Pars 4, Cap. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/4/q/bon-brev-p4-c1
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### PART FOUR. *On the Incarnation of the Word.*

### Chapter I. *On the reason why the Word of God had to be incarnate, or why it was fitting.*

After some things have been said above concerning the Trinity of God, concerning the creation of the world and concerning the corruption of sin; it now remains to say some few things briefly concerning the incarnation of the Word, through which Word incarnate the salvation and reparation of the human race was indeed brought about — not because God could not otherwise have saved or freed the human race, but because no other mode was so congruous and fitting to the *repairer* himself and to the *repairable* and to the *reparation*.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the effective principle of things could not, and would not have been fitting to be, anything but God; and since it is no less a thing to repair things once founded than to produce them into *being*, just as *to be well* is no less than *simply to be*: it was most becoming that the reparative principle of things should be the highest God, so that, as God had created all things through the Word uncreated, so he should heal all things through the Word incarnate. Since therefore God made all things powerfully, wisely and in the best way, that is to say benevolently; it was fitting that he should so repair them as to show forth his *power, wisdom* and *benevolence*. But what is more *powerful* than to join extremes supremely distant into one person? What is more *wise* and more congruous than that, for the perfection of the whole universe, there should be made a conjunction of the first and the last — namely, of the Word of God, which is the principle of all things, and of human nature, which was the last of all creatures? What is more *benevolent* than that the Lord, for the salvation of the servant, should take up *the form of a servant*? Nay, this is of such great kindness that nothing more clement, nothing more kind, nothing more friendly can be thought. — This mode, therefore, was most fitting to God the *repairer*, for the commending of the divine power, wisdom and benevolence.

Again, because man, falling into fault, had turned himself away and withdrawn from the principle most powerful, most wise and most benevolent; therefore he had fallen headlong into *infirmity, ignorance* and *malignity*, and through this from spiritual he was made carnal, animal and sensual; and therefore he was unfit *to imitate* the divine *power*, *to know* the *light*, *to love* the *goodness*. To this end, therefore, that man might be repaired from that state, it was most congruous that the first principle should condescend to him, rendering itself to him *knowable, lovable* and *imitable*. And because man, carnal, animal and sensual, neither knew nor loved nor followed anything except what was proportioned and like to himself; therefore, to snatch man out of this state, *the Word was made flesh*, so that by man, who was flesh, he might both be *known* and be *loved* and be *imitated*, and through this man also, knowing and loving and imitating God, might be healed of the disease of sin.

Lastly, because man could not be perfectly repaired unless he recovered *the innocence of mind, the friendship of God* and *his own excellence*, by which he was subject to God alone; and this could not be brought about except through God in the form of a servant: therefore it was congruous that the Word be incarnate. — For *excellence* he could not recover unless the repairer were God; because, if he were a mere creature, then man would be subject to that mere creature, and so would not recover the state of excellence. — The *friendship* of God, too, he could not recover except through a suitable mediator, one who could lay his hand upon both and be conformed to each party and a friend to each, and therefore, as like to God through Divinity, so like to man through humanity. — And *innocence* of mind he could not recover unless the fault were remitted; and to remit it did not befit the divine justice except through a condign satisfaction; and because none could *make satisfaction* but God for the whole human race, and none *was bound to* but man, who had sinned: therefore it was most congruous that the human race be repaired through the God-man born of the stock of Adam. — Since therefore *excellence* could not be recovered except through a most excellent repairer, nor could *friendship* be reformed except through a most friendly mediator, nor could *innocence* be reacquired except through a most sufficient satisfier; and since the *most excellent* repairer is not such unless he be God, the *most friendly* mediator is not such unless he be man, the *most sufficient* satisfier is not such unless he be God and man alike: the incarnation of the Word was most congruous to our reparation, so that; as the human race had gone forth into *being* through the Word *uncreated* and had fallen into fault by forsaking the Word *inspired*; so it should rise again from fault through the Word *incarnate*.

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