C. As to the Third Condition for Relation

16. As to the third article [n.6] - it seems that this relation [sc. equality etc     .] is consequent to the persons from the nature of the thing, without any comparison by some extrinsic power comparing them.

For because the Father by generating communicates his essence perfectly to the Son, therefore he communicates the same infinite magnitude - as Augustine says Against Maximinus II ch.18 n.3: “If,” he says, “you say ‘the Father is by his very self greater than the Son, because he generates’, I quickly reply: no, therefore the Father is not greater than the Son, because he generates an equal.” Therefore there does not seem to be any reason why the equality of the Father with the Son should not be posited as a real relation.

17. One can speak similarly about likeness. And - just as in creatures - there is a double likeness, namely essential, according to specific difference, and accidental, according to some accidental quality. And even if the first be denied in the issue at hand (because God does not have any specific difference), yet because - if the fact ‘there is a specific difference in creatures’ were the whole essence of the individual - there would no less be a form in respect of the individual (therefore no less a relation of likeness than there is now), therefore it seems that likeness can properly be conceded there (not insofar as it is ‘what’, but insofar as it is act and quasi form, by which the persons are God), and also a likeness as to all the attributes, which are as it were properties of this nature (as Damascene says ch.4: “Things that concern the nature state the nature”): and then, just as there is from the nature of the thing a foundation of equality and a real distinction between the extremes (and this relation is without any operation of the intellect [nn.11-13, 16]), so also in the case of likeness.

18. About identity too one can say that it is taken in two ways in divine reality; in one way of the same person to himself, as the Father is the same as himself, - in another way of one person with another, as the Father is the same as the Son and conversely. About the first identity, see elsewhere [II d.1 qq.4-5 n.24].a About the second one can say - as also about the others [equality, likeness] - that it is real, because there is there a true unity from the nature of the thing and a sufficient distinction between the extremes, nor does a comparison by the intellect seem necessary for the being of this identity. And if the identity of the same supposit with itself in the case of creatures is a relation of reason only, then there is never a true and perfect identity save in God alone; for Socrates is not a perfect identity with himself, because it is a relation of reason only, - and so every such relation is in a certain respect; nor is there a perfect identity of Socrates with Plato, because it is not founded on perfect unity. But here there is a perfect identity of the Father with the Son as to foundation, because there is a perfect unity of the Father with the Son, - and a real identity, because there is a real distinction and a sufficient one between the extremes.

a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Response.

     In distinction 19 to the ultimate: it is a mark of imperfection in creatures that the foundation is distinguished; there is only required a distinction of supposits.

     There, at the bottom: the passion of the quantity of virtue as also of bulk.

     Again, here in this distinction question 1: it does not only state negation, as neither does unity of essence and the distinction of persons which it follows.

     Here in question 2: the respect formally in its reason, causally and of the person and unity of essence, - just as in creatures there is a respect of the supposit to supposit according to one form.

     But what he [Bonaventure] does not understand, that they are distinct in reason, is not only proved in 19 (‘passion’) and in the first question here (‘it follows’), but because he never adds the distracting thing (in distinction 30, ‘About the relation of God to the creature’).