The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas - El Camino ...

The Person of the Father 159
word authority, these terms occupy quite a large position in the scholastic
Trinitarian vocabulary deriving from the Latin Fathers.42 ‘With the Latins, it is
not common to say that the Father is cause of the Son or of the Holy Spirit;
one would say rather that he is their principle or their auctor.’43 St Thomas
explains that the name auctor denotes the principle which does not derive its
being from another: ‘This is why, even though the Son can be called principle
[of the Holy Spirit], only the Father is named auctor.’44 The name auctor thus
denotes the relation of principle found in the person of the Father.45 It just
indicates the relation through which the Father is the source of the Son,
without implying any inferiority in him.46
The language by which we refer to the Father as principle can be further
enriched by other names. Later on, our investigation of unbegottenness will
bring out the Augustinian terms ‘principle without principle’, ‘principle of the
divinity’, and other expressions coming from the Greek Fathers. For the
moment, we will mention the word ‘source’ (fons), which St Thomas took
mainly from Pseudo-Denys, but also from Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria.47
The language of ‘originary plenitude’ (fontalitas) is more common in
the Commentary on the Sentences,48 but one also Wnds it in the Summa
Theologiae.49 St Thomas can easily take it on board by connecting the name
to the foregoing analysis: the Father is named source under his aspect of
‘principle without principle’,50 auctoritas.
Finally, in relation to the notion of principle, it is necessary to observe that
St Thomas distances himself from the idea of a ‘hierarchy’ within the Trinity.
The hierarchy theme, linked to the reception of the works of Pseudo-Denys
42 St Hilary of Poitiers, in particular, uses this language very amply: the Father is auctor of
the Son and of his generation (cf. e.g. De Trinitate IV.6; IX.54; XII.21; XII.25; SC 448, pp. 20–21;
SC 462, pp. 128–129, 414–415 and 418–419). See L. F. Ladaria, ‘Dios Padre en Hilario de
Poitiers’, in Dios es Padre, Semanas de estudios trinitarios, Salamanca, 1991, pp. 141–177, cf.
pp. 149–150. This vocabulary is passed on by Peter Lombard (see particularly Peter Lombard,
Sentences, Book I, dist. 29, ch. 3).
43 CEG I, ch. 1.
44 I Sent. d. 29, q. 1, a. 1. In other passages, Thomas takes the term auctor in a wider sense
which equates to that of principle (see for instance CEG II, ch. 23). This usage can claim to be
founded on his patristic sources, cf. for instance Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate II.29 (SC 443,
pp. 322–323; the Father and the Son are auctores of the Holy Spirit).
45 De potentia, q. 10, a. 1, arg. 17 and ad 17; cf. ST I, q. 33, a. 1, ad 2.
46 Distancing himself from a common scholastic way of talking, St Thomas advises against
using the word subauctoritas to denote the corresponding relation of the Son (or the Holy
Spirit) to the Father, since it can suggest a certain subordination (De potentia, q. 10, a. 1, ad 9).
47 Cf. CEG I, ch. 1; II, chs. 25 and 27.
48 See for instance I Sent. d. 11, q. 1, a. 1, arg. 1; d. 12, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3; d. 28, q. 1, a. 1, sol. and
ad 4; etc.
49 Cf. ST I, q. 33, a. 4, ad 1.
50 In Dion. de div. nom., ch. 2, lect. 2 (no. 155); lect. 4 (no. 181).