Dist. 18
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-littera
----------------------------------------
### DISTINCTION XVIII.

### Chap. I. *Whether Christ merited for himself and for us, and what for himself and what for us.*

Concerning the merit of Christ also nothing must be passed over, about which some are wont to say that he merited not for *himself*, but only for his *members*. He did indeed merit for his *members* redemption from the devil, from sin, from punishment, and the opening of the kingdom, so that, the *fiery sword* being removed, entrance might lie freely open; but he also merited for *himself* the glory of impassibility and immortality, as the Apostle says: *Christ was made for us obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; for which cause God also exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name.* The Apostle clearly says that Christ was on this account exalted through the glory of impassibility, because he was humbled through the obedience of the passion; therefore the humility of the passion was the merit of exaltation, and the exaltation the reward of humility. Hence Augustine, expounding the foresaid chapter, says: «That Christ might be glorified in the resurrection, he was first humbled in the passion; humility is the merit of brightness, brightness is the reward of humility. But all this was done in the form of a servant; for in the form of God there always was and will be brightness». Likewise Ambrose, treating the same chapter, says: «What and how much humility merits, is here shown». — From these testimonies it becomes evident, that Christ through the humility and obedience of the passion merited the glorification of his body, and not that alone, but also the impassibility of his soul. For his soul before death was passible, as his flesh was mortal; but after death, by the merit of humility, both the soul was made impassible, and the flesh immortal. But whether the soul was made impassible when the flesh was made immortal, namely at the very moment of the resurrection, is not certain to us from authority; but either soon after the separation of the flesh the soul was endowed with impassibility, or in the resurrection, when *the flesh flowered again*.

### Chap. II. *That from conception Christ merited for himself the same thing which [he merited] through the passion.*

Nor did Christ merit this only when, obedient to the Father, he underwent the cross, but also from the very conception, from when he was made man, through charity and justice and the other virtues, in the fullness of which he was established according to his humanity, he merited for himself as much as afterward through the endurance of martyrdom. For so great a fullness of spiritual graces was in him, that he could not advance in them; and therefore his soul could not be made better than it was from the beginning of its formation, because it could not advance in merits. Hence Gregory says: «Christ did not at all have, according to the merit of the soul, anything whereby he could have advanced; but in his members, which we are, he advances daily». — Therefore he merited for himself no more through the gibbet of the cross than he had merited from conception through the grace of the virtues. He did not therefore advance according to the merit of the soul as to the *power of merit*; yet he advanced as to the *number of merits*. For he had more merits in the passion than in the conception; but they were not, in meriting, more of greater power than they had earlier been fewer. Therefore from conception he merited not only the glory of impassibility and immortality of the body, but also the impassibility of the soul. By what? By obedience and a perfect will, which he did not then first have, nor a greater one, when he began to suffer and to die. For he was obedient perfectly and good according to his humanity, from when he was man. — That soul therefore had some good in itself after death, which it did not have before. Was it then *better* or *more blessed* than before? Far be it that it was *better*, because [it was] not holier, not more heaped with grace; nor was it even *more blessed* in the contemplation of God, in which beatitude chiefly consists. It can nevertheless be said to have been *more blessed* in this, that [it was] from all

misery immune; from which it cannot be inferred *absolutely* that it was more blessed.

### Chap. III. *On that which is written: He gave him a name which is above every name.*

He merited not only the glory of impassibility and immortality, but also that there be given to him a *name, which is above every name*, namely the honor whereby he is called God. Yet he had this name before death. For he had this name of *God*, inasmuch as he is *God*, from eternity by nature; but inasmuch as he was made *man*, he had it from time by grace. Nevertheless Augustine says, «that name was given to the man, not to *God*, because he had that name when he was only in the form of God; but when it is said: *For which cause he exalted him and gave him a name, which is above every name*, it is sufficiently apparent for *what* he exalted him, that is, on account of obedience, and in what *form* he was exalted. For in whatever *form* he was crucified, in that he was exalted, and in that a name was given to him, so that with the very *form of a servant* the only-begotten Son of God might be named: this was given to him as to a *man*, which he himself the same *God* already had». This therefore he received through grace, that he himself, being a man or subsisting in the form of a servant, that is, in soul and flesh, should be named and be God. — But did he merit this? For above it was said, that that man did not merit so great a good; how then is it here said: *On account of obedience this name was given to him*? This is to be understood according to that trope most frequent in Scripture, by which a thing is said to be done, «when it becomes known». But after the resurrection, what was before was set in evidence, so that men and demons might know. Therefore God gave to him the *manifestation* of that name after the resurrection, but he merited it through the obedience of the passion, who, because he obeyed by suffering, was exalted by rising again, and through this the *name* was manifested. The Lord himself also used this same trope after the resurrection, saying: *All power is given to me in heaven and in earth*, not that he then first received it, but the power which he had before was then manifested. Moreover Ambrose says that that name was given to God, not to man, and he seems, according to the surface of the words, opposed to Augustine; but the understanding is not contrary, although it has a different sense. For Ambrose understands it said of the natural giving, by which the Father, eternally begetting, gave to the Son a name which is above every name, namely to be God by nature, because he begot from eternity the Son full and equal to himself, [as] God; which name nevertheless the Apostle says was given to Christ on account of the obedience of the passion; but it is to be understood according to the manner of speaking premised.

### Chap. IV. *Whether Christ could have had without any merit that which he obtained by merit.*

But if it is asked whether Christ could have had that glory of immortality and impassibility and the manifestation of the name of God without any merit; it can soundly be said, that he could have taken up human nature so *glorious* as it was in the resurrection, and could also have manifested his name to men in another way; but he could not be a *passible* man, as he was, and arrive at that glory *without merit*. He could indeed arrive at it without the *merit of the passion*, because he could, mortality being consumed, be clothed with the glory of immortality, but not without the *merit of justice and charity and the other virtues*. For Christ could not be a man in whom there was not the *fullness of virtues and grace*; nor could the virtues be in him, clad in the hair-shirt of mortality, without his meriting by them. Having therefore these virtues according to his passible and mortal humanity, he could not but merit the glory of immortality; therefore he could not, having been made mortal, attain *without merit* the glory of impassibility and immortality and the manifestation of the name of God. Yet he could attain these without the *merit of the passion*, because through the passion he merited for himself nothing which he had not already merited before through the virtues.

### Chap. V. *On the cause of the passion and death of Christ.*

For what then did he will to suffer and to die, if the virtues sufficed him for meriting those things? *For you, not for himself.* How for me? That his passion and death might be for you a form and a cause: a form of virtue and humility, a cause of glory and freedom; a form of obeying God unto death, and a cause of your liberation and beatitude. For he merited for us, through the endurance of death and passion, what he had not merited through the preceding things, namely the entrance of paradise and redemption from sin, from punishment, from the devil; and through his death we have obtained these things, namely redemption and the adoption of the glory of sons. For he, by dying, was made the victim of our liberation. — But how, through death, did he redeem us from the devil and from sin and open the entrance of glory? God had decreed in mystery, as Ambrose says, that on account of the first sin man should not be brought into paradise, that is, should not be admitted to the contemplation of God, unless in one man there should exist so great a humility, which could profit all his own, just as in the first man there was so great a pride, which harmed all his own. But there was found among men no one who could fulfill this, except the *lion of the tribe of Judah, who opened the book and loosed the seals*, by fulfilling in himself *all justice*, that is, the most consummate hu-

mility, than which there can be none greater. For all other men were debtors, and his own virtue and humility scarcely sufficed for any one of them. Therefore none of them could offer a victim sufficient for our reconciliation. But Christ, the man, was a sufficient and perfect victim, who was much more humbled, by tasting the bitterness of death, than that Adam was proud, by enjoying with harmful delight the eating of the forbidden tree. If therefore his pride was the ruin of all, casting himself out of paradise and shutting the gate against the others; much more was the humility of Christ, by which he tasted death, able, the decree of God being fulfilled, to open the entrance of the heavenly kingdom to all his own, and to blot out the bond of the decree. For as Ambrose says: «So great was our sin, that we could not be saved, unless the only-begotten Son of God should die for us, who were debtors of death, but thus he made us worthy of the testament and of the promised inheritance». Which is not to be so understood, as though he could not save us in another *way* than through his death, but that through another *victim* the entrance of the kingdom could not be opened to us and salvation come to pass except through the death of the Only-begotten, whose humility and patience were so great, as has been said, that by his merit the entrance of the kingdom might lie open to those believing in him. Great things therefore were furnished to us in the death of the Only-begotten, that it might be permitted us to return into our fatherland, just as formerly, at the death of the high priest, it was permitted with safety to those who had fled to the city of refuge to return to their own. — Behold, it has been in some measure shown how, through the death of Christ, the entrance of the kingdom is prepared for us.

---