Dist. 42, Art. 1, 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/42/q/bon-sent-IV-d42-a1-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether spiritual kinship impedes marriage.*

In the second place inquiry is made whether spiritual kinship impedes marriage. And that it does, is shown as follows.

1. Cause thirty, question one, *De eo quod interrogasti* etc., and further on: "If anyone should take his goddaughter, or his co-mother, in marriage, we judge that they must be separated and punished with grave penance."

2. Likewise, this same point seems evident by *reason*: a bond is to be guarded the more honorably and the more purely, the holier and the more spiritual it is: if therefore for the sake of honor marriage cannot be contracted where a carnal bond and carnal kinship intervene; much more so where spiritual kinship intervenes.

3. Likewise, one who is near by carnal kinship is to be treated with the affection of blood-relationship: if therefore that affection does not admit carnal union, but rather naturally shrinks from it; therefore neither does spiritual kinship, as it seems.

**On the contrary:**
1. Spiritual kinship remains together with marriage: therefore it does not impede it. *Proof:* Cause thirty, question one, *De eo quod interrogasti:* "If lawful spouses have taken up their son from the font; if they wish, let them remain together": therefore they are not compelled to separate: therefore spiritual kinship does not impede.

2. Likewise, carnal kinship disposes toward spiritual kinship: therefore they do not have opposition to one another: therefore the one does not furnish an impediment to the other: therefore neither does the mingling of flesh to the reception of the Sacrament, nor conversely.

3. Likewise, he does more who draws someone from error to the faith than he who lifts a baptized person from the font; but if someone should convert a woman to the faith, he is not impeded from contracting with her, but rather can contract espousals under this condition, if she is willing to come to the faith: therefore neither is he impeded, if he lifts her from the font, from being able also to contract.

4. Likewise, diversity in the participation of the Sacrament impedes marriage, as for instance disparity of worship; but opposites have opposite effects: therefore that which produces conformity in worship and in the Sacrament disposes toward the Sacrament. But this is done by the dispensing and conferring of baptism: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> Spiritual kinship, if it precedes marriage, impedes its being contracted and dissolves the contracted marriage; but if it follows, it sometimes takes away the right of demanding the debt.

**I respond:** It must be said that spiritual kinship can follow, or precede, marriage. If it should follow, it is generally true that it cannot break the bond of marriage.

But nevertheless, as to the right of rendering the debt, a distinction must be made: for this was done either from necessity, as for instance when an infant is in danger of death, and there is no one to baptize him, or from ignorance, or from design. In the first case one simply does not lose the right of demanding nor of rendering; in the second case likewise, if there was diligence, one does not lose it; in the third case the one who does this loses the right of demanding; yet, because his own sin ought not to be imputed to another, he is bound to render. And all this is confirmed by the authorities which are in the text, some of which must be brought into agreement through the aforesaid distinction.

But if spiritual kinship should precede marriage — that kinship, I mean, which is contracted through baptism and confirmation — thus it impedes the marriage's being contracted and dissolves the contract, inasmuch as it makes the persons simply illegitimate [for it]; and therefore, if a bond seems to be contracted, nonetheless it is not contracted. — Now kinship impedes marriage according to three distinctions, namely of *fatherhood, co-fatherhood,* and *brotherhood,* as is proved in Cause thirty, question one, *De eo quod interrogasti,* and in the other chapters following, and in Cause thirty, question three throughout.

1. Through this distinction the response to the first objection is evident: for that authority is understood of the kinship which follows upon marriage, which could not dissolve the prior bond that had been contracted between lawful persons.

2. To that which is objected, that the one kinship is ordered to the other; it must be said that this is true, yet not in the same case, but in different ones. For just as the mingling of flesh is ordered to generation, yet the begetter ought not to be carnally united with his daughter because of the newness of the bond; so it must be understood that the one baptizing ought not to be carnally united with the baptized nor be joined [to him or her] through marriage. Furthermore, although one of these bonds is ordered to the other, yet the spiritual is not [ordered] to the carnal, but conversely. And therefore, after spiritual kinship has intervened, carnal mingling ought never to intervene.

3. To that which is objected concerning the one who recalls [another] from error, it must be said that that bond is produced not only by the bestowal of the benefit, but also by the statute of the Church of Christ. — But if you should ask why the Church rather instituted [it]; it must be said that by no institution is a man said to be begotten, but only to be disposed to generation; whereas in baptism there is a true generation: and therefore the bond is not so contracted as to furnish an impediment to marriage through the teaching of the faith, as [it is] through the Sacrament of baptism.

4. To that which is objected concerning diversity of worship, that it impedes; it must be said that, just as regarding an act of virtue it happens that virtue is corrupted by the extremes, since virtue desires the mean; so in some manner it can occur in the Sacraments, especially regarding marriage. Hence just as it is impeded by too great a disparity, so also it is impeded by too great a proximity.

---