Dist. 18, Part 1, Art. 1, 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/18/q/bon-sent-IV-d18-p1-a1-q2
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### Question II. *To what end these keys of the Church have been given.*

Secondly, it is asked to what end these keys are. And granted that they are for *opening*, it is asked whether they are for *closing*. And that they are, it seems.

1. Isaiah 22: *I will give the key of the house of David, and he shall open, and none shall shut, and he shall shut* etc.; but the power conferred upon the ministers is conformed to the power of Christ: therefore [it is] for closing and for opening.

2. Likewise, in the giving of the keys the Lord gave not only the power of loosing, but also of binding, not only of remitting sins, but also of retaining, as is plain in Matthew 16 and John 20; and by the fact that they loose, they are for opening; and by the fact that they remit, likewise: therefore, *from the opposites*, by the fact that they bind and retain, they will be for closing: therefore not only for opening.

3. Likewise, if a key is said *metaphorically* of spiritual things by likeness to a key in bodily things: but the office of a key is not only to open, but also to close: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if it is only for opening: then by parity of reasoning, since baptism is for opening the door, and [so are] all the Sacraments, and especially the Eucharist and extreme unction, which remove obstacles to entering into glory; therefore every Sacrament would be a *key*, which neither usage nor reason admits: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. The keys have been given for our advantage; but it is not our advantage that the kingdom of heaven be closed to us: therefore they are not for closing.

2. Likewise, nothing closes the kingdom of heaven except what sets up an obstacle; but the obstacle set up against entering is nothing but a debt, which is from sin; but the keys are not for making men sin: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, whoever uses an instrument for that for which it is [made], uses it rightly; but the priest, in closing the entrance of the kingdom, does not act rightly, but sins: therefore the key was not given to him for this. Proof of the minor, Matthew 23: *Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, who shut the kingdom of heaven before men*: therefore they were sinning in this.

4. Likewise, nothing one and the same is [ordained] to opposite ends; but to close and to open the kingdom of heaven are opposites: therefore the key is not ordained to these two.

It is also asked, in connection with this, since a bad example closes the kingdom of heaven, and a good one opens it: why is it not called a key?

Likewise, since to loose and to bind is not the use of a key, but rather of the hand, it does not seem that the Lord ought to have attributed to the keys the use of binding and loosing; which nevertheless he does in Matthew 16; it is asked, therefore, whence this is.

> **Conclusion.** The keys of the Church have been given at once for binding and loosing, for closing and opening, but more principally for loosing and opening.

**I respond:** It must be said that the power commonly granted to priests over their subjects is not for entirely loosing the debt, because this ought not to be communicated to just anyone, lest fault should remain without penalty; therefore the power was given to them that by binding they might loose, namely by binding to the one thing, they might absolve from the other; but the power of binding was not given except for the sake of loosing. — Since therefore to *loose* someone from a debt is to remove the obstacle, and this is to *open* heaven, and consequently to *bind* is to close: therefore I say that these keys are *at once* for binding and loosing, closing and opening; but the act of binding and loosing belongs to them *immediately* and in the *subject*; whereas the act of closing and opening [belongs to them] in relation *to the ultimate end*. And since an instrument is named from what is best and from the end, therefore that power is rather named by a name regarding the end.

But because the instrument ordained for closing and opening in bodily things is a key; therefore such a power is rightly called a *key*; yet there is not a complete likeness, but some [likeness]. For the *material* key is principally for both, and more principally for *closing* on account of robbers and thieves; but the *spiritual* [key] is principally ordained for *opening*, and is not ordained for *closing* except for the sake of *opening*, just as neither for *binding* except for the sake of *loosing*. And so, just as medicine is the science of the healthy and the sick — of the healthy in itself, and of the sick by accident — so it is to be understood in the matter proposed.

I grant therefore that it is for closing, although not entirely in the same way as the material key.

*1. 2. 3.* To that, then, which is objected, that *closing* is harmful to us and comes about through sin; it must be said that, just as in bodily things there is a certain binding simply *harmful* and impeding, as a man is bound on account of paralysis; [and] a certain [binding] simply *expedient*, as a man is bound by the medicine of a plaster: so in spiritual things *the binding of sin impedes*, but *the priestly binding* makes for a swifter and more expeditious loosing. Likewise it is to be understood concerning *closing*, that it is a certain *good* and expedient [thing], and with this [closing] the key binds, not another; but he objects concerning another. — And by this the response to the three objections is plain; for it binds not by the *debt of sin*, but by the *imposition* or *superimposition of a remedy*.

*4.* To that which is objected, that nothing one and the same is [ordained] to opposite ends; it must be said that this is true, understanding it of the end *in itself*; but if it be so that to the one it is [ordained] *in itself*, to the other *by accident*, nothing prevents [it]; and thus we say it is in the matter proposed.

To that which is asked: why is an *example* not called a *key*? it must be said that the office of a key is that the same [thing] looses and binds, and closes and opens; and this priestly power alone is such: therefore it alone is called a key. Whence *baptism* is not called a key, because it only opens; likewise neither [is] a *good example*; conversely, sin, or a bad example, only *closes*: and therefore neither is called a key. Moreover, an example disposes from afar; but a key opens from near at hand: therefore it ought not to be called a key.

To that which is objected, that a key is not for loosing; it must be said that that power has its act in relation to the *subject* and in relation to the *end of the act*. In comparison to the *subject* it regards the use of the power, but in comparison to the *end* it regards the fruit. And because the naming is from what is best, therefore the Lord called that power *keys*. But because execution and use regard the first act, therefore he attributed to that key the act of loosing and binding.

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