Dist. 33, 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/33/q/bon-sent-I-d33-a1-q1
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### Article Unique.
#### *On the various comparisons of property.*

### Question I.
#### *Whether property is a person.*

So as to the first, it is asked concerning the comparison of property to person. And it is asked, whether property is a person. And that it is not, is shown in this way.

1. Wherever there is truly a determining and a determined according to the thing, there the determining differs from the determined — for if it does not differ, it is not truly determining, but the whole is determined — but the person in the divine is truly the determined, and the property truly the determining, since the property truly, and not according to a mode of speaking only, distinguishes the person: therefore the property differs from the person. But a difference is not predicated of itself in the abstract: therefore neither is the property [predicated] of the person, or vice versa.

2. Likewise, wherever there is truly an abstract and a concrete, there what is abstracted differs from that from which it is abstracted; but property is signified in concretion to the person, when "Father" is said, and in abstraction, when "paternity" is said, and there is not only a difference in the mode of speaking, since something is said of the Father which is not said of paternity: therefore paternity truly differs from the person. But what truly differs from another is not predicated of it in the abstract: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, wherever there is an absolute and a relative, the absolute is not the very respect, however much it be referred by itself — whence although matter is referred by itself to form, nevertheless it is not the very respect to form — therefore since in the divine the person is truly absolute substance, the relation is true respect, however much the person be referred by itself, [the person] is not true respect or the very respect, nor the converse: therefore the property is not the person itself.

From these three suppositions Porretanus argued that the person is not the property nor vice versa. And since whatever is in the person is the person on account of supreme simplicity, he argued further, that the properties are not in the persons, but stand alongside.

4. And that this position is fitting, appears from the authority of Boethius, *On the Trinity*. For he says that "relation does not consist in that which is *to be*, but in *comparison*."

5. Likewise, this same point is shown by reason, since whatever comes to something and recedes without its own change does not predicate something which is in it, but only something standing alongside; but relation is of this kind, as is clear in right and left: therefore etc. Therefore since the properties are relations, they are not persons nor in the persons, but stand alongside.

**On the contrary:**

1. "Everything most simple is that which it has, except for that to which it is said relatively." This is from Augustine, *On the City of God* XI, and it is *per se* known; but the divine person is most simple, otherwise it would not be God, and it is not said relatively to the property: therefore it is the property.

2. Likewise, every most perfect [thing] is everything by which it is perfected and denominated — this is *per se* known, since otherwise the denominator and perfecter would be more perfect than it; and Augustine sets this forth in [book] five *of the Trinity*, saying that, since God himself is the greatest, therefore he is his own greatness — but the divine person is something most perfect and is denominated by his own property: therefore the person is his own property, and the Father is paternity.

3. Likewise, every simply first [thing] is whatever it has, except for that which is from it — for if it has anything which is not from itself, or which is not it itself, that thing is equally first as it [is]: therefore it itself will not be simply first — but the Father has paternity, and paternity is not from him, and he is simply first: therefore the Father is paternity, by the same reason the Son is filiation, and the Holy Spirit procession.

From these it is concluded that the properties are not only persons, but also in the persons.

4. And that this is true, appears from the authority of Jerome in the book *On the Exposition of the Catholic Faith to Damasus*: "We distinguish three persons," he says, "expressed under properties."

5. Likewise, this appears by reason. Since whatever is, either is a being *per se* and in itself, or in another. The properties therefore either are *per se* beings, and so substances; or [are] in another. If in another, only in the persons, since a property is only in that of which it is the property. If *per se*, then property is substance: either then created, or uncreated, or middle. But not created, nor middle — that is established — therefore there remains, that [it is] uncreated: therefore they are persons.

### Conclusion.

> *Property is a person and in a person; nevertheless property and person differ according to the mode of having themselves.*

**I respond:** It must be said, that concerning the comparison of property to person there has been a threefold opinion.

The first position was, that the properties are not persons nor in the persons, but stand alongside the persons, like relations. And the reason which moved them was the plurality of persons and the divine simplicity. For since the persons are several, they have several properties, which are truly different. And since they are different, if they were in the person, they would take from it simplicity. Since this cannot be taken from the divine [persons], they posited that the properties are standing-alongside [assistant] to the persons, are not persons. And to this the nature of relation seems to consort, which does not seem to be in substance nor to predicate something in a subject, but to express a respect to another. And this position, although it was reasonable in some way, nevertheless cannot stand, because it posited that relations in the divine are neither God nor creature. Whence even though in its beginning it contained little error, nevertheless it led to a great one; and therefore it was retracted at the Council of Reims, and master Gilbert Porretanus retracted it with his own mouth.

Therefore there was a second opinion, much differing from this, namely, that the properties are altogether persons and do not differ except only in the mode of speaking, and there are only three properties, just as there are three persons. And this position is founded likewise upon the divine simplicity. For since the persons are most simple, they are distinguished by themselves, and they are themselves their own properties and do not have others differing in reality, but only in the mode of speaking. And this position was that of master Praepositivus, and is more probable than the preceding. Nevertheless it itself was disproved above, in the twenty-sixth distinction, because one person has several relations, which are true relations; and several persons have one property, and one person has himself in one and another way to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, even according to the thing. From which it necessarily follows that really in some way property differs from person, and not only in the mode of speaking, as master Praepositivus said.

And on this account it must be understood that each of the foregoing positions said something true and failed in something. For the first, which said that the properties differ in some way from the persons, said truly; but in this badly, that it said they differed *simply*. The next, which said that the properties are persons, said truly; but in this it went too far, that it said that they differ *in no way* from the persons.

Therefore from these two positions there is welded together one true and common position, which the masters now hold commonly, that the properties are persons and in the persons, yet differ in some way from the persons. — And that this position is fitting is clear, if one inspects the nature of the properties. For it was said above, when it was asked, what property in the divine was, that it was *relation*. It was also said, that relation, by reason of the comparison which it has to the subject, passes over into substance in the divine; and therefore it is most truly predicated of its subject, as the Father is paternity. But by reason of the comparison which it has to the object, it remains most truly in the divine and has in some way a difference from the person; nor on this account does it make a composition, but a distinction with respect to that of which it is. For composition is taken according to the comparison of the property to the subject, distinction with respect to the object. And from this it is clear, that property is person and in person, since it is the same by essence or by mode of being, but differs as to the mode of having-itself. — The reasons therefore must be conceded, that the properties are persons and in the persons.

**To the arguments:**

1. And from what has been said the response to the first argument is clear. For since the properties have some little difference from the person according to the mode of having-themselves, therefore the property truly determines and distinguishes; this however does not take away the predication, since that mode does not add another essence.

2. *To that which is objected* secondly, concerning abstraction, it must be said that there is not abstraction according to the thing, but only according to the mode of understanding and of speaking: since abstraction regards the subject *in which*, and according to that respect [the relation] passes over; since however it remains in comparison to the term, hence it is, that relation does not differ only in speaking, and yet it is not necessary that there be there a true abstraction.

3. *To that which is objected* thirdly, that the absolute is not said of the relative; it must be said, that this is true in the creature, since the very true respect either is another by essence, or in comparison to another: by essence, as matter and form, of which neither is in the divine: whence respect in creatures posits dependence, and therefore takes away supreme simplicity, and therefore is not predicated in creatures. For everything most simple is altogether independent. But in the divine relations express a respect without dependence; and therefore they do not take away supreme simplicity, and therefore they are said of the hypostases.

4. *To that which is objected* afterward, that all relations are standing-alongside; it must be said, that they are said by Boethius *to be in comparison*, not because they are not in the thing, but because, since they are in the thing, they are not in it absolutely, but in comparison to another; with this changed and corrupted, the relation likewise comes to be corrupted and to cease, on account of this, that it is not in the subject absolutely, but to another; nonetheless it is in the subject.

5. From this is clear the response to that which is objected. For that does not have truth except in absolute being, not relative. And that is drawn from the reasoning and the words of Boethius: from the reasoning, since when I say, this is to be ordered to something, I do not say *nothing* of that of which it is said, and when, of something which does not have an order, [the case] becomes one having an order, since that to which it would be ordered did not yet exist — and therefore the order was in potency in this, not by reason of itself, but by reason of that to which it is — as far as it [depended] on its own side, it was in act; and therefore, with no change made in itself, but in the object, it is brought into being and ceases. And this is clear from the words of Boethius, since Boethius does not deny *simply* that relation does not consist in that which is to be, but [says it does] not *wholly* consist [therein]. Whence he says: "A relative predication cannot of itself add anything to the thing of which it is said, or diminish, or change, [a thing] which does not *wholly* consist in that which is to be." From this he hints that it does in some way consist [there]; and therefore neither in creatures nor in God is it true to say that the relation is not in something; but it is true to say that it is not *wholly* in something absolutely.