Dist. 29
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/29/q/bon-sent-II-d29-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXIX.

#### Cap. I.

#### *Whether man before sin needed operating and cooperating grace.*

After these things it must be considered whether man before sin needed operating and cooperating grace. — To which we briefly say that he needed not only cooperating, but also operating grace, not indeed according to every mode of operating of operating grace; for it operates by freeing and by preparing the will of man for the good. Man therefore needed it not in order to free his will, which had not been a slave of sin; but in order to prepare it to will the good efficaciously, which it could not do of itself. For he could not merit the good without grace, as Augustine in the Enchiridion evidently hands down: « That immortality, he says, in which he was able not to die, human nature lost through free choice; but this immortality, in which it shall not be able to die, it is to receive through grace, which it would have received, had it not sinned, through merit; although without grace not even then could there have been any merit, because, even though sin was constituted in the choice alone, yet free choice did not suffice for justice to be had or retained, unless divine help were furnished ». — Behold, by these words it is sufficiently shown that before sin man needed operating and cooperating grace. For he did not have that whereby he might move his foot without the help of operating and cooperating grace, yet he had that whereby he was able to stand.

#### Cap. II.

#### *Whether man before the fall had the virtues.*

« Moreover it is wont to be asked whether man before the fall had virtue. — To some it seems that he did not have it, who try to prove it thus: justice, they say,

he did not have, because he despised the precept of God; nor prudence, because he did not provide for himself; nor temperance, because he coveted what belonged to another; nor fortitude, because he yielded to the wicked suggestion. — Answering whom we say that he indeed did not have these virtues then, when he sinned, but before, and then lost them. Which is proved by many testimonies of the Saints. For Augustine says in a certain Homily: « Adam, charity being lost, was found evil ». Likewise: « The prince of vices, when he saw Adam, made from the slime of the earth to the image of God, armed with chastity, composed with temperance, splendid with charity, despoiled the first parents of those gifts and so great goods and likewise destroyed them ». Concerning this same matter Ambrose to Sabinus says: « When Adam was alone, he did not transgress, because his mind clung to God ». Upon the Psalm too he says that « man before sin, most blessed, drank in the ethereal air ». But how was he most blessed without virtue? Augustine also upon Genesis says that Adam before sin « was endowed with a spiritual mind ». It is therefore not to be doubted that man before sin shone with virtues, but that he was despoiled of them through sin.

#### Cap. III.

#### *On the expulsion of man from paradise.*

In punishment also of that sin he was cast out of paradise into this place of miseries, as is read in Genesis: *Now therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat and live forever; God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure.* — By these words it seems to be intimated that he would never die, if afterward he had taken of that tree.

#### Cap. IV.

#### *In what way that saying is to be understood: Lest he take of the tree of life and live forever.*

But because through sin he already had a mortal body, those words can be taken according to such an understanding. God, speaking now as if angry, said of proud man: *See, lest perhaps he put forth his hand* etc. that is, beware, you Angels, lest he eat of the tree of life, of which he is unworthy; of which, if he had persisted, he would eat and live forever, but now on account of disobedience he is unworthy to eat. And as he said by word, so he showed forth by deed. « For God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure into a place fitting for him, just as for the most part the evil man, when he has begun to live among the good, if he is unwilling to be changed for the better, is driven from the congregation of the good, pressed by the weight of wicked custom ».

#### Cap. V.

#### *On the flaming sword set before paradise.*

But that he might not be able to approach it, God placed before paradise Cherubim, and a flaming and turning sword, to guard the way of the tree of life. Which according to the letter can be taken in this way, that through the ministry of the Angels a fiery guard was set up there. « For this is to be believed to have been done in the visible paradise through the heavenly powers, that through the angelic ministry there might be there a certain fiery guard; yet not in vain, but because it signifies something of the spiritual paradise ». « For Cherubim is interpreted fullness of knowledge, which is charity, because the fullness of the law is love. But the flaming sword is the temporal punishments, which are turning, because times are rolling. Those things therefore were set before paradise to guard the tree of life for this reason, because one does not return to life except through Cherubim, namely the fullness of knowledge, that is charity, and through the turning sword, that is the endurance of temporal sufferings ».

#### Cap. VI.

#### *Whether before sin man ate of the tree of life.*

But it can be asked whether before sin man ate of the tree of life. Concerning this Augustine in the book on the Baptism of Little Children says thus: « Rightly indeed are the first men understood to have abstained from the forbidden food before the malign persuasion of the devil, and to have used the things granted ». By these words it is shown that they ate of the tree of life before sin: to whom it was commanded that they should eat of every tree of paradise, except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Why then were they not clothed with perpetual solidity and blessed immortality, so that they might not be changed for the worse by any infirmity or age? For that tree is said to have had this power naturally. — But perhaps it did not confer this, unless one ate of it often. It could therefore have come about that he ate of it once, and not more often; who is understood to have been for some delay in paradise, since Scripture says that he was put to sleep there, when the rib was taken from his side, and from it the woman was formed, and the animals were led before him, to which he gave names.

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