Dist. 19
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XIX.

### Chap. I. *In what way Christ by his death redeemed us from the devil and from sin.*

Now therefore let us inquire how through his death we have been redeemed from the devil and from sin and from punishment. — From the devil therefore and from sin we have been freed through Christ's death, because, as the Apostle says, *in his blood we have been justified*, and in the fact that we have been justified, that is, loosed from sins, we have been freed from the devil, who held us by the chains of sins. But how have we been loosed from sins through his death? Because through his death, as the Apostle says, *the charity of God is commended to us*, that is, the surpassing and commendable charity of God toward us appears in this, that he *handed over* his Son *unto death* for us sinners. And the pledge of so great a love toward us having been displayed, we too are moved and kindled to love God, who did such great things for us; and through this we are justified, that is, being loosed from sins, we are made just. Christ's death therefore justifies us, while through it charity is stirred up in our hearts. — We are also said to be justified in another way through Christ's death, because through faith in his death we are cleansed from sins. Whence the Apostle: *The justice of God is through faith of Jesus Christ*; and in the same place: *Whom God hath proposed to be a propitiator, through faith in his blood*, that is, through faith in the passion, just as of old those looking upon the bronze serpent, raised on the wood, were healed from the bites of serpents. If therefore we rightly with the gaze of faith look upon him who hung on the wood for us, we are loosed from the chains of the devil, that is from sins, and so we are freed from the devil, so that even after this life he finds nothing in us to punish. «*By his death* indeed *by one most true sacrifice whatever there was of faults, on account of which the devil was holding us to pay the penalties, Christ extinguished*», so that in this life by tempting

he may not prevail against us. For although he tempts us after Christ's death, by whatever modes he tempted before, yet he cannot conquer, as he conquered before. For Peter, who before Christ's death, terrified by the voice of a maidservant, denied, after the death, led before kings and governors, did not give way. Why? Because the *stronger one*, that is Christ, coming *into the house of the strong one*, that is into our hearts, where the devil dwelt, *bound the strong one*, that is, restrained him from the seduction of the faithful, so that the temptation, which is still permitted to him, the seduction may not follow. And so in Christ's blood, *who paid back what he did not seize*, we have been redeemed from sin, and through this from the devil. For, as Augustine says, «*in him are conquered the invisible powers hostile to us, where the invisible desires are conquered*». «*For the blood having been poured out without fault, the bonds of all faults have been blotted out, by which debtors, who believe in him, were before held by the devil*»; whence: *Which shall be poured out for many*. Through him therefore we have been redeemed, in whom *the prince of the world found nothing*. Whence Augustine, intimating the cause and mode of our redemption, says: «*The devil found nothing in Christ for which he should die, but by the will of the Father Christ willed to die; not having a cause of death from sin, but from obedience and justice, he tasted death, through which he redeemed us from the servitude of the devil. For we had fallen into the prince of this world, who seduced Adam and made him a slave, and began to possess us as his home-born servants; but the Redeemer came, and the deceiver was conquered. And what did the Redeemer do to our captor? He stretched out for him a snare, his cross, he placed there as bait his blood. But he poured out the blood* *of one not a debtor, by which he withdrew from the debtors. For he poured out his blood for this, that he might blot out our sins. Whence therefore the devil held us, it has been blotted out by the blood of the Redeemer. For he held us only by the chains of our sins; these were the fetters of the captives. He came, he bound the strong one with the chains of his passion; he entered into his house, that is into the hearts of those in whom he himself dwelt, and his vessels, namely us, he snatched away, which the other had filled with his bitterness. But our God, snatching away his vessels and making them his own, poured out the bitterness and filled them with sweetness*», through his death redeeming from sins and bestowing the adoption of the glory of sons.

### Chap. II. *Why God [became] man and [why] dead.*

He was therefore made a mortal man, that by dying he might conquer the devil. «*For unless he were man, who should conquer the devil, it would seem that man was taken from him not justly, but violently, who subjected himself to him of his own will. But if, since he conquered as man, by manifest right he destroyed the man. And that man may conquer, it is necessary that God be in him, who makes him immune from sins. For if he were man by himself, or an Angel in a man, he would easily sin, since it is established that each nature by itself fell*». Therefore the Son of God assumed a passible man, in whom he also tasted death; by which he opened heaven to us and redeemed us from the servitude of the devil, that is from sin — for the servitude of the devil is sin — and from punishment.

### Chap. III. *How Christ redeemed us from punishment.*

From what punishment? Temporal and eternal: from the eternal indeed by remitting the debt, but from the temporal he will free us entirely in the future, *when the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed*. For we still *await the redemption of the body*, but as to *souls* we have already been redeemed *in part*, not *in whole*: from *guilt*, not from *punishment*, nor *altogether* from guilt. For we have not been redeemed from it in such a way that it does not *exist*, but that it does not *have dominion*.

### Chap. IV. *How he bore our punishment.*

Our sins too, that is the punishment of our sins, he is said *to have borne in his body upon the wood*, because through his punishment, which he bore on the cross, all temporal punishment, which is owed for sin to those converted, is in *baptism* entirely remitted, so that none is exacted from the baptized, and in *penance* is lessened. For that punishment with which the Church binds penitents would not suffice, unless the punishment of Christ cooperated, who paid for us. Whence the sins of the just, who were before the advent, were *in the sustaining of God* until Christ's death, the Apostle says, *unto the showing of his justice in this time*. — Behold, it has been in part expounded, how and what Christ by his death merited and obtained for us.

### Chap. V. *Whether Christ alone, as mediator, ought to be called redeemer.*

Whence he is truly called *redeemer of the world* and *mediator of God and men*. But *mediator* in Scripture is called the Son alone, whereas *redeemer* sometimes also the Father, or the Holy Spirit, but this on account of the use of power, not on account of the display of humility and obedience. For according to the use of power and at the same time of obedience

the Son is properly called *redeemer*, because both in himself he accomplished those things by which we are justified, and the justification itself he wrought by the power of the Deity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is therefore redeemer, insofar as he is *God*, by the use of power, and insofar as he is *man*, by the effect of humility. And more often he is called redeemer according to his humanity, because according to it and in it he undertook and fulfilled those sacraments which are the cause of our redemption. *Properly* therefore the Son is called redeemer.

### Chap. VI. *On the mediator.*

Who alone is called *mediator*, not the Father, or the Holy Spirit. Of whom the Apostle: *One mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus*, that is, through a man as it were in the middle he is *arbiter* for composing peace, that is for reconciling men to God. «*This is the arbiter whom Job desires: Would that there were for us an arbiter*». *For we have been reconciled to God*, as the Apostle says, *through the death of Christ*; «*which is not to be so understood, as though Christ so reconciled us to him, that he began to love those whom he hated, as an enemy is reconciled to an enemy, so that afterward they may be friends, who before hated each other; but we have already been reconciled to God [who] loves [us]. For not from the time when we were reconciled to him through the blood of the Son did he begin to love us, but before the world, before we were anything*». How therefore have we been reconciled to God [who] loves us? «*On account of sin we had enmities with him, who had charity toward us, even while we were exercising enmities against him, by working iniquity*». «*So therefore we were enemies to God, as sins are enemies to justice; and therefore, with sins remitted, such enmities are ended, and those whom he himself justifies are reconciled to the just one*». Christ therefore is called mediator, in that as *the middle one* between God and men he reconciles them to God. And he reconciles, while he removes the offenses of men from the eyes of God, that is, while he blots out the sins by which God was offended, and we were his enemies. — But since not the Son alone blots out sins, but also the Father and the Holy Spirit, whose blotting-out is our reconciliation to God, why is the Son alone called mediator? For of the Father it is read, that he reconciled the world to himself. For the Apostle says: *God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself*. Since therefore he reconciles, why is he not called *mediator*? — Because he is neither *the middle one* between God and men, nor did he have in himself those sacraments by whose faith and imitation we are justified, that is reconciled to God. The whole Trinity therefore reconciled us by the *use of power*, namely while it blots out sins, but the Son alone by the *fulfillment of obedience*, in whom they were accomplished according to the human nature, through which believers and imitators are justified.

### Chap. VII. *According to which nature he is mediator.*

Whence also he is called *mediator* according to his *humanity*, not according to his *Divinity*. «*For there is no mediator between God and God, because God is one; but between God and man, as it were between two extremes, because the middle one cannot be except between some things*». He is therefore mediator, insofar as he is *man*; for insofar as God, he is not mediator, but equal to the Father, the same as the Father, with the Father one God. He mediates therefore between men and the God-Trinity according to the nature of man, in which he undertook those things through which we are reconciled to the God-Trinity; and according to the same he has something like God and something like men; which was fitting for a mediator, lest by being in all things like men he should be far from God, or by being in all things like God he should be far from men, and so should not be a mediator. The true mediator therefore Christ between mortal sinners and the immortal just one appeared *mortal* with men, *just* with God; by infirmity drawing near to us, by justice to God. Rightly therefore was he called mediator, because between immortal God and mortal man there is the God-man, reconciling man to God, a mediator in so far as he is man; but in so far as he is the Word, he is not the middle one, because one with the Father God. — If therefore Christ, according to you, O heretics, has only one nature, whence will he be the middle one? Unless he be the middle one in such a way that he is God on account of the nature of Divinity and man on account of the nature of humanity; how are human things in him reconciled to divine? For he himself, coming first, joined human things to divine in himself through the conjunction of each nature in one person; then he reconciled all the faithful through his death to God, while they were healed from impiety, whoever loved the humility of Christ by believing and imitated it by loving. — Behold, here it is somewhat intimated why Christ alone is called mediator of God and men; and according to which nature he mediates, namely the human; and to whom he mediates, namely to the God-Trinity. For to the Trinity he reconciled us through his death, through which also he redeemed us from the servitude of the devil. For, as Peter says in his canonical Epistle, *not with corruptible gold or silver have we been redeemed, but with the precious blood of the immaculate Lamb*.

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