Dist. 4, 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/4/q/bon-sent-III-d4-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the conception of Christ in comparison with the Virgin conceiving.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the conception of Christ in comparison with the Virgin conceiving, and concerning this three things are asked.

First it is asked, whether in that conception the Virgin Mary in any way cooperated with the Holy Spirit.

Second it is asked, whether that operation or cooperation was natural or miraculous.

Third it is asked, whether from that cooperation the Virgin Mary is to be called the Mother of God.

### Question I. *Whether in that conception the Virgin Mary in any way cooperated with the Holy Spirit.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether in that conception the Virgin Mary in any way cooperated with the Holy Spirit, by means of some power. And that she did, seems [to be the case]:

1. *First*, by the authority of the Damascene, which the Master sets down in the text (*Fundamenta*): « The Holy Spirit came beforehand into her according to the word which the Angel had spoken to her, purifying her and preparing the power of her receptive of the deity of the Word, and at the same time also the generative power »: therefore if she had not only a receptive power, but also a generative one, the Virgin Mary held herself not only after the manner of one receiving, but after the manner of one acting and cooperating.

2. *Likewise*, a true mother cooperates in the generation of her son; but the blessed Mary was truly the Mother of Christ: therefore she truly cooperated in his conception with the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. *Likewise*, this is granted and sung by the Church as a true and catholic utterance: « The woman in childbed begot a king »; but *to beget* is to act and is the action of the generative power: therefore it seems that in that conception the generative power of the Virgin cooperated with the divine power.

4. *Likewise*, either the Virgin Mary *cooperated*, or *not*. If *yes*, I have what was proposed; if *no*: then she held herself only as matter: therefore just as there is no affinity of a man to the clay from which he was formed, so neither is there of Mary to Christ. But this is false: therefore etc.

5. *Likewise*, a man supplied a woman with the material principle, when Eve was formed from his rib; but on this account he is not said to be the father of that woman, nor her mother, because he did not cooperate in her formation; but the blessed Virgin has the relation of a mother to Christ: therefore she not only prepared the matter, but cooperated in inducing the form.

6. *Likewise*, the truth ought to correspond to the figure; but the Virgin Mary was prefigured by the rod of Aaron, and the rod of Aaron put forth leaves and blossomed and bore fruit, as is found in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers; but from the flower one arrives at the fruit by means of an active power found in the plant which blossomed: there was therefore in the rod an active power for fruit-bearing: therefore it seems much more so in the Virgin Mary.

**On the contrary:** (*To the opposite*) 1. To the Galatians, fourth chapter: *God sent his Son, made of a woman*; and to the Romans, first chapter: *Who was made to him of the seed of David*; on which passage the Gloss says: « The Apostle says *made*, but not *born*. For it is one thing to generate from seed mixed with a clot of blood, another not by commixture but by power to procreate. For men can *generate* sons, but not *make* them ». Therefore it seems that the Virgin Mary held herself only as a material principle, from which the body of Christ is said to have been made.

2. *Likewise*, the Damascene: « He joined to himself from the most pure and most holy bloods of the Virgin, not sowing seed, but creating through the Holy Spirit »: if therefore *creation* is the action of God alone, in which the creature does not cooperate; it seems that the Virgin was in no way a cooperator.

3. *Likewise*, Christ was in his parents in the same way in which he was in the Virgin; but in the parents he was « only according to corpulent substance »: therefore neither was he in the Virgin except according to corpulent substance. If therefore *generation* implies an active and cooperative power for producing the form, it seems that the Virgin Mary in no way cooperated with the Holy Spirit.

4. *Likewise*, an agent of finite power cannot be continued nor cooperate in acting with an agent of infinite power in that operation in which that power operates after the manner of the infinite; but the conception of Christ was in an instant, as was shown above; but to produce a thing in an instant which is of a nature to be produced successively belongs to a power infinitely exceeding the power of nature: therefore if the Virgin Mary had no power except a finite one, it seems that she could not cooperate with the Holy Spirit in that conception.

> ### Conclusion.
> The blessed Virgin truly cooperated with the Holy Spirit in the conception of her Son, by supplying the matter, which had not only the character of matter, but also the sufficiency and power for the production of the offspring.

**I respond:** It must be said that, without doubt, since the Virgin Mary is the Mother of Christ and is truly said to have conceived him, she truly cooperated with the Holy Spirit in the conception of her Son (*First conclusion*). And this the doctors of theology commonly and generally hold. But concerning the manner of cooperating, different men think differently (*On the manner of cooperation, three opinions*). — For some wished to say that the Virgin Mary cooperated only by furnishing the material principle. Others, that she cooperated in the inducing of the ultimate form and in the preparation of the matter, although not in the whole operation. Others hold a middle position between the two.

The first, who say that she cooperated only in the furnishing of the material principle (*First opinion*), are moved by this reason: that, as the Philosopher says, the mother in the generation of the offspring holds herself as the material principle, and the seed of the man as the effective and operative one. Hence the man's seed is compared to the woman's seed as the craftsman to the matter, while the woman does nothing but furnish the matter and foster it externally. And all this the Virgin Mary did; and therefore she is truly to be called mother, because nothing was lacking to her that pertains to a true mother in the generation of the offspring. And the Holy Spirit supplied what was lacking on the part of the man. — But this position says too little (*It is not proved*): first, because the mother in generation has not only a *passive* power, but an *active* one; hence sometimes the offspring resembles the mother more than the father. Hence what the natural philosophers say is to be understood by *appropriation*. And again the Damascene says that the Holy Spirit gave the Virgin not only a *receptive* power, but also a *generative* one; and as was shown before, on account of matter alone one is not to be called a mother, as is plain in the formation of woman from the rib of the man.

And since this position says far too little, therefore there are others (*Second opinion*) who add to it and say that she cooperated with the Holy Spirit not only by furnishing the *material principle*, but also in the *inducing of the ultimate form*. For in the *whole* operation she could not cooperate, since the instantaneous formation of the body, inasmuch as formation comprehends the whole transmutation, cannot be brought about except by an infinite power. But in the inducing of the ultimate form she could cooperate, in that the ultimate form can be induced in an instant by nature, or by a created power; and therefore in this, in which she could, the generative power of the Virgin cooperated with the Holy Spirit, and to that extent she is called mother, because she operated the conception both as to its *beginning* and as to its *completion*. — But this position says too much (*It is not proved, for three reasons*): first, because to the same [thing] belongs *to have been made* whose it is *to be made*; but if to *effect* the conception is not within a created power, but an uncreated one, likewise neither is the *having been conceived* itself. — Again, that which induces the ultimate form is nobler than that which *prepares*. It does not therefore seem fitting that the Holy Spirit should *prepare* by himself, and *induce* the ultimate form together with the Virgin. — Nonetheless it is difficult to assign which is that ultimate form, in whose inducing the generative power of the Virgin cooperates. For that cannot be the *soul*, since it has its origin from creation alone; nor *bodily organization*, as it seems, because that is not induced suddenly, but through succession by nature; for it is induced through *motion*, not through *change*; « for *motion* is successive transmutation; *change*, instantaneous », as the Philosopher says.

And since the first opinion says too little, and the second exceeds too much (*Third and middle opinion*), by their deviations they direct us into the way of truth. And therefore those seem to think better who hold the *middle* (*Second conclusion*), namely that the blessed Virgin had a power divinely given to her, by which she administered matter to that conception, matter, I say, which had not only the character of *matter* or of passive power, but also *sufficiency and power* for the production of the offspring. That power, however, could not by itself proceed to the perfect act except through succession in time; but since it was not fitting that the flesh of Christ be formed successively, as was shown in the preceding; therefore the Holy Spirit by his infinite power produced that matter to the complete act. And by this nothing is detracted from the Virgin, if God by his power accelerated what in other women he produces successively into *being*. — For (*Corollary*) there was not less power in the Virgin than in another woman, indeed much greater, because she had a *natural* and a *supernatural* power, through which she could furnish the matter by herself alone as much as a woman joined to a man; hence the whole substance of Christ was from his mother. And therefore, if we wish to think and speak rightly, the Virgin was the mother of Christ in a truer manner than any mother is of her son. Hence also through that power she fostered him in her womb for nine months.

And so it is plain that the Virgin Mary in some way cooperated in the conception of the Son, namely by furnishing sufficient matter with an active power, which power, however, was accelerated beyond its own capacity and brought to completion through the infinite power. — And (*It is confirmed*) sacred Scripture is in agreement with this, which now says Christ to be *born of the Virgin*, now says him to be *made*. The word of the Damascene also agrees, who says that she had a power *receptive* of the Word and *generative*: *generative*, because she could administer the seed-bed to the body through the power conferred upon her by divine gift; but *receptive*, because the Word of God alone could form the assumed flesh in an instant, which Word indeed was received by the Virgin. — Therefore the reasons showing that the Virgin in some way cooperated in the conception of the Son of God are to be granted.

1. To that which is objected concerning the Gloss on that word *made* (*Solution of the contrary arguments*), the response is already plain. For this does not exclude a true generative power from the Virgin, but posits that there was in it some power above the power of nature; hence it removes the commixture of the man's seed, and therefore he is so called *made* that nonetheless he is called *born*. And it is similar, as if God should give to one dry rod the power of germinating which a green one has, and besides this should make it fructify in an instant; that rod would be said to have made and borne the fruit, and nonetheless that fruit would be said to be made from that rod, so that at the same time it would be said *made* and *sprung forth*. And so it is to be understood in the matter at hand, for such a figure of this conception went before in the rod.

2. To that which is objected concerning the Damascene, that he made that flesh by *creating*, not by *sowing seed*; it must be said that just as by the act of *creation* he does not intend to say that that flesh was made from *nothing*, but that it was brought to perfection by an infinite power; so also by this, that he says *not sowing seed*, he does not deprive the Virgin of an active power, but removes the accustomed manner of nature's operating, which is through the commixture of the seed of male and female. — But whether the Virgin, stirred up by the Holy Spirit, emitted seed (*A noteworthy reply to an incidental question*), that is, emitted seed to the place of the womb: although some have asserted [this], that word is not to be turned over frequently on the lips, both because it has a baseness attached to it, and a man ought to have clean lips in such a matter; and also because it does not have certainty of itself, nor does it seem much in harmony with the words of the Saints. Hence it is foolish in such matters to wish to treat each point so curiously. Let it suffice, however, to have said this, namely that the Virgin administered matter apt for the generation of the Son of God according to the flesh.

3. To that which is objected, that he was not in her according to a seminal account; it must be said that it is true, if that be called a seminal account according to which nature is accustomed to operate; for thus Augustine takes it there (*Note*). From this, however, it is not excluded that some power beyond the customary manner was divinely conferred upon the Virgin. Moreover, by reason still of that active power it ought not to be said to have been there according to a seminal account, in that it was brought to the perfect act through a power above nature; and with respect to such a manner of operating there was there only a power of *obedience*. And it is similar (*A similar case*): if God after the commixture of male and female in an instant brings the foetus to the completion of perfect organization, such a formation would not be said to be made according to a *seminal account*, although there were there an *active power* with respect to such organization to be brought into *being* through succession of time; so also it is to be understood in the matter at hand.

4. To the last reason it must be said that that reason does not compel [the conclusion] that the Virgin Mary did not cooperate with the Holy Spirit in some way in the conception of the Son, but only that she did not cooperate in producing that matter into complete being; and this is what was first granted. And by this the response to the objections is plain.