Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« The foundations for conceiving somewhat more distinctly the mode of the divine processions and relations are contained in revelation in this, that in the Scriptures and in the explanation of the Fathers and theologians it is taught that the Son or Word proceeds through the formal character of the intellect, and the Holy Spirit through the formal character of the will or love ».

I. In the Scriptures and in the doctrine of all the Fathers the proper personal character of God the Son is declared most expressly, namely that He is the Word of the Father (ὁ Λόγος). Moreover, He is the Word in a proper, not metaphorical, sense, because this notion of Word is set forth in all revelation as the proper name of the Son, by which his formal and distinguishing character is designated (cf. Ruiz disp. 55. sect. 4.), although certainly in comparison with the word in created spirits the signification is analogical in such a way that, as regards the thing signified, the notion of Word belongs most perfectly to the Son of God, analogically and according to a shadow-image to the created word; as regards the imposition of the name, however, and in accordance with our prior knowledge, in inverse order it is said first of the created word, and from this is transferred to the divine archetype. These things indeed are common to all the ideas and names by which we know and express divine things (supra th. XIX.).

Furthermore, in creatures it is not the uttered word but the word of the mind that must be conceived, so that from the analogy of the image we may be led to some understanding of the archetype. « Attend to your heart... when you conceive a word that you are about to utter, you intend to say a thing, and the very conception of the thing in your heart is already a word; it has not yet gone forth, but it is already born in the heart, and it remains that it may go forth... As you hold in your heart the word that you speak, and it is with you, and that very conception is spiritual; for just as your soul is a spirit, so too the word which you have conceived is a spirit, for it has not yet received sound so that it may be divided into syllables, but it remains in the conception of the heart and in the mirror (al. spectaculo) of the mind: thus God brought forth the Word, i.e. begot the Son. And you indeed in time beget a word even in the heart; God without time begot the Son, through whom He created all times » s. Aug. in Io. tract. XIV. n. 7. and then both Augustine himself often elsewhere and the other Fathers.

If at times the Fathers consider the word even as outwardly uttered, this is done so that against the Sabellians the distinction between the word and the one producing it may appear more evident; besides, even there they regard the word insofar as it is the image and expression of the thing understood, as the offspring of the mind, and so with the internal word included at the same time. For as St. Thomas says (I. q. 34. a. 1.), « for this reason the exterior voice is called word, because it signifies the interior concept of the mind; thus therefore first and principally the interior concept of the mind is called word, and secondarily the voice itself significative of the interior concept ». St. Cyril of Alexandria excellently considers the analogy from the uttered and implanted word conjoined together. « The uttered word (ὁ λόγος ὁ προφορικός) which we use is begotten in the mind (εἰς νοῦν cf. supra p. 209. 210.) and from the mind, and it indeed seems to be something other than that which dwells in the heart, insofar as it is sent forth beyond the mouth as from a depth into the light; but it is again in that (in the internal word) and in all things like to it. For one can discern in the (uttered) word the thought of the heart, and again in the mind the word still silent; so also the Son of God, proceeding indivisibly from the Father, is the character and likeness of His property, being a hypostatic and living Word from the living Father. Thus the Father begot from Himself the Son indivisibly, as if a wise man should beget a wise thought, the knowledge of mechanics or of geometry or something of this sort. For such things seem in a way to be fruits of wisdom, and this they are from their own nature. But the art which wisdom devises is not divided from wisdom; rather it is from her and in her, exhibiting the image of its begetter, and yet without division it seems to be another than she: so also the generation of the Son, since it is undivided from the Father, is preserved in its own hypostasis, yet far exceeding the force of this likeness » s. Cyrill. Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 47. 48. Conversely, the holy Doctors sometimes call the Son the reason of the Father, or the reason in the paternal mind, so that the unity of essence may be declared more expressly; although the reason, as proceeding from the mind and thus distinct from the mind, is nothing other than the expressed wisdom or word.

Furthermore, just as the Word, so too begotten wisdom, both in the Scriptures (supra th. VII.) and most frequently by the Fathers, is exhibited as the proper notion of the Son, who is from the Father another, yet not another thing.

If therefore it is asked about the mode of the procession of the Son from the Father, revelation itself contains the doctrine that the Father begets the Son intellectually as His Word and as begotten wisdom. But this is the same as if it were said: the Father, under the formal character of the intellect, by understanding produces the Word; or the paternal intellection from its intimate necessary character produces the Word as its immanent term. The intellection, formally as producing the Word and therefore relative to the Word, constitutes the Father, or is the Father Himself; whence it is a notional intellection, i.e. one which under this formal character of producing the Word is proper to the Father, and by which the Father becomes known to us as a distinct person (supra p. 357).

The very producing through intellection, from the same character, is a notional act, and is wont to be called dictio ad intra; notional speaking, therefore, in God is nothing other than understanding as it were active ad intra, i.e. productive of the Word.

II. We make the transition to the procession of the third person, insofar as pertains to this place, where we ask only one thing: whether this procession is through the will, i.e. through the formal character of volition or love.¹ Here the demonstration is somewhat more difficult, namely by deduction from less explicit testimonies; whence some theologians, not finding the Holy Spirit exhibited in the Scriptures as love, just as the Son is exhibited as the Word, think that the biblical argument is to be restricted to this, that from the already demonstrated procession of the Word through the intellect we should deduce the procession of the Holy Spirit through the will. And the deduction is of this sort. Spiritual processions cannot be except through intellect and will; the procession of the Word is through the intellect, as the Scriptures demonstrate; the procession of the third person, however, is another, so that the Holy Spirit is not the Word; therefore it is through the will (Ruiz disp. 73. sect. 1. n. 7. seqq.). Others judge that this deduction is not convincing, but that one ought to demonstrate by authority and positive doctrine the proper character of the Holy Spirit, namely that He proceeds as subsistent love, and thus is an immanent term produced by love, just as the Word is the term of intellection (Franc. de Lugo disp. II. c. 2. n. 6. sqq.). Certainly, for demonstrating whether this mode of procession exists, that theological argument does not seem sufficiently efficacious unless it rests upon the positive doctrine of the Scriptures and the Fathers concerning the personal character of the Holy Spirit; but with this doctrine presupposed, we can, insofar as the nature of the mystery permits, advance by that internal and as it were a priori argument into the understanding of the mode of procession, why it is so.

1°. The Scriptures teach us about the mode of the divine processions, or about the proper character of the personal characters, through appropriations: namely, that certain operations ad extra, although common to the whole Trinity, are ascribed by a certain law to one person, insofar as those operations have a peculiar analogy with the proper character of the person (vid. th. XIII). Now indeed, to the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures there is specially attributed first the work of the Incarnation itself, which is from the infinite charity of God, and from which is the origin of all grace and sanctity in us; to Him is attributed the union of the humanity with the Word and thus (efficiently) the substantial sanctification of the same humanity, and likewise the anointing of the most holy humanity through created grace Luc. I. 35; Matth. XVIII. 20; Act. X. 38; Luc. IV. 18. (vide Tract. de Incarn. th. XLI.).

Then, as regards the members of Christ, from the Holy Spirit is the diffusion of charity in the hearts of the faithful: « the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us » Rom. V. 5. Whence not only the operation of created charity, but uncreated charity is specially appropriated to Him: « I beseech you by the charity of the Holy Spirit » ib. XV. 30. The highest happiness which the Apostle wishes for the faithful is « the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Spirit » 2. Cor. XIII. 13. The Holy Spirit is the author of all sanctity, piety, and sweetness: « but the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, meekness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity » Gal. V. 22. 23. The distribution of all charisms is through the Holy Spirit 1. Cor. XII. 4. 8-11; Heb. II. 4. In the one body of the Church the individual members are baptized and sanctified in the Holy Spirit; regeneration is the « renewal of the Holy Spirit » Io. I. 33; III. 5. 8; Act. I. 5; XI. 16; XIX. 2-6; 1. Cor. XII. 13; Tit. III. 5; Heb. VI. 5. They are transformed « from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord » 2. Cor. III. 18. The Holy Spirit is the « Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba (Father) » Rom. VIII. 14-16; Gal. IV. 6. The Holy Spirit dwells in His sanctified ones as in a temple; He Himself is the anointing and the pledge in their hearts: « your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God.... Glorify and bear God in your body » 1. Cor. XIX. 20; « He who anointed us is God, who also sealed us, and gave the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts » 2. Cor. I. 22. (vid. Rom. VIII. 9. 11; 1. Cor. III. 16; 2. Cor. V. 5; Eph. I. 13; V. 18; 1. Thess. IV. 8; 2. Tim. I. 14; 1. Io. III. 24; IV. 13). « By the Spirit of God the sons of God are led » Rom. VIII. 14. He Himself « intercedes for us with unutterable groanings » (στεναγμοῖς ἀλαλήτοις) Rom. VIII. 26. The Church « is filled with the consolation (παρακλήσει) of the Holy Spirit » Act. IX. 31; Rom. XIV. 17; the disciples « are filled with joy and the Holy Spirit » Act. XIII. 52; 1. Thess. I. 6. By sins « the Holy Spirit is grieved » Eph. IV. 30. (cf. Matth. XII. 31; Act. V. 3; VII. 5; Heb. X. 29). Likewise the offices and the governance of the body of the Church, above all the infallibility of the Church, are from the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, whom the world cannot receive, who is sent and remains in the Church forever. Act. XIII. 2; XX. 28; Io. XIV. 16. 17. 26; XV. 26; XVI. 13-13. The sensible symbols of the sent Holy Spirit are the breath of the incarnate Word, by which He is given for the remission of sins and for sanctification Io. XX. 22; the dove remaining over the beloved Son of the Father Matth. III. 16. 17; the fiery tongues sitting upon the consecrated Apostles Act. II. 3. 4.²

Certainly all these things are so ordered that the Holy Spirit is shown most manifestly according to His own proper character as love, which cannot be understood of essential or absolute love; for thus love is common to the three persons as the absolute essence: « God is charity » (1. Io. IV. 8); but love, as a character proper to one person, is necessarily a relation of origin, and so is understood according to the mode of procession through an act of love, whose immanent term is produced love.

This too the revealed name itself expresses, the name Spirit, which is proper to the third person.³ Because it is a hypostatic name, it is necessarily relative, so that Spirit (πνεῦμα), in a grammatically passive sense, is the same as one produced by spiration; spiration, however, ad intra, with (virtual) distinction from the intellection producing the Word in a purely spiritual nature, what is it but love producing love as an internal term?

This signification is still further determined by the constant epithet «Holy Spirit». Because the name is relative, as we have said, it is not the essential sanctity, common to the three, that is declared, but the procession in the mode of sanctity; whence also in this sense the Fathers frequently call sanctity or the sanctifying power the proper character of the third person (Basilius, Cyrillus, Damascenus, Augustinus and others apud Petav. l. II. c. 15. n. 2; VII. c. 12. n. 11; c. 13. n. 21. 22. cf. l. VIII. c. 6. n. 7). The formal ratio of divine sanctity, however, is the infinite love of the infinite good (vid. Tract. de Deo th. XXIX.); whence procession in the mode of sanctity amounts to the same as procession through love.

2°. The holy Fathers understood the doctrine of the Scriptures in this sense, which we are stating, and declared it most lucidly, so that if anything of doubt remained, the interpretation of the Fathers would exclude it all. a) By descriptions, both in proper words and in the most apt metaphors, they declare the notion of the Holy Spirit, which is sanctity, sweetness, goodness. «The Spirit, says Athanasius, is the ointment and the seal, in which the Word anoints and seals all things..... The ointment indeed retains the odor and fragrance (εὐωδίαν καὶ πνοήν) of the ointments..... The ointment and the seal belong not to a created but to the nature of the Son, who joins us to the Father through the Spirit, who is in him» Ath. ad Serap. ep. I. n. 23. 24. He repeats the same, slightly altered, in ep. III. Again, «this ointment (the Holy Spirit) is the fragrance (or breath) of the Son (τὸ χρῖσμα τοῦτο πνοή ἐστι τοῦ Υἱοῦ)..... In the Trinity the Apostle prayed (2. Cor. XIII. 13): the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For when we are partakers of the Spirit, we have the grace of the Word, and in him the charity of the Father» ib. n. 3. 6.

Without the metaphors that Athanasius uses here, another distinguished herald of the Holy Spirit, Basilius, speaks. «The way to the knowledge of God is from the one Spirit through the one Son to the one Father. And in the opposite order natural goodness and essential sanctity and royal dignity flow from the Father through the Only-begotten into the Spirit» Basil. de Spiritu Sancto n. 47. «The Holy Spirit, since he is essentially holy, is called the fountain of sanctity» id. ep. 8. n. 10. «Whether you speak of angels or archangels or all the heavenly powers, they receive sanctity through the Spirit; the Spirit himself, however, has natural sanctity, received not by grace but essential, whence also he alone obtains the appellation of Holy» ep. 159. n. 2. cf. ep. 38. n. 4.

Likewise Gregor. Nazianzenus handed down sanctity as the character of the Holy Spirit. «You would define our pious faith, teaching.... the Father truly Father.... the Son truly Son.... the Holy Spirit truly Holy; for neither is another such, nor in such a way, nor is sanctity by addition, but he is sanctity itself» (αὐτοαγιότης) Naz. or. 25. al. 23. n. 16.

Saint Cyrillus agrees with these, not only in the matter but also in the manner of speaking and of arguing. The Spirit, he says, is from the Son, just as «sweetness from honey, heat from fire, refreshment from water.... Let those tell us who dare to call the Spirit holy by participation and not naturally, what then is the Spirit himself in his own hypostasis? But we have heard from the Scriptures nothing other than Holy; therefore he is holy not by participation or composition, but is by essence and nature sanctifying, and, so to speak, the quality of the sanctity of God and the Father, as sweetness from honey and good odor from a flower.... This appellation of his signifies what he is according to essence; for he is called Holy» Cyrill. Thes. T. V. P. I. p. 350. 351. «Think something of this kind, or rather above this, about God and the Holy Spirit: for he is, as it were, a certain odor of his substance; living and efficacious, who transmits to the creature the things that are from God, and by himself inserts participation in the supreme substance of all» id. in Io. l. XI. T. IV. p. 930-932. Hither belong all the sayings of the Fathers by which, as the proper notion of the Holy Spirit, either the sanctifying power (ἁγιαστικὴ δύναμις) from the very mode of procession, or the formal ratio of gift is set forth (vid. Petav. l. VIII. c. 3; Ruiz disp. 75.).

For understanding the force of these circumscriptions among the Fathers, it will help to bring in the explanation of Augustinus. «The Holy Spirit consists in the same unity and equality (with the Father and the Son); for whether he be the unity of both, or sanctity, or charity, or therefore unity because charity, and therefore charity because sanctity, it is manifest (from revelation) that he is not one of the two, by whom both are joined» Aug. Trin. l. VI. c. 5. n. 7.

Against the argument that is drawn from all these sayings of Scripture and of the Fathers to demonstrate the mode of procession of the Holy Spirit through the formal ratio of the will or of dilection, of which he himself is the immanent term as expressed love, the only difficulty can be taken from this, that first of all the third person is designated by Christ the Lord himself as the Spirit of truth, who bears testimony and who teaches all truth (Io. XIV. 17. 26.; XV. 26.; XVI. 13. sq.), no less than as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of grace. Then some of the most ancient Fathers, Irenaeus, Theophilus Antiochenus, Tertullianus (supra p. 102. 136. 160.), expressly designate the Holy Spirit by the name of wisdom, which otherwise, as we said a little before, is wont to be an appellation of the Word, and accordingly they seem to have understood the procession in the mode of intellect in the third person equally as in the second.

I answer: as regards the text of Scripture, the holy Fathers who here understand by the name of truth the appropriation according to the mode of procession say that the Son is the truth.⁴ «He calls (the Spirit) the Spirit of truth, to signify his own, for he himself is the truth» s. Cyrill. (Caten. in Io. ed. Corderi p. 394. ex l. IX. in Io. Opp. T. IV. p. 810). This interpretation, however, most frequent as it is, and several others, though less apt, by which the Spirit of truth is explained as the Spirit of the New Testament, the faithful and constant Spirit, etc., make manifest how certainly it was the persuasion of the Fathers that it is the proper character, according to the mode of proceeding, not of the third but of the second person, that it should be truth. Besides, in the contexts of the Gospel he who is called the Spirit of truth is most aptly understood both by origin from the truth which is the Son, and by the gift of truth,⁵ inasmuch as, sent by the Father and the Son, he revealed to the Apostles and in the Church by his assistance always preserves the doctrine of the faith — all of which things pertain to the distribution of charisms and graces; whence the appellation Spirit of truth is contained under the other, Spirit of grace, if this is taken in the wider signification.

As for what is then said of the Fathers who designated the Holy Spirit by the name of wisdom, they are very few and singular in this manner of speaking, since by the common usage of the Fathers and of the whole Church wisdom is appropriated to the Word from its mode of proceeding through the intellect; indeed, begotten wisdom is a hypostatic name altogether synonymous with the appellation of the Word; nor indeed did those few ancient doctors in this usurpation of the name think of a peculiar mode of procession of the Holy Spirit. There is nonetheless a certain signification in which they could, without dissent from the other Fathers, appropriate wisdom to the Holy Spirit. Wisdom, namely, can be regarded not only inasmuch as it pertains to the intellect, but also and especially inasmuch as it pertains to the will; and thus wisdom is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Is. XI. 2.). Indeed Saint Augustinus observes that what in the Scriptures is called true wisdom is θεοσέβειαν, «which name our translators, wishing to render it also by one word, called pietas.... but because one word cannot do it perfectly, it is better interpreted by two, so that it is rather called the worship of God» Aug. Trin. XIV. c. 1. «And what is his worship but his love, by which we now desire to see him, and believe and hope that we shall see him, and as we make progress, we now see through a mirror in an enigma, then, however, in manifestation?» id. l. XII. c. 14. n. 22. Saint Thomas defines the matter more strictly: «Wisdom imports a certain rectitude of judgment according to the divine reasons.... But to have a right judgment about divine things according to a certain connaturality with them pertains to wisdom, inasmuch as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit.... This kind of connaturality with divine things, however, is effected through charity, which unites us to God» S. Th. 2. 2. q. 45. a. 2. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit is called wisdom as the cause of this piety or wisdom, it is reduced to almost the same ratio as when he is called sanctity or charity. Vide Petav. l. VII. c. 12. n. 16.

b) Expressly Augustinus, and after Augustinus other Fathers, teach as the most certain reason, by which anyone may «seek understanding from faith», that the Holy Spirit is the love or goodness or sanctity of the Father and of the Son, inasmuch as he proceeds through the mutual and one dilection of both. August. Trin. l. VI. c. 5. (ex h. l. Fulgentius ad Ferrand. ep. 14. q. 4. n. 38.); l. IX. X. XI. XIII. c. 20. (n. 26); l. XIV. c. 7. 8. 10. 12.; l. XV. c. 17.; c. 19. (n. 37.); c. 27. (n. 50.); Pseudo Hieronymus in Ps. XVII. 1. (Opp. Hieron. ed. Vallarsi T. VII. append. p. 39.); Ambrosius (vel alius) de Trin. al. in Symbolum Apostol. c. 1. (T. II. append. p. 321.); Greg. M. homil. 30. n. 1. in Pentecost. (Opp. T. I. p. 1574.); Isidorus Etymolog. l. VII. c. 3. n. 5. 18-20. (T. III. p. 306. 308.); Anselmus Monolog. c. 50-60.; Bernard. in Pentecost. serm. 3. n. 2.; in Cantic. serm. 8. n. 1. 2. 4.; Guitmundus in Confess. Trin. (Bibl. Max. T. XVIII. p. 466.); Hugo Victor. Erudit. Theol. l. VII. c. 21.; Sent. Tract. 1. c. 6.; Richard. Victor. Trin. l. VI. c. 10.; Conc. Toletan. XI. (anno 675.) in Profess. fidei (Hard. III. p. 1020.). Then all the Scholastics, both the ancient from the Master onward (1. dist. 10.) and the more recent (cf. Ruiz disp. II. sect. 2. 5. 6.), suppose and teach the same, if you except Durandus,⁶ to whom some add Gregorius Ariminensis, and the Nominalists Okamus and Gabriel Biel.

Thus, from the mode in which the Scriptures themselves describe the person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, from the sense and consensus of the Fathers and doctors, there remains a certain foundation of some analogical understanding of ours, by which we may be able to conceive the Most Holy Trinity. Just as, namely, in the created spirit the internal word proceeds as the term of intellection, and immanent love as the term of active dilection, so in the uncreated spirit the substantial Word, and substantial love, the Holy Spirit, proceed through the formal ratio of intellection and dilection. «Not in vain in this Trinity is nothing called the Word of God except the Son, nor the Gift of God except the Holy Spirit..... Hence it came about that properly (hypostatically) the Word of God was also called the wisdom of God, although (essentially) both the Father and the Holy Spirit are wisdom. If, therefore, one of these three is properly to be named charity, what is more apt than that this should be the Holy Spirit..... Just as, therefore, we properly call the unique Word of God by the name of wisdom, although universally (in the common essence) both the Holy Spirit and the Father himself are wisdom, so the Holy Spirit is properly named by the word charity, although universally both the Father and the Son are charity (both are proved from 1. Cor. I. 24.; 1. Io. IV. 7.)... I see that I have disputed in this book about the Holy Spirit according to the Scriptures this, which suffices for the faithful who already know that God is the Holy Spirit... Of the creature also which God made, as far as we were able, we have admonished those who demand a reason about such things, that they might behold, as far as they could, his invisible things understood through the things that are made, and especially through the rational or intellectual creature, which was made to the image of God, through which as through a mirror, as far as they could, if they could, they might discern God the Trinity in our memory (the intellect informed with habitual ideas cf. supra p. 210)⁷, understanding (in the act of intellection), will..... Indeed, God the Father and God the Son, that is, God the Begetter, who in a certain way spoke all the things that he has substantially in his co-eternal Word, and his Word itself, God, who himself also has neither more nor less substantially than what is in him who begot the Word not mendaciously but truthfully, as I was able, I have taken care to signify — not as that already face to face, but through this similitude in an enigma, as far as could be conjectured — in the memory and understanding of our mind; attributing to memory everything that we know, even if we do not think of it from there, but to understanding, in a certain proper way, the information of (actual) thought...... where also the intimate word is begotten, which is of no language, as knowledge from knowledge, and vision from vision, and the understanding that appears in thought, from the understanding that was already in memory but lay hidden... But about the Holy Spirit nothing was shown in this enigma that seemed similar to him, except our will or love or (expressed) dilection, which is the stronger will...... Although human memory — and especially that which beasts do not have, that is, by which intelligible things are so contained that they have not come into it through the senses of the body — has, according to its measure, in this image of the Trinity an incomparably unequal but nevertheless some kind of likeness of the Father; and likewise human understanding, which is informed from it through the intention of thought, when what is known is said (in the mind) and is the word of no language, has in its great disparity some likeness of the Son; and the love of man proceeding from knowledge and joining memory and understanding, as common to parent and offspring, whence it is understood to be neither parent nor offspring, has in this image some, though very unequal, likeness of the Holy Spirit; not however, just as in this image of the Trinity these three are not one man but belong to one man, so in that supreme Trinity of which this is the image those three are of one God, but they are one God, and those three are not one person» Aug. Trin. l. XV. n. 29. 31. 39. 40. 41. 43. See the rest in the places of Augustinus cited above.

« Assuming faith in the real procession of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, and assuming the manner of the processions through intellect and will, there can be found, with the holy Fathers and Doctors leading the way, in the created spirit an analogy and image, from which faith may seek understanding and some more distinct concept of the Most Holy Trinity ».

Assuming the foundation which we prepared in the preceding thesis, and with revelation shedding light before us, we strive for some — albeit imperfect and merely analogical — understanding of the internal processions in the infinite spirit, [namely] how they are to be conceived. In the infinite spirit the internal productions and processions about which we inquire must needs correspond to the spiritual nature. But processions in a spirit cannot be save through immanent vital acts; such acts, however, in a perfect spirit, and all the more in the infinite spirit, are necessarily the intellection of the true and the volition of the good, that is, dilection, and cannot be others,¹ because all other vital acts include imperfection (Pallavic. Curs. theol. l. VIII. c. 51. n. 376.). Just as, therefore, revelation teaches two processions, so also from the nature of the infinite spirit it is understood that, if they exist, they cannot be other than through intellect and will, or better, through intellection and volition — S. Th. I. q. 27. aa. 1. 3. 5.; contr. Gent. IV. cc. 11. 19. 26.; Compend. theolog. c. 52. 56.; de Potent. q. 9. a. 9. We shall consider both manners of procession.

I. The divine intellect, in the first place, is not a faculty superadded to the essence, but is the divine essence itself; in the second place, it is not an intellect in potency or in habit with respect to acts, but from its inmost nature it is pure act, namely, a substantial, actual, infinite intellection. The object of intellection is God Himself, that is, the divine essence with which the intellection is identified, and in the divine essence all truth. Hence the divine intellection is not perfected, as in creatures, by manifold elicited acts, but is itself one substantial act comprehending itself, infinite truth, and in itself all truth. Up to this point we attain even by the light of reason, and these matters you have set forth at length in the Tractatus de Deo (sect. IV. c. 1.). But now the infinite substantial intellect, by understanding itself, produces its Word, as we know by revelation alone. Now, however, from this faith we seek some understanding of this production. The created spirit, the image of God the infinite spirit, by understanding itself produces in itself its word, that is, its intellectual expression of itself, or, as the ancients say, its intention.² This intellectual expression of self, then, this concept of the mind, even in us is a certain similitude and, as they say, the intentional being of the thing which is understood; and hence, while the spirit understands itself, the word, that is, the intellectual expression of the spirit, is in the substantial spirit as the spirit understood in the understanding spirit.

Moreover, the word is the more perfect the more fully and adequately it expresses the thing understood, the more it therefore approaches identity with the thing understood, and the more perfect is the thing understood and expressed by the word. In us the word always falls short of the fullness of perfection: first, because the more perfect things are in themselves, the less we express them by a word according to their whole ratio and intelligibility; second, because the things which we express more perfectly by the word of the mind are in themselves imperfect;³ third, because even insofar as we express things more perfectly, our word is an accident and only an intentional similitude, not a substance and the very thing understood. In particular (which here we especially regard), when the mind expresses itself by a word, the word falls short of perfection according to all three reasons.

In God, just as the understanding itself is infinitely perfect, so the Word expressed by infinite intellection is infinitely perfect. For God understands Himself, and hence the thing understood is infinite; He understands, that is, comprehends Himself according to the whole infinite ratio of intelligibility; by this intellection of Himself He produces not only an intentional image of Himself, which would be an accident, but, by understanding Himself according to the whole infinite intelligibility and hence according to the whole infinite Being, He produces an immanent substantial Word of Himself. To be sure, the substance understanding itself by the substantial intellection expressive of the Word does not multiply, but by understanding communicates and irradiates (according to the manner of speaking of St. Basil) the same numerically one substance as understood. Whence the substantial intellection, by understanding producing the substantial Word, and the immanent produced Word are one in essence, because (as we said) He who understands Himself according to His whole infinite Being expresses the Word not only intentionally, but by substantially communicating His whole Being. Nevertheless, the substantial intellection expressing itself in the substantial Word, and this expressed Word, are two things relative to each other by the relation of origin of one from the other, because the procession of one from the other is real.

« Everything understood, inasmuch as it is understood, must be in the one understanding; for the understanding itself signifies the apprehension of that which is understood by the intellect; whence also our intellect, understanding itself, is in itself not only as the same as itself by essence, but also as apprehended by itself in understanding. It is necessary, therefore, that God be in Himself as the understood in the one understanding; but the understood in the one understanding is the understood intention and the word. There is, therefore, in God understanding Himself, the Word of God, as it were God understood... Since our intellect understands itself, the being of the intellect is one thing and its very understanding is another.... Whence it is necessary that in a man understanding himself, the interior word conceived be not a true man having the natural being of a man, but be only the man understood, as it were a certain similitude of the true man apprehended by the intellect. But the Word of God Himself, from the very fact that He is God understood, is true God naturally having divine Being, because the natural Being of God is not one thing and His understanding another... It is, however, of the nature of the interior word, which is the understood intention, that it proceeds from the one understanding according to his understanding, since it is, as it were, the term of intellectual operation: for the intellect, by understanding, conceives and forms the intention or understood ratio, which is the interior word. It is necessary, therefore, that from God according to His very understanding His Word proceed. The Word of God is therefore compared to God understanding, whose Word He is, as to Him from whom He is; for this is of the nature of the Word. Since, therefore, in God the one understanding, the understanding, and the understood intention or Word are one by essence, there remains only the distinction of relation, insofar as the Word is referred to the one conceiving, as to Him from whom He is » S. Th. contr. Gent. IV. c. 11.

II. Just as in God the infinite true is the infinite good, so the intellection of self as infinite true is at the same time necessarily the dilection of self as infinite good. Moreover, just as the intellection of self from its inmost ratio and fecundity expresses the Word as an immanent term in the manner which has been said, so dilection is an act producing love as its internal term. Although the divine essence itself has both the formal ratio of intellection and that of dilection — or rather the essence itself is both intellection and dilection, and hence intellection is really and identically dilection — nevertheless the function under the formal ratio of intellection is one thing and that under the formal ratio of dilection another, not only ad extra, but in the very productions ad intra. For the Word proceeds through the formal ratio not of dilection but of intellection, and conversely love (the Holy Spirit) proceeds through the formal ratio of dilection and not of intellection. There is, therefore, between intellection and dilection a virtual distinction, because the functions are distinct in order to a twofold really distinct immanent term, no otherwise than if intellection and dilection themselves were really distinguished.

Now what is of the greatest moment here: not intellection presupposes dilection, but dilection necessarily presupposes intellection — not, to be sure, in time, but in the inborn order of formal reasons. For from the internal formal ratio of intellection and dilection, the good is loved insofar as it is known, not known insofar as it is loved. Indeed, just as dilection cannot exist without intellection, so neither can there be a perfect intellection of the infinite good without dilection; but the difference is that dilection from its own proper formal ratio pre-requires intellection, whereas upon the perfect intellection of the infinite good dilection necessarily follows because of the nature of the good comprehended by intellection. Wherefore from the inmost necessary nature of the thing, even God, the infinite spirit, by understanding Himself loves Himself, but not in the inverse order, by loving Himself understands Himself. Hence the formal ratio of the dilection of self is founded on the formal ratio of the intellection of self; and dilection in the necessary order presupposes the act of intellection of self. But this intellection in the divine being⁴ or in the infinite spirit has, from the necessary exigency of its nature, the Word eternally produced as its immanent term. Wherefore the formal ratio of the act of dilection whose produced term is love, that is, the Holy Spirit, presupposes the formal ratio of the act of intellection with its produced term, which is the Word; without which Word the intellection in act, as being from the necessary exigency of its perfection eternally productive of the Word, could neither exist nor be more fully conceived (as is made known from revelation).

Since, therefore, dilection, and hence the dilection productive of love, from what has been said pre-requires an intellection having the produced Word, for this reason the dilection itself productive of love is necessarily expressed and communicated to the Word; and hence the dilection itself productive of love, and consequently the procession of love, cannot be conceived save as at once from the Begetter of the Word and from the Word. « Since it belongs to the concept of volition to be a vital act and hence to be produced (if, that is, volition is regarded as the term of a vital act), and not only to be produced in some way but also to draw its origin from produced cognition (which is « the understood intention and word » S. Th., above), therefore in God there is given another production (besides the production of the Word) posterior in origin, and flowing not only from the producer of the Word but from the Word itself » Pallavic. l. c. n. 378. Cf. S. Th. Compend. theolog. c. 49.

As regards the substantiality and the real distinction of the produced love from its producing principle, all the things which were said a little earlier about the substantiality and distinction of the Word are easily applied. For that which is loved is infinite substantial goodness, namely, the divine essence itself according to the whole ratio of infinite goodness; and the loving act is the same divine essence, hence not an accident but a substantial act; whence the immanent term produced by this substantial act is substantial love. Likewise, to this term, that is, to the love produced through the act by which infinite substantial goodness is loved according to the whole ratio of lovableness, the whole infinite substantial goodness, that is, the very same numerically one divine essence, is communicated and inheres.

Just as, therefore, in the manner in which we have said, in God understanding Himself there is God understood, so in God loving Himself there is God loved; not three Gods, because the absolute essence is one in number, but nevertheless one is other insofar as by intellection He produces or utters His immanent Word, another is the Word insofar as produced by intellection, and another is love insofar as produced by the one common dilection of Him who utters the Word and of the Word. The three, therefore, are really distinct from one another, insofar as one proceeds from another as from a principle, by a real though immanent procession; and hence the three are relative to one another; and the three are substantial, because these, although distinct from one another, are each singly and all together the intellectual divine essence, which is indeed supremely substance. But one distinct from the others who is an intellectual substance, or (which comes to the same) a distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature, is a person; there are, therefore, three divine persons of one essence. The three would not be distinct unless they were relative from the real procession of one from another; each one would not be a person unless it were substance, that is, the divine essence. The foundation of personality, therefore, is intellectual substantiality; the formal ratio by which they are distinct persons is relation (above pp. 330. 345).

This whole declaration is taken from St. Thomas. « Just as the understood is in the one understanding insofar as it is understood, so too the loved must be in the lover insofar as it is loved.... But God, just as He understands Himself, so it is necessary that He love Himself; for the good understood is lovable of itself. God is, therefore, in Himself as the loved in the lover... But just as the understanding of God is His Being, so too is His loving. God, therefore, does not love Himself according to something supervening upon His essence, but according to His essence (both the object loved and the act loving, and therefore also the term proceeding through this act, is identically the divine essence, not an accident). Since, therefore, He loves Himself according to this, that He Himself is in Himself as the loved in the lover, God is not loved in God loving after an accidental manner, as loved things are in us who love accidentally; but God is in Himself as the loved in the lover substantially. The Holy Spirit Himself, therefore, by whom divine love is insinuated to us, is not something accidental in God, but is a subsisting thing in the divine essence, as the Father and the Son... It is common in every intellect that that which is conceived in the intellect must in some way proceed from the one understanding insofar as he is understanding, and by its procession is in some way distinguished from him, just as the conception of the intellect, which is the understood intention, is distinguished from the understanding intellect; and similarly it is necessary that the affection of the lover, through which the loved is in the lover, proceed from the will of the lover insofar as he is loving. But the divine intellect has this property, that since its understanding is His very Being, it is necessary that the conception of the intellect, which is the understood intention, be His substance; and so likewise is it with the affection in God Himself loving. It remains, therefore, that the intention of the divine intellect, which is His Word, is not distinguished from Him who produces it in this, that it is Being according to substance, but only in this, that it is according to the ratio of the procession of one from another; and so likewise is it with the affection of love in God loving, which pertains to the Holy Spirit.... From all the things which have been said, it must be gathered that in the Godhead we posit a certain ternary, which nevertheless does not conflict with the unity and simplicity of the essence. For it must be conceded that God is as existing in His nature (as the first person proceeding from no one and as the font of the Trinity), and as understood, and as loved by Himself. But this happens otherwise in God and in us. For because in his nature man is a substance, while his understanding and his loving are not his substance, man, according as he is considered in his nature, is a certain subsisting thing; but according as he is in his intellect, he is not a subsisting thing but a certain intention of a subsisting thing; and similarly according as he is in himself as the loved in the lover. Thus, therefore, in man three things can be considered, namely, man existing in his nature, and man existing in the intellect, and man existing in love. And yet these three are not one, because understanding is not his being, and similarly loving; and of these three only one is a certain subsisting thing, namely, man existing in his nature. In God, however, being, understanding, and loving are the same. God, therefore, existing in His natural Being, and God existing in the intellect, and God existing in His love, are one; yet each one of them is subsisting. And because the Latins have been accustomed to call subsisting things in an intellectual nature persons, the Greeks hypostases, for this reason in divine matters the Latins say three persons, the Greeks three hypostases, namely, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit » S. Th. Compend. theol. c. 45. 48. 50. 52. Cf. above thes. XIV.

« Although intellection and dilection, taken absolutely, is one and common to the three persons; nevertheless intellection, only insofar as it is of the Father, and dilection insofar as it is of the Father and of the Son, is relative or notional and fruitful for producing an adequate immanent term. From the very infinity, moreover, both of the act and of the term, it is declared why the Word can be only one, and the proceeding love only one ».

From the already declared procession of the Word through intellection and the procession of the Holy Spirit through dilection, we can advance a little further in coming to know the manner of fruitful intellection and dilection. For from what has been said thus far there follow the solutions of some questions, which are somewhat more difficult, yet are necessary both for the understanding of the dogma, namely insofar as it is permitted to us by faith to attain to it, and for the very defense of the mystery against adversaries. With the explanation of these chapters, distributed into several theses, we shall conclude this whole part on the understanding of the dogma. Of these questions, moreover, the first is that which we have set down in this thesis: how fruitful and therefore relative intellection and dilection are related to absolute and therefore common intellection and dilection of the three persons; where it is at the same time asked how it comes about that, although the Word is intelligent by the same intellection and the Holy Spirit loving by the same love, there are nevertheless not several processions in God.

I. From the foregoing it is established that the formal reason of intellection is that by which the Word, and the formal reason of dilection that by which the Holy Spirit, are produced as immanent terms of intellection and dilection. But intellection and dilection is one altogether common to the three persons; how therefore is the production of the Word nonetheless not common but proper to the Father, and the production of the Holy Spirit proper to the Father and the Son? It is customary to attribute to Scotus (I. dist. 2. q. 7. n. 22. 26.; Quodlib. 4. q. 2. n. 8.) that, on account of this difficulty, he judged that to understand and to speak in the Father, and again dilection and (active) spiration in the Father and the Son, are distinguished in such a way that intellection in the Father and the diction of the Word, and likewise dilection in the Father and the Son and spiration, are two distinct formalities; and so these two, to understand all truth and to speak the Word in the Father, should be conceived as parallel acts; and that the same is to be understood of the acts of dilection and spiration in the Father and the Son (Suarez l. I. c. 6. cf. Ruiz disp. 59. sect. 4.). Which being posited, it would have to be said that the Word proceeds not through the formal reason of intellection but of diction or speech, and the Holy Spirit not through the formal reason of dilection but of spiration. But certainly mental diction, both in the created mind and in God, is nothing other than intellection as it were active, by which the mental word is produced, nor can any act other than the intellection of the true be conceived, by which the mental word might be produced, and which would therefore be the diction of the word. Moreover, intellection in God is one substantial, most pure act, by which the divine essence, the first true, and in the essence all truth according to its whole intelligibility, is comprehended. This intellection, therefore, according to its formal reason insofar as it is intellection — and no other act distinct in reason — is the diction of the Word. This consideration is to be applied also to diction as it were active, by which love or the Holy Spirit is breathed forth as the term of dilection intrinsically produced. The whole difficulty therefore remains: how production is not common, just as intellection and dilection are common.

The difficulty can be resolved from what was demonstrated above (th. XXI-XXIII), that the absolute in God has at the same time the reason of the relative, in such a way that under the formal reason of the absolute it is one common to three distinct persons, while under the formal reason of the relative it is proper and not communicable, and therefore under this formal reason of the three relatives the persons are distinct. Whence even the very act of understanding is absolute as the comprehension of all truth, and thus is common to the three persons; and the same act of understanding at the same time has the reason of the relative (ad intra), and thus produces the Word and is in opposition of relation to the Word, as producer to product; whence under this formal reason of the relative it is proper, for substantial understanding, relative ad intra as expressing the Word, is the very person of the Father. In this way essential understanding common to the three and notional understanding proper to the one Father are distinguished, not as if in the Father there were a twofold act of intellection, but because, as we have said, one and the same act of understanding is at once absolute and relative, or the intellection of all truth and by this very fact at the same time the expression of the Word (above p. 360).

II. Although these things are so, there nevertheless remains the question not yet sufficiently clear: why substantial intellection, since it is the same in the three persons, is fruitful in the Father alone, and dilection in the Father and the Son but not in the Holy Spirit, and thus why there are only two processions in God. The reason of this matter lies in the infinity of the perfection, which can be considered both in the act of intellection and dilection and in the immanent term produced, namely in the Word and in the proceeding love.

1°. The divine intellect comprehends the divine essence, and in it all truth according to all intelligible reasons, not by many acts but by one simple and infinite act; or rather, the divine intellect is itself the one infinite act of comprehension. This one infinite and therefore non-multipliable act expresses as its immanent term the adequate Word, and hence infinite in the formal reason insofar as it is the Word. « As if speaking Himself, the Father begot the Word equal to Himself in all things; for He would not have spoken Himself wholly and perfectly, if something less or more were in His Word than in Himself » Aug. Trin. XV. c. 14. n. 23. Whence most acutely Gregory Nazianzen (or. 30. al. 36. n. 20) said: « The Son is related to the Father as the definition to the defined. » And according to the declaration of the Angelic Doctor: « it is manifest that if God understands Himself, the whole fullness of Himself must be contained in the Word » S. Th. cont. gent. IV. c. 14. (cf. Ruiz disp. 28. sect. 2. n. 2.). From these things it is understood that it is as repugnant that there be several Words in God as the plurality of gods is repugnant. a) For on the part of the act, if there is one non-multipliable infinite act infinitely understanding all truth, and if from the nature of this intellection it necessarily expresses in the Word everything that it understands, it is repugnant that the Word not be one, just as the act understanding and speaking by the adequate Word is one.

b) The same is clear on the part of the Word. For because the Word is infinite in the formal reason of the Word, that is, the adequate and therefore infinite expression of the divine intellect; by this very fact it comprises the whole possible expression, beyond which no other can exist, except only as the imitation and adumbration ad extra of that infinite internal expression. Everyone sees that for the same reason for which the multiplication of the absolute (infinite) being is repugnant, the multiplication of the infinite Word proceeding through the infinite intellect is repugnant. The reason, of course, is that two infinities are repugnant, as in the supreme reason of being, so in any formal reason. But just as the necessary unity of infinite being not only does not exclude but rather includes the possibility of beings which, as adumbrations ad extra, are analogically beings before it; so also the infinite Word does not exclude but includes that imitations and adumbrations ad extra of the infinite Word are possible. (See Tract. de Deo sect. III. c. 2.).

It is therefore clear that from infinity comes the unity of the divine Word, and from this the singularity of fecundity for producing the Word in the Father alone. Namely, the divine intellect, one in number in the three persons, in such a way that it is not communicated in the Father, is communicated from the Father to the Son and from both to the Holy Spirit — once the expression of the infinite Word is supposed, it is understood that it is not as it were twice fruitful, either for producing the same or another Word. Not the former: for the intellect, insofar as it is not communicated in the first person, necessarily produces the Word by its intellection of itself; but the produced Word cannot produce itself, nor can the third person, whose principle (with the Father) is the Word itself, be the principle of its own principle. Not the latter: because from what has been said the divine intellect is fruitful of only one Word, which very unity follows from the infinity of the fecundity, i.e., from the fact that by reason of infinity the divine intellect is one pure act expressing the adequate and therefore infinite and therefore one Word.

2° The same must be said of the one act of dilection and of the produced term of this act, which is the Holy Spirit. « God by one simple act understands all things and likewise wills all things; whence in Him there cannot be a procession of the Word from the Word, nor of love from love, but in Him there is only one perfect Word and one perfect love; and in this His perfect fecundity is manifested » S. Th. I. q. 27. a. 5. ad 3. Suarez explains the matter distinctly (l. I. c. 7. n. 11. 12.). « The eternal Father produces the Son through that very act of understanding which is common to all the persons, insofar as He has it from Himself and not through generation; for this is enough, that the Father should produce through that act of understanding and not the Son nor the Holy Spirit. Because since the Father has it from Himself and before all production, He can rightly communicate it to the other person; and He communicates it by the virtue and fecundity of the very act of understanding..... In the Son, however, and in the Holy Spirit the intellect no longer has that, as it were, virtue, because it already had the act adequate to itself, which cannot be multiplied..... And in this way and with the same proportion one must philosophize about love or dilection, as far as the matter is concerned....... In the will, however, on account of the scarcity of names, we are accustomed to signify by the same word the act of loving, the production, and the term, namely by the name of love or dilection.... Properly, however, love is essential and common, and by it the Father and the Son produce the Holy Spirit, insofar as they have that love without emanation of the will, either from themselves as the Father, or through generation as the Son (i.e., in the Father and the Son the act of love or dilection is no longer such as to suppose the emanation or production of its term, but rather such as to produce its adequate term, which is the Holy Spirit or the one proceeding); and therefore, although they themselves produce through that love, the Holy Spirit nonetheless, by loving with the same love, produces nothing ad intra, because it already supposes the (adequate) production of love ».

« The Word proceeds by the intellection both of the essence and of the divine persons and of all necessary truth; and in like manner the Holy Spirit proceeds by the love of the good necessarily loved. Although, therefore, neither does the Word proceed by the vision of contingent creatures, nor the Holy Spirit by the love of the same; nevertheless the Word as Wisdom proceeds with respect to the creature to be made, and the Holy Spirit as love with respect to the creature to be loved. Hence further, the Father can be called wise by the Word, the Father and the Son loving by the Holy Spirit, not formally but terminatively, inasmuch as the Word and the expressed love are the necessary term, without which divine wisdom and love cannot be ».

In the question, by the intellection of what things the Word is expressed, and by the love of what things the Holy Spirit is produced, there is no small diversity of opinions among theologians, according as they are either more solicitous of our manner of understanding according to analogies drawn from creatures, and of distinguishing what in God are altogether one, or more strive to transcend these analogies and, as far as is possible, to conceive the matter as it is objectively. In the manner of considering, first of all one ought to keep before one's eyes what is demonstrated in the Tractatus de Deo about divine simplicity, about knowledge and will, and about the objects of both.

I. As regards the production of the Word: because the divine intellect is one necessary substantial act comprehending from its infinite perfection all truth, according to all intelligible aspects, for this very reason the objects which are comprehended by that one most simple act are very diverse among themselves. As pertains to the present matter, the objects are either necessary in themselves or not necessary, that is, contingent. The necessary objects are, in the order of existence, God alone — both according to the absolute aspects in Himself (according to essence and attributes), and according to the relative aspects (ad intra), and according to the essence as to its imitability ad extra, which imitability of the essence we can call by other names: the objective divine ideas, the eternal reasons of things, the eminent being of creatures in God. Whence from this last there belongs to the necessary objects the whole metaphysical order of possibles, which in themselves are nothing in act, but could be according to the actually existing and necessary imitability ad extra of the divine essence. Then the non-necessary objects are all things existing besides God (formally as existing) for any difference of time, to which, as is evident, as regards contingency are reduced all those conditionals which would actually be done to creatures freely under any hypothesis. Hence further, the divine intellect comprehends the necessary objects necessarily, so that, if it comprehended not any one of them, there would be a defect on the part of the intellect itself, and it would no longer be an infinitely perfect act. On the contrary, although on the hypothesis that contingents exist for some time, the divine intellect necessarily comprehends them as existing, it would nevertheless remain equally perfect if they never existed and were so understood as mere possibles. This vision, therefore, of existing creatures is in God nothing other than the very intellection of the divine essence according to all aspects distinguished only by our manner of considering, with the non-necessary connotation of existing creatures, which are subjected to the same infinite act, comprehending all necessary truths, without any change of it, if they exist, or to which the same one infinite act of intellection extends itself as it were without any change of itself. S. Th. de verit. q. 3. a. 3. ad 8.

With these things most briefly recalled to memory from the other treatise, the first part of the proposed thesis is demonstrated.

1°. The infinite intellectual act from its internal necessary perfection produces by understanding the Word adequate to itself; under this formal aspect of producing the Word it is the relative intellection, that is, the notional act, and really God the Father. Now indeed, according to what has been said, that infinite act from its internal necessary perfection understands most perfectly itself — both as the divine essence (with all the attributes, which we distinguish by reason); and in itself it comprehends the production of the Word, that is, itself as fruitful of the Word, and in this very thing it understands the Word as the immanent term; and further it comprehends the intellection as it is at once love and the fruitful love of the Holy Spirit, and in this again it comprehends the Holy Spirit as its term; and finally it comprehends the essence according to the whole imitability ad extra, that is, according to all the eternal reasons of things, and in this very thing all possibles, both by simple intellection and by wisdom practical in first act (Tract. de Deo th. XLII. n. II.). Moreover, this one most simple necessary act of intellection by itself, that is, as such an intellection, produces the Word adequate to itself; but the adequate Word would not be, unless it were expressed according to all the aspects understood. Therefore the Word is expressed by the intellection both of the essence (with all the absolute attributes), and of the three divine persons, and of the whole metaphysical order of possibles ad extra, founded in the imitability of the divine essence, that is, in the divine ideas.

« The Father, by understanding Himself and the Son and the Holy Spirit and all other things which are contained in His knowledge, conceives the Word, so that thus the whole Trinity is spoken by the Word¹, and also every creature » S. Th. I. q. 34. a. 1. ad 3. « In God, in order that His Word be perfect, it is necessary that His Word express whatever is contained in that from which it arises, and especially since God sees all things in one glance, not dividedly. Thus, therefore, it is necessary that whatever is contained in the knowledge of the Father be wholly expressed through this one Word of His, and in the manner in which it is contained in the knowledge, so that it be a true Word corresponding to its principle through knowledge, and that His Word express the Father Himself principally and consequently all other things, which the Father knows by knowing Himself. And thus the Son, from this very fact that He is the Word perfectly expressing the Father, expresses every creature........ The Word regards directly God, who is first expressed through the Word, and consequently creatures; and because creatures, according as they are in God, are one (one divine essence imitable ad extra), of all creatures there is one Word »² S. Th. de verit. q. 4. a. 4. corp. et ad 5.

Some feel an insuperable difficulty as to how the Word can be conceived to proceed through the intellection of the Word itself, and much more through the intellection of the Holy Spirit, because, they say, in that sign in which is conceived the intellection producing the Word, the Word does not yet exist, and so could be understood only as future, not by intuitive cognition as existing; which same difficulty seems to them still greater and more evident as regards the cognition of the Holy Spirit, since this third person is posterior in origin to the Word, as proceeding from the Word. Explanations of this matter, several and not all agreeing, are given by various theologians; but the whole difficulty rests on a false, or certainly too imperfect, concept of the prior and posterior in the origins of the divine persons, as is evident even from the very proposition of the objection, where they speak of the Word not yet existing and of the Word as future (apud Vasquez disp. 142. c. 2. n. 6.; c. 4. n. 15.). By the correction, therefore, of this concept the matter must be explained.

The intellection producing the Word is not an action properly so called, as it were going forth from a potency, but is a pure necessary eternal act having an internal necessary eternal term, which is the Word; and so to produce it is eternally to have in complete act a term intrinsically necessary; it is an eternal substantial relation which without its correlative eternal term can neither be nor truly be conceived. Conversely, to be produced is to be eternally produced in act, as necessary as the divine understanding is necessary³.

If, therefore, there is question of the prior and posterior of origins, there is not a priority as if the relative paternal understanding could be conceived without the Word, just as, e. g., God can be conceived without the will of creating or of operating ad extra, which is called priority in quo; but what we call prior and posterior in the divine origins is solely this, that the relative B, namely the Word, by internal necessity is and exists eternally from the relative A, namely from the paternal intellection necessarily and eternally expressing the Word; but not, conversely, is the relative A from the relative B. This is wont to be called priority a quo (vide Franc. de Lugo disp. II. c. 5. n. 6. sq.). There is therefore (if it is lawful so to speak) a simultaneity in quo of the relatives, and only a priority a quo of the one to the other. Whence the paternal intellect, a pure act, understands itself as in complete second act fruitful of the Word, and by this intellection of itself it is the principle of the Word eternally proceeding and always produced. But the Father, by understanding Himself in second act fruitful of the Word, understands the Word not now as to be produced or future (which some most absurdly say), but as eternally proceeding in act and necessarily existing. Therefore the paternal intellection, by understanding itself and the Word proceeding from itself, is the principle of the proceeding Word. This order is so far from being repugnant that it is altogether necessary; since the infinite producing intellection and the Word proceeding and immanent to the intellection are simultaneous not only really but also in reason, with the simultaneity in quo, and there is only a priority a quo of the producing intellection to the coeternal Word⁴.

From the same foundation is to be solved the difficulty against the procession of the Word through the intellection also of the Holy Spirit. The intellection producing in eternal act and the Word eternally produced, and the love producing in eternal act and the love as internal term produced, are simultaneous with the simultaneity in quo, that is, one without the other, as it is on the side of the thing, can neither be nor be conceived; the priority, however, namely between the produced Word and the produced love, is solely a priority a quo, because the spirated love is by eternal relation from the Word as from a principle with the Father, but the Word is not from the love as from a principle. That simultaneity in quo suffices that all these things be understood simultaneously, and hence as the Word so also the Holy Spirit, by one most simple act, by which the Father is the eternal principle of the Word. Namely, the Father, by understanding Himself as the principle of the Word, understands also the Word, and at the same time understands Himself and the Word as eternally producing the love, the immanent term which is the Holy Spirit, and by this very one most simple intellection He is the principle expressing the Word adequate to Himself.

2°. The question remains, why it is not to be said that the Word proceeds through the intellection, that is, the vision, of existing creatures. Lest we be deceived in the state of the question: the Word indeed proceeds through that intellection which is also the intellection of existing creatures, since the divine intellection is in itself one, not one which has God for its object and another whose object is creatures; but by the very same [intellection] by which God understands Himself, He understands all intelligible things. We say only that the Word does not proceed through the intellection formally inasmuch as this is referred to existing creatures. The reason is chiefly twofold: a) that God subsisting in three persons is prior by the priority of reason in quo to any decree of operating ad extra being able to be conceived; or in other words: that the necessary notional acts ad intra according to which the persons proceed are prior with the priority of reason in quo to the free acts ad extra, without which there can be no intellection of existing creatures (S. Th. I. q. 33. a. 3. ad 1). b) The other reason is that the Word proceeds through an absolutely necessary intellection, whereas the intellection of existing creatures, or rather the relation of the intellection to existing creatures, is not in itself necessary, but only on the hypothesis of a creature existing for some difference of time.

3°. Nevertheless it can be said that the Word proceeds with a relation (of reason) to creatures, which respect Augustine thought to be signified in the very name of Word. Better, he says, is it called Word than reason, « so that there is signified not only the respect to the Father, but also to those things which have been made through the Word, by operative power » l. qq. 83. q. 63. For the Word is expressed, as we have said, through the paternal intellection of the divine essence, even formally as it is imitable ad extra and the exemplary cause containing the eternal reasons, according to which whatever things are possible are possible, and according to which therefore, with free will supervening, all things are created. Hence the Word which is expressed by this intellection, not only as it were materially inasmuch as the divine essence is communicated to it, but formally from the very mode of proceeding through the intellect, as begotten wisdom, contains the ideas and eternal reasons of all⁵ creatable things and of the whole created order, « as a perfect Word to which nothing is lacking, and a certain art of the omnipotent and wise God, full of all living unchangeable reasons, and all are one in it (the art), as it itself is one of one, with whom one; there God knows all things, which He has made through it » Aug. Trin. l. VI. c. 10. n. 11. Therefore, although the expression of the Word is not through the vision of the creature made, it is nevertheless as the expression of subsistent wisdom and art with a respect as it were radical to the creature to be made. Vide Suarez l. IX. c. 4-7.

II. The question about the Holy Spirit, by the love of which goods He proceeds, after those things which have been said about the procession of the Word, has no further difficulty.

1°. The Father and the Son by one common love of infinite goodness produce the love as an immanent term, which is the Holy Spirit. And so the love through which the Holy Spirit proceeds is the love of the divine essence (with all the attributes); by this very fact, inasmuch as it is in the Father, it is the love of Himself and of the Son; in the Son it is the love of Himself and of the Father. This is what the Fathers mean when they say that the Holy Spirit is produced by the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Nor indeed is it lawful so to understand this doctrine as if a twofold love were said, which as it were conspiring would produce the love as one term; but it must be understood that the two distinct persons love by a substantial love, which is one in number of both as of a subject, and has both for its object, both inasmuch as they are one in essence and inasmuch as they are distinguished by hypostasis. Moreover, no less does the same love comprise as it were reflexively the love itself as producing, and at the same time as its internal term the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding. For the love is of the divine essence, as it is in itself, according to all aspects of lovableness; and thus the essence is both every absolute perfection and the three persons together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The difficulty wont to arise as to this last point from our imperfect manner of understanding, by which the producing love is conceived as prior in reason to the produced love, is to be resolved from what has been said above. For just as the producing intellection and the produced Word, so also the relative love and its eternal correlate, i. e. the love eternally proceeding in complete act, are simultaneous not only in duration but also in reason, with the simultaneity in quo, and the order is solely according to origin a quo. Whence what we have said about the intellection we can conceive still more easily about the love; namely, the substantial love, in complete act fruitful of the eternally proceeding love, by loving itself and in itself the proceeding love, is the principle of the proceeding love.

2°. The same love, formally as producing the love, is also the love of the essence, inasmuch as this is goodness communicable ad extra through participated good, chiefly through participated holiness, which most nearly imitates the substantial divine goodness and holiness. Whence, just as the Word proceeds through intellection with a radical respect ad extra (if it is lawful to say) and in first act, as begotten wisdom and « art full of ideas »; so the love, the Holy Spirit, from the very mode of His procession through such a love, is proceeding goodness and a gift as it were in first act, namely as giveable to the rational creature through sanctification and for its sanctification, and thus He proceeds with a (radical) respect ad extra. « Just as the Father speaks Himself and every creature by the Word which He begot, inasmuch as the begotten Word sufficiently represents the Father and every creature; so He loves Himself and every creature by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit proceeds as the love of the first goodness, according to which the Father loves Himself and every creature. And thus also it is evident that a respect is imported to the creature both in the Word and in the proceeding love as it were secondarily, inasmuch as, namely, divine truth and goodness is the principle of understanding and loving every creature » S. Th. I. q. 37. a. 2. ad 3. cf. q. 38. a. 2.

3°. Finally, from what has just been said there arises the question whether the Holy Spirit proceeds not only through the love of divine goodness as communicable ad extra through analogical participation, of which we have spoken, but also through the love of creatures, whether possible, or actually to be produced or produced. We judge that this last must be denied in the same way and for the same reasons from which we denied that the Word proceeds through the intellection of existing creatures.

As regards the orders of possibles, which we have said are comprehended in the intellection through which the Word is expressed, here the response depends on another question, whether possibles, just as — not only according to their eminent being in the divine essence but formally according to their possible being — they are most certainly a necessary object of divine intellection, so also can they be called an object of necessary love.

To this question it must be said: if the love of God ad extra is taken in the sense in which it is the will of conferring (actual) good, evidently there is no such love of God toward possibles, by this very fact that they are and are left in the state of mere possibles. But if love is taken for the complacency and approbation of possible goods, then it is first of all the infinite and necessary love of the divine essence as imitable and participable ad extra, of which love of the essence was said a little before; but inasmuch as there is considered the simple approbation of possible goods in themselves, thus it is rather intellection than love of the good. It follows, therefore, that properly so-called love of God toward creatures in themselves is nothing absolutely necessary, although the love of divine goodness is necessary, even inasmuch as this goodness, imitable ad extra and communicable through analogous perfections, contains the supreme reason of every possible good. This latter, therefore, and not the love of possible creatures, pertains to the love by which is expressed the love proceeding from internal necessary perfection, which is the Holy Spirit. Vide Suarez l. XI. c. 2. cf. Ruiz disp. 63. sect. 5.

III. There follows the question, whether and in what sense the Father understands by the Word, and both [Father and Son] love by the Holy Spirit.

The holy Fathers, both Greek and, in imitation of them, Latin, disputing against the Arians, most frequently affirm that the Father without the Word would be devoid of intelligence and wisdom (ἄλογον καὶ ἄσοφον). Read the opinions of the Fathers apud Ruiz disp. 74. sect. 4.; Petav. l. VI. c. 9. Among them St. Thomas in not one place alone hands down and explains the same doctrine. « We attribute to God another kind of operation (besides the operation ad extra), inasmuch as we call Him understanding and willing, in which His perfection is signified; for He would not be perfect, unless He were understanding and willing in act, and hence it is that we confess Him living... according to this kind of operation we say in divine things the procession of the Word and of love; and this is the procession of the person of the Son from the Father, who is His Word, and of the Holy Spirit who is His love and the breath of life. Whence Athanasius says in a certain sermon, that the Arians, positing the Son and the Holy Spirit not to be consubstantial with the Father, consequently seemed to say that God is not living and intelligent but dead and without mind » S. Th. de Potent. q. 10. a. 1.

But these things can be taken in two different senses. If it is said

that the Father is formally wise through the Word, the Father and the Son formally loving through the Holy Spirit, the sense is false and absurd. For a divine person cannot be formally wise or loving through another really distinct from itself; but it understands and loves through its very own essence, which is absolute wisdom and absolute will, that is, love, and therefore the absolute wisdom and will of the three persons is one in number.

The sense, therefore, of that saying of the holy Fathers is another. The divine intellection (as it is of the Father) from its internal perfection produces the Word by understanding as necessarily as it is necessarily divine intellection, nor can there be divine understanding (of the Father) without its intrinsic term produced being the Word; and in like manner there cannot be divine love (of the Father and the Son) without having the produced love as its immanent term; « because (as St. Thomas says, contr. gent. IV. c. 14.) the intellect in act is never without the Word », and by the same reason love in act is never without the produced love. Whence it is most rightly inferred, that if at any time the Word or the Holy Spirit did not exist, as the Arians said, neither would divine intellection and love have been in act, and so the divine intellect and divine love would simply be denied, and thus the divine life, which necessarily always are in perfect act. Vide Ruiz disp. 111.

Of the matter itself, therefore, enough is established. The Father formally understanding, the Father and the Son formally loving, is through the essence, which is itself absolute wisdom and love; nevertheless the Father by understanding necessarily produces the Word; nor could He be understanding without this; and both by loving necessarily produce the love (the Holy Spirit), nor could there be divine love without the produced love. The Father, therefore, is wise by the Word not formally but as by the necessary immanent term of His fruitful wisdom, without which the wisdom itself would not be; and by the same reason the Father and the Son are loving by the Holy Spirit as by the necessary internal term of love, without which the love itself would not be.

Only the doubt about the manner of speaking remains, whether the Father can simply be said to understand by the Word, the Father and the Son to love by the Holy Spirit. Theologians differ not a little in opinions and in ways of explaining these locutions; in few words the matter can be settled thus. The verbs must be distinguished which signify only the absolute act, and which signify also the notional act, i. e. the production of the term ad intra. The former cannot be construed with ablatives of this kind of distinct persons. Hence, because to understand, simply put, is wont to be used with only absolute signification, it would be less rightly said: the Father understands by the Word; for this would seem to signify that the Father is constituted formally wise, that is, understanding, through the Word, which is known to be false from the above. The notional word designating the production of the Word is to speak. Moreover, to love is used not only with absolute but also with notional signification, in which latter it is the same as to produce by loving the love as immanent term.

Now in this notional sense, those things which the Father speaks (i. e. understands and by understanding expresses or represents by the Word), and those which the Father and the Son love, can be signified as object (in the accusative), and because such speaking and loving is as it were in complete act through the term intrinsically produced, without which the speaking and loving would not be, rightly this term is added in the ablative as produced by the speaking and the loving. Thus, therefore, the Father speaks by the Word Himself and all other things which He speaks (i. e. which He comprehends by the intellection producing the Word); the Father and the Son love by the Holy Spirit themselves (and whatever they comprise by the love producing the immanent love). For by these words, says Ruiz, is signified « to love by the Holy Spirit as by a term produced simply necessary, so that the operation of loving can be exercised about the loved objects. » Vide Ruiz disp. 74. sect. 2; disp. 111. sect. 2-6. Cf. S. Th. I. q. 37. a. 2; Suarez l. IX. c. 10; l. XI. c. 3.

« From divine revelation it is established, that the second person proceeds by generation, and that the procession of the third person is something distinct from generation. Moreover, the procession of the second person is to be believed to be, in the proper sense, an intellectual and perfect generation, setting aside the imperfections which are in the generations of creatures ».

Before faith seeks some understanding of the diversity, whereby the procession of the second, but not of the third, person is properly generation, and consequently the second person is the only-begotten Son, while the third is not the Son; we must look into the manner in which the reality itself — that it is — is manifested to us in revelation; for from revelation some, however imperfect, understanding of how it is, must be deduced. Indeed, the presumption of investigating by the light of reason alone both the other mysteries and in particular the deep things of God in the manner and diversity of the processions, of which we now speak, the holy Fathers unanimously condemned, when heretics impugned the mystery itself from philosophical principles, or demanded of Catholics from those principles a reason for the faith. But a pious and humble inquiry after some understanding, from faith presupposed and from the principles of faith, the same holy Fathers both commended in explicit words, and taught us by their example and most profound meditations (see Didac. Ruiz disp. V).

First, therefore, we shall consider the reality itself as revealed in the Scriptures, that the second, and not the third, person is properly generated; then, revelation shedding its light before us, we shall inquire, as far as is allowed, into the proper notions of divine generation. For these are the foundations from which it must be deduced why the procession of the Holy Spirit is not generation, of which matter we shall speak in the following thesis.

I. That diversity in the procession of the second and third person is revealed in the Scriptures no less than the procession itself and the distinction of the persons.

1°. This revelation is contained in the very proper names of the persons. For between the first and second person there is constantly taught to be, not only indeterminately the relation of principle and of one proceeding from a principle, but determinately the relation of Father and Son. In the Scriptures the Father is called the own Father of the Son Io. V. 18; the Son the own Son of the Father Rom. VIII. 32; the true Son 1. Io. V. 20; the only-begotten Son (μονογενής); the only-begotten from the Father Io. I. 14.; III. 16 (cf. above th. II). The Father is not, except as principle; the Son, as term of that singular production, distinct from all other modes of productions, which is called generation. But let it be observed, that this notion of Father of the first, this notion of Son of the second person is so proper, that by this alone they are really distinguished from one another, which in this whole treatise has often been demonstrated. Moreover, by this very notion of Father and Son they are distinguished from the third person, which is neither Father nor Son, although it too is proceeding. Hence both where it is named individually, and in the enumeration together of the three persons, it is designated as proceeding indeed, but not proceeding as a Son, and so in a manner distinct from generation. « In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit » Matth. XXVIII. 19. cf. III. 16. 17; 1. Io. V. 7: « I (the Son) will send you from the Father the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the (my) Father » Io. XV. 26; « the Spirit of your Father » Matth. X. 10; « God sent the Spirit of his Son » Gal. IV. 6; « the Spirit of the Lord upon me » Luc. IV. 18; « the Spirit of God » Rom. VIII. 14; « the Spirit of Christ » Rom. VIII. 9; 1. Pet. I. 11; « the Spirit of Jesus » Act. XVI. 7.

2°. Just as the second person alone is the term of generation, i. e. the Son, so also in the Scriptures the mode of procession of the second person alone is expressly predicated to be generation. This express predication is contained already in the proper appellation, by which the distinguishing notion of the only-begotten Son, the only-begotten from the Father, is designated. Then the own Son of God is expressly declared (to be such), because he is by an eternal, always complete generation. « In these last days (God) has spoken to us in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages; who, since he is the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance (χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ).... sits at the right hand of majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels (γενόμενος)..... For to which of the angels did he ever say: You are my Son, today I have begotten you; and again: I will be to him a Father, and he will be to me a Son...... But to the Son (he says): your throne, O God, is for ever and ever....... And: you, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands » Heb. I. 2-10. Both in the Psalms II. 7; XLIV. (XLV). 7; CI. (CII). 26, from which the words are taken, and by the Apostle, these things are said of Christ, the incarnate Son; but he is not other than the eternal Son, although in time he was made man. Whence this man, i. e. this person who is also man, is the Son of God begotten from eternity, is God the creator of heaven and earth.

With these things established, the words: « You are my Son, today I have begotten you », must necessarily be understood of this person, who is God-man. The second clause explains the reason whereby he is the Son, namely because he is begotten by the Father. He who is the splendor of the glory of God the Father, God the creator of heaven and earth, cannot be Son except as eternal; therefore the generation too is eternal. The particle therefore « today » expresses not the beginning of generation, but the immutable now of eternity, in which generation is always in complete act. To this man, however, specifically inasmuch as he is man, the words pertain in time — not because he was begotten in time, but because, begotten from eternity, he begins in time to be man. Whence first in the incarnation it is verified of the man: « today (i. e. by eternal immutable act) I have begotten you », as the words are taken Heb. V. 5; and in the same way they are true of this man in the resurrection, and at the same time contain the reason of the resurrection, in which manner the words are taken Act. XIII. 33. (Cf. the illustrious Fr. Patrizi de Interpret. SS. SS. l. I. n. 36).

Generation from the substance of the Father is declared still more definitely Ps. CIX (CX). 3.¹, as this passage of Scripture, by the common consent of the Fathers,

has always been understood, and has been in particular employed, through many continuous centuries, in dogmatic demonstrations against the Arians. (See the holy Fathers in Petav. de Trin. l. V. c. 9. n. 4. 5; Didac. Ruiz disp. IV. sect. 1). Parallel to the words of the Psalm: « from the womb before the day-star I have begotten you », is the declaration of John: « the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father » ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός Io. I. 18. « When you have heard 'womb' said of God, say that the generative power of God (τὸ γεννητικὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ) is revealed to you manifestly » Basil. contr. Eunom. V. p. 316. Moreover, those places are to be compared, in which the hypostatic Wisdom, expressed by him whose Wisdom it is, is said to be brought forth from eternity, to be possessed by generation, to have been conceived, first-begotten before every creature, Prov. VIII. 22. sq.; Ecclesi. XXIV. 5. (see thes. VII).

II. We presuppose what has been demonstrated elsewhere concerning our mode of knowing divine things. The perfections in creatures are adumbrations and images of the divine perfections. Whence, since in this life we do not know God immediately in himself, the only way is open to us to the knowledge of God, by concluding from the magnitude and beauty of creatures to the creator: ἐκ γὰρ μεγέθους καὶ καλλονῆς κτισμάτων ἀναλόγως ὁ γενεσιουργὸς αὐτῶν θεωρεῖται Sap. XIII. 5. Without previously had notions of the perfections, which notions we draw from the consideration of creatures, God would remain unknown to us, nor could we in any way understand revelation about God, the divine attributes, and the persons. (I speak of the ordinary way in the present order, and prescinding from the infusion of prophetic intellectual light, which is a certain participation and imitation of the light of glory). Hence divine revelation descends to us according to our mode, as s. Thomas and the rest of the Scholastics are wont to speak with Dionysius; i. e. revelation presupposes in us manifold ideas of perfections, and with these connects, and from these renders intelligible to us, the heavenly doctrine about God and divine things (see thes. XIX.). The perfections therefore which we know in God, either by reason or by revelation, according to the analogy of creatures, are most truly in God, although in another way than in creatures; in God namely, according to the exigency of the divine Esse, they are in most pure act without limitation or imperfection, originally and exemplarily; in creatures they are their adumbrations circumscribed by imperfection. Thus therefore the reality itself, which is revealed to us about God under the name of generation and under the name of Son, is to be believed to be in God properly and without every imperfection which these notions have implicit in creatures. Whence, presupposing the revelation that there is a twofold procession in divine things, both indeed by communication of nature, but so that one is properly generation and the other is not, we can also attain to some understanding of this difference, since the proper notion of generation, by which it is distinguished from all other processions, is sufficiently known to us in creatures; this procession however, which is in creatures and is called generation, corresponds to generation in God not indeed according to an identical notion (univocally), yet according to likeness and imitation (analogically), so that as to the thing signified generation is most perfectly and most properly in God, according to some adumbration of the divine exemplar in creatures. « Since all our knowledge of God is taken from creatures, if there were no agreement except in name only (when we predicate perfections of God and of creatures under the same name), we would know nothing about God except only vain names, to which no thing would underlie. It would also follow, that all the demonstrations given by the philosophers about God would be sophistical..... And therefore it must be said, that nothing is predicated of God and creature univocally; yet those things which are commonly predicated (of God and of creature) are not predicated purely equivocally, but analogically ». S. Th. de Potent. q. 7. a. 7. cf. I. q. 13. a. 5.

With these things presupposed, first of all all the imperfections are to be set apart, which any generation has implicit in creatures, which nevertheless do not pertain to the proper notion of generation considered in itself. The mode of this precision of imperfections revelation itself teaches us, not only by the general doctrine of the infinite perfection of God, but also specifically by declaring generation as intellectual. For under a double appellation there is exhibited to us in the whole of revelation the proper notion of the second person of the Trinity, namely that he is the Son and the Word (ὁ Λόγος) of the Father. Both names designate one and the same notion², but under a diverse analogy (th. XIX. n. I. 2°).

Son designates a hypostasis, and a hypostasis proceeding from another by that special communication of nature which is generation. But in creatures generation, and consequently sonship, cannot be in pure spirits, but is only in corporeal beings; nor is generation by communication of the whole substance which is in the generating principle, but by a certain separation and vital derivation out of the substance of the generator; whence the unity of nature between father and son is only specific, not numerical, unity, and besides the father, as hypostasis, is prior to the son. Hence further, the hypostases of father and son are not only distinct, but separated in a numerically other and other nature, with the remaining diversities which follow from the distinction of nature; consequently also the likeness cannot be absolute, which coincides with the numerical unity of nature (th. XVI.). But all these imperfections adhering to generation in finite and corporeal beings are repugnant in God, the infinite spirit³.

Hence the notion of intellectual generation, of which kind alone can befit a pure spirit, divine revelation expressly expresses under the name of Word. A created spirit too, by understanding itself, produces its own word, about which enough has been said above. According to this analogy it is easily understood, that all those imperfections of corporeal generation, which we mentioned a little before, are excluded. Whence the Fathers so solicitously commend the comparison of the Word with the appellation of Son, for attaining some understanding of the matter. See what we cited above p. 288. cf. S. Th. Compend. theolog. c. 40. But the word in creatures falls short of perfection, since it is not a substance, and consequently the producer and the produced word are neither two hypostases, nor, except improperly, can the generation of the word in creatures be called (cf. S. Th. Compend. theolog. c. 38). Both analogies therefore must be joined, so that one supplements the other; and what is expressed perfectly under both names of Son and Word, is to be understood in God as most perfect; but what of imperfection is included in the signification of either, as it is drawn from creatures, is corrected through the signification of the other⁴

Now we could say: just as in corporeal emanations not any production — even of living beings, and even those which are from the substance of the producing principle — but only one special procession, determined by its own proper characters, is properly called and is generation; so in spiritual processions, which are substantial only in God, the infinite spirit, only the procession through the formal notion of the intellect, and consequently the procession of the Word, is properly generation, and is revealed to us as such. But for some further analogical understanding it is necessary for us — not indeed merely from the analysis of the essential notes of generation, as we have them surveyed from creatures, but by comparing these notes, the imperfections being set aside, together with the presupposed revealed dogma — to consider the infinite perfection under the formal notion of generation in this intellectual procession of the Word.

The very essence of generation properly so called includes in the first place a threefold note: that a) it be a procession of a living being from a living being. For although even in inanimate things the production of one by the power and operation of another is wont to be called generation, as fire generates fire, etc.; yet that is improper, and essentially diverse from the proper generation of a living being from a living being. And indeed generation is the nobler, the nobler is the nature and life of the generator and of the generated. Nobler therefore, and differing in species (although agreeing in genus), is generation in living beings with animal life, than in living beings with only vegetative life; likewise nobler in men of rational life than in brute animals. Yet because the power of propagation and the efficacy of generation even in rational animals is not from nature formally as it is rational, but as it is animal, the diversity is constituted chiefly in the propagated nature and in the relation which arises from generation. Hence, although generation is properly said both of brute animals and of men, yet in men father and son are more proper. Further therefore, generation would be still nobler in pure spirits living with intellectual life; but in finite spirits that which is produced by intellectual act is not produced by propagation or communication of nature, and so is not a substance, and on that account there is no generation there. But in God, the infinite spirit and pure act, who is essentially life itself (ἡ αὐτοζωή), the substantial Word is produced by intellectual act, as was shown above; and so from this first consideration, inasmuch as it is a procession of a living being from a living being, generation in God is infinitely perfect, as the very life of God is infinitely perfect. « As the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself ». Io. V. 26; « Christ, the Son of the living God » Matth. XVI. 16.

b) It is contained in the notion of generation, that the production be from the substance of the generator; « for what is begotten from the nature of someone, and is not acquired from without, nature acknowledges as a son, and this is the signification of the name » Athanas. de decret. Nicaen. n. 10.

c) It is required, that the production be not only from the substance and nature of the producer, but that through an inborn principle, which we can call the principle of fecundity, the nature of the producer be propagated or communicated into the product. This is what, as the ultimate difference distinguishing it from other productions, is set down in the definition, in which generation is said to be the procession of a living being from a living principle into a likeness of nature. Whence the production of Eve from the rib of Adam, although perhaps it could be called a procession of a living being from a living being, from the substance of Adam and also into a likeness of nature, was nevertheless not generation, because it was produced not through a connatural principle of fecundity as through a cause from itself, but through the sole creative operation of God, where the rib of Adam was in no way a connaturally efficient, but a merely material cause, and that not per se and according to the instituted law of nature, but per accidens and beyond the law of nature.

Now truly, just as the first, so also this second and third notion of generation is found indeed in creatures, but is in them imperfect, as will easily appear to one considering. For this generation is annexed to material and corporeal things, and is perfected through acts of sensitive and animal life, which by that very fact pertain to a lower and essentially imperfect order.

But in the communication of the divine nature all those imperfections are excluded by the opposed infinite perfection. Generation there is intellectual, by most pure act, absolutely necessary, of substantial intellection, and therefore is not a transition from potency to act, but an eternal, necessary, complete act, with a term eternally produced and immanent to itself. This very act, as having the Word for its immanent produced term, is the principle of fecundity; and so the principle of fecundity is not in potency or in habit, but is the very act, always complete from its necessary perfection. Whence generation, as we recited above from the Fathers and s. Thomas, is no less necessarily in act, than God is necessarily understanding himself and is the intellectual life itself. Moreover, the divine essence is itself substantial intellection, and so the procession there is according to the whole essence or substance of the producer, which is otherwise evident, since the most simple divine substance has no parts. Hence in the Word produced through the intellection by which the Father perfectly comprehends himself, no other numerically distinct essence is produced, but the same numerically same essence is communicated and as it were irradiated: the Son is from the substance of the Father in such a way, that he is consubstantial with the Father ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας ὁμοούσιος (th. VIII. n. II.).

From what has been said, therefore, it must be concluded in this way. The more perfect is the life in generation, the more perfect the production from the substance of the producer, the more perfect the communication and unity of nature in both, the more the principle of fecundity is essential and more perfect in act, the more fully and perfectly is had that which is signified by the name of generation. But in created generations, from which we first derive the knowledge of such a special production, and from which is the first imposition of the name, all those notions are present indeed, but imperfectly; in God, according to the thing signified, they are most perfectly. In the same way therefore, as we have said elsewhere of the divine perfections, so also must it be judged of generation, and consequently of the appellations of Father and Son. According to the imposition of the name they are first known by us and said of creatures; according to the thing signified they are first in God with infinite perfection, and in creatures only analogically, through a certain participation and adumbration derived from God the creator. In that sense therefore, in which God alone is powerful, alone wise, in that fullest signification can generation, paternity, filiation be said of God alone.

« This must be known: that the names of paternity, filiation, and procession have not been transferred by us to the blessed Deity, but on the contrary have been communicated to us from there, just as the Apostle says (Eph. III. 15): I bend my knees to the Father.... from whom all paternity in heaven and on earth is named » Damasc. Fid. orthod. l. I. c. 8.

« If the general notion of generation is refined from the revealed mystery itself, the mode of procession which we have shown to be taught in revelation supplies the internal reason why the procession of the second person is generation, whereas that of the third is not generation ».

Although from those things which we said in the preceding thesis it is understood that the Word is properly begotten and properly the Son, if a comparison be made with generation in creatures and especially with the noblest generation, which is in human nature; nevertheless it is not yet clear why the procession of the third person is not generation. Indeed, the three proper notes of generation recalled in the preceding thesis seem to belong no less to this procession of the third person than to that of the second.

Here I confess — although I do not find this noticed by theologians — that our rational concept of the proper account of generation has advanced from the revelation of the mystery to a fuller understanding, in much the same way in which elsewhere (Tract. de Incarnat. th. XXVI.) we have shown it to be necessary to refine the purely rational concept of the hypostasis, in comparison with the singular and integral nature, from truths known by revelation alone.

In substantial corporeal processions, which alone exist in creatures, if they are through the communication of the same (specific) nature from the innate principle of the living being, there is none which is not by that very fact generation. But in the spiritual processions, which are in God, revelation teaches us that the procession of the third person, although it is a production of a living being from a living being from the intimate principle of fecundity through the communication of the same (numerical) nature, is nevertheless not generation¹, but only that procession of the second person is truly and properly generation. It is necessary, therefore, that besides the three notes mentioned some other note be essential to proper generation, by which the procession of the second person as generation is distinguished from the other procession, which is not generation.

1°. A further note essential to the first account of generation lies in the very internal character of the producing act, namely that the act by its very nature be directed to expressing the substantial likeness of the producer; or in other words, it is required for the true account of generation that from the very mode of procession a substantial image of the producer be produced. If this note is essential, it must of course be found in every generation, even in creatures; but in created processions the production of a living being from a living being through the communication of nature from the innate principle of fecundity always has an act ordered by its very nature to producing the substantial image of the producer; and therefore it would never have been noticed that this last note is distinct and separable from the former ones, and hence that there could be a production according to all three former notes without being an expression of the image and generation; this, I say, would never have been noticed, unless revelation had taught us that in God there truly is such a procession, which although it has those three notes intimately, is nevertheless not generation, nor is the proceeding term therefore the Son. In the same way we have seen (Tract. de Incarnatione l. c.) that in the concept of the hypostasis, which is a singular integral substance, wholly in itself, this last note is understood to be distinct and separable from the former ones not by the light of reason alone, but with revelation about the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and Incarnation shining before.

Wherefore in the definition of generation customarily handed down, which is « production of a living being from a living being from a conjoined principle into the likeness of nature » (cf. S. Th. I. q. 27. a. 2.), the last phrase must be taken in the formal sense (as they say), not only in the material sense; that is, it is necessary that the likeness be not only from elsewhere, but from the very mode of procession.

Now indeed this difference between the expression of the word through intellection and the procession of love through volition is evident.

The intellect, by the very nature of its act, in understanding produces an expressed likeness of the thing understood; the will, in willing, by the nature of its act produces not a likeness of the beloved thing, but an inclination toward the beloved thing and complacency in it. Thus the first divine person, in understanding himself with an infinite substantial intellection, by the very nature of such an act expresses a substantial, adequate image of himself; and therefore this is most truly and properly generation, and hence he is properly the Father and there is properly the Son. But the Father and the Son, in loving themselves with a substantial love, produce an immanent term, a substantial love, which indeed as substantial and therefore identified with the divine essence is true God, one with the Father and the Son; but the love in the Father and the Son from its formal account of love does not tend to expressing an image, nor can love (as we said) from its formal account, insofar as it is love, be understood as an image of the beloved thing; although love proceeding in God, insofar as it is divine substance, is one with the Father and the Son. « Just as the Holy Spirit, although by his procession he receives the nature of the Father just as the Son does, is nevertheless not said to be born; so although he receives a species similar to the Father (although he is of one nature and perfection with the Father), he is not called an image; because the Son proceeds as the Word, to whose account it belongs that there be a likeness of species to that from which he proceeds, but not to the account of love; although that belongs to the love which is the Holy Spirit, insofar as it is divine love » S. Th. I. q. 35. a. 2.

Therefore, because the formal account of love is not referred to expressing the likeness of the lover, and the formal account of love is not a representation and image of the producer, the production of love is not generation; but it has another account distinct from generation, which can and is wont to be called spiration (as we have declared elsewhere). By Augustine it is called gift, i.e. the procession of the Holy Spirit through love as giftable: « he (the Holy Spirit) went forth not as born, but as given; and therefore he is not called Son » Trin. V. n. 14.

In this matter — how the procession of the third person differs from generation — Augustine confesses that he found the greatest difficulty (Trin. XV. n. 45). For the most part he sets forth only that reason, that the Spirit proceeds not from one Father alone but from the Father and the Son together (in Io. tract. 99. n. 9; contr. Maximin. II. c. 14. n. 10; Trin. XV. n. 47. 48. and elsewhere). But he himself perceived that from this the difference is not sufficiently understood, and that it remains « most difficult to distinguish generation from procession » (l. c.). At length, however, he indicated that the intimate reason is to be sought in this, that the Word proceeds as the image of the Father and therefore by generation as the Son; but the love which is the Holy Spirit does not proceed according to the formal account of an image, and for that reason not by generation. And this indeed he declared from the analogy of the created spirit, where from the thinking memory there proceeds an expressed thought, or word, as the perfect image of the mind itself, that is, of the thinking memory; but love proceeds from the thinking memory and from the formed thought, or word, yet does not proceed as the image of the thinker and of the thought, since to behold by thought and to desire or enjoy by the will are by themselves by no means similar, that is, they do not have between themselves the account of archetype and expressed image. « O my soul, lift up your eyes to the light itself and fix them on it, if you can; for so you will see what distinguishes the nativity of the Word of God from the procession of the Gift of God... Whence, although there is a certain consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son, the Spirit of both, he is not, which God forbid, called the son of both. But to discern this clearly and perspicuously you cannot fix your gaze there; I know, you cannot... Yet that (light) itself shows you in yourself those three things, in which you would recognize the image of the Trinity, which you are not yet able to contemplate with fixed eyes at that highest light itself. It shows you that there is a true word in you, when it is begotten from your knowledge, i.e. when from that which we know ... our thought is formed, and in the gaze of the thinker there is an image most similar to the thought which the memory contained, with these two, as it were parent and offspring, joined by a third, the will or love. And that this will indeed proceeds from thought — for no one wills what he does not at all know what or of what sort it is — yet is not an image of the thought, and therefore a certain distance between nativity and procession is intimated in this intelligible matter; since to behold by thought is not the same as to desire or even to enjoy by the will, he who can, sees and discerns this. You too have been able to see it, although you could not and cannot explain in sufficient eloquence what you barely saw among the clouds of bodily likenesses, which do not cease to occur to human thoughts » Augustin. Trin. XV. c. 27. n. 50. See S. Th. I. q. 27. a. 4.; contr. gent. IV. c. 19.; Suarez l. XI. c. 5. 6.; Petav. l. VII. c. 14. cf. l. V. c. 18.; Pallavicin. Curs. theolog. l. VIII. c. 47. n. 432. sqq.

2°. It still remains for the conclusion of this disputation that we declare the account of image. In the Scriptures themselves the account of the substantial image is without doubt exhibited as a property of the Son. « Image of the invisible God » Coloss. I. 15.; 2. Cor. IV. 4.; « the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance » Heb. I. 3.; « a vapor of the power of God and a certain pure emanation of the clarity of the almighty God.... the brightness of eternal light, and an unspotted mirror of the majesty of God, and the image of his goodness » Sap. VII. 25. 26. This same property of image, which differs from filiation, as can already be clear from what has been said, in no other way than the definition differs from the defined, was afterwards vindicated for the Son by the Fathers and theologians and declared in many ways. Nevertheless, not a few Greek Fathers — whom see in Petavius l. VII. c. 7 — called the Holy Spirit image, seal, natural image of the Son. But if it were said of the Holy Spirit with the same property with which the account of image belongs to the Son, it could no longer be shown why the Holy Spirit is not himself also the Son. It must therefore be noted that for the account of image properly so called three things are required.

a) It is required that there be a likeness to him whose image it is said to be. This first note is indeed necessary, but in no way sufficient. For to the image, as its correlative, there corresponds the exemplar or archetype; between these two, moreover, there is the relation of derivation of the image from the archetype, for the account of imitation is in the image; whence neither can one be called the image of the other where between two similar things there is no such relation of derivation; much less indeed can the archetype be called the image in preference to the similar thing derived from itself.

b) Therefore it is required that the image be derived from its archetype, i.e. from him whose image it is said to be. « Every image is similar to him whose image it is; yet not everything which is similar to something is also its image; as in a mirror and a painting, because they are images, they are also similar; yet if one has not been born from the other, neither of them can be called the image of the other. For it is an image then, when it is expressed from something » Augustin. de Gen. ad litt. imperfect. n. 57. If, therefore, these two (likeness and derivation) are present, the similar thing derived from another can, in a less strict signification, be called the image of this its principle. Most rightly, therefore, from that manner of speaking of the Greek Fathers, by which they call the Holy Spirit image and natural image and seal of the Son, their faith concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son is demonstrated.

c) But for the proper account of image not just any derivation suffices; rather it is necessary that the very mode of derivation or procession, from its formal account, tend to expressing the likeness. Whence from those things which we have said about generation, it is evident that in the proper sense a natural image, that is, one according to nature, cannot exist except through generation. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is not in the proper sense an image of the Father and the Son, especially if compared with the account by which the Son is the image of the Father. For the Son is the image of the Father not only by the most perfect likeness, which, with the distinction of persons preserved, consists in the numerical identity of nature and of the whole absolute perfection (above th. XVI.), but also by the mode of procession, because the Word is formally expressed as the substantial likeness of the Father. Cf. S. Th. I. q. 35.²

3°. Related to the appellation of image is the fact that the Holy Spirit is called by some Fathers the Word of the Son, and by St. Basil (cont. Eunom. l. V. p. 305) and by St. Cyril (Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 344.) the mind of the Son. These names can be taken in two ways: a) so that there is signified the procession and the mode of procession through the formal account of intellect, and therefore from the very mode of procession the comprehension and representation of all accounts and eternal ideas. In this proper sense the Son alone is the Word, and in the same relative signification the expressed mind of the Father (above thes. XXVI.).

b) Word and (proceeding) mind can be said only to signify the procession without the determination of the mode, i.e. so that the appellation is not taken from the mode of procession but from the announcement of truth ad extra. Thus those Fathers call the Holy Spirit the Word and the (expressed) mind of the Son, because he both proceeds from him and teaches all truth and does not speak from himself (as existing without a producing principle); but whatever he hears (by proceeding), he speaks. « Since the Holy Spirit is the mind itself of him (the Son), according to the blessed Paul saying: we have the mind of Christ; he will altogether speak and ordain those things which he himself (the Son), whose mind he is, would speak and ordain. Therefore he affirmed that the Spirit would speak nothing from himself, as if he had said: I again am he who speaks; much as if the mind in a man said about the word proceeding in it: he will not speak from himself, but whatever he will have heard, he will speak... Much the same is to be thought about the Holy Spirit. For since he is the mind of Christ, he speaks to the disciples all things which are in him, not by a will proper to himself, nor teaching in a will alien from him in whom and from whom he is, but as naturally proceeding from his essence (ὡς ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ φυσικῶς προϊόν) and having his whole will as also his operation » s. Cyrill. l. c. See Petav. l. VII. c. 7. n. 5. sqq.

What had to be said about the individual persons we have now embraced in this treatise; for without them neither the Trinity as a whole, nor the processions and the mode of processions, could be explained. One chapter, however, remains — of the gravest importance both in itself and on account of polemical reasons — which we now undertake.