...[N]othing is known or understood except the true. Truth, however, is triple or is triply, according as each thing has being triply, namely, in its own genus, in the created understanding, and in the eternal exemplar, as Augustine says in book V of the Literal Commentary on the Genesis and Anselm in the book on Truth in chapter X. Therefore we can speak of truth in three ways: by comparison to the matter which it informs, since (in that every created nature represents according to its grade the art by which it was made) the form itself or nature or essence, through which it imitates the very art or exemplar, is its truth; and it is true only in so far as it expresses that exemplar. In the second place we can consider truth by comparison to the understanding which it excites; and this is the created understanding an dmost of all the human understanding, since we are speaking of that mode. For there is no nature which does not manifest and declare itself to the understanding as it is able. In the third place we can consider truth by compraison to the exemplar from which it emanates; this is the divine light and art, by which all things have been made.
Matthew of Aquasparta, Ten Disputed Questions on Knowledge, Question II, in Selections from Medieval Philosophers, Vol. II,, Richard McKeon, ed. Scribners (New York: 1958) 281-282.
