Dist. 31, Art. 3, 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/31/q/bon-sent-III-d31-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the duration of charity by comparison to the reward.*

Next it is asked about the duration of charity by comparison to the reward itself. And concerning this three things are asked.

The first is, whether through glory it happens that the habit of charity is emptied out.

The second is, whether it happens that the habit of charity is enlarged in the fatherland.

The third is, whether it happens that the order of charity is changed in the fatherland.

### Question I. *Whether it happens that the habit of charity is emptied out in the fatherland.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether it happens that the habit of charity is emptied out in the fatherland. And that it is not seems true.

1. The first to the Corinthians, 13: *Charity never falls away*; there the Gloss: "Neither in this world nor in the future, even though its works cease."

2. Likewise, the act of charity is to *love* God for His own sake and above all things, *and with the whole heart and with the whole soul and with the whole mind*; but this act befits the state of glory more than that of the way: therefore the habit of charity most befits the glorious state; and if this, then it is not emptied out in it.

3. Likewise, it belongs to charity itself, or love, to *unite*, according to that which blessed Dionysius says: "We call love a uniting power"; but we are more united in the fatherland than on the way: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, it belongs to love to *assimilate*, according to that which Hugh of St. Victor says, that "the soul is transformed into the image of that which it loves"; but we shall be more like in the fatherland than now, according to that of the first of John 3: *When He shall appear, we shall be like to Him*: if therefore the perfection of assimilation most befits the state of glory, it seems that it most befits that state also to have the habit of charity.

**On the contrary:** 1. The first to the Corinthians, 13: *When that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part shall be emptied out*; but that is in part which is imperfect; but the charity of the way is imperfect, because *there is a fire in Sion and a furnace in Jerusalem*, according to what is said in Isaiah: therefore it seems that the habit of charity is emptied out in the fatherland.

2. Likewise, when the cause ceases, the effect ceases, therefore when the cause is emptied out, the effect is emptied out; but "faith generates hope, hope generates charity": since therefore in the fatherland the habit of faith and of hope is emptied out, as was shown above; it seems likewise that the habit of charity is emptied out.

3. Likewise, that which orders to some end and term ceases when one has arrived at it; but charity is a weight inclining the soul and raising it, that it may tend upward: since therefore the soul has been set on high through glory, it seems that it no longer has the habit of charity.

4. Likewise, the greater the union of the soul to God, the more perfectly the soul is beatified; but that is more united which is united immediately than that which is united through a medium: therefore if the soul is perfectly beatified in glory, it seems that between the soul and God there is not to be placed an intervening charity: it seems therefore that the habit of charity ceases when the completion of beatitude supervenes.

### Conclusion.

> The habit of charity in the fatherland is not emptied out, but consummated.

**I respond:** It must be said that without doubt charity in the fatherland is not emptied out, but consummated, according to what the Apostle expressly says. For the understanding of this it must be noted that one disposition has opposition with respect to that which is disposed, but another is one which simply disposes; and the first indeed is emptied out by the coming of that to which it disposes; but the second is perfected and consummated. And there is an evident example of this kind. For in the first way an intermediate color disposes to the extremes, and tepidity to coldness; and when the extreme supervenes, the intermediate color is taken away, on account of this

that the intermediate not only disposed to the extreme, but also was repugnant. In the second way transparency disposes to light. For when light supervenes, transparency and clearness are not taken away, but rather perfected and adorned.

In this way too it must be understood in the habits of the virtues themselves, which dispose to the completion of glory. For some dispose in such a way that they have in some manner opposition, like faith and hope, which bespeak the absence and lack of the very thing believed and hoped for, whose opposites are in glory, namely open vision and firm holding: and therefore it is necessary that these habits be taken away and emptied out by the coming of glory. — And there is another disposition, which has not the character of opposition, but only of disposition; and such a disposition is charity, which disposes to glory as the imperfect to the perfect, yet has no repugnance to it, but rather express conformity. And therefore as to habit it is not emptied out, but while the imperfection is taken away, the habit itself is perfected and consummated.

But if the reason of this be asked, why charity is conformed more to the completion of glory than another habit of a theological virtue; of this a threefold reason can be assigned, of which one is regarded with respect to the *quality* of the habits themselves, another with respect to the *dignity of the powers*, the third with respect to the *largesse of the divine gifts*. — As to the differing *quality of the habits* the reason is taken thus: because love is with respect to the absent and the present; but vision and holding are only with respect to what is had and present: but expectation and believing are only with respect to what is not had and absent: and therefore both the *act* and the *habit* of charity itself are common to the state of the fatherland and of the way: and through this the charity of the way is more conformed to the charity of the fatherland than the habit of believing to the habit of seeing, or than expectation to holding.

With respect to the *dignity* of the powers themselves the reason is regarded thus: because, as Bernard holds, *On the Love of God*, "where the intellect fails, there affection profits." And Dionysius, in the seventh [chapter] of the *Divine Names*, in the chapter on wisdom, says that our affection and the affective power ascends much higher than the cognitive power. For he says thus: "It must be acknowledged that our intellect has a certain power for understanding, by which it sees intelligibles, but a union exceeding the nature of the intellect, by which it is joined to those things which are beyond it." And because

the uniting power itself is raised higher in man, therefore it has a certain special excellence of dignity, and the habit perfecting it is greater and more excellent than the other habits, and through this more conformed to the state of glory.

With respect to the *largesse of the divine gifts* too the reason is taken: because to holy men the Lord in a certain manner communicates the largesse of His benignity and makes them foretaste the sweetness of the eternal refreshment, that in tribulations they may not succumb and in the wasteness of the desert they may not fail through the dryness and want of refreshment. Since therefore one cannot savor heavenly things unless the taste be disposed according to a disposition befitting that state; the gift of the divine largesse required this, that there should be given to our taste a habit and disposition according to which it should be conformed to the state of glory. And this disposition is the habit of charity, by which we are disposed to taste spiritual things, according to what Master Hugh holds. Therefore the habit of charity is not emptied out, but rather consummated in the fatherland. — And the reasons which are on this side are to be granted.

1. But to that which is objected first to the contrary, that the perfect empties out that which is in part; it must be said that something is said to be "in part" in two ways, according as something is said in two ways to be "in a certain respect." In one way something is said [to be] in a certain respect, which only falls short of that which is simply, as a man white as to the foot is white in a certain respect. In another way something is said [to be] in a certain respect, which not only falls short, but also is repugnant, as a dead man with respect to a man. So too something is said to be "in part" in two ways: in one way, according as it sounds toward imperfection; in another way, according as it sounds toward imperfection and opposition. And in the first way charity can be said [to be] in part; and that which is in part in this way is not emptied out, but consummated and in a certain manner integrated, so that the whole is as it were made up out of its parts. But in the second way the habit of faith and of hope is in part; and in this way the Apostle says that what is in part is to be emptied out, when that which is perfect shall come.

2. To that which is objected, that when the cause ceases, the effect ceases: it must be said that faith and hope are not said to be the cause of charity, except because they dispose to its act, and this not simply, but according to the state of the way; for in the state of the fatherland vision itself disposes to loving perfectly. And therefore that reasoning does not hold, because it is neither properly a cause nor [a cause] according to every state.

3. To that which is objected, that what orders to something ceases when one has obtained that to which it disposed and inclined; it must be said that that is true of that which has only the character of the way; but charity is not only a disposition for tending and going into heaven, but also for resting. For just as a stone, by the same weight by which it is moved toward the earth, rests there when it has reached the earth; so too in its own manner it must be understood in the weight of love or in the habit of charity: and of that which in this manner orders and inclines something to an end, it is not necessary that it cease at the attainment of the end and term.

4. To that which is objected, that the beatification is greater where the union is more perfect; it must be said that this is true; but as to what it objects, that God would be more perfectly united to the soul if He were united without charity; it must be said that this is false: because the soul is not disposed for this, that it be united to God through glory, unless there intervene a habit by which it is conformed to Him and by which it is raised and in a certain manner strongly bound. For the union of beatitude is through cognition and love; whence just as the habit of loving does not make for a diminishing of love, but rather for perfection; so also it does not make for an imperfection of that union, but rather for perfection and completion. Whence as to what he says, that that which is united without a medium is more united than that which is with a medium; it must be said that that holds true of a medium which makes [things] stand apart, but not of that which makes [them] approach and renders [the soul] more apt for union, of which kind is the bond of charity.