Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

«Active spiration and being unbegotten (innascibility, ἢ ἀγεννησία) do not constitute persons. For spiration, distinct from Paternity in the Father and from filiation in the Son not really but only by reason, is included in the fuller concept itself of paternity and filiation. Likewise, being unbegotten, as a notion of the first person, is included in the fuller concept of divine paternity».

Since, from what was demonstrated in Thesis XXIII, the substantial relations themselves, inasmuch as they are really distinct from one another and therefore subsistent, are the divine persons, or formally constitute the persons, it is evident that there are as many really distinct constituting relations as there are divine persons; namely, the formal reason of the Father, and another of the Son, and a third of the Holy Spirit, that is, paternity, filiation, and procession.

But since the internal relations in God are relations of origin, by that very fact in every procession there is necessarily a twofold relation, opposed and distinct through opposition — the relation, I say, of the principle and of the one proceeding from the principle. And therefore, since there are two distinct processions, of the Son by generation from the Father, of the Holy Spirit by spiration from the Father and the Son, there must be four relations; just as to the Son the Father, or to filiation paternity, so to the spirated one the spirator, and to the procession or passive spiration (as they say) active spiration corresponds and is opposed as principle with respect to the one proceeding from the principle. Moreover, both from the general doctrine of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity it follows, and in the special declarations of the Fathers and of all theologians it is expressly proposed, that innascibility or being unbegotten (ἡ ἀγεννησία) is a notion proper to one person alone and by no means common. It must therefore be declared how, besides the three properties or constituting relations, there stand, first, the relation of spiration, and then innascibility.

1. As to the first, then, it is asked why this relation of (active) spiration, or the formal reason of the spirator, opposed and really distinct from the procession or from the formal reason of the spirated one, is not of itself subsistent and constitutive of a person?

1°. According to our imperfect manner of conceiving, the answer could be obvious and (as it seems) easy: active spiration presupposes the persons Father and Son already constituted, and is conceived as supervening upon them like a common act ¹. Moreover, the act itself, or active spiration itself, does not really proceed from the Father and the Son, and so it has no opposition to the persons of which it is the act, and therefore is not really distinguished from them; but by this act of spiration the Holy Spirit really proceeds from the Father and the Son, and therefore the Father and the Son, through this their common act according to the formal reason of the spirator, are referred as principle to the Holy Spirit, and are really distinguished from him. The spirator, therefore, does not express a person distinct from the Father and the Son, but signifies one spirating power, or one act and one relation of spiration common to two persons, and co-signifies confusedly these persons of which it is the act and relation; in almost the way in which the name creator signifies the one divine essence under the formal reason of the creating act, and co-signifies confusedly the persons of which it is the essence ².

2°. Nevertheless, since spiration in the Father is really the same as paternity, and the same spiration in the Son is really the same as filiation, and is distinguished from paternity and filiation only by reason, that concept by which spiration, according to our imperfect manner of understanding through composition, is thought of as supervening upon the constituted persons, can be refined so as to correspond a little more to divine simplicity, as we said of the concept of the constitution of the person through relation and essence. And so, that two relations not opposed to each other, paternity and spiration, may be understood as one person, and likewise one person may be understood as the relation of filiation together with the same spiration not opposed to it, the following consideration will help.

a) That «highest reality, namely the essence or divine nature» under the formal reason of the intellection expressing the Word is God the Father; the same highest reality under the formal reason of the intellection expressed, or as the immanent term produced by the paternal intellection, is the Word or God the Son. But now the intellection, both inasmuch as it expresses the Word and inasmuch as it is the expressed Word, is at the same time the love producing or spirating its immanent term, which is the Holy Spirit. For the paternal intellection has at the same time the formal reason of spirating love, so that under one reason it is referred to the Word, under the other reason it is referred to the spirated one. But because in every spirit, even in the infinite, love presupposes intellection, not however intellection love; and because the intellection expressing the Word, from the intimate nature of the thing, communicates to the Word the essence under all formal reasons (except the formal reason of the expression of the Word, of which the Word itself is the really distinct term); therefore the Word is expressed by communicating the essence also under the formal reason of spirating love. Hence the paternal intellection has the formal reason of spirating love only on the supposition (in the order of origin) of the expression of the Word, and the Word is expressed as having the same formal reason of spirating love; that is, the Father, fecund of the Holy Spirit, expresses by generation the Word fecund of the Holy Spirit.

Whence, just as essence and paternity (the formal reason of the intellect expressing the Word) are not two really distinct things, but one highest reality under the twofold formal reason of the absolute and the relative; so paternity and spiration are not two relatives, but under a twofold formal reason one relative to a twofold really distinct term. Because, namely, that twofold formal reason has no opposition of the one to the other, therefore between them there is no real distinction, and there is one relative; yet because that one has an order, under the formal reason of the begetter and the spirator, to a twofold really distinct term (to the Son and the Holy Spirit), paternity and spiration are two relations distinct by reason with a foundation in reality. The relations, I say, are two, not by reason of mutual opposition, which is none; but by reason of the terms to which the relation is. If by mutual opposition they were really distinguished from one another, they would be two persons; but because they are distinguished from one another only by reason, they are one person. «Opposed relations are persons, and they are two persons just as they are two relations; but relations which are in the same person and are not opposed are indeed two relations or properties but not two persons; rather, one person» S. Th. I. dist. 33. a. 2. ad 1.

That the same must be said of the distinction by reason and real identity of the same spiration, as it is communicated to the Son, with the relation of filiation, is evident. For the Son, from the very mode of procession from the Father through intellection, is generated as one principle with the Father, fecund of the Holy Spirit. «For in the infinite Word, representative of infinite good, there is contained quidditatively the power (and the act identified with the power) to produce, together with its speaking principle, the love of the same good. Whence the person producing the Word, by the very fact that it is productive of the Word, is also, together with the Word, productive of love» Ruiz disp. XVII. sect. 6. n. 8. Just as therefore in the Father paternity and spiration, so in the Son the relation of filiation or being begotten and spiration are «two relations but not two persons; rather, one person».

b) From these things, moreover, it is understood how (active) spiration pertains to the inner notion and to the adequate concept (as far as we are able to understand) of the person of the Father and of the Son.

For a) paternity and filiation, if they are considered more fully, include spiration from an inward exigency, and without it they are not fully conceived; accordingly, active spiration pertains to divine paternity and filiation, that they may be such as they necessarily are. Hence Dominicus Viva rightly says of the Son, which holds in like manner of the Father: «The Son, in the chimerical hypothesis that he did not spirate, would have the concept of the Son inadequately, yet in such a way that it would be repugnant that he be found anywhere according to such an inadequate concept» de Trin. disp. V. q. 6. n. 9.

Therefore β) because paternity and filiation, from their intimate reason, are necessarily at the same time active spiration, and because through this formal reason of spiration the Father and the Son are constituted as a principle distinct from the third proceeding person; as to the thing itself it is indubitable, and as to the manner of speaking it has a solid foundation, the doctrine of the theologians who, on the supposition of the distinction of reason and real identity of spiration with paternity and filiation, say that the constitution of the Father and of the Son in their full concept is understood through the formal reason of paternity and filiation, inasmuch as each of these includes active spiration. «The Father and the Son are distinguished from the Holy Spirit by that very property by which they are constituted. Wherefore, just as they are distinguished from the Holy Spirit only radically through paternity and filiation, so also they are not fully and integrally constituted by the explicit concept of paternity and filiation, until active spiration is explicitly understood, by which, just as they are formally distinguished from the Holy Spirit, so also they are ultimately and fully constituted» Didac. Ruiz disp. XVII. sect. 6. cf. disp. 106. sect. 2. n. 1; sect. 3. n. 6. So also Dominicus Viva: «That by which the Son is distinguished from everything that is not himself is not passive generation taken in any way whatever, but passive generation as imbibing spiration.... In that hypothesis, however (that the Son would not be, with the Father, the principle of spiration), such passive generation would not remain; therefore he would not have that by which the Son is now ultimately constituted and first distinguished from everything that is not himself» Viva disp. V. q. 6. n. 8-10. See also Aureolus I. dist. 11. a. 3. Nor does the most certain axiom, that active spiration is a relation not constituting the person but only distinguishing the Father and the Son from the Holy Spirit, contradict the truth of this fuller consideration. For by this axiom the constitution of a person distinct from the Father and the Son is denied; but that spiration pertains to exhibiting the notion of the person of the Father and of the Son in their full concept is not only not denied but implicitly affirmed, because active spiration is called a relation distinguishing the first and second persons from the Holy Spirit.

II. We proceed to the consideration of innascibility, or τῆς ἀγεννησίας, which, besides the four relations, we have said to be a fifth notion proper to one person alone.

1°. As to the force of the name, unbegotten (τὸ ἀγέννητον) can be taken especially in a threefold signification. a) So as to be opposed to created, and to be the same as uncreated. In this signification it should rather be written ἀγένητον, the holy Fathers observed, as Epiphanius haeres. 64. n. 8. and Damascene de Fide orthod. l. I. c. 8.³, and it is an absolute attribute of the divine essence and therefore common to the three persons, by which the imperfection of a created being is denied, and by this very fact the absolute perfection of a necessary being is affirmed. The Arians presupposed this sense in their perpetual cavils, by which they attacked the divinity of the Son of God, because the Father alone is unbegotten.

b) Unbegotten or innascibility is taken hypostatically in opposition to begotten⁴. But the opposition can be taken in two ways: if unbegotten is opposed to begotten precisely according to the mode of procession by generation, then not only of the Father but also of the Holy Spirit it must be denied that he is begotten (S. Th. opusc. I. contr. errores Graecor. c. 8); and so in this more general sense unbegotten is not proper to the Father. «The Father is from no one, neither made nor created (ἀγένητος) nor begotten (ἀγέννητος); the Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created (ἀγένητος) but begotten (γεννητός); the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor created (ἀγένητος) nor begotten (ἀγέννητος) but proceeding». But although in comparison with the begotten Son the Holy Spirit can be said to be not begotten; nevertheless the compound unbegotten (ἀγέννητος) in its strict signification is opposed not only to the mode of procession by generation, but simply to procession and origin from a principle. The holy Fathers in their disputes against the Arians are wont indeed to recall explicitly only the opposition of the unbegotten to the begotten Son, because the direct controversy with those heretics was restricted to the dogma of the divinity and consubstantiality of the Son (cf. above p. 51); yet implicitly they always include the opposition also to the procession of the third person; since they hold τὸ ἀγέννητον as proper to the Father, and by this very fact simply as the negation of origin.

Therefore c) the unbegotten, in its hypostatic signification, is opposed to the begotten directly indeed as a negation, but with the negation of any procession included at the same time; and so it is proper to the Father alone. The Father is therefore called unbegotten according to the direct opposition, so that His distinction from the Son may be understood, and according to the included signification, so that we may distinguish Him from each of the two proceeding persons.

Wherefore St. Basil most excellently admonishes that, if there were none, and by that very fact there could not be a proper Son of God, God would never come to be called unbegotten; but rather He would be named uncreated; since in that hypothesis it would not be the Father that would have to be distinguished by us from the Son — which is done by the opposition of the unbegotten to the begotten — but only the task would remain of discriminating the uncreated God from the creature. « If the Father is unbegotten because He is not begotten, but the Son is begotten because He has been generated, then the unbegotten is understood later than the begotten; for it would not have (if nothing were begotten) that before which it would be called unbegotten; for comparisons are instituted among the things that are, not among the things that are not.... If the Son is a creature and not begotten, and if all things that are are creatures, in vain is the Father called unbegotten, when there exists absolutely no begotten one with respect to whom He is called unbegotten; therefore He would with better right be called uncreated than unbegotten » Basil. contr. Eunom. IV. Tom. I. p. 283.

2°. It remains to explain the proper account of the unbegotten, inasmuch as it is the hypostatic notion of the Father.

a) Inasmuch as the name unbegotten designates not a nature but a hypostasis, in God it does not signify the absolute, but is drawn back to a relative signification, or, as St. Thomas says, it is a relation by reduction. How this is so, St. Augustine explains, Trin. l. V. c. 7.: negative names are in the same category in which the opposed affirmative names are, which the holy Doctor shows there through all ten categories. « Just as I affirm according to substance when I say, a man is; so I deny according to substance when I say, a non-man is; and when it is asked how great he is, and I say, he is four feet long, i. e. of four feet, I affirm according to quantity; he who says, he is not four feet long, denies according to quantity. » Hence to the present matter: « if I were to affirm substantially (by predication of the absolute) by saying, Son, I would deny substantially by saying, not Son. But because I affirm relatively when I say, He is the Son — for I refer to the Father — I deny relatively if I say, He is not the Son, for I refer that same negation to the parent, wanting to show that He is not a parent to him. But that which is said to be not begotten amounts to exactly as much as that which is said to be not Son. Moreover, we deny relatively by saying, not Son; therefore we deny relatively by saying, not begotten. Furthermore, what is unbegotten except not begotten? We do not, therefore, depart from the relative category when unbegotten is said » Aug. l. c. cf. S. Th. I. q. 33. a. 4. ad 3. b) But now, a negation in God cannot be a negation of perfection; it is only some mode of ours of conceiving that which in God is positive and is perfection. Yet the negation is disposed in one way in the order of absolutes, and in another way in the order of internal relations.

In the absolutes, the negation exhibits the absolute perfection by excluding imperfection or, what comes to the same thing, by denying a perfection limited by the defect of further perfection, of which sort is created perfection; and so it is a negation of negation, and consequently an affirmation of absolute perfection, which is conceived by us inadequately and confusedly through comparison with limited perfections; of which sort are the attributes: the infinite, the uncreated, or the unbegotten in the absolute signification indicated by us in the first place, eternity, immensity, etc. (See on the so-called negative attributes Tract. de Deo th. XXI). But absolutes cannot be denied of one another as regards the thing itself, because they are not really distinguished among themselves. Hence it is false if it is said: in God justice is not mercy; although the concept of justice is one and the concept of mercy another, and therefore it can and should be said: the concept of divine justice is not the concept of divine mercy.

But relatives, under the formal account of relatives, are really distinguished among themselves; for really the Father is one and the Son another, the Holy Spirit another; hence they are denied of one another. The Father is not the Son and not the Holy Spirit, and so the Son is not the Father and not the Holy Spirit, etc. Hence it could seem to someone that, no less than the notion of the unbegotten, several other negative notions should be posited — that the Father is not the Son and not the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But negations conceived in this way present no other notion and formal account of a person than the affirmation that there is one Father, i. e. this one under the formal account of Father related to the Son and distinct from the Son, and, under the formal account of the one spirating included in paternity, related to and distinct from the Holy Spirit; and the same must be said of the Son's relation to the Father and of the Holy Spirit's relation to the Father and the Son. In the Son, therefore, and in the Holy Spirit, besides these, no other notion is found distinct in reason, by which each is opposed through negation to the other persons; in the Son namely filiation, h. e. being begotten, and, included in filiation, the active spiration common with the Father; in the Holy Spirit, procession or being spirated — these are the only formal accounts really distinguishing, so that one is one and the other another. But in the first person the negation of procession from another, by which He is called unbegotten in opposition to the begotten Son and to the proceeding Spirit, has another formal account, distinct by mental consideration from paternity and active spiration.

Moreover, as regards the signification of that negation: procession from a principle is surely not an imperfection in the Son and in the Holy Spirit; but procession would be an imperfection, and indeed the negation and destruction, of the first person of the Trinity. Hence the negation of the relation of the begotten and of the proceeding in the Father is an affirmation of relative or personal perfection: just as God essentially is unbegotten Being in the absolute signification, h. e. a being from itself, so the first person of the Trinity is, by the internal necessity of nature, a person from itself, which hypostatic perfection we conceive and explain by the negation of origin. « The Father is unbegotten, for He is not from anyone; for He has from Himself that He is, and of the things He has He has nothing from another; but He Himself rather is the principle and cause to all, that they be and naturally be in a certain way » Damasc. F. O. l. I. c. 8. cf. other Fathers in Petav. l. V. c. 5. n. 14. We need negation, just as in explaining other most simple concepts, so also in this concept of the first and self-subsisting one. « The account of the first, which is most simple, is not explained by us without negation. The first person, therefore, in the account of the first producer ad intra, is not explained except by the negation of production terminated at Himself, and this negation is innascibility » Suarez l. V. c. 10. n. 4.

c) Yet this property of the unbegotten is not really distinguished from paternity, which is already evident from this, that there is there no origin of one from the other and no opposition. But it can easily be understood how this account of the first person of the Trinity, and therefore of the person from itself, is the same thing under the less full concept, which is paternity, and includes spiration under the fuller concept. For that which is the first person of the Trinity, and therefore the person from itself, by that very fact, from the innate nature of the thing, is the principle of the remaining persons, h. e. the Father of the Son and, with the Son, the spirator of the Holy Spirit. St. Basil indicates this connection of the notions of the unbegotten and of the Father, and his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa vindicates it at length, l. I. contr. Eunom. (ed. Gretzer p. 136. seqq.), in which Basil speaks thus: « For he who truly (ὄντως) and alone is Father (in the divine manner) is from no one; but he who is from no one is unbegotten ». Most aptly Suarez: « by that negation (by unbegotten) we intend to explain the dignity of the first person. We say, moreover, that this dignity is not other than paternity itself, which in our mode of conceiving, by force of its account, includes two things. One is that it is through itself or from itself by immediate conjunction with the essence (because without a real production of the person the nature immediately brings with itself such a personality), and this we declare by this negation (unbegotten). The other is that it is constitutive of the principle of generating, which is named Father » Suarez l. VIII. c. 2. n. 12. cf. l. V. c. 10. n. 2. 4.

Scholion. For the clarification of the matter itself, and especially of the manner of speaking, we can now, after the things that have been said, briefly embrace in a few words what is customarily handed down by comparing the properties, relations, and notions of the divine persons.

Proper here is opposed not only to foreign or superadded, in which sense even the absolute properties common to the three persons are proper (cf. Tract. de Deo th. XXI. n. 3.); but proper in the sense in which we now speak is opposed to common. In the stricter sense, therefore, properties are those formal accounts which belong to one person only and are not common to several. Thus there will be four properties: paternity, innascibility, filiation, passive spiration or being spirated. S. Th. I. q. 32. a. 3. If, however, that is called proper somewhat more loosely which is not common to all three persons, even active spiration, common to the Father and the Son but not to the Holy Spirit, can be counted among the properties.

The real relations are four: paternity, filiation, active spiration, being spirated. Yet the unbegotten can be numbered among them reductively, as is usually said, both because it is a negation of a relation and because it designates a person, which in God cannot be anything other than a relative. S. Th. I. q. 33. a. 4. ad 3. Therefore every property is a relation or is reduced to a relation, and conversely every relation is a property at least in the looser sense, because it is not something common to all persons. The reason is evident, because whatever in God belongs not to the order of the relative but to the absolute is common to the three persons.

The notion of the persons (γνώρισμα) is the character or formal account by which a person becomes known to us as distinct from the others. Hence it is clear that a notion must necessarily be a property at least in the looser sense, and by that very fact pertain to the order of relatives; for neither can a distinct person become known to us through that which is common and one in the three persons. As to the number of notions, we could indeed also say here that in the stricter sense there are only four notions, just as there are four properties; for active spiration, by the very fact that it is common to the Father and the Son, neither distinguishes them from one another nor, consequently, manifests these persons as distinct from one another. Nevertheless, because through that relation these two persons, although not from one another, are yet distinguished from the third person and become known as distinct from it, all theologians — even those who count only four properties — agree that the notions are five (cf. Suarez. l. V. c. 9. n. 5.).

Assuming, therefore, the distinction between the stricter and the less strict sense, we shall say with St. Thomas: « there are five notions in God, namely innascibility, paternity, filiation, common spiration, and procession. Of these, however, only four are relations; for innascibility is not a relation except by reduction. But only four are properties (in the strict sense); for common spiration is not a property, because it belongs to two persons. Three, however, are personal notions, i. e. constituting the persons, namely paternity, filiation, and procession. For common spiration and innascibility are called notions of the persons, not however personal »⁵ S. Th. I. q. 32. a. 3.

The constituting properties, or relations, or notions are three, as was shown above and as we have just heard said by St. Thomas. Aureolus seems to oppose this common and certain doctrine somewhat, although the difference is not about the thing itself, but rather in the manner of considering the same thing. « Filiation, he says, does not precisely constitute the personality of the Son, because on that account active spiration would be adventitious and outside the personality of the Son, as something extrinsic and without which the person would remain; therefore it is impossible to hold that he is personally distinguished by filiation alone...... Both the essence and active generation and likewise active spiration concur intrinsically to the personality of the Father; but being generated and spirating and the essence, to the personality of the Son; moreover being spirated and the divine essence alone, to the personality of the Holy Spirit » Aureol. I. dist. 11. a. 3. In this doctrine this indeed is true, that on the side of the thing and according to the fuller concept paternity involves spiration and being unbegotten (and likewise filiation, more fully conceived, includes spiration), as we declared in the thesis; but when these formal accounts are distinguished by mental consideration, and then it is asked under which of them we first conceive the Father and the Son as distinct persons, without doubt it must be answered that paternity is conceived as the formal account of the Father, which person is then understood at the same time as unbegotten and spirating the Holy Spirit; say the same of filiation in comparison with spiration. Simply, therefore, with St. Thomas and according to the common consensus of theologians, it must be said that the constituting properties are the three which we have recalled. « It must therefore be understood that, of the several properties or notions belonging to one person, that one which proceeds (precedes?) according to the order of nature constitutes the person, while the others are understood as inhering in the person already constituted. It is manifest, moreover, that innascibility cannot be the first notion of the Father...... Common spiration, however, by the order of nature presupposes paternity and filiation, just as the procession of love presupposes the procession of the Word. Hence neither can common spiration be the first notion of the Father, nor even of the Son. It remains, therefore, that the first notion of the Father is paternity, of the Son however filiation, and of the Holy Spirit procession alone is the notion. It remains, therefore, that there are three notions constituting the persons, namely paternity, filiation, and procession » S. Th. Compend. Theol. (opusc. III. al. II) c. 60.