Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« 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.