Dist. 19, 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/19/q/bon-sent-IV-d19-a1-q1
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### Article I. *Whether the priest under the [Old] Law had the keys.*
### Question I. *Whether the priest under the [Old] Law had the keys.*

First, then, it is asked whether the priest under the [Old] Law had the keys. And that he did seems [to be the case]:

1. Because, just as the experts in the Law were appointed to teach the people, so the priests [were appointed] to sanctify, as is clear throughout the whole of Leviticus and in Exodus; but the experts in the Law under the Old Testament received the key of knowledge for carrying out their office: therefore by parity of reasoning the priests under the Law [received it] for theirs. The minor is clear from what is said in Luke, the eleventh [chapter]: *And woe to you experts in the Law, who have taken away the key of knowledge*, etc.

2. Likewise, the key is a consequence of the priestly order, as will better appear later; but the priest under the Law had order and the pontificate, according as is clear from Hebrews, the fifth [chapter]: *Nor does anyone take the honor to himself, but he who is called by God, as Aaron [was]*: therefore, since he had the principal [thing], it seems that he also had the annexed [thing].

3. Likewise, the key is the authority of discerning and of binding and of loosing, by making reconciliation of the sinner with the Church; but all this was [present] in the high priest under the Old Testament, since to him it belonged to judge and to expiate the leper, as is said in Leviticus, the fourteenth [chapter]: therefore he had the key. If you say that that was a carnal power, like the expiation and the leprosy itself; *on the contrary*: he could not cleanse from leprosy bodily: therefore if he expiated in some way by sprinkling, as is set down there; therefore that expiation was spiritual.

**On the contrary:** 1. The priestly keys are for opening the kingdom of heaven; but the kingdom of heaven was not opened before the death of Christ: therefore the keys were not forged before the death of Christ; therefore neither could anyone have them before.

2. Likewise, by these spiritual keys the sinner is reconciled, while he is loosed and bound; but reconciliation could not be made except through a mediator, and the mediator is one only, namely Christ the Lord: therefore before His coming they could not be had.

3. Likewise, the law of Moses is called by the Apostle a carnal law and a law that kills; but this power is spiritual and [ordered] to giving life or to perfecting in life: therefore such a power of the keys in no way belonged to that law.

> **Conclusion.** The power of the keys is proper to the priest of the Gospel, and only prefigured under the Old Law.

**I respond:** It must be said that some doctors wished to say that the power of the key was [present] in the law of Moses and is [present] in the law of grace, but in a different way: because there it was imperfectly and half-fully, but here perfectly; so that, just as that law was imperfect, and this one perfect, and this one adds upon that one; so [it is with] key to key: and just as penance began under the Old [Law] and was there, so also the key, according to whose judgment penance is consummated. And they strive to show this by [the fact] that it was committed to the priests that the priest should impose a penalty upon those sinning through ignorance according to the measure of the offense, as is said in Leviticus, the fifth [chapter]; and that was a certain binding unto punishment. Yet they did not have the perfect power, because they could not loose by remitting part of the punishment; and this indeed the keys have from the passion of Christ under the new law. And by this there is answered, according to those [doctors], the objections of either side, as is clear to one who looks [at it].

There is another opinion, more probable, as I believe, that the power of the keys is proper to the priest of the Gospel; nor was it begun under the Old Law, but rather prefigured; and that appears more clearly if one looks at its essence, origin, and end. — For the key is a spiritual power, which is something given to the soul in [the act of] sealing, by which it is sealed with the priestly character; and since that law is called not spiritual, but carnal; therefore it did not belong to it, but to the new [law], which is the law of the spirit. — Likewise this is clear, if one looks at the key's origin. For since the key is threefold, as was seen in the foregoing, namely of authority, of excellence, and of ministry; the key of ministry descends from the key of authority, by means of the key of excellence: since, even though God by Himself blots out the fault, and the priest [blots out] some particle of the punishment, yet it was Christ who paid the debt in His passion — paid, I say, the debt of Adam, and so superabounded that He communicated to the ministers the power of loosing from punishment. — Likewise it is clear, if one looks at the end: since the key is for opening through reconciliation; and since in that reconciliation the mediator is a man who holds the place of God, from then on the key could and ought to be given, from [the time] when God became man, «*that He might grant us to be partakers of His divinity*», and from [the time] when the price of reconciliation was poured out; and this had to be under the new law: and therefore it was first said to Peter: *To you I will give the keys*, as if they had not been given before. — Therefore the reasonings are to be granted which prove that the priest of the Gospel alone has the keys.

1. To that, then, which is objected concerning the key of knowledge, it must be said that that key of knowledge is called a key other than this one: because that one was for teaching the things which were of right and of the Law, but this one is ordered to directing the key of the power of binding and loosing from punishment; and so this one opens heaven, but that one was opening, that is, was preparing the approach *unto knowing*. But the new law has in common with the old [law] in knowledge, since both laws teach, although here are more clearly opened

the mysteries of the Law and of the Prophets; but in the redundance and abundance of grace and in the spirituality of [its] power it differed. And therefore that [objection] is of no force.

2. To that which is objected, that it is a consequence of order; it must be said that, just as under the Old Law there was no true key, but a figural one; so also there was [no true] order. And this is clear, because the true order is that which offers a true victim and a sacrifice acceptable to God; and this is [the case] under the New Testament, where the true flesh of Christ is offered. But under the Old Law there was offered the flesh of an ox, or of a lamb which was a sign of this.

3. To that which is objected, that they had the authority of discerning and likewise of expiating; it must be said that that was carnal, not spiritual. — As to what is objected, that it did not cleanse from the uncleanness of the flesh; it must be said that the expiation and that sanctification was properly neither carnal nor spiritual, but figural; whence it was not done for conferring a cleanness of flesh or of spirit, but rather for signifying spiritual cleanness. It is nevertheless called carnal, for the reason that it gave assurance concerning the cleanness of the flesh by the authority and judgment of the priest.