Dist. 49, Part 2, Art. 4, 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-a4-q1
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### Article IV. *On the dowry of agility.*

Next it is asked about the dowry of agility, concerning which two things are asked.

First it is asked whether it is in all glorified bodies.

Second it is asked about the inclination of the glorified body through agility.

### Question I. *Whether agility is in all glorified bodies.*

Concerning the first, then, one proceeds thus, and it is shown that agility is in glorified bodies.

1. Wisdom, chapter three: *They shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds*; it is said of the Blessed.

2. Likewise, it seems *by reason*: because the sensitive soul has a motive power and a sensitive power, and the organs of the motive and of the sensitive faculty will rise again; but the organs of the sensitive faculty will be apt for sensing: therefore the organs of the motive faculty [will be apt] for motion.

3. Likewise, the body on account of its sluggishness is at odds with the soul; but then there will be no discord: therefore no sluggishness, and so forth.

4. Likewise, they will not be in the empyrean immediately upon rising; and that is the due place, and every body has an aptitude for tending toward its own place: therefore since it has an aptitude for tending, and does not have this except through agility, it is plain, etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Agility is pointless for motion if it is not fitting that there be motion; but in those bodies it is impossible that there be motion, as is said in Apocalypse, chapter ten: *He swore that there should be time no longer*; but every local motion is in time: therefore if there will be no time, then neither will there be motion.

2. Likewise, Augustine *On the Trinity*: «In things having change, the change itself is a certain death». And the ground of this is that in every motion something is lost, and that is not incongruously called *dying*; but that body will be a stranger to all death: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, the Philosopher says that «motion is the entelechy of a being in potency»; whence every motion testifies to imperfection, because it is for the sake of having something not had; but every imperfection is absent from glorified bodies: therefore also every motion.

4. Likewise, this is shown *by a parallel* in the higher and the lower: because the soul is rewarded through the quieting of its affections and thoughts, and the supercelestial bodies too, which are most apt for motion, [are rewarded] through rest: therefore likewise the glorified bodies.

### Conclusion

> Glorified bodies have agility.

**I respond:** It must be said that whatever be the case about *motion*, nevertheless about *agility* it is certain that this property belongs to the perfection and nobility of the body and makes for the soul's unimpededness in the body: and therefore I say that it will be there, as the reasons prove.

1. As for what is objected concerning motion, it must be said that all motion is on account of the lack of some thing. But the lack can be either of a thing that *inheres* or of a thing that *stands by*. If of a thing that *inheres* as an absolute property, this indeed makes an imperfection in the movable, and likewise the motion does. Another is the lack of a thing that *stands by*, and then either that thing is fitted to stand by *through nature*, and then [the movable] needs it; and such motion, even if it belong to a perfect thing, nevertheless testifies to some imperfection, as when a stone is moved downward to its place; or that place is not fitted to stand by *through nature* more than another, because it does not need it, but [it is sought] through *will*, because it wills to do something about that place; and such motion posits not imperfection but freedom, and such can be in a glorified body. — To that, then, which is objected, that there will be no time, it must be said that this is true insofar as time is the measure of the motion of the first movable.

2. To that which is objected concerning change, that it is death, it must be said that this is not understood of *any* change whatever, but of change toward a *form*.

3. To that which is objected, that motion testifies to imperfection, it must be said that this is true of motion toward a *form*, or toward a *position* on account of need; but this motion is on account of freedom.

4. To that which is objected, that the soul does not change its affections, it must be said that change came about *from its instability*; the change of the higher bodies is *on account of the necessity of the lower*; but the change of the body by the soul is *from freedom*; therefore the case is not parallel.

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