Dist. 18, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/18/q/bon-sent-III-d18-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On merit with respect to its use or exercise.*
### Question I. *Whether Christ merited from the instant of conception.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and asks whether Christ merited from the instant of conception. And that he did, it seems.

1. Jeremiah thirty-one: *The Lord will make a new thing upon the earth, a woman shall compass a man*, therefore Christ was a man from the instant of conception; but it is agreed that he was not a man with respect to age: therefore he was a man with respect to vigor of soul: he had therefore, with respect to the soul, the virtue and operation of a perfect man. But this consists in meriting: therefore Christ merited from the beginning of his conception.

2. Likewise, this same thing seems [to follow] from the authority of Gregory and of the Master in the text: «Christ did not only merit when, obedient to the Father, he underwent the cross, but from the very conception, from when he was made man». And this same thing can be drawn from the consequent authority of Gregory.

3. Likewise, Christ from the instant of his conception was blessed; but blessedness is a habit in act: therefore from the first instant of his conception he had a glorious act. But by the same reason by which through glory he had a glorious act, by the same reason through grace he had a virtuous act: therefore it seems that from the beginning of his conception Christ merited.

4. Likewise, light, on account of its nobility and actuality, in the same instant begins to be and to shine: therefore if the soul of Christ is much more noble and more powerful and more deiform, it seems that in the same instant in which it began to be, it began to have the operation due to it. But such is meritorious operation: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, just as our souls stand with respect to demerit, so the soul of Christ stands with respect to merit; but our souls in the very instant of infusion have the guilt of original fault: therefore the soul of Christ from the very instant of conception and infusion had the merit of virtue.

**On the contrary:**
1. «Being is prior to acting»: to the opposite — if therefore *to merit* is *to act*, the soul of Christ first had complete being before it had the use of merit: therefore it did not merit from the beginning of conception.

2. Likewise, everything that passes from rest into act, first rests before it acts, and everything of this kind is prior before it operates; but the soul of Christ began to merit: therefore from non-operating it was made operating: therefore in meriting it passed from rest into act: therefore it first rested: therefore it did not merit from the instant of conception.

3. Likewise, merit is from the deliberative will insofar as it is deliberative; but where there is deliberation, there is comparison; and where this is, there is succession of time: therefore it does not seem that the merit of Christ could be from the principle of his conception.

4. Likewise, the Angel did not sin in the first instant of his creation; and yet he had the use of free choice as quickly as any rational soul, since he was created in the perfection of cognition: therefore by equal reason it seems that neither could the soul of Christ merit from the instant of conception.

5. Likewise, everything that the soul of Christ had from the beginning of its conception, it had from another; but merit took its origin from free choice informed by grace: therefore it does not seem that it had the use of merit from the very beginning of conception.

> **Conclusion.** Christ certainly merited from the instant of his conception, if we speak of the habit, and probably also with respect to act.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that two things concur for the perfection of merit, namely the gratuitous habit itself and the

act or use of that habit. If therefore we speak of merit with respect to the *habit*, which renders its possessor worthy of reward, thus, without doubt it must be conceded that from the principle of his conception Christ merited, because he was worthy of every good and reward on account of the fullness of grace which God conferred and infused into his soul. And no catholic doctor disagrees with this. — But if the discourse is about merit with respect to the *act* or use of virtue, in which the complete account of meriting is properly considered, thus there is a twofold manner of speaking: one, that Christ merited immediately after the principle of conception, but not in the very first instant. And the reason for this is that operation must follow the *being* of substance; therefore it was necessary that the soul of Christ be prior to acting, especially in that genus of action which pertains to the use of the deliberative will; but such is the meritorious act. And therefore if it is said anywhere that Christ merited from the beginning of his conception; they say it is true, according as *from* denotes an order to a principle taken *outside*, not *within*.

There is also another manner of speaking, that Christ with respect to the *use* and act of virtue merited in the very beginning of conception; for this was given to him through most perfect grace, that in the first instant in which he began to be, he might have not only the habits of the virtues, but also the act, whence he simultaneously began to be and to have the use of comprehension; and the soul of Christ in the same instant had to be created and infused, and to be informed by grace and to pass into the act of merit, which indeed consists in the motion of the good will.

Each of these manners, however, is sufficiently reasonable, but the first is easier and more common, and according to it the response to the objections is plain. — For as to what is said, that Christ from the instant of his conception was a man, and that he is said to have merited from the instant of his conception; this is said with respect to the *habit*; and this the very word of Gregory suggests, when he says: «Christ did not merit more for himself through the gibbet of the cross than from the very conception through the grace of the virtues». It is notable that he says «through the grace of the virtues», not through the use of the virtues. For he had grace from the principle, so that in the very principle; but he had use from the principle, so that after the principle. — And if you object concerning blessedness and concerning light, those who hold this generally respond that in every creature being precedes operating, both in the corporeal and in the spiritual, both in the act of nature and in the act of grace, and even in the act of grace as much as in the act of glory. — Nor does that which is objected about the merit of the soul stand in the way. For the soul has original sin in its infusion by way of habit, but not with respect to act. — And thus according to this way the response to all the objections is clear.

But if anyone should wish to hold another way, namely that Christ in the first instant of his creation had the use of free choice on account of the most excellent gift of grace, both with respect to the act of the *wayfarer* and with respect to the act of the *comprehensor*; he will be able quite easily to respond to the objections to the contrary.

1. For to that which is first objected, that *being* is prior to *acting*; it must be said that that holds true if it is understood of priority with respect to the order of *nature*. But if it is understood of priority with respect to *duration*, it does not hold true, according as Augustine expressly says in the eighth book *On Genesis according to the Letter*, where he says that in corporeal light *being* does not precede *acting*; and concerning the Angels, of whom he says that in the first instant of their condition they knew those things which came forth into *being* together with them. And in the sixth book *On the Trinity* he says that «if fire were eternal, the splendor going forth from the fire would be eternal». And therefore it can be said quite reasonably that that does not hold true of the order of duration, but of the order of nature.

2. But to that which is objected, that a sub-

stance which begins to act passes from rest into act; it must be said that that does not hold true generally, unless it is understood of an operation without which the operating substance can be; but of another [operation] it does not hold true, for the reason that a creature simultaneously begins to be and to operate; nor does it begin to operate because it passes from rest into act, but because it passes from *non-being* into *being*. In this way it can be understood in Christ with respect to the *act of grace* and *of virtue*.

3. To that which is objected, that merit is from the deliberative will; it must be said that although according to the *process of nature* deliberation needs succession and time; nevertheless according to the *fullness of grace* and *of glory* it is possible for the soul itself to discern in an instant, which otherwise it could not do «without continuum and time». And thus through the *deiformity of glory* the intellect can understand many things at once, although through *nature* it understands only one thing at one time and once. And because the soul of Christ was in the fullness of grace and glory; hence it is that it did not need a delay of time to discern what was to be chosen, what to be fled, what to be loved, what to be hated.

4. To that which is objected about the Angel, it must be said that it is not similar; for it could not so know many things at one time and once, as could the soul of Christ with the fullness of grace. Moreover, *sin* denotes a disordered motion contrary to natural rectitude, but *merit* denotes the complement of natural rectitude; and although it was not fitting that any substance be created with an act contrary to natural rectitude, it was nevertheless fitting that it be created in act and with an act consonant with the nature itself and completing it, especially that one in which God from the beginning of its condition most fully dwelt, as was the soul of Christ.

5. To that which is objected, that what is present from the beginning of condition is present from elsewhere; it must be said that if that is understood precisely, so that the soul of Christ stands solely by way of receiving and in no way of cooperating, it does not hold true. For it could be given to the soul itself that it cooperate with God immediately, when it was, and so that it have something in itself which was not only from elsewhere, but also from itself; and thus it could be in the act of virtue and the exercise of merit.

If therefore anyone wishes to maintain this manner of speaking, he does not seem to deviate much from the probability of reason nor even from the piety of faith, which, as much as it can, attributes grace and honor to Christ himself.