Pars 4, Cap. 4
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-c4
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### Chapter IV. *On the incarnation as regards the fullness of times.*

Concerning the *time* of the incarnation this is to be held: that although God could have become incarnate from the beginning, he nevertheless willed it only at the end of the ages, the law of nature and the law of figure going before, after the Patriarchs and the Prophets, to whom and through whom the incarnation was promised. — After them he deigned to become incarnate as at the *end of the times* and in their *fullness*, according to what the Apostle says: *But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law.*

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the incarnation is a work of the first principle repairing, according to what befits and accords with the *freedom of choice*, with the *sublimity of the remedy* and with the *integrity of the universe*; for the most wise Artificer attends to all these things in acting. — Since therefore *freedom of choice* requires this, that it be drawn to nothing unwilling; so God had to repair the human race in such a way that he should find salvation who was willing to seek the Savior, whereas he who was unwilling to seek the Savior would consequently not find salvation either. But no one seeks a *physician* unless he recognizes his disease; no one seeks a *teacher* unless he recognizes himself ignorant; no one seeks a *helper* unless he recognizes himself powerless. Because therefore man, at the beginning of his fall, was still proud about *knowledge* and *power*; therefore God sent before the time of the law of nature, in which he might be convicted of *ignorance*; and afterward, his ignorance being known but the *pride about power* remaining, by which they were saying: there is no lack of one to do it, but there is a lack of one to command it; he added the law instructing by moral precepts and burdening by ceremonial ones; so that, *knowledge being had* and *powerlessness being known*, man might flee for refuge to the divine mercy and to the asking of grace, which has been given to us in the coming of Christ. Therefore after the law of nature and of Scripture the incarnation of the Word had to follow.

Again, since the *sublimity of the remedy* requires that it *be believed* with a most firm faith and *be loved* with a most ardent charity, as a mystery most secret and most salutary; therefore it was most fitting that before Christ's coming there should go before many *testimonies* of the Prophets, as much explicit in words as implicit in figures, so that by many and firm testimonies what was secret should become certain and indubitable for believing; there should also go before manifold *promises* and most ardent *desires*, so that the promised benefit might be awaited, the awaited deferred, the deferred more amply desired, and the long desired more fervently loved and more graciously received and more solicitously kept.

Lastly, since the *integrity and perfection of the universe* requires that all things be ordered as regards places and times; and this work of the incarnation was the most perfect among all the divine works; and the process ought to be from the imperfect to the perfect, and not the other way round: hence it is that that work had to be done at the *end of the times*, so that, as the first man, who was the ornament of the whole sensible world, had been founded last, namely on the sixth day, for the completion of the whole world: so the second man, the complement of the whole repaired world, in whom the first principle is joined with the last, namely « God with clay », should come to be at the end of the times, that is in the sixth age, which is the age apt for the exercise of wisdom and for the enervating of concupiscence and for the passage from the state of the whirlwind to rest; all of which things befit the sixth age of the world's course on account of the incarnation of the Son of God.

Since therefore the coming of Christ was in the time of the law of *grace* and in the *showing forth of the promised mercy* and in the *beginning of the sixth age*; and all these things bespeak fullness; because the law of *grace* fulfills the law of Scripture, and the *paying of what was promised* fulfills the promise, and the *sixth age*, by reason of the perfection of the senary, sounds of fullness: hence it is that in the coming of the Son of God there is said to be a *fullness of times*, not on this account, that in his coming time is ended, but because the temporal mysteries are fulfilled. But just as Christ ought not to have come at the *beginning of time*, because his coming would have been too hasty; so neither ought he to have deferred it to the *last end*, because then he would have been too tardy. For it befitted the *savior* to introduce in the middle, between the time of *disease* and the time of *judgment*, the time of *remedy*. It befitted the *mediator* that some of his members should go before, some follow. It befitted the perfect *leader* to show himself at the time when there was opportunity of running for the prize; and this is at the end of the times and short of the term and in the approach to the final judgment; so that, goaded by the fear of judgment and drawn by the hope of the reward and animated by the perfection of the example, we might vigorously and perfectly follow our leader *from virtue to virtue*, until we come *to the prize of eternal happiness*.

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