Editing Essence (section)

==Etymology==
The [[English language|English]] word ''essence'' comes from [[Latin language|Latin]] ''essentia'', via [[French language|French]] ''essence''. The original Latin word was created purposefully, by [[Ancient Roman philosophers]], in order to provide an adequate Latin translation for the [[Greek language|Greek]] term ''[[ousia]]''. 

The concept originates as a precise technical term with Aristotle, who used the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] expression ''to ti ên einai''<ref>[[Aristotle]], ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'', 1029b.</ref> literally meaning "the what it was to be." This also corresponds to the [[Scholasticism|scholastic]] term [[quiddity]] or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti''<ref>Aristotle, ''Metaphysics'', 1030a.</ref> literally meaning "the what it is" and corresponding to the scholastic term [[haecceity]] (thisness) for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for its Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers, the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (''[[horismos]]'').<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics"], [[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]], accessed 20 April 2008.</ref>

[[Stoicism|Stoic]] philosopher [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] (d. 65 AD) attributed creation of the word to [[Cicero]] (d. 43 BC), while rhetor [[Quintilian]] (d. 100 AD) claimed that the word was created by the Stoic philosopher [[Rubellius Plautus|Sergius Plautus]] (d. 62 AD).

Early use of the term is also attested in works of [[Apuleius]] (d. 170 AD) and [[Tertullian]] (d. 240 AD). During [[Late Antiquity]], the term was often used in [[Christian theology]], and through the works of [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] (d. 430), [[Boethius]] (d. 524) and later theologians, who wrote in [[Medieval Latin]], it became the basis for consequent creation of derived terms in many languages.{{sfn|Brown|1996|p=275-276}}

[[Thomas Aquinas]], in his commentary on ''[[De hebdomadibus]]'' (Book II) by [[Boethius]], states that in this work the distinction between essence (''id quod est'', what the thing is) and Being (''esse'') was introduced for the first time. Whereas the Being participated in entities is infinite and infinitely perfect, the essence — and not the matter — delimits the perfection of the Being in entities and makes them finite.<ref>In fact, [[Angel#Theology|angels]] are finite due to the finitude of their essence, even being without any matter. {{cite book |author=Father [[Battista Mondin]], O.P. |title=Ontologia e metafisica |publisher=[[Edizioni Studio Domenicano]] |year=2022 |isbn=978-88-5545-053-9 |edition=3rd |series=Filosofia |page=146, 151 |language=it |trans-title=Ontology and metaphysics |issue=47}}</ref>