SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER WE MAY SAY THAT THE THREE PERSONS ARE OF ONE ESSENCE

State of the question. This is a question of terminology. The difficulty arises from the use of the genitive, "If one essence"; or it might be better to say, "One essence of three persons."

Reply. The reply is in the affirmative. The formula is found in the councils, for example, "We confess and believe that the holy and ineffable Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, one God in nature to be of one substance, of one nature, and of one majesty and power."[535]

In the preface of the Mass of the Holy Trinity we say: "One God, one Lord: not in the singleness of one only person, but in the Trinity of one substance, " that is, the three persons are of one essence. Thus the Church uses this genitive. As is said in the argument sed contra, this is a translation of the Greek homoousios, of one substance, that is to say, that the three persons are consubstantial, as was defined by the Council of Nicaea.

The theological argument, given in the body of the article, is the following. We cannot denominate divine things except in the manner of our own intellectual processes with the ever-present reference to creatures from which our concepts are derived. But in creatures the essence signifies the form of individuals and persons and is attributed to them. Thus we say the sanity of this man, or by means of the genitive we say, a man of perfect virtue.

Similarly in God, where the persons are multiplied and the essence is not, we say, the one essence of three persons, and the three persons are "of one essence, " and the genitive is construed as signifying the form.

Reply to the fifth objection. We cannot say that the three persons are out of the same essence, because the preposition out of does not express the formal cause but the efficient and material cause, which do not exist in God with reference to the divine persons.