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Single Question. Whether the Son is generated from the substance of the Father
46. Second a question is raised about the second part of the fifth distinction, whether the Son is generated from the substance of the Father.
That he is not:
Because On the Trinity VII ch.6 n.11: “We do not say three persons out of the same substance;” but substance seems to be disposed uniformly to any of the persons; therefore no person is from the substance.
47. Again, the construal of something with the genitive does not indicate a greater distinction of construable parts than does a preposition with its own case when it is added to the same construable; therefore no greater distinction is indicated in ‘the Son is of the essence of the Father’ than in ‘the Son is from the essence of the Father’; but it is not conceded that ‘the Son is of the essence of the Father’ [n.43], because then the essence of the Father would generate the Son.
48. Again, when the Son is said to be from the substance of the Father, either the ‘from’ indicates a distinction or it does not; if it does the proposition is false, because essence is not really distinguished from the Son; if it does not, then this proposition is true ‘the Father is from the essence of the Son or from the essence of the Father’, which is not conceded.
49. To the opposite:
Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.19 n.37 treating the saying in Colossians 1.13 ‘he has translated us to the kingdom of the Son of his charity’ says: “what is called ‘Son of his charity’ is nothing other than Son of his substance;” therefore the Son is from the substance of the Father.
50. Further, there is for this the authority of Augustine Against Maximinus II ch.14 n.2, and it is in the text: “In no way are you thinking of the true Son of God if you deny that he is from the substance of the Father.”
51. Again, a son in creatures is only he who is generated from the substance of the father; for that is why there is in inanimate things no paternity and no filiation, because they generate from foreign matter, - just as fire generates fire from the matter of air; therefore there is no true filiation save where the substance of the father, or something of the substance of the father, is the matter with respect to the son.
I. The Opinion of Others19
52. On this question it is said that, just as in created generable substance there is something potential, presupposed to generation, as matter, - and something introduced by generation, as form, - and something from these the product, which is generated, so proportionally in divine reality there correspond as it were three similar things; the person to be sure is the quasi-composite, and relation the quasi-form, and essence the quasimatter. Therefore the Son is generated from the substance of the Father as from quasimatter.
53. This is proved by the reason of Augustine Against Maximinus, which is placed in the text [of Lombard I d.5 ch.1 n.63: “but it is none of these; therefore it is born either from nothing or from some substance”]. For the Son is in no way from nothing, whether negatively, as when someone says he is speaking ‘of nothing’ when he is not speaking, or whether by affirming the ‘from’ so as to make it a mark of materiality or quasimateriality, because nothing cannot be the matter of anything, or whether by affirming the ‘from’ by way of origin or order, that is in the sense of after nothing. Which three ways of understanding ‘something is from nothing’ are put down by Anselm Monologion ch.8. If the Son is in no way from nothing, therefore from something; therefore since not from anything other than the substance of the Father, then plainly he is from the substance of the Father.
54. And if one respond as the Master seems to respond in the text, that he is from the substance of the Father, that is, from the Father, who is substance, - the argument is that this response is not sufficient, because it only expounds the ‘from’ as it indicates the idea of originating or efficient principle; and once posited that he is in this way from the Father, the question still remains whether he is from something or from nothing as from matter or quasi-matter, and since he is not from nothing (because in this way the creature is from nothing), therefore from something, and the argument [n.53] stands.
55. For this [n.52] there is also adduced the authority of Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.2 n.3, that the Son is ‘born Wisdom’.
56. If one argue against this opinion [n.52] that ‘pure act cannot be quasi-matter in respect of generation, because it is in no way in potency’, and further, by the reason of the Master, ‘since there is one essence of three persons, the Son is generated from the essence of the three’, - the response to the first is by saying that20 “something is in potency to something which is absolute, and it differs from it in reality or in intention, and it goes from potency to act by a change and transmutation of the thing or the idea; in another way something is in potency to something which is a respect only, and it differs from it only in idea, never going through any transmutation from potency to act, and always naturally conjoined with act. In the first way, in creatures, matter is in potency to form as to something differing really from it, and it passes from potency to act by a real transmutation in the matter, - and likewise, the form of the genus is in potency to the form of the difference as to something different in intention from it, and it passes from potency to act by change of idea; in no such way [the first] is the divine essence in potency to anything, and it is about potency in this sense that the middle term in the argument is true, because this potency is repugnant to pure act. Things are not like this of potency in the second way, because it is from the nature of the divine form insofar as it is pure act; it is also the case that - in the second way - it is in potency to several respects.”
57. “Divine production, therefore, differs supremely from natural production, because in the latter there is a going through transmutation to perfection and the potency stands apart from act, but in the former not at all so. But the former differs specifically from the natural production which is generation, because the latter is from what is imperfect in substance, but the former is from perfect substance, wherein there is more agreement with the production that is alteration, because in this the subject - which is in potency ‘in a certain respect’ - is something existing in act; but it differs in this respect that the subject in the case of alteration is in potency to something absolute, really differing from it, but in divine production not at all so, - and in this regard divine production agrees more with the production of the species from the genus (but it differs), because in the case of this production the genus is as the subject and matter and it is in potency to something absolute, as to the difference, which however differs from it only in intention; but in divine production the subject is in potency to something respective, which differs from it only in idea; and so, although the production of the species from the genus is more like divine production than any other one is, yet it differs in many respects, because the production of the species from the genus proceeds from incomplete being to complete being, taking up the determination of the complement through the difference, so that according to this and that really different thing it descend to this and that different species and is in idea only one common thing. But in divine production the subject is not something incomplete, determined by the assumption of a property, but one and the same singular being has being totally - through production - in diverse relative properties, which is something common not in idea but in communication.”
58. To the second [n.56] it is said that the Son is not from the substance insofar as it is the substance of the three, but as it is the substance of the Father.
59. To this opinion [n.52] there is added by others [following Henry] that the divine essence is said to be generated subjectively. For what is subjected to generation can be said to be subjectively generated, from the Philosopher Physics 5.1.225a25-27, where he argues that generation is not motion through this argument: ‘what is moved is; what is generated is not; therefore what is generated is not moved’. He takes ‘what is moved’ for the subject of motion, not for the term, because while it is motion it is not the term. But if he were to take ‘what is generated’ for the term of generation, not for the subject, the argument would not be valid, because the term is not motion; therefore he must be taking ‘what is generated’ there for that which is subject to generation. This is also proved by the Commentator, at the same place, com.8-9.
60. For this opinion these sort of reasons are adduced:
That is said to be truly subjectively generated, or to be the subject of generation, which remains the same under each term of the generation; but the divine essence remains the same in the Father and the Son; therefore it will truly be the subject of generation.
61. A confirmation of the reason is that transmutation and the term are in the same thing as the disposition and the form to which the disposition disposes; therefore since in the essence there is relation, which is the quasi-term of generation, there will be in it generation itself.
62. Further, to every active power there corresponds some passive power; therefore to the fecundity of the quasi-active Father there will correspond some quasipassive power, from which it can produce.
63. Finally there is an argument like this: if fire were to generate fire from its own substance, the substance of the fire generating would still thus be in potency to the form of the fire to be generated, just as now there is foreign matter from which it generates. So it is in the proposed case, the essence of the Father - from which the Father generates -will be the quasi-matter with respect to generation.
64. [Rejection of the opinion] - I argue against this opinion [n.52].
First in this way: essence is the formal term of the production and of the generation of the Son, therefore it is not quasi-matter.
Proof of the antecedent:
65. John 10.29: “What the Father gave me is greater than all things;” something ‘greater than all things’ is only something infinite; this is only essence, - so he gave essence.
66. This is also the intention of Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.26 n.47: “Just as generation bestows nature on the Son without beginning, so procession from both also bestows essence on the Holy Spirit without beginning.” But it is not conceded that any form was given or communicated by production or bestowed by generation unless the communicated form is the formal term of the production.
67. The antecedent is also proved in another way [n.64]:
First, because no formally univocal entity, being simply more perfect than the formal term, is attained through production; the essence is formally infinite, the relation is not; therefore if the relation were the formal term of production, the person would not have the essence by production.
68. Second, because in creatures nature is the formal term of production, but the individual or hypostatic property is not, - as is plain in Physics 2.1.193b12-13, where it is held that generation is natural, or is called nature, because it is “the way to nature” [n.28].21
69. Similarly: otherwise [sc. if essence were not the formal term] this production would not be generation, but rather it would be a change to relation, because production is put in a genus or species from its formal term, as is plain from the Philosopher Physics 5.1.224b6-8, - as alteration is put in the genus of quality, because quality is there the form which is the formal term of alteration; 
therefore if the formal term of this sort of production were relation, this production would be put in the genus of relation, and it would not be generation.
70. Proof of the consequence of the first enthymeme [n.64]:
First, because that which is matter in generation is in potency to the formal term, - and what is quasi-matter is quasi in potency; essence is neither truly nor quasi in potency to itself; therefore etc 
.
71. Likewise, the same consequence is proved because one person has essence in only one mode of having, or at any rate does not have it in these two modes - as formal term of production and, along with this, as quasi-matter and subject of generation. The proof of this is that, if by force of production, it had essence as formal term, it would have it when everything else is removed; therefore it would not have it as quasi-matter subject to generation; for it does not have essence in any way such that, with that way removed, it would have it perfectly and would be true God. The consequence also seems to be that it would have essence twice, and it would naturally have it before it has it, if the idea of quasi-matter in some way precedes the formal idea of the term of generation.
72. Again, second to the principal [n.52]:22 to the essence, as from it the Son is generated, some being must be assigned, because to be principle of some true being - in whatever genus of principle - does not belong to anything save to a real being.
73. I ask therefore what being belongs to the essence as it is that from which the Son by impression is generated; either it is precisely being for itself, which is of essence as essence, - and then the Son is from the essence as essence, and essence in this way is of the three persons; or being in some subsistence belongs to it. And then I ask, in which? Either in ungenerated subsistence, - and if so, since in the understanding of that which is ‘being from which something is produced’ there is included that which is ‘being that in which form is introduced’, and in the understanding of that which is ‘being in which’ is included ‘having that which is in it’ and consequently ‘being formally through it’, -therefore if the essence as it is in the Father is that from which the Son is generated (and by impression, according to them) it follows that essence as it is in the Father will be that in which generated knowledge is imprinted, and so essence as it is in the Father will be formally the Word or generated knowledge knowing, which is discordant [sc. for the Word would not then be of the Father; I d.2 nn.273-280]; but if essence, as it is a subsistence other than the Father, is that from which the Son is generated and in some way precedes, ‘insofar as it is that from which’, the term of generation, then before the term of generation there are two subsistences, which is discordant.
74. If essence ‘insofar as it is that from which the Son is generated’ has no existence in a person, just as matter too ‘insofar as it is that from which the generated is generated’ does not have being in any supposit but only has being in potency in the supposit to be generated, - this is worthless, because, as was said, to what is really principle of some being, in whatever genus of principle, there must be attributed some real being [n.72]; and so to matter as it is principle of the composite, although there does not belong to it the being of the composite that exists by participating it, yet there does belong to it its own proper being, which naturally is before it is part of the composite. So here, then, there must be given to the essence ‘insofar as it is that from which the Son is generated’ either being in a supposit or the being of essence in itself, and the argument stands [n.73].
75 If it be said in another way that ‘insofar as it is of the Father’ it is that from which the Son is generated, and yet by generation, namely insofar as generated knowledge is actually formed, it is actually of another supposit, - this has been rejected in the argument, because in the understanding of that which is ‘to be from which’ by impression there is included ‘to be in which’, and so to be formally such according to the thing impressed; likewise, in that case the communication of essence to another supposit would, in understanding, precede the production, such that the communication would not happen by production but would as it were happen before the term of production, - just as that which is the quasi-matter of generation is pre-understood in some way to its term; likewise, although something which is from itself not of some supposit in act may come by generation to be actually of some supposit, - just as matter which is not of some supposit may come to be of some supposit, - yet that that which is of one supposit should come to be of another supposit precisely by that which is matter seems impossible without any action which is directed to the matter.
76. Further, third: when the active and passive element come together in the production of an effect, the respect of the active to the passive is naturally prior to the respect of either to the product.
77. Proof, because diverse causes of the same thing must be naturally brought into proximity with each other before they produce the effect, - and it is plain from the example of heating fire and heatable wood and generated heat.
78. Again, these respects, namely of the active to the passive and of the active to the product, do not belong altogether equally to the active element, - and the respect to the product is not prior; therefore it is posterior. The antecedent of this enthymeme, as to each part, is proved thus, - because the active acts on the passive by itself alone by reason of cause; and if you altogether deny the priority of respect to respect, you cannot deny that necessarily the respect of the active to the passive is not posterior to the respect of each to the product.
79. Therefore if in the Father there is active fecundity and some quasi-matter that come together for the product, the respect of the Father as productive for that quasimatter is prior to the respect of each of them to the Son, or at any rate it will be necessarily concomitant; and from this further: since the thing does not naturally prerequire - nor does it necessarily require at the same time - that which is precisely a being of reason, it follows that the naturally pre-required relation of the quasi-active element to the passive be real, and so in the Father there will be a real relation to something in himself, prior to his relation to the Son, or at least different from it, which seems discordant.
80. Again, fourth: the first power that is effectively causative causes by itself alone, excluding every other cause - both of the same genus and of a different genus - in idea of material cause.
81. And the reason is that material causality does not state perfection simply; and therefore, although a reduction be made to something first in that genus, yet that something is not simply first, but the whole genus is reduced to something first in another genus, which something does not include imperfection, - to wit to something first in the genus of efficient cause. This antecedent [n.80] is also plain by the fact that creative power per se, without any material principle as the ‘in which’, produces the product.
82. From this is inferred by similarity that the first productive power produces by itself alone, and without any other productive principle concurring, and without any quasi-matter; for the reason seems similar about the productive and causative principle, that if some quasi-material principle were posited, it would not be - insofar as it is such -of supreme perfection, and so it would seem to be needing to be reduced, in idea of principle, to an actively productive principle.
83. Again, fifth, Augustine Against Maximinus II ch.14 says: “the Holy Spirit is not from any matter, nor from nothing, but he is thence whence he proceeds;” so Augustine concedes, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is not from nothing but from the substance of the Father and the Son, just as he concedes that the Son is from the substance of the Father.
84. And this is proved by reason, that in a similar way the relation of the Holy Spirit is in deity as is the relation of the Son; but the essence is not disposed in respect of the Holy Spirit as matter receptive of him according to that opinion - as it seems -, because it posits that the Word is generated by impression on that from which it is generated, but that the Holy Spirit is produced as by expression, or exhalation of itself, from the formed will from which it is produced. But what is produced by expulsion or expression from some ‘from which’ does not have that ‘from which’ as the matter in its production, because all matter - of the production and of the product - is that in which the form of the product is received, which is not by expulsion from it. The Holy Spirit therefore is not from nothing, nor yet from the quasi-matter of its production.
85. Therefore, because of the fact that the Son is not from nothing, or that his relation is founded in the essence, - the essence as ‘that from which the Son is generated’ should not be matter with respect to the generation of the Son [nn.52-53].
86. Again, to the same [i.e. the principal issue, Henry’s opinion, n.52]:
That the Son is from the substance of the Father is necessarily required for this generation, as to the real existence of generation; but for that existence it is not necessarily required that the substance of the Father be quasi-matter; therefore etc .
87. The major is plain from Augustine Against Maximinus [ibid.]: “In no way are you thinking of the true Son of God if you deny that he is from the substance of the Father [n.50].” The minor is plain, - no being of reason is precisely, necessarily required for this generation as it is existent [n.79]; that the substance of the Father is matter states precisely a being of reason about the substance, otherwise, with the activity of our intellect removed, he will be of himself quasi-matter, or matter really, or a real likeness to matter.
88. Again, to the [divine] essence belongs nothing in which matter is distinguished from form, but whatever belongs to it is either proper to the form or common [sc. to both matter and form]; therefore it is in no respect quasi-matter in the way it is quasi-form.
89. The antecedent is plain, because to be the same thing in generator and generated is not proper to matter; nay rather the soul [sc. which is form of the body] is the same in the heart generating as in a part generated [n.135], - matter never, in the case of the creature, because it is sufficiently actuated by the single form; in propagation, the matter of the generated was something, but it was not the matter under the form of the propagator; there is a deception here in the remark [from Henry] ‘because there is the same matter of the thing corrupted and the thing generated’ - as if therefore it was the same in the generator and the generated.
90. Again, things simply incompossible cannot be the act of something simply the same; however the ‘same’ can well be the act of incompossibles, as the soul is of the organic parts [n.133].
91. Again, the composite is constituted by the fact that the potential is actuated and determined by the act of the composite; therefore the essence will be referred and determined [sc. to and by something else]. There is a confirmation: just as quality is not act save as the thing actuated is qualified, so the relation of anything is not actuated save as it is referred [to something]. Essence is not referred [to something].
92. Again, another reason - which is in the third doubt at the end [n.137] - that the supposit would be said to be a related thing according to its foundation. - An instance [of Henry against this]: ‘the Father is like the Son in deity’. However, this relation is not the act of the foundation as the relation is formally distinct from the foundation, according to you [sc. Henry].
II. Scotus’ own Response to the Question
A. The Son is not Generated from the Substance of the Father as from Matter or Quasimatter
93. Therefore by holding with the ancient doctors - because they all from the time of Augustine up to the present did not dare to speak of matter or quasi-matter in divine reality, although all said in agreement with Augustine that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father - I say that the Son is not generated from the substance of the Father as from matter or quasi-matter.
94. And this can be made clear as follows:
Generation in the creature states two things, change and production; the formal ideas of these are different and separable from each other without contradiction.
95. For production is formally of the product itself, and it is accidental to it that it is done with change of some composite part, as is plain in creation [sc. where there is production but not change]; change is formally the act of ‘the changeable’, which passes from privation. But change accompanies production in creatures because of the imperfection of the productive power, which cannot give total being to the term of the production, but something of it that is presupposed is changed to another part of it and thus it produces the composite. Therefore they can without contradiction be separated, and they really are separated in comparison to a perfect productive power.
96. This is also plain in creation, where, because of the perfection of the productive power setting it first in total being, there is truly the idea of production, insofar as through it the produced term receives being, - but there is not there the idea of change, insofar as change states that some substrate ‘is otherwise disposed than it was before’, Physics 6.3-4.234b5-7, 10-13. For in creation there is no substrate.
97. To the proposed case. Since in divine reality nothing of imperfection is to be posited but the whole of perfection, and since change in its idea states imperfection, because it states potentiality, and that in a changeable thing, - and concomitantly too it states imperfection of the active power in the changer, because such a changer necessarily requires a cause causing along with it so that it may produce (but no imperfection happens in divine reality, neither of the sort that is in the passive power nor any imperfection either of the active power, but supreme perfection), - in no way would generation be posited there under the idea of change or of quasi-change, but in divine reality would be posited only generation as it is production, namely insofar as something by it gets being. And therefore generation as it is in divine reality is without matter, - and therefore to generation as it is in divine reality there is not assigned matter or quasimatter, but only the term; and this either total as first term, that is the adequate term -namely which is first produced in being [n.27] - or formal term, according to which the first term formally receives being [n.28].
B. The Son is truly from the Substance of the Father
98. Second I say [n.93] that when all materiality and quasi-materiality have been denied, the Son is yet truly ‘from the substance of the Father’, as the authorities [Augustine, Hilary] adduced in the text [of Lombard] say.
99. Here by the ‘from’ is not indicated only efficient causality or origination [n.54], because if it were efficient causality alone then creatures would be from the substance of God, - nor is indicated by the ‘from’ only consubstantiality, because then the Father would be from the substance of the Son, - but there is indicated origination and consubstantiality at the same time; namely so that in the [ablative] case, governed by the preposition ‘from’, consubstantiality is indicated, so that the Son has the same substance and quasi-form together with the Father, from whom he is by way of origin, -and by what is construed in the genitive case [‘of the Father’] with this prepositional clause the originating principle is indicated; so that the total understanding of this phrase ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ is this: the Son is originated by the Father as consubstantial with him.
100. And in this way the Master [Lombard] expounds the authorities adduced in the text, - not precisely by consubstantiality, nor precisely by origination, but by both, as is generally apparent. “From the substance of the Father, that is, from the Father, who is the same substance [n.54]” - by the first point origination is held to, by the second consubstantiality.
101. And that this is the intention of Augustine in his authorities Against Maximinus [n.53] that are put in the text, is apparent from the point of the authorities, -for in one authority Augustine sets down: “If you do not find another substance, recognize the substance of the Father, and confess the Son is homoousion (Greek: ‘of the same substance’) with the Father;” from this then he understood by ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ that the Son is so from the Father that he is homoousion with the Father. Again, in the other authority he says: “But if he is from the substance of the Father, then there is the same substance of Father and Son.”
102. But to understand this affirmative proposition by which it is said that ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’ [n.98], according to the aforesaid understanding [n.101], I say that that understanding truly saves the fact that the Son is not from nothing, - it also truly saves the fact that the Son is ‘from’ in the way required for filiation.
103. I clarify the first point, because a ‘generated creature’ is not from nothing, because something of it pre-existed as matter. Therefore since the form is something of the composite, and something of it more perfect than matter, if the form of something pre-existed and matter came to it de novo and was informed by the already pre-existing form, the product itself would not be from nothing, because something of it would have pre-existed, nay something of it more perfect than the matter which commonly pre-exists. Therefore if the Son would not be said to be from nothing ‘because his essence according to order of origin pre-existed in the Father’, and this too if the essence were the quasimatter of the generation of the Son, much more will the Son not be from nothing if the essence ‘existing in the Father first by origin’ is the quasi-form communicated to the Son.
104. I clarify the second point [n.102] in this way, namely that the ‘from’ suffices for the idea of filiation, because in animate things, where paternity and filiation exist, we may see what the act is by which the generator is said to be formally ‘father’. It is namely the act of depositing semen, and if it were a perfect agent, so that now, when it deposits semen, it could immediately deposit the offspring, it would be truly father and much more perfectly than is now the case when so many intermediate changes are required; but now, in the act of depositing semen, that which was the substance of it, or in some way something of it, is not matter, but is as it were the formal term, communicated or produced through the act, just as the offspring would be if it were immediately deposited by the father; therefore because something of the substance of the generator is the term of its act, by which it is father, this truly saves the fact that a product alike in nature ‘is from the substance of it’, so that the ‘from’ truly suffices for the idea of father and son, - and as to the thing ‘deposited as term’ being the matter of subsequent changes, this happens to the ‘from’ as it belongs to father and son.
105. Therefore the eternal Father, not depositing some part of himself but communicating his whole essence, and this as formal term of the production, most truly produces the Son from himself, in the way in which ‘from’ pertains to father and son; and although the essence be there the ‘from which’ as from quasi-matter, the ‘from’ would not do anything for the idea of father, - just as neither in creatures, if the generator had its semen both for the formal term and for the matter of its action, the father would not be ‘father’ insofar as his semen was the matter subject to his action, but insofar as it was the term of the action, in the way too that, if the created father deposited a son from himself, he would be truly father, because that which would be from him would be the term of the action, but in no way the matter.
C. How Relation and Essence can exist in the Same Person
106. Third principally, to the solution of the difficulty of this question, one must see how relation and essence can exist in the same person without the essence being material with respect to the relation, since no relation is material with respect to it.
107. And there are four difficulties.
[Difficulty 1] - First, in what way the divine person is one without the former [relation] being act and the latter [essence] potency.
108. To this I say as follows:
First, created quiddity is that in which something is a being quidditatively, and this is not a mark of imperfection; for it belongs to quiddity from the idea of quiddity.
109. Created quiddity, however, for example humanity, because it is of imperfect actuality, is therefore divisible by that which contracts it to an individual, namely by the individual property - whatever it be, let it be a - and it receives from a some actuality (whether also unity or also individuality), which it has in the individual and does not have from itself, so that the contracting thing (as a) is in Socrates not only that ‘by which Socrates is formally Socrates’, but is formal in some way with respect to the nature, and the nature is in some way potency with respect to it; hence, secondly, the nature is contracted and determined by that very a.
110. And third; but humanity in Socrates is some act, and precisely by taking humanity and by distinguishing a from it, humanity is a more perfect act than is a itself, although a is a more proper act and in some way the act of nature insofar as it determines nature.
111. When applying these three things [nn.108-110] to divine reality, let that be left behind which belongs to imperfection.
112. As to the first point [n.108]. Deity is of itself that by which God is God, and also that by which the subsistent thing ‘whose property is a’ is formally God, because to be ‘by this’ in this way is not a feature of imperfection in the creature, but belongs to quiddity whence it is quiddity.
113. As to the second point [n.109]. There is a dissimilarity, because deity itself is not determined or contracted by the personal property, nor in any way actuated by it, because this was a feature of imperfection and of potentiality in created nature; likewise, deity is of itself a ‘this’, and thus, just as it has ultimate unity of itself, so it has actuality too. The personal property therefore is the proper act of the person such that it is yet not an act of the divine nature itself in any way perfecting or informing it.
114. As to the third point [n.110]. There is in some way a similarity, because although relation is the proper act of the person, and essence is not the proper act but an act of the person, yet the essence is formally infinite act; but the relation is not of its formal idea infinite act.
115. But how can these two acts come together to constitute one thing, if neither is the act of the other? For one must be in the other, because if not then each is per se subsistent, and thus they will not be in the same per se subsistent thing; likewise, the unity of things distinct in any way at all does not seem, according to Aristotle [Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7-10, 23-25], to exist except by reason of act and potency.
116. I reply. The unity of the composite is necessarily by reason of act and potency, as is assigned by the Philosopher, ibid. and 7.13.1039a4-5. But the person in divine reality is not composite, nor quasi-composite, but simple, - and as truly simple as the essence itself considered in itself, having no composition nor quasi-composition in reality; and yet the formal idea of the divine essence is not the formal idea of relation, nor conversely, as was said above [I d.2 nn.388-395, 403-406].
117. But how it stands that the idea of relation in the thing is not formally the same as the idea of the essence and yet, when they come together in the same thing, they do not constitute a composite, - the reason for this is that the former idea is perfectly the same as the latter; for because of the infinity of the one idea [sc. of the essence, nn.67, 114, 127], whatever can exist along with it is perfectly the same as it. Therefore the perfection of identity excludes all composition and quasi-composition, which identity exists because of the infinity, - and yet infinity does not take away from the formal ideas that the one is not formally the other.
118. So there is no quasi-composite made from them. And therefore nothing from them is as composite of act and potency, but there is from them one most simple thing, because one idea is perfectly - nay most perfectly - the same as the other, and yet is not formally the same; for this does not follow ‘they are perfectly the same even by identity of simplicity, therefore they are formally the same’, as was touched on about identity in the pre-cited question [in n.116], and as will be touched on below in distinction 8 [nn.209, 217]. And the same perfect identity excludes all aggregation, because the same thing is not aggregated with itself.23
119. And as to what is added that ‘one must be in the other’ [n.115], I concede that the relation is in the foundation or the root, but this is not as act is in potency but as identically contained in the infinite sea [sc. the divine essence, n.131].
120. In another way [sc. to the issue in n.119] it can be said that all these propositions are true, ‘deity is in the Father, paternity is in the Father’, ‘the Father is in deity or in the divine nature, paternity is in deity’, and yet no ‘in’ there is as act in potency.
121. For the first proposition is true as nature is in the supposit, having quidditative ‘being’ by it (because this belongs to quiddity whence it is quiddity [n.112]), but not for this reason is it a form informing the supposit, even in the case of creatures [nn.132, 138].
122. The second [n.120] is true as the hypostatic form is in the hypostasis, - but it does not inform it; for as well the quiddity as the hypostatic form, even in the case of creatures, although it is the form of the supposit, yet is not an informing form, but is there [in creatures] as a part [sc. as Socrateity-humanity is in Socrates], while here it is as one formal idea concurring with another [sc. as paternity-deity], formally, to the same simple thing that yet has in it several formal ideas.
123. The third [n.120] is true as the supposit in the nature, - plainly not as informing it [n.147].
124. The fourth [n.120] is true in the same way of ‘in’ [sc. the same as in in.123], because in the way a whole is first in something, in the same way the part is per se but not first in the same thing, - it is plain about being in place; therefore if the Father is first in nature, as the supposit of nature, paternity ‘will be per se in the same nature’ in the same way of being ‘in’, although not first.
125. In addition to this, the prior response [n.119] gives the manner of ‘in’ -which is that of relation in the foundation - which is not reduced to the being of form in matter save where the foundation is limited, in that it does not have the relation perfectly identically in itself.
126. [Difficulty 2] - The second difficulty is how relation can distinguish the person and not distinguish the essence without the relation having the idea of act, -because it belongs to act to distinguish, Metaphysics 7.13.1039a7.
127. I reply. I concede that relation is a personal act, not a quidditative act, -because it distinguishes personally and not quidditatively. But the essence is quidditative act and distinguishes quidditatively; but the quidditative act is simply perfect, because infinite, - but the personal act is not thus of itself formally infinite.
128. And if you say that ‘the distinguishing act is an act of what does not distinguish’, it is false, unless what does not distinguish is distinguished by a distinguishing act, as it is in creatures; humanity is distinguished in Socrates and Plato by a and b, and therefore the distinguishing act there - even distinguishing individually - is an act of what does not distinguish, because the distinguishing act distinguishes the nature itself, which does not distinguish. It is not so here [sc. in divine reality], because the personal property does not distinguish the essence, nor does it contract or determine it.
129. [Difficulty 3] - The third difficulty is how a relation can exist without requiring the proper idea of foundation. For the foundation seems to be prior to the relation and is as it were perfectible by it, and not conversely; for a relation does not seem to be perfected by its foundation, because then it would be presupposed to its foundation. Therefore since the essence is the foundation of these relations, it seems to be quasimatter.
130. I reply. In the case of creatures the order of generation and the order of perfection are contraries, as is clear from Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, because “things that are prior in generation are posterior in perfection;” and the reason is that creatures proceed from potency to act, and so from the imperfect to the perfect, - and therefore by way of generation the imperfect is reached before the perfect is. But, when going to what is simply first, it must be the case that the ‘same thing’ is simply first both in origin and in perfection (even according to the Philosopher, ibid.), because the whole order of generation is reduced to some first thing of perfection, as to the first thing of the whole origin. In divine reality, therefore, the order of generation and the order of perfection must be understood together.
131. Just as in creatures, then, if those two orders were always uniformly to come together, we would not seek first for the matter which underlies the form and then, second, for the form, but we would seek first for the form which would be of a nature to give act to the matter, and second we would seek for the matter which would be of a nature to receive being through that form, or the supposit which is of a nature to subsist through that form, - so it is in divine reality. Beginning from the first moment of nature, altogether first arises divine nature as it is being through itself and from itself, which does not belong to any created nature, because no created nature has being naturally before it is in a supposit. But this essence - according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.6 n.11 -is that by which the Father is and that by which the Son is, although it is not that by which the Father is Father and the Son is Son. To this essence, then, considered in the most abstract way, as prior to all the personal features, there belongs being through itself, and in this first moment it arises not as something receptive of some perfection, but as infinite perfection, able indeed in the second moment of nature to be communicated to another; not communicated to matter as an informing form, but to supposit as quiddity, as to what exists formally through it. And thus do the relations - as some say - ‘sprout up’ from it and the persons ‘sprout up’ in it; not as certain quasi-forms, giving being to it, or as certain quasi-supposits, in which it receives the being which simply belongs to it, but as supposits to which it gives ‘being’ as that by which they are formally supposits, and by which they are God; and so the sprouting relation - if it is per se subsistent - sprouts up, not as form of the essence, but as naturally being God by the very deity formally, although not by deity as informing, but as existing the same with it, in the most perfect identity; but, conversely, in no way is the relation of the essence as being that by which essence is formally determined or contracted or in any way actuated by it, because all these thing are repugnant to the infinity of essence as it first occurs under the idea of infinite act.
132. I concede then that essence is the foundation of these relations [n.129], but not a foundation quasi-potential receiving them, but foundation as by way of form, in which those forms are born and are to subsist, - not indeed by informing, as likeness does in whiteness, - but as the subsistent is said to exist in the nature, as Socrates is said to subsist in humanity, because ‘Socrates is a man by humanity’. You will not then have from the idea of foundation the idea of potency or quasi-potentiality in the divine essence, but you will have precisely the idea of form - as that by which the relation founded in it simply is God.
133. An example of this can be taken in the case of creatures by positing there a certain ‘per impossibile’. Increase happens now by the fact that food coming to the body is corrupted, and its matter receives the form of flesh, and is thus informed by the soul. Let it be posited that, while the same matter remains, it is of a nature to receive some part of the form [sc. of flesh] (as is posited in the case of rarefaction); the matter remains one, which was formed before and now is formed with a new form, - it itself however is formally truly changed, because it passes from privation to form. - Let us posit, on the other side, that the same soul would perfect first one part of the body (as the heart), but after another part of the organic body arrives, perfectible by the soul, the soul would perfect the part that de novo arrives, - and the soul itself would yet not be changed, because there would not be in it first privation and later form. For privation is a lack in that which is naturally apt to receive [what is lacked]; but the soul, first non-informing and later informing, is not of a nature to receive anything but to give something.
134. In each of these extremes there is truly production of some product, but in the first there is change and not in the second.
135. The example will seem more apt if we posit that the matter of the animated heart is able to be communicated the same to diverse forms - as of the hand and foot -and this by the active virtue of the animated heart producing those composites from its own communicated matter and from those forms; this would truly be production of all the things having the same matter, and it would go along with change of that matter; but if, on the other side, we posit that the soul - because of its lack of limitation in idea of act and form - can be communicated to many things and, by virtue of the soul in the heart, is communicated to hand and foot, produced by the animated heart, this would truly be production of many things consubstantial in form, without change of that form.
136. In each example [nn.133, 135] let the products be posited to be per se subsistents, not parts of the same thing, because to be a part belongs to imperfection. With this posited, the second mode in each example, which is about the communication of form to the product, perfectly represents production in God, but not the first, which is about the communication of matter, - and this while still adding to the position that the soul in the heart and hand and foot is not the informing form, because being composable involves imperfection, but is the total form by which they are subsistent and are animated; so that deity is not understood to be communicated to quasi-matter; rather, to subsistent relations - if the persons are posited relatively - deity is communicated by way of form, not informing form, but form by which the relation or the subsisting relative is God.
137. And the essence does not therefore inform the relation, nor conversely, but there is perfect identity. - But essence has the mode of form with respect to relation, just like nature with respect to the supposit, insofar as it is that by which the subsisting relation is God. Conversely, however, in no way is the relation an act of the essence, because just as relation (says Damascene On the Orthodox Faith ch.50) ‘does not determine the nature but the hypostasis’, so it is not an act of nature but of the hypostasis; likewise, when relation informs the foundation, the supposit is said to be related per se in the second mode according to that foundation, just as Socrates is alike in whiteness or by whiteness; but the Father is not Father by deity, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.9, - therefore there is not here such a mode of relation to the foundation as there is in other things, because here the foundation is not actuated through the relation, but the relation is only the act of the supposit or is the supposit.
138. I say briefly that relation and essence are in the person such that neither of them is form informing the other, but they are perfectly the same, although not formally. But as they are not formally the same, the relation in no way perfects the essence, nor is it the formal term received in the essence, but the essence in this way is the form of the relation, because it is that by which the relation is and is likewise God, - and also, the essence is the formal term of generation [n.64], just as in creatures nature is the formal term of generation but not an individual act.
139. [Difficulty 4] - Against this it is objected that ‘the formal term of generation is communicated, therefore it presupposes that to which it is communicated; but the essence does not presuppose relation but conversely, therefore essence is not communicated to relation [from Henry]’, - and it can be the fourth difficulty; because something is communicated there, and it will be the formal term, and it will presuppose that to which it is communicated; but essence cannot presuppose the relation to which it is communicated but conversely, - therefore conversely, - and so relation is communicated to essence, and then relation will be the formal term of production and essence the quasi-matter.
140. I respond. Because production is of some first term - that is of an adequate term - which includes in it something in the idea of formal term of the very production and something in idea of subsistence in such term [nn.27-28, 97], therefore it is a contradiction for these to be separated in respect of production, namely the formal term and the idea of subsistence, namely insofar as they have being by production, although absolutely there would be a priority of one to the other (even to the ‘separated without contradiction’), considering them absolutely, not insofar as they have being through production, - although there would there too be a priority of perfection, because one would be more perfect than the other, - because nature is more perfect by reason of subsistence (even in creatures), and from this it follows that nature is the formal term of production, because no simple entity more perfect than the formal term of production has being through production [n.67].
141. Then to the form of the argument I say that the thing communicated ‘insofar as it is communicated by production’ does not presuppose that to which it is communicated, nor conversely, because the communication is not to something already existing, as it is in the case of alteration, - but it is to something so that it simply exist; therefore neither is nature communicated before the production of the supposit (because then it would be communicated also to something non-produced), nor conversely, although absolutely it is communicated first in the proper idea of supposit - in priority of perfection and in priority of being without each other - in the case of creatures; to the first priority in the case of creatures there corresponds here in God that the essence is formally infinite, the relation however is not.
III. To the Arguments of the Opinion of Others
142. To the arguments for the opinion. To the first, from Augustine Against Maximinus [n.53]: it is plain how the Son is in no way from nothing, but is truly from the substance of the Father [nn.98-103].
143. But if you ask, once origination and consubstantiality have been posited, there is still the question: is it as from matter or from quasi-matter that the Son is from? -I reply that there is no matter or quasi-matter there, and so let him not be from anything.
And you ask further - therefore from nothing? - It does not follow; but what follows is that therefore he is not from any matter.
But you will say, then he is a creature. - I say it is false, because a creature exists after nothing, that is, after the non-being of itself and of whatever is in it; not so the Son, - not only because his being is eternal, but also because, as he is the second person, so his formal being is prior in origin in the first person.
144. To the other, from Augustine On the Trinity [n.55]: it is of no value for the proposed position [n.46], as was expounded in the preceding question [n.25].
145. As for the argument of others that ‘essence is subjectively generated’ [n.59], from the false is inferred the false.24
146. To the arguments they give [n.145]:
To the first [n.60] I say that here there are not any terms corresponding to generation as it is change, because there is nothing here that is as it were in any way first under privation and later under form. But the terms of generation as generation is change are privation and form, but generation as production has as term the product itself [n.95]; now generation does not thus have a term ‘from which’ except by speaking of the productive principle, and thus the terms of generation are producer and product; and from this it does not follow that something is a quasi-subject, but there follows from it - if generation is univocal - that something is common to the generating and the generated, and this I concede, but it is not common as matter but as form or act, in both of them.
147. When the argument is next put ‘about generation and term’ [n.61], the response is plain, that relation is not in substance as form in matter, but if the person there is relative, then relation is in essence as the property of the supposit is in nature [sc. as Socrateity is in Socrates, nn.109, 113, 124];25 but to be in something as a supposit or idea of supposit in nature entails nothing about being ‘in’ as form is in matter, although, when nature is imperfect, the individual property in some way informs nature, as was said in the third article of the solution, in the first difficulty [n.109].
148. When it is argued third that ‘to every active potency there corresponds a passive potency’ etc. [n.62], I reply: to the first active power there does not correspond any passive power, as is plain about the power of creating, - and this speaking properly of passive power as that in which, or from which, something is produced; however to the active power there corresponds some passive power which they [followers of Henry] call ‘objective power’, - which is producible power, - and in this way I concede that if the Father is actively fecund, that the Son is producible, but from this does not follow some power of quasi-matter, just as it does not follow in the case of creation.
149. When finally it is argued ‘about fire’ [n.62], I say that if fire were to generate from itself, it would communicate to the thing generated its form as formal term of the generation; but its substance would not be in potency to the form of generating, if fire itself were perfectly something productive, - for then there would not be required another co-causing cause. So it is in the proposed case: the first principle - and not another principle (in the same not another genus of principle) - does not require something else concurring with it to be principle.
IV. To the Arguments
150. [To the Principal Arguments] - When it is argued to the principal from Augustine On the Trinity [n.46] I reply: Augustine subjoins in the same place: “as if one thing there were substance and another were person.”
Likewise, I concede that a person is not properly said to be from the essence absolutely, but when adding along with the substance some originating person it is well said that some originated person is of the substance of that person, such that this proposition ‘the Son is from the divine essence’ is not to be conceded in the way that this proposition is ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’, because by the second is expressed consubstantiality and origination, on account of the genitive [‘of the Father’] construed with the causal case of the preposition [‘from the substance’], - but by the first nothing originating is indicated.
151. To the other [n.47] one must say that although Augustine says the Son is ‘Son of the substance of the Father’ (On the Trinity XV ch.19 n.37, n.49), and a certain doctor [Henry] says this proposition is a proper one, - yet it seems more probable that whenever a relative [‘Son’] is construed with something [‘substance’] in that sort of causal relationship [‘of’] in which something naturally terminates the relative as its correlative, then it is construed with it [‘Son of the substance’] precisely as with its correlative [‘Son of the Father’]. - An example. ‘Father’ is construed with the relative in the genitive case [‘of the father’], ‘similar’ in the dative case [‘similar to...’], ‘greater’ in the ablative case [‘greater than.’]. According to common speech, it seems that with whatever ‘such a [determinate] relative’ is construed in ‘such a causal [genitive] case’, it is indicated to be the correlative of the relative [sc. ‘son of the father/of man/of substance’]; for we do not say ‘this dog is the son of a man’ because it is a son and is of a man as of the dog’s master, such that ‘of a man’ is construed with ‘dog’ by force of possession or possessor, but ‘of a man’ seems to indicate that it is construed with ‘dog’ in the idea of relation, as with ‘of the father’.26
152. Thus therefore in the phrase ‘the Son of the essence’, it seems that essence is taken as the correlative of the relative with which it is construed. - And then the authority of Augustine [n.151] ought to be expounded as he himself expounds it [sc. and not as Henry does, n.49]: “‘of the Son of his charity,’ - that is ‘of the Son of his delight’.”
153. And then to this argument [n.151]: when it is argued that on the phrase ‘from the essence’ follows the phrase that he is ‘of the essence’, - I deny the consequence, because the consequent indicates that the relation between the Son and the essence is like that of a correlative; and this the antecedent does not indicate, but it only indicates consubstantiality in the essence, along with origination, indicated in the thing that is construed with essence.
154. To the final one [n.48] I say that ‘from’ [as in ‘the Son is from the substance of the Father’] does not indicate only identity, but it indicates identity of the noun it governs [‘substance’] (and this in the idea of form) and distinction of that which is added to that noun [‘of the Father’] as originating principle, in the way said before [n.99].
155. [To the arguments for the opposite] - To the arguments for the opposite: To that from On the Trinity XV [n.49] the response has been given [n.152].
156. To the one from Against Maximinus [n.50] the response is plain too from what has been said [nn.98-101].
157. To the final one [n.51], about ‘son’ in the case of creatures, - the response is plain from what was said in the solution of the question, because the ‘from’, which pertains to the idea of filiation, does not state the idea of material cause [n.104], but rather it is enough if that from which the son is be a form common to father and son and be, not the subject of generation, but the formal term of it [n.105].