Dist. 15
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/15/q/bon-sent-III-d15-littera
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### DISTINCTION XV.

### Chap. I. *On the defects of man which Christ assumed.*

This too must not be passed over, that the Son of God took the nature of man as passible, the soul passible, the flesh passible and mortal. For that he might be proved to have a true *body*, he assumed the defects of the body, hunger, thirst and the like; and that he might be proved to have a true *soul*, he assumed the defects of the soul, namely sadness, fear, grief and the like. Now all sense belongs to the soul. For the flesh does not perceive, but the soul using the body as an instrument. Hence Augustine, on Genesis in the twelfth book: «It is not the body that perceives, but the soul through the body, which it uses as a messenger to confirm in itself what is announced from without». Therefore just as the soul sees or hears through the body as an instrument that which is outside; so also through the body it perceives certain evils, which it would not perceive without the body, such as hunger and thirst and the like; whence not undeservedly are they called defects of the body. But some it perceives not through the body, indeed even without the body, as is fear and the like. Therefore the soul perceives pains, but some through the instrument of the body, some indeed not. But Christ assumed, just as the true nature of man, so also the true defects of man, but not all. For he assumed the defects of *penalty*, but not of *fault*, nor yet all the defects of penalty, but all those which it was expedient for him to assume for man and which did not derogate from his dignity. For as he was made man for man's sake, so for man's sake he assumed the defects of man. For he assumed of what is ours, that he might bestow on us of what is his and take away what is ours. For he assumed our oldness, that he might pour into us his newness. «He took the *single* oldness, that is of penalty, that he might consume our *double*», that is of penalty and of fault.

Authority hands down that our Lord took upon himself all that belongs to our infirmity except sin; which, unless it be understood only of those things which it behooved him and was not unseemly for him to take for us, will be proved false. For he did not assume any ignorance, since there is a certain ignorance which is a defect and is not sin, namely invincible ignorance. For vincible ignorance is sin, if however it is concerning those things which it is expedient for us to know. For there are certain things, the knowledge of which does not bring, nor the ignorance of which hinders, salvation; and perhaps the ignorance of such things is not a defect. But it is established that in us there is ignorance and difficulty of willing or doing good, which belong to our misery. Hence Augustine in the third book On Free Will: «To approve, he says, false things for true, so that one errs unwillingly, and, the pain of the carnal bond resisting and tormenting, not to be able to refrain from lustful works, is not the nature of man's institution, but the penalty of one condemned». «From which misery, most justly inflicted on sinners, the grace of God delivers, because man could of his own accord fall by free will, but not also rise. To which misery belong the ignorance and difficulty which every man suffers from the beginning of his birth, nor is anyone delivered from this evil except by the grace of God». — Behold, here Augustine plainly says that the ignorance by which one unwillingly approves false things for true, and the difficulty by which one cannot keep himself from evil, belong to our misery and are a penalty of man. But these Christ did not have. Therefore he did not take all the defects of our infirmity apart from sin.

But perhaps someone will say that those things are sin. — To which is opposed what Augustine seems to hand down, namely that God could blamelessly, before sin, in the beginning of [man's] condition, have implanted these in man, so that they were natural to him, thus saying in the book of Retractations: «Ignorance and difficulty, even if they were the natural first-beginnings of man, not even thus should God be blamed, but praised». But if man had had these naturally in the first beginning, would there be defects and penalties in him? If a defect or penalty had been implanted in him before sin, it would seem that he was treated unjustly, if before fault he felt penalty. — For this reason indeed we say that those things would not have been defects or penalties, if they had been in man naturally, just as it was not for man before sin, not yet having attained grace, a defect or penalty *not to be able to advance*. But after he received grace, by which he was able to advance and for a time even advanced, and lost it afterwards by his own fault, and at the same time lost the faculty of advancing; it was a defect and penalty for him *not to be able to advance*, namely to turn from evil and to do good. Therefore Christ assumed all our defects except sin, those which *it was fitting for him* to assume and *was expedient for us*. For there are many kinds of sicknesses and vices of the body, from which he remained wholly immune. For the defects which he had, he assumed either for the showing of true humanity, as fear and sadness, or for the fulfillment of the work for which he had come, as passibility and mortality, or for raising up our hope from the despair of immortality, as death. — But these defects he assumed not by the necessity of his condition, but by the will of mercy. He had indeed true defects, just as we also,

but not from the same cause. For we draw these defects from original sin, as the Apostle suggests, saying: *The body indeed is dead because of sin*, that is, it has in itself the necessity of dying. But Christ did not have such defects from sin, because he was conceived and born without sin *and lived among men*. But from the will of mercy alone he transferred true infirmity from what is ours into himself, just as he took true flesh, which he could have assumed without any infirmity, just as he assumed the same without fault.

But because some are found to have thought wrongly concerning the sense in the passion of Christ's humanity, asserting that Christ the man underwent a likeness and image of passion and grief, but felt no grief or passion at all, convincing them by the testimonies of the authorities, let us make indubitable what we said above. The prophet Isaiah says: *Truly he himself bore our weaknesses and himself carried our griefs*. And Truth itself in the Gospel says: *My soul is sorrowful even unto death*; where also it is read: *Jesus began to fear and to be heavy*. The prophet also in the person of Christ says: *My soul is filled with evils*; which, expounding, Augustine says: «Not with vices and sins, but with human evils, that is griefs, was the soul of Christ filled, by which it suffers with the flesh. For the grief of the body cannot be without the soul; but the soul can grieve, even when the body is not grieving. But these affections of human infirmity, just as the very flesh and death, he assumed not by the necessity of his condition, but by the will of mercy». Ambrose also in the book On the Trinity says: «It is written: *Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me*. Therefore Christ fears, and while Peter does not fear, Christ fears. Peter said: *I will lay down my soul for thee*; Christ says: *My soul is troubled*. Both are true and full of reason, that he who is the inferior does not fear; and he who is the superior bears the affection of one fearing». The same in the same place: «As man he is troubled, as man he weeps, as man he is crucified»; «through the nature of man Christ both was wearied and rose again». «His power is not troubled, his divinity is not troubled, but the soul is troubled; according to the assumption of human frailty he is troubled. For he who assumed the soul assumed also the passion of the soul. For not in that he was God could he either be troubled or die». The same in the same place: «He assumed my sadness; confidently do I name sadness, who preach the cross. As man I had sadness, which he assumed with my affection; he suffers with me, he is sad for me, he grieves for me. Therefore for me and in me he grieved, who for himself had nothing for which he should grieve». «You grieve, therefore, Lord Jesus, my wounds, not your own, because you grieve not for yourself, but for me». Jerome too in the Explanation of the Faith says: «We thus say that a passible man was assumed by the Son of God, in such a way that the Deity remained impassible. For the Son of God suffered, not in appearance, but truly, all that Scripture attests, according to that which was able to suffer, namely according to the assumed substance. Although therefore the person of the Son assumed a passible man, yet by his indwelling, according to his own substance, it suffered nothing, so that the whole Trinity, which must be confessed impassible». — From these and other authorities it becomes clear that Christ truly assumed a passible man and in him took the defects and affections of our infirmity, but by will, not by the condition of necessity.

Yet certain things are found in the treatises of the Saints which seem to be at variance with the foresaid. For upon that place of the Psalm: *I shall cry, and thou wilt not hear*, Augustine seems to hand down that Christ neither truly feared nor was truly saddened, saying thus: «How does he say this, who *did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth*? But he says this *of us*, his body; for he bore the person of his body, that is of the Church, just as also elsewhere, when he said: *Let this cup pass from me*, he speaks for us, unless perhaps he be thought to have feared to die; but the Lord did not truly fear to suffer, being about to rise on the third day, when Paul was burning to be dissolved and to be with Christ. For the soldier is not braver than the commander. Does the soldier therefore who is to be crowned rejoice to die, and the Lord who is to be crowned fear death? But representing our infirmity, for his own weak ones who fear to die, he said these things. It was the voice of them». Jerome also says: «Let them be ashamed who think that the Savior feared death and out of dread of the passion said: *Let this cup pass from me*».

### Chap. II. *On the pro-passion and passion of fear, or of sadness.*

But that no adverse divergence may be thought to exist in the sacred letters, we say that the words of these authorities are to be taken in this manner, that they be understood to have removed from Christ not the *truth* of fear and sadness or the pro-passion, but the *necessity* and the *passion* of fear and sadness. For Christ had true fear and sadness in the nature of man, but not as we, who are his members. For we, by reason of our sin, are necessarily subject to these defects, and in us these defects are according to pro-passion and passion, but in Christ only according to pro-passion. For just as

in sins certain degrees are noted, pro-passion and passion, so also in these penal effects. For one is at times affected by fear or sadness, so that the intellect of the mind is not thereby moved from rectitude or from the contemplation of God, and then it is pro-passion; but sometimes it is moved and troubled, and then it is passion. But Christ was not so troubled in soul by fear or sadness as to decline in any way from rectitude or from the contemplation of God; according to which mode it is understood, when he is said *not to have feared* or *to have been sad*. Hence Jerome on Matthew, where it is read: *He began to be sorrowful and to be heavy*; «that he might prove, he says, the truth of the assumed manhood, he was truly saddened, but *passion* does not dominate his mind, rather it is *pro-passion*. Whence he says: *He began to be sorrowful*. For it is one thing to be sorrowful, another to begin to be sorrowful», which is, one is sorrowful in one way through pro-passion, in another through passion. And therefore according to this distinction Christ is sometimes said not truly to have feared, sometimes truly to have feared, because he had true fear and sadness, but not according to passion nor by the necessity of his condition. Hence Augustine, from these causes wishing the understanding of the sayings to be taken, says that Christ did not truly fear or was not truly saddened, and immediately after, that he had true sadness, in these words: «Praesignifying the *weak* in himself, the Lord says: *Father, if it can be done, let this cup pass from me*. For the Lord did not truly fear to suffer, being about to rise on the third day, when Paul was burning to be dissolved and to be with Christ. This one rejoices being about to be crowned, and is the Lord sad who is about to be crowned»? Behold, here he seems to remove sadness and fear from Christ. But immediately he added: «But he assumed sadness in the same way as the flesh. For he was sad, as the Gospel says. For if he was not sad, since the Gospel says: *My soul is sorrowful even unto death* etc., then also when it says: *Jesus slept*, he did not sleep; or when it says that he ate, he did not eat; and thus nothing sound will be left, so that it may even be said that his body was not true. Whatever therefore is written of him is true and was done. Therefore he was also sad, but by will he assumed true sadness, in the same way as by will he assumed true flesh». — Behold, you plainly know that he contradicts himself in these words, unless he were to distinguish the various causes of the sayings, from which the understanding of the words must be taken. For if the cause of the understanding of the foresaid words be distinguished, no contradiction occurs.

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