Dist. 34, 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/34/q/bon-sent-IV-d34-a2-q2
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### Article II. *On impotence for intercourse.*
### Question II. *Whether accidental impotence for intercourse, which is through sorcery, impedes marriage.*

Secondly it is asked concerning accidental impotence for intercourse, which is through sorcery, whether it impedes marriage. And that it does, this is proved:

1. Cause thirty-three, question one: «If through sorceresses or witches — secretly, yet never save by the just judgment of God permitting it and the devil preparing it — intercourse does not follow, they are to be exhorted» etc.; and afterward: «If they cannot be healed, they will be permitted to be separated».

2. Likewise, in the *Extra*, book four, *On the Cold and the Bewitched*, in the decretal of Honorius: *Litterae vestrae* [Your letter], where there is a question about one who could know other women but not his own wife, at the end of the decretal it is inferred: «When they, with the seventh hand of kinsmen confirming it by oath, [affirm] that they were unable to be joined carnally, you shall pronounce the sentence of divorce between them».

3. Likewise, wherever there is such a cause, there is such an effect; but cold or constriction impeded and dissolved [marriage] on account of the impotence of rendering the debt: therefore, since such a cause is present in the bewitched, it seems etc.

4. Likewise, there is greater danger in those who can be joined to others but not to each other, than in those who can be joined to none, because it can be for many an occasion of adultery and homicide etc.: if therefore they are separated on account of the impotence of intercourse with anyone whatever by reason of a  natural defect, by parity of reasoning [they are separated] on account of the impotence of intercourse with one [woman] by reason of sorcery.

5. Likewise, acts of sorcery are done by the art and power of demons, as is said in the authority of the canon set forth above; but the devil is more powerful and more cunning than man is: if therefore a man can render another altogether unfit for the act of marriage, whether by castrating or by cutting by violence, or by giving a medicine, or by some hidden power of a stone, as certain physicians relate, it seems that the devil can do this much more strongly: therefore through sorcery an efficacious impediment can be furnished.

**On the contrary:** 1. This kind of sorcery is a diabolical maleficence, but marriage is a remedy and a divine benefit; but a divine benefit is more powerful than a diabolical maleficence: therefore marriage rather dissolves sorcery than sorcery excludes marriage.

2. Likewise, nothing impedes marriage that is temporary; but every sorcery is dissoluble: therefore through sorcery marriage is not impeded. That it is dissoluble is proved from the side of him *who does it*, of him *to whom it is done*, and of the *manner of doing*. From the side of him *to whom it is done*: because such acts of sorcery are done through diabolical dealings, which have no *power* over holy men, since these are the triumphers over the devil: therefore only over sinners; but this one can cease to be a sinner: therefore etc. — From the side of the *manner in which it is done*: because «every thing, as Chrysostom says, is destroyed by the same things by which it is composed»: therefore if this has been done through sorcery or sorceries: therefore through it or them it can be destroyed. — From the side of him *through whom it is done*: because [it is done] through the devil; but the power of the devil is expelled from a man by exorcisms, even when it besets bodies: therefore it seems that [it is expelled] likewise as to the effect of the sorcery.

3. Likewise, it seems that these acts of sorcery are of no force, because by whatever reasoning they have an effect upon that act, by the same reasoning [they have it] upon every act: therefore if through acts of sorcery they can impede intercourse, so they could [impede] eating and walking, and thus destroy the whole world by their sorcery: which to believe is a sacrilege.

4. Likewise, if sorcery impedes, [it does so] either *by weakening the generative power*, or *by removing the faculty of going forth into the act*. If in the *first* way: then, since that power stands equally toward all, if it impedes intercourse as to one woman, it impedes as to all: if therefore it does not impede as to all, then it seems that [it impedes] as to none, and thus it seems to mean nothing to say that he can know other women and not his own. Argue similarly of the *second* way, namely by removing the faculty of going forth into the act.

### Conclusion.

> *Accidental impotence for intercourse, which is through sorcery, impedes the contract of marriage, when it is perpetual and precedes [it].*

**I respond:** It must be said that some have said that sorcery was nothing in the world, nor was there any power in it save only in the estimation of men, who attribute many natural defects to the sorceries of demons on account of a defect of faith. — But that position derogates from the law and derogates from the opinion of the common people, and, what is greater, from experience; and therefore it has no stability.

There were also others who said that sorcery truly impedes intercourse for a time, but yet none is perpetual, because anything whatever can be dissolved either through the devil, or through sorcery, or through divine aid; and they said that the chapter first set forth was abrogated. — But surely this too is against experience and against the new law: for the decretal of Honorius commands that in such cases a divorce be made, since it has been proved by experience that many have dwelt together for a long time and have applied great effort and sought many remedies, and nothing at all has availed; and therefore by experience the Church infers that such sorcery is sometimes perpetual. — *Again*, because there are many who have found a remedy, it infers that it is not always perpetual; and therefore this sorcery sometimes impedes, sometimes not.

Therefore, according to the common opinion of the doctors, a distinction must be made, that accidental impotence for intercourse, which comes through sorcery, is either *temporal* or *perpetual*. If *temporal*, it does not impede. And it is presumed to be *temporal* when, within the space of three years, dwelling together and giving as much effort as they can, whether through the ecclesiastical Sacraments or through other remedies, they can be healed. But if they are not healed by any remedy, from then on it is presumed to be *perpetual*. — And this perpetual impotence either *precedes* the contracting of marriage or *follows* it. If it *precedes*, it makes the person illegitimate, so that it impedes the contracting and dissolves what is already contracted; if it *follows*, it does not impede, just as also is said concerning the amputated in Cause thirty-two, question  seven, where such a chapter is entitled and set down in the text: «Those who contracted marriage while sound, and to one of the two either madness, or fury, or some infirmity comes on, for this cause the marriages of such persons cannot be dissolved. The same is to be understood of those who are blinded by adversaries, or have their members cut off, or have been cut by barbarians». And so it must be granted that — just as amputation, which renders one impotent for intercourse — makes the person illegitimate if it precede the contracting, [but] does not make [it so] if it follow, because marriage cannot be dissolved save through death, either spiritual or carnal; whence in the *Extra*, *On the Conversion of the Married*, *Ex parte tua* [On your part], where Innocent says: «From the time that marriage is contracted between legitimate persons by words of the present, it can in no case be dissolved, so that, while one is living, the other could pass to second vows». If therefore it follow the contracting, it does not impede; but if it precede, it impedes, if it be perpetual.

In two ways, however, sorcery is made perpetual: either with respect to *every woman*, and thus it renders [him] unfit for every one; or with respect to *the wife*, and thus it renders [him] unfit for her but not for all; and then *such separated persons* may, according to the laws, be joined to others. It is not so with the *cold*, because, if they are joined to others, the Church knows itself to have been deceived, and therefore it retracts the sentence of divorce. — Therefore the arguments showing that sorcery furnishes an impediment to marriage are to be granted.

1. To that, then, which is objected, that God's benefit is more powerful; it must be said that this is true as regards that against which it is ordained, namely marriage, [being more powerful] than the disease of concupiscence, because disease does not vitiate marriage, but marriage excuses the vice. But marriage is not ordained to restore the power of intercourse, and therefore sorcery does not conquer nor expel [it]; nor from this does it follow that sorcery is more powerful.

2. To that which is objected, that it can be dissolved through the cause etc.; it must be said that every such sorcery can be dissolved through God, and can also be dissolved through the devil; but not every one can be dissolved through sorcery or human counsel, because sorcerers — as is known through their confession — know how to do certain acts of sorcery which they themselves, once converted to penance, cannot destroy, nor do men know how to apply counsel, on account of this, that diabolical cunning surpasses the human. And since human counsel fails, and God, on account of the merit of past sin, frequently does not hearken, and the devil ought not to be invoked for this, nor his patronage implored; hence it is that such sorcery is said to be perpetual.

To that, then, which is objected concerning fault, it must be said that the removal of the penalty does not always follow the removal of fault. — And likewise on the side of the doer, many things can be destroyed which cannot be constructed; and likewise on the side of the exorcism; for it does not always have efficacy for the expulsion of the devil, the just judgment of God permitting [it].

3. To that which is objected, that sorcery removes no power of eating; it must be said that, just as power over serpents was granted to the devil by God more than over other animals in memory of the first deed — whence more serpents are caught by incantations than birds — so, because that act is vicious and in a certain manner foul, and for the most part men are joined to that act lustfully: therefore the devil has more *power* there, and more is permitted to him. And this is proved by the example of Scripture and by authority, since it is said in Tobit that a demon, by name Asmodeus, killed seven husbands in the *bed*, not at the *banquet*.

4. To that which is objected last, that that power stands equally toward all; it must be said briefly that this is true; and if it were impeded by a *natural* impediment, it would be impeded equally as to all; but because it is impeded by a *demonic* [impediment] — [the devil] who assists and sets himself against [it] according to the petition of the sorceress-woman, this being obtained by the merit of infidelity, just as faith obtains that God assist for the working of miracles — since the sorceress performs the sorcery with respect to a *determinate* person, the devil is present in that act and not in others; and then, whether by his own power, or through a herb, or a stone, or a hidden nature, he impedes the power, that it may not go forth into act, not with respect to *another* woman, because he was not invited to this, or because the Lord does not permit [it]; for the hidden judgment of God lies concealed here, as is manifest in the wife of Tobit.

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