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I. To the Question
A. Opinion of Abbot Joachim against Peter Lombard
8. On this question Abbott Joachim was in error, whose argument is reported in the Decretals of Gregory IX bk.1 tit.1 ch.2, ‘On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’, “We condemn” etc 
. For he said that Master Peter [Lombard] was a heretic, because he said there was a thing in divine reality that neither produces nor is produced [I d.5 ch.1 n.54]. For Joachim made his inference from this, insinuating that Peter posited a quaternity in divine reality; for he posited three things in divine reality, a generating thing and a thing generated and a thing inspirited, - and he posited a thing neither generating nor generated nor inspirited [ibid. n.58]; therefore he posited four things.
9. Joachim, avoiding this discordant result that seemed to follow, posited that no one thing is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but he only said that the persons were one thing in the way that many faithful are said to be ‘one Church’, because of one faith and one charity; and this he proved by the saying of the Savior (John 10.30) when praying for his faithful: “that they might be one,” he says, “as we are one.” Joachim therefore inferred: since the faithful are not one by unity of nature, therefore neither is the Son one thing with the Father.
B. Against the Opinion of Abbott Joachim
10. This second thing in the opinion of Joachim is heretical, namely that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are not some one thing, because as is argued in the afore cited chapter [of the Decretals, n.8], ‘The Father by generating gave his essence to the Son’ (for he could give nothing else by which the Son would be God), and for a like reason both gave their essence to the Holy Spirit; ‘for the communication was not of part of the essence, because the essence is simple and indivisible, - therefore of the whole essence; therefore the whole same essence, which is in the Father, is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and, because of the divine simplicity, each person is that thing, and all three persons are that thing’.
11. Now as to what Joachim argued from the Gospel [n.9], it is there solved, for ‘the Savior understands in his prayer that his faithful are one in a unity proportional to themselves, just as the Father and Son are one in a unity proportional to themselves, -that is, just as the Father and Son are one in the unity of charity which is their nature, so the faithful are one in participated charity’. And this exposition is there proved by the like saying of the Savior (Matthew 5.48) saying to his disciples: “Be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” namely with essential goodness; where he did not admonish that we be perfect of ourselves naturally, as the heavenly Father is perfect of himself naturally, with a perfection essentially belonging to himself, but that we be perfect with the perfection belonging to us, namely of grace and the virtues.
C. For the Opinion of Peter Lombard
12. [As to the reality of the question] - However as to the first article [n.9], in which Joachim said that Master Peter was heretical, the Pope contradicts him [Innocent III, 4th Lateran Council, 1215AD]: “But we, with the approval of the sacred Council, believe and confess with Peter [Lombard], namely that one supreme thing is essence or divine nature, which neither generates nor is generated; yet it does not follow that there is a quaternity, because those three things - Father and Son and Holy Spirit - are that one thing.” But there cannot be a quaternity unless there is a fourth, really distinct from the first three.
13. For this opinion, then, thus solemnly approved, there is adduced this sort of reason: a generating thing generates something, and generates a really distinct thing, because “nothing generates itself so as to exist,” On the Trinity I ch.1 n.1; but essence in divine reality is altogether indistinct; therefore it is neither generating nor generated, because there is a generating by the same reason that there is a generated.
14. To this are reduced the reasons of the Master in the text, that essence ‘would be referred to itself’ and ‘would be distinguished from itself’ [I d.5 ch.1 n.55]; but a third reason is that the Father would exist formally by that by which he generates, because he is formally the very essence that is in the Son, because of the lack of distinction of the essence, - and if he were to generate it, he would not formally be it, because it would be distinct from him and posterior in origin.
15. There is added too another reason, that in creatures form does not generate nor is generated, but the composite is; now deity is disposed as form in a person; therefore it neither generates nor is generated.
This reason has less evidence here than in creatures, because in creatures form is not something per se existing so that it could be operator; but here deity, without counderstanding the personal properties, is of itself a being in act [d.4 n.11].
16. The reason is however confirmed, because operation, which belongs necessarily to a distinct operator, cannot belong to that which here exists as form, because form is per se indistinct in the three; but such operation is personal, as to generate is.
Let this be said as to the reality of this question.
17. [As to the logic of the question] - But speaking of the logic, why cannot this proposition ‘essence generates’ be true as essence supposits there for a person, just as this proposition is true ‘God generates’ because God supposits for the Father, - and yet God is not distinguished from himself, nor is God formally he who is generated although God does generate God?
18. I reply and give the following reason for the intended proposition: whenever a subject is abstracted with ultimate abstraction7 and the predicate of its idea cannot be predicated save formally, the proposition cannot be true of such terms save per se in the first mode; the subject here, namely deity or the divine essence, is abstracted with ultimate abstraction, and the predicate of its idea, namely generating, cannot be predicated save formally; therefore the proposition could not be true save per se in the first mode; but in this way it is not true, because the predicate is not per se in the understanding of the subject - “for everything that is said in relation to something is something beside the relation” (On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2), such that the relation is not within the concept of the absolute thing.
19. The major of this syllogism I declare in this way:
In the case of substances, although there can be in the same one really - even if it is simple - many substantial perfections formally distinct, and although there one formal idea could be abstracted from another, while the concretion of each formality with their own proper supposits still remains (for example, although this proposition is true ‘the intellective substance is volitional’ - where there is a concretive predication of the perfection of one substantial feature about another - yet this proposition is denied ‘the intellect is will’, because these terms signify the perfections as abstract from each other, and that according to their proper formalities; however these thus abstract terms still concern the proper supposits, because here ‘intellect’ is an intellect), yet, by taking the substance, whether simple or composite, precisely according to one formal quidditative idea, there is only abstraction from the supposit of the proper nature in common, because the substances do not naturally concern anything of another nature; therefore this first abstraction [n.20 for the second abstraction] is the greatest. For by abstracting human nature from the supposits that truly are of that nature - as humanity is abstracted when it is conceived - there does not remain any further abstraction; and this thing as thus conceived is precisely its very self, because extraneous to anything else, - as Avicenna says Metaphysics 5 ch.1 that ‘equinity is only equinity’ and nothing else.
20. But in the case of accidents, as many abstractions can be made as there can be many things they concern. Accidents indeed concern supposits of another nature, and although they are abstracted from them, yet they concern individuals of the proper nature, - just as white concerns wood, and although whiteness is abstracted from this, yet it still concerns this whiteness and that, which are its individuals. - But further, there is abstraction of quiddity from the supposit, which is the sort of abstraction said to happen in the case of substances [n.19], and we have a circumlocution for this by the fact we speak of the quiddity of whiteness8 - and this does not concern any subject whether of the same or different nature.
21. In relations too, that concern many things, there can still be many abstractions; for a relation concerns its proper individual, both foundation and subject, - and although it is abstracted from the latter yet it is not abstracted from the former.
An example. This concrete term which is ‘cause’ is said of fire, which generates heat in wood. - But, abstracting from the subject, there still remains concretion with a foundation, to wit if one say ‘the power of causing’; for heat is a power of causing heat, yet fire is not a power of causing it. - There can be still a further abstraction to the proper genus, to wit if one say ‘causality’, and then neither fire nor heat receives the predication of it; yet this causality is ‘causality which is the ultimate abstraction of the sort that is in substances’ [n.19] through the fact that we speak of ‘quiddity of causality’, and this is predicated of nothing else.
22. And, from the things thus shown or narrated, it is apparent what ultimate abstraction is, that it is ‘of the most absolute quiddity, taken from everything that is in any way outside the idea of the quiddity’,9 - and from this is apparent the first term of the major.
23. About the other term of the major, namely that the predicate ‘is of necessity formally predicated about whatever it is predicated,’ [n.18], one must note that substantives can be doubly predicated in divine reality, sometimes formally and sometimes by identity; but adjectives, if they are predicated, are of necessity formally predicated, and this because they are adjectives, - for, from the fact they are adjectives, they signify form by way of what informs; and so they are said denominatively of the subject, and consequently by way of what informs the subject, and thus they are said formally of it; of such sort are not only adjectival nouns but all participles and verbs.
24. With these things understood, the assumed major is plain, that ‘when something is abstracted with ultimate abstraction - such that it is abstracted from everything which is outside its idea - and the predicate is not predicated of it save formally, there is no true union of such extremes unless it be formal and per se in the first mode’. Because this predicate is precisely of a nature to be predicated formally, therefore truth cannot be saved by identity alone, - and because the subject is abstracted with the highest abstraction, it cannot stand for anything in any way that is other than itself but precisely for itself formally, and so it would be necessary [for truth to be saved] that its idea were precisely formally the same as the predicate, which could not be unless the idea precisely included the predicate. - The minor too [n.18] is plain, because the extreme terms ‘essence generates’ or ‘deity generates’ [n.17] are not of such a sort, because
[n.19]; nor is it thus posited that in some abstraction ‘the abstracted thing’ is not predicated of something nor something of it, because this is impossible [as stated in the previous paragraph of this note], but it is enough for the intended proposition here [n.18] that the ultimately abstracted thing -that is abstracted from everything of a different nature and from the proper supposit, but not from the singular [n.22] - that about it nothing is formally predicated unless it is predicated ‘per se in the first mode’.
So is it the case then that ‘humanity’ is animality? - No. Humanity is not the singular of animality but this animality is; but man is as it were the supposit of animal.”
‘deity’ is something abstracted with highest abstraction; but ‘generates’ is a verb, therefore it cannot be predicated save formally.10