According to Jerome what God first rationally created is the analogical being (ens analogum), which establishes the possibility of existence for all the other created things, and it is common to all of them. It is because these things are contained in the analogical being, just like all those things that will be created in the future. Hence, the analogical being stands at the top of the structure of created things and it dispenses them in ten categories, in which all the created things are classified according to a hierarchical order of genera and species. Jerome does not explain the concept of analogical being in any great detail, but it is possible that he uses the concept in the same way as John Wyclif did (Kaluza 1994).
As for the individual created things and their relation to the universals, Jerome adopts the position that the created universals (genera and species) do not exist in separation from individualities. According to him, in every created individual is present also its genus and species. At the same time, the more general is the internal principle, as well as the constituent, of the less general so that the genus via naturae precedes the species. Created universals are identical with the given concrete thing, and yet they differ from it in a certain manner. It is a matter of an essential identity on the one hand, and of a formal distinction on the other.
World History
