Dist. 1, Part 1, Art. 1, 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/4/d/1/q/bon-sent-IV-d1-p1-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE UNIQUE.
### *On the Sacraments in general.*

### QUESTION I.
### *On the institution of the Sacraments.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus. That the Sacraments ought not to have been instituted seems [to be the case]:

1. *First*, by this, that it does not seem to befit God: since to make anew and to repair is greater than to create: therefore if God reserved the power of creating to himself alone, it seems much more strongly that [he reserved] the power of repairing: therefore it seems that God alone is the physician and the medicine: therefore [there are] no other Sacraments.

2. Likewise, an inferior nature always acts through fewer [means], insofar as it can in a good manner; and in this it is praiseworthy, «because in fewer [means] there is the better way»: and this is to be attributed to the supreme nature: if therefore man is sufficiently repaired through faith and the virtues, then it was superfluous to give Sacraments.

3. Likewise, it seems that [the Sacraments] *are not expedient for the sick man*: because so much the better is it for the sick man, the more numerous and broader the ways he has of coming to salvation, and so much the greater the danger he is in, the narrower the way is for him; but, the Sacraments having been instituted, there is no other way of coming [to salvation] except through the Sacraments, whereas before every way was [open], by which the sick man disposed himself for grace: therefore the way has been narrowed through the institution of the Sacraments.

4. Likewise, although to keep the commandments is not burdensome to a sound nature, yet it is burdensome to an infirm nature: therefore to multiply commandments is nothing but to make the load heavier: therefore if only the moral [precepts] were in the commandment, one would arrive at salvation more easily: therefore to institute Sacraments besides was nothing but to make the way of salvation heavier and to impede it.

**On the contrary:**

1. The sick man needs something more than the healthy: therefore something more had to be given to man to be cured, for arriving at salvation, than [had to be given him] if he had not fallen; but such things are nothing but Sacraments, since otherwise he would also have had grace and the virtues and the gifts: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, because man was *ignorant*, it was opportune and fitting to give documents of the precepts, that is, legal [precepts]: therefore since he was *infirm*, by parity of reasoning [it was fitting to give him] sacramental medicines as well.

3. Likewise, human nature had fallen in soul and in body, and to the end that it be perfectly raised up again, it was fitting that God should assume it whole: therefore if the medicine ought to correspond to the effect of the reparation, it was fitting that the medicine should have something corporeal and something spiritual; but such are the Sacraments: therefore the Sacraments ought to have been instituted.

4. Likewise, «every religion, as Augustine says *against Faustus*, has had certain exterior signs, in which [its adherents] would come together, that they might worship God»; and this is evident by going through each one [of them], even among idolaters: if therefore the Church ought to have signs of sacred religion fitting to itself, and signs of a sacred thing and sanctifying [signs] are of this kind, it was fitting for God to institute Sacraments.

### CONCLUSION.

> That the Sacraments be instituted was opportune by a necessity of fittingness, not of inevitability.

**I respond:** It must be said that the institution of the Sacraments both befitted God and was expedient for us.

It befitted indeed God's mercy and justice and wisdom, in which every way of the Lord is considered. It befitted [his] mercy, because man kept grace badly on account of the changeableness of [his] will; therefore God instituted the Sacraments, by recurring to which man might recover grace; and so it was [a work] of great mercy to institute these, especially because they avail not only for the remission of guilt, but also for the remission of punishment. — It befitted also [his] justice, because, since he is just, he required some humiliation, by which man might dispose himself for grace and, by receiving the Sacraments, might find grace as if by a certain pact. — It also befitted [his] wisdom: for it belongs to the highest wisdom to find a remedy in those things which were the occasion of the fall, so that, as man fell through wood, so through wood he might find the remedy of salvation. Thus because man had taken the occasion of his fall from visible things, it befitted the divine wisdom to find the remedy in the same.

It was expedient on the part of the sick man: because he was blind as to the rational [faculty], therefore visible Sacraments were given him for *instruction*; he was puffed up as to the irascible [faculty], therefore corporeal Sacraments were given him for his *humiliation*; he was disgusted as to the concupiscible [faculty], so that spiritual things had no savor for him, therefore Sacraments were given him for *exercise*, lest perhaps in the perceiving of one thing only, or in the contemplation of spiritual things alone, disgust and weariness might be engendered in him. — It was therefore necessary to institute Sacraments by a necessity of fittingness, not of inevitability; because «God did not bind his power to the Sacraments», as the Master says in the text.

1. To that which is objected, that he did not communicate the power of creation; it must be said that creation is from non-being; therefore there is not required there a power for disposing nor a power for informing, but only a power for effecting: therefore etc. But because justification is the bettering of some being, it can be informing and disposing and effecting. To inform does not befit God; therefore this he gave to the creature, as to grace; to dispose is ours with the aid of God, but to effect is of God alone: to none therefore does he communicate the *effective* power, but he gives the *informative* [power] to grace and the *dispositive* [power] to the Sacraments.

2. To that which is objected, that it belongs to nobility to act through fewer [means]; it must be said that this is true, if the thing is done equally well through fewer; and because our reparation is not done wholly according to the *power of the agent*, but according to the *fittingness of the recipient*, since there is mercy and truth there; therefore not only ought there to be justification through *information*, which is through the virtues, but also through *preparation*, which is through the Sacraments. — Or otherwise, as Hugh says: «The virtues are weapons for attacking, the Sacraments for defending». Hence the Sacraments aid grace, and therefore they are not superfluous; which is evident, because grace blots out guilt, but does not absolve from punishment, [whereas] the Sacrament of baptism, joined to grace, releases from punishment.

3. To that which is objected, that there would be an easier way; it must be said that even if there were more [ways], yet none would be so good, none so useful, none so efficacious and compendious. Moreover, man did not know it and was slothful in inquiring, therefore it was fitting and expedient that it be shown to him and that he be invited to it by a precept, especially when man necessarily needs the effect of the Sacrament.

4. To that which is objected concerning the commandments, that they are burdensome to an infirm nature; it must be said that there is

a burden that weighs down, and there is a burden that lightens, just as are feathers in birds and chariots [drawn by horses] in horses. The first burden truly is what weighs down; but the second burden, although it is a burden in itself, nevertheless does not weigh down the bearer. So too the commandment that is given, by the carrying of which virtue is restored to the fallen, although it is a weight, nevertheless, because it aids virtue, lightens [the load]. Such are the Sacraments, in which grace is found, which strengthens and makes the commandments easy.