However, we should understand that the order of active generation, with reference to paternity, is to be taken in one way, and that the order of passive generation, or nativity, with reference to filiation, is to be taken in another way. In the order of nature, active generation presupposes the person of the begetter. But in the same order of nature, passive generation, or nativity, precedes the begotten person, for the begotten person owes his existence to his birth. Hence active generation, according to our way of representing the matter, presupposes paternity, understood as constituting the person of the Father. Nativity, however, does not presuppose filiation, understood as constituting the person of the Son but, according to our manner of conceiving, precedes it in both respects, that is, both as being constitutive of the person and as being a relation. And whatever pertains to the procession of the Holy Spirit is to be understood in a similar way.
St. Thomas Aquinas. (1265-1274). Compendium Theologiae: Generation with Respect to the Father and with Respect to the Son, trans. by Cyril Vollert. St. Louis & London: B. Herder Book Co., 1947
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