I. To the Question

60. I reply. An act can be considered in three ways: either in itself, or insofar as it is of a term, or insofar as it is compared to the acting supposits. In the first two ways there is altogether uniformity, or rather unity, because there is most truly one act and one produced term. Speaking in the third way, just as the inspiriting force is communicated to the Son by the Father, so also the Son has from the Father the fact that he inspirits, - and so the Father inspirits from himself, the Son not from himself.

61. On the contrary: therefore the Father inspirits the Holy Spirit before the Son inspirits the Holy Spirit, because in the first moment of origin, in which the Father has being from himself, he has inspiriting from himself, - and then the Son would not inspirit, because if the Holy Spirit is pre-understood to have being from the Father prior to from the Son, then the Son will not produce an already existing Holy Spirit.

62. I reply. About these orders or origins, or about many orders of priority and posteriority, there will be discussion elsewhere [II d.1 q.1 nn.13-18]. But as to what concerns the intended proposition, one should not understand that the Father inspirits before the Son inspirits, in the way that the Father generates first in origin before he inspirits, because then the Son would not inspirit (as the argument [n.61] deduces), just as the Holy Spirit cannot generate a Son already understood to be generated. But the order that exists in the Father is as follows: first both fecundities are from himself; second, there is in the Father the act of first fecundity, and then in the Son there is the second fecundity; third there is the act of the second fecundity, from the Father and the Son together as then having that fecundity, - yet still in a certain order, because the act is of the Father from himself, but of the Son not from himself but from the Father, just as neither in the second moment is there that fecundity of the Son from himself, but it is of the Father from himself. There is not then an order of origin between the inspiriting of the Father and of the Son, as if the Father inspirited in some moment of origin in which the Son does not inspirit, but they inspirit together in the same moment of origin; there is however there an order of inspiritings in the act of inspiriting, because the Father in that moment of origin inspirits from himself, but the Son not from himself.