II.
Sed de persona maxime dubitari potest, quaenam ei definitio possit aptari. Si enim omnis habet natura personam, indissolubilis nodus est, quaenam inter naturam personamque possit esse discretio; aut si non aequatur persona naturae, sed infra terminum spatiumque naturae persona subsistit, difficile dictu est ad quas usque naturas persona perueniat, id est quas naturas conueniat habere personam, quas a personae uocabulo segregari. Nam illud quidem manifestum est personae subiectam esse naturam nec praeter naturam personam posse praedicari. Vestiganda sunt igitur haec inquirentibus hoc modo.
Quoniam praeter naturam non potest esse persona quoniamque naturae aliae sunt substantiae, aliae accidentes et uidemus personam in accidentibus non posse constitui (quis enim dicat ullam albedinis uel nigredinis uel magnitudinis esse personam?), relinquitur ergo ut personam in substantiis dici conueniat. Sed substantiarum aliae sunt corporeae, aliae incorporeae. Corporearum uero aliae sunt uiuentes, aliae minime; uiuentium aliae sunt sensibiles, aliae minime; sensibilium aliae rationales, aliae inrationales. Item incorporearum aliae sunt rationales, aliae minime, ut pecudum uitae; rationalium uero alia est inmutabilis atque inpassibilis per naturam ut deus, alia per creationem mutabilis atque passibilis, nisi inpassibilis gratia substantiae ad inpassibilitatis firmitudinem permutetur ut angelorum atque animae. Ex quibus omnibus neque in non uiuentibus corporibus personam posse dici manifestum est (nullus enim lapidis ullam dicit esse personam), neque rursus eorum uiuentium quae sensu carent (neque enim ulla persona est arboris), nec uero eius quae intellectu ac ratione deseritur (nulla est enim persona equi uel bouis ceterorumque animalium quae muta ac sine ratione uitam solis sensibus degunt), at hominis dicimus esse personam, dicimus dei, dicimus angeli. Rursus substantiarum aliae sunt uniuersales, aliae particulares. Vniuersales sunt quae de singulis praedicantur ut homo, animal, lapis, lignum ceteraque huiusmodi quae uel genera uel species sunt; nam et homo de singulis hominibus et animal de singulis animalibus lapisque ac lignum de singulis lapidibus ac lignis dicuntur. Particularia uero sunt quae de aliis minime praedicantur ut Cicero, Plato, lapis hic unde haec Achillis statua facta est, lignum hoc unde haec mensa composita est. Sed in his omnibus nusquam in uniuersalibus persona dici potest, sed in singularibus tantum atque in indiuiduis; animalis enim uel generalis hominis nulla persona est, sed uel Ciceronis uel Platonis uel singulorum indiuiduorum personae singulae nuncupantur.
II.
But the proper definition of Person is a matter of very great perplexity. For if every nature has person, the difference between nature and person is a hard knot to unravel; or if person is not taken as the equivalent of nature but is a term of less scope and range, it is difficult to say to what natures it may be extended, that is, to what natures the term person may be applied and what natures are dissociate from it. For one thing is clear, namely that nature is a substrate of Person, and that Person cannot be predicated apart from nature.
We must, therefore, conduct our inquiry into these points as follows.
Since Person cannot exist apart from a nature and since natures are either substances or accidents and we see that a person cannot come into being among accidents (for who can say there is any person of white or black or size?), it therefore remains that Person is properly applied to substances. But of substances, some are corporeal and others incorporeal. And of corporeals, some are living and others the reverse; of living substances, some are sensitive and others insensitive; of sensitive substances, some are rational and others irrational.[58] Similarly of incorporeal substances, some are rational, others the reverse (for instance the animating spirits of beasts); but of rational substances there is one which is immutable and impassible by nature, namely God, another which in virtue of its creation is mutable and passible except in that case where the Grace of the impassible substance has transformed it to the unshaken impassibility which belongs to angels and to the soul.
Now from all the definitions we have given it is clear that Person cannot be affirmed of bodies which have no life (for no one ever said that a stone had a person), nor yet of living things which lack sense (for neither is there any person of a tree), nor finally of that which is bereft of mind and reason (for there is no person of a horse or ox or any other of the animals which dumb and unreasoning live a life of sense alone), but we say there is a person of a man, of God, of an angel. Again, some substances are universal, others are particular. Universal terms are those which are predicated of individuals, as man, animal, stone, stock and other things of this kind which are either genera or species; for the term man is applied to individual men just as animal is to individual animals, and stone and stock to individual stones and stocks. But particulars are terms which are never predicated of other things, as Cicero, Plato, this stone from which this statue of Achilles was hewn, this piece of wood out of which this table was made. But in all these things person cannot in any case be applied to universals, but only to particulars and individuals; for there is no person of a man if animal or general; only the single persons of Cicero, Plato, or other single individuals are termed persons.
[58] For a similar example of the method of diuisio cf. Cic. De Off. ii. 3. 11. Cf. also Isag. Porph. edit. prima, i. 10 (ed. Brandt, p. 29).