Dist. 10
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/1/d/10/q/bon-sent-I-d10-littera
----------------------------------------
### Distinction X.

#### Chap. I.
*On the Holy Spirit: that he is properly called the love of the Father and the Son, since in the Trinity love — which is the Trinity itself — exists, just as the Word is properly called wisdom, and yet the whole Trinity is called wisdom.*

Now, after [the discussion of] the Son's eternity, let us discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, in so far as God grants us to see. The Holy Spirit is the love or charity or affection of the Father and the Son. Whence Augustine, in the fifteenth book of *On the Trinity*, says: "The Holy Spirit is neither of the Father alone nor of the Son alone, but of both, and therefore he insinuates to us the common charity by which the Father and the Son love one another."

And John in his canonical Epistle says: *God is charity.* "He did not say: The Holy Spirit is charity; for if he had said this, the discourse would be more conclusive, and no small part of the question would be settled; but because he said: *God is charity,* it is uncertain, and therefore it must be asked, whether God the Father is charity, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or God the Trinity itself, since these are not three gods but one God." To which Augustine, in the same book, thus says: "I do not know why, just as wisdom is said both of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and all together not three but one wisdom, charity is not in the same way said of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and all together one charity. Yet not for that reason should anyone hold us to call the Holy Spirit charity inappropriately, since both God the Father and God the Son can be called charity, just as the Word of God is properly called also the Wisdom of God, although both the Father and the Holy Spirit are wisdom."

"If, then, any one of these three is properly to be called charity, who more fittingly than the Holy Spirit? — namely, that in that supreme and simple nature substance is not one thing and charity another, but substance itself is charity, and charity itself is substance, whether in the Father or in the Son or in the Holy Spirit, and yet the Holy Spirit is properly called charity." Behold, by these words Augustine plainly shows that in the Trinity charity is sometimes referred to the substance, which is common to the three persons and whole in each, and sometimes specially to the person of the Holy Spirit; just as the wisdom of God is sometimes taken for the divine substance, sometimes properly for the Son; and this is found to occur in many [terms].

#### Chap. II.
*That the same names are taken both properly and universally.*

"For by many examples it can be taught that many names of things are both put universally and applied properly to certain things, just as by the name of the Law sometimes are signified all the utterances of the Old Testament together, but sometimes that is properly called the Law which was given through Moses." Many other examples are at hand, but in a clear matter prolixity of speech is to be avoided. Therefore, just as we properly call the only Word of God by the name of wisdom, although universally both the Holy Spirit and the Father are wisdom itself; so the Holy Spirit is properly called by the name of charity, although both the Father and the Son are universally charity."

"But the Word of God, that is, the only-begotten Son of God, has been openly called the Wisdom of God by the mouth of the Apostle, who says that Christ is *the power of God and the wisdom of God.* Where, however, the Holy Spirit is called charity, we find, if we diligently search the discourse of John the Apostle, who, when he had said: *Let us love one another, since love is from God,* added: *And everyone who loves is born of God, since God is love.* Here he made it manifest that he had said that to be God which he had said to be from God. God therefore is from God love; but since both the Son is born from God the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, which of them ought we rather to take here to have been called love, is rightly asked. For the Father alone is so God

that he is not from God; and therefore the love which is so God as to be from God is not the Father himself, but either the Son or the Holy Spirit. But in what follows, when John had recalled God's love by which *he loved us,* and from this had exhorted that we also should love one another, and so *God may abide in us* — for he had certainly called love God — at once, wishing to speak more openly on this matter, he says: *In this we know, that we abide in him, and he in us, since he gave us of his Spirit.* The Holy Spirit, then, of whom he gave us, makes us abide in God, and Him in us. But this love does. He therefore is God love. Therefore the Holy Spirit, who is God and who proceeds from God, is signified where it is read: *God is love, and love is from God*.*" Behold, by these words Augustine plainly says that the Holy Spirit is the charity of the Father and the Son; and he extended his discourse so far that he seems to have said that the Holy Spirit is not only the love of the Father and the Son by which they love one another and us, but also the love by which we love God. But whether he himself is the charity by which we love God will be explained in the sequel.

Now, however, let us take care to show what we have begun, namely, that the Holy Spirit is the love or affection of the Father and the Son, that is, by which the Father loves the Son and the Son the Father. Concerning this, Jerome on the seventeenth Psalm says: "The Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son, but the love which the Father has toward the Son and the Son toward the Father." Augustine also, in the sixth book of *On the Trinity*, says: "In all things the Son is equal to the Father and is of one and the same substance. Wherefore also the Holy Spirit subsists in the same unity of substance and equality."

"For whether it be the unity of both, or the holiness, or the charity, it is manifest that he is not some one of the two by whom each is joined, by whom the begotten is loved by the begetter and loves his begetter, and they are not by participation, but by their own essence, nor by the gift of any superior, but by their own proper [gift] keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Behold, here you have the Holy Spirit to be that by which the Son is loved by the Father and the Father by the Son, and by which those two preserve the unity of peace. "The Holy Spirit, therefore, as Augustine says in the same [book], is something common to the Father and the Son, whatever it is. But that very communion is consubstantial and coeternal, which, if it can fittingly be called friendship, let it be so called, but it is more aptly called charity; and this also is substance, since God is substance, and *God is charity*. There are therefore three and no more: one loving him who is from him, and one loving him from whom he is, and the love itself, which, if it is nothing, how is *God love*? If it is not substance, how is God substance?"

#### Chap. III.
*That the Holy Spirit, just as he is common to the Father and the Son, so has a common name as proper.*

Here it must be noted that, just as the Holy Spirit in the Trinity is specially called charity — which is the union of the Father and the Son — so also he holds as proper the name which fits the Father and the Son commonly in a certain way. Whence Augustine in the fifteenth book of *On the Trinity*: "If charity," he says, "by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, demonstrates the ineffable communion of both, what more fitting than that he be properly called charity who is the spirit common to both? For this is more soundly believed and understood, that not only is the Holy Spirit charity in that Trinity, but not in vain is he properly called charity, because of those things which have been said; just as he is not the only one in that Trinity who is either spirit or holy, since both the Father is spirit and the Son likewise spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son holy, and yet he himself is not in vain called the Holy Spirit. For he who is common to both is himself properly called by that which both are commonly. Otherwise, if in that Trinity the Holy Spirit alone is charity, then the Son is found to be the Son not of the Father alone but also of the Holy Spirit. For the Apostle says of God the Father: *He has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his charity.* If, therefore, in that Trinity there is no charity of God except the Holy Spirit, the Son is also [Son] of the Holy Spirit. But since this is most absurd, it remains that not only is the Holy Spirit there charity, but, on account of those things of which I have sufficiently discoursed, he is properly so called."

---