Dist. 9, Dubia
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-dubia
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### DOUBTS CONCERNING THE TEXT OF THE MASTER.

### Doubt I

In this section there are doubts concerning the text, and first about this, that Augustine says: *Believe, and thou hast eaten.* For since the highest union and incorporation is in charity, it seems rather that he ought to say: *love, and thou hast eaten, rather than believe.*

**I respond:** It must be said that he understands it of *faith working through love*. But the reason why he speaks rather of *faith* is twofold: because faith regards both the intellect and the affection, and so unites in both ways. — Likewise there is another reason: because, although charity expresses union more perfectly, nevertheless the proper character of *eating* is found more in the act of *faith,* since the believer chews by thinking over, whereas the one who loves does not incorporate, but is incorporated.

### Doubt II

Likewise it is asked about this, that he says: *To believe in him, this is to eat the bread and wine.* For it seems to be said falsely, because that, namely to believe, is spiritual, this is corporeal: therefore the one is not the other.

**I respond:** It must be said that this is not said by an utter identity, but by an equi-

valence in effect, because it does the same thing; or by an expression of signification, because this signifies that; and thus the objection is clear.

### Doubt III

Likewise it is asked about this, that he says: *He who does not abide in me, nor I in him, even if he receives the Sacrament, acquires a great torment.* For it seems to be said falsely, because, since no one knows whether he abides in him, therefore no one knows whether he sins when he receives the Sacrament: therefore everyone, when he receives, exposes himself to danger.

**I respond:** That word must be understood of one who knows that he is outside Christ, in such a way that he has more and stronger signs to the contrary than in favor. For if he has probable signs of grace, it suffices him for this, that he not incur sin, because he does not incur contempt, even though he does not so dispose himself that God altogether accepts him.

### Doubt IV

Likewise it is asked about this, that he says: *In that Sacrament he commended his body and blood, which also made us ourselves.* For it seems to be said falsely: because, if we are the thing of the Sacrament: therefore when we receive the thing of the Sacrament, we eat ourselves; which is altogether unfitting, as it seems.

**I respond:** It must be said that we are the thing of this Sacrament not *simply,* but insofar as we are members, or insofar as we are united to the head itself; hence that Sacrament signifies the union of the body of Christ through the comparison of the members to one another and to the head. When therefore he united us to himself, he made *us,* that is, the union itself, the *thing* of this Sacrament, because he bestows on us the *thing* of the Sacrament; which union grows and is bettered in us daily, according as the Sacrament is received more devoutly.

### Doubt V

Likewise it is asked about this, that is said: *He who eats and drinks unworthily;* what it is to eat unworthily.

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a threefold unworthiness, according as the Gloss distinguishes, on the first to the Corinthians, chapter eleven, which makes a man approach unworthily: «He is unworthy, it says, who celebrates the mystery otherwise than it was instituted by the Lord, and who approaches the eucharist not with a devout mind, or remains in the will to sin». And from this we can draw out a threefold unworthiness: one of which is in the memory; the second in the will; the third in the deed. The first regards a *past* sin, of which he does not repent; and this is called indevotion. The second regards a *future* sin, which he proposes to do, and this he calls the will to sin. The third regards a *present* sin; and this is, when he celebrates the mystery otherwise, in such a way that he actually sins while he confects. And this unworthiness according to its threefold difference brings on contempt, and through this makes one approach unworthily, and so actually sin.

### Doubt VI

Likewise it is asked about this, that he says: *Evil is done, when a good is taken badly.* For it seems to be said falsely, because the body of Christ and Christ himself is a good *in itself:* therefore it cannot be made evil in any way.

**I respond:** It must be said that the Sacrament is said to be made evil *not in itself,* but *for that one,* and so as compared to this; and it is compared through reception and eating. And so he means to say that to receive the body of Christ, which was a good in its kind or in itself, has through circumstance been made evil — not, I say, *the very thing which is received,* but the *act* of receiving.