Dist. 8, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/8/q/bon-sent-II-d8-p2-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether the demons can slip into souls.*

Secondly it is asked whether the demons can slip into souls. And that they can, it seems.

*Foundations.* 1. Luke 4: *Behold a man having a demon*, [where] the Gloss [says]: «The devil had entered, whence Christ had gone out»; but Christ had not gone out from the body, but from the spirit: therefore the devil enters the spirit.

2. Likewise, if a partless [thing] be joined to a partless [thing], it is applied to it according to the whole, and what is applied to anything according to the whole is applied to it according to its inmost; but to slip-in [*illabi*] is nothing other than to be plunged according to the inmost: therefore, since a demon is partless and, by possessing a man, is applied to the soul, it seems that it of necessity slips into [the soul].

3. Likewise, just as there is an order in bodies, so is there an order in spirits; but in bodies we see that an agent infuses its power into the patient down to the inmost — otherwise it would not alter the whole: therefore by parity of reason also among spirits: therefore a demon can infuse its power to the inmost depths of the soul. But the power of a demon is not more spiritual than [its] substance: therefore it seems that the demon can slip down to the inmost [depths] of the soul.

4. Likewise, just as a man is made a temple of God by grace, so is he made a temple of the devil by sin; but in the very same [place] where there was grace, fault begins to be: therefore where God formerly dwelt, the devil can dwell.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in *On Faith, to Peter*: «There is in each spirit a natural boundary by which they are distinguished from one another, and one is not in another»; but the human soul is a spirit: therefore it cannot be in a demon, nor a demon in it: therefore neither can it slip in: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, if one spirit slips in, either another can slip in, or it cannot. If yes: then by parity of reason also a third, and a fourth, and so for the rest, and so all evil spirits could slip into one soul — which is plainly false. If no: then one spirit fills the whole soul. But this is false, because *nothing less than God can fill the image of God*, as Augustine and Bede say.

3. Likewise, if a demon were to slip into the soul, it would be the inmost of the soul: therefore it would dominate it throughout, therefore it could draw [the soul] to whatever evils it might wish, and so the soul would not have free will. And if the soul cannot lose free will: then neither can a demon slip into it.

4. Likewise, if it were to slip into the soul, there would be nothing so inmost in the soul that [the demon] would not be there and not have it under [its power]; but as God by slipping-in rectifies and conserves the soul, so the demon, [in] what it can [do], disorders and depraves [it]: therefore if the demon were to slip into the soul, the demon could deprave the *synderesis* or the *natural will* and incline [it] to evil — which is impossible.

### CONCLUSION.

> The demons cannot slip into human souls.

**I respond:** It must be said that *for some thing to slip into another* imports that it be inmost to it and operate inmostly within it; but nothing of this sort exists with respect to the soul except God alone: therefore *only the divine spirit can slip into the soul*. — For in the human soul the *inmost* and the *supreme* are the same; and this is clear, because [the soul] most approaches God according to its *supreme*,

likewise according to its *inmost*; whence the more it returns to interior [things], the more it ascends and is united to the eternal. And because «God alone is higher than the human mind» according to its *supreme*, God alone can be inmost to the mind; and therefore *to slip into the rational spirit is proper to the divine substance*. — The reasons showing that an evil spirit cannot slip into human souls are therefore to be conceded.

*Solution of the opposed [arguments].* 1. To that, then, which is first objected from the Gloss, that the devil entered etc.; it must be said that this is not said of an entry according to substance, but according to *effect* or the malice of conformity; whence the Gloss does not mean to say more than that, where there was grace, there malice begins to be.

2. To that which is objected, that *partless is applied to partless according to the whole*; it must be said that this is to be understood either of *positional joining* or of *virtual joining*. If of *positional* [joining], it can hold; but in this way one is not to understand the application of spiritual substances, because they are not *positional*. But if it be understood of *virtual* application, then the saying does not hold; for in a simple substance there is found a magnitude of power, and according to it can be considered in the soul a greater and lesser ratio of dignity according to access to the origin of that power.

3. To that which is objected, that just as there is an order in bodies, so there is in spirits; it must be said that, although there is some similarity, it is not nevertheless every way perfect, neither as to *order* nor as to *intimacy*. Not as to *order*, because all rational substances are immediately born to be borne into God, nor in this respect does one stand above another; but this is not found to occur in bodily [things]. — Nor is [the case] similar as to *intimacy*, because what is within and without in a bodily thing is of the same nature, not differing in dignity but rather in position of parts; in the soul, however, what is *inmost*, that is most *supreme* and proximate to God. Therefore in bodily things what can flow-in outwardly, by acting more and more, can come through to the interior and to the inmost; not so in a spirit, where the same is said to be *inmost* which in it is the *supreme* and the *most worthy*.

4. To that which is objected, that there is fault in the very [place] where grace was; it must be said that it is true; but from this it does not follow that the devil is in the same [place] where also God is; because *grace* is otherwise from God, and otherwise *fault* from the devil. For *grace* is from God as *present and infusing and inmostly operating and penetrating the marrow of the affections*, in accordance with what the Apostle intimates to the Hebrews 4: *The word of God is living and effective* etc. But *fault* is said to be from the devil only as from *one suggesting and impelling, in a certain way as from without instigating*; and so it is not necessary that the devil dwell in the inmost of the sinner's heart, however medullarily sin clings [there]. Further, sin does not *posit* anything, but rather *privates*; therefore according to it nothing is said *to slip into the soul*, but rather *something to be corrupted by it*. And thus is it clear that *fault* and *grace* are not alike, although they are concerning the same [subject].