Dist. 1, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 3
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-p2-a2-q3
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### QUESTION III. *On the efficacy of circumcision.*

Thirdly, the question is asked concerning the efficacy of circumcision, and it is asked whether the Sacrament of circumcision is conferrative of grace. And that it is not:

1. The Master says this same thing in the text. The Gloss on Romans four, on that text *He received the sign of faith,* says: "In circumcision only sins were remitted, but grace was not bestowed through it."

2. Likewise, this seems [to follow] by *reason,* because in a Sacrament the account of signifying extends equally as far as, or further than, the account of effecting; but the account of signifying in circumcision lies only in removal: therefore so does its efficacy.

3. Likewise, as guilt stands to the withdrawal of grace, so grace stands to the removal of guilt; but God, when a man sins, withdraws grace, and yet does not make guilt: therefore *by a parallel* it is possible that some remedy should remove guilt which nevertheless does not give grace: therefore if this is possible, and reason and authority agree, in circumcision grace is not given.

4. Likewise, if God were the giver of forms, the power of the particular agent would lie only in casting out, not in positing: therefore since God is the giver of grace, the power of circumcision will lie only in removing the opposite of grace.

2. Likewise, an accident is corrupted in two ways: either through the corruption of the subject, or through the introduction of the contrary: therefore if circumcision takes away guilt, since it does not corrupt the subject, of necessity it introduces the contrary; but this [contrary] is grace: therefore etc. If you say that guilt is not an accident, but a privation; the same follows, because a privation is not removed from anything except through the positing of a habit: therefore if guilt is the privation of grace, it will never be blotted out unless grace be posited.

3. Likewise, sin signifies a *non-being of morals*; but it is impossible that God should take away from anyone the *non-being* of nature except by giving *being*—indeed it is not intelligible: therefore it is impossible and unintelligible that he should take away the *non-being* of morals except by giving *being;* but the *non-being* of morals is through guilt, and *being* through grace: therefore etc. *If you say* that it is not parallel, because *being* and *non-being* are immediate, but not so guilt and grace; *against* this is that privation and habit, with respect to their subject of inherence, are immediate, just as affirmation and negation: therefore it is impossible to deprive of the one without the other being posited.

4. Likewise, if circumcision blots out guilt, grace also blots it out; either, then, circumcision blots out through grace, or conversely, or both at once; but it is established that not both at once, because, since they are not the same in substance, they do not have the same immediate operation. Likewise, grace [does] not [act] through circumcision, because, if there were no circumcision, grace by itself would sufficiently blot out guilt as the immediate cause: therefore circumcision blots out through grace: therefore circumcision is ordered prior toward grace than toward the blotting-out of guilt.

**On the contrary:** 1. That in circumcision grace is given is shown: because by the same power there is the corruption of one opposite and the generation of the other, and by the same power by which one departs from one of the opposites, one approaches the other: therefore since grace and guilt are opposites, by the same power by which guilt is blotted out, grace is conferred: therefore if circumcision is for the blotting-out of guilt, it is necessary that in it grace be conferred. *If you say* that this does not hold in morals; this is nothing, because Ambrose says that "the going-out of vice is the entrance of virtue."

> ### CONCLUSION.
>
> In circumcision grace was conferred, but only a small [grace] in comparison with the great grace which is given in baptism.

**I respond:** It must be said that on this point different men have held different views.

For the position of some was that original [sin], as it is guilt, is concupiscence with the debt of not coveting; and it is not guilt because of *concupiscence*—for this is [also] in the justified—but because it is *with the debt of not coveting.* When, therefore, original guilt is blotted out, since it is blotted out as to liability and remains as to act, they say that the *debt* is discharged, that is, not imputed; and so then concupiscence remains, in act a *penalty.* This, then, is what they say *original [sin] is blotted out* means, that is, the debt of not coveting is not imputed; and this indeed can be done, and is done in circumcision, without the conferral of any grace. — But this answer cannot stand, for two reasons: one indeed, because, if God does not impute to the soul itself this debt which before he imputed; then either some innovation has been made about the *soul,* or a change about *God;* not a change about *God,* therefore an innovation about the *soul:* therefore either something has been *removed* from it, or *posited.* If *removed,* either a *good* or an *evil;* not a *good,* therefore an *evil;* not an evil of penalty only, therefore of *guilt:* therefore if guilt is a privation, which is not taken away unless something be posited there; it is necessary that something be *posited.* But nothing is posited in the soul which expels guilt, except grace. — The other reason is: that, if only the *debt* were not imputed, and grace were not given; since no one can see God who has not had grace, then a just man cleansed from original sin through circumcision, if he die, since he has not had grace, will not see God: therefore he will have the same penalty as if he had original [sin].

Another position went somewhat further, and said that in circumcision *grace was given,* and *guilt was blotted out;* but *guilt was blotted out* by the power of circumcision, [while] *grace was not given* by its power, but from the liberality of God, who does not blot out guilt without adorning the soul and making it pleasing to himself; although he *could* do otherwise, because according to nature there is a mean between guilt and grace, namely *innocence* itself, and to blot out guilt is to add innocence; but God never restores innocence without superadding grace. And by this they answer the objections about contrariety and about habit and privation, because *grace* is not directly and immediately the habit opposed to *guilt,* but *innocence* is. And to that *innocence,* insofar as it is the privation of guilt, circumcision is ordered, disposing on the part of the recipient, but grace on the part of the agent. — But this position cannot stand, for two reasons: the first indeed, because, if *innocence* were a mean according to nature between guilt and grace, *innocence* would be naturally restored, and *guilt* expelled, prior to *grace* being infused; but this is manifestly false, because then grace would not blot out guilt. For if it blots it out, it is naturally infused first, before guilt is blotted out. — The other reason is, that, although God could blot out guilt without grace, nevertheless he decreed to blot it out only through grace: therefore if he gives to the Sacrament a power consonant with his decree, he does not give a power for blotting out guilt except by disposing toward grace.

The third position is that in circumcision *guilt was blotted out,* and *grace was conferred,* and circumcision was ordered toward both; but grace has some *privative* effects, some *positive;* and circumcision was not ordered first and per se except as to the *privative* effects; and therefore it signified only *removal.* But because the *privative* effects are not without the *positive,* the *positive* effects were there as a consequence; and because [they were there only] as a consequence, it was not necessary that they be signified. And the manifest example is in the conversion of bread into the body of Christ, in which there is consequently flesh and blood, but yet it is not signified there. Now the *positive* effects of grace are such as to enable for good works, the *privative* such as to remove guilt. — But this position cannot stand, for two reasons: the first indeed, because, if by the power of circumcision grace is posited in the soul and its powers, since it blots out the guilt which is in these; since to posit grace in the soul is nothing

other than to *be gratified,* and [to posit it] in the powers nothing other than for the *powers to be enabled:* therefore they are not separated either in reality or in understanding: therefore it is impossible to posit or to understand that circumcision should have power toward the one without having it also toward the other. — The other reason is, that some *positive* effects are in reality the same as the *privative,* because, just as material light never blots out darkness except by illuminating the air, so neither does the light of grace [blot out] the darkness of sin [except by enabling the soul].

The fourth position was that in circumcision grace was given, but yet a small one in comparison with that which is given in baptism. And the reason for this will be seen in the following distinction, when the advancement of the Sacraments is discussed. And because grace, however small, has a full effect for blotting out all mortal guilt, but a half-full effect for enabling and perfecting souls; therefore circumcision is said to be ordered toward the effect of the *removal of guilt,* not because it has that alone, but because it has that alone in complete [measure]. And because a Sacrament does not signify everything that it does, but what it does more fully and more perfectly; therefore in circumcision there is a sign chiefly of *removal* only.

And by this the authorities and objections are made clear:

1. because neither the Gloss nor the Master willed to deny that enabling grace was given in any way at all, but [held] that it enabled so little and so little repressed concupiscence, that it merited only to be called blotting-out of guilt, not enabling of the power.

2. To that which is objected concerning signification, the answer is clear: that the Sacrament ought to signify that which it does fully and perfectly, not everything which it does as a consequence or imperfectly.

3. To that which is objected, that God withdraws grace and does not make guilt, therefore etc.; it must be said that God is said to withdraw grace, not because he destroys what was given, but because he no longer adds [more]; but a man through guilt destroys what was given, and so God and guilt do not coincide in the effect.

4. To the last [objection] it must be said that it has no force, because, just as God alone gives grace, so he alone blots out the opposite; hence in Isaiah forty-three: *I am he that blots out iniquities,* etc. Moreover, if that position were true, a particular agent would never cast anything out.

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