Dist. 15, Part 2, Art. 2, 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/4/d/15/q/bon-sent-IV-d15-p2-a2-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether one can make satisfaction by fasting.*

Secondly it is asked whether one can make satisfaction by fasting. And that one can, seems [the case]: because, if « to make satisfaction is to cut away the causes of sins » and « to render honor to God by punishment »; since in fasting the incentives of the flesh are cut away, and a person punishes himself, it is clear, etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Joel chapter two: *Rend your hearts and not your garments:* therefore God does not lay weight upon the affliction of the flesh, but of the mind.

2. Likewise, First Timothy chapter four: *Bodily exercise is profitable to little;* but satisfaction much: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, since to make satisfaction is to cut away the causes of sins, then to punish that which is the cause of sin is to make satisfaction: but this is the heart, not the mouth or the flesh, Matthew chapter fifteen: *Not that which enters into the mouth defiles a man, but from the heart proceed* etc.

4. Likewise, a just judge in punishing does not look to the instrument, but to the author of the crime — whence the sword is not punished, but the murderer — therefore since the flesh is nothing but as a moved instrument, it is clear etc.

5. Likewise, the flesh is the enemy of our spirit, Galatians chapter five: *These are contrary to one another;* but it is said in Matthew chapter five: *Love your enemies, do good* etc.

6. Likewise, what is common among all is natural; but it is said in Ephesians chapter five: *No one ever hated his own flesh:* therefore it is natural to cherish the flesh: therefore to afflict it is against nature. But penance is a return from that which is beside nature: therefore fasting is not for making satisfaction in penance.

7. Likewise, whoever afflicts the flesh loses life and hastens death, because in him there is a greater consumption and a lesser restoration; but whoever hastens death is a homicide, and so too, that, if [done] over a long time, it makes no difference. Whence Jerome: « It makes no difference whether you destroy yourself over a little time or a great »: therefore whoever fasts is a homicide.

8. Likewise, every discreet and virtuous work consists in a mean; but fasting does not consist in a mean, indeed it inclines toward want: therefore it belongs neither to penance nor to virtue.

### Conclusion.

> *Fasting is a satisfactory work.*

**I respond:** It must be said that fasting is a satisfactory work, according as the Lord himself says, Matthew chapter seventeen: *This kind of demons is not cast out except by prayer and fasting.* This, I say, is satisfactory in freeing from punishment, since it is penal; and it is pleasing to God, because it reorders both body and spirit: that the body may not resist the spirit obstinately, Proverbs chapter twenty-nine: *He who from childhood nourishes his servant delicately, shall afterward find him stubborn;* that it may be wholly subjected to the spirit, First Corinthians chapter nine: *I chastise my body and bring it into subjection* etc.; that it may not be tormented eternally, Ecclesiasticus chapter twenty: *There is who redeems much for a small price,* and Ezekiel chapter four: *A day for a year I have given you;* that it may be glorified eternally, Second Corinthians chapter four: *That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation* etc.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected to the contrary, that it does not please God etc.; it must be said that the affliction of the flesh or its mortification does not please God in itself, but insofar as in it the spirit is punished — because « pain is not of the flesh, but of the soul in the flesh », as Augustine says — and insofar as such punishment proceeds from the punishment of spiritual sorrow, or not, [where] like the hypocrite he punishes outwardly only; and against this is that saying of Joel, that they did not grieve in mind, but in sign.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that it avails to little; it must be said that this is so, either because [it avails] to one alone or to little by comparison with piety.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the flesh is not the cause; it must be said that even if it is not the cause, it is nevertheless the occasion; and occasions are to be cut off.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that it is an instrument; it must be said that an instrument is twofold, namely separate, and this is not to be punished; and conjoined, such as the flesh is, and this thus [is to be punished], because, when this is punished, the spirit is punished.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that the enemy is to be cherished; it must be said that the flesh is to be cherished and preserved, but the enmity of the flesh is not to be cherished, indeed it is to be recalled to the concord of the spirit; and because this is done through fasting and scourges, therefore it is to be punished. — And by this it is clear that it is natural to love and cherish the flesh, but to cherish the wantonness of the flesh is [a matter] of corruption and of vice.

*To 7.* To that which is objected, that it diminishes life; it must be said that to diminish life or to hasten death is either from intention, or beside [it]. If from intention, it is a sin; and thus Jerome understands [it]. Or beside intention, and then either in giving attention to a licit thing, or in not giving [attention] to a licit or useful [thing], but to a superfluous, or an evil one. In the first way it is not a sin, but in the second — yet some say that abstinence does not hasten death; but nevertheless I do not believe [this], indeed grave penance does well hasten [it].

*To 8.* To that which is objected, that there is no mean in fasting; it must be said that indeed [there is]; but this is not the mean of sobriety, but the mean of justice; because by fasting one punishes his own flesh; but in this punishment such a mean is to be kept, that he neither punish too slackly, so that the vices of the flesh live, nor so harshly, that nature fail. Whence Bernard: « It behooves [us] to repress the flesh, not to extinguish it ». Nor does this prevent its being a mean, because it inclines toward the extreme. For in patience the mean is to bear well-nigh all things, in continence also always to abstain.

---