Monologium, on the Being of God55 Chapter LV. This love is not their Son.
Chapter LV. This love is not their Son.
Since this love, then, has its being equally from Father and Son, and is so like both that it is in no wise unlike them, but is altogether identical with them; is it to be regarded as their Son or offspring? But, as the Word, so soon as it is examined, declares itself to be the offspring of him from whom it derives existence, by displaying a manifold likeness to its parent; so love plainly denies that it sustains such a relation, since, so long as it is conceived to proceed from Father and Son, it does not at once show to one who contemplates it so evident a likeness to him from whom it derives existence, although deliberate reasoning teaches us that it is altogether identical with Father and Son.
Therefore, if it is their offspring, either one of them is its father and the other its mother, or each is its father, or mother, — suppositions which apparently contradict all truth. For, since it proceeds in precisely the same way from the Father as from the Son, regard for truth does not allow the relations of Father and Son to it to be described by different words; therefore, the one is not its father, the other its mother. But that there are two beings which, taken separately, bear each the perfect relation of father or mother, differing in no respect, to some one being — of this no existing nature allows proof by any example.
Hence, both, that is, Father and Son, are not father and mother of the love emanating from them. It therefore is apparently most inconsistent with truth that their identical love should be their son or offspring.
Quid ergo? cum hic amor pariter habeat esse a Patre et Filio, et sic similis sit ambobus ut nullatenus dissimilis sit illis, sed omnino idem sit quod illi: nunquid Filius eorum, aut proles, aestimandus est? Sed sicut Verbum, mox ut consideratur, se prolem esse ejus, a quo est, evidentissime probat, promptam praeferendo, parentis imaginem; sic amor aperte se prolem negat; quia dum a Patre et Filio procedere intelligitur, non statim tam perspicuam exhibet se contemplanti ejus, ex quo est, similitudinem, quamvis ipsum considerata ratio doceat omnino idipsum esse, quod est Pater et Filius. Denique si proles eorum est, aut alter eorum erit pater ejus, alter mater; aut uterque pater, sive mater est: quae omnia veritati repugnare videntur. Quoniam namque nullatenus aliter a Patre procedit, quam a Filio; nulla veritas patitur ut dissimili vocabulo ad illum Pater et Filius referantur: non est igitur alter pater ejus, alter mater. Ut autem duo aliqua sint, quae singula perfectam, et nulla consideratione differentem habeant pariter ad aliquid unum, patris aut matris habitudinem, nulla natura aliquo monstrari concedit exemplo. Ergo non est uterque, scilicet Pater et Filius, pater aut mater amoris a se manantis. Nequaquam itaque videtur veritati convenire, ut idem amor eorum filius sit aut proles.