Dist. 3, Part 2, Art. 1, 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/3/q/bon-sent-I-d3-p2-a1-q1
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### Question I. *Whether the account of the image is found in memory, understanding, and will.*

That, however, it is in all [three] together, seems [to be the case].

1. For to the account of the image is required an express conformation in distinction; but distinction in the divine [persons] is found with regard to the three persons: therefore most of all in the created image it is found with regard to three powers.

2. Likewise, the account of the image consists in perfect capacity, because according to Augustine: « the mind is the image in this, that it can be capable and partaker of God »; but God is not fully grasped by the soul unless he be loved, nor is he loved unless he be understood, nor is he understood unless he be held as present to the soul; but the first is through the will, the second through the understanding, the third through the memory: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, knowledge or understanding is appropriated to the Son, the will to the Holy Spirit: therefore either the assignment of the image will be truncated and diminished, or it is necessary to posit a power answering to the Father.

**On the contrary:**

1. To the being of the image is required representation in distinction of origin and order; but in these powers there is no such distinction, because they are con-created with the soul together, nor is one from another, nor one after another: therefore in these the account of the image is not to be found.

2. Likewise, the image is a representation according to exterior disposition, as is evident; but these three powers are intimate to the soul itself: therefore in them is not the account of the image.

3. Likewise, that especially memory is not of the account of the image, is seen [from this], because, since the image is essential to the soul and is in it according to the rational power, but memory, as the Philosopher says, is of sensibles, because it is in brutes; whence it differs from reminiscence, because reminiscence is not in brutes: therefore it seems that memory does not pertain to the image. Further, whether memory be of sensibles or of in-

telligibles, it concerns the difference of time, because it is a present apprehension of past things; but the image abstracts from sensible conditions and times: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, the image is found in those things which are apt to receive the image of reformation or likeness; but that image consists in the three theological virtues, of which none is in memory: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, that the will is not of the integrity of the image, is seen [from this], because it is said in the book *On the Spirit and the Soul*: « The image is in the power of knowing, the likeness is in the power of loving »; but the will does not pertain to the cognitive power: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, every power which belongs to the image ought to be equal to the others, because to the account of the image is required equality; but the will is not equal to the others, because we understand many things which we do not will: therefore etc. If you should say that equality is not regarded with respect to objects, but with respect to acts, so that the sense is: whatever I understand, I will to understand myself, still it is not true, because we remember many things which we would not [will].

### Conclusion.

> The account of the image is found in these three powers, memory, intellect, and will, with comparison to the unity of essence and the plurality of acts.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Augustine says and the Master recites, the image is found in these three powers, yet in comparison to the unity of essence and the plurality of acts, in which there is distinction and order and origin of one from another through a certain mode of disposing. For the retention of the species disposes to understanding, and understanding to loving, if that which is understood is good.

1. And by this is clear the solution to that which is objected: in these powers there is no distinction through origin: therefore etc.

2. To that which is objected, that the image is found according to exterior disposition; it must be said that there is an image of a corporeal and sensible thing; and this, because it offers itself to cognition through external things, has an image representing according to exterior disposition. There is again an image of a spiritual thing, which is intimate to every thing, and which is known insofar as the power is gathered back to inner things; and this has an image representing with regard to interior dispositions.

3. To that which is objected, that memory is of sensibles; it must be said that memory is taken in three ways: in one way as it is receptive and retentive of sensibles and of past things; in another way as it is retentive of past things, whether sensible or intelligible; and in the third way as it is retentive of species, abstracting from every difference of time, as of innate species. And in this third way it is part of the image; but the objection runs concerning the other first two modes. In the first mode memory follows sense, in the second mode it follows understanding itself and will, in the third mode it precedes and answers to the Father.

4. To that which is objected, that memory is not reformed; it must be said that, on the contrary, memory is reformed both with regard to the state of the way and with regard to the state of the fatherland: in the first through hope; and this is evident from Augustine's exposition on that word of Matthew twenty-two: *Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart*, « that is, with the understanding without error, with all thy soul, that is, with the will without contradiction, with all thy mind, that is, with the memory without forgetfulness ». In the second state it is reformed with regard to retention; whence Bernard says that « God shall be to the understanding the fullness of light, to the will the multitude of peace, to the memory the continuation of eternity ». Nor is it unfitting that memory, although it be first, should be reformed through the last endowment; because the order of reformation and deformation begins from the posterior, but the order of information begins from the superior: therefore from the will reformation begins and tends as far as memory.

5. To that which is objected, that the image is in the power of knowing; it must be said that the likeness expresses something gratuitous, and therefore it is said to be by appropriation in the will or in love. The image, however, does not express something gratuitous, and therefore it is said to be in the power of knowing.

Or otherwise concerning the image: because in the Son is the proper image, and to the Son is appropriated the understanding, which is in the cognitive power; therefore the image is said to be in the power of knowing.

6. To that: The will is not equal to the understanding; it must be said that the will, as it is commonly taken for to-will and to-not-will, of which each is an act of the will, is well equated, according to which it is said *to use* to be common to both, as Augustine says, and it is held in the letter [of the Master] that the will takes other things, while I make use of them, etc. For whatever we remember or understand, we receive into the faculty of the will for choosing or rejecting; and this is, according to which it expresses the common act of the will; but according to the special act, which is to-will alone, it is not equal; and concerning this the objection is raised, because thus to-will does not comprise the whole will, as to-remember [comprises] the whole memory, and to-understand the whole understanding.