CHAPTER XIII: QUESTION 39 THE DIVINE PERSONS IN COMPARISON WITH THE ESSENCE


INTRODUCTION

We have completed the second part of the treatise, which deals with the divine persons in particular, and now we begin the third part, which treats of the divine persons: in comparison with the essence; 2. in comparison with the properties; 3. in comparison with the notional acts, namely, generation and active spiration; 4. and in comparison with each other.

At first sight it will appear to many readers that St. Thomas is again saying what he said in the first part of this treatise, when he treated of the persons absolutely in common and then went on to the two processions and the relations founded on the processions. St. Thomas, however, is not making a new beginning of the treatise. What in the first place he had considered analytically, first in common and then in particular, he now considers synthetically, that is, by comparing with each other all that has been determined theologically in the light of revelation. This treatise is a kind of circle, beginning with the processions, going on to the persons, and returning to the terminus a quo, that is, the divine processions. This "circular" contemplation may appear to be returning always to the same things but in reality it seeks always to penetrate more deeply into the matter just as the eagle high in sky seems to be making the same circle again and again, looking up into the sun and in the light of the sun above looking down on the vast expanse of the earth below. "This circular movement is the movement around the same central point. Dionysius ascribed to the angels a circular movement since they, uniformly and unceasingly, without beginning and without end, look upon God, just as circular movement has neither beginning nor end and uniformly moves about the same center."[524]

We will understand the necessity of this synthetic part when we come to the theory of appropriation, which cannot be explained until we have determined those things which are proper to each person, and when we consider the notional acts, active generation and active spiration, which presuppose the persons from whom these acts proceed.