Dist. 44, Part 2, Art. 3, 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/44/q/bon-sent-IV-d44-p2-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the action of fire.*

Next, as regards the third article, inquiry is made concerning the action of fire, about which two questions are asked. First it is asked whether that fire is consumptive of bodies. Second, whether it is afflictive of souls.

### Question I. *Whether the fire of hell consumes the bodies of the damned.*

Concerning the first the procedure is thus, and it is shown that that fire consumes the bodies of the damned.

1. Augustine, *On the Nature of the Good*: « Since the willing are corrupted in sins, the unwilling are corrupted in punishments »: therefore if they are not corrupted except by that which afflicts, and fire does not corrupt except by consuming, it seems that that fire consumes the bodies.

2. Likewise, that fire acts upon the bodies: therefore the bodies suffer; but « every passion, the more intense it is made, casts away from the substance »: therefore if the casting-away made from the substance through heat is nothing other than consumption, then that fire consumes the bodies.

3. Likewise, upon burning there necessarily follows inflammation, and upon inflammation consumption: therefore if that fire burns the bodies, therefore it consumes [them]. *If you should say* that it does not follow, because the salamander is heated by fire and yet is not consumed in the fire but is renewed; *on the contrary:* this does not solve [it], because the salamander is not harmed by the fire, but the bodies of the damned are harmed by the fire and are tormented in the fire: if therefore fire, which harms, consumes; it is evident, etc.

4. Likewise, intense pain is a way to death, as is evident, therefore the more intense the more it disposes [to death]: if therefore that fire is the cause of intense pain, it happens that a man is disposed through it to death by the ultimate disposition: therefore it is necessary that it destroy the damned: therefore by parity of reasoning, that it consume the bodies.

**On the contrary:** 1. Isaiah, last [chapter]: *Their worm shall not die, and the fire shall not be extinguished;* therefore the fire as agent will last only as long as the man as patient; but that fire will never be extinguished nor diminished: therefore neither will the body be consumed.

2. Likewise, the Master in the text: « Augustine by various examples establishes that they burn and are not consumed by any consumption »: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, it seems by *reason:* because everything that is consumed loses some part of itself: therefore if the bodies of the damned are consumed, they are in continual loss. But it is agreed that they are not restored, since they lack all refreshment; but that which suffers loss and does not have restoration is necessarily at some time totally consumed: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything that is consumed necessarily becomes less powerful, therefore also more passible: therefore if they are continually consumed, their punishment is continually intensified, and if this, since it lasts to infinity, it will grow to infinity; which is altogether unfitting, that the punishment should grow, and the fault not grow.

> **Conclusion.** *The bodies of the damned will be afflicted by the fire, but will not be corrupted as to substantial being.*

**I respond:** It must be said that if it is asked concerning the bodies of the damned whether they are afflicted by the fire, it is to be conceded simply. But if it is asked whether they are consumed, it is to be denied simply. — But if it is asked whether they are corrupted, this must be distinguished. For corruption in one way means the defect of a thing as to *substantial being*, and in this way it is the same as consumption; and in such a way they are not corrupted, since they do not die. In another way corruption is the same as the *privation of a good disposition*; and in this way, since from the bodies of the damned there will be taken away the rest and good disposition which generates pleasure in the soul, hence it is that they are continually corrupted. It is therefore a corruption of *affliction,* not of *destruction* or of *consumption,* and this happens through the burning of the fire.

But if it is asked how this can be grasped and understood; we can be led to this both by *example* and by *reason.* We see that certain things live in fire and do not fail, as Augustine sets down the example of the salamander in the twenty-first [book] of the *City of God*. If therefore it is more marvelous that some animal be preserved in fire without affliction than to be afflicted without consumption; and this is possible according to nature: therefore neither ought this to be judged impossible. — *But if you should say* that this is not similar: because the nature of that animal is conformed to fire, but the nature of the human body is altogether unlike [it]; it can be answered in two ways: in one way, that although the nature of the human body according to the present state is consumable by fire, nothing prevents that the Creator, who gave to all and each the nature which He willed, could give such a nature to man. Nor is it a wonder, since man before the fall had a body of another disposition and nature than after the fall, because before [it was] *capable of mortality,* now *neces-*

*sary to death.* — This same thing can be persuaded by examples taken from the side of *fire*; for that fire burns and does not consume for this reason, that it does not require fuel. And there is a manifest *example* in the kindling of gold by fire, which indeed is kindled, but is not consumed, because it does not offer fuel to the fire. So neither [is] the human body [consumed] by the infernal fire. — But a most evident example Augustine sets down concerning the fire which is in the region of Sicily, as is evident to those beholding, that « that fire makes those mountains to seethe from the most ancient times, and yet they still remain whole: and these are sufficiently fit witnesses that not everything which is burned is consumed ». — In the legend of blessed Nicholas also it is written that in the eastern parts a certain fire is found, which vehemently afflicts a hand set to it, and yet consumes nothing of the hand. Thus therefore from these *examples* it is gathered that it is possible for something to burn in fire and yet not fail.

From which also we can gather a *reason* of this kind, namely that this comes from the side of the *agent* and from the side of the *patient.* For to this fire is given a *power* to inflame, not to consume; and to the body is given a *nature capable* of suffering, not of failing. — But if the *reason* of this be asked, it must be said that on the part of *nature* is the possibility of receiving, on the part of *God* is the power of giving, on the part of the *end* is the fittingness for so doing, because to infinity a man must be tormented in body, that the infinite justice of God may be manifested. Nor are these two incompossible, that some body be touched by something hot and not be consumed, since we see that naturally some body is touched by something cold which rather heats than cools, as the manifest example is in water and lime. And just as those bodies are burned and not consumed, so also the *composite* of soul and body is afflicted and does not die. And yet to this likewise we can be led by *example* and *reason;* by example: because the immortal soul is afflicted in the body, since pain belongs properly to the soul, and yet it is not killed. What then prevents [this] from being similarly understood in the damned themselves? — *But if you should say* that this is not similar: because the soul is not composed of contraries, according as [is] the nature of the human body; we can answer that this does not stand in the way, « since certain corruptible things, such as worms, can be found in the hottest waters, whose heat no one handles with impunity », as Augustine says. If therefore things which are mortal and corruptible can live in these hottest [waters] without affliction; by parity of reasoning immortal and passible bodies can be afflicted without destruction. — But if the reason of this be asked, it can be said that this is on account of the union of the soul to the flesh, which is indissoluble. For that a man dies of pain, this is not because pain is contrary to life, since pain is only in a living substance — whence it follows: if he grieves, he feels, and if he feels, he lives — but because the soul is not bound to the body by an indissoluble bond; therefore intense pain expels it from the present dwelling. For now it is a temporal prison, but then it will be perpetual. — These things having been seen, it is easy enough to reply to the objections. For I concede the reasons proving that fire is not consumptive of bodies.

1. To that then which is objected first concerning corruption, the response is already evident: for it speaks of the corruption of *affliction,* not of *cessation*; the first does not posit consumption as the second [does].

2. To that which is objected, that passion the more intense casts away from substance; it must be said that a suffering substance is in a twofold difference: either because it can receive a form contrary to its perfection as to *being;* or because it can receive a contrary disposition as to *well-being.* In the first way intense passion corrupts simply by taking away *being;* in the second way it takes away *well-being.* Whence the damned always are and always are ill; therefore they always live and always die. — *But if you should object to me* that whatever that be which is cast away, since it is not infinite, it seems that the whole is cast away at some time, and thereby no room is left for action and passion; it can be answered that there is always casting-away and corruption, not because something new is always taken away, but because through the continual action of the same thing the taking-away is continued. — An example of this is manifest in its opposite. For just as the Blessed are continually refreshed, not because they always receive something new, but because they are conserved and continued in their reward; so the damned are continually afflicted and corrupted, because the privation of salvation and rest is continued for them through the continual action of the fire. — And a clear example of this is in the generation of a ray, which is said always to arise and always to go forth from the sun, not because the sun always emits something new, but because it continues the first light emitted. So fire is said always to afflict the damned, not because it brings a new disposition anew, but because acting continually it does not cease from the prior affliction.

3. 4. To the two following [objections] the response is already evident: because neither does inflammation [infer] consumption, nor does pain necessarily infer death, but only according to the present state; therefore, the state being changed, the necessary consequence does not hold between these.