Dist. 8
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/8/q/bon-sent-I-d8-littera
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### DISTINCTION VIII.

### Chap. I. *On the truth and propriety of the divine essence.*

Now we must treat of the truth or propriety, and the immutability and simplicity of the divine nature or substance or essence. «God is, therefore, as Augustine says in the fifth book *On the Trinity*, without doubt substance or, if this is better called so, essence, which the Greeks call *usia*. For just as from what is *to be wise* the word *wisdom* is derived, and from what is *to know* the word *knowledge* is derived; so from what is *to be* the word *essence* is derived. And who is more than he who in the third [chapter] of *Exodus* said to his servant Moses: *I am who am. And you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you*». He himself is truly and properly called essence, whose essence does not know past or future. Hence Jerome, writing to Marcella, says: «God alone, who has no beginning, has held the name of true essence, because, in comparison with him who truly is — for he is unchangeable — the things which are changeable are as though not. For of that which is said *was*, it is not; and of that which is said *will be*, it is not yet. But God only *is*, who does not know *to have been* or *to be about to be*. Therefore God alone truly is, in comparison with whose essence our being is not».

Here it must be carefully noted how those words of Jerome are to be understood, namely: «God only *is* and does not know *to have been* or *to be about to be*», as though it could not be said of God *he was* or *he will be*, but only *he is*, although we frequently find it written of him: *he was from eternity*, *he was always*, and *he will be unto ages*, and the like; whence it seems, that not only *was*, or *is*, or *will be* must be said of God. For if only *was* were said, it would be supposed that he had ceased to be; if only *is* were said, it would be supposed that he had not always been, but had begun to be; if only *will be* were said, it would be supposed that he is not now. Therefore let it be said that he always *was*, *is*, and *will be*, so that it may be understood that he neither began nor ceased nor ceases nor will cease to be. Concerning this Augustine *on John* thus says: «Although of an everlasting thing it is properly said *is*, according to us *was* and *will be* and *is* are well said: *was*, because he never ceased; *will be*, because he will never fail; *is*, because he always is: he has not passed away, as though something that does not remain; he has not arisen, as though something that was not. Therefore, although our manner of speaking is varied through times, words of any time are truly said of him who at no time has failed or fails or will fail; and so it is not surprising if, of the Spirit of truth, the Truth speaking said by the future tense: *Whatsoever he shall hear, he will speak*; *he shall hear*, namely from him from whom he proceeds. For him to hear is to know, the same also to be. From him therefore from whom essence comes to him, from him hearing, that is knowledge, which is no other than essence. *He shall hear* therefore he said of that which he has heard and hears, that is, that which he always knew, knows and will know». Behold, here Augustine says that words of any time are said of God, but yet properly *is*. That, therefore, which Jerome says is to be thus understood: he does not know *to have been* or *to be about to be*, but only *to be*, that is, when it is said of God that *he was* or *he will be*, it is not to be understood that he has passed by or is about to be, but that he exists simply without any temporal motion. For although substantive verbs of various tenses are said of God, as *was*, *will be*, *is*, *was [imperfect]*, they do not then distinguish temporal motions, namely past or future or imperfect past or perfect past or pluperfect past, but simply convey the essence or existence of divinity. Therefore God alone is properly called essence or being; whence Hilary in the seventh book *On the Trinity* says: «Being is not an accident to God, but a subsisting truth and an abiding cause and a natural property of his kind».

### Chap. II. *On the immutability of the same.*

Of God alone also the essence is properly called immutable, because it neither is changed nor can be changed. Hence Augustine in the fifth book *On the Trinity*: «Other essences or substances, he says, admit accidents, by which there occurs in them either great or whatever change; but to God nothing of this sort can happen; and so the substance or essence alone, which is God, is immutable, to which assuredly most and most truly belongs *being*. For what is changed does not keep being itself; and what can be changed, even if it is not changed, can be what it had been not to be; and therefore that alone, which not only is not changed, but also cannot at all be changed, is most truly said to be», that is, the substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Apostle, speaking of God, says: *Who alone has immortality*. For as Augustine says in the first book *On the Trinity*: «Although the soul is in a certain way said to be and is immortal, the Apostle would not say: *God alone has immortality*, unless because true immortality is immutability, which no creature can have, since it belongs to the Creator alone». Hence James says: *With whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration*. And David: *Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the selfsame*. Therefore Augustine *on Genesis* says, that God is moved neither through places nor through times, but the creature [is moved] through times and places. And to be moved through times is to be changed through affections; but God can be changed neither by place nor by affection, who through the Prophet says: *I am God, and I am not changed*; who is unchangeable alone. Hence rightly he alone is said to have immortality. «For in every changeable nature, as Augustine says *against Maximinus*, some death is the very change itself, because it makes something in it not to be, which was. Whence also the human soul itself, which is therefore called immortal, because in its own mode it never ceases to live, has nevertheless a certain death of its own; for if it was living justly and sins, it dies to justice; if it was sinful and is justified, it dies to sin, to be silent about its other changes, of which it is now long to dispute. And the nature of the heavenly creatures could die, because they could sin. For the Angels also sinned and were made demons, of whom the devil is prince; and those who did not sin, were able to sin; and to whatever rational creature it is granted that it cannot sin, this is not from its own nature, but from God's grace. And therefore God alone, as the Apostle says, has immortality, who not by anyone's grace, but by his own nature could not nor can be changed by any turning, nor could nor will be able to sin by any change». «Accordingly, as Augustine says in the first book *On the Trinity*, the substance of God making changeable things without any change of himself, and creating temporal things without any temporal motion of his own, to behold and to know, although it is difficult, is necessary». Truly, therefore, and properly the essence of the Divinity alone is immutable, which without change of itself founded all natures.

### Chap. III. *On the simplicity of the same.*

And that same essence alone is properly and truly simple, where there is no diversity nor variation nor multitude of parts nor of accidents nor of any forms whatsoever. But that you may know how that substance is simple, as Augustine teaches you in the sixth book *On the Trinity*, «consider first why every creature is multiple and in no way truly simple, and first concerning the corporeal, afterwards concerning the spiritual creature. The corporeal creature certainly consists of parts, so that there is in it one part smaller, another greater, and the whole is greater than any part; and in each body one thing is magnitude, another color, another figure. For it is possible, the magnitude being diminished, that the same color and the same figure remain; and the color being changed, that the same figure and the same magnitude remain. And through this the nature of body is shown to be multiple, but simple in no way».

### Chap. IV. *On the corporeal and spiritual creature, how it is multiple, and not simple.*

«The spiritual creature also, as the soul, in comparison indeed with body is simple, but without comparison with body is multiple, and not simple. Which is therefore called simple with respect to the body, because it is not diffused by bulk through the space of place, but in each body and in the whole is whole, and in any part of it is whole. And therefore, when something occurs in any small particle whatever of the body, which the soul perceives, although it does not occur in the whole body, yet the soul perceives it as a whole, because it is not hidden from the whole. But yet not even in the soul itself is there true simplicity

. For since one thing is to be skilled, another to be unskilled, another to be acute, another to be mindful, another desire, another fear, another joy, another sadness, and these and other innumerable things of this sort may be found in the nature of the soul, and some without others and some more, some less, it is manifest that the nature is not simple, but multiple. For nothing simple is changeable; but every creature is changeable»: therefore no creature is truly simple. «But God, even though he be called multiple, is yet truly and supremely simple. For he is called great, good, wise, blessed, true and whatever else does not seem unfittingly to be said, but the same is his magnitude, which is his wisdom. For he is great not by bulk, but by power, and the same is his goodness which is his wisdom and magnitude and truth; and there is not there one thing his being blessed, and another his being great or wise or true or good or being at all».

### Chap. V. *That God, although he is simple, is yet said multiply.*

Here it must be carefully noted, since Augustine says that God alone is truly simple, why he says that he is said multiply. But he says this not on account of diversity of accidents or parts, but on account of the diversity and multitude of names which are said of God; which, although they are multiple, yet signify one thing, namely the divine nature. For these are not so received, when they are said of that immutable and eternal substance, incomparably more simple than is the human mind, as when they are said of creatures. Hence Augustine in the sixth book *On the Trinity*: «For God, to be is the same as to be strong or to be wise or to be just, and whatever you may say of that simple multiplicity or multiple simplicity by which his substance is signified. But for the human mind, to be is not the same as to be strong or prudent or just; for the mind can be and have none of these virtues».

### Chap. VI. *That God's simplicity is subject to none of the predicaments.*

But that in the divine nature there is no diversity of accidents and no mutability at all, but perfect simplicity, Augustine shows in the fifth book *On the Trinity* saying: «Let us understand God, as much as we are able, good without quality, great without quantity, creator without need, presiding without situation, containing all things without habit, everywhere whole without place, eternal without time, making changeable things without any change of himself and suffering nothing. Whoever thinks of God thus, even if he is not yet able fully to find what he is, let him piously beware, as much as he is able, of feeling anything of him which he is not». Behold, if you attend subtly, from these and the foresaid it is opened, that those predicaments of the dialectical art do not at all fit the nature of God, which is subject to no accidents.

### Chap. VII. *That God is improperly called substance.*

Hence neither is he properly called substance, as Augustine shows in the seventh book *On the Trinity*: «Just as from what is *to be* is called *essence*, so from what is *to subsist* we call *substance*, if however it is fitting that God be said to subsist. For this is rightly understood of those things in which the subjects are those things which are said to be in some subject, as in body color or figure. For body subsists, and so is substance. Therefore changeable and non-simple things are properly called substances. But God, if he subsists, so that he may be properly called substance, there is in him something as in a subject, and he is not simple. But it is unlawful to say that God subsists and is subject to his own goodness, and that that goodness is not substance or rather essence, and that God himself is not his own goodness, but that it is in him as in a subject. Hence it is manifest that God is improperly called substance, so that by a more usual name essence may be understood, which is truly and properly said, so that perhaps only God ought to be called essence. For he alone truly is, because he is immutable».

### Chap. VIII. *That there is not in God anything which is not God.*

But the simplicity and sincerity of this essence is so great, that there is not in it anything which is not it itself; but the same is the one having and that which is had. Hence Hilary in the seventh book *On the Trinity* says: «Not from composites does God, who is life, subsist, nor does he who is strength consist of weak things, nor is he who is light fitted together from dark things, nor is he who is spirit formed of disparate things: the whole which is in him is one». The same in the eighth book *On the Trinity* says: «Not in human manner is God from composites, so that in him one thing should be that which is had by him, and another thing he himself who has, but the whole is life, namely a perfect and infinite nature and not constituted from disparate things, but living itself through the whole». Concerning this same matter Boethius in the first book *On the Trinity* says: «Wherefore this is truly one, in which there is no number, nothing in it other than that which it is; for it cannot become a subject». Augustine also in the book *On Faith and the Creed* says: «In God's substance there is not anything which is not substance, as though one thing were there substance, another what would accident to substance. But whatever can be there understood is substance. Truly these things can easily be said and believed, but to be seen [they] cannot be at all except by a pure heart». Likewise Augustine in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*: «So it is held in the nature of each of the three, that he who has this should be that which he has, like the immutable and simple substance». Hence Isidore says: «God is called simple, either because he does not lose what he has, or because he himself is not one thing, and another thing what is in him». And although the divine nature is of so great simplicity and sincerity, yet there is in it the Trinity of persons. Hence Augustine in the eleventh book *On the City of God* says: «We do not therefore call the nature of the highest good simple, because the Father is in it alone, or the Son in it alone, or the Holy Spirit in it alone, or because it is only a trinity of names without the substance of persons, as the Sabellians supposed: but it is therefore called simple, because it is what it has, except that each person is said relatively to the other, and is not it itself. For the Father indeed has the Son, to whom he is said relatively, but yet he himself is not the Son; and the Son has the Father, but yet he himself is not the Father. But in what it is said to itself, not to another, this is what it has, as it is said to itself living, by having life, and the same life it itself is. On this account, therefore, this nature is called simple, because it is not one thing having, and another that which it has, as it is in other things. For the one having liquor is not liquor, nor body color, nor soul wisdom». Behold, how great is the identity, how great the unity, immutability, simplicity, purity of the divine substance, according to the measure of our weakness we have set forth.

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