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Let us first consider the Divine esse, and afterwards the Divine essence. In appearance the two are one and the same; but esse is more universal than essence; for essence implies esse, and is derived from esse. The esse of God (or the Divine esse) it is impossible to define, because it transcends every idea of human thought, since this can take in only what is created and finite, and not what is uncreate and infinite, and therefore not the Divine esse. The Divine esse is esse itself, from which all things are, and which must be in all things in order that they may have being. A fuller conception of the Divine esse may be gained by the following propositions:
(1) The one God is called Jehovah from esse, that is because he alone is, was, and is to be, and because he is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
(2) The one God is substance itself and form itself, and angels and men are substances and forms from him, and so far as they are in him and he is in them are images and likenesses of him.
(3) The Divine esse is at once esse [being] in itself and existere [manifestation] in itself.
(4) It is impossible for the Divine esse and existere in itself to produce another Divine which is esse and existere in itself; therefore another God of the same essence is impossible.
(5) The doctrine of a plurality of gods, both in past ages and at the present day, sprang solely from a failure to understand the Divine esse.
But these propositions must be elucidated one by one.
