3. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Henry

55. And next to the arguments for the aforesaid opinion against this [n.51].

To the first [n.40] I say that the major premise is false in two ways:

First, because there is no need for the predicate that agrees ‘first’ with the whole to agree with any part (as is plain enough from the clarifications [nn.52, 54]), because its primacy is that of adequacy.

Second, because if it do agree with any part, or agree with the whole by reason of any part [n.50], it need not agree with a second part by reason of any part,a especially when the parts are not of the same idea in being integral to the whole [n.52]. It is just as if man is first rational because his specific difference (as ‘rational’) is said first of the species, and also man has first that act which agrees with rational animal insofar as it is rational, namely the act or understanding or reasoning; and yet this predicate [sc. rational] does not agree equally with each part of man, namely with soul and body; for perhaps it can be said formally of the soul and in no way of the body, but it is not said of man because it is said of his soul, because then it would agree with man as to a part, just as ‘to be tall’ agrees with man as to a part, because it agrees with him as to the body. Also if ‘to understand’ were to agree with each part in such a way that it could be said of the part, nevertheless each part is not equally disposed to that predicate as regard the inherence of the predicate in the ‘whole’; for the body is not the reason for the inherence of this sort of predicate in the way the soul is, and this because the parts - namely body and soul - are not parts possessed of the same idea in being integral to the whole, but one part is matter and the other form; for matter is not the reason for the operating of the whole, which is what operates first, in the way the form is.

a [Interpolation] and so it need not be the case that it agree equally with the parts because it is first present in the whole, because the parts in a whole are not equally cause of the property as it exists.

56. So it is then in the intended proposition [n.54, 37]: one should not concede that because ‘the Father is first in the Son’ therefore deity or paternity is in the Son in the same way of being ‘in’ [sc. the way of being ‘first’ in]; but if one do concede it, one should yet not concede it equally, because they [sc. deity and paternity] are not of the same idea in the person that includes them. And further, when it is argued ‘if they were equally in the Father, then if one of them were in him formally, the other would be too’ [n.40], - the argument is not valid, but there is a fallacy of equivocation, because when the ‘to be in the Father’ is taken in the antecedent it is taken as being in a subsistent by way of presence, while in the consequent a different mode of being ‘in’ is inferred [sc. the mode by way of informing], which mode is not formally this mode [sc. the mode by way of presence], although it is presupposed to this mode of being ‘in’; hence from a mode of being ‘in’ by way of presence a mode is concluded to that is ‘in’ by way of informing [sc. which is the fallacy of equivocation].

57. To the second [n.41] I say that it is not only contrary to the part about being ‘in’ first, but also contrary to the principal conclusion [sc. about being ‘in’ simply and not first]; for it seems in creatures as impossible that the same thing should with respect to the same thing contain and be contained, or should contain by reason of the whole and be contained by reason of a part, as that the same thing should first contain and be contained. And therefore I reply to the argument and say that this mode of being ‘in’ [sc.

circumincession] does not state containment but the presence of the subsistent in the subsistent, and it has the same idea in both of them, because just as this subsistent is present to that one so that one is present to this one.