Dist. 18, Part 2, 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/18/q/bon-sent-IV-d18-p2-a1-q1
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### Articulus Unicus. *On excommunication.*
### Question I. *Whether anyone can or ought to be excommunicated.*

Concerning the first point it is shown that someone can be excommunicated:

1. First, by the *authority of the Lord,* in Matthew the eighteenth: *If your brother sins against you,* etc., up to the place: *But if he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican;* and afterward: *Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth,* etc.; but heathens and publicans are reckoned outside communication: therefore so too is such a brother, and this according to the judgment of the Church, as he says: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, this is proved by the *example of the Apostle,* who, in First Corinthians five, delivered the manifest fornicator to Satan; and in First Timothy: *Of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan;* and in Galatians one: *If anyone preaches to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema;* and in the last [chapter] of First Corinthians: *If anyone loves not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.* If, then, Paul, a minister of the Church, excommunicated those subject to him, it appears that this is fitting and lawful.

3. Likewise, this very thing is reasonably proved by an *example in moral matters.* For a father of a family, according to right order, casts a disobedient son out of the house for a time, that at least he may thus be corrected: therefore by parity of reason he who presides in the house of God can and ought to cast out one like him from the house; but to cast out of the house is to cast out of communication, and this is nothing other than to excommunicate: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, we see in the *art of healing* that, according to the right judgment of the art, a putrid member, disposed toward the infection of the other members, ought to be cut off from the body; but in spiritual matters it happens that members are putrid through sin and corrupting the other members: therefore it appears that such [members] are rightly to be amputated according to the right order of governance. But this is done through excommunication: therefore, etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. « Excommunication is separation from communion »; but communion is through charity; but apart from charity no one can or ought to cast anyone out: therefore neither to excommunicate. That no one *can* take away charity appears, because no one loses charity unwillingly. — Likewise, there is no one who is not to be loved out of charity, so long as he is on the way: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, excommunication is separation from the communion of the Sacraments; but no one is to be separated or barred from the Sacraments: therefore no one is to be excommunicated. The *major* is plain, the *minor* is proved thus: every faithful person is either just and sound, or a *sinner* and infirm. If *just,* he is not to be kept from the Sacraments; if a *sinner* and infirm and in need of spiritual medicines, he is rather to be drawn [to them] than kept [from them]: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, excommunication is either a *disease* or a *medicine.* If a *disease:* then it is to be inflicted on no one, because the welfare of all is to be desired. If a *medicine*; then since a medicine is to be applied to all and does not benefit except him who wills to consent to it by free choice: therefore *no one* is to be excommunicated except willingly, and *everyone* ought to will to be excommunicated; both of which are false.

4. Likewise, in excommunication the excommunicated person himself is delivered to Satan, as is plain in the excommunication [enacted] by the Apostle himself; either, then, with respect to the *soul,* or with respect to the *body.* If with respect to the *body,* it cannot be — that we see literally — with respect to the *soul,* it neither can nor ought to be: therefore in no way does it appear that anyone is to be excommunicated.

### Conclusio

> To excommunicate the contemptuous and the rebellious is lawful and is a duty.

**I respond:** For the understanding of these matters it must be noted that, just as in *disciplines* there is a twofold mode of *instructing* and a twofold mode of *arguing,* namely the *demonstrative* and the *per impossibile* [by way of the impossible]; and in *medicine* there is a twofold mode of *curing,* namely by *soothing* medicaments and by *sharpening* medicaments — for one person is cured by the application of a plaster, another by cutting — so in *moral matters* there is a twofold mode of *correcting,* one by gentle *admonitions,* the other by harsh *rebukes;* and this according to the two kinds of men, because some are tractable and pliable, some hard and rebellious. So in *divine and ecclesiastical* judgments, in which there is *instruction, healing,* and *correction,* a twofold mode of *instructing* and of *correcting* and also of *curing* is found. Just as, therefore, for those unwilling to accept the demonstrative reasoning an argumentation leading to the impossible is made; and to diseases which are not cured by the plaster a wound and a cautery are applied; and for the unwilling and incorrigible a cure is made by the scourge: so it had to be in the Church's corrections. And therefore the Lord, its institutor and founder, gave to the Church not only the *medicaments* of the Sacraments for curing those who approach, but also the *sword of the spirit, which is the word of God*, and the power of amputating and cutting off the contemptuous and the rebellious; and such persons it is lawful and a duty to excommunicate, as has been shown by the authority of God and by the example of the Apostle and by reasoning in a like case.

1. To that, then, which is objected — that to excommunicate is to cast out from the communion which is through charity — it must be said that communion is threefold: one *wholly spiritual,* and this is with respect to interior love; one *corporeal,* and this is with respect to exterior conversation; one *in an intermediate mode,* and this is with respect to the reception of the Sacraments, and especially with respect to the Sacrament of the altar. I say, then, that from the *first* no one can or ought to be excluded so long as he is a wayfarer, nor does excommunication signify the privation of that communion. With respect to the *sacramental,* anyone is excluded who is said to be excommunicated, whether by the major or the minor [excommunication]. With respect to *exterior conversation,* the major excommunication is regarded, in which communication is denied with respect to lawful acts, which are regarded in four, namely in the *kiss,* in *conversation,* in *banquet,* in *oratory.* Whence the verse:

> *Os, orare, vale, communio, mensa negatur* [The mouth, to pray, the greeting, fellowship, the table are denied].

So, then, it is plain that, since communion is threefold — one *spiritual,* another *sacramental,* and another *corporeal* — that according to the first no one is excommunicated; according to the sacramental, everyone is excommunicated who is said to be excommunicated; according to the third, that one is excommunicated who is said to be excommunicated with the major excommunication, because the privation of communication is greater here. And so that first point is plain.

2. To that which is objected — that no one is to be separated from the Sacraments — it must be said that *on the contrary* [he is], since, even though the Sacraments are medicines, nevertheless they do not benefit except those who are disposed. Whence just as a good physician according to his art bars a sick man from medicines, not only from foods, on account of his indisposition; so it is to be understood in the matter at hand. For it is more useful that medicine be withheld from someone than be given contrary to his disposition; indeed, to defer medicine for such a one is medicinal.

3. To that which is objected concerning excommunication, whether it is a disease or a medicine; it must be said that, just as *cutting* by its first account is a wound and causes pain, yet in comparison to the wound of an abscess is a medicine; so the separation itself from the communion of the faithful signifies an evil and a harm and a punishment, yet in comparison to the rebellious person it is a medicine, so that his rebellion and contumacy may be broken. Whence just as he who syllogizes *per impossibile* leads to the impossible, not that he may rest there, but that he may return to the truth; so the Church separates and excommunicates, in order that it may more tightly bind the one returning with humility and confounded over his contumacy, and may enclose him interiorly. And so it is plain that, although it is a medicine, because it cures the disease of rebellion, yet no one ought to desire this medicine, nor ought it to be given to one seeking the true medicine, but to one who despises [it].

4. To that which is objected — that to excommunicate is to deliver to Satan — it must be said that Satan is a tormentor, not only of souls, but also of bodies. But to deliver to a tormentor is twofold: either by *ceasing* from the protection [that keeps one] from torment, by exposing [him], or by *commanding* the tormentor to afflict [him]. To excommunicate, therefore, according to the state of the *present* Church, is to deliver to Satan by withdrawing protection and exposing [him] to him; for it withdraws the suffrages and the Sacraments by which we are fortified against the snares of the enemy. But in the time of the *primitive* Church, because the demons were subject to the Apostles themselves, and the faith had to be made manifest through miracles, [the excommunicated] were not only exposed, but indeed were bodily afflicted at the Apostolic command; as is said in First Corinthians five, both in the text and in the Gloss; and that was fitting to be done at the beginning of the Church for terror, or on account of the excellence of the Apostles. But now, although they are not so afflicted, nevertheless they are exposed to be afflicted in body and spirit; and to that extent they are said to be delivered to Satan and truly to be excommunicated. And so the objections are plain.