Dist. 36, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/36/q/bon-sent-III-d36-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the gifts of the Holy Spirit are connected.*

Secondly there is asked about the connection of the gifts, and the question is whether the gifts of the Holy Spirit are connected. And that they are, it seems:

1. *First*, because, just as the habits of the virtues are gratuitous and proceed from the gift of the divine bounty, so also are the habits of the gifts: since therefore, on account of the unity of the informing grace and the munificence of the dispensing bounty, a connection is posited in the gratuitous virtues, by the same reasoning it seems that one must be posited in the gifts as well.

2. Likewise, just as one virtue supports another and aids it in its act, so one gift is disposed with respect to another: therefore by the reasoning by which one virtue needs another and cannot be separated from it, by the same reasoning it seems necessary that one gift be connected to another.

3. Likewise, whoever has charity has whereby he can take delight and taste, since *the Lord is sweet*; but the gift of wisdom consists in the tasting of that highest sweetness: therefore whoever has charity has the gift of wisdom. But the gift of wisdom is the supreme among all the gifts and presupposes all the lower gifts: therefore whoever has charity has all the gifts of the Holy Spirit: therefore it seems that the gifts are connected.

4. Likewise, a man existing in grace can, from the first gift of grace itself, without the addition of another gift, attain to salvation: therefore it seems that he can exercise himself in the use of the gifts and of grace; but this would not be, unless the gifts were connected: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. In the first to the Corinthians, the twelfth chapter, the Apostle says: *To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge*; where he says that the diversity of the gifts is distributed according to the diversity of persons: therefore it does not seem that it must necessarily be the case that all the gifts are connected in one and the same soul.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the book *On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount* posits degrees among the gifts, such that there is a gradual progression from one to another; but this

would not be the case if all were infused equally and at once: therefore it does not seem that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are mutually connected.

3. Likewise, Gregory in the *Morals* says that «wisdom is the less, if it lacks understanding»; therefore the gift of wisdom can be had without the gift of understanding.

4. Likewise, it was held above in the preceding distinction—and it is a saying of Augustine, *On the Trinity*, book fourteen—that «many of the faithful are not strong in the gift of knowledge, though they are strong in faith itself»: therefore it seems that the gift of knowledge does not necessarily accompany the infusion of grace.

5. Likewise, the habits of the gifts, according to their generality, are given for expediting: therefore if the gifts were necessarily connected, it seems that, with one gift had, all the symptoms would be healed, and a man would be expedited unto all meritorious works; which experience itself plainly detects to be false.

6. Likewise, the gifts for the most part order one toward those things that are of *supererogation*, as is plain in the gift of counsel and of fortitude; but those things that are of supererogation do not inseparably accompany those that are of *necessity*: therefore it seems that among the gratuitous gifts there is no necessary connection.

> **Conclusion.** The gifts of the Holy Spirit, with respect to their origin, have a connection; but not so with respect to their use and perfection.

**I respond:** It must be said that there are two ways of speaking of the habits of the gratuitous gifts, namely with respect to their origin and with respect to the use that follows. If we speak of them with respect to their origin; since the origin of all the gratuitous habits consists as it were materially in nature and completively and formally in grace; when the grace of the Holy Spirit is infused, it is given so sufficiently that all the gratuitous habits can arise from it, if we are willing to cooperate with the grace received, not only the habits of the virtues but also the habits of the gifts and of the beatitudes. Therefore with respect to *origin* it is undoubtedly true that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have a connection.

It is otherwise to speak of these habits of the gifts with respect to *use*, according to which mode these habits render the power facile and expedited unto their proper acts, which are not only of *necessity* and *sufficiency*, but also of a certain *supererogation* and *excellence*; and as to this it is not necessary that there be a connection among them, nay rather the use of these habits is scarcely, or never, found perfect in anyone, as Gregory intimates upon that text of Job: *Canst thou join together the shining stars the Pleiades?* saying that the use of the sevenfold Spirit was perfectly in Christ alone. — For the use of the gifts sets a man in the state of *perfection*, but the origin does not necessarily set him in the state of *perfection*, but in the state of *inchoation*. Hence, just as a little child, as Augustine says, has in *reason* whatever he is afterward going to have in *bulk*, although he does not yet have the magnitude of the bulk in act; so it can be granted that the habits of the gifts are not necessarily connected with respect to use and their *complete being*, according as they make the powers facile and expedite them unto excellent acts. Yet in the infusion of grace they are had *radically* and virtually and implicitly, as the reasons adduced for the first part show.

Nevertheless, that which is objected about the likeness of the virtues and the gifts does not hold. For the habits of the virtues, for this reason that they are of *necessity*, even as to their uses in those who already make use of free will, are simply held to be connected to one another, not only by reason of their origin, but also by reason of the use that follows. For no one can be in grace unless he believe, hope, and love: and so of the other virtues. But it is not so of the uses of the gifts and of the beatitudes, without which many are saved. For there are many who faithfully believe, and yet what they believe they never comprehend with the understanding. Likewise it is concerning the use of the beatitudes themselves. And therefore, if in some way there is a connection in the habits of the beatitudes and of the gifts, yet it is not so great as is the one in the ha-

bits of the virtues. Yet there is some connection there, as those reasons show.

**To the arguments on the contrary:**
1. To those things, indeed, which are objected on the contrary, the response is easy enough through the things that have been said. For as to what is first objected from the authority of the Apostle, that *to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom* etc.; it proceeds concerning the gifts of grace gratuitously given, not concerning the gifts of grace making-pleasing; or certainly, if he understands it of the gifts themselves, he says this with respect to use, not with respect to the root or principle of the habits themselves.

*To the 2nd.* To what is objected from the authority of Augustine, likewise the response is plain. For Augustine assigns degrees among the gifts with respect to their uses, because one cannot become habituated in the use of a higher gift unless he is first habituated in the use of a lower gift, which is not of such great sublimity.

*To the 3rd.* To what is objected from the authority of Gregory, that wisdom is the less if it lacks understanding; likewise it must be responded that Gregory understood this concerning the use of the gift of understanding; which being neglected, if one stretches himself toward the use of the gift of wisdom, he does not so profit as he would profit if he proceeded by the ordered degree.

*To the 4th.* To what is objected from the authority of Augustine, had in the preceding distinction, it must be said that Augustine understands it concerning the use of the gift of *knowledge*; and this is manifest from the authority itself. For he says that many are strong in faith who are not strong in knowledge. For no one is strong in any habit unless he have it in its *completion*, through which it is easy for that habit to be manifested in work.

*To the 5th and 6th.* To what is objected, that the gifts expedite, and that likewise they order one toward those things that are of supererogation and excellence; it must be responded, as was touched on before, that this is understood concerning the gifts when they are had in *use*, not only in *endowment*, or when they are had with respect to becoming habituated and to facility in work, not when they are had with respect to *causality* in their origin: in one way they are had in the very infusion of grace, in another way they are had through the multiplication of good works and prayers or supplications, according to what is said in the Gloss on the sixth of Matthew: «Since through these *gifts* we rise up from the lowest to the highest, the seven *beatitudes*, which are sought through these same gifts, come gradually from the lowest to the highest. It is in *prayers*, therefore, that we obtain the *gifts*; in the gifts, that we may work the *commandments*; from the working the *beatitudes* follow». But these things are to be understood with respect to *use*, as was explained before.

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