Dist. 26, 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/26/q/bon-sent-IV-d26-a2-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *What in this Sacrament is causing, and what is caused.*

Secondly it is asked, what in this Sacrament is causing and what is caused. And that it effects something is proved:

1. Because, as Augustine says, and as is had in the text, that "what for the healthy was for duty, for the sick is for a remedy"; but what has no efficacy does not afford a remedy: therefore if marriage affords a remedy, it effects something.

2. Likewise, if it is a Sacrament of the new law: therefore it effects what it figures.

3. Likewise, marriage is a great Sacrament in the new law, therefore it contains not only representation, but also institution and sanctification; but a sanctifying Sacrament bestows grace: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, just as a Sacrament represents by likeness, so it figures by institution, and thus it sanctifies by blessing; but in the new law there is a blessing of nuptials: therefore it seems that there is sanctification: thus etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. If a Sacrament effects something, it effects what it figures; but this signifies the conjunction of Christ and the Church, and this it does not effect: therefore neither anything else.

2. Likewise, a Sacrament which gives grace and has efficacy ought to be received by all who have the disease; but all have the disease of concupiscence: therefore all ought to marry. But it is good for a man not to marry: therefore it does not give grace.

3. Likewise, if it gives grace, I ask: which? If it joins the soul to God and betroths [it], or also unites the members to one another; since for the soul to be made the bride of Christ, and the members to be united, is the effect of baptism and the eucharist, it seems that that Sacrament is superfluous.

4. Likewise, a Sacrament which gives grace, if it be sold, or received under a pact of money, causes simony to intervene: therefore whoever would take a wife with a pact of money would be a simoniac; which is false.

> **Conclusion.** Marriage in the new law affords not only a remedy, but also some gift of grace.

**I respond:** To this some have wished to say that that Sacrament *gives no grace*; and as for what is said, that the Sacraments of the new law give grace, they say it is to be understood of those which were instituted in the new law; nor is this Sacrament a remedy through *efficacy*, but through *indulgence*. And hence it is that it does not diminish concupiscence *simply* or according to *habit*, yet it diminishes [it] according to *indulgence* and according to *act*, so that it does not burn, according to what is said in the first [letter] to the Corinthians, chapter seven, that *it is better to marry than to burn*.

Others say that in the Sacrament of marriage *grace is given* to those who receive worthily and devoutly by reason of *a superadded blessing*; for God blesses them at the blessing of the priest. — But this position does not seem to hold, because that blessing is *sacramental*; and if a *sacramental* effects [grace], how much more a Sacrament!

And therefore it must be said in a third way, that to those receiving this Sacrament a *remedy* is given, which belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, which excuses coitus and makes it to be venial, or not to be a sin, which otherwise would be a sin; and this can be without a gift of grace, and this Sacrament had this immediately after the fall. But now, in the time of the new law, it not only affords that *remedy*, but also some *gift of grace* to those who receive worthily, namely to those who from the consent of charity are united to procreate offspring for the divine worship.

For by reason of the expression of consent unto an individual [shared] mode of life, and by reason of the blessing of the Church, whose it is to handle the Sacraments duly, the soul is lifted up from the corruption of disordered concupiscence, and grace is given for the *singular* union and for the *useful* union and for the *inseparable* union. From this *grace* there arises a *remedy* against the threefold disorder of concupiscence, and there is born the *threefold good* of marriage. For concupiscence inclines toward *many* [women], because the lustful man is not content with one; and in marriage grace is given to a man, that he may wish to be joined to his wife alone, and thus proneness toward many is excluded through the *singular* union. — Concupiscence also inclines toward *pleasure*, not toward usefulness, because the lustful man seeks only to satisfy the appetite; and in marriage grace is given, that he may not know his wife except for the sake of offspring, and thus it is excluded through the *useful* union. — Likewise, concupiscence *generates loathing* after satisfaction; whence the lustful man, after he has known one, spurns her and goes to another; but in marriage grace is given, that he may always wish to be with one, and thus it is excluded through the *inseparable* union. — From the *singular* union arises the good of *fidelity*, that he may not go to another; from the *useful* union the good of *offspring*; from the *inseparable* union the good of the *Sacrament*.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected, how it effects what it figures; it must be said that it figures the conjunction of *souls* first and effects this, not by *first* uniting, but rather as confession [effects] contrition; and this again in a certain way effects a conjunction *with God*; because, if member is more united to member, consequently it is also more united to Christ. But in the eucharist, while the members are more united to *Christ*, and consequently are more united to one another, whence they are incorporated into Christ; and thus the difference is apparent.

2. To that which is objected, that then all ought to take wives; it must be said that in marriage grace is given for a *remedy*, but in the *vow*

the soul is disposed, that grace may be given for a *more perfect remedy*. Whence, since the more perfect is to be preferred to the less perfect, therefore not all ought to marry, but they do better who vow continence. But because *not all receive this word*, therefore both are necessary, both the remedy *of the vow and of religion* and the remedy *of the matrimonial conjunction*.

3. To the other the answer is apparent; since in this Sacrament there is not *made* a betrothal, but the betrothal itself is *figured*, which is [the betrothal] of God to the soul; but the betrothal which is *made and figured* is the betrothal of man and woman; whereby consequently some grace is given for a more efficacious betrothal and union of the soul itself; yet this is by consequence.

4. To that which is objected lastly concerning simony, it must be said that marriage takes on the character of spirituality and grace, when the consent is joined to the blessing, where the *signification* is unfolded, and *sanctification* is obtained through the blessing; and therefore in the priestly blessing consists the *spiritual* character especially. For marriage has something of a *voluntary contract*, and something temporal annexed as temporal. And therefore, if someone were to sell the blessing, he would be a simoniac; but he who consents finally for the sake of money, although he sins, is nevertheless not judged a *simoniac*, especially because he himself is not the dispenser of the Sacrament. — And *besides*, many temporal things are annexed, such as mutual upbringing and the nurturing of children and many other things, and therefore it is licit to receive dowries; and if someone consents with a pact of a great dowry, he is not a simoniac — this Sacrament, although in some way it agrees with the others in affording a *remedy*, nevertheless has a *carnal office conjoined [to it]*, by reason of which no simoniacal vice falls in the pact, even if it be given otherwise — yet it falls into sin, because it is disposed against grace. — This, moreover, could have been the reason which moved those who said that grace is not given herein. But he who wishes rightly to look and to judge must needs *separate the precious from the vile*, by reason of which it befalls to attribute diverse things to this Sacrament; and the sacred canons intimate this, in which it was of old established, that a man should not come together carnally with his wife on the first day of the blessing, out of reverence for that blessing of the Church, which, although it may seem annexed to the Sacrament, is nevertheless done insofar as it is a *sign*; but insofar as it has efficacy and is ecclesiastical, it pertains to its being complete. And thus the whole is apparent.

---