Dist. 25, Art. 2, Q. 1
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/25/q/bon-sent-I-d25-a2-q1
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### ARTICLE II. *On the commonness of the name "person."*

Secondly inquiry is made concerning the second article, namely concerning the commonness of this name *persona*. And about this two things are asked. First it is asked whether this name *persona* is truly common to the uncreated persons. Secondly, whether it is a univocal common [name] for created and uncreated persons.

### QUESTION I. *Whether the name "person" is common to the uncreated persons.*

That it is truly common to the uncreated persons is shown thus:

1. Through Augustine in the seventh [book] *On the Trinity*: «Therefore, he says, three persons are spoken of, because that which is *person* is common to them»; but it is established that for plurification the commonness of name alone does not suffice: therefore it is truly common according to the thing itself.

2. Likewise, this same thing is shown by reason, since every name which receives upon itself a distributive sign is truly common to those into which it is distributed; but such is this name *persona*: therefore it is common to the three. For it is fittingly said: *every person is referred*.

3. Likewise, every [name] which is said of many according to the same name and according to the same account is truly common to them; but *persona* is of this kind, since according to the same name and the same account, namely the previously assigned one, it is said of the three: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, when I say: *the Father is a person*, this name *persona* is predicated either as a being belonging to the account of the Father, or as something accidental. It is established that not as accidental: therefore as a being belonging to the account of the Father. Either, then, it expresses the whole of what the Father is, or not; if the whole, then just as *father* is predicated of the Father alone, so also *person*; which is false. Therefore it does not express the whole, therefore *in plus* [extending further] is that which is *person* than *father*, and *in plus*, that which is of the account of the Father, and likewise of the account of the Son: therefore it is truly common.

**On the contrary:**

1. Every common [name] for some things, which is numbered in them, is truly universal for them, especially if it is not said accidentally of them. This is plain, since Augustine said above, in the nineteenth distinction, that essence is not universal for no other reason than that it is not numbered in the singulars. If therefore *person* is common to the three, and further is numbered or plurified in them: therefore it is universal, therefore in the divine one must posit a universal; which is against what has been determined and against Augustine, who holds that in the divine there is neither universal nor particular.

2. Likewise, nothing is common which from its own account and name removes commonness; but *persona* expresses the individual or the incommunicable from the account of its name: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, every [name] which is said according to substance and is common is said according to a common substance; but nothing which is said according to a common substance is plurified: therefore *persona* is not plurified. But it is established that it is plurified, and yet it is said according to substance: therefore it does not express something common.

4. Likewise, if it expresses something common, [it does so] either of name only, or of name and account only, or of name and account and thing. If of name only: therefore it is equivocal, therefore it is not common. If [only] of name and account, such that nothing is common in the thing: therefore it is sheer emptiness. But if of name and account and thing; yet real commonness, as Damascene holds, is nothing other than commonness of substance and nature, and this is in no way plurified: therefore this name *persona* can in no way be common.

> **Conclusion.** *The name "person" is common to the uncreated persons, but by another commonness than that by which the essence is common to them.*

**I respond:** It must be said for understanding what has been set forth that *persona* without doubt is common to the three, and the essence [is] common; but nevertheless there is another mode of commonness in essence and in person. And the sign of this is that the person is plurified, [but] not the essence.

But the difference of these commonnesses is taken differently by different [authors]. *(Opinion 1.)* For some say [that there are two kinds of commonness], namely according to position and according to privation: according to position, as *animal* is common to man and ass; according to priva-

tion indeed, as *non-animal* is common to stone and to wood. And they say that commonness according to position is in nature and essence and in the name signifying this; but commonness according to privation is in person, since *persona* is said as it were [to mean] incommunicable, that is, according to a privation of commonness.

*(Opinion 2.)* Others say that commonness is twofold: one according to the unity of an absolute nature, another according to the likeness of a compared relation. Commonness according to the unity of an absolute nature is *humanity* with respect to Peter and Paul, since one universal nature is found in both. But commonness according to the likeness of a related relation is that which is observed in a similar comparison, as the mode of governing is common to the sailor in steering a ship, and to the teacher in directing schools, since each ought to be skilled not by chance but by art. And the first mode indeed is observed in the essence, but the second is observed in the person. For *persona* is said as it were [to be] distinct by a property; and so it expresses a relation to a property, which is similar in any of the persons. It does not, so far as it is in itself, express one natural form except obliquely; but essence or substance expresses a form and an absolute nature in which they communicate.

*(Opinion 3.)* Others say in a third way that commonness is twofold, namely of thing and of account: of thing, as the universal [is common] to the singulars; of account indeed, as some intention received by the soul according to a similar mode of receiving; and thus this name *individual* is common according to account to Peter and Paul. In the first mode they say the essence to be common; in the second mode they say the person to be common, since this *persona* expresses in the divine, what *individual* [expresses] in creatures.

*(The author's judgment.)* Now all these modes of speaking, if we attend more diligently, are convergent, and are taken from the signification of this name which is *persona*, or from distinction. For *persona* expresses the incommunicable according to account; and this expresses a privation of commonness. Furthermore *persona*, since it has incommunicability by reason of that which underlies a distinguishing property, expresses a relation to a property, as does the name *hypostasis*. Again, from these things it is had that *persona* sets about the supposit, of which it is said, the intention of subjecting [it] and not of predicating it of many. And thus it is plain that from the account of its name it imports a privation of commonness, a likeness of relation, and the intention of account [or: a notional intention]. And since its commonness is taken according to the account of the name, therefore it imports commonness according to privation, and proportion or analogy, and account. — Yet among all these modes the middle one approaches more closely to the nature of the thing, since in truth that privation in person is more a position than a privation. And again, the intention of the name has its foundation and root in the thing.

Therefore the reasonings are to be conceded, that *persona* expresses something common in the divine.

*(Solution to the opposed [arguments].)* 1. To that, then, which is objected, that it is plurified; the response is now plain: because the universal expresses commonness according to position and according to unity of nature and according to thing, not only according to account; and since *persona* in this mode does not import commonness, therefore it is not universal. — *(Another reason.)* Nevertheless the reason does not hold, since the universal is plurified in such a way that it is truly numbered on account of a true addition by which it is contracted to the individual; but this person does not add upon person, since, as has been said above, there is no distinction in the divine through addition, but through origin: therefore *persona* is neither truly numbered, nor drawn into [its] part in that mode in which the universal [is].

2. To that which is objected, that it removes commonness; it must be said that what removes commonness is not common according to that commonness which it removes; but *persona* removes commonness of thing, but not commonness of account; and according to that [commonness of thing] it is not common, but [it is common] according to commonness of account.

3. To that which is objected, that what is common and is said according to substance is said according to a common substance; it must be said that here there is an accident [i.e. the fallacy of accident], as here: *this man is white, and is a monk, therefore he is a white monk*; since the term *white* imports another account of denomination in the premise and in the conclusion. So it must rightly be said of this term

*common*, since it is taken first according to relation, second according to unity of nature.

4. As to what is asked: whether it is commonness of thing, or of account, or of name; it must be said, by all these modes; but real commonness is twofold, as has been seen, namely according to unity of nature, and according to similar relation; and in the first mode Damascene speaks, and so the rest are clear.