Dist. 13
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/3/d/13/q/bon-sent-III-d13-littera
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# DISTINCTION XIII.

### Sole Chapter. *On the wisdom and grace of Christ as man, whether he could advance in them.*

Moreover it must be known that Christ, according to the man, received from the very conception the fullness of grace. To whom *the Spirit was given not by measure*, and in whom *the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily*; "and it dwells in such wise, as Augustine says to Dardanus, that he is full of all grace; it does not so dwell in the Saints. As in our body sense is present in the several members, but not as much as in the head; for there both sight and hearing and smell and taste and touch are present, but in the rest there is touch alone": so also in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells, because he is the head, in whom are all the senses. But in the Saints there is, as it were, touch alone, to whom the Spirit was given by measure, since *of his fullness they received*. But they received of his fullness not according to essence, but according to likeness, because they never received that same grace essentially, but a like grace. That *boy*, therefore, was *full of wisdom and grace* from the very conception. Whence Jeremiah rightly says: *The Lord will create a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall compass a man*; because in the womb of the Virgin he existed as a perfect man, not only on account of soul and flesh, but also on account of the wisdom and grace wherewith he was full.

But to this opinion there seems to stand in the way what is read in the Gospel of Luke: *Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men.* For if he advanced in wisdom and grace, he does not seem to have had from the conception the fullness of grace without measure. — To which it can soundly be said that he himself, according to the man, received from the conception so great a fullness of wisdom and grace that God could not confer it on him more fully; and yet he is truly said to have advanced in wisdom and grace, not indeed in himself, but in others, who advanced from his wisdom and grace, while he disclosed to them the gifts of wisdom and grace, according to the progress of age, more and more. Whence Gregory says in a certain homily: "According to the nature of the man he advanced in wisdom, not that he himself was wiser with time, who from the first hour of his conception remained full of the spirit of wisdom; but the same wisdom wherewith he was full he gradually displayed to others with time. According to the nature of the man he advanced in age from infancy to youth. According to the nature of the man he advanced in grace, not by receiving through the access of time that which he did not have, but by opening forth the gift of grace which he had. *Before God and men*, because, as much as, with advancing age, he disclosed to men the gifts of grace which were within him, and of wisdom, so much did he stir them up to the praise of God; and thus he advanced unto the praise of God the Father and unto the salvation of men." In others, therefore, not in himself, he advanced in wisdom and grace. Whence in the same Gospel that *boy* is declared *full of wisdom and grace*. So therefore he is said to have advanced *in wisdom and grace*, as some ecclesiastical ruler is said to advance in the care committed to him, when by his industry others advance.

Yet elsewhere it is found written that he advanced according to the sense of the man, just as he advanced in the *age* of the man. For Ambrose says in the book *On the Sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation* thus: "God assumed the perfection of human nature. He took up the sense of a man, but he was not puffed up by the sense of the flesh. By the sense of a man he said his soul was troubled; by the sense of a man he hungered and prayed; by the sense of a man he advanced, as it is written: *Jesus advanced in age and wisdom and grace.* How did the wisdom of God advance? The advance of age and the advance of wisdom is not of the divine, but of the human. Therefore he made mention of age, so that you might believe it said according to the man. For age is not of the divinity, but of the body. Therefore if he advanced in the age of the man, he advanced in the wisdom of the man. But the sense advanced, and because the sense, therefore the wisdom. Which sense was advancing? If the human, then it was assumed; if the divine, then it is mutable through advance. For what advances is changed into something better, but what is divine is not changed. What therefore is changed is not divine. Therefore the human sense was advancing. Therefore he took up a human sense." "The power of God could not be strengthened, nor could God grow, nor could the height of the wisdom of God be filled. That, therefore, which was being filled was not the wisdom of God, but our wisdom. For how was he being filled who, that he might *fill all things*, descended? But by what sense did Isaiah say that the boy knew not father or mother? For it is written: *Before the boy knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the spoils of Samaria.* For things future and hidden do not deceive the wisdom of God. But infancy, devoid of recognition, through human imprudence indeed, is ignorant of what it has not yet learned. But it is to be feared, I say, lest, if we attribute to Christ two principal senses, or a twofold wisdom, we divide Christ. Surely, when we adore both his divinity and his flesh, do we divide Christ? Surely, when in him we venerate the image of God and the cross, do we divide him? The Apostle certainly, who said of himthat, although he was crucified from our weakness, yet he lives by the power of God, himself said that Christ is not divided. Surely also, when we say that he took up a rational soul and one capable of our understanding, do we divide him? For God the Word himself was not in his flesh in place of a rational soul and one capable of understanding; but, taking up a rational soul and one capable of understanding, both itself human and of the same substance whereof are our souls, and a flesh like to ours and of the same substance whereof is our flesh, he was also a perfect man."

These words of Ambrose are to be examined with pious diligence; for on the one hand they instruct and illuminate concerning the ignorance of the man, on the other, when ill understood, they furnish kindling for error. For by these it is evidently handed down that there are in Christ two principal senses, or a twofold wisdom. Nor is the unity and singularity of the person thereby divided, but according to the two natures he has two wisdoms: one not created, but begotten, which he himself is; the other not begotten, but created and conferred upon him by grace. For Isaiah testifies of him: *The spirit of wisdom and understanding shall rest upon him* etc. By the spirit therefore of wisdom and understanding, that is, by wisdom and intelligence, given freely through the Holy Spirit, Christ was wise according to the soul. But according to God he was wise with begotten wisdom, which he himself is. And just as, insofar as he is God, he is good by natural goodness, which he himself is, and just by natural justice, which he himself is; so he is wise by natural wisdom, which he himself is. But his soul, just as it is good and just by goodness or justice freely given, which he or it is not; so it is wise by wisdom freely given, which it is not. And although there is in Christ a twofold wisdom, yet it is one and the same person who, insofar as he is God, or insofar as he is the divine nature, is wise with eternal wisdom, namely begotten wisdom, that is, by himself, and the wisdom which is not begotten, which is common to the three persons; yet not a twofold wisdom, because the begotten wisdom, which is the Son alone, and the wisdom which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in common, are not one and another wisdom. But insofar as the same person is man, that is, according to the man assumed, or insofar as he is subsisting from soul and flesh, he is wise with gratuitous wisdom. He is wise, therefore, by a human sense and by a divine.

But for what cause is the understanding of that saying, namely of Ambrose's "the human sense was advancing," to be taken? For Ambrose seems openly to suggest that Christ advanced according to the human sense, and that his infancy was devoid of knowledge and that he was ignorant of father and mother; which neither the Church receives, nor do the foregoing authorities suffer to be so understood. — But it can soundly be taken thus, that as to the sight of men and the manifestation of his own sense Christ is said to have advanced. The human sense therefore was advancing in him according to the manifestation and the opinion of other men. So too he is said to have been ignorant of father and mother in infancy, because he so bore and conducted himself as if he were devoid of recognition.

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