Dist. 9, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/9/q/bon-sent-IV-d9-a1-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *What it is to eat spiritually.*

Secondly it is asked what it is *to eat spiritually*, or in what respect someone is said to eat spiritually. And that *to believe* is to eat spiritually seems so:

1. By the authority of the Lord, in John six: *Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you will not have life in you*; and in John eleven: *He who believes in me, even though he be dead, shall live*: if therefore spiritual life is not without spiritual eating, and *to live* is in us through faith: then either *to believe* is to eat, or it is not without eating.

2. Likewise, this seems more expressly by the authority of Augustine, which the Master also sets down in the text: «Believe, and you have eaten»; but it is established that he does not understand this sacramentally: therefore spiritually, and so on.

3. Likewise, whenever someone is inwardly washed, he is said to be baptized spiritually: therefore by a similar reasoning, whenever someone spiritually chews and is refreshed, he eats spiritually: but this is through an act of devout faith, where there is examination and spiritual refreshment: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. If to believe is to eat spiritually; since many sinners both believe and have some devotion, it seems that according to this they would eat spiritually; but this is against Augustine, who says that no one eats spiritually except him who is a member of Christ and abides in Christ.

2. Likewise, if an act of faith even with charity suffices for spiritual eating, then everything we believe and love, we eat: therefore, since we believe many other things than this Sacrament or the reality of this Sacrament; it seems that spiritual eating would be of all the articles — which no one of sound mind would grant — and that eating would not be proper to this Sacrament and its reality.

3. Likewise, spiritual eating is so called by likeness to material eating; but he who eats materially incorporates the food into himself, whereas he who believes and loves Christ is incorporated into Christ: therefore he is rather eaten than eats: therefore it seems that the spiritual eating by which one eats does not consist in an act of faith and charity.

> **Conclusion.** For spiritual eating there is required the reconsideration of faith as a kind of chewing, and the affection of charity as a kind of incorporation.

**I respond:** It must be said that eating is found first and properly in corporeal things and is transferred from these to spiritual things; and therefore, if we wish to grasp spiritual eating rightly, we must transfer ourselves to the proper acceptation of the word. It must be noted therefore that, although many an act is joined and consequent in corporeal eating, yet this twofold act belongs to its integrity, namely chewing and incorporation, as is plain to one who looks. — If therefore the account of eating is fittingly transferred to spiritual things, these two must be found, and spiritual eating is understood according to those things in which these two consist. Spiritual chewing is the reconsideration of the food, namely of the flesh of Christ set forth for us as a price for redeeming and as food for refreshing. *Incorporation*, however, is understood when the one reconsidering, by the love of charity, is joined to that which is thought of and so is incorporated, and while he is incorporated, he is refreshed and made more like.

For this, then, that someone may eat spiritually, there is required the reconsideration of faith and the affection of charity. In the first is chewing, in the second incorporation; and from these two spiritual eating is made complete. — I grant therefore that no kind of faith whatever suffices, but necessarily faith working through love. And concerning this three reasonings run as to the first part.

1. To that, then, which is first objected on the opposite side concerning unformed faith, it must be said that it is true that it does not suffice.

2. To that which is objected, that according to this we eat all the articles; it must be said that,

properly speaking, not every examination and reconsideration of faith is called chewing, but that which is of the food; and therefore not every act of believing makes us eat, unless it be that which is of the very flesh of Christ set forth for us for redeeming, where his decocting was, and for refreshing, where true refreshment consists.

3. To that which is objected concerning assimilation, it must be said that there is not a complete likeness, yet there is a likeness sufficient for the transference: because, just as here corporeally there is chewing and incorporation, so in spiritual eating. But in this there is a dissimilarity: because in corporeal eating the eater converts the food into himself, since he is worthier and nobler than the food; in spiritual eating it is the contrary, because the food is worthier and more perfect and more complete than we are: therefore we are rather changed and incorporated into it, than the reverse. — The reasoning therefore is not valid, because it is not entirely alike; and in a transference it is not necessary that a complete likeness be regarded, but it suffices to find some [likeness].

---