1. First Opinion

21. About the second article [n.11] some say that since unbegotten states only a privation in the genus or only a negation, and so does not of its formal nature state any dignity nor anything pertaining to dignity, and since nothing can be posited as a property of a divine person unless it is something pertaining to dignity, therefore unbegotten must connote something positive, by reason of which connotation it is a property; now this positive thing is set down by them to be a fountain of fullness that exists in the Father alone, - in whom is all fecundity, both inwardly and outwardly.

22. But against this:

First because this fountain of fullness is not understood outwardly, because such fecundity is common to the three. But inwardly there is only in the Father a double fecundity, namely for generating and for inspiriting; but this fecundity is not any one positive thing in the Father save the essence, - but it does not connote the essence, so as for this reason to be called a property of the Father. But that this fountain of fullness is not any single positive relation in the Father is plain, because then there would be three positive relations in the Father, namely active generation and active inspiriting and the relation which by circumlocution is said to be what this ‘fountain of fullness’ of fecundity is, although it lacks a name; and then there would be six notions, which is not commonly conceded, - at any rate there are not conceded to be in the Father three relative and positive properties.

23. Further, unbegotten does not seem to connote that fountain of fullness, because it does not connote the first fecundity, - because according to Augustine On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7, “even if he had not generated, nothing would prevent him from being unbegotten;” therefore unbegotten can precede active generation. Much more too does it not connote the second fecundity, because if per impossibile there could not be a production by way of will, yet there would still be status in generation for some unbegotten person. Therefore it seems that the fountain of fullness, which states only a double fecundity, cannot be connoted by what is meant by ‘unbegotten’.

24. Third their reason [n.21] does not seem valid, because if a property of a person were to state a dignity simply, then the person that did not have it would not have every dignity simply, - which is unacceptable.