Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« 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.