Pars 4, Cap. 9
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-c9
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### Chapter IX. *On the passion of Christ as regards the manner of suffering.*

Now concerning the *manner of suffering* this is to be held: that Christ suffered with a *most general* passion, with a *most bitter* passion, with a *most ignominious* passion, with a *death-dealing* passion, yet a *life-giving* one. — With a *most general* passion, I say, as regards human nature, not only according to all the principal members of the body, but also according to every power of the soul, although he could suffer nothing according to the divine nature. — He suffered also with a *most bitter* passion, because not only by *grieving*, as one suffering through wounds, but also by *grieving-with*, as one suffering-with on account of our offences. — He suffered also with a *most ignominious* passion, both on account of the gibbet of the cross, which was the punishment of the worst men, and on account of the fellowship of the unrighteous, namely of thieves, *with whom he was deputed*. — He suffered also with a *death-dealing* passion through the separation of the soul from the body, the union of both with the Deity nevertheless remaining unimpaired. For let him be anathema who says that the Son of God at any time abandoned the nature which he had once assumed.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the reparative principle, just as it produced in an ordered way, so also had to repair the human race in an ordered way. Thus therefore it must repair in such a way that the *freedom of choice* be preserved, that the *honour of God* be nonetheless preserved, that the *order of the government of the universe* be preserved also. — Since therefore it had to repair with the *freedom of choice* preserved, it repaired by giving a most efficacious example; and that example is most efficacious which *invites* and *informs* unto the summit of the virtues. But nothing more *informs* a man, unto virtue, than the example of enduring death for the sake of justice and of divine obedience — death, I say, not of any sort whatever, but the most penal. And nothing more *incites* than so great a kindness, by which *for us* the most high Son of God, without any merits of ours, nay rather with many demerits of ours, *laid down his own soul*; which kindness is shown to be so much the greater, the heavier and the more abject the things he sustained or willed to suffer for us. For God *spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how has he not also, with him, given us all things?* From which we are invited to love him and, having loved him, to imitate him.

Again, since he had to repair with the *honour of God* preserved, therefore he repaired by offering a satisfactory homage. « Now to *make satisfaction* is to repay the honour owed to God ». But the honour withdrawn from God through pride and disobedience in respect of a thing to which man is bound is in no way better restored than through *humiliation* and *obedience* in respect of that thing to which he was in no way held. Since therefore Christ Jesus, in so far as he was God, was equal to the Father *in the form of God*; and in so far as he was an innocent man was in no way a debtor of death; while *he emptied himself* and *was made obedient unto death*, he paid back to God what he had not seized, through the homage of a perfect satisfaction, and he offered a sacrifice of the highest sweetness for the perfect appeasing of God.

Lastly, since he had to repair with the *order of the government of the universe* preserved, therefore he repaired through a most fitting remedy. And it is most fitting that contraries be cured by contraries. Since therefore man, willing to be wise as God, sinned, willing to take delight in the forbidden tree, so that he was inclined to *lust* and raised up into *presumption*; and through this the whole human race was infected and lost immortality and incurred the death that was owed: hence it is that, in order that man might be repaired by a fitting remedy, God made man willed to be *humbled* and to *suffer* on a tree: and against the universal infection to suffer with a *most general* passion, against lust with a *most bitter* passion, against presumption with a *most ignominious* passion, and against the death that was owed and unwilling he willed to suffer a death not merited, but *voluntary*.

Since therefore the generality of the corruption in us had infected not only the body and the soul, but also every part of the body and every power of the soul; hence it is that Christ suffered in every part of the body and in every power of the soul and in the higher portion of reason, which was supremely *delighted* in God as *reason* and on account of its union with what is above, and supremely *suffered* as *nature* and on account of its conjunction with what is below — since Christ was *wayfarer* and *comprehensor* at once.

Again, since lust had vehemently infected in us both soul and flesh, both as regards carnal and as regards spiritual sins; hence it is that Christ both *suffered* with a most bitter passion in the *flesh* and *suffered-with* most grievously in the *soul*. And because in the *flesh* there was the greatest evenness of complexion and a perfect vivacity of the senses, while in the *soul* there was the highest charity toward God and the highest tenderness toward the neighbour; hence it is that each pain was the most intense.

Further, since the swelling of pride arises sometimes inwardly from *presumption*, sometimes outwardly from *ostentation* and *the praise of others*; therefore, to remedy all pride, Christ suffered both kinds of ignominy, both in *himself suffering* and in the *company* which he had in the passion.

Lastly, since all these things did not reach the impassible divine nature, but only the human; hence it is that in the death of Christ the division of the soul from the flesh was so made that the unity of the person and the union both of the flesh and of the soul with the Deity nevertheless remained unimpaired. — And because the union of the soul with the body makes a *man* and makes a thing *living*; hence it is that Christ was not a *man* in that three-day space, although the soul and the flesh were united with the Word. Hence, since death in the *human nature* could not induce death into the *person*, which was always living; therefore death died in life, and through the death of Christ *death was swallowed up in victory*, and the prince of death was overcome, and through this man was freed from death and from the cause of death through the merit of Christ's death as through a most efficacious means.

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