Dist. 13, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/13/q/bon-sent-I-d13-a1-q2
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### Question II.

*Whether the procession of the Holy Spirit is generation.*

Secondly, it is asked whether the procession of the Holy Spirit is generation. And that it is not, is shown:

1. Augustine, *On the Trinity*, book fifteen: "As generation bestows essence on the Son without any beginning of time and without any change, so does procession on the Holy Spirit": therefore, if it is not the same thing that bestows essence on the two persons, etc.

2. Likewise, the same point appears by reason: for generation is an emanation according to the mode of nature's fecundity; but, as was proved above, the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of liberality and love: therefore he is not generated: therefore generation is not procession.

3. Likewise, no one thing comes forth from two like things by the way of generation unless one is as father, the other as mother — one as active principle, the other as passive principle; but the Holy Spirit proceeds from two like things: therefore if [he proceeds] by way of generation, one is to him as father, the other as mother; which is altogether absurd.

4. Likewise, the Son is his own generation and the Holy Spirit is his own procession: therefore if to proceed were to be generated, the Holy Spirit would be the Son; but the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and is called the Spirit of the Son, just as the Son is called [the Son] of the Father: therefore, if the Son is not the Father, neither is the Holy Spirit the Son: therefore neither is procession generation.

**On the contrary:**

1. In these lower things generation is motion to the opposite with respect to substance, hence generation is the production of substance; but the procession of the Holy Spirit is the production of substance or hypostasis: therefore it is generation.

2. Likewise, *to generate* is thus defined by Damascene: "to generate is to produce one like oneself in substance";

but by spiration or procession the Spirit, like in nature, is produced: therefore procession too is generation.

3. Likewise, actions and changes take their name from their term: therefore whatever things agree in that which is had through emanation, agree in the mode of emanating; but the Son and the Holy Spirit agree in the substance which they have through emanation: therefore they agree in emanation: therefore if the mode of emanating of the Son is generation, then likewise the mode of the Holy Spirit.

4. Likewise, *production* is superior [as a wider category] to *generation*; but whatever things are produced, proceed: therefore *procession* is superior to *generation*: therefore generation is procession: therefore by parity of reasoning procession is generation.

*[An incidental question.]* If you say that *procession* is appropriated to the Holy Spirit: I ask the reason; and it appears that it ought rather to be appropriated to the Son, since, if the account of proceeding according to the mode of understanding is prior in the Son, then procession ought rather to be appropriated to him.

5. Likewise, if "the one who generates" is "the one who spirates," then "the one generated" is "the one spirated," and conversely; but passive spiration is procession: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> The procession of the Holy Spirit is not generation.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as the Holy Spirit is not the Son, so neither is the procession of the Holy Spirit generation.

*To 1 and 2.* To that, then, which is objected to the contrary — that generation is the production of substance — it must be said that there is to produce a *dissimilar* substance, and there is to produce a *similar* substance *by will*, and there is to produce a substance *similar by way of nature*. These three modes are distinguished, and are distinct and separable, so far as concerns themselves. Which is plain, since in the production of Adam there was production of substance, and yet there was no generation; for God did not generate Adam but created him; in the production of Eve from Adam there was production of like substance, yet not generation, since Adam did not generate Eve; but in the production of Abel there was production of substance by way of nature, and therefore there was generation. According to the matter [*secundum rem*] therefore these three modes are distinguished, yet in the action of a creature they are not distinguished, since a creature cannot produce substance except [substance which is] like, and this by natural power. And the reason of this is the imperfection of potency and limitation in the creature; but in God there is supreme power, and therefore in his operation these three modes have a distinction.

Hence although in these lower things, by reason of matter, the complete account of generation is the production of like substance, or [simply] the production of substance, it is not so in divine things; rather one must add: *by way of nature's fecundity*. And because that condition is lacking in the production of the Holy Spirit, it is plain that the [objection] does not follow.

*To 3.* To that which is objected — that each [Son and Spirit] has a like emanation — it must be said that emanation differs in these lower things and in God; for in these lower things it terminates at an essence or substance which is multiplied; but in divine things it terminates at hypostases. Since therefore the hypostasis at which procession terminates is *love*, and the hypostasis at which generation terminates is *image* — and to the love and bond it belongs to be spirated, not generated, conversely to the image to be generated, not spirated — since the proper account of the hypostases in themselves is not alike, neither will the emanation be alike. He, however, proceeds as if it terminated properly at substance.

*To 4.* To that which is objected — that procession is common [as a higher category] to generation — it must be said that [the term] is common to generation and to procession properly so called; and we are speaking here of *procession* as it belongs to the Holy Spirit alone; in this sense, however, it is not common, nor is it predicated nor subjected in this manner; nor is the community there to be understood as a community of the thing, but only of proportion, or of mode of speaking.

As to the question why [procession] is rather appropriated to the Holy Spirit, certain ones wished to say that, just as the name *proprium* is common to *definition* and to *property* [*propria passio*] — yet because *definition* adds something over the name *proprium*, while *property* does not — therefore *definition* has a [proper] name, *property* does not, but retains the common name; so

[likewise] in the present case. — But this is absurd to say, that the Spirit does not have a proper and singular mode of emanating, as the Son does.

Therefore others wished [to say] that [procession] adds another mode; but because that mode is not present in creatures — since either rarely or never does any hypostasis proceed otherwise than by generation — therefore the holy doctors did not wish to fashion a proper or new name, but rather to appropriate the common one. — But this still does not seem [right], since just as the emanation of the Son is rightly expressed by the verb *to generate*, so the emanation of the Spirit by the verb *to spirate*.

And on this account it must be said otherwise that just as the Father is called *unbegotten* [*ingenitus*] because generation is altogether removed from him — since he neither is generated nor is from one generated — so conversely *procession* is properly said of him in whom there is altogether the account of proceeding; and such is the Holy Spirit, since he proceeds and is from one proceeding — not so the Son: therefore [procession] is attributed to the Holy Spirit.

It can also be said in another way, that the complete account of *procession* consists in [its] comparison both to the principle *from which* and to the term *to which*; and because the Spirit, in his emanation, since he is the *bond*, regards both — while the Son regards [only] the other — therefore the most complete account of this name is found in the Holy Spirit, although in some manner it is found in the Son; and therefore it is appropriated to the Holy Spirit.

*To 5.* To that which is objected last — that "the one generating is the one spirating" — it must be said that that predication is not formal, but only by reason of the supposit; and because one person, or one supposit, can both generate and spirate, therefore this is true: *the one generating is the one spirating*; but no single person can emanate at the same time in several modes; therefore it does not follow that "the one generated is the one spirated."

### Scholion.

**I.** That in God there are two emanations, namely *generation* and *procession*, has already been proved above at d. 9, q. I, and d. 10, q. I. Here it is asked whether these two emanations differ, and in the following question, of what nature this difference is. And the discussion concerns generation and procession insofar as they are notional acts, or [taken] in the active sense. For generation and procession in the passive sense are the second and third persons of the Trinity. — The conclusion is of faith, since the *Athanasian Creed* says of the Holy Spirit: "*Not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding*."

**II.** That the response *to 1* may be more easily understood, it is to be noted that in divine things the word *procession* is taken in two senses: either as a common name, whose species are *generation* and *spiration*, or as a special name of the second emanation. For "frequently we find that some proper [thing] is denominated by a common name" (St. Thomas, here q. 1, a. 3, ad 2). Hence arises the question here proposed: why the name *procession* is appropriated rather to the Holy Spirit than to the Son. The first solution the Holy Doctor rejects, with St. Thomas in agreement. This [first solution] is upheld by Uldaricus, on the testimony of Dionysius the Carthusian, who asserts that the procession of the Holy Spirit is procession simply, and that generation adds a specific difference to this common account. The defenders of his assertion illustrate it by the example of the very word *proprium*. For this name is common both to *definition*, which expresses a species essentially through genus and difference, and to *property* [*propria passio*], i.e. that accidental condition of some entity which inheres inseparably in its subject, as risibility in man. For according to Aristotle *proprium* is defined as "that which does not indicate what the *being* of the thing is, yet is in it alone and is predicated convertibly" (e.g. every man is risible, and everything risible is a man). This species of *proprium*, then, has retained the common name and, according to Porphyry (c. 5), is the fourth predicable, while "genus, species, difference are the three first predicables." This is confirmed by Bl. Albert (1 *Sent.* d. 11, a. 2): "*Proprium* is said to be a convertible predicate; yet since the convertible predicate is twofold, namely essential — as definition — and accidentally convertible, the accidentally [convertible] retains the name *proprium*, and so it occurs in many cases." St. Thomas teaches similarly (here q. 1, a. 3). On the manifold sense of *proprium* cf. St. Bonaventure, II *Sent.* d. 16, a. 1, q. 3. — The second opinion, teaching that on account of the lack of a name expressing this special procession the common name has been appropriated to the second emanation, again does not please the Seraphic Doctor — for this reason, that there does in truth exist such a name, namely *to spirate* and *spiration*. Nevertheless St. Thomas in the *Summa* (I, q. 27, a. 4, ad 3) retains the said opinion, saying: "Hence procession, which is not generation, has remained without a special name, but it can be called *spiration*, since it is the procession of the Spirit." But in his *Commentary* (loc. cit.) besides this reason — of which he says, "and I believe it is the better" — he also brings forward two other reasons, here approved by St. Bonaventure.

**III.** On the conclusion, cf. Alex. Hales, *Summa* p. I, q. 42, m. 2, § 1, and q. 43, m. 2. — St. Thomas, loc. cit. — Bl. Albert, here a. 1. — Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 2, a. 2, and q. 1, a. 2. — Richard of Mediavilla, here q. 2 and 3. — Aegidius of Rome, here 2. princ. q. 1. — Durandus, on this and the following question, here q. 2. — Dionysius the Carthusian, on this and the following, here q. 1. — Biel, on this and the following, here q. unic.

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