Bonaventure

In his own words on Galatians

• Galatians 1:15

  The use of grace ought to be faithful with respect to God. Whence the Apostle: "But when it pleased him who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, I did not immediately acquiesce to flesh and blood." Faithful is he who does not diminish the gift which he receives on behalf of another. But when you seek something more principally than God, you are not faithful. Therefore the Apostle says: "I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood," that is, I did not seek carnal glory, but only divine glory. The experts in optics say that if a ray falls perpendicularly upon a smooth and polished body, it must necessarily be reflected back along the same path. The influx of grace is like a perpendicular ray — I speak of sanctifying grace, because gratuitous grace is like a ray of incidence; it is therefore necessary that whoever truly receives the grace of God should render glory back to God. Whence if you preach for your own glory, it profits you nothing.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 1

• Galatians 1:16

  The use of grace ought to be faithful with respect to God. Whence the Apostle: "But when it pleased him who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, I did not immediately acquiesce to flesh and blood." Faithful is he who does not diminish the gift which he receives on behalf of another. But when you seek something more principally than God, you are not faithful. Therefore the Apostle says: "I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood," that is, I did not seek carnal glory, but only divine glory. The experts in optics say that if a ray falls perpendicularly upon a smooth and polished body, it must necessarily be reflected back along the same path. The influx of grace is like a perpendicular ray — I speak of sanctifying grace, because gratuitous grace is like a ray of incidence; it is therefore necessary that whoever truly receives the grace of God should render glory back to God. Whence if you preach for your own glory, it profits you nothing.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 1

• Galatians 2:10

  In Galatians 2 he says that Peter and James gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision, only that we should be mindful of the poor: the Gloss: "Of the poor, who had laid the price of their goods sold at the feet of the Apostles, we should be mindful, by making collections for their support." If therefore the Apostle was not simoniacal in this, that he sought collections and sent disciples for this purpose, that they might seek alms from those among whom he had sown spiritual things, for the poor who were in Jerusalem: if the Supreme Pontiff establishes Orders of poor men who sow spiritual things and live from the freely given alms, whether sought or spontaneously offered, of those whom they edify by word and example: he in no way whatsoever disagrees with the Apostle, but rather agrees.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 2

• Galatians 2:11

  Galatians two: I withstood him to the face: the Gloss says: "as an equal." "For he would not have dared to do this unless he knew himself not to be unequal." To this it must be said that the authority of the apostolate has a twofold comparison, namely to him by whom it is conferred, and to those over whom it is conferred: because an apostle is called one sent by someone and to some persons. According to the first comparison, the Gloss says that Paul is made equal to Peter, because each was immediately sent by Christ. Whence Paul also says that he is an Apostle, not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ. But according to the second comparison, he is not made equal to him; for Peter is called the prince of the Apostles, which is never said of Paul, because according to this comparison he was inferior to Peter. Whence the Gloss also says there: "Peter himself furnished an example to posterity, so that the greater ones would not disdain, if perchance they had departed from the path of rectitude, to be corrected even by their inferiors."

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 4

• Galatians 2:20

  But the way is none other than through the most burning love of the Crucified, who so transformed Paul, caught up to the third heaven, into Christ, that he said: I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me; who also so absorbed the mind of Francis that his mind was made manifest in his flesh, when he bore the most sacred stigmata of the Passion in his body for two years before his death.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Prologue

• Galatians 2:21

  Whence the Apostle to the Galatians: "I do not cast aside the grace of God; for if justice is through the Law, then Christ died in vain:" but Christ died that he might raise the dead to the reception of life and grace: therefore grace flows into us through the Word incarnate and through the Word crucified. And the blessed Virgin received this Word full of grace; and a river of graces went forth from his side, which has the efficacy of healing us.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 1

• Galatians 3:19

  We are also led by the hand through the reformed powers of the soul itself, and this by gratuitous virtues, spiritual senses, and mental ecstasies, as is evident from the fourth step. We are led by the hand no less through hierarchical operations, namely of purgation, illumination, and perfection of human minds, through the hierarchical revelations of sacred Scriptures given to us through Angels, according to that saying of the Apostle, that the Law was given through Angels by the hand of a Mediator.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 4

• Galatians 3:19

  The purely intellectual vision existed in the minds of the angels and of the Lawmaker. For the Law was delivered by angels. Angels gave it forth, composed it, for they could see the pure truth in the eternal light. Moses was raised up to this vision more completely than any other prophet.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 9

• Galatians 3:22

  And they killed the prophets, and their followers too, and they received false prophets, thus revealing their malice. And so the Scripture shut up all things under sin, the first through ignorance, the second through weakness, and the third through malice, so that when Christ came, He could have mercy on them all.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 14

• Galatians 4:4

  For if you are a Cherub contemplating the essential attributes of God, and you wonder that the divine being is at once the first and the last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest, that is, uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and nowhere comprehended, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous nor diminished, and yet immense and infinite without limit, supremely one, and yet all-inclusive, as having all things in itself, as all power, all truth, all good: look upon the mercy seat and wonder that in it the first beginning is joined with the last, God with man formed on the sixth day, the eternal is joined with temporal man, born of the Virgin in the fullness of time, the most simple with the supremely composite, the most actual with one who supremely suffered and died, the most perfect and immense with the small, the supremely one and all-inclusive with a composite individual distinct from all others, namely the man Jesus Christ.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 6

• Galatians 4:4

  Let us see, therefore, how the other illuminations of knowledge are to be reduced to the light of sacred Scripture. And first let us consider the illumination of sensitive cognition, which is wholly concerned with the cognition of sensible things, where three things are to be considered: the medium of cognition, the exercise of cognition, and the delight of cognition. If we consider the medium of cognition, we shall behold therein the Word eternally generated and incarnate in time. For no sensible thing moves the cognitive power except through a likeness which proceeds from the object, as offspring from a parent; and this is necessary, whether generally, really, or exemplarily, in every sense. But that likeness does not bring about the completion of the act of sensing unless it is united with the organ and the power: and when it is united, a new perception arises, and through that perception a reduction to the object is effected by means of that likeness. And although the object is not always sensed, nevertheless it always, insofar as it is in itself, generates a likeness, when it is in its completeness. In this same way understand that from the supreme Mind, which is knowable by the interior senses of our mind, there eternally emanated a Likeness, Image, and Offspring: and He afterwards, when the fullness of time came, was united to a mind and flesh and received the form of man, which He had never been before: and through Him all our minds which receive that Likeness of the Father through faith in the heart are reduced to God.

  On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology

• Galatians 4:4

  Although God could have become incarnate from the beginning, He nevertheless willed not to do so until the end of the ages, after the law of nature and the law of figure had preceded, after the Patriarchs and the Prophets, to whom and through whom the Incarnation was promised. After these He deigned to become incarnate as at the end of times and in their fullness, according to what the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law." The Incarnation is the work of the first principle restoring, according to what is fitting and suitable with respect to the freedom of the will, with respect to the sublimity of the remedy, and with respect to the integrity of the universe. Since freedom of the will requires that it be drawn to nothing against its will, God ought to have restored the human race in such a way that he who wished to seek the Savior would find salvation, while he who did not wish to seek the Savior would consequently not find salvation either. Now no one seeks a physician unless he recognizes his disease; no one seeks a teacher unless he recognizes himself to be ignorant; no one seeks a helper unless he recognizes himself to be powerless. Since, therefore, man at the beginning of his fall was still proud of his knowledge and strength, God first allowed the time of the law of nature, in which he would be convicted of ignorance; and afterwards, when ignorance was recognized but pride in his own strength remained, He added the Law, instructing through moral precepts and burdening through ceremonial ones, so that, having obtained knowledge and having recognized his powerlessness, man might take refuge in divine mercy and petition for grace, which was given to us in the coming of Christ. Since the integrity and perfection of the universe requires that all things be ordered with respect to places and times, and this work of the incarnation was the most perfect among all divine works, and the process must be from the imperfect to the perfect, and not the reverse: hence it is that this work had to be accomplished in the end of times, so that, just as the first man, who was the adornment of the entire sensible world, had been created last, namely on the sixth day, for the completion of the whole world, so the second man, the complement of the entire restored world, in whom the first principle is joined with the last, namely "God with clay," would come to be in the end of times, that is, in the sixth age. In the coming of the Son of God there is said to be the fullness of times, not because time comes to an end in his coming, but because the temporal mysteries are fulfilled.

  Breviloquium

• Galatians 4:5

  Although God could have become incarnate from the beginning, He nevertheless willed not to do so until the end of the ages. After these He deigned to become incarnate as at the end of times and in their fullness, according to what the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law." Since freedom of the will requires that it be drawn to nothing against its will, God ought to have restored the human race in such a way that he who wished to seek the Savior would find salvation. Now no one seeks a physician unless he recognizes his disease; no one seeks a teacher unless he recognizes himself to be ignorant; no one seeks a helper unless he recognizes himself to be powerless. Since, therefore, man at the beginning of his fall was still proud of his knowledge and strength, God first allowed the time of the law of nature, in which he would be convicted of ignorance; and afterwards, when ignorance was recognized but pride in his own strength remained, He added the Law, instructing through moral precepts and burdening through ceremonial ones, so that, having obtained knowledge and having recognized his powerlessness, man might take refuge in divine mercy and petition for grace, which was given to us in the coming of Christ.

  Breviloquium

• Galatians 4:22

  And concerning the allegory of the body: "It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a slave-girl and the other by a free woman. And the son of the slave-girl was born according to the flesh, but the son of the free woman in virtue of the promise. This is said by way of allegory. For these are the two covenants." There is no need for further explanations, for two peoples are understood here.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 2

• Galatians 4:24

  And concerning the allegory of the body: "It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a slave-girl and the other by a free woman. And the son of the slave-girl was born according to the flesh, but the son of the free woman in virtue of the promise. This is said by way of allegory. For these are the two covenants." There is no need for further explanations, for two peoples are understood here.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 2

• Galatians 4:26

  The image of our mind must therefore be clothed with the three theological virtues, by which the soul is purified, illuminated, and perfected, and thus the image is reformed and made conformable to the supernal Jerusalem and becomes a part of the Church militant, which is the offspring, according to the Apostle, of the heavenly Jerusalem. For he says: That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother.

  Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 4

• Galatians 4:26

  As the moon is the daughter of the sun and receives its light from it, likewise the Church Militant receives hers from that Jerusalem which is above. Wherefore the Apostle calls her our mother, for she is the mother of those influences by which we are made to be the sons of God. The heavenly hierarchy is a model of the Church Militant. It is fitting, then, that the Church Militant have orders corresponding to the model hierarchy.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 22

• Galatians 5:2

  It should be noted that the Church was placed in paradise, like the first man, "to till it," in such a way that no one would say "that anything he possessed" was "his own." For it began in a state of great perfection that is observed today in the religious life, for the love of Christ was still recent, and in those days "a large number also of the priests accepted the faith." This Church, meaning the one that began with the Jews, because they were converted at one time by the three thousand, and at another, by the five thousand, possessed the "tree of life," that is, faith, because "My just one lives by faith." It also had the "tree of knowledge," that is, the Law, which remained with them for seeing and reading, and not for eating. Much more: for "the day you eat of it, you must die." And so you may see the tree of knowledge, but not eat of it, or else you would destroy what Christ had done; and death would necessarily come in, for "the letter kills." Hence Paul says: "I, Paul, tell you that if you be circumcised, Christ will be of no advantage to you."

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 16

• Galatians 5:22

  Now, flowing down from charity, there are the twelve charismatic gifts, the fruits which the Apostle enumerates in his Epistle to the Galatians: "But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." For grace and righteousness and wisdom cannot exist without charity. Indeed, fruit comes from the Latin frui which means "to cleave to something because of its intrinsic value." Wherefore neither acts of justice nor miracles nor the understanding of mysteries are of any use without charity. And this is the opinion of all the doctors and saints. And so for instance, a little old woman who owns a small garden, if she has nothing but charity, will bring forth a better fruit than a great master who owns an enormous garden and knows the mysteries and natures of things.

  Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 18

• Galatians 5:22

  From what has been said, therefore, it is clearly gathered that the habits of the virtues principally dispose one to the exercise of the active life; the habits, however, of the gifts to the repose of the contemplative life: while the habits of the beatitudes dispose to the perfection of both. The fruits of the Spirit, however, which are charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity, goodness, benignity, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity, denote the delights consequent upon perfect works.

  Breviloquium, Part 5

• Galatians 6:3

  No one arrives at full knowledge of God except through true and right knowledge of oneself; nor does he rightly know himself who does not attend to his own nothingness; for he who thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself, as the Apostle says in the last chapter of Galatians; but to know one's own nothingness is to humble oneself: therefore humility is the gateway of wisdom.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 1

• Galatians 6:7

  "What a man shall sow, that also shall he reap." If a lord were to give his servant grain to sow his field, and that servant were to put the grain in a sack and not sow it: the land would bear fruit poorly, indeed it would cry out against him. Just as mercy is a friend of wisdom, so avarice is its enemy. The avaricious deride all who do not love money.

  Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 9

• Galatians 6:8

  Against conjugal chastity it is objected: Galatians 6: He who sows in the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption: but sowing in the flesh is done through the act of conjugal continence: therefore conjugal continence is contrary to the law of God. To this it must be said, as to the foregoing objection concerning being in the flesh, that to be in the flesh can denote a relation of matter or of end; insofar as it denotes a relation of matter, it is not reprehensible, and thus it accords with conjugal chastity; insofar as it denotes a relation of end, as when someone performs carnal works for the sake of the flesh, thus it is culpable, and in this way it does not arise from conjugal chastity, but rather is against it. Whence Augustine, in the book On the Good of Marriage: "Marriages have this good, that carnal or youthful incontinence, even if it is vicious, is directed to the honorableness of propagating offspring, so that from the evil of lust the conjugal union may produce something good." For marriage is of such great power that it directs the carnal act to spiritual honorableness.

  Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 3