A. First Opinion

9. There is here an opinion [Aquinas ST Ia q.41 a.5] of this sort, that that by which the Father generates is essence, - for the following reason, that the one generating assimilates to himself the thing generated in the form by which he acts; but the Son is assimilated to the Father in essence, not in property;     therefore etc     .

10. And there is a clarification of the reason, that just as in creatures the individual property is not the idea of the acting but the nature is, in which the individuals agree, so in divine reality the personal property - which corresponds to the individual property in creatures - will not be the idea of the acting or generating.

11. Against this [n.9] there are multiple arguments. - First thus: every form sufficiently elicitive of some action, if it exists per se, acts per se with that action (example: if heat is a sufficiently heating power, separated heat heats); therefore if deity is the generative power, and it is agreed that it is sufficient, - it follows that if deity exists per se then it will per se generate. But deity exists in itself - in some way - before it is understood to exist in a person, because deity as deity is per se being, such that the three persons exist per se by deity itself and not conversely (Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.4 n.9, ch.5 n.10: “God subsists for himself;” and later: “for God to exist is this, to subsist”); therefore in the first moment of nature in which deity is understood, before it is understood in a person, it will generate, - and thus deity considered as such is distinguished from the generated.

12. If it be said that deity does not have ‘per se being’ save in a person, and therefore it does not per se act but the person per se acts, - on the contrary: the argument proves the opposite, that if heat, having per se participated being, were, by a miracle, to exist per se, it could per se operate with the operation of which it is the principle; therefore the essence itself, which is ‘per se being’ of itself (it does not, however, participate ‘per se being’), will be able per se to be an agent with the action of which it is the elicitive principle in the supposit, and so the argument [n.11] stands.

13. Second thus: the producer and the form by which it produces have the same relation to the product. This is taken from the Philosopher Physics 2.3.195b21-25, Metaphysics 5.2.1013b30-33, where he means that art and the builder pertain to the same genus of cause.     Therefore the producer and that by which the producer produces pertain to the same genus of principle, and so, if the essence is that by which the Father generates, the essence will have a real relation to the one generated; this is false, therefore etc     .

14. Again, third: the form, insofar as it is that in which the generator and the generated are assimilated, only has the unity of idea, therefore it only has the being of idea; therefore, according to this, it is not the elicitive principle of real action.

15. Again, fourth: the form is only the principle of acting insofar as the agent is in act by it, but the agent is not in act by it save insofar as it is in the agent; but as it is in the agent it is a ‘this’; therefore it is principle as a ‘this’.

16. Again, production distinguishes before it assimilates - as is plain (for every production distinguishes but not every production assimilates) - therefore the form which is the principle of production is first a principle of it insofar as form distinguishes before it is a principle of it insofar as form assimilates; the form distinguishes insofar as it is a ‘this’, and it assimilates insofar as it is a ‘form’; therefore it is a productive principle insofar as it is a ‘this’ before it is so insofar as it is a ‘form’.

17. Again, there is an instance against the proof of the argument for the position [n.9]: both because when a brute generates a brute it is assimilated to it in species, and yet the specific form of the brute is not the principle of generating, but the vegetative power is, - therefore the major [‘the one generating assimilates to himself the thing generated in the form by which he acts’, n.9] seems to be false; and also because in the increase of flesh heat is the active principle (according to the Philosopher On the Soul 2.4.416a13-14), and yet animated flesh is generated, being similar to the generator in form of vegetative [soul].