Dist. 19, 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/2/d/19/q/bon-sent-II-d19-dubia
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## DOUBTS CONCERNING THE LETTER OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I.

In this part there are doubts concerning the letter, and first there is inquiry concerning what he says: *In the first state the body of man was animal*. For *animal* takes its name from soul (*anima*); therefore every body having a soul can and ought to be called *animal*; but the glorious body is of this kind: therefore it can be called *animal*. How then is *animal* divided against *spiritual*? If you say that *soul* there names carnal life, as it is said in John chapter twelve: *He who loves his soul will lose it*; but to live in such a manner is reprehensible: therefore it seems that such a body would not befit the state of innocence.

**I respond:** It must be said that a generic name is sometimes appropriated to that which, on account of its incompleteness or imperfection, does not add a special name; whence, just as *animal* is appropriated to beasts, and beasts are called *animals*, so *animale*, named from soul, is appropriated in a certain manner to those which have a nutritive soul. And therefore Augustine wished to call the body *animale*, that is, a body needing nourishment; and this mode of speaking is taken according as *animale* comes from soul. And the response to the objections is plain. — *Another solution.* In another way it could be said, though less properly, that *animale* would come from this, that it is an *animal*; and since *animal* is appropriated to beasts, the *body* would be called *animale*, that is, like the beasts. Now Adam in his condition was, as to *body*, like the beasts in this, that he needed to be refreshed with foods; but as to *mind* he *was in honour* and unlike the beasts. But because, *being in honour, he did not understand*, but rather sinned; therefore *he is compared to the senseless beasts and is become like to them*, so that not only he and his posterity should be like the beasts in their need of food, but also in bestiality and in the appetite of mind. And thus it is plain in what sense Adam is said to have had an *animal* body, and how it is divided against *spiritual*.

### Doubt II.

Likewise there is inquiry concerning what he says: *That he had a body mortal and immortal*. For since *mortal* and *immortal* are opposites, it seems that two opposites would be in the same thing simultaneously and at once. — Likewise, *animal* is divided by essential division into *mortal* and *immortal*, just as into *rational* and *irrational*. If therefore it is impossible that an animal be at one and the same time *rational* and *irrational*, it is impossible that it be *mortal* and *immortal*.

**I respond:** It must be said that *immortal* is said in two ways. In one way, as it deprives [a thing] of the act and aptitude of dying; and so it is called *immortal*

*Note*, which is not capable of dying; and in this way it is directly opposed to that which is *mortal*, and it is impossible [for both] to be about the same thing. In another way, as it deprives [a thing] only of the act; and then it is called *immortal*, that is, capable of not dying; and in this way *mortal* and *immortal* do not have opposition, since "rational potencies, and those which are subjected to rational ones, are towards opposites"; and therefore, although the *acts* are opposed, the *potencies* nevertheless are not opposed. — And thus the response to those objections is plain; for they proceed according as *immortal* deprives of potency. And if you object that "potencies are distinguished through acts", and so, if the acts are opposed, the potencies likewise are; it must be said that *Note.* this holds in pure natural potencies; or if it holds in other potencies, it is understood of an act which encompasses the whole potency. But when a potency is towards opposites, one of those acts does not encompass the whole potency.

### Doubt III.

Likewise there is inquiry concerning what he says, that *after sin the body became dead*. For *dead* and *living* are opposed privatively: therefore if Adam's body was living after sin, it is false to say that it was *dead*. If you say this was said because it was bound by the necessity of dying; by parity of reason, since it had the necessity of putrefaction, it ought to be said that Adam's body was *putrefied*.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Augustine says in the thirteenth book *On the City of God*, *mortuum* (dead) can be either a *noun* or a *participle*. According as it is a *participle*, it signifies that death has been in [the subject], because it is the participle of past time; and then one is said to be *dead* in whom death previously was. But according as it is a *noun*, it so designates someone not only from death which *was in him*, but also from death which *is in him*, just as someone is said to be *white* from whiteness which is in him. And since death says nothing other than a tendency toward non-being, and man continually tends toward non-being after the lapse; hence it is that he is continually in death, and therefore can continually be called *dead*. And therefore the Apostle says, that *the body is dead on account of sin*.

What is objected, then, that *dead* and *living* are opposed, must be answered: it is true according as *dead* simply deprives [a thing] of *living*, that is, according as it bespeaks an actual separation or the terminus of corruption. But when it speaks of an *order* to that terminus, it is not opposed of itself, but by reason of that to which it orders, since it orders to the opposite of life; and thus they can stand together, indeed it is necessary, that they be together with present life. And therefore the participle of this verb *morior* is significantly anomalous and does not keep the formation of the other participles of past time, as Augustine says.

### Doubt IV.

Likewise there is inquiry concerning what he says: *He would take of the tree of life, by which, made perfectly immortal, he would no longer require food for nourishment*. Against this is: that which is corruptible cannot give incorruption; but the fruit of that tree of life was corruptible; otherwise it could not be eaten and digested: therefore it could not afford perfect immortality to man. — Likewise, either that fruit was converted into the human body, or not. If not: therefore it did not refresh nor sustain; if so: therefore it was of the same nature with the rest of the flesh: therefore it seems that it could not bestow immortality.

**I respond:** It must be said that that tree of life is said by Augustine to have been able to bestow perfect immortality, not because by its own power it could *Note.* make the body of man incorruptible, since this belongs to divine power alone; but because by the power given to it, it had the capacity to *dispose* to this, and divine power would assist that tree as a sacrament, [a power] which would *perfect* immortality. — And that the tree of life could have this power, namely to dispose to immortality, is sufficiently plain in many similar cases. For there are many aromatic substances, like myrrh and balsam, which preserve the body of man long from putrefaction. But that they would be said to bestow immortality on those bodies by reason of the assisting divine power, the like is found in the Sacraments, which are said to confer grace, although they do not themselves create grace, but the divine power assisting them does, as is better explained in the fourth book. So too in the present matter it is to be understood, since the tree of life was for the first men a Sacrament, as Augustine says.

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