Dist. 17
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/2/d/17/q/bon-sent-II-d17-littera
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### DISTINCTION XVII.

### Chap. I.
### *On the creation of the soul, whether it was made from something.*

Concerning the origin of the soul many questions are wont to be raised, namely *whence* it was created, and *when*, and *what grace* it had at its creation. — Just as the formation of man with respect to the body is described, when it is said: *God formed man of the slime of the earth*, so the making of the same with respect to the soul is described, when it is added: *And he breathed into his face the breath of life.*

### Chap. II.
### *On God's inbreathing and inspiration; when the soul came to be, whether in the body, or outside it*.

*Question 1.* For God formed the body from the slime of the earth, and *breathed in* the soul; or, according to another reading, *blew*, or *blew upon* — not that he blew through any throat, nor that he formed the body with bodily hands; for the spirit is not composed of the lineaments of bodily members. *Heretical opinion.* Let us not think carnally that God formed the body with bodily hands, or breathed in the soul through some mouth; rather, in respect of forming man's body from the slime of the earth, "by commanding and willing" — that is, he willed it and by his word commanded that it be so; *and he breathed into his face the breath of life*, that is, he created the substance of the soul, in which it might live, not from any bodily or spiritual matter, but from nothing.

For certain heretics supposed that God created the soul from his own substance, clinging stubbornly to the words of Scripture by which it is said: he "breathed in" or "breathed upon," etc. When a man blows or breathes — they say — he emits breath out of himself; so therefore, when God is said to have *blown* or *breathed* a breath into the face of man, he is understood to have emitted the spirit of man out of himself, that is, of his own substance. *Refuted.* Those who say this do not perceive that the phrases "he breathed upon" or "he blew" are spoken figuratively — that is, he made the breath of man, namely the soul. For to *blow* is to make a breath, and to have *blown* is to have made a soul. Hence the Lord through Isaiah: *Every breath have I made.* Therefore those are not to be heard who hold that the soul is a part of God. For if it were so, it could be deceived neither by itself nor by another, nor be compelled to do or suffer evil, nor be changed for the better or for the worse. The breath therefore by which he gave life to man was made *by God*, not *of God* nor of any matter, but from nothing.

*Question 2.* But whether *in the body* or *outside* the body is a scrupulous question even among the learned. — For Augustine on Genesis hands down that the soul *Opinion 1.* was created together with the angels apart from a body, and afterwards came to the body: "Nor was it compelled to be incorporated, but naturally willed it" — that is, it was so created that it should will it; "just as it is natural to us to will to live. But to will to live ill belongs not to nature but to a perverse will." *Opinion 2.* Others, however, say that the soul of the first man was created in the body, thus expounding those words *He breathed into his face the breath of life*, that is, he created in the body a soul which should animate the whole body; yet he specifically named the *face*, because this part is adorned with senses for gazing on higher things. But whatever may be thought concerning the soul of the first man, of the rest it is to be held most certainly that they are created in the body. For in creating them God infuses them, and in infusing he creates. It must also be said that that soul was not so created as to be foreknowing of a future just or unjust work.

### Chap. III.
### *In what age man was made.*

It is also wont to be asked whether God made man at once in the prime of manhood, or by perfecting him and advancing him through the ages, as he now forms him in the mother's womb. — *Augustine.* Augustine on Genesis says that Adam was made at once in the prime of manhood, and this according to the higher *Higher causes.* and not the lower causes — that is, according to the will and power of God, which he did not bind to the kinds of nature, just as Moses's rod also was turned into a serpent. Nor

are such things done against nature except *for us*, to whom the course of nature has become known otherwise; but to *God* nature is what he does. God therefore did not do that against his own disposition. For it was in the first condition of the causes that man should *be able* to come to be in this way, yet there it was not necessary that he should so come to be; *Doubt 1.* "for this was not in the condition of the creature, but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is necessity." "For that is necessarily to come which he both wills and foreknows. Many things, however, are 'to come' according to lower causes, but in the foreknowledge of God they are not to come. But if there they are otherwise to come, they are rather to come as they are there, where he foreknows them who cannot be deceived." "So therefore Adam was made not according to the *lower* causes — because it was not in the seminal causes of things that he should so be made — but according to the *higher*, which do not work *against* nature, because it was in the natural causes of things that he should be able so to be made."

### Chap. IV.
### *Why man, having been created outside paradise, was placed in paradise.*

*And God took man thus formed* — as Scripture teaches — *and placed him in the paradise of pleasure, which he had planted from the beginning.* By these words Moses plainly intimates that man, having been created outside paradise, was afterwards placed in paradise. *Doubt 2.* And this is said to have been done because he was not to remain in it, or in order that this might be ascribed not to nature but to grace.

### Chap. V.
### *In what senses paradise is to be taken.*

Now paradise is understood as a local and bodily place, in which man was set. "For there are three general opinions concerning paradise: one of those who would have it understood only bodily; another of those who would have it only spiritually; a third of those who take paradise in both ways. The third pleases me, I confess, so that man was set in a bodily paradise" — which can be taken to be from that beginning when, the waters being removed, he commanded the whole earth to bring forth grasses and trees. "Which, although it bears the figure of the present or future Church, must nevertheless be understood according to the letter to be a most pleasant place, great with fruitful trees and abounding with a great fountain. What we say *from the beginning* the ancient translation says *toward the east*. *Doubt 3.* Whence they hold that paradise is in the eastern part, secluded by a long intervening space, whether of sea or of land, from the regions which men inhabit, and set on high, reaching up to the lunar circle; whence even the waters of the flood did not reach to that place."

In this paradise, moreover, there were trees of various kinds, among which there was one which was called the *tree* *Doubt 4.* *of life*, and another the *tree of the knowledge of good and evil*.

### Chap. VI.
### *On the tree of life.*

The *tree* of *life* was so called, as Bede and Strabus teach, "because it received divinely this power, that whoever should eat of its fruit, his body should be made firm with stable health and perpetual soundness, and should not slip into the worse or into decay through any infirmity or weakness of age."

### Chap. VII.
### *On the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.*

The *tree* of *the knowledge of good and evil* did not receive this name from nature, but from the occasion of the thing which afterwards followed. "For that tree was not evil, but was called *of the knowledge* *Gloss.* *of good and evil* because, after the prohibition, the transgression was to be in it, by which man, by experience, should learn what was the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. The name therefore was not placed upon it from the fruit which would be born from it, but from *the thing that followed the transgression*." *Note.* For man knew, before he touched this tree, good and evil — but the good by *prudence* and *experience*, the evil by *prudence* only; which also he came to know by *experience*, the forbidden tree having been usurped, because by the experience of evil he learned what lies between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. Yet even if the first parents had been obedient and had not sinned against the precept, it would nonetheless have been called the *tree of the knowledge of good and evil*, since this would befall through the touch of it, if it should be usurped. From the tree, therefore, *Doubt 5.* he was forbidden — a thing which was not evil — so that the very keeping of the precept should be a good to him, and the transgression an evil. Nor is it better considered how great an evil disobedience is than in this manner: when, that is, man is understood to have been made guilty for this reason, that, having been forbidden, he touched a thing which, if he had not been forbidden, he would neither have sinned in touching nor would have suffered any penalty. For if you touch, having been forbidden, a poisonous herb, the penalty follows even though no one had forbidden it; likewise it would follow if a thing should be forbidden to be touched which is harmful, not only to the one touching but to the one forbidding, as is another's money: a thing is therefore forbidden as sinful because it is harmful to him who forbids. But when there is touched something which is not harmful to the one touching if it be not forbidden, nor to anyone whatsoever if it be touched, then it is forbidden in order that the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience may be made manifest through it itself; just as the first man, forbidden from a good thing, incurred a penalty, so that the penalty might be shown to be not from an evil thing but from the disobedience — as the palm of victory is from obedience.

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