Dist. 31, Part 2, Art. 1, 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/31/q/bon-sent-I-d31-p2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the appropriation of Hilary.*
### Question I. *Whether 'image' is said in divine matters according to substance, or according to relation.*

That *image* is said according to substance is shown thus.

1. Hilary, in the fourth book *On the Trinity*: "God is found to have wrought man toward an image and likewise a likeness common to himself with God."

2. Likewise, Bede on that text: *Let us make man* etc.: "In this, that he says *image*, is signified one and equal substance of the Trinity": therefore *image*, since it pertains to the commonality and unity of substance, is said according to substance.

3. Likewise, this same point seems [to follow] by reason, since that very thing which *exemplar* says actively, *image* says passively; but *exemplar* in the divine is said according to substance, not according to relation: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, *image* consists in representing something not only in substance, but also in the distinction and order of the things distinguished: if therefore in the divine no distinction falls within one person, it is necessary that in the divine *image* be considered insofar as the unity of essence is in three persons: therefore *image* in the divine is said not notionally, but essentially.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine, in the seventh book *On the Trinity*: "What is more absurd than that *image* be said toward itself?" but everything that is said according to substance is said toward itself: therefore since *image* is not said toward itself, it is not said according to substance.

2. Likewise, Hilary, in the third book *On the Trinity*: "An image alone does not exist," therefore an image in the divine is *with another*; but the essence is not with another: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, this same point seems [to follow] by the definition of *image*, since Hilary says that "an image is a thing's [relation] to a thing for the sake of co-equating" etc.; but the thing that is co-equated to a thing is a person: therefore *image* is of person to person. But what expresses the regard of one to another is said according to relation: therefore *image* also.

4. Likewise, this is shown by etymology. For *image* (*imago*) is so called as if *imitago*: therefore wherever the account of an image is, there imitation is; but the divine essence does not imitate anything, since every such thing is from another: therefore *image* is not said according to substance or essence.

### Conclusion.

> *Image, properly speaking, is said not according to substance, but notionally.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as *exemplar* according to the propriety of the word expresses [its meaning] by way of the active — whence *exemplar* is said [of that] toward whose imitation something is made — so on the contrary *image* is said by way of the passive, and that is called an *image* which expresses and imitates another. And in this way *image* is taken in two ways, according as expression is twofold, namely either in unity of nature, or in diversity of nature: in commonality or unity of nature, as the son of an emperor is called the image of the father; in diversity of nature, as the image of the emperor is in a coin.

Thus with respect to God *image* is said by expression according to identity of nature; and so it is the uncreated image and is said notionally or according to relation, since *image* expresses an emanation, and emanation in unity of nature is only [an emanation] of a person. *Image* is also said by expression in diversity of nature; and so the created image is said with respect to the whole Trinity. And so it is clear that *image*, taken in the divine, is said according to the relation of person to person; and this according to the propriety of the word, as the reasons adduced for this prove.

But since it happens that the name *exemplar* is misused, so that even that is called an *exemplar* which is made in imitation of another, so on the contrary it happens that *image* is misused, so that that is called *image* toward whose expression another is made; and thus, since the creature is made for the expression of the unity of essence in the trinity of persons, it can be called *image* of the whole Trinity; and thus it is called an imaging *image*, since by the account of the name it expresses *the imaged*; just as an *exemplar* is called an *exemplated* abusively, although the *exemplar* is the *exemplating*. And in this way it seems that Hilary and Bede took it, as he says in the sixteenth distinction of the second book.

Yet it can be said that each speaks of the created image, which, since it is with respect to one essence, is the common image of the three persons and indicates the unity of substance in the three. Hence *image* is never said purely toward itself, since it always expresses regard either to another person or to a creature, or [the regard] of a creature to the divine nature. Nor is it ever said purely according to substance, since it always denotes distinction either internally or externally. Hence *image* is not called essence simply, but essence as considered in three persons. — Yet preserving the propriety of speech, *image* is said according to personal relation, insofar as it is called the eternal image. And the authorities and reasons for this are to be conceded.

**To the arguments on the opposite side:**

*1. 2.* To the authorities on the opposite side the response is plain.

*3.* To that which is objected, that *exemplar* is said essentially, therefore etc.; it must be said that the case is not the same, since the whole Trinity is the principle. And therefore, since *exemplar* expresses the account of the producer — whence it is said according to substance and applies to the whole Trinity, but the whole Trinity is not principiated — and since *image* properly expresses the account of the produced: therefore it does not apply to the whole Trinity nor is it said according to substance.

*4.* To that which is objected, that for there to be an *image*, it must express distinction and order; it must be said that this is true of an image which is the image of a thing having distinction and order, as a man has [distinction and order] in his parts, and the whole Trinity in the persons; but since the thing of which it is the image does not have distinction, as for instance one person, it is not necessary that it be expressed thus. — Or it can be said that this is true when the image differs substantially. For then, in order that it expressly express, it is necessary to imitate in the conditions consequent upon the substance: but when it imitates in the same form of substance, this is not necessary.