1. Opinion of Others

7. As to the first condition for real relation [n.6], it is denied [by Henry of Ghent     etc .] that there is here a foundation, because it is said that magnitude passes over into the essence (according to Augustine, in many places), and so it does not remain under the idea of magnitude save in reason.

8. But against this:

The divine essence as it is the first object of the divine intellect, seen in the first intuitive cognition, is, before any busying of the intellect, the beatific object of that intellect, because the intellect is not beatified by a busying act; therefore      it is of itself, without any busying of the intellect, formally infinite, because nothing beatifies save what is formally infinite. So there is magnitude of virtue there - nay an infinity of magnitude - from the nature of the thing.

9. Again, the intellect, before it understands that it is understanding something or is busy about something, has a comprehensive grasp of the essence as first object, and from this - that it busies itself about it - it is possible to reduce to act all the ideas that can be considered in the essence; therefore from the nature of the thing the intellect is infinite, - therefore the essence too, on which it is founded.

10. Further, their reasoning [n.7] is not valid, because although a quantity of bulk states something added to the nature of the subject, and therefore it cannot remain under its formal idea and also pass over into the essence by identity, - yet magnitude of virtue in every being passes over into that which it by identity belongs to, even in the case of creatures. - Proof: for if an angel has some magnitude of virtue (about which Augustine speaks in ibid. VI ch.8 n.9: “In things that are not great by bulk, what it is to be greater is to be better”), and if its perfectible magnitude is not the same as its essence, let it be removed from the essence. With the essence then remaining, I ask what grade of perfection it has among beings? For it will be nothing unless it has some determinate grade of perfection among beings; therefore there still remains in the essence a magnitude of virtue, whereby it is said to be thus or thus perfect. Therefore the quantity in everything passes over by identity, and remains in everything in its proper idea, because the nature of such quantity is to state the intrinsic mode of the perfection it belongs to; and from the fact that it states ‘mode’, it remains - but from the fact that it states ‘intrinsic’, it passes by identity into the essence it belongs to.