Dist. 49, 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/49/q/bon-sent-IV-d49-p2-s2-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the dowry of subtlety.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the dowry of subtlety, about which two things are asked. First, inquiry is made concerning it in itself. Second, concerning it by comparison to our act.

### Question I. *Whether the glorified body can penetrate every other body.*

As to the first, then, it is asked whether the glorified body can penetrate every other non-glorified body. And that it can, seems so:

1. Because it is said in John the twentieth: *When the doors were shut*, that *Jesus stood in the midst*; and Gregory says that on account of subtlety the closed doors offered no obstacle: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it seems by reason: because the glorified body cannot be retarded in its motion, therefore neither can it be impeded; and if it cannot be impeded, therefore nothing can resist it: therefore in its motion it can penetrate every body.

3. Likewise, if it cannot penetrate every body; since it is possible that it be enclosed, it would be possible for it to be imprisoned; but to be in prison belongs to misery: therefore it is possible for the blessed to be made miserable.

4. Likewise, Damascene: « Of Christ the Lord after the resurrection certain things are said according to *dispensation*, such as the scars, eating, drinking; certain things according to *nature*, such as to pass from place to place untiringly and, the doors being shut, to enter »: therefore if this belongs to the nature of the glorified body, it is clear etc.

**Contra:** 1. When the subtle and rare meets the hard, it does not penetrate but is penetrated, as is clear, because a stone divides the air and passes through it: if therefore the glorified body is subtle, therefore by that dowry it does not fall to it to penetrate, but rather to be penetrated.

2. Likewise, the glorified body is not of greater subtlety than a ray or air; but a ray by its subtlety does not penetrate opaque bodies, and air does not penetrate save porous ones: therefore the glorified body cannot penetrate all things.

3. Likewise, if it penetrates, either this is *by dividing*, or *by entering through the pores*, or *by coexisting simultaneously*. If *by dividing*; but certain bodies are indivisible and incapable of being cut; likewise, there are others which, if they are divided, will never be rejoined; and there are still others which, if they are divided, are corrupted: therefore since the glorified body destroys nothing which cannot be destroyed, but even what can be; it will not be able to penetrate everything, at least not

the empyrean. — If *by entering through the pores*; but the pores are discontinuous: therefore it would be necessary that the glorified body be made discontinuous. — If *by coexisting simultaneously*; but it is impossible by nature that two bodies be simultaneous; but glory does not take away nature; therefore etc. And that two bodies being simultaneous is impossible in philosophy, a demonstrative reason declares: because to a body there is due a place as its proper measure, but when the measured is multiplied, it is necessary that the proper measure be multiplied: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, as one thing placed stands to many places, so many things placed stand to one place; but it is impossible for one thing placed to be in many places at once: therefore neither can many things placed be in the same place at once.

5. Likewise, this seems [to lead] to an impossibility: because then let a body of equal magnitude to the glorified body be taken; then these two are wholly coterminous, therefore solidity is in solidity and surface in surface and line in line and point in point; but two indivisibles [that are] together are one: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, let a line be drawn from the centre of that distance to a point on the circumference through the middle of a glorified body, and again another from the same point to the same [point] through a non-glorified body; either it is one line, or two. If one, then the glorified and the non-glorified body are one; if two lines, then three unfitting consequences appear: first, that from the same point to the same point there can be two straight lines, and thus two straight lines between which no surface falls in the middle; and again, two straight lines having the same termini, whereas lines are multiplied by their termini; likewise, two straight lines make a figure. Which are three very great absurdities according to the Philosopher.

7. Likewise, if the glorified body can, on account of its subtlety, coexist with and penetrate a gross body, much more strongly another subtle one: therefore two glorified bodies can be simultaneous; and if two, by parity of reason three; and if this, then all.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** *Glorified bodies have the dowry of penetrability.*

**I respond:** All concede that glorified bodies have the dowry of penetrability. — But some say that they have this because all bodies are subject and obedient to them, and they have that very power over all things. Hence they say that as the air yields to an arrow, so every body yields to a glorified body. — But that has been disproved, because [one asks] by what power a stone would be sundered, if [the glorified body] passed through it, and likewise the heaven and the body of a non-glorified man.

Others say that it does not yield; but because all bodies are in a certain manner porous, and the glorified body has the account and nature of light, which is wholly preserved in its essence in a point and slips through when it has no resistance; they hold that the glorified body passes through, and not through many pores, but that it can [pass] through one. — But that still seems unfitting. For let us suppose some body not to be porous; then it could not pass through it. Likewise, how is it to be understood that the glorified body is made so small, like a pore, without its figure, its quantity and measure being lost? Therefore this position is not fitting.

Others hold that, because the body is in perfect obedience with respect to the intellect, and the intellect can abstract nature from quantity according to understanding, then it will be able to abstract [it] according to truth; and then the body, quantity being abstracted, has the substance and the spirituality of a body. Hence as a spirit is together with a body and is not impeded by the body: so is a glorified body with a non-glorified one. — But this is impossible and unintelligible, that there should be a living and organic body which is not a quantified body; therefore this is not to be posited. For how organization and the distinction of members are preserved in a body abstracted from quantity; this I do not see.

But others say that the glorified body can be in the same place with the non-glorified; hence it penetrates by entering in through the whole, not through the pores; and this can be understood thus. For that two natural bodies cannot be simultaneously in the same place is not from this, that they are two; for they are two by nature before they are in one place or in two, since [they are two] by their forms. And this is clear, because two points and two lines and two surfaces are simultaneous in physical contact, since « contiguous things are those whose termini are together », and « they are together whenever they are in the same place primarily ». That therefore they are not together, this

is on account of their corpulence, and because the one is not pervious to the other. If therefore it be so, that the one has a subtle corporeity and a penetrative power with respect to the other; then indeed they will be able to be together. And since in the dowry of penetrability there is given to the body subtlety and an active power for penetrating the non-glorified; therefore it penetrates, the latter not yielding. — But mathematical bodies and lines and points are many for this reason, that they are distant; and therefore it is impossible that two mathematical bodies or two lines or points be together, or even a mathematical with a natural one, as the Philosopher holds.

*To 1.* To that which is objected, that the subtle is disposed to be penetrated, not to penetrate; it must be said that this is true where there is a subtlety of rarity apt for undergoing; but here there is a subtlety joined to an agent power, as is clear in fire and in a ray.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that a ray is of equal subtlety; it must be said that although it be of equal subtlety, it is nevertheless not of such power in penetrating; and both are required, as has been seen.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that two bodies cannot be together; the answer is now clear: because, if it be understood of a body according to *natural being*, it does not have this because it is *a body*, but because it has *corpulence*. — To what therefore is objected concerning measure, it must be said that measure is twofold, namely *within* and *without*. Measure *within* is proper and is multiplied according to the multiplication of the measured, because it is of one kind with the measured; measure *without* need not be multiplied insofar as it is a measure; but if it is multiplied, this is on account of the neediness or the incompossibility of the things measured.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that one body cannot be in many places, therefore neither does one place contain two bodies; it must be said that it is not alike: because the first is caused by finitude, of which the creature is not deprived through glory; the second is caused by corpulence and grossness, which is taken away through glory.

*To 5, 6.* To that which is objected concerning points and lines, it must be said that they do not have a manifest distinction, which is according to distance, but a natural distinction, which is according to diverse substance, [substances] which coexist together in their natures. But he objects as though the distinction were according to *mathematical being*.

*To 7.* To that which is objected concerning the glorified body, whether it can be together with another; some have said that it can, just as two rays and lights are together according to Dionysius. But nevertheless I do not believe this, because the one is not material with respect to the other nor passable-through by the other; and therefore, although there be subtlety there, penetrability is nevertheless lacking. Nor is it alike with lights, because forms are things having their multiplication not from the *subject in which they are*, but from the *effective principle*, as Dionysius says; and therefore many glorified bodies cannot be together, as a glorified one can be with a non-glorified.