Dist. 49, Part 2, Art. 2, 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/49/q/bon-sent-IV-d49-p2-s2-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the dowry of brightness.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the dowry of brightness. Concerning which two things are asked.

First, there is inquiry concerning it in itself.

Second, in comparison.

### Question I. *Whether glorified bodies are transparent, or coloured, or luminous.*

As regards the first, then, it is asked whether those bodies are *transparent*, or *coloured*, or *luminous*. That they are *transparent*, it seems.

1. Gregory, on that passage of Job the twenty-eighth: *It shall not be compared* etc.: «The bulk of the members shall not hide the mind of any one from the eyes of another»: therefore the bulk of the members will not obstruct sight; but this would not be so unless they were *transparent*: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it seems by *reason*: because a body is more refined through glory than it could be through nature or art; but nature and art make what is opaque transparent by refining it, as glass from ash: therefore much more strongly those bodies.

3. Likewise, in the inward parts of the glorified body there is a most beautiful harmony; but this is of a nature to delight sight: therefore if bodies rise in the same disposition in which they can perfectly delight, then within and without; and this they cannot do unless they are transparent: therefore etc.

But that they are *coloured*, it seems:

1. Because Augustine, in the twenty-second book of the City of God, chapter nineteen: «All beauty is a fitting-together of parts with a certain sweetness of colour»; but glorified bodies will be most beautiful: therefore they will have sweetness of colour.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher says that «colour is the extremity of the transparent in a bounded body»; but glorified bodies are bounded bodies, since they are the same as now, and have the nature of the transparent: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, there is a *reason* for this: because two things come together for colour, namely light and the four qualities; but these are in the glorified body: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, it seems by *reason*: because glorified bodies will be objects of sight, not media of seeing: therefore they will not be transparent.

But that they are wholly *luminous*, it seems.

5. Matthew the thirteenth: *They shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Father* etc.: if therefore the sun is neither *transparent* nor *coloured*: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, they will be seen by themselves: therefore they will be luminous, not coloured.

7. Likewise, transparency is a nobler quality than colour, and light than transparency; but those bodies will be the most perfect among bodies: therefore they will rather be luminous.

### Conclusion

> Glorified bodies are at once coloured and luminous.

**I respond:** It must be said that all must concede that those bodies are *luminous*; but some hold that they are *at once luminous* and *transparent* according to one and another account: *transparent* on account of subtlety, but *luminous* by reason of the brightness and splendour superadded. — But that position is not fitting, because, if they were *transparent*, they would not terminate sight nor have distinction in their parts, and so the eyes could not be distinguished from the nose. And *again*, a magnitude of light does not allow a body to be transparent, as is plain in the sun, in which there is an aggregation of light, and in a candle.

Others have wished to say that they would be *at once luminous and coloured: coloured* through the nature of the four elements and their qualities, of which the human body consists; but *luminous* by reason of the light superadded. Nor is this unfitting, as they say, as is plain in the glow-worm, which is a coloured body, as appears by day, but shining by night. — And this position is more fitting: because it is agreed that men will be recognized in the fatherland; whence they will have the features which they had, and the looks of glorified eyes will reach as far as the surface of that shining body, just as a sword through much polishing does not lose its colour, but splendour is added to its colour; so in the case proposed. Just as also coal is by its own nature of some colour, but when fire comes upon it, it is made *luminous*; and yet nonetheless it is *coloured*, because there is there light incorporated into earthy matter: so in the case proposed it must be understood that the rising body will have colour through its own nature, and the brightness of light will clothe it over as fire does the coal.

The reasons are therefore to be conceded, that glorified bodies are coloured and luminous according to a twofold nature, as has been seen.

1. To that which is objected, that bulk will not hide the mind; it must be said that from this it does not follow that they are *transparent*, because the mind is not seen more through a transparent body than through a solid one; but he means to say this, that they will so have their thoughts and affections within the body that these are open to view.

2. To that which is objected, that it is refined more than through nature or art; it must be said that not every refining produces transparency. For where there is refining together with an aggregation of light, transparency does not remain, as is plain in the light of a candle or in a flame; and because it is so in the case proposed, therefore etc.

3. To that which is objected, that harmony ought to delight sight; it must be said that that harmony is of a nature to delight sight — not the bodily but the spiritual; and this it does delight and can delight, even if the body is not transparent; therefore it is plain that that argument does not hold.

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