Dist. 40
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-littera
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### DISTINCTION XL.

### Chap. I. *Why the Law is said to compress the hand, not the mind.*

<small>Doubts 1, 2.</small> The sixth precept is: *Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife.* — The seventh is: *Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor servant, nor handmaid,* etc. — <small>Difficulty.</small> But it seems that the precept about not coveting the goods of one's neighbor is one with that in which it is said: *Thou shalt not steal*; and that the precept about not coveting [another's] wife is one with that in which it is said: *Thou shalt not commit adultery*. «For the precept of not stealing could be understood in that generality where it is enjoined that one not covet a neighbor's thing; and in that which was said, *Thou shalt not commit adultery*, that could be understood: *Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife*. <small>It is resolved.</small> But in those two precepts of not committing adultery and not stealing, the very deeds are marked and forbidden, whereas in these last two it is the concupiscence itself». Therefore those differ much from these. Hence to that precept of not committing adultery there is made an addition in the Gospel, where all concupiscence of committing adultery is forbidden. — <small>On the difference between the Law and the Gospel.</small> But since here the concupiscence of another's wife and of another's thing is forbidden, why is the Law said to compress the hand and not the mind, but the Gospel both the hand and the mind? That is said of the Law according to the *ceremonial* precepts, not according to the *moral* ones; or because in the Law there is not a general prohibition of every deadly concupiscence, as there is in the Gospel.

### Chap. II. *What the letter that kills is.*

But if it is asked what letter the Apostle calls the one that kills: «it is certainly the Decalogue, which is not called the killing letter on the ground that the Law is evil, but because, forbidding sin, it increases concupiscence and adds transgression, unless grace sets free», which grace did not so abound in the Law as in the Gospel; or [it is so called] according to their carnal understanding. The Law therefore is good, and yet it kills without grace, since it is *the strength of sin*; for it commands what without grace cannot be fulfilled. But grace was lacking, and so it was a letter that kills.

### Chap. III. *On the difference between the Law and the Gospel.*

But the letter of the Gospel differs from the letter of the Law; for the *promises* are diverse: there it promises earthly things, here heavenly; the *Sacraments* also are diverse, because those only signified, these confer grace; the *precepts* too are diverse as regards the *ceremonial* ones; for as regards the *moral* ones they are the same, but are more fully contained in the Gospel. — <small>Epilogue.</small> You have heard of the ten strings of the Psaltery laid upon both sexes, which are to be touched with charity, that the beasts of the vices may be slain.

HERE ENDS THE THIRD BOOK OF THE SENTENCES.

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