Malankara World

Faith of the Church: Trinity

Trinity

The Holy Trinity

by Saint Thomas Aquinas

References /Notes:

42. Cf. chaps. 9, 15.

43. Aristotle, De interpretatione, I, 1 (16 a 3).

44. John 1:14

45. Ancient and medieval Philosophers commonly admitted the possibility of "equivocal generation," according to which some organisms were thought to be produced from inorganic matter, especially such as had previously been alive, under the influence of heavenly bodies, which were believed to be of a superior nature. Thus St. Thomas, Summa, Ia, q. 71, a. un.: "In the natural generation of animals begotten of seed, the active principle is the formative power that is in the seed; but in animals generated from putrefaction, the formative power is the influence of a heavenly body"; Ia., q. 91, a.2 ad 2: "The power of a heavenly body may cooperate in the work of natural generation, as the Philosopher says: 'Man is begotten from matter by man, and by the sun as well' (Aristotle, Phys., II, 2 [194 b 131]). ... But the power of the heavenly bodies suffices for the generation of certain imperfect animals from property disposed matter."

46. Aristotle, De anima, III, 8 (431 b 29).

47. Cf chap. 3 7.

48. Cf chap. 9.

49. Cf chap. 15.

50. Aristotle, De anima, 111, 4 (429 b 21).

51. De Genesi ad litteram, XII, vii, 16; xxiv, 50 (PL, XXXIV, 459, 474).

52. Cf chap. 46.

53. The term here used by St. Thomas, intentio intellecta, cannot well be translated literally. For our purposes we may translate it as "intellectual likeness," as "intellectual representation," or as "mental word." Regardless, the meaning itself is clear, for St. Thomas defines the term in his Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, 11: "Dico autem intentionem intellectam id quod intellectus in seipso concipit de re intellecta"; that is: "By intentio intellecta I mean that which the intellect conceives within itself of the thing understood."

54. Cf chap. 23.

55. Cf, e.g., chaps. 4, 6, 9-11, 2 1.

56. Cf. chaps. 3 7, 46.

57. St. Thomas and the Scholastics of his time thought that the stars were incorruptible and were constructed of matter essentially different from the matter of terrestrial bodies. Consequently the sun, the moon, and all the stars were held to be superior to the material objects of our Earth.

58. Cf. chap. 50.

59. Cf. chap. 49.

60. Cf chap. 49.

61. In connection with these two examples, see the better statement in the Summa, Ia, q. 33, a. 4 ad 3: 'Negation is reduced to the genus of affirmation, just as not man is reduced to the genus of substance, and not white to the genus of quality."

62 Cf. chaps. 54,55.

63 The context requires the reading praecedit instead of procedit (which is found in the Vives and the Mandonnet editions)

64. Cf. chap. 10.

65. Cf. chap. 23.

66. See Gilbert's commentaries, In librum de Trinitate (PL, LXIV, 1292) and In librum de praedicatione trium personarum (PL, LXIV, 1309). Gilbert retracted his error at the Council of Reims in 1148, as St. Bernard relates, In Cantica, serm. LXXX (PL, CLXXXIII, 1170). Cf. Denz., 389, 391.

67. Cf. chap. 53.

68. Cf. chap. 23.

69 Cf. chaps. 10, 22.

Source: The Light of Faith by St. Thomas Aquinas (AD 1200 approx.)

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