Dist. 37, 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/37/q/bon-sent-IV-d37-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the impediment of orders.*
### Question I. *Whether minor orders impede marriage.*

As to the first point, then — that minor orders do not impede marriage — it seems so:

1. From the many authorities that the Master adduces in the text, especially from that one of Pope Leo, which is taken from the thirty-second distinction.

2. Likewise, in the *Extra* [Decretals], *On Married Clerics*, Alexander III says: *« If any clerics below the subdiaconate should take wives, you are to compel them by ecclesiastical stringency to retain their wives ».*

3. Likewise, it seems so *by reason*: because for the most part young boys are promoted to minor orders; but such persons are not to be compelled to continence: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, at the entry into religious life there is a state in which one both tests and is tested, before one is bound to the vow of continence: therefore by like reason — indeed by a much stronger one, since it is harder to be continent in the world — a state ought to be determined in which clerics can test and be tested, whether they wish to live chastely, and in that state they ought not to be bound to chastity; but this is [the state] of the lower orders: therefore, etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. At the thirty-second distinction: *« Let the lectors, when they have reached the years of puberty, be compelled either to take a wife or to profess continence »*: therefore, if lectors are in the state of the lower orders, it seems that they are compelled to continence: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, minor clerics, at once, as they are clerics, are called into the lot of God, and are for that reason called *clerics*, because they are set apart into the lot of God; but he who has a wife *is divided*, as the Apostle says in the first [letter] to the Corinthians, the seventh [chapter]: therefore no cleric can or ought to have a wife: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, every cleric established in a minor office or order can have an ecclesiastical benefice, especially if he intends to be promoted further, at least a benefice without cure [of souls]; but no married man can or ought to have a prebendal benefice, as is said in the *Extra*, *On Married Clerics*, *Diversis fallaciis*, etc.: therefore no cleric can be married.

4. Likewise, every cleric established in a minor office can enjoy the clerical privilege; but no married man can enjoy the clerical privilege: therefore no cleric can be married. The *major* [premise] is manifest, the *minor* is plain from the decretal *On Married Clerics*, *Ioannes*, and below, where it is said that *« a married man, even though tonsured, cannot enjoy the clerical privilege »*. *If you say* that these reasonings are not valid, because he who is a cleric can be a non-cleric, and so can be married; *on the contrary*: the Sacrament of order is by the impression of a character: therefore, just as one baptized cannot be unbaptized, so it seems that a cleric cannot become a non-cleric or non-ordained.

> **Conclusion.** *Minor orders of themselves are no obstacle to the contract and the use of marriage; but the ministry and the benefice, which are not necessarily annexed to them, in the Western Church have an opposition to marriage as regards its use.*

**I respond:** It must be said that in the minor orders there is to be considered the *order* and the *office* or *ministry* and *benefice*; according to these three they can be compared to marriage. And the *minor order* has no opposition to marriage by reason of itself or of the character, neither as regards the *contract* of marriage nor as regards its *use*; but the *ministry* and *benefice*, according to the Western Church, have an opposition to marriage as regards its *use*, on account of decency. And since a cleric in the minor orders is neither bound nor tied to the *office* nor to the *ministry*, therefore he can contract without any impediment. And so it must be granted that minor orders furnish no impediment to marriage.

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected — that lectors must promise continence — it must be said that that chapter is to be understood of when they are promoted to the subdiaconate; otherwise it is only counsel.

*To 2, 3, 4.* To the things objected afterward, the response is now plain. For [the objector] argues about the cleric as regards the *ministry* and as regards the *benefice* and *privilege*, which are not necessarily annexed to minor orders; therefore neither is marriage incompatible [with them], such that one could not be transferred from one state to the other; nevertheless he is impeded, so that he cannot and ought not to serve in both states at once, because *no one serving as God's soldier ought to entangle himself in worldly affairs*.