Dist. 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-littera
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### DISTINCTION I.

#### Part I.

### Chap. I. *On the Sacraments.*

For the Samaritan, drawing near to the wounded man, applied the bandages of the Sacraments for his healing, because against the wounds of original and actual sin God instituted the remedies of the Sacraments. Concerning which four things first occur to be considered: what a Sacrament is; why it was instituted; in what it consists and is effected; and what is the distance between the Sacraments of the old and of the new law.

### Chap. II. *What a Sacrament is.*

«A Sacrament is the sign of a sacred thing». Yet a sacrament is also called a *sacred secret*, as the sacrament of the divinity is spoken of, so that a sacrament is a sacred thing signifying and a sacred thing signified; but now the discussion is of a sacrament according as it is a sign. — Likewise: «A Sacrament is the visible form of invisible grace».

### Chap. III. *What a sign is.*

«A sign is a thing which, beyond the appearance it presents to the senses, of itself causes something else to come into thought».

### Chap. IV. *How a sign and a Sacrament differ.*

«Of signs, some are *natural*, as smoke signifying fire; others *given*»; and of those which are given, some are Sacraments, some are not. For every Sacrament is a sign, but not conversely.

A Sacrament bears the likeness of the thing of which it is the sign. «For if the Sacraments did not bear the likeness of the things of which they are Sacraments, they would not *properly* be called Sacraments». For a Sacrament is properly so called which is in such a way the sign of the grace of God and the form of invisible grace, that it bears its image and exists as its cause. Therefore the Sacraments were not instituted only for the sake of signifying, but also for the sake of sanctifying. For those things which were instituted only for the sake of signifying are signs only, and not Sacraments; as were the carnal sacrifices and the ceremonial observances of the old law, which could never make those who offered them just; because, as the Apostle says, *the blood of goats and of bulls, and the ashes of a heifer being sprinkled, sanctified the defiled, unto the cleansing of the flesh*, not of the soul. For that defilement was the touching of a dead body. Hence Augustine: «I understand the defilement, which the Law cleanses, to be nothing other than the touching of a dead man, which whoever had touched *was unclean for seven days*; but he was purified according to the Law on the third and the seventh day, and *was clean*», so that he might now enter the temple. Those legal things also cleansed at times from bodily leprosy; but no one was ever justified by the works of the Law, as the Apostle says, even if they were done in faith and charity. Why? because God imposed them for servitude, not for justification, and that they might be *a figure of what was to come*, willing that they be offered to himself rather than to idols. Therefore they were *signs*, but yet they are often called also *Sacraments* in the Scriptures, though less properly, because they were signs of a sacred thing, which they assuredly did not bestow. But the Apostle calls them *works of the Law*, which were instituted only for the sake of signifying, or as a burden.

### Chap. V. *Why the Sacraments were instituted.*

For a threefold cause the Sacraments were instituted: for the sake of humbling, of instructing, of exercising. For the sake of humbling, indeed, so that while man, by the precept of the Creator, reverently subjects himself in sensible things, which by nature are below him, by this humility and obedience he may please God more and merit before him, by whose command he seeks salvation in the things within himself, though not from them, but through them from God. — For the sake of instruction also they were instituted, so that through that which is outwardly seen in a visible appearance, the mind may be instructed to recognize the invisible power which is within. For man, who before sin saw God without a mean, by sin grew so dull that he cannot grasp divine things, unless he is exercised through human ones. — For the sake of *exercise* likewise they were instituted: because, since man cannot be idle, there is set before him a useful and salutary exercise in the Sacraments, by which he may avoid vain and harmful occupation. For he is not easily taken by the tempter who is free for good exercise; whence Jerome admonishes: «Always be doing some work, so that the devil may find you occupied». «Now there are three kinds of exercises: one pertains to the building-up of the soul, another to the nourishing of the body, another to the overthrow of both». — Since therefore God could give grace to man without the Sacraments, to which he has not bound his power, he instituted the Sacraments for the aforesaid causes. «Now there are two things in which a Sacrament consists, namely *words* and *things*: words, as the invocation of the Trinity; things, as water, oil, and the like».

### Chap. VI. *On the difference between the old and the new Sacraments.*

It now remains to see the difference between the old and the new Sacraments, so that we may call Sacraments those which of old signified sacred things, as sacrifices and oblations and the like. But Augustine briefly assigns their difference, saying that «those only promised and signified, but these give salvation».

#### Part II.

### Chap. VII. *On circumcision.*

There was, however, among those Sacraments a certain Sacrament, namely of circumcision, conferring the same remedy against sin that baptism now does. Hence Augustine: «From the time when circumcision was instituted among the people of God, which was then the *seal of the justice of faith*, it availed for the great and for little ones for the purgation of original and old sin; just as baptism began to avail for the renewal of man from the time it was instituted». Likewise Bede: «Circumcision in the Law wrought the same aid of saving healing against the wound of original sin that baptism has been wont to work in the time of revealed grace, except that they could not yet enter the door of the heavenly kingdom; yet, consoled in the bosom of Abraham after death in blessed rest, they awaited with happy hope the entrance of the supernal peace». By these things it is plainly handed down that, through circumcision, from the time it was instituted, the remission of original and actual sin was granted by God to little ones and to the greater, just as now it is given through baptism.

### Chap. VIII. *What remedy those had who were before circumcision.*

But it is asked concerning the men who were before circumcision, and concerning the women who were before and after, what remedy against sin they had. — Some say that sacrifices and oblations availed them for the remission of sin. But it is better to say that those who came from Abraham were justified through circumcision, but the women through faith and good work, either their own, if they were adult, or their parents', if they were little ones; and that those who were little ones before circumcision were justified in the faith of their parents, but the parents through the power of the sacrifices, namely which they understood spiritually in those sacrifices. Hence Gregory: «What the water of baptism avails among us, this among the ancients was effected either for little ones by faith alone, or for the greater by the power of sacrifice, or for those who came from the stock of Abraham by the mystery of circumcision».

### Chap. IX. *On the institution of circumcision and its cause.*

Here it must be said in what circumcision was instituted; and why; and why it was changed through baptism. — Abraham first received the command of circumcision for the proof of obedience; nor was circumcision commanded to him alone, but also to his seed, that is, to all the Hebrews; which was done according to the Law on the eighth day with a stone knife in the flesh of the foreskin. — Now circumcision was given for several causes, namely that by obedience to the command Abraham might please God, whom Adam by transgression had displeased. It was given also as a sign of the great faith of Abraham, who believed that he would have a son, in whom the blessing of all would come to pass. Then, that by this sign that people might be distinguished from the other nations. But in the flesh of the foreskin circumcision was ordered to be made, because it was instituted as a remedy for original sin, which we draw from our parents through concupiscence, which dominates more in that part. And because in that part the first man felt the fault of disobedience, it was fitting that there he should receive the sign of obedience.

Now it was done on the eighth day with a stone knife, because both in the common resurrection, which is to come in the eighth age, through the rock which is Christ all corruption shall be cut off from the elect, and through Christ's resurrection, accomplished on the eighth day, the soul of each one believing in him is circumcised from sins. «There are therefore two things of that Sacrament».

But circumcision was changed through baptism because the Sacrament of baptism is both more common and more perfect, since it is heaped up with fuller grace. For there sins only were remitted, but neither grace as a helper for working well nor the possession or increase of virtues was bestowed there, as in baptism, where not only are sins abolished, but also helping grace is conferred, and the virtues are increased. Hence it is called *the water of refreshment*, which makes the dry fruitful and bestows on those already bearing fruit a greater abundance; because, however much anyone just by faith and charity previously had approaches to baptism, he there receives a more abundant grace, but not so in circumcision. Hence to Abraham, already justified through faith, it was only a seal, and bestowed nothing within him.

### Chap. X. *On little ones who died before the eighth day, on which circumcision was done.*

But if it is asked concerning little ones who died before the eighth day, before circumcision was done according to the Law, whether they were saved, or not; the same can be answered that is held concerning little ones who died before baptism, who, it is agreed, perish. Hence Bede: «He who now through the Gospel terribly and salutarily cries out: *Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God*; the same long ago cried out through his Law: *The soul whose flesh of the foreskin shall not have been circumcised shall perish from his people, because he has made my covenant void*. Yet perhaps under the Law, when the necessity of death pressed in, they circumcised their sons before the eighth day without sin, as now in the Church it is done concerning baptism».

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