Dist. 4
Book I: On the Mystery of the Trinity · Distinction 4
Distinctio IV
Cap. I
Utrum Deus Pater se Deum genuerit.
Hic oritur quaestio satis necessaria. Constat enim et irrefragabiliter verum est, quod Deus Pater genuit Filium. Ideo quaeritur, utrum concedendum sit, quod Deus genuit Deum. Si enim Deus genuit Deum, videtur quod aut se Deum, aut alium genuerit. Si vero alium Deum genuit, non est tantum unus Deus; si autem se ipsum Deum genuit, aliqua res se ipsam genuit.
Ad quod respondentes dicimus, sane et catholice concedi, quod unus unum genuit, et quod Deus Deum genuit, quia Deus Pater Deum Filium genuit. In Symbolo quoque scriptum est: «Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero». Quod vero additur: ergo genuit se Deum vel alium Deum, neutrum concedendum esse dicimus. Quod alium Deum non genuit, manifestum est, quia unus tantum Deus est. Quod autem se ipsum non genuit, ostendit Augustinus in primo libro de Trinitate dicens: «Qui putant eius potentiae esse Deum, ut se ipsum ipse genuerit, eo plus errant, quod non solum Deus ita non est, sed nec spiritualis neque corporalis creatura. Nulla enim res est, quae se ipsam gignat, ut sit»; et ideo non est credendum vel dicendum, quod Deus genuit se.
Sed adhuc opponunt garruli ratiocinatores dicentes: si Deus Pater genuit Deum, aut genuit Deum, qui est Deus Pater, aut Deum, qui non est Deus Pater. Si genuit Deum, qui non est Deus Pater: ergo Deus est qui non est Deus Pater: non ergo unus tantum Deus est. Si vero genuit Deum, qui est Deus Pater: ergo genuit se ipsum.
Ad quod respondemus determinantes istam propositionem, quam sic proponunt: si Deus Pater genuit Deum, aut Deum, qui est Deus Pater, aut Deum, qui non est Deus Pater. Hoc enim sane et prave intelligi potest; et ideo respondendum est ita: Deus Pater genuit Deum, qui est ipse Pater, hoc dicimus esse falsum; et concedimus alteram, scilicet genuit Deum, qui non est Pater; nec tamen genuit alterum Deum, nec ille qui genitus est, alius Deus est quam Pater, sed unus Deus cum Patre. Si vero additur: genuit Deum, qui non est Deus Pater, hic distinguimus, quia dupliciter potest intelligi: genuit Deum, qui non est Deus Pater, scilicet Deum Filium, qui Filius non est Pater, qui Deus est; hic sensus verus est. Si vero intelligatur sic: genuit Deum, qui non est Deus Pater, id est, qui non est Deus, qui Pater est; hic sensus falsus est. Unus enim et idem Deus est Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus; et e converso Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus unus est Deus.
Cap. II
Utrum Trinitas de uno Deo praedicetur sicut unus Deus de tribus personis.
Quidam tamen veritatis adversarii concedunt, Patrem et Filium et Spiritum sanctum sive tres personas esse unum Deum, unam substantiam, sed nolunt concedere, unum Deum sive unam substantiam esse tres personas, dicentes, substantiam divinam praedicari de tribus personis, non tres personas de substantia divina. Fides autem catholica tenet ac praedicat, et tres personas esse unum Deum, unam substantiam sive essentiam sive naturam divinam, et unum Deum sive essentiam divinam esse tres personas. Unde Augustinus in primo libro de Trinitate ita ait: «Recte ipse Deus Trinitas intelligitur, beatus et solus potens». Ecce, quam expresse dixit ipse Deus Trinitas, ut ostenderet, et ipsum Deum esse Trinitatem et Trinitatem ipsum Deum.
Item in eodem: «In verbis, inquit, illis Apostoli, quibus de adventu Christi agens dicit: Quem ostendet beatus et solus potens, Rex regum et Dominus dominantium, qui solus habet immortalitatem etc., nec Pater proprie nominatus est nec Filius nec Spiritus sanctus, sed beatus et solus potens, id est unus et solus Deus verus, qui est ipsa Trinitas». Ecce et hic aperte dicit, unum solum verum Deum esse ipsam Trinitatem; et si unus Deus Trinitas est, ergo unus Deus est tres personae.
Item in libro quinto de Trinitate: «Non tres deos, sed unum Deum dicimus esse ipsam praestantissimam Trinitatem». Item in libro, qui dicitur Enchiridion ad Laurentium, capitulo nono: «Satis est christiano, rerum creatarum causam visibilium sive invisibilium non nisi bonitatem credere Creatoris, qui est Deus unus et verus, nullamque esse naturam, quae non aut ipse sit, aut ab ipso, eumque esse Trinitatem, Patrem scilicet et Filium et Spiritum sanctum». Item Augustinus in sermone de Fide: «Credimus, unum Deum unam esse divini nominis Trinitatem».
Idem in sexto libro de Trinitate1: «Dicimus, Deum solum esse ipsam Trinitatem». Ecce, his et aliis pluribus auctoritatibus evidenter ostenditur, dicendum esse et credendum, quod unus Deus est Trinitas, et una substantia tres personae; sicut e converso Trinitas dicitur esse unus Deus, et tres personae dicuntur esse una substantia.
Nunc ad praemissam quaestionem revertamur, ubi quaerebatur, an Deus Pater genuerit se Deum, an alium Deum. Ad quod dicimus, neutrum fore concedendum. Dicit tamen Augustinus in Epistola ad Maximum2, quod Deus Pater se alterum genuit, his verbis: «Pater, ut haberet Filium de se ipso, non minuit se ipsum, sed ita genuit de se alterum se, ut totus maneret in se et esset in Filio tantus, quantus et solus». Quod ita intelligi potest, id est, de se alterum a se genuit, non utique alterum Deum, sed alteram personam; vel genuit se alterum, id est, genuit alterum, qui hoc est quod ipse. Nam etsi alius sit Pater quam Filius, non est tamen aliud quam Filius, sed unum.
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Distinction IV
Chapter I
Whether God the Father has begotten Himself as God.
Here a sufficiently necessary question arises. For it is established and irrefutably true that God the Father begot the Son. It is therefore asked whether it is to be conceded that God begot God. For if God begot God, it seems that either He begot Himself as God, or another. But if He begot another God, then there is not only one God; and if He begot Himself as God, then some thing begot itself.
To this we respond, saying that it is to be soundly and catholically conceded that one begot one, and that God begot God — because God the Father begot God the Son. For in the Symbol it is written: "Light from Light, true God from true God." But what is added — therefore He begot Himself as God or another God — neither is to be conceded, we say. That He did not beget another God is manifest, because there is only one God. That He did not beget Himself, Augustine shows in the first book On the Trinity: "Those who hold that it belongs to His power to have begotten Himself err all the more, because not only is God not so, but neither any spiritual nor corporeal creature. For there is no thing that begets itself, that it might exist"; and therefore it is not to be believed or said that God begot Himself.
But the garrulous reasoners still object, saying: if God the Father begot God, either He begot God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father. If He begot God who is not God the Father, then there is a God who is not God the Father, and so not only one God. But if He begot God who is God the Father, then He begot Himself.
To this we respond by determining the proposition as they propose it — "if God the Father begot God, either God who is God the Father, or God who is not God the Father." This can be understood soundly or wrongly; and therefore it must be answered thus: God the Father begot God who is the Father Himself — this we say is false; and we concede the other, namely He begot God who is not the Father; yet He did not beget another God, nor is the one who was begotten another God than the Father, but one God with the Father. But if it is added, He begot God who is not God the Father, here we distinguish, because it can be understood in two ways: He begot God who is not God the Father — namely God the Son, who as Son is not the Father, though He is God; this sense is true. But if it is understood thus: He begot God who is not God the Father — that is, who is not the God that the Father is — this sense is false. For one and the same God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit; and conversely, Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one God.
Chapter II
Whether the Trinity is predicated of one God as one God is of the three persons.
Some adversaries of truth concede that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit — that is, the three persons — are one God, one substance; but they refuse to concede that one God or one substance is three persons, saying that the divine substance is predicated of the three persons but not that the three persons are predicated of the divine substance. But the Catholic faith holds and preaches both: that the three persons are one God, one substance or essence or divine nature, and that the one God or divine essence is the three persons. Hence Augustine in the first book On the Trinity says thus: "Rightly is God Himself understood as Trinity, blessed and alone powerful." Behold, how expressly he said God Himself is Trinity — so as to show both that God Himself is the Trinity and that the Trinity is God Himself.
Likewise in the same work: "In those words of the Apostle, where treating of the coming of Christ he says: Whom the blessed and alone powerful shall show, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, etc. — neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit is properly named, but the blessed and alone powerful — that is, the one and only true God, who is the Trinity itself." Behold, here too he openly says that the one, only, true God is the Trinity itself; and if the one God is Trinity, then the one God is three persons.
Likewise in the fifth book On the Trinity: "We say that the Trinity itself is not three gods, but one God — the most excellent Trinity." Likewise in the book called Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter nine: "It is enough for a Christian to believe that the cause of created things, whether visible or invisible, is nothing other than the goodness of the Creator, who is the one and true God; and that there is no nature which is not either Himself or from Him; and that He is Trinity — namely the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Likewise Augustine in the sermon On Faith: "We believe that one God is the one Trinity of the divine name."
The same in the sixth book On the Trinity1: "We say that God alone is the Trinity itself." Behold, by these and many other authorities it is evidently shown that it must be said and believed that the one God is Trinity, and one substance is three persons; just as conversely the Trinity is said to be one God, and the three persons are said to be one substance.
Now let us return to the question set forth above, where it was asked whether God the Father begot Himself as God or another God. To which we say: neither is to be conceded. Yet Augustine says in his Letter to Maximus2 that God the Father begot "another self," in these words: "The Father, that He might have a Son from Himself, did not diminish Himself, but so begot from Himself another self as to remain whole in Himself and to be in the Son as great as He alone is." This can be understood thus: He begot from Himself another who is from Himself — not, indeed, another God, but another person; or He begot Himself as another — that is, He begot another who is what He Himself is. For although the Father is other than the Son, yet He is not an-other thing than the Son, but one.
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- Cap. 7, n. 9. — Immediate ante Vat. et edd. 1, 2 habent item pro idem; mox post Ecce Vat. et ed. 4 addunt et. Deinde codd. A B C D et edd. 1, 8 concedendum pro credendum, sed non bene nec congrue ad duo testimonia Augustini, qui loquitur tum de interiore fide (Credimus), tum de confessione fidei (Dicimus).[Augustine, de Trin. VI,] c. 7, n. 9. — Immediately before, the Vatican ed. and edd. 1, 2 read item for idem; next, after Ecce, the Vatican ed. and ed. 4 add et. Then codd. A B C D and edd. 1, 8 read concedendum («to be conceded») for credendum («to be believed»), but not well — nor congruously to Augustine's two testimonies, who speaks both of interior faith (Credimus) and of confession of faith (Dicimus).
- Epistola 170 ad Maximum medicum, n. 5. — Paulo infra in explicatione verborum Augustini Vat. male omittit a post de se alterum.[Augustine,] Epistle 170 to Maximus the physician, n. 5. — A little later, in the explanation of Augustine's words, the Vatican ed. badly omits a after de se alterum.