Dist. 23
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/23/q/bon-sent-I-d23-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXIII.

#### Cap. I. *On this name, "person", which is said according to substance, but is taken in the plural, not in the singular, in sum.*

To the foregoing it must be added that, although all names which are said according to substance of God are said singularly and not plurally of all the persons together in sum, as has been shown above, there is nevertheless one name, namely *person*, which is said according to substance of single persons and is taken in the plural, not in the singular, in sum. For we say: the Father is a person, the Son is a person, the Holy Spirit is a person — and this is said according to substance. Yet we do not say: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one person, but three persons. This name, therefore, is excepted from the aforesaid rule of names which are said according to substance of God, since although it is said *to itself* and according to substance, it is nevertheless taken in the plural, not in the singular, in sum.

That *person* is said according to substance, Augustine shows in the seventh book *On the Trinity*, saying: "It is not one thing for God to be, another for Him to be a person, but altogether the same". Likewise: "In this Trinity, when we say the person of the Father, we say nothing other than the substance of the Father. Wherefore, just as the substance of the Father is the Father Himself, not by which He is Father, but by which He is; so also the person of the Father is nothing other than the Father Himself; for *person* is said *to Himself*, not to the Son or to the Holy Spirit, just as God and great and good and just and the like are said *to Himself*. And just as for Him to be is the same as to be God, the same as to be great, the same as to be good; so for Him to be is the same as to be a person". Behold, you have it expressed that *person* is said according to substance, so that when it is said: the Father is a person, the sense is: the Father is the divine essence; similarly, when it is said: the Son is a person, the Holy Spirit is a person, that is, the divine essence.

Hence there arises here a question difficult indeed, but not useless, by which it is asked why these three are not called one person, just as one essence and one God. Augustine carefully treats this question and fittingly explains it in the seventh book *On the Trinity*, thus saying: "Why do we not call these three together one person, just as one essence and one God, but say three persons, when we do not say three gods or three essences? Because we wish to preserve at least some one term for this signification by which the Trinity is understood, lest we should be wholly silent before one inquiring what the three are, when we confess them to be three". "When therefore it is asked, what three? — as Augustine says in the fifth book *On the Trinity* — human eloquence labors under utter poverty. Yet *three persons* was said, not that this might be said, but that it might not be wholly passed over in silence". For the eminence of an ineffable thing cannot be expressed by this term. Behold, he shows by what necessity it is said in the plural *persons*, namely so that by this one name we may answer those who inquire about the three.

#### Cap. II. *By what necessity it is said three persons by the Latins, and three hypostases or substances by the Greeks.*

By what necessity not only Latin speech, but also Greek, laboring almost equally on this matter, is constrained by a poverty of terms. Whence Augustine, opening up what has been said by the Greeks or by the Latins out of necessity concerning the ineffable Trinity, says in the seventh book *On the Trinity*: "For the sake of speaking about ineffable things, in order to express them in some way, it has been said by the Greeks: one essence, three substances, that is, one *usia*, three *hypostases*. For the Greeks understand *substance* otherwise than the Latins. By the Latins, however, it has been said: one essence or substance, three persons, since in our speech, that is in Latin, *essence* is not usually understood otherwise than *substance*. And so that it may be understood at least in an enigma, it pleased that it should be so said, that something might be said when it was asked what three things are, which the true faith pronounces to be three, since it neither says the Father is the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, namely the Gift of God, neither says the Father nor the Son. When therefore it is asked, *what three* or *what three* [persons], we betake ourselves to finding some name by which we may comprehend these three. Nor does any occur to the mind, since the supereminence of the divinity exceeds the faculty of customary speech. For God is more truly thought than spoken, and is more truly than He is thought".

"The Father therefore and the Son and the Holy Spirit, since they are three, let us inquire what the three are, and what they have in common. For they cannot be called three Fathers, since only the Father is there Father, nor three Sons, since neither the Father

ibi sit Filius nor the Holy Spirit [is Son], nor three Holy Spirits, since the Holy Spirit, in His proper signification, by which also He is called *Gift of God*, is neither Father nor Son. What therefore are the three? If they are said to be three persons, that which *person* is is common to them". "For surely, since the Father is a person, and the Son is a person, and the Holy Spirit is a person, therefore they are called three persons". "Therefore we say three persons, because that which *person* is is common to them". From the foregoing it can be plainly understood by what necessity *three persons* has been said by the Latins, since *person* is said according to substance. Whence what *person* is is also common to the three.

#### Cap. III. *Why we do not say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three gods, as [we say they are] three persons.*

But it is asked here: when we say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons, because that which *person* is is common to them — that is, because the Father is a person, and the Son is a person, and the Holy Spirit is a person — why do we not similarly say three gods, since the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God? Because Scripture contradicts that; but although it does not say this, neither does it contradict it. Whence Augustine, raising this question and defining it, in the seventh book *On the Trinity* thus says: "If we say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons because that which *person* is is common to them, why do we not also say three gods? Surely, as has been said, because the Father is a person, and the Son is a person, and the Holy Spirit is a person, therefore they are called three persons. Since therefore the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, why are they not called three gods?" Behold, he has set forth the question; mark what he answers, adding: "Or are they not called three gods because Scripture does not say three gods? But neither does the text of Scripture anywhere mention three persons. Or has it been allowed by the necessity of speaking and disputing to say three persons, not because Scripture says it, but because Scripture does not contradict it? But if we were to say three gods, Scripture would contradict, saying: *Hear, O Israel, thy God, God is one*". Behold the resolution of the question why we say rather three persons than three gods, namely because Scripture does not contradict that.

#### Cap. IV. *Why we do not say three essences, as [we say] three persons.*

But here also another question emerges, which Augustine consequently appends, saying: "Why, he says, is it not also permitted to say three essences, since Scripture similarly, just as it does not say it, so does not contradict it? But if you say that on account of the unity of the Trinity three essences are not said, but one essence — I ask, why on account of the same unity of the Trinity are they not called one person, and not three persons? For just as the name *essence* is common to them, so that each individual is called an essence, so the term *person* is common to them". "What therefore remains, except that we should confess that these terms have been brought forth by the Greeks and Latins out of the necessity of speaking against the snares or errors of heretics? And when human poverty was striving to bring forth in speech to the senses of men what it holds in the inner chamber of the mind concerning God, whether through pious faith or through some sort of understanding, it feared to say three essences, lest in that supreme equality any diversity should be understood. On the other hand, it could not say that they were not three of some sort; which because Sabellius said, he fell into heresy. It sought therefore what to call the three, and said three persons or three substances according to the Greeks".

"For what concerns the persons according to our [usage], the same must be understood of the substances according to the custom of the Greeks. For thus they say three substances, one essence, that is three hypostases, one *usia*; just as we say three persons, one essence or substance"; "although they too, if they wished, just as they say three substances, three hypostases, could say three persons, three *prosopa*. But they preferred to say [substances], because perhaps according to the custom of their language it is more aptly said".

#### Cap. V. *That in the Trinity there is no diversity nor singularity nor solitude, but unity and trinity and distinction and identity.*

It has now been sufficiently shown, as I think, by what necessity we say three persons, and why not similarly three gods or essences — namely because in the one case Scripture stands in the way, in the other the understanding of diversity; since there is no diversity at all there, just as there is no singularity nor solitude, but unity and trinity. Whence Augustine in the seventh book *On the Trinity* says: "Human poverty, seeking what it might call the three, said three persons or substances; by which terms it did not wish diversity to be understood, but did not wish singularity, so that there not only unity might be understood from the fact that one essence is said, but also trinity from the fact that three persons are said". Hilary likewise in the seventh book *On the Trinity* says: "The Lord says: *He who sees me, sees also the Father*. When this is said, the understanding of the singular and unique, that is of the solitary, is excluded. For the speech does not signify a solitary, and yet the profession teaches an undifferentiated nature. For the Father was seen in the Son through the united likeness of nature. For the begotten and the begetter are one, they are one, yet not one [person]. Therefore the Son is not solitary, nor singular, nor unequal". Likewise in the same place: "Just as in the Father and the Son to believe in two gods is impious, so to preach the Father and the Son as a singular God is sacrilegious. There is in these nothing new, nothing diverse, nothing alien, nothing separable". Of this also Augustine in the book *of the Questions of the Old and New Law* says: "God is one, but not singular". Likewise Ambrose in the book *On the Faith* says: "What is of one substance cannot be separated, even though it be not of singularity, but of unity". "When God is called one, He in no way excludes the trinity of the Deity, and therefore He is predicated, not as of singularity, but as of unity". Behold, from the foregoing it is shown that God must be confessed as neither singular nor diverse nor unique nor solitary, since singularity or solitude excludes the plurality of the persons, and diversity removes the unity of the essence. Diversity induces separation of the Divinity; singularity takes away the distinction of the Trinity. Therefore Ambrose in the second book *On the Faith* says: "There is no diverse nor singular equality"; "neither in the manner of the Sabellians confounding the Father and the Son, nor in the manner of the Arians separating the Father and the Son. For the Father and the Son have distinction, but not separation". Likewise in the same: "The Father and the Son are one in divinity, nor is there a difference of substance there, nor any diversity; otherwise how do we call God one? For diversity makes many". It is established therefore from the foregoing that in the Trinity there is no diversity; if nevertheless sometimes in Scripture it is found said *three diverse persons* and the like, it calls *diverse* what are *distinct*.

#### Cap. VI. *That God ought not to be called manifold.*

And just as in the Trinity there is no diversity, so neither is there manifoldness, and therefore God is not to be called manifold, but threefold and simple. Whence Ambrose in the first book *On the Faith* says: "There is in the Father and the Son no discrepant, but one divinity, nor can what is one be confused, nor can what is undifferentiated be manifold". God therefore is not manifold.

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