Dist. 11, Dubia
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/11/q/bon-sent-I-d11-dubia
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### DOUBTS ON THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I.

In this part there are doubts on the text, and first on what he says: *In the principal Councils which were celebrated among them*. It is asked, then, which were those four principal Councils?

**I respond:** And it must be said that there were four principal Councils of the Apostles in the primitive Church, as a certain Gloss on Acts says. The first was for the election of Matthias, Acts 1; the second for the election of the seven deacons, Acts 6; the third for not imposing the legal observances on the gentiles, Acts 15; the fourth for tolerating the legal observances for a time, Acts 21.

The principal Councils of the Fathers among the Greeks were likewise four, namely *Nicaea*, *Ephesus*, *Chalcedon*, and *Constantinople*.

### Doubt II.

Likewise it is asked about that exposition which the Master places upon the words *Whoever shall have taught another thing or preached otherwise* etc.; and he expounds: *that is, who shall have taught the contrary or in a contrary way* etc.; because that exposition does not seem probable, because he who contradicts the articles is excommunicated *ipso iure*: therefore it was not necessary to give a sentence against the contrary: therefore it seems that they passed a sentence against the *diverse*. Moreover, whence comes that exposition? For God's sake! why did they not say: *whoever shall contradict*?

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Anselm says: *Every truth which does not contradict sacred Scripture can be said [to belong to] sacred Scripture*, on account of its generality and dignity; and therefore the aforesaid exposition has place here. Nor was it unfitting to express the excommunication of heretics, because the holy Fathers in the Councils ordained the things that pertained to discipline (*quae iuris erant*), and on that account [it was] said for the sake of terror; and they preferred to say *another thing* (*aliud*), although they understood the *contrary*, in order more strongly to restrain the mouths of the presumptuous, lest they invent novelties in the faith. According to truth, however, the sentence of excommunication does not extend except to those who contradict; because it was not their intention to preclude the way to a fuller explanation of the faith, if God should illuminate others more; and if they had said this, it is plain that they would not have been well moved, and their sentence would deservedly be liable to abolition.

### Doubt III.

Likewise it is asked about what he says, that *it is not anything else for the Holy Spirit to be of the Son than to be from the Son*. But on the contrary: it is one thing to say *the cape of Socrates*, and another *the cape made by Socrates*: therefore it seems likewise in the case at hand; or if not, the reason is asked.

And it must be said that the genitive, although it be denominated from the relation of *principle*, yet it imports another relation, indeed others, such as that of *possession*; but since in the divine being there falls no diversity nor relation save that of *origin*, by reason of the matter in the divine being [the genitive] is determined to the relation of *principle*; and therefore in God to say *Spirit of the Son* is the same as [to say] *the Spirit proceeds from the Son*.

Moreover, there is another reason, because *Spirit*, insofar as it is an *absolute* name, like the name *God*, does not properly have an idiom with the genitive, because then it would be the same to say *Spirit of the Son* as *God of the Son*: therefore it must be the case that *Spirit* be taken according as it is said from *spiration*; and so it is a name importing origin: therefore just as it follows: *Son of the Father*, [therefore] Son who is from the Father, so also to say *Spirit of the Son* is to say: *the Spirit who is from the Son*.

### Doubt IV.

Likewise it is asked about what he [the Master] says: *Not without me and without my and the Father's arbitrium [decision]* etc. He seems to say [this] badly, because he who has *arbitrium* over someone has dominion over him: therefore it seems according to this that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son. If you say that *arbitrium* denotes *will*; this is nothing, because similarly, since the will is one of the three, likewise the Son does not speak without the arbitrium of the Holy Spirit, and the Father likewise; which is not properly said.

**I respond:** It must be said that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son, in such a way that He proceeds from the Father and the Son; therefore the operation of the Holy Spirit is common to the Father and the Son, and likewise [the Holy Spirit] has being equally from the Father and the Son; in such a way that it is not [right] to say that He has a *proper* speaking, nor that He has speaking *from Himself*; and these two the Lord wished to exclude when He said: *He shall not speak from Himself*, in order that the formal character of *proper* and the formal character of *first principle* might be excluded. And expounding this, Didymus, against the formal character of *proper*, says: *Not without me*; against the formal character of *first principle* he says: *Without my and the Father's arbitrium*; and *arbitrium* does not import dominion or causality, but only *authority* in the Father and the Son with respect to the Holy Spirit or to His operation.

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