Dist. 13, Art. 1, Q. 4
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-q4
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### Question IV.

*Whether the Holy Spirit is unbegotten.*

With the difference of generation and procession supposed, it is asked here in the fourth place whether the Holy Spirit is *unbegotten* [*ingenitus*]. And that he is, is shown:

1. By the authority of Jerome, which the Master sets down in the *littera*.

2. Likewise, the same point is shown by the reasoning of Jerome: "Since everything that is, is either *unbegotten*, or *begotten*, or *made*"; but the Holy Spirit is neither begotten nor made: therefore he is unbegotten.

3. Likewise, a privative negation, with the subject standing fast, is equivalent to a privative term. Hence *non-even* concerning number is the same as *odd*; and so, since the Holy Spirit is not begotten, therefore he is unbegotten.

4. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is more distant from the account of generation than the Father; for the Father generates, although he is not generated; the Holy Spirit, however, neither generates nor [is generated]: therefore generation is denied of the Holy Spirit just as truly as of the Father: therefore, as the Father is called *unbegotten*, so also the Holy Spirit.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine *ad Orosium* says that "the Father alone is unbegotten": therefore on this account it does not belong to the Holy Spirit.

2. Likewise, *unbegotten* is said either according to substance or according to relation. If according to relation, then it is a *notion*: therefore the Holy Spirit has two notions, and so there would be six [notions in all] — which is against common opinion. If according to substance: then by parity of reasoning it would be said of the Son too, since what is said according to substance belongs to all three.

3. Likewise, since the divine essence is not begotten, nor is the Holy Spirit begotten, nor is the Father begotten, nor moreover is any of these *made*: therefore the account of *unbegotten* according to Jerome belongs to all; *[an incidental question:]* it is asked, then, in what differing way [it belongs to each].

### Conclusion.

> The Holy Spirit can be called *unbegotten* in a privative sense, but not insofar as *unbegotten* is a notion of the Father.

**I respond:** It must be said that some have wished to distinguish concerning this name *ingenitum*, [namely] that it can be written with one *n* — and so it has the value of *uncreated* [*increatum*] — or with two, and so is opposed to that which is *begotten* properly so called. But this distinction, although it holds among the Greeks, does not hold among the Latins, since *ingenitum* with two *n*'s is not a significative utterance among us. Damascene, however, assigns this difference in his own language, since he was a Greek. Moreover, it is not relevant to the matter at hand; since nothing is asked here about *ingenitum* as it is equivalent to *uncreated*, but as it is equivalent to *not-begotten* or *unbegettable*.

And therefore it must be said otherwise, and briefly, that *ingenitum* is taken in one mode purely privatively, namely *that which is not generated*; and in this mode it is said both of the Holy Spirit and of the [divine] essence. In another mode, insofar as *ingenitum* has the value of *not being from another, and one from whom others are*; and in this mode it signifies the notion of the Father alone, since it signifies a property and dignity in the Father. And in the first sense Jerome speaks; in the second, Augustine. Whence, however, these senses arise — and why *unbegettable* [*innascibilis*] is a notion and not *unproceedable* [*improcessibilis*] — will be said below.

From these things the solution of the apparent contrariety is plain; the [other] objections are likewise plain.

To what is objected, then — that negation with the subject standing fast is equivalent to a privative term — it is true if [the term] is merely privative; but that reasoning concludes only of this name [*ingenitum*] insofar as it *deprives*, not insofar as it *posits* something.

To what is objected — [whether *ingenitum*] predicates essence or relation — it must be said that, insofar as it is said of essence, it is taken only privatively or negatively. And therefore it does not predicate something, as when it is said: "the essence does not generate." The other matters are clear.

### Scholion.

**I.** This question seems to have arisen from the different mode of speaking which the Holy Doctors Augustine and Jerome have used in this matter. St. Bonaventure aptly reconciles their two opinions. Much on the account of *unbegettability* is found below at d. 28 throughout.

**II.** As to the order of the solutions of the opposing arguments, it is to be noted that the words at the end of the corpus — "the objections are plain" — refer to *[arguments] 1, 2, 4* on the affirmative side. Then he explicitly solves argument 3 on the affirmative; and finally he replies to the distinction in *[argument] 2* on the negative side.

**III.** Cf. Alex. Hales, *Summa* p. I, q. 69, m. 3. — Scotus, here q. unic., and d. 28, q. 2. — St. Thomas, here q. 1, a. 1; *Summa* I, q. 33, a. 1. — Bl. Albert, here a. 8 ff. — Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 3, a. 1. — Richard of Mediavilla, here q. 1. — Aegidius of Rome, here 2. princ. q. 2. — Durandus, here q. 3. — Dionysius the Carthusian, here q. 3.

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