Dist. 19, Art. 1, Q. 4
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/19/q/bon-sent-III-d19-a1-q4
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### Article I. *On the efficacy of the passion of Christ.*
### Question IV. *Whether through the passion of Christ we are absolved from the punishment of sin.*

In the fourth place it is asked whether through the passion of Christ we are absolved from the punishment of sin. And that this is so seems [to be the case].

1. From the second [chapter] of the First [Letter] of Peter: *He bore our sins in his body upon the tree;* and the Master, expounding this in the text, says that « to bear our sins is to bear the punishment of our sins ». And this is confirmed by that [passage] of Isaiah, the fifty-third [chapter]: *Truly he himself bore our griefs, and himself carried our infirmities.*

2. Likewise, from the ninth [chapter] of Zechariah: *Thou also, by the blood of thy covenant, hast brought forth thy prisoners out of the pit, in which there was no water:* if therefore to be brought forth out of the pit without water is to be freed from punishment, it seems that through the blood of Christ we are freed from the punishment of sin.

3. Likewise, the passion of Christ was supremely penal and pleasing to God, and was also paid for us; but that which is of such a condition has most of all [the power] to free from punishment: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, the endurance of punishment is ordered more to the relaxation of punishment than to the deletion of fault: if therefore through the passion of Christ justification comes about, as was shown above, much more strongly does the relaxation of punishments come about.

**On the contrary:**
1. « The resurrection of Christ is the cause of our resurrection », as is said in the Gloss on the first [Letter] to the Corinthians, the fifteenth [chapter]; but through our resurrection we have [the power] to be freed from punishment and from misery: therefore it seems that the resurrection of Christ, not the passion, frees us from punishment.

2. Likewise, Christ by suffering gave us an example and matter for suffering-with [him]: if therefore punishment consists in suffering and compassion, it seems that the passion of Christ is rather causative of punishment than liberative from punishment.

3. Likewise, all penance is penal — for to do penance is to hold to punishment — if therefore through the passion of Christ we have been freed from punishment, it seems that penance is no longer needed; but this is false: therefore the first [conclusion is false] too.

4. Likewise, if the passion of Christ frees from punishment, then either from temporal or from eternal [punishment]. Not from temporal, because we are now subject to the same temporal punishments to which those were subject who lived before the passion. Not from eternal, because no one who was damned in hell was freed through the passion of Christ: it seems therefore that, by means of Christ's passion, we are not freed from any punishment.

### Conclusion.

> The passion of Christ freed us from the punishment of sin — temporal, eternal, and that which is intermediate between the two.

**I respond:** It must be said that the passion of Christ freed us from temporal punishment, and from eternal, and from that which is intermediate between the two of these. — From temporal punishment, I say, it frees us when, by its power, our sins are remitted to us, not only as to fault and the liability of eternal punishment, but also as to the dismissal of satisfactory punishment, as comes about in the Sacrament of baptism. — From eternal punishment it frees us by freeing [us] from fault. For when through the passion of Christ grace is obtained for us, through which fault is dismissed, the debt of the eternal punishment of death is relaxed for us. — It also frees [us] from the punishment which is in some way intermediate between these two punishments, which indeed was the lack of the divine vision by [reason of] the merit of Adam's sin; and that [lack], even though it was for a time on account of the grace found in those who were detained in limbo, ought nevertheless to have eternity, having regard to the fault of Adam — whence, however long the passion had been deferred, the divine presence would have been withdrawn from it — unless God had devised another way. And from this punishment we have been freed through the passion of Christ; and thus it is clear that in every way it is true that the passion of Christ is efficacious for freeing us from the punishment of sin. — And the reasons which show this are to be conceded.

**To the solution of the [arguments] on the opposite [side]:**

1. To that which is first objected to the contrary, that the resurrection of Christ frees us from punishment more than the passion; it must be said that, as was said above concerning justification — that justification can be attributed to the passion by reason of the terminus *from which,* namely by reason of the removal of evil, and to the resurrection by reason of the terminus *to which,* namely by reason of the conferring of good. So too glorification, which is liberation from *punishment* and *misery,* can be attributed to both; but by reason of the liberation from *punishment* it is attributed rather to the *passion.*

2. To that which is objected, that the passion of Christ furnishes us an example of suffering; it must be said that, although the passion of Christ frees [us] from *punishment,* it does not nevertheless free [us] from *all punishment.* For it frees [us] from *oppressive* punishment, but does not free [us] from *promotive* punishment. And since the punishment in which patience and mercy or piety is exercised is promotive; therefore the passion of Christ does not free [us] from that [punishment], but rouses [us] to it and, by rousing, brings it about that that punishment cannot oppress nor prevail; and in this way it could be said in some manner to free [us] from that kind of punishment, not so that it does not afflict, but so that it does not prevail.

3. To that which is objected, that the passion of Christ does not free [us] from the punishment of penance; it must be said that on the contrary it does free [us], so far as lies in itself; because, according to what is said in the text, « in baptism every punishment which is owed for sin is utterly relaxed »; but when a man repeats his sins, he renders himself unworthy of so great a benefit, and therefore through the passion not the whole punishment is remitted to him, but it is « lessened », according to what the Master says in the text, as much as is fitting and expedient, the divine justice being preserved.

4. To that which is objected, that it frees [us] neither from temporal nor from eternal punishment; it must be said that that reasoning errs by [the fallacy of] the consequent. For it does not follow that, if in this way it does not free [us] from temporal and eternal punishment, that for this reason [it frees us] in no way. For although it does not free from eternal punishment those who are obstinate in evil, it nevertheless frees those who will and are able to be converted to Christ. Again, although it does not free [us] from temporal punishment in the present, as from hunger and from thirst, it will nevertheless free [us] in the future, when the last enemy of all, death, shall be destroyed. It also frees [us] from certain temporal punishments to which we would be bound by the merit of our sins, were it not that the passion of Christ intervened.