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De Trinitate

IV.

[IV 5] Accidens autem dici non solet nisi quod aliqua mutatione eius rei cui accidit amitti potest. Nam etsi quaedam dicuntur accidentia inseparabilia, quae appelantur Graece ἀχώριστα, sicut est plumae corvi color niger; amittit eum tamen non quidem quamdiu pluma est sed quia non semper est pluma. Quapropter ipsa materies mutabilis est, et ex eo quod desinit esse illud animal vel illa pluma totumque illud corpus in terram mutatur et vertitur, amittit utique etiam illum colorem. Quamvis et accidens quod separabile dicitur non separatione sed mutatione amittatur, sicuti est capillis hominum nigritudo, quoniam dum capilli sunt possunt albescere; separabile accidens dicitur, sed diligenter intuentibus satis apparet non separatione quasi emigrare aliquid a capite dum canescit ut nigritudo inde candore succedente discedat et aliquo eat, sed illam qualitatem coloris ibi verti atque mutari. Nihil itaque accidens in deo quia nihil mutabile aut amissibile. Quod si et illud dici accidens placet quod licet non amittatur, minuitur tamen vel augetur, sicuti est animae vita (nam et quamdiu anima est tamdiu vivit, et quia semper anima est semper vivit, sed quia magis vivit cum sapit minusque dum desipit, fit etiam hic aliqua mutatio non ut desit vita sicuti deest insipienti sapientia, sed ut minus sit), nec tale aliquid in deo fit quia omnino incommutabilis manet.

[6] Quamobrem nihil in eo secundum accidens dicitur quia nihil ei accidit; nec tamen omne quod dicitur secundum substantiam dicitur. In rebus enim creatis atque mutabilibus quod non secundum substantiam dicitur restat ut secundum accidens dicatur. Omnia enim accidunt eis, quae vel amitti possunt vel minui et magnitudines et qualitates, et quod dicitur ad aliquid sicut amicitiae, propinquitates, servitutes, similitudines, aequalitates et si qua huiusmodi et situs et habitus et loca et tempora et opera atque passiones.

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The Fifteen Books of Aurelius Augustinus, Bishop of Hippo, on the Trinity

Chapter 4.--The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.

5. That which is accidental commonly implies that it can be lost by some change of the thing to which it is an accident. For although some accidents are said to be inseparable, which in Greek are called achorista, as the color black is to the feather of a raven; yet the feather loses that color, not indeed so long as it is a feather, but because the feather is not always. Wherefore the matter itself is changeable; and whenever that animal or that feather ceases to be, and the whole of that body is changed and turned into earth, it loses certainly that color also. Although the kind of accident which is called separable may likewise be lost, not by separation, but by change; as, for instance, blackness is called a separable accident to the hair of men, because hair continuing to be hair can grow white; yet, if carefully considered, it is sufficiently apparent, that it is not as if anything departed by separation away from the head when it grows white, as though blackness departed thence and went somewhere and whiteness came in its place, but that the quality of color there is turned and changed. Therefore there is nothing accidental in God, because there is nothing changeable or that may be lost. But if you choose to call that also accidental, which, although it may not be lost, yet can be decreased or increased,--as, for instance, the life of the soul: for as long as it is a soul, so long it lives, and because the soul is always, it always lives; but because it lives more when it is wise, and less when it is foolish, here, too, some change comes to pass, not such that life is absent, as wisdom is absent to the foolish, but such that it is less;--nothing of this kind, either, happens to God, because He remains altogether unchangeable.