1. A Double Understanding of the Question is Possible

51. To the question, therefore, I say that there is a double understanding of the question:

One is: if the supposition is made that the perfection of essence is one thing and the perfection of power another, which of these is beatitude principally? And in this way does the aforesaid opinion [of Henry, nn.23-24] seem to say that the in-flowing that is in the essence as it is essence (which is prior in a way to the operation that is the perfection of power) is beatitude principally.

52. According to this understanding I say that beatitude does not consist principally in the essence, because nothing that perfects essence, as it is essence distinct in whatever way from power, can be other than first act, and perhaps not a habit. Now nothing such can be beatitude principally; indeed that ‘beatitude exists without operation’ includes a contradiction, but that ‘first act is without any second act whatever’ does not.

53. The other understanding of the question can be of this sort:

By positing that the perfection is the same and unique for the essence and power (wherein unique beatitude consists), does that unique beatitude perfect the essence more principally than the power?

54. And in the first understanding [nn.51-52] there is a comparison of two perfections perfecting the essence and the power - which of them is more principal?

55. In the second understanding [n.53] there is a comparison of the same perfection to two receptive subjects - which of them is more principally perfected by that perfection?

56. In this second understanding it would seem that diverse answers must be given according to diverse opinions about powers. Because if the powers be posited to be accidents, since that is ‘more principal’ by which something else is and not conversely, and since the ‘by which’ can be taken equivocally for prior and more remote cause or for posterior and more immediate cause - in the first way the essence is more principally perfected by any power whatever; in the second way not so, because the essence is the more remote cause with respect to anything of which the power is cause, but the power is the nearer cause.