C. There is no Like Example in Creatures for the Being in of the Divine Persons

63. As to the third article [n.37] I say that this mode of being ‘in’ [sc.

circumincession] is not any of the modes that the Philosopher sets down in the Physics, -formally, I mean, because all those modes are based on the fact that the contained thing is something of the containing thing and not vice versa, or on the fact that something of the contained thing is something of the containing thing and not vice versa; neither of these accounts or ideas holds in the proposed case [sc. of circumincession], because diversity is there a greater reason for being ‘in’ than unity is. Therefore did Hilary well say, On the Trinity III n.1 (and it is set down in the text, Sent. I d.19 ch.4 n.172): “The nature of human intelligence cannot grasp the idea of this statement [sc. “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”], nor will human comparison provide any example for divine things.”

64. However, by taking what belongs to perfection in the case of creatures and by removing what belongs to imperfection, one can set down some examples of this mode of being ‘in’, at least imperfect ones and ones that imperfectly represent the mode:

First indeed from the flowing in of the divine essence in respect of creatures, which flowing in has the simultaneous concurrence of the divine nature’s immensity and its sustaining of things. Let then the idea of sustaining be removed from the flowing in, such that the idea of presence, because of the immensity, is preserved but without the idea of conservation or of the active power that pertains to sustaining; once this is removed then, just as God - because he is immense - is present to every creature, so too then is his presence to something understood without the fact of his sustaining it; and then, if a single nature is posited for that which is present and for that which it is present to, because of which single nature it must be present, then there will be an example for the proposed case about this way of being ‘in’.

65. Another example is from the soul not informing the body though being present to the body (as in the moment of death); or from an angel being present to a body but not informing it; or from a glorious body present to a non-glorious body, - or a better example, if a glorious body could exist in another glorious body that was equally subtle. In all these cases the being ‘in’ is that of a thing subsistent and present, but not by informing or by way of part; and if in these cases there is added unity of nature, which by necessity of nature requires such presence, there will be a more perfectly similar example.

66. There is also another example from the powers of the soul, which if they are posited as differing on the part of real existence and yet, along with this, as being really the same as the essence of the soul, then of necessity one will be in the other, because the essence of the soul, with which the power is identical, is in the other; therefore things in some way distinct will be really indistinct. If each of these distinct things were per se existent, a distinct subsistent will be in a subsistent by presence to it, and will be an example of being ‘in’.

67. On behalf of all these examples - and to make clear the two preceding articles [nn.61-63] - one can add that in this way of being ‘in’ each extreme is in the other according to the same idea of being ‘in’, because here what is being noted is mutual presence, not the containing of one extreme by the other. Just as when a body is understood to be in a place, this is in the way that a contained thing is in the containing thing; but if two bodies be understood to be in each other in the same place, this is according to the same idea or account, because the bodies are together and togetherness states the common relation of a single idea in both extremes; and if per impossibile place be removed and a simultaneous presence of bodies be posited, there will be the relation of a single account in the extremes, and each extreme will be in the other without one of them being contained by the other or both being contained by a third.