Folia Theologica 9. (1998)

Tibor Somlyói Tóth: "Habitu inventus ut homo"

190

T. SOMLYÓI TÓTH

alludes in various ways in order to cast light on issues under discussion, but not as a basis from which to develop extended presentations of doctrine.

The text is first mentioned in the Prima pars, q. 31, art. 2, within a discussion of the unity and plurality of the deity. Article two asks whether the Son is other than the Father, and the second introductory point suggests, on the basis of a text from Ambrose’s De fide, that since the Father and Son are one and not different one from the other, the Son cannot be other than the Father. The reply shows that the Father and Son are indeed not different in the sense of difference that implies a difference of form, since there is only one from in the divine, and Christ, as we know, “was in the form of God”. One may, however, speak of differences in the sense of distinctions between properties of persons in the Godhead.31

Philippians 2,6 is used as a proof in the sed contra of q. 42, art. 4, which asks whether the Son is the equal of the Father in magnitude. Since “the magnitude of God is nothing other than a perfection of his nature”32, it follows that the Son shares the magnitude of the Father as he shares the other perfections of the divine nature.

The servant-form of Christ is brought into the discussion of creation, where the events of the seventh day are considered and it is asked (Prima pars, q. 73, art. 1) whether the completion of the divine works should be ascribed to the seventh day. In reply to the third point — which suggests, among other things, that the work of the incarnation was something new, added to the work of the six days — Thomas shows that nothing made by God after the six-day creation was so new that it was not in some sense included in the six days’ work. Things that appear to be newly created — like the souls of succeeding generations — pre-existed in the likeness of their own kind, produced at the beginning. In this way, the work of the

31 S. Thomae de Aquino Summa theologiae, ed. commissio Piana (Ottawa: Institute of Medieval Studies, 1941), Ia, q. 31., a.2, p. 204a, 205a: “Ad 2m. Dicendum quod differentia important distinctionem formae. Est autem tantum una forma in divinis, ut pater per id quod dicitur Philipp. 2,6 ...”

32 AQUINAS, Summa theol., Ia, q. 42., a. 4, p. 268a: “Sed contra est quod dicitur Philipp. 2,6 ’Non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem Deo’. Resp.: Dicendum quod necesse est dicere Filium esse aequalem Patri in magnitudine. Magnitudo enim Dei non est aliud quam perfectio naturae ipsius...”