3. Again, a plurality of individuals is not repugnant to the unity of the species, indeed they stand together: therefore if nature names the common form, and person names the individual or supposit, a trinity of persons in no way derogates from the unity of essence.
4. Again, a plurality of natures is not repugnant to the unity of a person, indeed they stand together, as is evident in man: therefore by converse reasoning, a plurality of persons in the divine is not repugnant to the unity of essence or nature: therefore they can stand together without diminution.
5. Again, we find in one person one nature, as in an angel, and we find in one person three most diverse natures, as in Christ: therefore it seems that it is not only possible, but most fitting, to find in one nature a trinity of persons; and this in God: therefore etc.
6. Again, that unity is more excellent which remains one in many than that which cannot preserve its unity except in one person; but the divine unity is most excellent: therefore it is necessary that it stand with a plurality of persons: therefore it has no opposition.
7. Again, as the Philosopher says, "the one generating does not generate another except on account of matter"; but in the divine there is no matter: therefore the one generating is not other than the one generated. Nor however can the same generate itself: therefore if in the divine there is generation and without matter, therefore there is a plurality of persons without a multiplication of form.
8. Again, as Damascene says, "to generate is to produce a like from one's own substance"; but the divine substance is indivisible: therefore it is necessary that the one generating give the whole substance to the one generated: therefore they cannot be distinguished according to substance. And yet they are distinguished: and not by accident, because in the divine there is no accident: therefore by person: therefore the distinction in person remains together with an entire indistinction in nature.
9. Again, that unity is more perfect in which together with unity of nature there remains a unity of charity: but "charity tends toward another": therefore it includes a distinction between the one loving and the one loved: therefore if the divine unity is most perfect, it is necessary that it have an intrinsic plurality: for outside itself it has nothing that is supremely lovable.
10. Again, likeness and equality and identity simultaneously enclose in their concept both plurality and unity: which is evident, because "likeness is the same quality of different things": therefore since the highest likeness can exist both in reality and in the intellect: since the highest likeness and identity can neither exist nor be conceived without unity and with plurality: therefore either it is necessary that the highest unity and a true plurality stand together, or the highest likeness can neither be conceived nor exist, and consequently neither can any likeness whatsoever. But if these are impossible, it remains that in God the highest unity and a true plurality stand together.
CONCLUSION.
The highest unity and trinity in God do not have opposition, but a wondrous concord and harmony.
I respond: It must be said that in divine things the trinity and the highest unity do not have opposition, but a wondrous concord and harmony, according to what the most salutary faith declares; and this also the soul, in some measure purged and elevated through faith, can grasp; otherwise it is difficult and impossible that it should understand, unless it first assents.
The Christian faith therefore declares that the divine nature is one and supremely one: and yet there are there three persons, of whom one is from another and by another, and therefore they share in essence and form, but are distinguished by their own property. — These things, however, seem to unbelievers to be incompossible, but to believers they seem not to be opposed, but to be consonant. But in order that we may understand this, two things must be noted here: the first is how person and nature are defined; the second is how they are related to production. The first removes the opposition, while the second establishes the consonance.
It must be known, therefore, that, as Boethius says in On Two Natures and One Person , " nature is the specific difference informing each thing"; " person, however, is the individual substance of a rational nature," or, as Richard says, "an incommunicable existence." This, therefore, is the difference: that nature designates the very form by which each thing is what it is; person, however, designates the individual or incommunicable supposit.
On account of ignorance of these definitions, heretics said that in Christ there were two persons, just as two natures; others, that there was one nature, just as one person: because they did not see the difference between these, which if they had known, they would have seen how a plurality of natures could stand together with a unity of person, as is evident in any human being. If, therefore, a plurality of nature and a unity of person are not opposed, so far as concerns themselves, by equal reasoning, conversely, a plurality of person and a unity of nature are not opposed: if they are not opposed, therefore they can exist with respect to God.
Not only, however, do they have a diverse definition, but they are related in diverse ways to production. For since it belongs to the supposit to act through form, it belongs to the person to produce and to be produced, not to the nature, but it belongs to the nature to be communicated through production: because, therefore, the divine nature is impartible and without all matter, it is neither multiplied nor numbered by division or partition: it is therefore entirely one in the product and the producer. Since, however, no one can produce himself, it is necessary that there be a plurality on the part of the person. Since in the emanation of the persons, nature has the character of what is communicable, while person has the character of what produces: on account of this same emanation, it is necessary that there be plurality in the persons and unity in the nature, such that there is no opposition there, but the highest concord.
Since, therefore, neither does plurality divide unity nor does unity confound plurality, the divine being appears singularly admirable and admirably singular. For this belongs to it alone on account of its supreme simplicity, which does not allow the nature to have parts nor to be aggregated with matter; and therefore it belongs to it alone, and hence admirably, because nothing entirely similar can be found. To be, therefore, one in many without any multiplication and diversification of essence is properly proper to the divine nature and its singular privilege. And the first and supreme one ought to have this privilege: because it is first and supreme, therefore it is so one that it can in no way be formally multiplied; it is so one that it cannot be narrowed nor restricted to only one supposit; it is so one that the eternal character of being a principle with respect to what is coequal, coeternal, and most perfect is not taken from it. — Whence no one perfectly praises the divine unity unless he equally attributes trinity to it; nor does anyone perfectly worship one God unless he faithfully professes that he is trine. — Whence the arguments that demonstrate this are to be conceded.
1. To the first objection, it must be said that form is twofold: one which is multiplied in many supposits, and in such a form perfect unity and plurality of supposits cannot stand simultaneously. The other is a form which cannot be numbered in many supposits, of which kind is the form of the deity; and because such a form is in no way numbered through the plurality of supposits, therefore true plurality and supreme unity stand simultaneously with it, which the name of trinity intimates, in which the unity of nature is enclosed together with plurality.
2. To the objection that what is one in substance and property, etc., is more one, it must be said that property is twofold, namely absolute and respective. If it is understood of absolute property, it has truth; but if of respective property, it does not have truth, because plurality with respect to respective property does not posit diversity in the thing and nature, neither with respect to essence nor with respect to being, but only denotes a varied relation, which is not incompatible with supreme unity, as can be shown through examples in the point and unity.
3. To the objection that the more something is one, the more it is undivided, it must be said that indivision in the definition of the one excludes that division which is of a whole into parts. But the unity of the Trinity is not related to the plurality of persons as a whole to parts, because the entire deity is in each person most fully and most perfectly; and therefore personal distinction is not repugnant to the indivision which must be found in the supremely one.
4. To the other objection, that what is more one is that which is one in reality and in concept, etc., it must be said that concept is twofold: one, which adds something real differing from the thing, of which kind is the concept according to that which it is. Another concept does not add anything differing according to that which it is, but only by reason of that to which it is ordered; and in this way the proposed proposition does not hold true, because the plurality of such concepts diminishes nothing of the supreme unity of essence or nature.
5. To the objection that whatever things are the same as one and the same thing are the same among themselves, it must be said that this is understood of identity in the supposit; and hence it is that although the dignative unity which is in Christ is less than the unity of the Trinity which is in God, nevertheless man is predicated of God, and God of man, by reason of the unity of person; yet the Son is not predicated of the Father, nor the Father of the Son, by reason of the unity of nature, because the distinction of supposits prevents this. — Or it can be said that that maxim does not fail if it is understood of the same genus of unity, but if it is transferred to another genus of unity, neither rightly nor soundly is the meaning of that proposition taken. For it does not follow that if some things are one with something by identity of genus, that on account of this the persons are the same in number among themselves. In this way also in the matter at hand it must be understood that even if essence and person are one essentially, it does not nevertheless follow that they are one among themselves personally; but it suffices that they have essential unity among themselves.
6. To the objection that in formal predication, when the subject is multiplied, the predicate is multiplied, it must be said that this holds true when the multiplication of the subject occurs through formal addition or diversity; for then it is necessary that with the multiplication of the subject there occur a multiplication of the predicate. But it is not so in the matter at hand; for the plurification of persons is not a formal plurification nor through the addition of any absolute quality, but through origin and relative emanation alone.
7. To the objection that the syllogistic form does not fail in propositions that are true per se, it must be said that although in the divine there is no accident by inherence, nevertheless, because there are various modes of predication there: namely, according to substance and relation, such that "substance contains unity, and relation multiplies trinity": hence it is that in this regard one of these modes of predicating or speaking is extraneous to the other; and this suffices to introduce the fallacy of accident.
8. To that which is objected, that when the thing defined is multiplied, the defining elements are multiplied: it must be said that this holds true of those things which fall within the formal definition and in the nominative case; but nature falls within the definition of person in the oblique case, while substance, insofar as it falls within the definition of person, is the same as hypostasis, which is plurified in the divine persons without essential plurification.
9. To that which is objected, that person is said either according to substance, or according to relation, etc.: it must be said that person is nothing other than "a hypostasis distinguished by a property," and therefore is said according to an intrinsic relation and according to substance not common, but proper; and therefore it does not follow that there is only a plurality of relations there, nor that there is a diversity of natures on account of the plurification of the divine persons.