Dist. 3, Part 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/3/q/bon-sent-III-d3-p1-littera
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### DISTINCTION III.
#### Part I.

#### Ch. I. *On the flesh assumed, what it was beforehand.*

It is asked also concerning the flesh of the Word, whether, before it was conceived, it was bound to sin, and whether it was assumed by the Word as such. — It can soundly be said and ought to be believed, according to the consistency of the saints' testimony, that it was beforehand liable to sin, like the rest of the Virgin's flesh, but was so cleansed by the operation of the Holy Spirit that it was united to the Word free from every contagion of sin, only the penalty remaining—not by necessity, but by the will of the one assuming. — The Holy Spirit also, coming beforehand into her, wholly purged Mary from sin and even freed her from the tinder of sin, either by entirely emptying out that tinder itself, as it pleases some, or by so weakening and attenuating it that afterward no occasion of sinning at all remained for her; he also prepared for the Virgin the power of generating without a man's seed. For the words of the Gospel thus teach, where the Angel, addressing the Virgin, says: *The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee... and that which shall be born of thee shall be called holy, the Son of God.* To whom the holy Virgin replied: *Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.* Expounding this, John Damascene says: «But after the consent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit came upon her according to the word of the Lord, which the Angel spoke, purifying her and preparing her to be receptive of the deity of the Word, and at the same time generative. And then there overshadowed her the per-se-existing Wisdom and Power of the Most High God, that is, the Son of God consubstantial with the Father (*homousios*), that is, of one substance, as a divine seed; and he joined to himself from the most holy and most pure bloods of the Virgin herself the flesh of our ancient mingling, animated by a rational and intellective soul—not sowing, but creating through the Holy Spirit. Wherefore at once flesh, at once God's flesh, at once the flesh of God the Word, animated by a rational and intellective soul». — From these things it is clear, as we said before, namely that the flesh of the Word was at once conceived and assumed, and that the same flesh—indeed the whole Virgin—was, by the prevenient Holy Spirit, purified from every stain of sin. To her was granted the power «of generating in a new manner, so that without intercourse of a man, without the lust of one conceiving, there should be celebrated in the Virgin's womb the conception

of God and man». «For that flesh which God deigned to unite to himself from the Virgin was conceived without fault, born without sin». «Yet do not suppose this flesh to be of a celestial, an aerial, or any other nature whatsoever, but of that whose flesh is the flesh of all men».

#### Ch. II. *That no one here is without sin, except the Virgin.*

That the holy Virgin was from that time free from all sin, Augustine plainly shows in the book *On Nature and Grace*, saying: «With the exception of the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question raised when sins are treated. For from this we know that more grace was conferred on her for overcoming sin in every part, because she merited to conceive and to bear him whom it is certain had no sin. With this Virgin excepted, therefore, if all the Saints, men and women, could be gathered together, and it were asked of them whether they had sin, what would be answered, except what John says: *If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves*»? «But that Virgin was forestalled and filled with singular grace, so that she had as the fruit of her womb him whom the universe had from the beginning as its Lord»; «that what was born from the propagation of the first man should draw only the origin of its race and not of crime».

#### Part II.

#### Ch. III. *Why Christ was not tithed in Abraham, as Levi was.*

But since that flesh, whose singular excellence cannot be explained in words, before it was united to the Word, was liable to sin *in Mary and in others,* from whom it was derived by propagation; it can not without reason seem to have been subject to sin in Abraham, whose entire flesh was subject to sin. Hence it is wont to be asked why Levi is said to have been tithed in Abraham, and not Christ, since both were in the loins of Abraham according to material reckoning, when Abraham was tithed and gave tithes to Melchizedek. For then the Apostle says Levi was tithed in Abraham as in a material cause, because by that tithing, just as Abraham is shown to be lesser than Melchizedek, to whom he personally paid tithes, so also the Levitical order, which was in Abraham according to seminal reckoning and descended from him through the concupiscence of the flesh. But Christ was not tithed, because although he was there according to the flesh, nevertheless he did not descend thence according to the common law, namely through the lust of the flesh; just as also in Adam all sinned, but not Christ. Hence Augustine *on Genesis*: As, when Adam sinned, those who were in his loins sinned, so, when Abraham gave tithes, those who were in his loins were tithed. But this does not follow in Christ, although he was in the loins of Adam and Abraham, because he did not descend thence according to the concupiscence of the flesh. Since therefore Levi and Christ were according to the flesh in the loins of Abraham when he was tithed; therefore they were not alike tithed, because in some mode Christ was not there in the way that Levi was there. «For according to that seminal reckoning Levi was there, by which reckoning he was to come into a mother through intercourse, according to which reckoning Christ's flesh was not there, although according to it Mary's flesh was there». «He therefore was tithed in Abraham who so was in the loins of Abraham as that man was in the loins of his own father, that is, who was so born of his father Abraham as that man was born of his own father, namely through the law of the flesh and invisible concupiscence».

#### Ch. IV. *Why Christ's flesh was not called sinful, but similar.*

Wherefore Christ is rightly said to have assumed the first-fruits of our mass, because he took not *the flesh of sin,* but *the likeness* of the flesh of sin. *For God sent his Son,* as the Apostle says, *in the likeness of the flesh of sin.* For the Word assumed flesh like to sinful flesh in penalty, and not in fault, and therefore not sinful, whereas the rest of men's flesh is all flesh of sin. His alone is not the flesh of sin, because not concupiscence as mother, but grace conceived it. Yet it has the likeness of the flesh of sin through passibility and mortality, because he hungered, thirsted, and the like. Although therefore the same flesh is his which is also ours, nevertheless it was not so made in the womb as ours. For it was sanctified in the womb and born without sin, and he never sinned in it. In penalty therefore it is like to ours, not in the quality of sin, because it had no pollution at all such as is conceived from the motion of concupiscence, nor was it born from carnal delight. He came therefore to an immaculate body, which was conceived apart from the concupiscence of lust; nor did it have in itself that fault which in others is the cause of sin, nor did he sin in it. And therefore it is truly said that the flesh of the Word was not bound to sin in Christ.

But to that opinion, by which we said above that the flesh of the Word was not conceived before it was assumed, there seems to be opposed what Augustine says *on John*, where it is read: *Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said: Forty-six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days?* «This number, he says, befits the perfection of the Lord's body, because, as the natural philosophers say, in so many days the form of the human body is perfected». On the occasion of these words certain men presumed to say that the form of the Lord's body was, in so many days, perfected after the manner of other bodies and distinguished by the lineaments of its members, and then the Word of God is said to have united flesh and soul to himself; and in this way they say that number befits the perfection of the Lord's body. — But another reason for that saying existed, from which a sound understanding of the word arises. For Augustine did not say it as though it were not the case that, as soon as that flesh was, by the work of the Holy Spirit, sanctified and separated from the rest, it was united to the Word of God together with a soul, so that perfect and true God might be perfect and true man; but because the distinction of the members of that Lordly body, in the very moment of the conception and union of God and man, was so slight and small that it could scarcely be subjected to human sight; but in those days which Augustine mentions, it became perfect and conspicuous. «The Word therefore became incarnate, as John Damascene says, and did not depart from its own incorporeality, and it was wholly made incarnate and is wholly uncircumscribed. It is lessened corporeally and is contracted and divinely is uncircumscribed, his flesh not being coextensive with the uncircumscribed divinity». «In all things therefore and above all things it was, and was existing in the womb of the holy Mother, but in the very act of incarnation».