Dist. 37, Dubia
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-dubia
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### Dub. I.

In this part there are doubts concerning the text, and first it is doubted about that which he says: *The Roman Church permits the taking of a virgin to wife.* Why does he lay down that it permits the taking of a virgin? For since they are bound by no vow, they could take a widow just as [they could] a virgin.

**I respond:** It must be said that clerics in the minor orders who take wives can take wives in two ways: either with hope of returning to the ministry and office of the clerical state, or without hope. If with hope, then it is permitted that they take virgins, and thus Pope Leo speaks. If without hope, then they can take whom they will; but if they take a widow, they can no longer return to the office which they had left; or, even if return to the minor orders be permitted, promotion to the major orders is barred. And therefore he says *it permits*—supply: if they wish at some time to return to the clerical state without impediment.

### Dub. II.

Likewise it is asked about that which he says: *It has pleased [the Church] that bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons also abstain from wives,* etc. For this constitution seems to be bad: because no one can deprive a wife of her right; therefore it seems that, if they have wives, they cannot abstain from them, even if they should wish. — Likewise, suppose that someone in the lower orders is promoted, his wife being silent and knowing, whether he ought, when she has protested, to render the [conjugal] debt to her. And that he ought, it seems, because he did not vow the vow of continence; and again, if the husband enters religion and she is silent, if she afterward protests before the bishop, he is compelled to return: therefore, etc.

Likewise it is asked whether, the husband being dead, such a woman is bound to perpetual continence, or whether she can contract [marriage].

**I respond:** It must be said that this is understood thus: that if they do not have wives, they must never contract [marriage], since they have been promoted to sacred orders; but if they do have [them], they cannot be promoted without the assent of the wives, according to the custom of the Roman Church; and it is true that their consent must be sought. But if the wife is silent while the husband receives the order, and she has place and time for protesting, she is presumed to have consented and can no longer protest; and by her own consent the law of continence is imposed upon her, nor can she require [the debt of] her husband.

But whether she can contract [marriage]—it must be said that, as is stated in the thirty-second distinction, in the canon *Seriatim*, etc., she cannot, even after the death of her husband; rather she is bound to perpetual continence.

But how this is to be understood is a matter of controversy among the jurists. For some say that a woman consenting to her husband is understood to vow; but that vow, because it is not solemnized, impedes a marriage yet to be contracted, but does not dissolve one already contracted. — Others say that it is solemnized in the husband's vow. — A third group say that it is otherwise in the wife of one who has entered religion than in the wife of a cleric: because the wife of a cleric is bound, but not the wife of one who has entered [religion], since the clerical state is worthier than the religious state, seeing that a bigamist can be a religious but not a cleric. — Others say, and this seems more probable, that the wife either is ignorant of that law, because she neither knows it nor is it told her, or she knows it. In the first way she is not bound; in the second way, if she knows it or it is told her and she consents, she is bound.

But what is to be held amid such diversity? It can rightly be said that, if the wife consents to her husband that he receive a sacred order, or that he enter religion, in the presence of the person through whom, according to the form of the Church, a divorce could be made, then she is bound to perpetual continence together with her husband, who is one flesh with her, nor is she excused by ignorance of the law; nor is judgment to be given differently in the case of clerics and of religious as to this point, since in both cases the husband's body is perpetually dedicated to the Lord. And this is expressly stated in the thirty-second distinction, in the canon *Seriatim*, etc.: « Nor is the wife permitted to be joined carnally to her same husband, nor ever to marry, either during his life or after his death ». And therefore it has been said with sufficient probability that, when the husband vows and solemnizes, she is understood to have vowed; and this whole matter is proved by many laws, which are stated in the third book, under *On the Conversion of the Married*.

### Dub. III.

Likewise it is asked about that which he says: *To whom marriage is utterly denied.* For from this it seems that with such persons no dispensation can be given. It is asked, therefore: for what sins is marriage denied, and in which is a dispensation given?

**I respond:** It must be noted that [it is denied] in seven kinds. The first is adultery with killing, or with the pledging of faith; Cause 31, question 1. — The second is incest; Cause 32, question 7, *Concubuisti.* — The third is the ravishing of another's betrothed; Cause 27, question 2, *Statutum.* — The fourth concerns one who, plotting against a marriage, lifted a son from the sacred font [i.e. stood godfather], and about this it is found in Cause 30, question 1, *De eo autem.* — The fifth concerns one who has killed a priest; Extra, On Penances and Remissions, *Qui presbyterum.* — The sixth concerns one who has killed his own wife; Cause 33, question 2. — The seventh, those doing solemn penance; Cause 33, question 2, *De his antiqui.* — In all a dispensation is given except in the first, on account of the fact that it regards a determinate person.

### Dub. IV.

Likewise it is asked about that which he says, that *the Holy Church of God has no sword but the spiritual.* For it seems false to say this, because Bernard says to Eugene that she has both swords: « And each sword, the spiritual as well as the material, belongs to the Church »; and he proves this by that passage of Luke twenty-two: *There are two swords;* and the Lord: *It is enough.*

**I respond:** It must be said that both belong to the Church, as Bernard says, but differently, because the spiritual is to be drawn by the *hand* of the Church, but the material not by her *hand*, but only at her *nod*; and by this that [objection] is resolved.

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