Dist. 42, Art. 1, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Question III. *Whether spiritual kinship passes from one person to another.*

Thirdly it is asked, whether spiritual kinship passes from one person to another, for example from the wife to the husband. And that it does, it seems.

1. *Causa* thirty, *quaestio* four, chapter one, *Sciscitatur*: "It is agreed that the man is constituted co-father (*compater*) to that woman whose marriage the wife taken up seemed to be the co-mother (*commater*)."

2. Likewise, in the same place, from the Council of Chalcedon: "If anyone should sleep with two sisters, or with two co-mothers, let him do penance eight years according to the ancient custom"; therefore it is a sin to contract with two co-mothers, just as with two sisters.

3. Likewise, *by reason* it seems: because a man who knows a woman necessarily becomes an in-law (*affinis*) to every blood-relative of the woman who is her kinsman carnally; and this on account of the fact that they become one body: therefore by parity of reasoning, if a woman is spiritually kin to someone; if she be joined to another, it is necessary that he become an in-law to the same [kinsman].

4. Likewise, husband and wife are more united in the unity of the flesh than mother and son; but he who becomes the spiritual father of someone necessarily becomes the co-father of the mother: therefore much more strongly he who becomes the co-father of the husband becomes the co-father of the wife.

**On the contrary:**

1. *Causa* thirty, *quaestio* four: "Let it be permitted to him who has a spiritual co-father, whose son he received from the laver of the font, and whose wife is not co-mother, once his co-father is dead, to take his widow as wife."

2. Likewise, in the following chapter: "After the death of his own wife, that a marriage be joined with the co-mother of the wife no reason or authority seems to prohibit."

3. Likewise, *by reason* it seems: because the union of the flesh and

of the spirit are simply disparate: therefore through the one there is no passing to the other: therefore it does not seem that spiritual kinship passes from one to another.

4. Likewise, however much a man may have been a friend or son of God, through this the wife is not joined to God by a new bond, nor the reverse: therefore by parity of reasoning, when one of the spouses is spiritually bound to someone, the other is not bound on account of this.

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** Spiritual consanguinity, contracted through the act of another, does not pass into the other [spouse]; but contracted through one's own act, and indeed after carnal intercourse, it does pass.

**I respond:** It must be said that, since the authorities are for either side, spiritual kinship in some way passes from the wife to the husband, and in some way does not.

But nevertheless it should be noted that the Master and also Gratian distinguish thus: that after one of the spouses contracts kinship with someone, either they know each other mutually, or not. If so, then spiritual kinship passes from one to the other; if not, then it does not pass. — But this response is not approved by the jurists, nor does the chapter itself agree, *Causa* thirty, *quaestio* four, *After the death of the wife*, where it is said that "through the union of the flesh there is no passing to the union of the spirit." If therefore a man or a woman has spiritual kinship, through subsequent intercourse such kinship does not pass over into the other.

And therefore it must be distinguished otherwise: that some woman or some man can contract spiritual kinship either through one's *own* act, or through the act of *another*; either because he raises another's son [from the font], or because his own son is raised. If through the act of *another*, then in no way does it pass or is it communicated. If through one's *own* act, either *before* carnal intercourse, or *after*. If *before*, then it does not pass or is communicated, because "through the subsequent union of the flesh there is no passing to the preceding union of the spirit"; and in these two cases it is permitted to have two co-mothers. But if through one's *own* act he contracts *after* carnal intercourse, since husband and wife are one flesh and one principle, the operation or action of the one is attributed to the other, and in this case it is not permitted to have two co-mothers, *Extra*, *On Spiritual Kinship*, *Martinus Bertham*. And the reason for this is assigned as the unity of the principle. — And thus the contrarieties are resolved. And this is contained in these verses:

> She whom, or whose child, mine raised from the font for me,
>     This co-mother of mine cannot become my wife;
> But she who did not raise my child from the font from me,
>     Her, after her husband's death, I shall not thereby be forbidden to have.

It must therefore be granted that in some way it passes from the wife to the husband, although some of the reasons adduced for this are sophistical.

*To 1, 2.* To what is objected on the contrary, the response is already clear, that the authorities run according to those two prior ways.

*To 3.* To what is objected, that these unions are wholly disparate; it must be said that it is not true, because spiritual kinship comes about through a corporeal act; and since they are one body, in such a way that the unity precedes: therefore what is done by the one is reckoned to be done by the other. But when the unity follows, it cannot attain to the unity of principle of the sacramental act.

*To 4.* To what is objected last, it must be said that it is not similar, on account of the fact that the one comes about through mental grace, but the other through a corporeal act. And thus that [objection] is clear.

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