But the divine persons, because they are altogether one in substance and form and have no accidents, are not distinguished by quality, but by origin alone: and that origin belongs to the person itself not through something else, but through itself, such that, just as God understands by Himself and is His own intellect, so the Father begets by Himself and is the very generation, and similarly the Son is His own filiation: if therefore there is there a most true origin, there is a most true personal distinction.
Again, if the person is its own origin, there is altogether no composition in the person, and through this the person is just as simple as the essence: there is therefore a complete indifference according to reality between person and essence, and between person and property and essence. Whence truly the person is the essence and the property, and the essence is the property and the person, and the property is the person and the essence. How then can any composition be understood in such great indifference? It is necessary therefore in such a distinction of persons to understand complete simplicity: since therefore it is impossible to understand any composition, the trinity of persons understood and supreme simplicity are not incompatible.
It is therefore very valuable for seeing this to examine the modes of personal distinctions, which heretics, being ignorant of, fell into error.
Again, the diverse modes of divine attributions must be attended to. For there is a difference with respect to modes of being and with respect to modes of relating and with respect to grounds of understanding.
In the divine reality, therefore, with respect to being or essence, no diversity or difference can be found, because that being is one and most simple: nor even with respect to the absolute mode of being ,— because, just as in God being is not something other than essence and existence, so existence and existing in such a way are not different. And the reason for this is that in God power and existence are the same, and it cannot be said that He could exist in this way and otherwise. And therefore, because the modes of being are the same as essence, all predicates expressing an absolute mode pass into substance, with the exception of relation, which expresses a respective mode of being: which mode of predication, in comparison to the subject, passes into substance, so that the hypostasis is its own property, lest composition be introduced; but it remains in comparison to the term, so that true distinction may be preserved. For the difference of a relation from the subject in which it inheres introduces composition: but the difference from the term to which it tends introduces nothing but distinction alone. Since therefore in the divine reality no difference is found, neither with respect to essence nor with respect to existence nor with respect to the absolute modes of being: it is nevertheless found in the three aforesaid ways. For difference with respect to the modes of being exists among the persons mutually: because, although they have the same existence, yet in a different mode, because one is from itself, but another from another; and this is so great a diversity that it does not permit one person to be predicated of another. For those modes, as was shown above, although they do not introduce composition, nevertheless produce true distinction.
But difference with respect to the modes of relating exists in the persons as related to the essence. For since to originate belongs to the person itself, not to the essence, therefore the person is referred and relates to another, but the essence does not: and hence it is that one is distinguished, namely the person, and not the other, namely the essence. And from this difference it does not follow that one is removed from the other, yet it does follow that something can be said of the person that is not said of the essence, and conversely. And from this difference arises a threefold mode of predication in the divine reality, namely in quid and in quis and in quae, namely notion, person, and essence: and hence it is that, when person is supposed, notion is not supposed, nor conversely, and similarly with essence. But from the variation of such modes there is introduced a figure of speech in the divine reality, as is evident to one who considers it.
But difference with respect to the intelligible notions exists among the essential properties, which are entirely the same, as truth and goodness: yet our intellect understands through diverse concepts and under one notion and another, and therefore names them differently: and this is the least difference that can be found concerning divine things, because it is more on our part than on God's.
Supreme simplicity therefore stands not only with personal distinction, but also with multiform attribution. Hence the arguments that are for this position must be granted; to the opposing arguments, however, it is easy enough to respond.
1. To the first objection to the contrary, that an abstract being is simpler than a concrete one: it must be said that this holds true in that in which form and supposit differ, in which indeed there is abstraction and concretion on the part of the thing; but in the divine, concretion is not properly posited except on our part. —Similarly, to what it says, that what is one and not in many is simpler than what is in many: it must be said that this holds true where something is more in many than in one, as is the case in number; but it is not so in the matter at hand, because the divine essence and nature is just as completely and perfectly in one of its hypostases as in three.
2. To the objection that the same is simpler than the diverse, etc.: it must be said that there is a diversity or distinction that comes from addition, such as that which is between diverse species, which are distinguished by diverse differences added upon the genus; and there is a distinction coming not from addition, but from origin:
and this latter is in the divine persons, which are distinguished from the fact that one emanates from another; and this posits no composition, as was explained in the principal solution.
3. To the objection that the common is simpler than the proper: it must be said that this holds true where the common is narrowed and contracted by the proper; for then, by reason of the narrowing and contracting agent, it admits both composition and distinction, as is apparent in the universal and the particular; but in this way the common is not to be found in the divine, because the essence, although it is common in the divine, is nevertheless not contracted nor narrowed nor distinguished in the persons.
4. To the objection that everything absolute is simpler than the relative: it must be said that the relative is twofold: one kind that bespeaks a relation to another diverse according to essence; another kind that bespeaks a relation only to something consubstantial with it. In the first way, the relative includes a certain dependence, and thereby also bespeaks a deficiency from supreme simplicity; in the second way, it bespeaks no dependence nor deficiency from supreme simplicity, especially when the supposit itself is its own property by which it is referred; and in this way relation is posited in the properties of the divine persons, not in the first way, and thus no composition is introduced from this. —And if it be objected that "every relative is something, apart from what is said relatively": it must be said that if this is understood in the first way, it holds true not only on the part of the intelligible notion, but also on the part of the thing; if it is understood in the second way, it holds true on the part of the intelligible notion, because the Father, apart from the notion of relation, implies a hypostasis, which nevertheless is not other than his personal property.
5. To that which is objected, that every defining term is simpler than the thing defined: it must be said that this holds true of a formal definition and one taken in recto, where the defining terms are essential parts constituting the defined thing itself. But it is not so in the matter at hand: both because the divine persons, properly speaking, cannot be defined; and also because nature does not fall in the definition of person in recto; and also because that definition regards rather the intention of the name of person and nature, according as it enters into our understanding, than it regards the thing itself according to its own proper being, which can neither be comprehended nor defined on account of the supreme simplicity and immensity of the divine being.
6. To that which is objected, that a part is always simpler than the whole: it must be said that this is true. But what it assumes, namely that one of the persons is a part of the Trinity, is false, because every whole denotes something greater than its part. But as has often been said, nothing greater exists in three persons than in one, for each of the persons is supremely being and true and good; therefore, although the Trinity in the divine posits a notion of plurality, it does not on that account posit a notion of true totality.
7. To that which is objected, that a point is always simpler than a continuum, and a unit than a number: it must be said that this holds true of a true number, which is an aggregation of diverse units; but such a number does not exist in the Trinity of divine persons, for the reason that there is not there an aggregation of many units, just as there is not of many entities or truths, but rather it is a replication of the same unity in relation to one and another. And this is what the very word conveys which is called "trinity," that is, the unity of three.
8. To that which is objected, that either a person is equally simple as the essence, or not: it must be said that a person is equally simple according to reality.
And to what is further objected, that the essence on account of its supreme simplicity does not admit other essences: it must be said that the case is not similar, because if there were many divine essences, there would be essential agreement and difference: agreement, I say, because each would be God; but difference, because they would be many, and this could not be without addition and composition. But it is not so in the plurality of persons, because, as has been shown, they are not distinguished from one another by any real addition, but only by natural origin; and therefore the simplicity of the essence excludes plurality of essence, and the plurality of persons does not exclude the unity of the divine essence nor does it exclude the simplicity of person.
9. To that which is objected, that either a person adds something over and above the essence according to reality and understanding, etc.: it must be said that according to understanding it adds, because in the true understanding of person there is enclosed the understanding of nature and property and hypostasis. Hence its understanding is composite, yet in such a way that, just as there is no composition, so also there is no addition on the part of reality.
And if it be objected that this understanding is false: it must be said that this is false, because on the part of the thing something corresponds to it; for in the divine there truly are those three, namely nature, property, and hypostasis distinguished by its own property; yet they are altogether one in itself through supreme simplicity, to which, because our intellect cannot attain, it understands and names under a different account and under a certain composition, which it posits not about the thing itself but about itself as understanding, as was held in the preceding problem.
10. To that which is objected, that affirmation and negation are not true of the same thing and according to the same respect: it must be said that not only does it prevent contradiction that some things are said of the same thing not according to the same respect, but also that they are not said in relation to the same thing. And because a person is to be referred and compared to another, but nature is not: hence it is that something can be attributed to one that is not attributed to the other; nor yet does it follow from this that there is in them composition or diversity according to essence or being: for it suffices that it be only according to relation.
11. To that which is objected, that either one person agrees entirely with another, or partly agrees and partly differs: it must be said that a person agrees with another according to essence, but differs according to property. Now that property, compared to the essence, is only a mode of being, which is the same as the essence according to what it is, because the essence is the property itself, but differs according to that to which it is directed. And because composition comes according to that in which something is, but distinction according to that to which it is directed: therefore the difference that is between property and essence is such that it suffices for distinction, yet introduces no composition.
12. To that which is objected, that either one person communicates to another whatever it has, or not: it must be said that it communicates to it whatever it has that is communicable, and this is the essence or nature; but personality, or relation, which is in that person, expresses the account of a distinguishing principle rather than of something communicable. And therefore, although it does not communicate this, the communication there is nonetheless perfect, because with the communication the distinction remains intact.
13. To that which is objected, that the property of a person is either something or nothing: it must be said that the property of a person, formally and properly speaking, is toward something: and that toward something can be compared both to the divine essence and to the person whom it distinguishes, and to the person from whom it distinguishes. By comparison to the person from whom it distinguishes, it is truly a thing, because it really differs from that person, just as the Father is also really distinguished from the Son by paternity; but by comparison to the person in whom it is, or also to the essence itself, it is only a mode, which does not posit any composition in God, because, as was previously shown, being and being thus or the mode of being do not differ in God, just as " living and living blessedly".
14. To that which is objected, that the property of a person either passes into substance or does not: it must be said that relation indicates a twofold respect, namely to the subject in which and to the term to which. In the first way it passes over, just as the other genera do; in the second way it remains. And because relation, beyond the other genera, indicates a comparison as to another, hence it is that all things are said to pass into substance, while relation itself does not pass over—not because it in some way indicates something that is not the essence, but because it belongs to it to be said toward something, to which the essence cannot be said to be related or referred. Whence without doubt the essence is that toward, but it is not that to which that toward is directed; and therefore distinction is preserved there, and no composition.