CHAPTER 61

DEPENDENCE OF THE HYPOSTASES ON THE PERSONAL PROPERTIES

This makes it clear that if we were to remove the personal properties by intellectual abstraction, the hypostases could not remain. If a form is removed by intellectual abstraction, the subject of the form remains. Thus if whiteness is removed, the surface remains; if the surface is removed, the substance remains; if the form of the substance is removed, prime matter remains. But if the subject is removed, nothing remains. In the case of God, the personal properties are the subsisting persons themselves. They do not constitute the persons in the sense that they are added to pre-existing supposita; for in the Godhead nothing that is predicated absolutely, but only what is relative, can be distinct. Therefore, if the personal properties are removed by intellectual abstraction, no distinct hypostases remain. But if non-personal notions are thus removed, distinct hypostases do remain.