Bonaventure

In his own words on 1 Timothy

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  And in this commandment consists the consummation of God's precepts, whether the world accepts it or not — this, indeed, he asserted — that is, in the abdication of all cupidity. And so, as a ninefold series is completed and made perfect by the addition of a single unit, so the nine commandments are made perfect through the abdication of cupidity, which consists in private love and disregard for the common good. Wherefore, as charity is the end and perfection of all the commandments, likewise abdicating cupidity which is opposed to charity is the perfection of the commandments.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 21

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  For sacred Scripture is principally concerned with the works of reparation. Whence it treats chiefly of faith, hope, and charity, through which virtues the soul must be reformed, and most especially of charity. Of which the Apostle says that it is the end of the commandment, insofar as it proceeds from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. It is the fullness of the Law, as the same Apostle says. And our Savior asserts that the whole Law and the Prophets depend on the two precepts of the same, namely the love of God and of neighbor; which two are intimated in the one Spouse of the Church, Jesus Christ, who is at once neighbor and God, at once brother and lord, at once also king and friend, at once the uncreated and incarnate Word, our maker and remaker, as the Alpha and the Omega; who is also the supreme hierarch, purging and illuminating and perfecting the spouse, namely the whole Church and every holy soul.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 4

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  The incarnate Word restores no one unless he both conceives it by believing in his heart and brings forth outwardly what is believed by confessing with due confession; of this kind is truthful confession full of truth, which is not only speculative truth but also practical. This moreover is that in which the whole person is conformed to truth according to the understanding of reason, according to the delight of the will, and according to the adherence of virtue, so that it may be with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind, and may be from a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith: and such is a confession that is whole, pleasing, and intrepid: so that it may be whole by reason of Him of whom it is; pleasing by reason of Him before whom it is made; intrepid by reason of him by whom that confession must be made. Since therefore the fainthearted person is not fit for this unless he is confirmed by the hand of grace from above, therefore for this purpose the Sacrament of confirmation was divinely instituted as immediately following baptism.

  Breviloquium, Part 6

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  The Church is a union of rational men united in harmonious and uniform adherence to divine peace. For the Church in return loves itself. And love is born of obedience to the Law. And the Law itself commands love: Now "the purpose of this charge is charity, from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned." And again, "he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law." And this can be proved in the Saviour's own words: "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." And so it is fitting that those who obey the Law be loving also. "By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." And the Apostle writes: "For God is a God of peace, not of disorder."

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 1

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  The eager desire for discipline gives birth to love. Hence the proper attention to discipline is love. For if you love discipline, you love virtue in yourself and in others and in its very Source. Discipline, however, does not have to be servile: it may be free, so that it loves the one who imposes it, and acts out of love, not out of fear. If you are poor as a result of discipline, you must love poverty. And the same applies to the other perfections. But love is observance of the laws. If, then, you love what is good, you keep the law, because "the purpose of this charge is charity, from a pure heart." When you keep the law, you are sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit; and in this you are drawn away from any love that is not God.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 2

• 1 Timothy 1:5

  It should be noted that charity alone heals the affective dispositions. For, according to Augustine in "The City of God," love is the root of all affections. Wherefore love must be healed, otherwise all affections are distorted; but it can be healed only by divine love, which divine love is pure, provident, devoted, and perpetual: pure in regard to temperance, provident in regard to prudence, devoted in regard to justice, and perpetual in regard to fortitude. Charity, then, is the end and form of all the virtues and is from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 7

• 1 Timothy 2:2

  The second exercise of the gift of piety consists in the custody of intrinsic sanctification; concerning which the Apostle says: "I beseech first of all that supplications, entreaties, prayers, and thanksgivings be made for all"; there follows: "that we may lead a quiet life in all piety and chastity." You ought to understand that the summit of the Christian religion consists in piety and purity. For a man can never be piously disposed toward himself unless he has peace. This is the Christian religion, which consists in these two things. The tranquility of peace exists only in the tranquility of conscience. And conscience is not holy unless it is good and pious, namely that it prefers the life of virtue and grace to the life of nature. Consider well: if a man were more attached to his shoe than to his foot, he would not love his foot much. He who would expose his foot to breaking for the sake of a shoe, would he love his foot much and be much attached to his foot? Certainly not. He who for a small thing would expose himself to hanging would not love his own life much. Must not a man guard his soul in holiness? Certainly so. But he exposes his soul to confusion who does not guard himself from sin.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 3

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  Since therefore the deformation of the image and the destruction of grace is as it were an annihilation in the being of moral life and gratuitous life; since the offense against God is to be weighed as great as He Himself is; since the liability to eternal punishment holds the character of the infinite: it is impossible for man to rise from guilt unless he is recreated in gratuitous life, unless the offense is remitted, and the eternal punishment released. He alone, therefore, who was the creative principle is also the recreative principle, namely the eternal Word of the Father, which is Christ Jesus, the mediator of God and men, who because He creates all things from nothing, therefore creates by Himself alone without any intermediary. But because He recreates, reforming what was deformed through the vice of guilt by the habit of grace and justice, absolving what was bound to punishment through condign satisfaction; hence it is that He restores us, by sustaining punishment for us in the assumed nature and by infusing reformative grace, which, since it joins us to its origin, makes us members of Christ; and through this makes the sinful soul, which had been an enemy of God, a brothel of the devil, and a slave of sin, into a bride of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, and a daughter of the eternal Father: all of which comes about through the gratuitous and condescending infusion of the gratuitous gift.

  Breviloquium, Part 5

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  Since the restorative principle in reconciling necessarily has the office of mediator, therefore it is necessary that it have conformity with both extremes, not only with respect to nature, but also with respect to those things which pertain to nature. Since therefore God is just and blessed, impassible and immortal, but fallen man is a sinner and wretched, passible and mortal, it was necessary that the mediator of God and men, in order to be able to lead man back to God, share with God in justice and beatitude, but with man in passibility and mortality; so that thus, by having "a passing mortality and a permanent beatitude," he might lead man back from present misery to the blessed life; just as conversely the evil angel, by having immortality with misery and injustice, was a mediator causing the fall into guilt and misery through his suggestion.

  Breviloquium

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  These six considerations having therefore been traversed, as if they were the six steps of the throne of the true Solomon, by which one arrives at peace, where the true peaceful one rests in a peaceful mind as in an interior Jerusalem; and as if also the six wings of the Cherub, by which the mind of the true contemplative, filled with the illumination of supernal wisdom, may be borne upward; and as if also the first six days, in which the mind must be exercised, so that it may at last arrive at the sabbath of rest; after our mind has contemplated God outside itself through vestiges and in the vestiges, within itself through the image and in the image, above itself through the similitude of the divine light shining upon us and in that light itself, insofar as is possible according to the state of wayfaring and the exercise of our mind; when at last in the sixth step it has arrived at this point, that it contemplates in the first and highest principle and the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, those things whose likenesses can in no way be found in creatures, and which exceed all keenness of the human intellect: it remains that, in contemplating these things, it should transcend and pass beyond not only this sensible world, but also itself; in which passing over, Christ is the way and the door, Christ is the ladder and the vehicle, as it were the mercy seat placed upon the ark of God and the mystery hidden from the ages.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 7

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  According to the aforesaid modes, one can find in the illumination of moral philosophy the light of sacred Scripture: since the intention of moral philosophy is principally concerned with rectitude: for it is concerned with general justice, which, as Anselm says, "is rectitude of the will." Now the right can be defined in three ways, and according to this the three aforementioned things shine forth in the consideration of rectitude. In one way, that is called "right whose middle does not depart from the extremes." If therefore in God there is supreme rectitude both in Himself, and insofar as He is the principle, and insofar as He is the end of all things: it is necessary to posit in God a middle Person in Himself, so that one Person only produces, another is only produced, and the middle one both produces and is produced. It is also necessary to posit a middle in the egress and return of things; but the middle in egress must hold more to the side of the one producing, while the middle in return holds more to the side of the one returning: just as therefore things went forth from God through the Word of God, so for a complete return it is necessary that the Mediator of God and men be not only God, but also man, so that He might lead men back to God.

  On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  Note that a beginning should be made from the center, that is, from Christ. For He Himself is the "Mediator between God and men," holding the central position in all things. Hence it is necessary to start from Him if a man wants to reach Christian wisdom, as it is proved in Matthew: for no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 1

• 1 Timothy 2:5

  Our restorative principle, namely the incarnate Word, restores us insofar as He is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: and insofar as He is Jesus, He has the power to save; but insofar as He is Christ, the Anointed, He has the power to channel the grace of anointing to others: hence it belongs to Him in His Sacraments to bestow upon His members a saving anointing. Since, moreover, the soul, in order to be perfectly healed, needs a threefold kind of health, namely for the vigor of action, for the sweetness of contemplation, and for the happiness of comprehension: and the first belongs to those entering into the battle line of the Church, the second to those presiding in the same, whose office it is to instruct others, and the third to those departing from the same through death: hence it is that the Lord instituted not only a sacramental anointing in confirmation, but also a middle one in the pontifical order and a last one, when the danger of death is imminent.

  Breviloquium, Part 6

• 1 Timothy 2:14

  The transgression of the precept was common to both, although from different causes, for it was not the man, but the woman who was deceived; in both, however, namely in the man and the woman, there was a disordering from the highest to the lowest, because first in the mind or in reason, then in sensuality, and lastly in deed. For each was prostrated through disobedience and enticed through gluttony, because each was raised up in pride: the woman indeed by desiring and pursuing what she had not yet received, the man by excessively loving and prizing what he already had; whence the woman believed she would be exalted by eating, but Adam, thinking himself something great and dear to God, believed he would be punished less severely. For he had not yet experienced the rigor of divine severity.

  Breviloquium, Part 3, Chapter 3

• 1 Timothy 2:15

  That conjugal chastity is to be approved according to the evangelical law is shown by authority, as follows. 1 Timothy 2, it is said of woman: She shall be saved through the bearing of children, if she shall have continued in faith and love with sanctification: but in the conjugal act there is the bearing of children, and that is consonant with the law of God: therefore the conjugal act is consonant with the law of God.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 3:15

  The earth which the Spirit has filled is the ecclesiastical hierarchy; he "who weighs the mass of the earth with three fingers," because he founded the holy Church upon the divine utterances. The sacred utterances are for its stability. The Apostle says to Timothy: "I write to you, Timothy, that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth."

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 4

• 1 Timothy 3:15

  Concerning observance of divine Law, St. Paul writes: "I write these things to thee, my son Timothy, in order that thou mayest know how to conduct thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and mainstay of the truth." The Church is called pillar and mainstay because it both enlightens the mind and strengthens virtue. Those who come to it are enlightened by faith and strengthened by the constancy of virtue. And divine Law brings about these two effects. Hence it is the column of the sons of Israel, whose motion indicated clearly how they were to act and how to rest. For on this point all Churches are in agreement, on how to observe God's Law, as in olden days the whole people kept their eyes on the moving column. He who does not look upon it does not belong to the unity of the Church, for instance if he does not understand this Law, or understanding it, refuses to obey it.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 1

• 1 Timothy 3:16

  The second original influence of piety itself is from incarnate Wisdom. Whence the Apostle to Timothy: "Manifestly great is the sacrament of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to Angels, was preached to the nations, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory." The mystery of human redemption accomplished through the incarnate and crucified Word is the great sacrament of piety. He says that it was manifested in the flesh, through the incarnation; was justified in the spirit, on the gibbet of the cross; appeared to Angels, in the glorification; was preached to the nations, in the mission of the Holy Spirit; was believed in the world, through the spread of the faith; was taken up in glory, through the examination of the final judgment. I say that the incarnate Son of God assumed our poverty. What brought this about? Certainly piety. "Whence he ought in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Through piety he assumed flesh, ascended the cross, was raised from the dead, sent the Holy Spirit upon the earth, called the Church to himself, and freed all the worthy from misery through piety. The Apostle to the Romans says: "Do you despise the riches of his goodness and patience and longsuffering? Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God." The Son of God offered a holocaust, namely himself for us: this is the great sacrament of piety. This sacrament is repeated daily upon the altar. For these reasons he gave us the Sacrament of the altar, so that, mindful of the sacrament of piety, we might put on the bowels of piety. Cruel is the heart that is not softened by these things.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 3

• 1 Timothy 4:7

  These words are in the first Epistle to Timothy, in which the Apostle shows that there is a twofold exercise befitting man: one bodily, and another spiritual; and he shows that spiritual exercise is to be preferred to bodily as being a nobler exercise and a more useful one. For bodily exercise has little utility; whence he says: "Bodily exercise profiteth little"; but spiritual exercise has the greatest utility. Whence spiritual exercise is to be preferred to bodily: as much as spiritual things are to be preferred to bodily, eternal to temporal, and invisible to visible, so much is that spiritual exercise to be preferred to bodily. Therefore, if anyone is wise, he ought to seek spiritual exercise more than bodily, because bodily exercise profiteth little, for it is useful for the comfort of the body, but sometimes it is the cause and occasion of the contrary. Someone believes he is going to sport, and he goes to war; he seeks pleasure, and finds sorrow. Whence Seneca says: "I have found many exercising the body, but few exercising their minds." Foolish would he be who could dig for gold and wished to dig in mud. Spiritual exercise surpasses bodily more than gold surpasses mud. Of this spiritual exercise, insofar as it is ordered to piety, we must speak. The Apostle Paul, as a good teacher, arouses the concern of our minds and intellects toward the good use of the divine gift. And having presupposed the influx of piety, he invites us to the exercise of piety and sets forth the benefit of piety. If you have received the gift of God, exercise yourself unto piety, lest you fall from the gift; if you do not have the gift of God, exercise yourself to obtain piety. He assigns the reason for this when he adds: "Piety is profitable for all things." Therefore he shows that concerning this gift of piety, three things are to be considered by us, namely the exercise of piety, the benefit of piety, and the original principle of piety. If it is a gift, then it is necessary to know how it is given; if it is a noble gift, it is necessary to know how we may advance in it and exercise ourselves; if it is a useful gift, let us see what fruit we may obtain from it. See, my whole intention is that you conceive the gift of piety in your soul and learn what it is to be pious. The exercise of piety consists in a threefold act, namely in the reverence of divine veneration, in the custody of intrinsic sanctification, and in the superabundance of interior compassion. The first two modes of piety are more deeply rooted than the third.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 3

• 1 Timothy 4:8

  But what is the usefulness of the gift of piety? He says: "Piety is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of the life to come." I do not know what more to add. Do you have temporal goods? Piety is profitable for those; and likewise for spiritual goods. Those who have suffered the slipperiness of the flesh have sometimes been freed through the gift of piety, and afterwards they obtained mercy. For piety is profitable for all things: it is profitable for knowing truths, for avoiding all evils, and for obtaining all goods.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 3

• 1 Timothy 4:8

  Someone will say: 'Do you commend to me that I should follow the counsels and enter the religious order?' He says: 'The order is fictitious, newly established, it has outward signs.' Further he says: 'It is a small thing to despise temporal goods; we cannot give them up. Why should we give up these few goods? What is the worth of bare feet? Bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things.' However much the order may be fictitious and new, it is nevertheless good. And as to what he says, that bodily exercise is profitable for a little, and that it is a small thing to give up temporal goods; I say that these are the greatest sacrifices. Christ did not come for a small thing. It is the greatest thing to live in chastity and poverty. These are the greatest, highest, and noblest sacrifices, and you reckon the counsel of God as nothing, you despise the counsel of God in yourself and in others.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 7

• 1 Timothy 5:9

  Against the vowing of widowed continence it is objected: 1 Timothy 5: Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years of age; and in the same place: Avoid the younger widows: therefore it does not seem that widowed chastity should be undertaken except in elderly women, nor this for any other reason than on account of the danger: therefore it does not seem safe to make a vow of continence.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 5:9

  To that which is objected: Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old: it must be said that this is not understood with respect to the vow of continence, but with respect to the ministry that was to be rendered to the Saints, who also were to be sustained from ecclesiastical goods. Hence in the Gloss: "Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old, who is to be nourished by the sustenance of the Church." Hence what he adds: Avoid younger widows: is understood in the same sense. Hence the Gloss there: "Avoid younger widows, that is, do not so greatly concern yourself with their vows of chastity as to undertake to sustain them with the sustenance of the Church." But that he does not intend to prohibit continence or the vow of continence for them is apparent from what Ambrose says in the book On Virginity: "We ought not to regard the virtue of age, but the age of virtue; nor should you marvel at profession in young girls, when you read of passion in little children." Hence also blessed Agnes in her legend, which Ambrose composed: "Do not, she said to the prefect, so despise bodily youth in me as to think that I wish to have you favorable: for faith is found not in years but in understanding, and almighty God approves minds more than ages."

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 5:11

  Against the vowing of widowed continence it is objected: 1 Timothy 5: Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years of age; and in the same place: Avoid the younger widows: therefore it does not seem that widowed chastity should be undertaken except in elderly women, nor this for any other reason than on account of the danger: therefore it does not seem safe to make a vow of continence.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 5:11

  To that which is objected: Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old: it must be said that this is not understood with respect to the vow of continence, but with respect to the ministry that was to be rendered to the Saints, who also were to be sustained from ecclesiastical goods. Hence in the Gloss: "Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old, who is to be nourished by the sustenance of the Church." Hence what he adds: Avoid younger widows: is understood in the same sense. Hence the Gloss there: "Avoid younger widows, that is, do not so greatly concern yourself with their vows of chastity as to undertake to sustain them with the sustenance of the Church." But that he does not intend to prohibit continence or the vow of continence for them is apparent from what Ambrose says in the book On Virginity: "We ought not to regard the virtue of age, but the age of virtue; nor should you marvel at profession in young girls, when you read of passion in little children." Hence also blessed Agnes in her legend, which Ambrose composed: "Do not, she said to the prefect, so despise bodily youth in me as to think that I wish to have you favorable: for faith is found not in years but in understanding, and almighty God approves minds more than ages."

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 5:14

  Against the vowing of widowed continence it is objected: 1 Timothy 5: I wish the younger women to marry, to bear children: but the vow of continence is contrary to this: therefore the Apostle wished the contrary of the vow of continence: therefore continence is not to be vowed.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 5:14

  To that which is objected from the word of the Apostle: I will that the younger women marry, etc.: it must be said that neither is this a precept, but it is permissive, just as the preceding one; and therefore it does not follow that to vow continence is reprehensible. Whence Augustine, in the book On Widowhood: "What the Apostle says: I will that the younger women marry, bear children, commends the good of marriage with apostolic authority and sobriety; he does not impose the duty of procreation upon those who embrace the good of continence, as though it were an obligation of law." And later: "To devote oneself to the procreation of children in the honorable order of marriage is not a disposition to be condemned in a person; yet the Christian mind that thinks on heavenly things more laudably transcends and overcomes this. But since, as the Lord says, not all receive this word, let her who can receive it, receive it; and let her who does not contain herself marry; let her who has not begun deliberate, and let her who has undertaken it persevere; let no occasion be given to the adversary, let no offering be withdrawn from Christ."

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3

• 1 Timothy 6:1

  Since the law of grace considers the origin, fall, and remedy of nature, it belongs to it to approve the threefold mode and distinction of obedience. For it approves filial obedience, Ephesians 6: Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is just. It also approves servile obedience, 1 Timothy 6: Whoever are under the yoke of servitude, let them consider their masters worthy of all honor. It also praises jurisdictional obedience, Hebrews last chapter: Obey your superiors and be subject to them: for they keep watch, etc.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 4

• 1 Timothy 6:3

  Piety is profitable for knowing truths. God gives His gifts upon every creature: but the knowledge of truth He gives only to those who act piously. How could one attain to originated things who does not attain to the origin of truth? How would one know the origin of truth who opposes the origin of truth? The Apostle says to Timothy: "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to piety, he is proud and knows nothing, and is sick about questions and disputes of words." It is necessary that a man assent to the doctrine which is according to piety. If you wish to be true scholars, it is necessary that you have piety.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 3

• 1 Timothy 6:8

  To that which is objected from the Gloss on First Timothy six: Having food etc., where it is said that temporal things are not to be entirely cast away: it must be said that it understands the casting away of temporal things with respect to use, not with respect to ownership. For the use of temporal things is necessary for human life, which nevertheless can be had without ownership and property, as is evident in the poor, who have nothing of property. And that this is the meaning is evident from what follows immediately in the Gloss, where it adds that "having food and that with which we may be covered, let us be content with these things; he who reaches beyond finds evil." To be content, therefore, with the use of covering and food is the mode of perfect virtue. And thus the Gloss ought to be understood, nor does this conflict with the highest poverty. But whoever would so wish to cast away temporal things that he would neither wish to receive food nor have covering would not act perfectly, but foolishly. And this is what that Gloss intends to suggest.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 2

• 1 Timothy 6:8

  Moreover, nature itself especially makes the way to this, whether instituted or fallen. For man was formed naked, and if he had remained in that state, he would have appropriated absolutely nothing to himself; but fallen man is born naked and dies naked. And therefore this is the most direct way: that, not turning aside from these extremes, one should walk poor and naked, as far as nature can endure. And this is what is said in 1 Timothy 6: We brought nothing into this world, and without doubt we can carry nothing out. And from this he concludes: Having food and covering, let us be content with these. Now this is nothing stricter or poorer than to be content with simple food and covering; which the Apostle urges from the teaching of nature as good and perfect.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 2

• 1 Timothy 6:10

  Fear causes one to withdraw from evil and from the occasion of evil; and because the root of all evils is cupidity, therefore fear disposes to poverty of spirit, in which humility is joined together with poverty, so that the perfect man may thus be distanced from the fount of all fault, namely from pride and cupidity. And hence it is that poverty of spirit is the foundation of all evangelical perfection.

  Breviloquium, Part 5

• 1 Timothy 6:10

  In these two commandments: "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods, nor shall you desire his wife," the illicit interior act is prohibited, and here the concupiscence of the eyes, or covetousness, is prohibited, which "is the root of all evils"; the concupiscence of the flesh is also prohibited, which is the kindling of all sins. Through this twofold concupiscence occurs the transmission of all evils and sins; and therefore the divine law prohibits it, and in this prohibits all evils and all sins.

  Collationes de Decem Praeceptis, Collation 7

• 1 Timothy 6:14

  The commandments of God are irreproachable, because they contain nothing unjust. "I command you before God, who gives life to all things, that you keep the commandment without stain, irreproachable."

  Collationes de Decem Praeceptis, Collation 1

• 1 Timothy 6:16

  Such light is beyond reach and is yet the closest to the soul, even more than it is to itself. It is also unconfinable, and yet supremely intimate. This can be seen by none but a man suspended beyond himself in a lofty vision; and when we wish to see by means of simple intuition how such art is one and yet manifold, we cannot conceive how infinite it is, except in terms of extension, because the imagination interferes: and so we cannot see by simple intuition, except through reasoning.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 12

• 1 Timothy 6:16

  In the last chapter of First Timothy it is said of God: *Who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light, whom no man has seen, nor can see.* But everything by which or in which we know is accessible to the knower: therefore that by which or in which we know cannot be the light of eternal reason or truth. — To this it must be said that he speaks of that approach which is to that light in the fullness and splendor of its clarity, in which way one does not approach it through the power of a creature, but through the deiformity of glory.

  Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, Question 4