B. As to the Second Condition for Relation

12. In this way, namely that the relation requires extremes really distinct [n.6]: The thing is clear from Hilary, as said in his opposing point [n.5].

13. And from Augustine, ibid. VI ch.10 n.11: “In the Son,” he says, “is the first equality.” Which would not be true if some person could be said to be equal to himself; for then the Father would be the first equal. But because equality cannot be understood without distinction, and the first distinction is in the produced Son, so the ‘first equality’ is there in him, - taking as term or as quasi subject the equality by which the Son is equal to the Father.

14. This is also proved by the fact that the relations of origin are posited as real, and they do not pre-require a distinction of the extremes, but as it were formally cause it; for the relations in question here presuppose the distinction ‘as caused by relations of origin’, just as the common position is that they cannot burgeon in the essence unless the relations or origin are pre-existing in it [d.26 n.96]; therefore they seem more to require distinct extremes than the relations of origin, or at any rate not less.

15. And if you object that they are not of different ideas as the relations of origin are, - this is not conclusive unless because they are not distinct in species; but in the case of creatures not only are the relations of supposition and superposition real, where the extremes differ in species, - but also the common relations are real, where the extremes differ only in number; therefore a real numerical distinction in the extremes is here sufficient for the reality of the common relations, just as for the distinction of the relations of origin, which differ as it were in species.