Dist. 14, Art. 2, Q. 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/1/d/14/q/bon-sent-I-d14-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the giving of the Holy Spirit.*
### Question I. *Whether the Holy Spirit is given in his proper person, or only in his effect.*

That He is given in his proper person is shown thus:

1. To the Romans, in the fifth [chapter]: *The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us*; but nothing pours forth charity except the uncreated Spirit: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the fifth [book] of *On the Trinity* says that the Holy Spirit is a gift, and is called a gift because He is given: therefore if He is personally a gift, He is personally given.

3. Likewise, this same is shown by reason. The Holy Spirit is love and the first love; but love is the first gift, in which all other gifts are given: therefore if the posterior is not to be posited without the prior, [it is] not [to be posited] that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given, without the Holy Spirit Himself being given.

4. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is given for uniting and binding together the members of the mystical body; but the members of the mystical body are members united with each other, just as the Lord Himself asks, John seventeen: *That they be made perfect into one*; but perfect union is only in one simple [thing]: therefore the members are united through something which is one and the same in all; this however cannot be a created gift, but an uncreated [one]: therefore it is necessary that with the created gift the uncreated be given.

**On the contrary:**

1. Virtue is "the art of right living," and grace is "a gift sufficiently directing the soul to its end": therefore it seems that no gift other than the gift of created grace is needful for the soul: therefore if nothing superfluous is to be posited in the works of God, it is clear that it is not necessary that the Holy Spirit be given.

2. Likewise, when someone is sanctified through grace, there is nothing in him besides grace which was not [there] before: therefore since "to give" is to make that something be in him which was not [there] before, nothing is given except grace. If you say that the Holy Spirit is in him as holy [whereas] before [He was] as Spirit: therefore [to give the Holy Spirit] is nothing other than to make the Holy Spirit a sanctifying grace in him.

3. Likewise, what is given after the giving is in the power of the recipient; but the Holy Spirit cannot be reduced under the power of anyone: therefore He cannot be given.

4. Likewise, what is given to one differing essentially is either created anew, or multiplied, or its possession is transferred — as is clear when I give someone a cape; but the person of the Holy Spirit is neither created nor multiplied, nor is His possession transferred, since God always has the Holy Spirit: therefore the Holy Spirit is not given.

> **Conclusion.** *The Holy Spirit is given both in his proper person, and in the created gift, which is grace.*

**I respond:** It must be said that *to give* is for [the sake of] something to be had or possessed; but *to have* something or *to possess* [it] is, when something is in the faculty of the haver or possessor. But to be in the faculty of the haver or possessor is *to be ready for fruition or use*. But perfect possession is when a man has that which he can both use and enjoy. But to enjoy rightly is only of God, and to use rightly does not occur except through sanctifying grace:

therefore perfect possession is [that] in which God is had, and his grace. But a perfect gift is for [the sake of] perfect possession: therefore there is not "the best given thing and the perfect gift," unless the uncreated Gift, which is the Holy Spirit, be given, and the created gift, which is grace. It must therefore be conceded that both are given.

**Replies to the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that therefore which is objected concerning grace, that it is "the art of living well": the response is clear: although it is an art which we use, nevertheless it is not the possession by which we enjoy [it] as an object: and therefore it is not a perfect gift without that [other gift].

*To 2.* To that which is objected: there is no more in him than before; it must be said that *being given* is not ordered to being, but to having. For although the Holy Spirit was prior in the sinner, He was not however had by him, since the sinner did not have the faculty for fruition of Him.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that what is given is in the power of the recipient; it must be said that something is given to someone *as terminating* [his pursuit], like a reward to one who merits; something *as perfecting*, like grace to one who consents; something *as serving under*, like a horse to a soldier. But what is said — that what is given is in the power of the recipient — is true of giving said in the third mode, not [in] the first and second, since those are two modes of having in which the haver is had. Whence a man is had by grace and is had by the Gift, by which he enjoys.

*To 4.* From this the last [objection] is clear: since that [point] is true of what is given as a limited possession; but not of what is given as terminating, since such a [thing] can be given simultaneously to many and had by many, since they tend to the same [end]: and therefore, when it is given, it is not transferred.