Dist. 17
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/17/q/bon-sent-III-d17-littera
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### DISTINCTION XVII.

### Chap. I. *Whether every prayer or will of Christ was fulfilled.*

After the foregoing it must be considered whether Christ willed or prayed for anything which was not done. For this can be estimated from what he himself says: *Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as thou wilt.* For here he seems to distinguish his own will from the will of the Father.

### Chap. II. *On the wills of Christ according to the two natures.*

Wherefore it must not be doubted that there were diverse wills in Christ according to the two natures, namely the divine will and the human. And the human will is an affect of reason, or an affect of sensuality, and one is an affect of the soul according to reason, another according to sensuality; yet each is called the human will. Now by the affect of reason he willed that which [he willed] by the divine will, namely to suffer and to die, but by the affect of sensuality he did not will it, nay he shrank from it. Yet there was not in him flesh against spirit, or [lust] against God, because, as Augustine says, «there is some vice when the flesh lusts against the spirit». «But the flesh is said to lust, because according to it the soul does this, just as the soul hears through the ear and sees through the eye. For the flesh lusts nothing except through the soul; but it is said to lust, when the soul by carnal concupiscence struggles against the spirit, having a carnal delight from the flesh and from the flesh against the delight which the spirit has. But the cause of this carnal concupiscence is not in the soul alone nor in the flesh alone; for it arises from both, since without both such delight is not felt». Such strife, therefore, and such conflict could in no way be in the soul of Christ, because carnal concupiscence could not be there. The will of God also it was, and it was pleasing to reason, that he should will this according to the flesh, so that the truth of [his] humanity might be proved in him. For he who took up the nature of man had to undergo what belongs to it. And therefore, just as in us there is a twofold affect, namely of the mind and of sensuality, so also in him there had to be a twin affect, that by the affect of the mind he should will to die, and by the affect of sensuality should not will it, as happens in holy men. For to Peter the Truth itself says: *When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and lead thee whither thou wilt not,* namely to death. Expounding which, Augustine says, that Peter «was led to that trouble unwilling, came to it unwilling, but willing he overcame it; and he left behind the affect of weakness, by which no one wishes to die, which is so natural that not even old age took it away from Peter. Whence the Lord also says: *Let this chalice pass from me*; but the force of love overcame it». Therefore also in Christ according to [his] humanity and in his members there is a twin affect: one of reason, informed by charity, by which one wishes to die for the sake of God; the other of sensuality, near to and conjoined with the weakness of the flesh, by which death is shunned. For as Augustine says: «The pious man by the reason of the mind desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, but by the sense of the flesh shrinks back and refuses. This the human affect has, because it loves life, hates death». According to this affect Christ did not will to die, nor did he obtain what according to this affect he sought.

Therefore from the human affect, which he drew from the Virgin, he willed not to die and prayed that the chalice might pass. Whence Bede: «He prays that the chalice pass, because he was man, saying: *Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.* Behold, you have the human will expressed. See now the upright heart: *But not what I will, but what thou wilt.* Whence elsewhere: *I came not to do my own will,* which, namely temporally, I took from the Virgin, *but the will of him who sent me,* which namely as eternal I had with the Father». — Here he plainly says that there were two wills in Christ, according to which he willed diverse things. Jerome also, on that passage: *The spirit is willing, but the flesh weak,* giving to understand that here two wills are expressed, says thus: «This is against the Eutychians, who say that in Christ there is only one will. But here he shows the human [will], which on account of the weakness of the flesh refuses the passion, and the divine, which is ready to fulfill

the dispensation». Augustine also asserts that there were two wills in Christ, saying: «As far as God is distant from man, so far is the will of God from the will of man. Whence bearing [the person of] man, Christ showed a certain private will of man, in which he figured both his own and ours, who is our head, and to whom we belong as members. *Father,* he says, *if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.* This was the human will, willing something proper and as it were private. But because he wills man to be upright and to be directed toward God, he adds: *Not what I will, but what thou* wilt; as if he were to say: See yourself in me, for you can will something proper, while God wills another thing. This is conceded to human frailty». The same elsewhere: Christ in the passion expressed two wills in himself according to the two natures; for he says: *Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.* Behold, you have the will of the man, which, directing it at once to the divine, he says: *Yet, not as I will, but as thou.* Ambrose also in the second book On Faith: «It is written: *Father, if it be possible, transfer this chalice from me.* They are the words of Christ, but in what manner and in what form they are said, attend: he bears the substance of man, he took up the affect of man. Therefore he speaks not as God, but as man». «He took up indeed my will. *Mine* is the will, which he called his own, when he said: *Not as I will, but as thou* wilt». «But when he said: *All things that the Father has are mine,* since nothing is excepted, without doubt, the same will which the Father has the Son also has». «The will of Christ is the same as the Father's». «There is therefore one will of the Father and of the Son». «But one will is the man's, another God's, that you may know that life is in the will of the man, but the passion of Christ in the divine will, that he might suffer for us». — By these testimonies it is evidently taught that there were two wills in Christ; and because Macarius the archbishop denied this, he was condemned in the Metropolitan Synod. And from the human affect of sensuality indeed, not of reason, he willed and sought that which he did not obtain. Nor did he seek it in order to obtain it, because he knew that God would not do it; nor did he will it to be done by the affect of reason, or by the will of the Divinity. For what, then, did he seek it? That he might offer a form to [his] members, that, with trouble pressing on, of crying to the Lord and of subjecting their will to the divine will, so that, if when trouble strikes they are saddened, they may pray for its removal; but if they cannot avoid it, they may say what Christ himself [said]. It was not, therefore, for foolishness that Christ crying out is not heard unto bodily safety. He sought indeed a good thing, namely that he might not die, but it was better that he should die; which also was done.

### Chap. III. *On certain chapters of Ambrose and Hilary, where there is treatment of the doubting and fear of Christ.*

But the words of Ambrose move us not a little, by which he seems to signify that Christ according to the human affect doubted of the power of the Father, saying thus in the second book On Faith: «Of whom does he doubt? of himself, or of the Father? Of him surely, to whom he says: *Transfer,* he doubts by the affect of man. For God does not doubt of the Father nor fear death. The Prophet also does not doubt, who asserts that nothing is impossible to God. Will you set God below men? The Prophet does not doubt, and do you believe the Son to doubt? As man therefore he doubts, as man he spoke». — By these words it seems to be intimated that Christ, not insofar as he is God or the Son of God, but insofar as he is man, doubted by a human affect. Which can be understood as said for this reason, not because he himself doubted, but because he bore the manner of one doubting and seemed to men to doubt.

This too must not be ignored, that Hilary seems to assert that Christ prayed not for himself, but for his own, when he said: *Transfer this chalice from me,* just as neither for himself, but for his own did he fear; nor did he wish that for himself there should be no passion, but that the chalice of passion might pass from his own, saying thus: «If the passion was going to honor him, as, when Judas went out, he says: *Now is the Son of man glorified;* how had the fear of the passion made him sad? Unless perhaps he was so irrational as to fear to suffer death, which was going to glorify him who suffered? But perhaps it will be supposed that he so far feared, that he prayed that the chalice might be transferred from him, saying: *Father, transfer this chalice from me.* For how through fear of suffering would he pray that there be transferred from him what through zeal for the dispensation he was hastening to fulfill? For it is not fitting that he should be unwilling to suffer what he wills to suffer; and when you knew that he willed to suffer, it had been more religious to confess this than to break out into that impious folly, so that, when you would assert that he prayed not to suffer, [you assert it of him] whom you knew to will to suffer». «Not for himself therefore is he sad, nor for himself does he pray that the chalice pass, but for the disciples, that the chalice of passion may not fall upon them, which

he prays may pass from him, that is, that it may not remain in these». «For he does not pray that it be not with him, but that it pass from him. Then he says: *Not as I will, but as thou wilt.* Signifying a fellowship of human solicitude in himself, but not distinguishing a judgment of the will common to himself with the Father». «For men, therefore, he wills the chalice to pass, by which all the disciples were to be tempted; and therefore for Peter he is prayed for, that his faith may not fail». «Knowing, therefore, that all these things were to cease after his death, he is sad even unto death, and knows that this chalice cannot pass unless he drink it; therefore he says: *My Father, if this chalice cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done,* knowing that, the passion being consummated in himself, the fear of the chalice would pass, which, unless he had drunk it, could not pass, nor would the end of terror succeed the terror, unless the passion were consummated, because after his death, through the glory of [his] virtues, the scandal of the apostolic weakness would be driven away». — Attend, reader, to these words with pious diligence, lest they be to you vessels of death.

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