procession of person from person in the divine is regarded, the mutual περιχώρησις of the persons and, as it were, immeation cannot but be. « The reason is always from the mind and in the mind (εἰς νοῦν), and the mind in the reason (ἐν λόγῳ). Or if they should deny these things to be true, the mind therefore will be without reason, and the reason without mind (νοῦς μὲν ἄνευ λόγου οὐδέποτε, λόγος δὲ ἄνευ νοῦ), and thus that will be empty which makes manifest what each (namely the mind and the reason) is, and it will be reduced to nothing. For the mind is always the root and origin of the reason, the reason in turn the fruit and offspring of the mind... But since the mind exists because it has reason, and the reason in turn because it is full of mind, how could the mind ever be thought without reason, and the reason bereft of mind?... How now does the force of this image fit the Father and the Son? The demonstration, I say, is most apt and very clear, that the procession of the Word is from the mind and a generation without passion, and certainly the begotten is not divided; but rather remains in the begetting mind, and altogether has in himself the begetting mind; and moreover it is shown that the Word has consubstantial subsistence immediately, and also simultaneous even in our consideration » (for neither can we think the mind without the reason, nor the Father without the Son, and conversely) Cyrill. Alex. dialog. II. de Trin. T. V. P. I. p. 450-452. « For the Word is also called Wisdom, because it is from the mind and in the mind proximately and inseparably, and on account of the mutual insertion of each in the other, so to speak (τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα ἀντιβολήν). For the mind is in the Word (ἐν λόγῳ); Wisdom and the Word in turn are understood to be in the mind (εἰς νοῦν) » Id. in Io. T. IV. p. 47. Most similar is the explanation of S. Fulgentii. « Thus the Word is with God, as the word is in the mind, as the counsel is in the heart... As the word is born of the whole mind, so the born word remains within the whole. And because, while the mind thinks, there is nothing of it where the word is not in it; therefore the word is only as great as the mind itself is, from which it is; and when it is with it, it is in it » Fulg. ad Monim. l. III. c. 7.

The same altogether, which holds of the Word proceeding through the intellect and immanent in His own hypostasis, holds also of the Holy Spirit in His own hypostasis, proceeding through the love of the Father and of the Son, with a procession, to be sure, immanent. « The Holy Spirit as a natural and essential act (ἐνέργεια), subsisting in itself, proceeding from God and remaining in God » Cyrill. Thesaur. T. V. P. I. pag. 341. Therefore of the three persons, by reason of the immanent processions, that holds which s. Anselmus says: « the whole Father is in the Son and in the common Spirit, and the Son in the Father and in the same Spirit, and the same Spirit in the Father and in the Son; because the memory ⁴ of the highest essence is wholly in its intelligence and love, and the intelligence in the memory and in the love, and the love in the memory and in the intelligence » Monolog. c. 57. To this pertain all those considerations of the Fathers described by us above, by which they exhibit the Word and the Holy Spirit as the subsisting Wisdom and Power of the Father, through which and in which God works ad extra.

From all things that have so far been brought forward from the holy Fathers, it seems to me that it can not without reason be observed, that if the unity of essence be precisely regarded, it will perhaps be better to say circuminsession, that is, the mutual immanence of the persons; but if the procession ad intra be regarded, and, as it were, the notional divine vital act, we shall express the matter more fully by calling it mutual circumincession, that is, mutual immeation. To this also can perhaps be referred the manner of signifying the act of procession in s. Ioannem (I. 18.), where in Greek it is said « the only-begotten Son to be in the bosom of the Father » εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός. Whence Cyril Alex., both in dialog. II and in Io. ll. cc., studiously preserves the diverse manner of speaking of the producing mind, which is in its Word (ἐν λόγῳ), and of the proceeding Word, which is into the mind (εἰς νοῦν).

3°. As for what s. Thomas I. q. 42. a. 5., besides the origin of person from person, also distinguishes the relation, under this reason he considers circumincession rather logically than ontologically, « that one of the relative opposites is in the other according to the intellect ». That is, one relative, e. g. the Father, cannot be understood without the other correlative, the Son, being understood at the same time; for they are relative to each other. This manner the Fathers often indicate, as s. Basilius in the cited epistle 38., and most excellently s. Dionysius Alex. in Damascenus (Eclog. c. 1). « Each of those names is inseparable, nor can it be divided from its neighbor: I said Father, and before I should subjoin the Son, I signified him in the Father; I subjoined the Son, and even if I had not named the Father beforehand, nevertheless he would already have been preconceived in the Son; I added the Holy Spirit, and at the same time (by the very name of the Spirated) I included both from whom and through whom (from the Father through the Son) He proceeds » Vide Ruiz disp. 9. sect. 4.

Although relatives universally and in themselves do not have a real immanence, yet in God they have it necessarily, on account of the mode of the internal origins or immanent processions, from which the relations arise in our manner of conceiving, or rather, with which the relations are really altogether identical. Whence a) if the ontological immanence of the persons is regarded, this reason, according to origins and according to relations, is not twofold but one and the same, as in another place also s. Thomas regarded it, I. dist. 19. q. 3. a. 2. b) From the origins themselves, however, the mutual immanence of the persons holds on account of the mode of the processions, inasmuch as they are through the communication of the one numerically one nature; and so the proper real reason of circumincession remains the unity of nature in distinct persons. « For God is not in a dwelling of a nature diverse from and alien to Himself, but He remains in His own and in that begotten of Himself: God in God, because He is God from God » Hilar. Trin. l. IV. n. 40.; Ambros. de Spiritu Sancto l. III. c. I.

II. After having set forth, as much as the matter required, the doctrine of Scripture and of the Fathers, it remains that we deduce from that very doctrine the proper reason and notion of that mutual inexistence of the persons — what it properly is, or what is the formal concept of circumincession. For concerning this the theologians dispute among themselves, although all agree that the reason from which it necessarily follows is the unity of nature in distinct persons, concerning which matter we have so far spoken.

Petavius Trin. l. IV. c. 16.; Incarn. l. IV. c. 14. seems to have advanced much from this, that περιχώρησις according to the Greek Fathers is not to be understood as an embracing and comprehending of one in the other, and so is not a circuminsession, as the later Scholastics commonly handed down, but is a passage or circumincession of one into the other, since both the persons in the Trinity and the two natures in Christ are said not περιχωρεῖν ἀλλήλας (to embrace one another) but περιχωρεῖν εἰς ἀλλήλας (to pass into one another). But no one can deny — nor surely does Petavius deny — that περιχώρησιν is that which Christ the Lord expressed in those words: « I am in the Father and the Father in me, » and which afterwards all the holy Doctors understood as the immanence of the persons in one another. Now, for constituting the formal concept of this immanence, it seems to matter little whether you say mutual immeation or circuminsession or mutual embracing. A subtler concept, therefore, in so far as it is sought among Catholics, can be constituted neither from the name, nor from anywhere else, than from a more diligent consideration of the thing itself as handed down in Scripture and by the Fathers.

1°. Many of the later Scholastics think that the circuminsession of the persons (given, of course, the unity of nature) is, according to its formal concept, «the intimate presence of the persons among themselves, which is founded in the immensity of the same persons,» as Suarez teaches, l. IV. c. 16. n. 11., 12; or as Ruiz speaks: «circuminsession quidditatively and formally consists in the intimate and inseparable and perpetual presence according to an immense where, by reason of which it involves a contradiction for one person to be somewhere unless another person exists in the same place and is consequently present there» disp. 107. sect. 7. n. 9. 14.

In this matter we agree with all our heart with Petavius, l. c., that immensity, as it is understood by these theologians, does not enter at all into the formal concept of circuminsession; indeed, we judge that by this lighter way of considering περιχωρήσεως, which, as we noted a little earlier, is the most splendid outline of the whole mystery of the Trinity, set against all heresies, it is lowered in its majesty to a notion at least little worthy of so great a mystery.

In the first place, the very immensity of God is understood very improperly when it is conceived according to an «immense where» as some sort of diffusion, since it is nothing other than the eminent perfection of the divine existence above all relations of place and space, by force of which perfection it is indeed repugnant that a creature existing or possible be conceived somewhere where God is not; and St. Augustine splendidly illustrated the concept of this perfection from the analogy with the nature of truth freed from all relations of place and space (see Tract. de Deo, thesis XXXIII). When, therefore, a creature exists, it is necessarily intimately present to God, and this presence certainly adds nothing to God beyond the perfection of immensity. Hence the presence of God is said in the proper sense in reference to creatures, and is a relation of reason ad extra; that is, the presence of God is the immensity of God (in the sense declared) with the co-signification of the existing creature. Whence the divine persons, because they are really distinguished among themselves and at the same time, all identified with the divine essence, are one God, are indeed properly said to be one in another; but the name of presence in this sense can be employed not in a proper but only in an analogical signification, and it certainly expresses less clearly the mode of that divine in-being through identity of essence.

All the faithful indeed say: where one person is present, all three persons are present; but I do not know whether they would patiently bear it, if someone said, e.g., that the Holy Spirit is present to God the Father and the Son.

Nor, therefore, is it without reason, although it is rejected by those more recent Scholastics, what Aureolus, an exceedingly subtle theologian, says: «Presentiality, he says, seems to be a relation importing a distinction of the things that assist in presence; for the same thing is not present to itself; but the whole person is not distinguished from a person according to essence; therefore according to essence one will not be intimately present to the other but altogether the same, nor can such intimate presentiality be attended to except according to the relations that are really distinguished; and yet it is certain according to Hilary and Augustine that the circumcession of the persons is attended to in terms of the identity of the essence, which whole and perfect subsists in the three.... The whole personality of the Son in the personality of the Holy Spirit must so be understood that neither flows into the other or is intimately made present to it, lest through this they be conceived as essentially distinct, or as not united by identity in some simply one thing; for this seems to be what the respects of presentiality involve» in I. dist. 19. aa. 1. et 3.

But even with all these things set aside, that concept of circumincession through presence according to immensity, or the immense where, is shown to be altogether false on other grounds. For a) such an intimate presence of God is in all creatures; and yet the concept of this presence has nothing in common with the concept of περιχωρήσεως; but the sense of inexistence is plainly other when the Son says: I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and when Paul says: in God we live and move and have our being. And lest it be said that therefore there is no περιχώρησιν there, because the creature is not everywhere where God is, let another consideration be added. b) In the humanity of Christ the Father and the Holy Spirit are present no less than the Word, and yet the holy Fathers acknowledge, and the very reason of the incarnation proves, that περιχώρησιν is only between the divine nature insofar as it is the Word's and the human nature, although not everywhere present, of the same Word, but in no way between the human nature and the two other persons. The sole reason is that περιχώρησις can in no way be conceived from intimate presence but only from the substantial union or unity of distinct terms in one substance (i.e., either in nature or in hypostasis).

c) In the heretical opinion of the tritheists — i.e., if each distinct person had its own numerically distinct divine nature, as three men have three distinct natures — there would nonetheless be an intimate and necessary and inseparable presence according to the immensity of one person in all and of all in each; and yet there would be no περιχώρησις there, such as is taught in the Scriptures and declared by the Fathers.

For this is the mutual inexistence of distinct persons through identity of nature. For this reason, as we have already said above, circuminsession is so solicitously commended and declared both in Scripture and by the holy Fathers, because once this one doctrine is seen, all heresies denying either the singularity of the nature or the distinction of the persons are excluded. But this profundity of the mystery and gravity of the doctrine is no longer preserved in that concept of presence according to the immense where.

Hence you may see what is to be thought of the note of Johannes Clericus, an Arminian man (under the name of Theophilus Alethinus), on Petavius, l. IV. c. 16. de Trinitate. There that lying Alethinus says: «if the ancients had pondered one numerically single substance, they would never have thought of circuminsession; for no one would have said that one substance circuminsides itself... But if we understand three eternal spirits most perfectly equal, there can be room for τῇ περιχωρήσει.» Certainly the ancients would not have thought of it, nor would Christ have spoken of mutual inexistence, if, just as there is one substance, so there were one person; but distinct persons are taught to be in one another by circuminsession on account of the very numerical unity of nature or substance. In a completely inverted order, therefore, Alethinus should have said: if three equal spirits are understood, but in distinct natures, there can be no room for the τῇ περιχωρήσει such as is handed down in Scripture and by the Fathers; but because the ancients believed in one numerically single substance in three distinct persons, therefore they not only thought of circuminsession but vindicated it most amply and in manifold ways.

2°. In order that we may at last finish what we have begun, the proper concept of the mutual inexistence of the persons seems to be constituted in this way. What we say about God ad intra and ad extra does not signify an order and relation of presence; for thus nothing outside God could be or be conceived without absurdity. But we call ad intra that which really is the divine Being itself, the essence itself, God himself; ad extra, however, we call whatever is diverse from the divine essence, and so whatever is or can be created. Whence, if those things which are ad extra are said to remain in God, this is understood insofar as God, the first being and the first cause, by force of immensity is in all things through essence, presence, and power (see Tract. de Deo, thesis XXXIV).

But as for those things which are ad intra, of their immanence the discourse can be twofold. If in the first place we consider the absolutes which are conceived by us either as attributes or as actions, their immanence supposes a distinction of reason (i.e., according to our mode of conceiving), and formally is the very identity with God or with the divine essence, or of the attributes among themselves; for the attributes can be said to be immanent to God, or to the divine essence, or to one another. Thus, e.g., we can say that wisdom, the creative act, etc., is immanent to God. But this could not be said unless there were some distinction of reason; for we do not say that what we conceive without any distinction is the same thing immanent to itself; formally, however, in these absolutes, through immanence we signify that inexistence (by an analogy drawn from the attributes of creatures) which in God is the identity of the attribute with the divine Being or with the divine essence.

In another way, which properly pertains to the present matter, the divine persons must be considered, which are indeed really identified with the divine essence and consequently with the absolute attributes, but among themselves are really distinguished. Whence when one person is said to be immanent to or to inexist in another, it is supposed not a distinction of reason but a real distinction, and for that reason in another sense and more properly the persons are said to inexist in one another than the attributes in the essence or in one another ⁵. Formally, through this mutual inexistence of the persons there is signified not the identity of the persons among themselves insofar as they are persons, since indeed a real distinction is supposed; but there is signified the identity of the persons, who are said to inexist in one another, with one numerically one essence, and on account of this identity the comprehension of one person in another.

If we wish to signify the mode of distinction and identity more expressly, we can say: the persons are mutually immanent to one another insofar as one proceeds from another ad intra, i.e., in the identity of one numerically one essence. Just as, therefore, the immanence of the attributes, which are distinguished by reason, is their real identity with the essence, so here circuminsession is the mutual comprehension of one in another of the persons proceeding ad intra and really distinct, on account of the identification of them all with one numerically one nature or essence.

According to what has been said, it could seem to someone that circuminsession differs in nothing from the consubstantiality of the persons. We answer: without doubt, just as by the words of Christ, Io. X, «I and the Father are one,» and «the Father is in me and I in the Father,» so by consubstantiality and circuminsession the same thing is grasped, the same twofold truth of the unity of nature and the distinction of the persons; but the same thing and the same truth is conceived under two different notions.

While we say that the persons are consubstantial, we conceive that there is one nature of the distinct persons, in direct opposition to the heresy positing diverse natures in the three persons, and consequently also in opposition to tritheism on account of the singularity of the divine nature, which cannot be multiplied. When, however, we say circuminsession, we conceive that one person is mutually in another, insofar as all the persons subsist in one numerically one nature, so that the opposition is direct against the heresy by which one person would be said to subsist separated from another — not indeed according to where and through the negation of presence (for such an error, once divinity is admitted, could be conceived by no one), but one apart from another and outside another, insofar as it would have a distinct nature, in the way that, e.g., three spirits subsist. Wherefore circuminsession is in direct opposition against tritheism and consequently and a fortiori against Arianism.