Dist. 40, 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/40/q/bon-sent-III-d40-a1-q2
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### Question II. *On the difference with respect to the effect, namely that the old Law was killing, the new Law is life-giving.*

Secondly, inquiry is made concerning the difference that is assigned with respect to the effect, namely that the old Law was a killing law, but the new Law is a life-giving law, which the Master sets down in the text; and this is taken from the second [Letter] to the Corinthians, chapter three, where the Apostle says: *The letter kills, but the spirit gives life;* and from what is said to the Romans, chapter seven, and to the Galatians, chapter two, and in the first [Letter] to the Corinthians, chapter fifteen: *The strength of sin is the Law.* And from many other passages it can be gathered from the words of the Apostle.

**On the contrary,** objection is raised first against the first part, by reason [of it]:

1. For it is said to the Romans, chapter seven: *The Law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just;* the Gloss: « *Just,* that is, *justifying* »; but nothing holy and just kills: therefore the Law does not kill.

2. Likewise, when "killing Law" is said, it is understood either of the Law observed, or of the Law not observed. If of the Law observed, it is established that this is false. If of the Law not observed; but likewise the Gospel not observed kills, because he sins who does not observe the evangelical Law, just as he sinned who did not observe the written Law: therefore the evangelical Law is a killing law: therefore with respect to this no difference ought to be assigned.

3. Likewise, if it is a killing Law, then it is so either through cause, or through occasion, or through manifestation. If through cause; and that which is the cause of spiritual killing is simply evil: therefore the Law is evil: therefore the Manichaean spoke truly, that the old Law was from an evil god. If through occasion: since, then, a man frequently takes occasion for sinning from the virtues and good works in which he prides himself; then virtue and good action ought to be said to kill, which is altogether absurd. If through manifestation, because it manifests the disease of sin: therefore, since the Gospel likewise manifests the disease of sin, then the Gospel ought to be called a killing law: therefore with respect to this there is no difference.

Likewise, objection is raised against the second part of the difference, by which it is said that the Gospel is a justifying law.

4. For the Law consists in doctrine; but justification consists in grace: therefore it seems that justification does not pertain at all to the evangelical Law.

5. Likewise, if the Gospel is said to justify, [it does so] either by its instruction, or by its observance, or in some other way. Not by its instruction; for many hear the Gospel and are not justified. *For not the hearers of the Law, but the doers are just before God,* as is said to the Romans, chapter two. If by its observance; but likewise the old Law justified, according to what is said in Matthew, chapter nineteen: *If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments;* and Bede says that « the justice of the Law, kept in its own time, conferred not only temporal but also eternal goods ».

6. Likewise, the Law of the Gospel consists in precepts and counsels; but precepts and counsels consist in good works, while justice is not caused in us out of good works, but rather the contrary: it does not seem, therefore, that the effect of the evangelical Law is in any way justification.

> ### Conclusion.
> The new Law is rightly called life-giving, because it justifies in a threefold manner; but the old Law, observed only according to the literal sense, is called killing through occasion, not through cause.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that a thing is said to justify or to be justifying in many senses: in one sense *effectively;* and thus God alone is said to justify. In another sense *formally;* and thus grace is said to justify, which informs the soul itself, expelling the obliquity of fault and giving the rectitude of justice. In a third sense a thing is said to be justifying not only in *habit,* but also in *effect;* and thus charity justifies, or *faith, which works through charity*. In a fourth sense a thing is said to be justifying in the exercise and use of justice itself; and in this manner the commandments of God, in which justice is exercised, are said to justify, when they are observed in the due manner.

These things being presupposed, it must be understood that in the old Law three things were to be considered, and likewise in the new Law: namely, things that move, and these were the promises; things that direct, and these were the precepts; things that help, and these were the Sacraments: because, as Hugh says, « The Sacraments are aids, so that through the precepts one may come to the promises ». — Likewise these three are in the evangelical Law, but differently: because in the new Law, at its first appearance, all these are spiritual, since the promises are eternal, the precepts are spiritual, and the Sacraments sanctifying; and so the promises rouse a man to the love of eternal things, which is the love of charity; the precepts direct him sufficiently in the way of morals, by teaching [him] to avoid every sin; the Sacraments heal the soul from the wounds of sins. And thus it belongs to the evangelical Law to justify according to the threefold manner, namely formally by reason of sacramental grace, and in effect by reason of spiritual love, and in exercise by reason of manifold good work, to which a man is directed through the counsels and precepts.

But in the old Law these three were to be considered otherwise: for the old Law can be observed and understood in two ways, namely according to the spiritual understanding; and thus in a certain manner it agrees with the evangelical Law, and those who observed the Law spiritually were evangelical men, because the Law was pregnant with the Gospel. In another way it can be observed according to the literal understanding; and thus it is distinguished from the Gospel according to the three aforesaid things, because in the Law there were temporal promises and precepts regulating outwardly and figural Sacraments; and so by reason of the promises a man was not roused to spiritual love, by reason of the precepts he was not directed to interior justice, by reason of the Sacraments he was not helped to be able more easily to fulfill the Law itself: and therefore justification was lacking to him. And because there was there a manifesting of fault, and the help of grace was not present: occasion was consequently given to concupiscence itself, that it might draw [one] to death; and therefore the Mosaic Law, according to the literal sense, is called a killing law through occasion, not through cause. And this very thing the text says

to the Romans, chapter seven: *Sin, taking occasion through the commandment, seduced me and through it killed [me].* There the Gloss: « *For from the prohibition, where charity is lacking, the desire of evil grows, and when this has grown, what is prohibited becomes sweeter, and so sin deceives with a false sweetness; and so through the commandment it kills, because the guilt of transgression has been added. With the sword, then, which you carried, the enemy killed you, with your own arms he slew you* ». Hence, just as, when an armed man carries a knife to defend himself, by which he is killed by the enemy, by that carrying of the knife he is said to be killed not through cause, but through occasion; so it is to be understood in the Law. And thus the meaning of the aforesaid difference is clear.

1. To that which is objected, that the Law is holy and the commandment holy and just, that is, justifying; it must be said that this is true, because the Law is joined to assisting grace; it is also true, as far as concerns *itself* and the principal intention of the lawgiver; nevertheless nothing prevents [it] from inducing the opposite *accidentally* and *through occasion:* just as the knife, according to the principal intention of the one carrying it, is an armament of defense, and yet it happens occasionally that it is an instrument of killing the very one who carries it.

2. To that which is objected, whether the Law kills [when] observed, or not observed; it must be said, [when] *not observed.* And if one should object that likewise the Gospel not observed kills; it must be said that the case is not alike on both sides: because the Law carries with itself a burden and does not have help annexed according to its *literal* sense. But the Gospel of itself has the help of grace itself; and so it does not afford occasion of death, because grace diminishes concupiscence, which by its force was holding [men] captive in the servitude of sin, according to what the Apostle says to the Romans, chapter seven: *I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and holding me captive in the servitude of sin;* and afterward he exclaims: *Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.*

3. To that which is objected, that the Law cannot be said to kill through occasion, because then likewise good works and virtues would be said to kill; it must be said that the case is not alike: because good works, as far as concerns *themselves,* do not puff up, but rather humble and keep [one] in grace; the Law, however, of itself burdened, and in this, that it manifested sin and did not give the help of grace, it gave occasion for the intensification of lust and the aggravation of contempt. Hence that it is said to be an occasion of sin, this is not only by reason of *positing,* but also by reason of *defect.* — And if you object that, in whatever way it would kill, the Lord ought not to have given the Law, since He seeks our salvation; it must be said that the Lord, in the giving of the Law, even though He gave it to carnal [men] for breaking down their hardness, that they might in a certain way be led by the hand to grace by recognizing their own weakness, nevertheless principally gave it for the sake of those *understanding spiritually,* who were saved and merited in the observance of the Law itself. For God outweighs the salvation of one just man against the damnation of many wicked.

4. To that which is objected, that since the Law of the Gospel pertains to doctrine, it did not justify; it must be said that the Law of the Gospel is not said to justify, as it is read and known, but as it is kept in work and lived according to; and this comes about through the reception of the Sacraments, the expectation of eternal things, and the fulfillment of the commandments; and according to this it attains full justification. And therefore that argument has no force.

5. To that which is objected, that just as the evangelical Law observed justifies, so [does] the Mosaic Law, as Bede says; it must be said that Bede understands [it] not of *literal* observance, but of *spiritual* observance, according to which the Law was conformed to the Gospel. But we say that the Law is killing according to literal observance, which regarded the community itself, as has been said.

6. To that which is objected, that the evangelical Law is attended to in precepts, which regard works; it must be said that the Law of the Gospel does not only enclose in itself precepts, but rather encloses in itself promises and Sacraments, and is more said to justify by reason of the Sacraments than by reason of the precepts. Nevertheless it can still be said, by reason of the precepts, to

justify in the fourth manner of justifying, namely as to the exercise and use of justice, but not as to the infusion of justice. — And thus it is clear how this difference is to be understood, that the Mosaic Law is killing, and the evangelical Law is life-giving; it is also clear how the latter is said to justify, and the former to kill.

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