Dist. 31, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Question III. *Why eternity is appropriated to the Father, species to the Image, and use to the Gift.*

Thirdly, it is asked why eternity is appropriated to the Father, *species* (beauty) to the Image, and *use* to the Gift. It seems that Hilary's appropriation is not a good one:

1. Because all the divine persons are equally eternal and coequal, and *eternity* abstracts from the act of a person: therefore it is not appropriable.

2. Likewise, it is asked: why is *species* appropriated to the Image? For there *species* is taken either as *species* is called *form*, or as *beauty*: if as form — but just as *nature* is appropriable to none, so neither is *species*. If as beauty — but the beauty of the image is referred to the prototype: therefore to the Father; therefore it ought to be appropriated to him.

3. Likewise, Dionysius says that "the good and the beautiful are the same": therefore, since *goodness* is appropriable to the Holy Spirit, so also is *beauty*.

4. Likewise, Hilary says that "an image must have the essence and nature and species of the author." Why then does he define an image more by *species* than by any of the others?

5. Likewise, God is not to be *used*, but only the creature: therefore *use* is appropriable to no person; therefore not even to the Holy Spirit.

### Conclusion.

> *Eternity is fittingly appropriated to the Father on account of his lack of a principle; use, as it generally signifies the act of will, [is appropriated] to the Holy Spirit on account of the mode of emanation, that is, according to will; but species [is appropriated] to the Son, since species expresses likeness, the ground of knowing, and beauty: all of which fit him, since he emanates by way of nature.*

**I respond:** It must be said that this appropriation of Hilary was made for the sake of explaining the origin or emanation of the persons. Since therefore the person of the Father lacks emanation and origin, that ought to be appropriated to him which imports the privation of a principle. And such is this name *eternity*. For the eternal is what lacks a principle. And although by its own meaning it expresses only the privation of a beginning of duration, by appropriation it nonetheless expresses the privation of every principle.

1. And thus the first objection is answered.

Now the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of will and love; and so there had to be appropriated to him a name which expresses the act of will; and this is the name *use*. For "to use is to take something up into the resource of the will", whether for using or for enjoying. Since therefore the assumption [of something] for enjoying is through love, likewise [assumption] for using, since love is weight and order: therefore *use* is rightly appropriated to the Holy Spirit.

5. And thus the last [point] inquired about is plain, namely that *use* is taken here, not as it is divided over against *enjoyment*, but as it expresses the embrace of love and the free act.

But the Son emanates by way of nature; and since he emanates by way of nature, therefore he emanates by way of perfect and expressed likeness. For nature produces what is like and equal to itself. And since he has the account of an expressed likeness, therefore [he has] also [the account] of cognition, since an expressed likeness is the ground of knowing. And since by way of perfect likeness and ground he has in himself the account and exemplar of all things, hence it is that he has the account of perfect beauty. For since he is a perfect and expressed likeness, therefore he is *beautiful* in comparison to him whom he expresses. Since indeed he has the ground of knowing, and not only of one [thing] but of the whole universe, therefore "the most beautiful, bearing the world beautifully in his mind", he has beauty in comparison to all exemplified beauty. From these two there results most perfect beauty. For as Augustine says: "Beauty is nothing other than numerical equality." Since therefore in comparison to the Father he has the beauty of equality, since he expresses [him] perfectly, as a beautiful image; but in comparison to things he has all the accounts [or "reasons"], according as Augustine says that "he is the art full of all the living reasons": therefore it is plain that in the Son the account of every beauty is rightly found. — Therefore by the same fact that the Son emanates by way of nature, he has the account of perfect and expressed likeness; by the fact that he has the account of perfect likeness, he has the account of cognition; and by reason of both he has the account of beauty. Since therefore the name *species* imports likeness, and imports the ground of knowing, it imports also beauty — as in "the species (beauty) of Priam, indeed, is worthy of empire" — therefore [*species*] is most elegantly appropriated to the Son.

2. 4. It is plain therefore why Hilary appropriates that name to the Son rather than another, and why too he defines an image by that name rather than by any other.

To that, then, which is objected, that the beauty of an image is referred to the prototype, it must be said that this is true, but yet *honor* is referred [to the prototype] in one way, and *beauty* in another: for the honor of an image or picture is so referred to the prototype that in the [image] itself there is not honor in itself, as is plain if the icon of blessed Nicholas is honored; but beauty is so referred to the prototype that nonetheless beauty is in the image [as well], not only in him whose image it is. And there can be found there a twofold account of beauty, although in him whose [image] it is, only one is found. Which is plain, since an image is called *beautiful* when it is well drawn, and is also called *beautiful* when it well represents him toward whom it is. And that this is another account of beauty is plain, since it happens that the one is without the other: just as an image of the devil is said to be *beautiful* when

it well represents the foulness of the devil, and is then itself foul. And therefore Hilary, when appropriating *species* or beauty to the Son, appropriates it more under the name of *image* than under the name of *son*.

3. To that which is objected, that *the good* and *the beautiful* are the same: it must be said that Dionysius does not mean that they are one in account, but that they are one in reality. But since they differ in account, therefore the one can be appropriated to someone, while the other is not appropriated.