III. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion when Holding the Third Opinion

73. [To the authorities] - Someone who held this opinion [n.56] could respond to all the arguments of Augustine for the opinion put before [n.15], contrary to this opinion, through the distinction of the aforesaid doctor [n.57] - becausea he [Augustine] is speaking of things that are for themselves simply, such that they are neither related nor relatable, but are opposite to relation, as is plain from his examples there [On the Trinity V]. For he himself seems to say there that something is for itself although it is relatable to another, as is expressly intended by On the Trinity VII ch.4 nn.8-9 where, when treating of how the Greeks say that there are three substances, he means that to subsist - in the respect it belongs to substance in the way the Greeks say substance - is for itself. For he subjoins there: “If it is one thing for God to exist and another for him to subsist, just as it is one thing for him to be God and another to be Father, then he subsists relatively, just as he generates relatively;” and from this he infers: “therefore substance will not now be substance, because it will be a relative;” and later: “But it is absurd that substance be said relatively; for every substance subsists for itself, how much more God?” - What is more express than that substance, as the Greeks take it (namely for the person), is primary substance and not secondary substance, and exists for itself and subsists for itself, with the ‘to subsist’ which belongs to substance as so meant?

a [Interpolation, for n.67 to n.73] Against this opinion [n.56] can be objected that it does not stand along with the faith:

     First, because the Savior, when expressing in Matthew 28.19 the whole truth of the faith that is to be held about the Trinity, named the three persons with relative names (“in the name,” he says, “of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”); likewise John in his canonical letter 5 (“There are three that give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit”), - and generally, wherever the canonical Scripture speaks of the divine persons it expresses them with relative names. It seems then that to posit they are absolutes contradicts Scripture and the faith.

     Second, because the Church (or anyone who expresses the truth that is to be held about the Trinity) expresses the persons with relative names, as is plain in the Apostles’ and Athanasian Creeds, and in the Nicene Creed, and all other authentic declarations of the faith by the universal Church. Therefore the opposite is repugnant to the faith, when it has been declared by the Church.

     Third, because when the saints - and catholic doctors commonly - treat of this article, they only posit and keep a trinity of relative persons - whose doctrine, at least of many of them, has been authenticated by the universal Church, as is plain in the canon at distinction 15 (Decretum Gratiani). Therefore to contradict the sayings of these saints is to contradict the Church that authenticates their statements.

     It is replied to this objection that the said opinion not only does not conflict with the faith, but - what is more - agrees with the sacred Scripture; the first point is shown in two ways:

     First as follows, that whatever sacred Scripture has handed down about the Trinity or that the Church has declared or that an authentic doctor has so manifestly asserted is conceded by this opinion, namely that the three persons are appropriately expressed by the names of Father and Son and Holy Spirit; because it concedes that there really are relations of origin there, because it concedes the true origination of one person from another that is generation (and so the person generating is the Father and the person generated is the Son), and it concedes the procession of the third person from the two (and thus does the Holy Spirit proceed, that is inspirited by chaste and holy will). But Scripture does not say - nor does the universal Church say by declaring anywhere - that the persons are distinguished by these relations alone, just as neither does it say that they are distinguished by absolute properties. But now, although whatever authority hands down is to be held as true, yet whatever it does not hand down is not to be denied to be true; “Many works,” says John the confidant of Jesus, “did Jesus do which are not written in this book” (John 20.30); and certainly not elsewhere either, because he adds , 21.25: “I reckon that the world cannot contain the books     etc .” Even logically speaking it is plain that a place taken from authority does not hold negatively.

     Second thus: nothing is to be asserted to be of the truth of the faith save what is handed down in Scripture or is declared by the universal Church, or is necessarily and evidently entailed by something so handed down or declared; that the persons are distinguished by no absolute properties does not appear to be such; therefore      etc.

     The first part of the minor seems plain, because Scripture nowhere hands this down; for he who affirms relations nowhere denies absolute properties.

     The second part is similarly plain, because all the things that the Church is found to have declared as needing to be held about the article ‘On the Trinity’ are contained in the Apostles’ or Athansian or Nicene Creeds, or in the Extra ‘On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’, “Firmly” - “We condemn” (both which chapters were promulgated in the General Council celebrated under Innocent III), or in the Extra ‘On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith’, “To the faithful”, and it is today in the sixth book (which chapter was promulgated in the Council of Lyons celebrated under Gregory X). Not many chapters, or authentic writings, are found containing a declaration of the Church about the article ‘On the Trinity’! Nor is it declared in any of these that the persons ‘have no properties save relative ones’; the thing is plain if one looks.

     The proof of the third part of the minor is that the reasons given for inferring the proposition [sc. the persons have no properties save relative ones], as taken from what is handed down in Scripture or declared by the Church, seem all to be solvable, as will later be said in reply to them.

     The second point - namely that this opinion agrees with Scripture - is shown by the verse from Proverbs 30.4 where (after moving many questions about God) Solomon asks: “What is his name, and what the name of his Son, if you know?” - And from this the argument runs: every question supposes something certain and asks about something doubtful (from Metaphysics 7.17.1041a10-16); but here that the ‘Son’ is is supposed and what is asked about is his name, -and by parity of reasoning, by the name of relation is supposed that that of which he is the Son is ‘Father’, and what is asked for is his name; therefore with this given as certain, that he is ‘Son’ and he ‘Father’, there is doubt about what is the former’s name and what the latter’s. But if these persons be constituted first in personal existence by paternity and filiation, then the first name of the latter is Father and the first name of the former is Son, - and so there would be certitude about ‘Son’ and doubt about what his name is; therefore Solomon seems to mean that the Son is not first constituted by filiation, just as too that ‘Son’ is not his first name. But once it is known that he is Son there yet remains to ask - according to Solomon - what his name is; here a brief argument is made to reduce this to impossibility: given that the first name of the person - which is ‘Son’ - is the name of Son (which consequence holds if the Son is first constituted by filiation), then Solomon is supposing and asking about the same thing; for he is supposing the first name of the person and is asking ‘what is his name’.

     If response is made in the above way to this objection about the faith as directed against the third opinion, arguments can be made against this response:

     First as follows: why did the Savior wish to express the persons with relative names if they are absolute and the absolutes (if they exist) were not hidden from him - and it would seem fitting for baptism to be given by invoking the divine persons with their first names?

     Second as follows: when the article about Christ is handed on, it is proper to take it according to the understanding that is the greatest that can be had about Christ; such understanding is about persons firstly relative and in no way about absolutes;     therefore etc     .

     Third as follows: the inferences of the saints and doctors must be supposed to be necessary ones; but when these or similar ones are used, the conclusion to be drawn from what is manifestly believed is that the persons are not absolutes, as is plain in many deductions by the masters.

     To the first of these arguments someone might perhaps say that for two reasons the Savior gave in this way a fitting expression:

     First because he taught us in the way that we were capable; but if the properties were absolute, he saw that we could not conceive them, or not as easily as we could conceive relations, because they can be known by us neither by way of causality and eminence (since they are not perfections simply), nor by anything similar in creatures (the way we can perhaps conceive relations from the relations of origin in creatures), because to those incommunicable absolutes - if they exist - nothing is similar in creatures, nay not even to any created incommunicable thing is anything similar, because anything such is primarily diverse from anything else; and this impossibility or difficulty in knowing those absolute properties, if they exist, could be grasped by someone from the aforesaid question of Solomon. An example of this is plain in the common way of speaking, where we more frequently express persons with relative names than with absolute ones, because the relative names are more known; yet it is clear that the persons we intend to express with those names are in themselves absolute; for example, we say the pope or a bishop or a king did so and so; we do not as often say ‘Peter did it’ or ‘John did it’; for the duties are more known than the absolute persons. So could it be said here, that through the origin of person we can conceive its absolute property (if the person has such a property), or we cannot conceive it, or not as easily through the origin.

     Second, because if there are absolute properties, and in this respect the persons could be named with absolute names, then, by so naming them, not as much is expressed by those names about the truth of faith as is expressed by the names ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’, because by these names not only is the distinction between the persons expressed but also the origin that exists in them, and also in some way - as a result - the unity of the essence, because in such origination there is perfect communication of the same essence; three absolute names would not thus express all these things.

     To the second of the arguments someone might perhaps say - first - that the understanding which Christ expressed (namely that they are relatives) is without doubt to be maintained, but about that of which he was silent (namely whether they are absolute) one side is no more against the understanding of the article than the other is, unless it be shown to be repugnant to the understanding which he did express.

     Second, that to restrict the article of faith to a particular understanding - which however is handed on in a general way - as if the general understanding could not be true unless the special understanding was true, this seems to reduce the article to uncertainty; for that seems uncertain which cannot be held without uncertainty. At any rate greater reverence seems to be given to an article handed on in a universal way, provided one say that the universal understanding of it can be true whether any special feature is posited or denied - which special feature is not handed on as to be firmly believed - than that the article could not be true unless some special determination were true. An example of this in other articles: ‘Creator of heaven and earth’; one should not reduce this to the fact that, if the omnipotence in God be in any way distinct from the will, he could not create, - and so of the opposite side. Likewise one should not reduce ‘the Word was made flesh’ to many special facts, nor to some one of those things with any of which and with its opposite this truth can stand. A more apt example seems to be: if what was handed on to the Jews as a thing to be believed was that ‘God is one’ and nothing was handed on specifically about the Trinity, not only would there be less reverence but irreverence and falsity in asserting that this article could not be true unless God were one in person as he is one in essence; and yet this would in that case seem to be more consonant with the words of the article handed on to them than the opposite opinion. Therefore just as the Jews were obligated then to assert neither side to be necessarily determinate (but it seems that what was handed on to them in general was necessarily to be held), so it seems that we, as to articles handed on to us in universal terms, should not assert - without a declaration of the Church - that necessarily this or that special thing is to be held, with either of which the articles as they are handed down can stand; for not without cause did God, who knew the truth in particular, hand it on to be believed only according to a universal understanding, and did not reduce it to this or that special mode as something needing to be held by faith.

     Third, because in the issue at hand it does not seem - because of the reverence due to those persons - that one should say that there are only relations in the essence unless this were most certainly handed down, on account of the limited entity of relation in regard to absolute being.

     To the third of the arguments someone might perhaps say that something is not to be held to be of the substance of the faith merely because of a soluble piece of reasoning - by whomever it be made -, nor perhaps because of the conclusion of such reasoning, insofar as the conclusion is drawn precisely through that reasoning: someone arguing like this would expose himself to death, and no one should according to right reason so expose himself; therefore a higher authority is needed for something to be held to be of faith than that someone so argues (some people argue what they do not altogether assert). And although that which a saint, approved by the Church as to doctrine, asserts as needing to be held is sufficiently certain, yet other authorities - doubtful ones -can be given an exposition, and much more so in the case of other less approved writers.

     In the first way one might say that nothing is found contrary to the aforesaid opinion [n.56; the persons are not absolutes]

     As to the things that seem in the second way to be against it, those who hold the third opinion reply by running through the authorities in order. As to the authorities and reasons that were adduced against the third opinion, or in favor of the second opinion (to the first, from the Gospel, response seems already to have been made):

     To the authorities from Augustine, On the Trinity V, those who hold the third opinion respond by the distinction set down at the beginning of the opinion [n.57], which Augustine...

74. And if it be objected that the words of Augustine ‘about substance and person’ [n.73] should not be more taken of the personal than of the essential, because he says that ‘God and person exist by the same thing’, - response: ‘by the same thing’, that is, by something said ‘in relation to another’, because the Father is not the person of the Son, just as neither is he the God of the Son, - the way that Socrates is not Socrates of anyone, just as neither is man of someone, understanding this as man of his correlative. But there is no need that he be God and person ‘by something altogether the same’, such that person be said to exist altogether to itself the way God, or deity, is said to exist to itself, because then, just as there are not three deities and thereby not three magnitudes either, according to Augustine (because magnitude, like deity, is said to exist altogether to itself), so neither would there be three persons, which he himself denies. Things then that exist altogether to themselves are not separately counted, - things that exist altogether to another are not common to the three persons; but things that exist to themselves though not altogether to themselves but are relatable (because it is not repugnant for them to be related) are common (but counted up), or can be said to be proper things from which some common and counted thing can be abstracted.

75. As to Augustine On the City of God XI [n.19], I concede that ‘God is whatever he has’ save for the relative he has which is not him; he does indeed have a correlative, as the Father has the Son as Son. And     therefore I concede that the first person is ‘whatever he has’ to which he is not related; but he is not the second person, which he has as correlative person, although he is not first constituted by that relation.

76. As to Boethius, when he says that ‘relation multiplies the trinity etc     .’ [n.17], I say that that doctor takes relation for origin, and, understanding it in this way, ‘to multiply’ is taken, not as to distinguish formally, but by way of principle as it were, correspondingly to effective principle [n.58]; and this indeed is not to twist the words; for ‘to multiply’ means to make many, as Christ truly multiplied the Gospel loaves (Matthew 14.13-21, 15.29-39), and yet he was not the form by which those loaves were formally multiplied, - and God by creating multiplies souls is yet not himself the form by which souls are formally distinguished.

77. As to John Damascene [nn.21-22], I say that one of his authorities solves the other, because precisely in ch.8 he posits [sc. in the Father] non-generation and in ch.52 he posits paternal property; but these two properties are distinct, according to Augustine On the Trinity V ch.6 n.7; therefore by excluding everything else that is in Father - in ch.8 - besides non-generation, he understands by non-generation the personal being of the Father. And wherever he excludes all other things from some property of some supposit, through the property that is included he includes every other personal aspect, and so the absolute reality, if there is any, would be so included; and it is included most of all, as it seems, because when, in the case of creatures, an accident is included, the subject is not excluded, and so when relation is included in a divine person that which is related by it is not excluded, - just as, if it be said only paternity exists, the Father who by paternity is Father would not thereby be excluded.

78. To Richard [n.23] I say: the fact that the mode of existence is different does pertain to origin, but it does not follow from this that the originated is not something subsistent to itself, distinct from the originating by some absolute personal reality.

79. To Anselm [n.20] I likewise say that ‘all things are one and the same where the opposition of relation does not prevent it’ either formally (as relation prevents relation) or as of a nature to be related by the opposite relation: this is the way the persons - if they were absolute - would be distinguished, because in them there are relations by way of principles.

80. [To the arguments] - To the arguments for the second opinion [nn.24-27].

To the first [n.24] one can say that if any absolute reality constitutes the persons, yet it will not make a composite with the divine essence, just as neither would the constituting relation do so; the fact is confirmed by the argumentative place ‘from the greater’, because a reality proper to subsistence in a creature does not make a composite with the essence, but relation in creatures makes a composite with the foundation, as will be explained elsewhere [Ord. II d.3 p.1 qq.5-6, nn.9, 11-12,15-16; d.1 q.4 nn.5-6, 26]; therefore if here [sc. in God] relation cannot make a composite with the essence, much more will the reality of a supposit also not make a composite with the reality of nature.

81. And when the reason is confirmed because the absolute ‘either altogether remains or altogether passes over’ [n.25], I say: as was said in making clear the second opinion, namely that ‘relation remains by the fact that its idea is not formally the idea of essence, and it passes over because it is essence according to perfect identity’, so can it be said that absolute reality - if it constitute the person - does indeed pass over to the essence because of perfect identity, but it remains because it is not formally the reality of the essence. And there is a confirmation for this reason, that the attributal perfections seem to be absolute and not relative (as was said in distinction 8, in the question ‘About the attributes’ [d.8 nn. 185, 209, 215-217, 220, 222]), and yet they both remain and pass over, such that they do not make a composite with the essence nor are they formally the same as the essence; and if any of them would, according to their formal reason, have to be distinguished really from another, the distinction would be formally through that formal reason and not through the essence, and yet there would be no composition.

82. To the second argument [n.26] I say that when positing relative persons one must posit them as truly subsistent and that in them there is the same undivided nature; one cannot do this because of any imperfection of the persons in subsisting, because they are posited as being as truly subsistent as they would be if they were absolute; therefore one must posit them because of the infinity of the essence that is in the subsistents; but there would be the same infinity of essence if the persons were absolute, - so the nature should not in that case be divided just as neither does the property now divide it. Let this then be proved, ‘every nature, common to absolute supposits, is distinct in those supposits’! [n.26]. This is indeed true in the case of creatures, but in the issue at hand it begs the principal conclusion.

83. To the third [n.27] reply is made by instancing that to the Father when constituted in his personal existence, and to the Son too when constituted in his personal existence, active inspiriting is at it were an adventitious property - according to some people - and yet it is not quasi accidental according to them, nor is it even a relation of reason. Why then could it not be thus understood in the issue at hand, that the person is constituted by an absolute reality and that to the person - as constituted in such reality -the relation, according to mode of understanding, is adventitious and yet is neither accidental nor a thing of reason? And when the proof that it is a relation of reason is given through similarity with relation to creatures [n.27], I say that it is not similar; for the relation to creatures does not arise from any necessity in the nature of the foundation, the way it does arise here [sc. in God].a

a [Interpolation] The fourth reason [see interpolation to n.27] rests on this proposition: ‘every absolute is act and as a result bestows existence’.

     This is disproved in many ways:

     First because in the case of creatures, where it seems most of all to be probable, there is an instance from the hypostatic property, because this property is not an act bestowing existence -because then human nature in Christ would not have the same existence as it had when buried [sc. when, namely, it precisely did not bestow existence or life].

     Similarly, an act that gives existence gives operation, - the hypostatic property in creatures does not give operation. The thing is plain from Damascene in ch.60: “We say that wills and operations are natural and not hypostatic; for if we grant them to be hypostatic we will be compelled to say that the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity will and do different things;” here he himself, from the fact that the divine persons do not have three operations, concludes that operation is not hypostatic - that is, operation is not on the basis of hypostatic property, and this in general whether the property is absolute or relative.

     Further, third: in everything that in any way has being by something, there is, besides that which gives it being, something by reason of which it receives being (the thing is plain about the composite of matter and form, and about all other composites of act and potency); therefore in everything that has being through something that gives being, there is something which is not an act giving being but a reason for receiving being - and so it seems to be in the case of a supposit of nature, that since the supposit has being and nature gives being, the hypostatic property will be the reason for receiving being.

     To the argument then [interpolation to n.27] one can say that since there is a double idea of entity, namely quidditative and hypostatic, then just as it is a mark of the quidditative to give being, because it is of itself communicable, so it is a mark of the hypostatic that it not be an act giving being, because it is of itself incommunicable as a ‘by which’. And although in creatures the individual property gives being, because it is of some grade of positive entity beyond the quidditative entity of nature, yet the property of a supposit states no entity beyond the entity of singularity, nay it adds nothing positive (from the first question of Book III, d.1 nn.31-39, 44); and even if it were to add something, that something would not be the reason for giving being, but it is merely incommunicable, because this existing nature - in which is included nature and the entity of singularity - is the total reason for giving being, and thus whatever is understood to be adventitious to it, whether positive or privative, whether absolute or relative, will not give being, because being is totally given through that which is already pre-understood. So although in divine reality the ‘personal property’ is not merely a negation but some positive property, yet because divine nature is of itself a this - a per se existent - it itself will have the whole reason for giving being; just as in creatures too ‘this existing nature’ totally gives being, and not through the fact that the adventitious property is merely a negation (nay, if a positive property were to be adventitious to it, nothing would be taken away from this existing nature), so in divine reality too nothing will be taken from this nature - which is existent of itself - but what will totally give the being of a person, although in the person a positive personal property be understood.

     To the argument, then, although proof is given that it is act, since it is not potency, I say that there is there the fallacy of equivocation; for in one way act is the difference opposite to potency, and all being is divided in this way, - and in another way act along with potency constitutes some whole (as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics VIII chs.1-6, about potency and act), because it does not belong to the power that is opposed to act, because that power remains along with act; therefore this property is not merely virtually in the divine essence (as is ass, which is in potency prior to act), and consequently this property is in act there insofar as act is opposed to such potency. But the inference ‘therefore it is act giving being’ does not hold; because for this inference there would be required that it be formal act; for in this way matter would give being, because ‘in the composite’ it is in act, and not in a potency prior to act.

     The second reason [interpolation to n.27] seems deficient [sc. that an absolute property would be added to essence as act to potency]:

     First because it [an absolute property] is not related to essence as perfection to perfectible, as has been made clear extensively also ‘about the relative property of a person’ in distinction 5 of Book I, d.5 nn.113, 118, 129-138, where it was said that person is not constituted from essence and property as from quasi potential and actual, nay the essence possesses more the idea of act. If therefore this property be understood as in some way posterior to essence, yet it is not a perfection of it; for there is there the same order for origin as for perfection, and therefore what is prior in origin is prior in perfection, as was then made clear extensively.

     Second: given that it [an absolute property] would be in some way disposed toward the essence itself as in-forming it, yet it is not a perfection simply, because according to Anselm the idea of ‘perfection simply’ is that in anything it be ‘better it than not it’, which is impossible about a hypostatic property, because that property is of its own idea repugnant contradictorily to anything other than that to which it belongs, and so it cannot in anything else be better ‘than not it’, because it is repugnant to anything else.

     Thus therefore as to the reason, it is plain that something false is assumed if what is taken is that the absolute thing perfects the essence; nor is the proof of this ‘through the fact that it in some way follows and does not precede’ valid, because in divine reality - in the way that preceding can be posited there - act and form are first. Second, given that that ‘which informs’ were possessed, the consequence that it is a perfection simply does not follow, nor do those things follow that are further inferred, namely that ‘the divine essence is not simply perfect’ or that ‘one person is not simply perfect in itself’.

     Further, this reason would conclude better to the contrary about relation, because it seems more probable that relation could be a perfection than that a hypostatic property could be a perfection, because to be perfect belongs to no hypostatic property (whether in creatures or elsewhere), but to some relation according to its proper idea there does belong the being of perfection; for one relation is more perfect than another, and yet none is a perfection simply, as is plain of equality with respect to inequality, because according to Augustine On the Quantity of the Soul chs.9-11, nn.15-17; ch.12 n.19: “You rightly put equality before inequality, nor is there anyone endowed with human sense - as I suppose - to whom this does not appear.” But this does not come from the foundation alone, for inequality can be founded on more perfect foundations than equality; it is also plain that if it came only from the foundation Augustine would be begging the question; for he intends to conclude to an excellence, namely of circle in comparison with rectilinear figures, and he does this on the basis of equality and inequality, - because if the excellence were only on the foundations and he were to deduce therefrom the excellence of the foundations, then he would be reasoning in a circle.

     If it be said that the saying of Augustine is true by reason of the proximate, not the remote, foundations, but the proximate foundation of equality is parity - this is false and nothing as regard the b [a reference to a text in III d.1 n.189]. For I ask whether parity asserts something for itself, and then something can be understood to be at par without its being par of anything; and similarly, whence will perfection of parity be in this way obtained in respect of imparity in a triangle? For either parity states quantity, and then either the same quantity as that which is commonly posited as the foundation of equality, and then there will no distinction between the remote and proximate foundation - or it states a different quantity, and then in the equal thing there will be said to be two quantities; or you are inventing some other mode in which parity could be an absolute that is more perfect than imparity and is other than quantity. But if you say parity asserts a relation, as seems manifest, then a relation will be per se founded on a relation; nay it seems to state the same relation as equality; a quantity is equal with a quantity and on a par with it!

     To the statement of Anselm in Monologion [earlier here] the response is that he is speaking only of quiddities and not of hypostatic properties. - This is proved, first, by his examples about wisdom and truth on one side, and about gold and lead on the other. Second by reason, because only that is a perfection simply which can be infinite in something, and only that in something is better ‘not it than it’ which is of itself finite; these things belong to quiddity (namely to be finite or infinite), but not to a hypostatic property, because a divine personal property - whatever it be - is neither formally finite nor formally infinite. So a ‘whatever’, that is a ‘whatever quiddity’, is additional to relation, - not a ‘whatever hypostatic entity’, because this is not divided into the such and the not such but falls under the not such; likewise a hypostatic property is repugnant to anything besides the one thing it belongs to - so it cannot be for anything better it ‘than not it’, but also not for some particular thing either. Therefore Anselm excludes from the universe of quiddities relation according to quiddity, and then every absolute quiddity is either a perfection simply or a limited perfection; but from this does not follow the proposed conclusion about absolute hypostatic property.

     The third reason [sc. in the interpolation to n.27, that every absolute circumstance of an absolute is multiplied along with that absolute] has a major that, by its form, is false in the case of all things that are essentially ordered, although it may sometimes be true by its matter; and it is similarly false in the case of everything that is not equally unlimited. For in no order essential in proper idea of prior and posterior must the priors and posteriors be multiplied together, but multiplication of the posterior can stand without multiplication of the prior, although not conversely; likewise, whenever two things are compared to a third thing which is unlimited, one must not, in the way in which the two things are unlimited, make joint distinctions with them (an example: compare the intellective soul to its parts; because the intellective soul is in some way unlimited, one must not distinguish it in its distinct parts in the way in which the parts are unlimited). The major then is, as to the proposed conclusion, false in two ways: both because the essence (in the way in which there is there a priority in person) is in some way prior to the properties, not conversely, according to them [sc. those who hold the third opinion], - therefore one should distinguish the essence on the distinction of the properties; and also because the essence is formally infinite, but the properties are not formally infinite - and therefore one should not distinguish ‘the formally infinite’ on the distinction of things that are not formally infinite.

     Even if the major is taken generally, as to any absolutes whatever that are circumstances of the same - there is a manifest objection to it from the soul and the powers, because the powers are multiplied when the soul is not multiplied.

     But if they evade this objection by specifying the major to be about things of the same species (the way the first confirmation of the major takes it), even then the proposition is not true universally of relations, as will be plain in distinction 8 [of Book Three]. That many things of the same idea exist in the same thing - even in absolutes - is not a contradiction, if any of them is not an act adequate to that in which it is.

     Now when the major is made clear by an induction, there is a fallacy of the consequent, because certain singular instances are taken that are not like the proposed case, to wit those in which a distinction in prior things does constitute a distinction in posterior things, or in which there is a similar limitation on both sides and not an unlimitedness of one of them with respect to the other; from these things the conclusion cannot be universally drawn, because it is false when the conditions are lacking, as in the proposed case.

     But to the final argument, added for confirmation of the major, which is about the ‘same’ [sc. there cannot be many things of the same idea in the same perfect thing], one could say that just as something simply perfect - the same in number - is communicable to many supposits of the same idea (such that this is not, from its perfection simply, something repugnant to it, but its being in several supposits of the same idea is something that belongs to it), so from its perfection there can belong to it the fact that several things of the same idea can exist in it as supposits in a nature and, consequently, even several hypostatic properties of the same idea; but this cannot be so about the other things of which it is exemplified (as of the Father and the Word), because the perfection of what is simply perfect requires that any production have an adequate term, but does not require that some hypostatic property is adequate to the nature in constituting a supposit.

     Hereby one can say in answer to the first confirmation of the major, applying it to the proposed conclusion, that there is there a fallacy of equivocation. For the major [sc. ‘many things of the same species cannot be in the same thing’], if it were true, should be understood of being ‘in’ the way act is in that which is in-formed; but the minor [sc. ‘the absolutes, if they are posited, will be of the same species’] is not true; for the property is not in the essence as in-forming it, but as constituting a supposit in it.

     However one can say to both confirmations that the properties are not of the same idea formally, just as in creatures the individual properties are primarily diverse and not of the same idea. And if one infer from this that they are of a different species or that each of them has the idea of a different species, and that, because of this, each has to be determined by something else so as to be incommunicable - the inference does not follow, just as it does not follow in the case of the individual properties in creatures; even though these are not of the same idea in anything, yet none is a quidditive and common entity but each is of itself a ‘this’.

     The fourth reason [sc. in the interpolation to n.27, that if two absolute properties are expressed by the essence they will both be in one person and will not distinguish the persons] proceeds from the false imagination that the properties are expressed by the essence as if by way of origin, - which is not what was said. But, as some concede [sc. Henry of Ghent and his followers] that relations burgeon up in the essence (provided however this is properly said), so one could concede against them that these properties - the absolute ones, if they exist - burgeon up in the essence; and although each property be in the same supposit from which it burgeons (because the essence is in all the persons), yet none is in the same person as that from whom it is obtained by way of true origination. Nor is the true origination ‘of the person who has one of the properties’ repugnant to the person who has another, even though all the properties are not originated but do in some way burgeon from the essence - just as others have to say about origination through relation, that the Son burgeons from the Father by origin and yet the Son in some way burgeons in the divine essence or from the divine essence.

     The fifth reason seems deficient [sc. that there is no origin in the persons because an absolute person would precede any relation of origin], because it seems more difficult to sustain origination by positing that the extremes are only formally relative than by positing that they are absolute. For if they are only relative, then that ‘a person originates a person’ will be nothing other than that a relative has a correlative; but a relative, once posited, seems to have a correlative without any other action. But if the extremes are posited as absolute, there does not seem to be as much difficulty in how one supposit is generated by another, since in the case of creatures -according to them - there are absolute supposits and yet origination of one creature from another is not denied there.

     When it is then argued that an absolute precedes relation and so precedes origination, I reply: it was said that origination pertains to the genus of efficient causality, not formal; and just as in creatures the term does not exist by origination formally but effectively (nor from the fact that it does not exist by it formally does the consequence follow that it precedes it), so one can say in the proposed case; nor does there seem greater difficulty about the priority of the absolute to the relative in the case of creatures than here [sc. in the case of the divine persons].